The town centre was huge. Building stretched as far as the eyes can see. Streets wide and long around every corner. Roads that intertwined at the end of every block. Let's not forget how crowded these streets were. People filling every bit of space possible on the pathways, wriggling and barging their way through the people in front of them. It was the morning rush hour for the citizens of Argentha, everyone was on their way to their respected jobs. This included our Akihito as well, for he had been hastily walking towards his workplace. It was rough getting past all the other citizens in the same boat as him; however, he was used to it for having working like this for the past two years.
He finally made it to his destination. It was a large building with a very modern appeal. It had a total of fifthteen stories going up, and a further three going underground. Although two of those three underground basements were carparks, the building was still considered one of the biggest in the city. Not only that, but each floor hosted a different business. of course, there was the first floor belonging to the reception and main lobby for the owners of the building, but above them are differnet businesses renting out the space for a base of operations. Akihito's workplace was one of those businesses. Located on the fifth floor, was the game developing company called Divide; that is were Akihito works.
In the lobby, there were many people rushing about. As Akihito stepped through the glass double-doors to the building, he was surprised to see it so quiet. Compared to how it normally is, this was considered quiet for the lobby of the business-building. Usually, there wouldn't be enough silence to hear your own thoughts, but for some reason, everyone was quiet. There was tension in the air, which increased drastically as a certain man emerged from the elevator doors.
A tall, round man stood before Akihito as he walked towards the elevator doors. He was well dressed in a luxurious baby blue suit that made his round figure look even bigger. Gold and diamond rings across all ten of his fingers, not too big but not unnoticeably small either. A sparkling silver watch poking out from under his blazer. This was a wealthy man. He made Akihito look poor in front of him. It was quite a bad comparison to have Akihito's worn-out, dirty suit stand beside this expensive, clean suit.
"Akihito." The man said in a monotoned voice as he gave a slight nod in Akihito's direction. It was a sign of respect. After all, this man didn't get the position he is in now for his looks, but his charisma and attitude towards working were unfathomable. Akihito was his senior at the workplace. They both worked for the same company, doing the same fieldwork.
"Ryan." Said Akihito in the same tone, with the same sign of respect. The two were neither close to one another nor distant. They were just mutual. Neither of them had any reason to hate one another, yet neither of them had any reason to like one another either.
Ryan exited the building through the same glass double-doors that Akihito entered through. As soon as those doors shut, the tension in the lobby was completely lifted. Everyone started talking again, slowly as the lobby went back to how it should be. Noisy. Akihito entered the elevator, pressing the button to the fifth floor and the elevator doors shut.
It took a while for the elevator to reach its intended destination, for it was fairly old and well used. Plus the fact that it just had a lot of weight on it, but we will blame the age. Alas, Akihito finally made it to the fifth floor. As the elevator dinged and the doors opened, Akihito stepped on to the hard wooden flooring of the fifth floor.
"Akihito-kun! Good morning!" A beautiful lady, looked to be in her early twenties, approached Akihito as soon as he stepped out the elevator. She has long pink hair with matching eyes. She stood at 164cm tall and had slim, curvy body. Her smile stretched as far as her face allowed it when she saw Akihito, revealing her perfect teeth.
"Oh- Mia-san. Good morning!" Akihito replied in a happy tone of voice as he smiled back at her. That was Akihito's boss, Mia, who just so happens to be the daughter of the owner of the gaming company that Akihito works for. Mia quickly grabbed Akihito by the hand, and brought him over to her work station.
"Perfect timing! I need your help with this piece code. It won't run giving me a syntax error, yet I can't find the mistake anywhere! Will you help me? Pleeeeeeeease!" Without wasting a second Mia cut straight to the point. Her eyes enlarged as he bottom lip curled. She was trying to win Akihito over with a cute puppy face.
Akihito took a quick glance at her desk. It was a complete mess. There were piles of paperwork covering every inch of the pristigeous, white wooden office cubical. Even her desk chair had a few chunks of paper on top of it. On top of the piles of paperwork lay empty drinks and snacks. It was a horrible sight to see for a neat-freak like Akihito.
"Ehh?!? No wonder you can't work properly with all this rubbish everywhere! I'll help you with your code if you clean this place up a bit first!" Akihito's facial expression when he said this was both amazed and horified. He was completely mind blown at how she could even think about working in a condition like this.
"Whaaat whyyyy?!?! That's going to take so long!! You can help me then!" Mia said with a pout on her face as she crossed her arms and looked away sharply from Akihito's direction, closing her eyes.
"Argh fine. Whatever, just go grab a bin or something." Akihito replied sharply to Mia. Akihito started sorting the piles into organised piles by due date and then in alphabetical order within those piles, while Mia went and grabbed the nearest bin she could find. That just so happened to be Akihito's bin since they are nextdoor neighbours in the office cubicals. Akihito gave out a slight sigh when he saw her grab his bin.
A few minutes flew by as the two of them started organising the work space cubical. The filing cabinets were now completely full of paperwork, and better yet, completely organised. Mia's eyes were amazed at the rewards of their efforts. She could actually see the wooden desk which held up all that paperwork on top of it. "Thank you Akihito-kun! But err, now about that code?" She awkwardly spoke in a shy tone as she pointed towards her computer monitor.
Akihito gave out a big stretch for his arms as he faced the computer. He knew that he was going to be there for less than a minute finding this slight error in the coding Mia created, but he didn't want her to be ashamed of not being able to find it herself. Akihito sat down on the chair, and with one glance at the third line of code, he instantly spotted the error. She missplet the word 'variable' in her code, which didn't allow it to set the text as a variable like she was trying to do.
On the other side of the same floor, there were a few of Akihito and Mia's co-workers. The three of them were all grouped up around the water dispenser. They were occasionally glancing over at Akihito with jealousy in their eyes. All three of them were men, and all three of them liked Mia.
"Tch. Akihito is one lucky bastard. Having Mia-chan all over him like that. Makes me sick." Said one of them in a snarky tone of voice. The other two just snickered as they all knew he said it just loud enough that Akihito would be able to hear them. Unfortunately for them, Mia also happened to hear it. She instantly turned around and stared at them in anger.
Akihito took advantage of this brief distration of Mia to edit her code where she wouldn't see, correcting the spelling mistake, and running the programme to check if that was the only cause to the error. His efforts payed off, as the code ran smoothly. He quickly closed down the console and re-opened it, so there was no evidence of this happening.
"Ignore them Mia-san, they're just idiots." Akihito said in a monotoned voice, loud enough for the three to hear. They didn't get the response they were looking for out of Akihito, so they just walked out the room for a 'break'. Mia turned back around and looked at Akihito, once again smiling.
"Haa. I seriously can't find any mistakes with your code either Mia-san. Are you sure there's an syntax error? Let me run it." Akihito's tone of voice was completely normal. He was trying his best not to leave any way for Mia to notice that he is lying to her. The code, once again, ran smoothly. Mia's facial expression was utterly confused as she knew that it didn't run before.
"Oh- There wasn't an error? That's strange. Oh well, thank you Akihito-kun!" She said smiling even brighter than before.
"Don't mention it." Akihito muttered as he stood up and walked to his own workplace. Rubbing the back of his head awkwardly the entire way.
"Akihito-kun you're so silly." Mia whispered under her breath as Akihito walked away from her. A slight cheeky smirk on her face appeared shortly after.
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The clocks struck 16:00. It was four pm and time for work to come to an end. Akihito packed up his belongings, and logged off his computer. He stood up from his chair, and placed any paperwork on his desk in the cabinets next to him. Obvioulsy placing them in an organised fashion. He started walking towards the elevator again, calling for it to come to his floor.
"Good work everyone." He muttered as he entered the empty elevator, pressing the button for the ground floor. Before the doors could close, a hand appeared keeping them open. It was Mia's hand. Akihito gulped as he had the thought of them two being in the elevator alone and how embarrasing it would seem for people to see them. But there was nothing he could do to prevent that.
"Wait!! Let me in!!" Mia said in a louder voice than usual but not shouting. Akihito placed his foot between the elevator doors to hold it open for her as she quickly grabbed her belongings from her desk, leaving all the paperwork from today on the desk. Untidily.
"Thank you." Mia said a little bit short of breath as she entered the elevator, the doors shutting shortly after. The elevator was slowly descending to the ground floor. Akihito and Mia couldn't be further apart inside it as the air grew awkward around them. Both of them were just staring at the floor, until the elevator suddenly bumped. Mia fell on to Akihito, as he caught her safely. They looked each other in the eyes, then instantly looked away as both of their cheeks went bright red. Akihito gulped again as tried despirately to keep his eyes looking away, but he completely forgot to let go of her. Mia took this opportunity to take a huge dive. She clenched her fist with determination, and looked at Akihito. Akihito didn't look back, so Mia gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. "Good work today, Akihito-kun." She whispered in his ear as soon as her lips released his cheek. Akihito's entire face went completely red and Mia stepped back to the other side of the elevator.
"Wh-wh- what was that for!?" Akihito was stuttering his words from embarrassment and confusion. He didn't get a response, for the lift had stopped. They had reached the ground floor at last. Mia exited the elevator first, as Akihito was trying to calm himself down. He followed her out of the building, and was completely shocked at who he saw standing against a wall outside.