“What do you mean, closer to home?” she asked.
“You could date me.”
There was a second of silence, and then they both broke out laughing.
“Ha-ha. Oh, you’re hilarious. Thanks. I feel a lot more relaxed now.”
Evidently done laughing, she caught her breath. That was odd. He hadn’t intended to help her relax at all.
“Oh, it’s almost time for morning announcements. I’d better get going,” Nagi said, checking her watch. She quickly bought a bottle of mineral water and glanced back at him. “We’ve got that meeting with Acsis this afternoon. Don’t forget!”
Following his transfer, he’d been given only odd jobs and easy programming tasks, but that day, he was supposed to accompany Nagi to a meeting with Acsis, an apparel shop whose account she handled.
“I won’t,” he said.
“Good.” She smiled and walked out of the break room with what looked like a bounce in her step, although he might have been imagining it. The second the door closed, he drooped like a wilted flower.
“You’re kidding! You still have a crush on Yoroizuka?”
Keigo was eating at a crowded restaurant that served set lunches with his university friend Yuuma Saeki. Yuuma worked at a nearby company, so they sometimes met for lunch when they both had time.
“…What’s wrong with that?”
Keigo glared at Yuuma over his bowl of miso soup.
“I didn’t say anything was wrong with it,” Yuuma said, shaking his head. “It’s just when you’re that dead set, it looks kind of obsessive, like you’re a late bloomer, or kind of girlie or something. It’s a little weird… Okay, I’ll admit—she was pretty hot in high school. Tall, with a nice body, though her boobs were a little small. But if she’s still not into you, maybe it’s time to give up…”
“Hey, butt out!” Keigo snapped.
Yuuma shrugged. He and Keigo had been in the same class in high school along with Nagi, and he knew her well.
“Anyway, so your darling Yoroizuka is going on a date with another guy tonight, huh?” he said, lifting a piece of grilled pork with ginger between his chopsticks.
“It’s not a date. They’re just having dinner.”
“Same difference. Dinner the night before his birthday.”
Keigo didn’t have a comeback for that. Yuuma had found the weak point in his argument, and he was right. Keigo didn’t want to think of it as a date, but by the conventional definition of the word, it was definitely a date.
“…Want me to introduce you to someone?”
Yuuma gazed at Keigo, who was clearly in agony, with pity in his eyes.
“I’ll take the sympathy and pass on the intro,” Keigo answered instantly. The emotion in Yuuma’s eyes only deepened.
“You never stay in relationships long, do you? You don’t smoke or gamble, and you’re basically a good guy…so I wonder why that is.”
Keigo had dated a couple of women in the past in an attempt to forget Nagi, who showed no interest in him. Thankfully, all of them had been the type to make the first move, and he’d tried to cherish them in his own way. But inevitably, within a week to a couple of months, they would leave him. He, more than anyone, wished he knew why.
“Well, they say women are perceptive,” Yuuma remarked, shoveling up the shredded cabbage left on his plate. “They probably pick up on the fact that you’re not really into them. That female sixth sense, man, it’s terrifying.”
“Then why doesn’t Nagi ever notice I like her?”
“Probably because she’s not interested.”
“………I hate you,” Keigo said, collapsing onto the table. Yuuma howled with laughter. He wouldn’t be laughing if he was in my shoes!
“Seriously, though, it’d do you good to check out some other women,” Yuuma said, turning solemn now that he was done laughing.
An image of Saotome popped into Keigo’s head. What if he wasn’t imagining things and she really did like him?
“Listen, Keigo,” Yuuma chided. “I know you’re in love with Yoroizuka, but do you really think she can see you as dating material after being your friend for twenty-eight years?” Keigo, still deep in thought, knew his friend was right. He and Nagi knew everything good and everything bad about each other. They were practically family. Novelty was essential in love. Not having any surprises to offer was a huge disadvantage. He knew that. He knew it painfully well. But still.
“It’s been twenty-eight years. For your own sake, why don’t you try looking for a more realistic option?”
Keigo had grown into adulthood holding his love for Nagi in his heart. It was the one thing he couldn’t give up.
“So in a nutshell, that’s the initial plan we’ve come up with,” Nagi said, wrapping up her presentation in an office crowded with clothes racks and cardboard boxes.
The proposal she had brought was spread on the table in front of her, marked up all over with scribbled notes. She and Keigo were visiting an Acsis shop a short distance from the station to present their plan for transitioning the company to a new e-commerce site.
“It looks good to me. It’s very close to what we envisioned,” the owner said, looking over the proposal carefully. As might be expected for the owner of an apparel shop, his hair and clothing were simple but elegant. Judging from his response, he liked Nagi’s proposal.
“I have a question,” said the shop manager, who was sitting next to the owner and looking through some documents. His fashion sense was a good deal more cutting-edge and quirkier than the owner’s. “Can you use COBOL to make this?”
Nagi and Keigo both blinked. Just like Japanese, English, French, and Chinese existed in the real world, various languages existed in the programming world. Code was written differently in each one, and certain languages were better suited to certain systems. COBOL was one such language.
“COBOL…?” Nagi echoed.
“I don’t know the details,” the manager said, “but it’s a famous language, right?”
“It’s true that it’s famous, but it’s not used as widely these days. I can’t say I recommend it for this project…,” Nagi answered hesitantly.