“But…”
“Please go and don’t worry about the proposal. If you stay, I’ll die of guilt for butting in and suggesting the AI idea.”
He pressed a hand to his chest theatrically. She hesitated. She had a weak spot for lines like that. After thinking for a few moments, though a little reluctant, she finally nodded. Just as he’d predicted she would.
“…All right. I’m sorry, Keigo.”
See? That wasn’t painful at all.
“Great. Now go and have fun.”
“Really, I’m sorry… Thank you…”
“Don’t worry about it.”
As he gave her a light pat on the back, his phone buzzed. It was a colleague from System Development Division Two. He had a bad feeling about this.
“Yuuki, help me!” came a tearful voice the moment he picked up. “You were in charge of that senior welfare resource system, right?! Believe it or not, the client messed up and erased all the data…”
“Erased the data?” Keigo shouted. Nagi flinched in surprise. He gestured apologetically to her and took a few steps away to hear the details. According to his colleague, the situation was hanging by a thread. The data could still be retrieved, but at any moment, it could be gone for good.
“…I understand. I’m not far away. I’ll head right over.”
Fortunately, he happened to be fairly near the client’s office. It would probably take about fifteen minutes by train. He hung up and walked over to Nagi with a worried expression.
“Sorry, Nagi. There seems to be some trouble in my old department. I’ve got to go take care of it. Head back without me, okay?”
“Uh…is everything all right?”
“Oh, it’s totally fine. Now hurry up. Dinner’s at seven, right? You better not be late.”
He waved good-bye and headed in the opposite direction from Nagi.
“…Whew.”
Keigo was utterly exhausted. After rushing to the client’s office, he’d managed to avert disaster. It had been an awful situation, but it would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t fixed it before the date changed. His colleague offered to take him to dinner as thanks, but he said he had work to do and dragged himself back to the office.
I’m beat. He let out a long, long breath as he walked down the dark hallway. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was already past eleven. He wondered how long it would take him to redo the proposal. He could feel his body grow twice as heavy just thinking about it. Right now, Nagi was probably living it up at her dinner with Mr. Cider Commercial. By this time, they might even be at their second or third bar. Or maybe even—
His stomach twisted at the thought of the worst possible scenario. Should he have told her not to go?
He opened the office door glumly and instantly noticed something was off. A light was on in the office when it should have been deserted.
“Oh, hi, Keigo,” said the one voice that couldn’t possibly be saying his name.
“…Nagi?”
There she was, all alone in the otherwise desolate office.
“Welcome back. Did everything go okay?”
Her caring voice brought him back to his senses.
“Forget that—what the heck are you doing?!”
He pulled a chair up to Nagi’s desk and looked at the monitor.
“That’s not…the proposal, is it?”
“It is. It’s taken me a while ’cause I had to look up some info on AI…but I’m almost done.”
Her words were so unexpected he couldn’t process them. Maybe this was all just a happy dream created by his overly exhausted brain.
“Wh…what about dinner…?”
“Oh, that? I felt bad, but I canceled,” she said casually. Keigo was in shock.
He thought he knew Nagi better than anyone else, but at the moment, he couldn’t make any sense of her actions. Why, on this day of all days, had she made such a clearly incorrect choice—a choice that, at the same time, worked out so well for him?
“After all,” she said with a cynical laugh, “I could hardly run off and enjoy dinner when you were in such a tight spot.”
“Wait, but you…!”
“It’s fine,” she said, just like she had earlier that day. But this time was different. She was looking him straight in the eye and saying it for him alone. “You’re way more important than any of that.”
She could have easily left him to his own devices. What did she want with a guy who just stood there watching her from behind as she walked forward in life? But instead, she’d turned back and reached out her hand. She always did. Her hands were as warm and gentle as a pool of sunshine. Every time she did that, idiot that he was, he gave up on giving up all over again.
“…”
He couldn’t tell if it was pain or joy surging in his chest.
“What’s wrong? You okay?”
Nagi peered at his downturned face in surprise. Her eyes were filled with worry.
If Saotome was right about there being a perfect distance for kissing and all that, then he was certain it wasn’t the distance that made kissing easiest. Instead, he thought it must be the distance that made you want to kiss someone. Nagi was so close that if he bent down just a little farther, their lips would have brushed. What would hers taste like? How soft would they be? His mind filled with those thoughts, he reached out his hand.
“Ah!” she gasped, flinching in surprise.
“…Thanks, Nagi.”
He ruffled her hair. For a moment, she looked caught off guard by his heartfelt gratitude. But a second later, her eyes crinkled in a smile.
“It’s nothing.”
Once again, he felt his love for her overflow. He smiled back. He’d always been the type to stick with things and keep his possessions for a long time. The same held true when it came to his childhood friend Nagi Yoroizuka. He couldn’t even remember how long he’d felt this way toward her. There were lots of great things about her. Her ability to understand another person’s feelings. How she never ridiculed others. Her competitive streak. Her optimism toward her own situation. How hard she worked. He could go on forever listing reasons he loved her, but if he had to choose one—
“It’s you I should be thanking, Keigo.”
—it would be her smile. He had a tremendous weakness for her smile.