Chapter Text

“And then he told me that my takoyaki was ‘too sticky.’ I mean, that is…what does that even mean? It’s takoyaki, for crying out loud! That’s just how I make it, and if his poor wittle stomach can’t take that then how is it my problem? So anyway, the next morning…”

Junko Kaname, for her part, sighed inwardly and rested her head in one hand, pretending to listen.

Kazuko went on rants like this at least once a week, and her best friend has long since learned there was no stopping her once she got on a roll. Better to let the brunette run herself out of steam on her own – there were less headaches for everyone involved, that way.

“And so, in conclusion…screw all men, way deep up the ass, with a totem pole,” Kazuko Saotome finally finished, finishing the rest of her sake in a single gulp. “Come on, what do you say, Junko? Gonna join me?”

“Oh, uh…sure. Definitely,” said Junko, barely listening. “Err…wait, what am I joining you for?”

“Swearing off all men!” the teacher-in-training exclaimed dramatically, raising her arm upward in a pose evocative of a sentai hero. “When was the last time any of them did something worth a damn, huh?”

“Well, our waiter seems a nice enough guy,” Junko couldn’t help but snark. “Hasn’t cut off our…err, supply, anyway.”

Kazuko, for her part, instantly flushed and crossed her arms, pouting at her friend. “Y…You know what I mean!” she replied, probably louder than she’d been intending. “I’m talking about dates, Junko! When’s the last time you had a date who didn’t turn out to be a total creep, a judgmental loser, or both?!”

“Dunno. I don’t really date the way you do, at all,” Junko told her disinterestedly. “It’s just not something I’m interested in.”

The other woman’s eyes widened behind her thick glasses. “That can’t possibly be true,” she said. “I mean…just look at you, Junko! You’re practically sex on legs in that suit! You can’t be telling me you don’t have dozens of men throwing themselves at you every day! And probably a few women, too…”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Kazuko,” the purple-haired woman responded with a shrug. “It’s just not on my radar. When I go to work, it’s to work. I mean, maybe some of my coworkers are interested, but if they are I don’t know and I don’t wanna know. Women in business have a hard enough time being taken seriously. The last thing I need is to play into some dumbass stereotype.”

Kazuko just pursed her lips. “You know, you were never this uptight in college,” she reminded her friend, raising an eyebrow pointedly. “Not by a long shot.”

“H…Hey! I’m not uptight!” Junko immediately blurted out, looking offended. “And sex in college was different, anyway. There, all you had to do to get laid was go to a party, get drunk, and make out with the cutest, dumbest boy in the room for half an hour. These days, it’s all flowers, fancy restaurants, crappy poetry…that’s what I don’t have time for.”

Finishing off the rest of her bowl as well, the businesswoman declared in a quieter voice, “I’ve got a ten-year plan going right now, and it doesn’t leave room for romance.”

“Well, alright…” said Kazuko, sighing deeply. “But I still say you don’t know what you’re missing.”

Now it was Junko’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Hold the phone. Weren’t you just asking me to join you in a vow of celibacy, like a whole two minutes ago?” she asked.

“Err…uhh…well, yeah! But that’s…that’s beside the point!” the brunette attempted to argue, not at all convincingly. “Urgh…what I mean is, I’m only giving up on men because I’ve…y’know…tried the whole buffet! And none of the dishes were worth a damn! But you…you didn’t even make it to the table!”

Completely flustered, Kazuko flopped her chin down onto the table and mumbled, “That, uh…didn’t really come out right. But you get what I mean, don’t you?”

“I guess,” Junko answered, shrugging again. “Look…if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll join in on your whole ‘boycott the men’ crusade. Same reason I’d join in on a ‘boycott the mayonnaise’ – not losing anything I would’ve cared about anyway.”

Lethargy from their rather hefty drinking session slowly beginning to flood in, Kazuko lazily turned her head – still glued to the table between them – and asked, “Is my personal life really such a joke to you?”

“Not always,” said Junko, patting her best friend comfortingly on the shoulder. “But when you get like this…yeah, maybe a little bit.”

Getting to her feet to pay off their now rather-considerable tab, the young businesswoman donned what she hoped was a supportive smile and added, “Cheer up, Kazuko. It’ll all look better after a good night’s sleep. And until you get back on that wagon…consider me intentionally dateless, not just out of disinterest. I’ve got your back, girlfriend.”

[--------------------]

Were this a romantic comedy, Junko would’ve known exactly what’d come next.

Such brazen tempting of fate could only result in Mister Right spontaneously appearing around the next corner, probably just in time for an adorably awkward first encounter that’d make good trailer fodder. Bonus points if they literally bumped into each other – complete with a mad scramble for dropped items, inevitably leading their hands to brush against each other, and their eyes to slowly meet in stunned, awed silence…

Junko had to suppress the urge to gag. There was a reason she freaking hated romantic comedies. Give her a horror flick or an American action movie any day.

The truly funny thing, though, was that her overly clichéd imaginings weren’t that far off the mark. They were merely a few seconds fast…and involved the wrong target.

She saw the impact coming a split-second before it occurred. The man involved was carrying a stack of three wooden crates, limiting his field of vision as he struggled to keep his balance, while the woman wasn’t looking where she was going at all, her entire focus directed downward at her phone.

Junko almost shouted a warning, but by the time she thought to do so it was already too late. The young businesswoman cringed as both individuals tumbled to the ground, one of the crates popping open and emptying its contents all over the sidewalk.

The other woman, however, did not respond to this by falling in love at first sight – or at least if she did, she had a rather odd way of showing it. Shouting something to the effect of “Watch where you’re going, you clumsy little…!” and then several rather more…colorful words, the woman picked herself off the ground, dusted off her dress, and strode off without a single glance back.

Junko watched on as the man rushed to collect the items – what looked from this distance to be hundreds of small, reddish balls – and bit her lip. He looked pretty pathetic, honestly, hunched over and crawling on his hands and knees as the “balls” rolled away from him in every direction.

The handful of other people on the street seemed to feel similarly, swerving around the man and averting their eyes from his frantic scramble. Junko knew the smart thing was to follow their lead and just keep walking; even without stopping, she was gonna wind up a couple minutes late to work at this rate.

But without really deciding to, she instead bent down as she approached.

“You alright?” she asked of him. “Need any help there?”

Already, she was hoping he’d say no. It was selfish, to be sure…but this was her best suit, and she’d really prefer not mess it up for something like this.

The man, for his part, looked up from his task slowly, clearly surprised she was talking to him. Chuckling nervously, he responded, “Oh! Oh, err…well…”

He cleared his throat and tried again. “I really appreciate the offer, ma’am, but…err…don’t worry about it,” he said. “This sort of stuff happens to me all the time, I’m used to it.”

“Not sure you should be,” Junko couldn’t help but add. “But…if you insist. I’ll leave you to your…uh…ping pong balls?”

The man chuckled again at her guess. “They’re tomatoes, actually,” he informed her, now picking up the last few stray handfuls. “I grow them in my garden myself. I was taking them to the farmer’s market, actually…but I guess this batch is gonna need to be washed again first.”

“The farmer’s market? Oh, uh…I see. Maybe I’ll make it over there later?” stated Junko carefully.

She didn’t actually mean a word of it. To have some use for fresh produce, one would first need to know how to cook…and Junko most certainly did not. She was capable of creating passable sandwiches – that was about it.

“Oh! D…Definitely!” the man replied, looking askance as he sealed the box back shut. “My booth’ll be right near the corner of Pinion Street – you can’t miss it. I’ll save you a free sample, Miss…”

“Kaname. I’m Junko Kaname,” she said, smiling as he stood back up. She couldn’t help noting he cut a significantly more impressive figure when he was upright…and not crawling all over the sidewalk for his tomatoes.

“My name’s Tomohisa Inoue,” he offered, smiling warmly. As noted by a part of her mind that rarely if ever provided commentary, it was a rather nice smile. “Have a wonderful day, Kaname-san.”

“Err…likewise,” she mumbled, suddenly feeling more than a little strange. A quick glance at her watch, however, made it clear there was little time to spend thinking about it, so she bowed her head respectfully and began to move past him.

Before he was completely out of earshot, however, Junko was struck by an impulse, and turned back to add one more thing, her tone teasing and playful:

“Just…can you make sure my sample comes from one of the other boxes, please?”

[--------------------]

Frontier Settings was a commercial real estate firm, specializing in venues ideal for small businesses or franchise outlets.

Junko had managed to snag a bottom-rung position there directly out of college, thanks to her already substantial resume – she’d taken no less than five internships in various offices across her school career, plus a stint as editor of the student paper. Bouncing around various low-level jobs within the company over the past two years, a colleague’s early retirement had recently lucked her into a much more rewarding position: personal assistant to the company president.

Yes, she was still more than occasionally miffed at being a glorified secretary – her education had been geared toward becoming an executive in her own right, and that was still the direction her ambitions lay – but the work was varied and challenging, and in any event Junko tended to consider it a stepping stone to better things.

Still, while her day-to-day tasks could range anywhere from managing the president’s schedule to helping crunch the numbers when it came time to process the next year’s budget…it also involved getting him tea.

“Thank you, Junko,” he said, sipping deeply into the sharp blend. President Masaoka was very particular about his tea, and when she’d started this job she’d needed to get very good at it very quickly. She’d rather he never learn the first cup she’d made him was also the first cup of tea she’d prepared, ever.

Thank god for the internet.

“Now, can we talk about the Sea Fragrance file?” he asked after a little while, as he finished the last of his cup.

Inwardly, Junko groaned. Sea Fragrance was a hair salon that was trying to open in the nearby Asunaro City, repurposing the retail space of a small café that’d closed down three years ago. And at this point, around the office, nearly every employee spoke of it in hushed tones – the entire process having dragged on for so long, and experienced so many problems and delays, that even the steadfastly agnostic Junko was half-convinced it was cursed.

Still, the president didn’t know any of that, and Junko wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. It was too alluring of an opportunity for her own career.

“Yosuke just decided to drop the whole thing, Masaoka-sama,” she answered, deciding a little bit of the truth was probably the best thing to offer right now. Maybe it wasn’t nice to rat a coworker out like that, but it wasn’t her fault he’d shown up drunk yesterday and cursed out their client as “the shitstain to end all shitstains.”

Of course, the fact that Yosuke getting canned would open up a job directly above her might have been a contributing factor.

“Well, we’ll see just how much he likes ‘dropping’ things when he comes up for performance review next month,” grunted the president, and Junko’s mental image of herself practically did a backflip. “You can salvage this mess, I hope?”

“Oh, definitely. You can count on me, sir!” she said, deciding she’d told more than enough truth for one morning.

And hey, you never knew. Sure, dealing with clients directly was completely outside both her job description and her practical experience, and sure, Yosuke was only the fifth realtor to give up on completing this sale. But if the big boss was going to put his faith in her to make the impossible happen…then dammit, she needed to at least try to make it happen.

“Wait…one more thing, before you get buried in all that,” President Masaoka added after a moment’s pause.

“What is it, Masaoka-sama?” she asked, leaning forward a little bit.

He leaned forward slightly as well, his voice taking on a hushed tone that made it sound as if he was sharing some kind of conspiracy.

“It’s, err…well, it’s my daughter’s ninth birthday today,” he finally told her, causing Junko’s eyebrow to rise; she hadn’t been expecting anything like this at all. “My wife’s busy making her a cake for the party tonight, but something still feels like it’s…missing.”

Junko crossed her fingers that the next question wasn’t going to be “Any suggestions on the recipe?” Or, if it was, that he’d give her the chance to duck out of here and call Kazuko for advice.

Yeah…Kazuko would know all about that sort of thing. And she did owe Junko a favor, after introducing her to that nice…

Okay, bad example.

“She really loves strawberries. They’re her favorite food,” the president went on, jolting Junko out of her brief reverie. “Hmm…yeah, that’d work. Load up the cake with ‘em, she’ll love it…”

“Did you…need me to run to the grocery store for you?” Junko asked tentatively.

“No, no…for my girl, it can’t just be the cheap, store-bought kind. Need some way to get ‘em fresh,” said President Masaoka. Eventually, his eyes brightened and he snapped his fingers. “Hold on. Wasn’t there supposed to be some farmer’s market in town today? I think I saw a flyer for it in the paper.”

Junko’s inner voice groaned loudly again.

[--------------------]

Junko Kaname didn’t believe in…well, anything, really. But Fate, or Destiny, or whatever the hell else you wanted to call people’s bizarre insistence that life was more than a shitstorm of random events, topped the list.

This was what repeated, over and over in her head, as she roamed the large assortment of booths and stands selling fresh produce, her eyes narrowed in search for a vendor who might be selling freshly picked strawberries…

And, though she certainly wasn’t going to admit it to anyone, least of all herself…also keeping one eye open for a certain man selling grape-sized tomatoes.

She tried to rationalize it to herself – the sooner she got out of here, the sooner she could get back to doing real work, and considering she had absolutely zero idea where to look, a friendly face who could point her in the right direction certainly couldn’t hurt.

But the truth was that another part of her, for some utterly unfathomable reason…just kind of wanted to see him again.

It was an odd thing, because there really wasn’t anything remarkable about him; nothing remarkable in a positive way, at least, since she was pretty sure she hadn’t met any other guys in the course of scrambling for dropped tomatoes. But in appearance and demeanor, she couldn’t think of anyone in the world more distinctly “average.”

So why the fuck was she still thinking about him?

“Strawberries, not tomatoes, dammit!” she exclaimed irritably, only realizing belatedly that she’d said the words out loud.

Several onlookers paused to give her a strange glance, but one other voice sounded over them through the crowd. “Err…I’m sorry? But…those are all I have…” stated a rather awkward, and quite familiar, voice.

Junko flushed crimson as the onlookers moved on, revealing that she’d been thinking all of this not three meters from the booth of Tomohisa Inoue. He had several crates filled with those tiny tomatoes piled next to him, with a great assortment of prepared samples spread across the booth – whole, sliced, and even made into some kind of salsa.

One was speared on a toothpick and being offered in her general direction…though at the sound of her peculiar outburst, his outstretched arm sunk a bit.

Attempting to smile, Tomohisa rather lamely raised his hand again, the fruit attempting to slide off its spear as he held it out to her.

“It’s, uh…from one of the other boxes. Like you asked,” he said, swallowing hard. “Err…unless you’re really that set on strawberries. Come to think of it, I never even asked if you liked tomatoes…”

On impulse, Junko leaned forward and cut off his rambling by biting the tomato off the toothpick.

The truth was, she wasn’t a big fan of tomatoes. Or at least, she hadn’t been…before this moment.

“This…is the best fucking tomato I have ever tasted,” she blurted out, her eyes going wide as she chewed and then swallowed. “How do you do it?”

“Oh! Uh…well, there’s a lot that goes into it,” Tomohisa answered, clearly surprised even to be receiving the question. “You need to the right soil to make them grow big and juicy like that. And it’s not exactly easy to get that in Mitakihara, so I import. Same with the fertilizer – the store-bought kind just doesn’t cut it. Trust me, I’ve tried. Luckily, my brother sends me top-quality manure whenever I ask. He produces it himself!”

The glasses-wearing gardener paused here, wondering why Junko’s face had suddenly twisted up…before his brain caught up with his mouth, and he flushed brilliantly.

“Oooooh that came out so wrong,” he muttered, scratching his head awkwardly. “What I mean is, he’s got a farm up near the mountains, and he keeps horses there. That’s all…”

His face became redder and redder with each word…but Junko merely held one hand over her mouth, struggling to hold in a burst of laughter. And it wasn’t merely a polite chuckle, trying to save his embarrassing slip of the tongue by passing it off as humor. It was sincere, loud, and unreserved.

There was simply something about the way this guy talked. The blend of knowledgeable confidence and utter, profound awkwardness came together in a manner she couldn’t in any way explain, and yet she couldn’t deny seemed to put her well at-ease. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to experiencing around near-strangers, that was for sure.

It occurred to Junko a couple seconds later that she’d been silent long enough that the poor guy might be getting worried – either that she wasn’t listening, or that she was still disgusted by the “manure” comment and hadn’t appreciated his explanation.

To put both concerns to rest, she clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Well, it’s clear your nefarious plan to ensnare me with free food has succeeded. I’ll definitely be coming back for some more of these things. But…I really need to get those strawberries first.”

“Got a craving?” he asked, his posture instantly relaxing at her use of humor.

“Well, someone does,” responded Junko with a sigh. “My boss’ kid. It’s her birthday today, apparently.”

“Ah, I gotcha. So he’s got you playing errand girl at the last minute,” Tomohisa surmised. “Well, that’s nice of you. Every little girl deserves to be treated like a princess on their special day.”

Coming out of just about anyone else’s mouth – her own included – there was no way this sentence could’ve been spoken without positively drowning in sarcasm. Yet his own tone was entirely sincere; it wasn’t hard to tell that he truly believed what he was saying, fully and unironically.

It was like he’d jumped off the back of a greeting card. Except that Junko hated greeting cards with a passion, and he…

Well, she didn’t hate him.

“Anyway, if you’re really set on this, I might be able to help you out,” he added after a little while, chuckling nervously. “I have a friend – Kazuraba – who’s selling them here right now. I share my extra soil and fertilizer with him sometimes, so he owes me. Say you’re a friend of mine and he should give you a good deal.”

Junko raised an eyebrow, a small smile spreading across her face. “Does that mean we are friends?” she asked teasingly.

“You can never have too many,” was his remarkably quick reply. His casual, earnest smile matched hers like a mirror.

“Hmm…I guess you’ve got a point there,” she said, laughing slightly as he struggled to draw a rough map showing how to get to Kazuraba’s booth.

He wasn’t very good at it…but dammit if he didn’t try.

[--------------------]

Tomohisa hadn’t been kidding when he’d said Kazuraba owed him a favor; one mention of the tomato-grower’s name and the older man had shoved two boxes of his best berries into her hands, completely free of charge.

Never one to look a good horse in the mouth – though just to be on the safe side, she’d decided to try one of the strawberries for herself, and found she was having great difficulty stopping at one – Junko hurried off with her prize in hand, politely but forcefully pushing her way through the great throngs of people gathered to sample the organic wares.

Part of her wanted to get back to the office immediately…but she felt it’d be rude to leave without at least thanking Tomohisa, so she took a short detour down his aisle on her way back.

When she returned to his booth, she found him chatting animatedly with Tohru Shizuki – a high-profile corporate attorney, as well as one of the city’s richest men. She’d seen him around the Frontier Settings office a couple of times, doing consulting work or reviewing documents, though she was somewhat surprised to see him here; he didn’t exactly seem to be the “buy straight from the farmer” type.

Whatever they were discussing, both clearly found it highly amusing. The two shook hands energetically, after which Tohru wandered off, chortling merrily as he tugged on his long green beard.

Tomohisa noticed Junko approaching a moment later, and he waved her over with a smile. “Did you find everything you needed alright, Kaname-san?” he asked.

“Call me Junko,” she corrected him automatically, before she could stop herself; for the most part she disliked being referred to with honorifics, or indeed with any kind of “formal” speech. It occurred to her a moment later that making such a request of man she’d just met might send…unintended signals, but if Tomohisa found this curious he certainly didn’t show it.

Instead, he merely smiled wider and said, “Junko, then. So…did Kazuraba get you that deal?”

Junko visibly relaxed at this, her smile matching his.

“Better, actually. He gave me a whole bunch for free,” she answered, taking them out of her bag to show off the bright red berries. “Maybe I should be suspicious about that, but right now I’m just giving a big fat thumbs-up to my good luck. Don’t really get a lot of that, so I’ll take it where I can get it.”

“If there’s one thing Kazuraba can be counted on, it’s the quality of his fruit,” Tomohisa told her with a chuckle. “Can’t trust him to pay gambling debts on time, or drive you to the airport, or return the pruning shears you lent him eight years ago…but he grows some really good berries.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” replied Junko. “I have a friend who’s exactly the same way. She’s absolutely brilliant when it comes to anything school-related – she’s studying to become a teacher – but you can’t rely on her for anything else. Oh, sure, she’s got like a thousand of these obscure European authors memorized, but I ask her one fucking time to…err, sorry. Excuse my language.”

Tomohisa just laughed again. “Don’t apologize,” he said. “I grew up with two older sisters, and they have way filthier mouths than you do. The prim-and-proper lady’s a myth I never really bought into.”

“Well, that’s refreshing at least!” Junko declared, joining in. “I mean, you still get a handful from the more traditional families…but most of the girls I know can swear, booze, and make an ass of themselves just as much as any man. Why do we have to keep pretending otherwise?”

“Probably because most of the guys who do like pretending are insecure about their small penises,” responded Tomohisa, only half-jokingly.

The fact that he said these words in precisely the same casual, soft-spoken cadence as he’d used previously, however, was too much for Junko to bear, and her laughter intensified as she broke down completely.

“God, you’re like…I don’t know what you’re like,” she managed to choke out, still clutching her gut. “I’m pretty sure I like it, though. No wonder you had Tohru in stitches.”

At this, however, his expression shifted, becoming unexpectedly downcast. “Tell you the truth, I was mostly just laughing with him to be polite. He didn’t exactly give me good news just now,” said Tomohisa.

“What do you mean?” asked Junko, raising an eyebrow in concern. “C’mon, tell me. You’ve listened to me bitch about my problems practically all day.”

The gardener sighed deeply.

“Basically, me, Kazuraba, and a couple of our other friends were throwing around the idea of…well, opening up an organic produce store together. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid,” he told her, shaking his head. “But these farmer’s markets are only a couple times a year, and we always sell out our stock. We just thought…well, you know…”

“Hey, doesn’t sound stupid to me,” Junko stated, doing her best to sound sincere and non-sarcastic. She wasn’t very good at it. “I mean, you’ve clearly demonstrated there’s a demand for the product. Why not give it a shot? Not like this city’s bursting with other places to get fresh, locally grown food.”

“It’s just…a big step, is all,” explained Tomohisa. “None of us have ever run anything bigger than this stand right here. And that’s not even getting into raising the start-up capital, drawing up a business plan, finding the right location…”

Junko’s attention perked up quite abruptly at those last four words.

“So…you’re trying to start up a small business, and you need a place to open it?” she asked slowly.

“Pretty much,” said Tomohisa. “Which is why Shizuki-san was laughing, I’m afraid. We used to be friends in high school, so I asked if he knew anyone in real estate who might be able to help me. I guess you can figure out what he thought of it.”

“That’s why he was laughing so hard? Pretty dickish if you ask me,” Junko replied, making an annoyed sound with her tongue. “Some friend.”

“I did say we used to be friends,” he pointed out. “But I still don’t think he meant any offense out of it. He just thinks it’s a silly idea, business-wise. And I can’t say I don’t see where he’s coming from.”

He looked so morose and down on himself that, instinctively, Junko found her hand closing around his. She wasn’t really sure why she’d done it…but as long as they were holding hands, she squeezed his, in what she hoped would come across as a comforting gesture.

“Well, I say screw that,” she said, her eyes narrowing intensely. “You’re gonna see this happen, Tomohisa. And I’ll help. You stuck your neck out for me today…so now it’s my turn.”

And with that, she reached into her pocket, and replaced her hand in his palm with her business card:

JUNKO KANAME

Executive Secretary

Frontier Settings

“Mitakihara’s Leader in Commercial Real Estate”

Her cell number was hastily scribbled on the back.