fiction and art

[Accidental Maid ♥ Part II ~ Fanart]

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:45:25 GMT

I'm far behind, damnit!

Ootori watched the way Shishido lifted his bowl to drink the last of his soup, and felt a funny kind of thrill go through him.

Perhaps it was pride.

Cleaning and cooking didn’t exactly require a university degree, and he knew that.

But watching Shishido’s face as he ate, Ootori wondered if cooking required something more.

“What?” Shishido asked, self-consciously rubbing his hand in his hair.

Ootori shook his head. “Sorry, I was just thinking,” he said, and stood up. “Are you finished, Shishido-san?”

Shishido sat back, resting his weight on his hands.

“Yeah, it was good.”

Ootori couldn’t help it. He grinned. And bowed his head.

“Thank you, Shishido-san.”

BTW. IT WOULD BE NICE IF YOU COMMENT ON THE ENTRIES. Miki's fic really deserve more attention~ although you like it, if you don't express it, SHE WON'T KNOW IT!!!

because it's a really great fic!

so a lil note will be OK :]

so run back to the older part >8B *kick*

[Accidental Maid ♥ Part V [II] ~ Fanfiction]

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 14:29:52 GMT

Comments, feedback, concrit = ♥ :D Thank you~!

Shishido didn’t bother turning on the light.

He clicked his bedroom door shut behind him and pulled his tie off completely, smoothing it out a little before hanging it over one of the door knobs of his cupboard.

Ootori had been in his room cleaning again, if the chemical scent getting up his nose was any indication.

The windows of his room usually stayed half open most of the time, but he pushed them open as far as they would go, ignoring the way the hinges seemed to protest. They often jammed past a certain point but today he didn’t have the patience to wrestle with the knobs and locks and unoiled hinges so he didn’t bother once they locked into place and refused to budge further.

If there was one thing about cities that he loved and hated more than anything else, it was the traffic.

It never stopped; never ceased, and yet it was somehow comforting because it reminded Shishido that there were other people awake and possibly sharing his problems.

He undid the buttons on his shirt as he stared out at the apartments across from his and then leaned a little over the windowsill, looking at the cars and buses below.

He pulled his shirt lazily from where it was still tucked in under his pants, and shrugged it off, not bothering to hang it up. His belt buckle was next to go, and he dropped that onto its usual spot – on the floor. His pants, he’d just unbuttoned and unzipped when there was a knock at the door.

For a moment, he stood perfectly still, his skin bare and sensitive to the dampness in the air.

Ootori was knocking at his door, he knew, but he didn’t want to answer it.

He heard a muffled “Shishido-san?” coming from the other side of the door, then there was another knock and as he realised Ootori was exactly the sort of person who probably wouldn’t go away until he’d answered it, he finally opened the door.

“Yes.”

Ootori looked surprised. “Sorry,” he said quickly, looking distinctly uncomfortable as he stepped back, the mug in his hand almost full to the brim. As he moved, the tea in it spilt over the side, wetting his hand and trickling down his arm.

A few spots fell onto the floor.

Shishido bit back the wave of annoyance he felt, grabbing a tissue instead.

“Hold still,” he muttered, wiping Ootori’s hand as he held onto the mug and then following the trail of wetness down his forearm and to the floor.

He held his slightly wet tissue in his hand, not knowing what to say to Ootori, who also, apparently, had nothing to say since he stood still, looking vaguely sheepish.

Shishido let out a slight sigh.

“Was that tea for me?” he asked, turning around to walk back to his bin and toss the tissue in.

“Sorry, it was, but I’ll make you a new mug,” Ootori said, turning around.

Shishido swallowed, not liking the way he suddenly felt like the bad guy. He didn’t like the way Ootori was so easy to read at times, as though he’d never grown up and learnt to mask his emotions. But other times, Shishido felt a little as though Ootori just kept the same look on his face despite the fact that he must have been feeling other emotions.

He didn’t like the fact that he spent all day at work and then came home to this. And yet, for Ootori, the work day probably really started when Shishido came home.

“Ootori, it’s fine,” he said. His voice came out more sternly than he’d meant so he flicked on his bedroom light and waited for Ootori to turn around again, looking as though he wanted to protest.

“It’s just tea,” Shishido elaborated, half frustrated with Ootori and half annoyed at himself. No wonder he wasn’t a manager. He just couldn’t handle people.

Ootori held out the mug and Shishido took it from him, feeling how hot the palm of Ootori’s hand was when they touched.

It was green tea and Shishido could smell the bitterness of it. He actually hated his tea strong when it was like this, but Ootori couldn’t have known. He was a little surprised Ootori had even made green tea instead of his usual coffee at any rate.

“Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the bed.

The outside of the mug was wet against his fingers where Ootori had spilt tea and Shishido hadn’t wiped it clean.

“I’m fine standing,” Ootori smiled slightly.

Shishido flinched a little.

He felt like he was about to lose his temper.

It wasn’t just the tie and it wasn’t just the way Ootori was polite to the point that Shishido felt awkward. It was more than the repeated offers of lunch and the way the shower floor was wet when Shishido used it in the morning. It wasn’t even the smells of cleaning agents all over the apartment or the way his shoes moved from place to place after Ootori had cleaned them. It was that he was in the apartment all the time, and yet, there was nothing Shishido could really do about that. He knew that, but he allowed himself to dwell on it, just like he dwelled on the other things about Ootori that kept bothering him.

He couldn’t say any of it aloud and it frustrated him like nothing had frustrated him before.

This was his home and he was walking about it all the time, totally weirded out by the fact that there was someone in it who should never have been here! It didn’t matter if he’d liked their tennis match on the weekend, or that having someone else here meant he wasn’t always alone because he liked his space and he liked his privacy, and with Ootori in the apartment, he had none of it!

He just didn’t know how to say any of it to Ootori.

The silence was anything but comfortable.

He watched as Ootori finally took the hint and sat at the edge of the bed, his feet planted firmly on the floor as he spread his legs apart, leaning forwards and looking at the floor.

“I’m sorry for…” he started, his voice sounding strained.

Shishido felt the anger draining out of his body as he clutched his mug with both hands, watching Ootori.

“I’m sorry, Shishido-san. I’ll work harder from now-”

“No… I… That’s not what I wanted to say,” Shishido cut in.

Even though he’d contemplated telling Ootori everything – everything that was driving him up the wall and driving him insane and everything Ootori couldn’t even have consciously known he was doing – to hear an apology out of Ootori’s mouth took him by surprise.

He felt tired and confused, not knowing whether Ootori had been feeling bothered by things or if he was apologising for the tea. He wasn’t apologising for the tea, was he? It was just tea, Shishido tried telling himself, though he realised he probably hadn’t exactly been nice about it.

He was just taking things out on Ootori.

Again.

Even after he’d told himself not to.

Ashamed of his own behaviour, he sat down next to Ootori on the end of his bed, adopting the same position as he slumped forwards, his mug still clasped in both hands.

He felt stupid and embarrassed and he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just have a bit of self control when it came to his emotions.

He was so quick to judge everyone else but his own behaviour went unscrutinised until he felt bad enough about it to give himself a kick up the backside and do something about it, and by then… By then it was usually too late to do much other than try to fix the damage he’d caused.

It wasn’t anything new. It was a pattern he’d played out and which had been repeated since he was a teenager.

“It must be frustrating to have someone else in your home all the time,” Ootori said wryly.

Shishido felt as though he were sitting on the edge of something all of a sudden. He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know why, and yet he felt as though the balance of their… relationship – if this was what a relationship or a friendship actually was – could tilt either way.

He felt as though Ootori was saying exactly what was on his mind for the first time. As though everything he’d said up until now was what he’d felt he ought to say, not what he actually thought.

Shishido glanced at him.

If Ootori was going to be blatantly honest, he could return the favour.

“It is,” he said, and suddenly it felt as though he was about to spill everything he’d wanted to keep inside for the past two weeks. Everything about Atobe, everything about Ootori, everything about his personal space, about tennis, about the way he didn’t know how to behave in his own home anymore. “I… Like I said, I never expected a maid at all…”

Ootori was silent.

“I… You know your wages are actually paid by my boss,” he said, half jokingly.

And then he instantly felt like a jerkwad as he looked at Ootori again and took in the expression on his face.

He tried to tell himself that they were both adults. It wasn’t as though walking on eggshells helped either of them and since they were living together, it would all come out sooner or later, but he just wished sometimes he knew how to be a little better with people around him.

He felt as though he was making things harder than they really needed to be.

“Hey Ootori,” he sighed. “Why don’t you tell me again why you became a maid?”

Ootori frowned a little.

“It was…” he stopped himself. He’d nearly said again that it was an accident, but it hadn’t really been. The decision to come here had been his alone and he’d made it consciously, knowing about the cut in pay and knowing things would be completely different here.

It was what he’d wanted anyway.

He could hardly complain when things had turned out in this way. Circumstances might not have been perfect, but before he’d come here, he hadn’t actually held expectations that they would be.

“I was fired from Minami Co.,” he explained, remembering they’d only really half covered this topic the first time it had come up. “I think I just wanted a change from things in Tokyo so I came here.”

“As a maid?” Shishido prompted.

Ootori felt annoyance stirring in him.

“Yes, as a maid,” he replied, trying not to let his feelings show. He couldn’t understand why it felt as though Shishido just couldn’t get over it. It wasn’t as though Ootori couldn’t understand a degree of initial confusion or even curiosity, and Shishido was right to be curious after all. He was his employer.

But what Ootori didn’t like was the repeated fixation on it, as though Shishido couldn’t accept it even though Ootori was washing his clothes and cleaning the floors and cooking his meals every day.

He felt stupid enough a lot of the time, as though he were a kid playing house rather than a real worker, and he didn’t need someone like Shishido to rub it in.

It didn’t help that living with Shishido reminded him every day of the fact that he was living the life Ootori had been living until a few weeks ago. He’d liked working at Minami, despite the company’s flaws and despite the fact that his co-workers hadn’t always been great.

Perhaps he was glossing over the details now because he was in Hong Kong and Tokyo seemed so far removed from the city here. Perhaps that was it; the reason why he was starting to wonder why he hadn’t stayed and hadn’t fought for his job just a bit more. Had he even protested at all?

“There’s nothing wrong with being a maid,” he said aloud, more for himself than for Shishido. “I know… it’s not what you’d expect from someone like me-”

“What do you think I expect from someone like you?” Shishido interrupted, giving him an even stare.

His blue eyes were clear and focused. A few minutes ago, he’d seemed tired and worn-out, but now his gaze was fixed on Ootori’s face, their eyes meeting and making Ootori feel a little nervous.

Whatever thoughts had been in his head a moment before had now gone.

“I…” Ootori felt awkward.

When Shishido looked at him like that, he felt as though he was reverting back into old habits. He felt as though he was forgetting how far he’d come in the last few years, and he was turning back into a semi-awkward teenager again.

He felt small.

“What you expect from me?” he repeated.

Shishido didn’t respond, but he didn’t stop staring either.

Ootori broke the stare first, shifting his gaze past Shishido to the open windows and the apartments beyond them.

Shishido was sitting in just his pants. Ootori could see out of the corner of his vision that they were already unbuttoned which meant Shishido had probably been intending to go to change into a pair of track pants right before he’d knocked.

He was more tanned than Ootori had realised before, but he wasn’t any more muscular than Ootori was, so it probably wasn’t because he spent time exercising outside.

That was what Ootori told himself anyway.

It seemed like it would be impossible to find good jogging routes around here, and you wouldn’t do it shirtless since it felt like the city never stopped. Day or night, there were always people out on the streets with you and Ootori for one didn’t want to be running around having so many people stare at him.

Anyway, jogging at night wouldn’t get you a tan even if you did it shirtless and jogging during the day, the sunlight was obscured by the tall buildings and the foggy sky, never mind the fact that you’d probably run smack bang into someone at the turn of every corner.

He realised he was looking at Shishido's collarbones all of a sudden, and looked away again, trying not to compare their bodies. He’d only realised on Sunday that he’d lost a lot of his muscle tone and he felt a bit self-conscious of it.

“I don’t know what you expect of me,” he answered slowly.

It was true, because though he knew what Minami had told him in terms of his duties and responsibilities, he felt as though Shishido never asked him for anything specific. He didn’t assign things he wanted done, nor did he check that Ootori had even worked throughout the day. He commented sometimes on the food, but he never gave instructions as to what he wanted, and Ootori’s attempts to pry at him, asking him what he liked or whether he wanted anything, had come up blank.

The thought of his probation period hung over his head, and Ootori had no idea what he was working towards or how he could even begin to gauge his progress.

Shishido fidgeted a little with his mug.

He hadn’t drunk any more tea, Ootori noted.

It made him feel frustrated again.

He never knew what Shishido wanted.

“Hey Ootori,” Shishido said, standing up. “You haven’t been a maid before and I haven’t employed one before, right?” He smiled just a little, though Ootori thought it looked forced. “I mean, I’m still not employing one anyway.”

Ootori jolted, remembering Shishido’s words from before.

His salary was being paid for by Shishido’s boss. Did Shishido mean his immediate boss or did he mean Atobe?

The thought that Atobe Co. would expense salaries for its employees’ maids seemed stupid to him so he couldn’t understand why Shishido would have said something like that.

“Anyway,” Shishido continued, walking out the door. “I was thinking of something today.”

He breathed in deeply as Ootori followed him into his office.

He knew their conversation wasn’t finished, but it was starting to get really awkward, and his instincts told him to cut it off and change the topic.

What did he expect of Ootori anyway? He was slightly relieved Ootori actually hadn’t had an answer for his question because he wouldn’t have been able to tell him if he was right or wrong or totally wide of the mark at all.

He expected him to be trustworthy, for a start. That wasn’t something he felt comfortable saying though.

He placed his mug down on his desk, ignoring the fact that it immediately left a wet ring on the wooden surface. Then he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk and lifted out his old laptop.

It felt heavy, since it had been a while since he’d used it and he’d gotten too used to his new one.

Fishing around in the drawer for the correct set of cables, he plugged them into the power sockets and switched on the machine, listening to the familiar beep and the whir of the fan.

+

Ootori slipped his feet in between the sheets, feeling the material warming up quickly as he did so. They still had a starched kind of feel to them, because as Shishido had mentioned, they’d only really been used when his parents had stayed with him.

He could hear Shishido still in the kitchen, but when he’d asked if the other man wanted help, the answer had been a polite “no, thankyou”.

Somehow their talk earlier hadn’t done anything to make him feel any more comfortable, though he did feel a little as though Shishido perhaps wasn’t such a hard guy to get to know.

He wondered if they’d have gotten along better if they hadn’t met like this; as employer and employee. Maybe if they’d met in high school, or if Ootori had met him while he was working at Minami Co. still.

There was a sudden crash from the kitchen.

Ootori startled, his hand gripping the sheets tightly.

He could hear sound of glass or perhaps dishes chinking, but he couldn’t hear Shishido. Even though he knew the kitchen windows were open and his own room window was open, the sound just didn’t carry. The only sounds he could hear were of the traffic below, and even those seemed quiet now that he’d gotten used to them.

He sat still for a moment longer.

He wanted to go out and see if Shishido was all right, but they’d only just said goodnight to each other a few minutes ago and if Ootori was perfectly honest with himself, he just didn’t feel like he could face Shishido right now. He felt… awkward and he he’d gotten the impression Shishido didn’t feel much better about the whole thing either.

His ears were filled with the sound of his own heartbeat as he held his breath, straining to hear Shishido’s movements or his voice.

Was he okay?

Ootori threw off his sheet, not caring that he’d have to come back and tuck it all back in again. He fumbled as he got his feet into his slippers and then opened his bedroom door, hurrying across the lounge room to get to the kitchen.

He rushed in, freezing as Shishido turned around and looked at him.

“Sorry, did I wake you up?”

Ootori shook his head, swallowing awkwardly, feeling a little light headed.

Shishido pulled a few sheets of newspaper from the day’s paper he’d brought back from work.

Spreading them out on the floor, he picked up the large shards of glass scattered around him and Ootori realised he must have dropped a glass.

“Can you just get me the dustpan?” Shishido instructed.

Ootori snapped out of his daze, reaching up into one of the cupboards to get out the dustpan and brush.

He didn’t hand them to Shishido, but instead swept up what he could see on the floor.

“I dropped a glass,” Shishido explained.

Ootori nodded mutely.

He noticed Shishido holding his left hand awkwardly at his side and dropped the brush and pan from his hands, grasping Shishido’s arm instead. “Did you hurt yourself at all?”

Shishido opened up his palm to show a small cut.

“I just didn’t look when I started picking this stuff up,” he winced.

Ootori brushed up the rest of the glass, thankful for the fact that he’d thought to put on his slippers just in case there were still shards he couldn’t see.

He wrapped the broken glass in the newspaper and placed it inside the bin, going back to the bathroom to fetch the first-aid kit he knew was there.

“I can do it myself,” Shishido said, reaching out to take the box from him.

Ootori held it back, looking Shishido in the eyes. “No… I’ll do it,” he said clearly, placing the box down on the kitchen table.

“Sit down,” he said, breathing out a slight sigh of relief when Shishido simply sat, holding out his hand.

It was clear it wasn’t a big cut at all; in fact, Ootori would probably have just stuck on a bandaid if it were his own hand, but as it was, Shishido winced when he swabbed it with disinfectant.

“How did you drop the glass?” he asked.

Shishido leaned forwards, crossing his legs and looking towards the kitchen window rather than at Ootori. “Just tired,” he muttered, closing his eyes and massaging the pressure points next to his nose. He wasn’t about to tell Ootori it was because he was in a bad mood. He was more than tired, really, but there was nothing Ootori could really do about it. All the little things that were aggravating him were piling up inside and he really couldn’t unload them on Ootori any more than he could try to bring up the same conversation topics again and again because he still had no idea what sort of person Ootori was.

Ootori pulled out the largest bandaid he could find, trying to be gentle with Shishido’s hand as he applied it. Instead of resting his hand on the table, Shishido seemed to have given that idea up in favour of letting Ootori hold it up for him instead.

Ootori finished sticking on the bandaid quickly, throwing the wrapping into the bin and closing the first aid box again. The bandaid perhaps wasn’t the best option for Shishido’s cut, but he wasn’t quite sure Shishido would appreciate it if he pulled out the metre-long rolls of bandages and started wrapping him up like a Christmas present.

Shishido stood up, glancing down at the floor.

His hand stung a little; more so from the disinfectant Ootori had used – was that even necessary? – than because it had been cut in the first place.

“I can vacuum it,” Ootori said quickly, stepping cautiously over to the cupboard where Shishido kept the machine. At first he’d been a bit surprised to find it in there, but he supposed Shishido used it in lieu of a broom and a pan. If he had to live by himself, he’d probably find it annoying to have to sweep things as well, he thought.

“Oh, thanks Ootori.”

Shishido paused as he stepped carefully out of the kitchen.

“Don’t stay up too late,” he mentioned offhandedly, clasping Ootori’s shoulder for a moment as he went past.

Then he realised the action had actually hurt his hand and he retracted it quickly, muttering to himself as he walked back to his room.

He could hear the dull noise of the vacuum for another ten minutes until he finally fell asleep.

+

Ootori breathed out as the wooden door clicked shut behind Shishido.

He glanced at the clock but it was only eight in the morning and he didn’t want to go down to the shops for another hour or so.

Taking off his gloves and setting them aside on the sink, he decided he’d finish up the dishwashing later.

Shishido’s laptop sat where he’d placed it on the desk in his study last night, as did his almost-untouched mug of green tea.

Ootori slid his fingers along the side of the laptop, finding the power button and pressing it.

Shishido had told him he could use it for email and that Ootori could email him throughout the day if he needed anything – he’d left his work email on a pad of paper next to the computer for that reason – but Ootori still couldn’t shake the awkwardness he felt.

He sat down in Shishido’s office chair a little gingerly and waited for the computer to finish booting up. There was no required login, so he opened up the browser and automatically started typing the address for external access to his company email.

Then he paused, hitting the backspace key instead.

No; he didn’t have an email address at Minami anymore. It had been terminated exactly a week after he’d finished work there.

He typed in his old one instead.

In the space of two and a bit weeks, Mizuki had sent him eight emails, Oshitari had sent three, Gakuto had sent one with an attachment of himself, Yuuta had sent two and there was even one from Hiyoshi, though Ootori instantly imagined Mizuki sitting, prodding Hiyoshi until he opened up his email and wrote a half-hearted attempt while Mizuki peered over his shoulder.

There were mails from his sister and mother but even when Ootori clicked back a page and then read over the names again, there was nothing from his father.

+

Shishido pulled at his sleeves, adjusting them as he dropped his briefcase beside his desk and took a glance at the Post-Its already stuck on his monitor.

There was a folder on his desk with a large bright orange Post-It attached to the front, a sign it was probably from HR and that Shishido probably wasn’t going to like it.

He’d learnt, since he’d started working here, that the colour of Post-Its was less attributable to personal choice and more to the mass-orders that tended to come from different departments. HR had a thing for orange, whereas Accounting was usually stuck with boring yellow and the marketing department somehow got rainbow-coloured pads. There was something about marketers, Shishido thought. They always thought they were exempt to all the rules.

This branch of Atobe Co. kept a small law department too, though they had a tendency not to send anything around at all and made everyone else go to them first, so Shishido had never figured out what colour their Post Its were. There was a running joke that the only time you bumped into them within the building was when they went to the bathrooms because they were always full of shit. Shishido wasn’t sure who had started that joke, but so far it had proven to be rather sadly true.

He stared at the orange Post It on his desk, wishing he could shove it in the bin. He didn’t want to deal with HR. Not today. Not now.

“Morning,” a voice said.

Shishido turned around to see Chan standing at the side of his cubicle divider.

She smiled after a moment.

“Morning,” he said, returning the greeting.

She hovered for a moment longer before turning around quickly and taking her seat.

Shishido sighed, pulled out his chair and flopped into it, lifting up one of his legs and resting his ankle on his other thigh as he leaned back and thought.

He flicked his finger lazily at the power button for his PC and glanced at the clock.

He still had another five minutes until work started so he wasn’t about to rush himself into it for the day, and he remembered he had a meeting with his department head at eleven, which would probably take a good half an hour or so.

“By the way, Shishido sin sang?”

“Yes?” he spun on his chair, feeling guilty as he lowered his arms from their position behind his head and straightened his legs.

Chan looked amused, and then serious. “Sorry about what I said yesterday.”

Shishido shook his head, knowing instantly what she meant. “Don’t worry about it.” She wasn’t the only one who thought that way, he was sure.

“No, I… I shouldn’t have said that. I probably sounded rude,” she insisted.

Shishido didn’t have anything to say in return. He couldn’t really tell her she was wrong when she was right on the mark.

“Are you doing anything at lunch today? I’m going out with two of the guys from downstairs so you’re welcome to join us if you want.”

Was that her way of making it up to him, Shishido wondered?

He didn’t have time to respond as his phone rang and he picked it up quickly.

“Shishido sin sang? Can you please hold for a moment; I’ll just put you through to Atobe,” said the voice on the other end.

Shishido scowled, tapping in his login details quickly on his PC as he waited. Looking up at the spot where Chan had been looking over the divider just a moment ago, he felt guilty. She must have sat down again because he couldn’t see her.

Atobe rarely had his secretaries call him first, but on the odd occasions he did, it peeved Shishido to no end to have to sit on hold after picking up a phone call.

There was a clack on the other end of the phone as Atobe picked it up in his office.

“Where were you yesterday, Ryou?” he asked, not sounding particularly impressed.

Shishido wasn’t impressed either.

“At work. Obviously,” he replied, shaking his head to himself as he brought up his email and glanced through the names and subjects in his inbox.

Atobe ignored his grouchiness. “How was your weekend? Entertain your maid again?”

“We played tennis,” Shishido replied, a little tersely.

He knew this conversation would have come sooner or later, but thinking of Ootori just brought back the awkwardness he’d felt last night and this morning, and he was seriously contemplating staying out for dinner tonight so he wouldn’t have to go back and eat at home. He felt bad about it, but not bad enough that he hadn’t already thought up about ten excuses for missing dinner at home tonight.

“Tennis?” Atobe questioned, sounding surprised. “And you didn’t ask me?”

Shishido snorted. “Would you have wanted to come?” He imagined Atobe smirking on the other end of the phone.

“Well, I wasn’t doing anything particularly thrilling on Sunday, though you’re right. I spent the day reading, actually, which I suspect is far more beneficial than spending the day conversing with an apron.”

Shishido sighed, wondering why he bothered with Atobe sometimes.

“At any rate, that wasn’t why I was calling,” Atobe said, suddenly changing topics; his tone becoming brisk.

“I was actually calling to ask you what you’re doing for lunch today. I have a booking at the Peninsula for one.”

Shishido pulled a face at his monitor. “If it’s a booking for one, then you don’t need to ask me what I’m doing, do you?” he said, opening up the first email of the day.

He hated trawling through his emails in the mornings; they piled up overnight somehow and going through them in the mornings was so tedious, especially when he began replying to one only to find incoming mail telling him to disregard earlier messages.

“No, I mean one o’ clock,” Atobe corrected, not sounding put off. “I’m assuming you’re not doing anything, correct?”

Shishido resisted the urge to turn Atobe down just to be contradictory.

Someone had once said to him that Atobe was one of the best negotiators in their business but Shishido had always thought of his friend as less of a walking ad for negotiation and rather one for persuasion.

Business magazines said negotiation was supposed to be a win-win situation for both parties, but as far as Shishido could see, business meetings with Atobe always seemed to be a win-win situation for him and a lose-lose situation for everyone else.

Shishido could swear it was something Atobe managed to pull off in his social life just as much as his business one.

Perhaps he ought to take Chan up on her offer instead.

“Ryou, I need an answer,” Atobe said quickly.

Shishido could hear noises in the background as well as some talking, so he assumed it was one of Atobe’s secretaries.

“Actually, I think I’m busy,” he answered, shaking his head and smirking. “But if you want, I’ll try to keep tomorrow lunch open for you.”

“Fine. I’ll call you after lunch then,” Atobe said, hanging up.

Shishido hung up his phone and leaned over the divider to Chan’s cubicle.

“Chan, I think I’ll take you up on that offer of lunch, if you don’t mind.”

She smiled. “Sure. You remember I was talking to you about Ming yesterday? He’s one of the guys we’ll be going with.”

“Ming with the blue socks,” Shishido muttered to himself.

Chan laughed a little. “Yes, though actually he’s wearing red socks today.”

Shishido cringed inwardly for the guy, unconsciously glancing down at his own feet again. He adjusted the collar of his shirt. When he sat down again and pulled up the bottoms of his trousers, he was almost relieved to find he was wearing black socks with a black suit.

Women really were scary at times.

It suddenly occurred to him that perhaps there were some good sides to having a male maid after all.

[Accidental Maid ♥ Part V [I] ~ Fanfiction]

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 13:59:36 GMT

Hi again! :D This is Part V.

As always, comments would be ♥, even just small ones. Long ones would make my day XD Feedback/concrit welcome and appreciated greatly. Also, I realise this is a slow-moving story XP If you think it's too slow, tell me in the comments :3 Honest feedback is invaluable.

♥ A huge, huge thank you to minkyleigh for reading this part even though she's so busy and for giving me a lot of feedback :D I can't begin to say how helpful she's been this past week in first reading the whole part then allowing me to poke at her (for a long time actually XDD;) and ask her questions about the story, then poke her again today with a second draft. Without her comments and suggestions, the ending scenes to this part would have come out a lot more awkwardly and there'd have been less progress on the Shishitori front. Or is that Torishishi? XD Either way, thank you Leigh! If I haven't already told you ten times, I really, really appreciate your thoughts and comments in every way. ♥

IMPORTANT NOTES:

☆。 Chan Li = surname Chan, given name Li

☆。 The Peninsula. Technically, Atobe ought to specify which restaurant, but I figure that doesn't matter since they're all equally exorbitant. XD

☆。 Also, I didn't note it before, but Shishido sin sang is like saying Shishido-san in Japanese :3

☆。 Warning for language in this part? I think there has been bad language in every part so far though. XD ~~Bad Shishido.~~

☆。 This part is split into two parts again for length reasons. Total word count for Part V is 11,068 words.

Summary: Atobe is convinced Shishido needs a little bit of femininity in his life; if not in the form of a girlfriend, then at least in the form of hired help. Shishido doesn’t believe in needing anyone else, and is less than happy about the thought of sharing his space with anyone. But when, one afternoon, an accidental maid named Ootori Choutarou knocks on Shishido’s door, Shishido finds it isn’t the worst thing to happen to him.

Accidental Maid

By Miki.

☆

Part I: Accidentally in Luck

Part II: Accidentally in Deep

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Ootori’s fingers trembled slightly as he pulled the apartment keys from his pocket. He fumbled, nearly dropping the keys as he tried to get the first one into the first door lock.

He hadn’t realised it, but he’d been gripping his racquet as tightly as he could for the duration of the last few games of the match. Even during his own service games, he’d wrapped the palm of his hand and his fingers around the old black grip of his racquet as closely as possible. The soreness of the muscles in his fingers, hand and forearm now were evidence of the fact. His upper arm ached as well because of the effort he’d been throwing into each and every serve and the force he felt every time he returned Shishido’s shots.

He could have sworn that Shishido’s returns had started out feeling equal in power to his own, but by the time they were into the last set, it felt as though anything that came off Shishido’s racquet was too heavy for him; harder and faster and more unpredictable than Ootori was used to. His volleys were hard to return; hard to catch and Ootori had felt as though the ball was knocking his racquet back every time he connected with it. The fact that his hand felt tacky now with dirt off the grip meant that he either needed to replace the grip or start getting used to his racquet again.

He fumbled the lock again.

“Here,” Shishido said, shaking his head as he reached around him and pushed in the key.

Ootori stepped aside quickly as Shishido unbolted the metal security door quickly and pushed it open. He had the wooden door open a second later, and he stepped inside, managing to get his sneakers off without even stooping to undo the laces.

Ootori retrieved his keys from the door lock and slid the security door shut. It was always a little loud; the sound of the metal tracks not really helped by the fact that the floor of the hallway outside the apartment was covered in large white marble tiles.

The potted plant outside the lift was the only living thing Ootori had seen in the building, apart from the two plants either side of the lobby doors and the ones next to the lifts downstairs. He’d had started feeling sorry for the plant, though the saddest part about it was not the fact that it was all by itself, but the fact that it always seemed to droop. Ootori supposed he might droop too, if the only light he ever saw came from sixty watt lights above him.

+

Shishido turned off the shower tap and stood still for a moment, feeling the water dripping off his body.

His scalp felt a lot cleaner now at least. The feeling of stickiness that had been all over his body was replaced by a rush of warm air, and though he suspected he’d be sticky again in ten minutes, he couldn’t have cared less.

He hadn’t expected the match with Ootori to turn out to be such a fatiguing exercise and he couldn’t quite make up his mind whether it was a good thing or not. His calves felt sore, and every muscle in both his arms was protesting the way he’d just spent two hours waving his racquet around like crazy and running after every single ball to the right, to the left, to the front and to the back of the court.

It was something of an irony that he’d meant to tire Ootori out by sending him chasing balls all over the place, but halfway through the second set, he’d realised Ootori was doing exactly the same thing in return.

He bent over, pressing his hands to his knees and feeling the tightness at the backs of his thighs and calves; the feeling of having overworked his legs.

It wasn’t such a bad feeling, although he suspected he’d be paying for it come tomorrow when he’d have to sit in his chair for nine hours straight.

Atobe would probably laugh at him if he knew how he was feeling right now. It was one in the afternoon on a Sunday though and Shishido didn’t have to see his boss for another eighteen hours at least; something of a small mercy. He dreaded the moment Atobe asked him what he’d done on the weekend, even though he knew there was nothing wrong with having spent it with Ootori again.

Well, technically there was nothing wrong with it. The thing was that you just didn’t spend your Sundays with your maid and Shishido knew that. He knew what Atobe’s face was going to look like too, when he found out.

He stood up straight, stepped out of the shower and grabbed his towel from the rack, drying himself off quickly.

Ootori was probably waiting for the shower and Shishido didn’t need to spend his only real day off in the shower, contemplating useless matters.

+

“Are you going out for the rest of the day?” Shishido enquired, studying Ootori’s face as he sipped at his coffee.

The mug was hot against his hands; not exactly what he needed right now when it was already thirty degrees outside, but he wasn’t in the mood to drink anything else and milk was the only thing in the fridge at any rate.

He’d noticed during the week that Ootori had stuck up a piece of paper on the fridge titled “shopping list”.

Shishido had raised an eyebrow at it when he’d first noticed it, but he wondered if it wasn’t such a bad idea. It reminded him a lot of his home in Japan in a way, except that Ootori’s lists generally seemed to only stay a day or two since he went to the supermarket so often. It meant there were only a few things written on each list too, meaning Shishido kept wondering if Ootori wasn’t just wasting pieces of paper like nobody’s business.

Personally, Shishido had always preferred mental lists rather to ones written on paper. He’d always lost those once he’d finished writing them and the effort of trying to remember what he’d written just wasn’t worth it. It was almost as though his brain divested itself of its mental lists once he’d written them down.

Shishido wondered if buying two objects from the supermarket every day could really keep Ootori entertained. He’d had only been here two weeks, but he probably knew the area around the apartment pretty well already. He’d have to, wouldn’t he? It wasn’t as though he did very much other than cleaning and going shopping and he seemed intelligent enough that he’d easily get bored during the day…

Shishido wondered what on earth would make Ootori apply for a job as a maid. It was the question he kept finding himself returning to, and yet he still didn’t have an answer. Ootori had been fired from Minami Co; he knew that much, but what else did he know about Ootori’s career? He didn’t even know where Ootori had gone to school or what level of degree he had. He didn’t know why Ootori had been fired nor how long he’d worked at Minami before that, or even which department he’d worked in.

“By the way, is there anything else you need, Shishido-san?” Ootori questioned.

Shishido looked up at him, having been lost in his thoughts.

“Oh… No, nothing,” he answered distractedly, frowning a little. “By the way, you know you can use the phone here to call home in case you need to,” he added, shaking his head slightly. It was just one of the things he felt he ought to address with Ootori sooner rather than later, but he kept pushing the thoughts aside in favour of burying himself in piles of work.

Ootori nodded at Shishido, then shook his head, causing Shishido to frown a little at his indecision. It had always been something which had annoyed him, though he’d admit he hadn’t always been good at making choices on the spot either.

“I don’t need to call home at the moment. If I do, I’ll let you know,” Ootori informed him.

He looked odd all of a sudden, Shishido thought. He suspected Ootori might have called home more than once already, but he wouldn’t know until the next phone bill arrived.

He really didn’t know what Ootori did during the day, did he?

There were no security cameras on this floor level but for the one facing the lift doors, and it wasn’t as though he had time to be tracking how much time Ootori spent out of the apartment as opposed to in it.

He felt a little uneasy thinking of what Ootori could be doing while he wasn’t around, yet it wasn’t the first time he’d entertained thoughts of unscrupulous behaviour. Once again, he found himself cursing Atobe for the stupid idea that had started everything off.

Then a thought occurred in his head and he hesitated, biting his lip to stop himself from speaking.

He wasn’t entirely unable to keep tabs on Ootori, and it wasn’t as though he couldn’t assign daily agendas to make sure Ootori kept busy. If he really wanted to keep tabs on Ootori throughout the day, there was the option of text messaging, since Ootori now had a phone, or else there was the option of calling the home phone during his lunch hour.

Shishido glanced at Ootori’s back, watching him reach out for the dishwashing liquid as he washed his mug.

He needed something easy; something that didn’t make it seem as though he was watching over Ootori, but something which was practical and easily accessible. Something that wouldn’t seem completely at odds with Ootori being in the apartment by himself all the time.

Shishido’s phone buzzed on the table next to him. The beep came a moment later; always a few seconds after the vibration, though Shishido had never quite figured out why he had kept such a seemingly dysfunctional phone.

Then it clicked in his head.

His old laptop sat in one of his desk drawers; something he’d meant to get rid of when he’d bought his latest laptop a few months ago. He’d meant to keep the old one for a week or two so he could transfer all his files from one machine to the other more easily, but then a week had turned into two, and two had turned into a month and by the time he’d realised he really only needed a few of his files anyway, it seemed silly bothering to take the stupid thing anywhere to sell.

Technology aged just as fast in Hong Kong as it did in Japan. Prices sank quickly, helped by cheap imports from China and the ever present search for the next big thing in electronics. Most people didn’t bother considering second-hand goods when new things were just as cheap as old things and came with warrantees attached that would most likely never be needed anyway. Or at least, that was Shishido’s excuse.

His old laptop hadn’t actually been broken. Technically, he hadn’t needed to replace it at all. He’d just wanted a new one; wanted the fingerprint recognition technology since it had seemed fun when he’d tried it out in the shop, wanted something just a little faster and with a slightly bigger screen than what he already had. He’d wanted it slimmer and lighter and he’d told himself that it didn’t really hurt when he’d already had his old one for more than a year and a half already.

He tried to remember if he’d ended up wiping everything clean from his old laptop. If he lent it to Ootori, he didn’t exactly need him finding any old files or worksheets he might have left on it, but it would give him the option of making sure Ootori was working throughout the day and most importantly, it was cost efficient, time efficient and since he wouldn’t be making calls on the company line nor having to step out of the office to use his mobile, Atobe would never know.

That, and he’d lend his laptop to Ootori with the excuse that it would allow him to keep up with things back in Tokyo more easily. He could use email and messaging services, and Shishido could just conveniently check in with him during the day.

At any rate, Shishido had actually ended up reading through Ootori’s contract a few nights before, and phone expenses were not his problem anyway – they did fall under his jurisdiction if Ootori chose to use the home phone, but they were made at Ootori’s cost – so he’d have to remember to point that out to Ootori when the next phone bill arrived.

He wondered if that was particularly stingy or if all employers here did it. There was something about having control over another person that made him feel both fascinated by it and incredibly conscious of his own behaviour in front of Ootori.

Perhaps that was half the reason he still hadn’t quite gotten used to Ootori being around him. He felt too responsible all of a sudden, all of the time, in his own apartment no less.

Did Ootori feel equally odd being around him?

Shishido looked up to ask him if there was anything else he needed, but the kitchen was empty. He got up quickly, brushing down his pants as he did so, and poked his head around into the lounge room.

Ootori’s bedroom door was shut.

Leaning against the wall, Shishido stared at it for a moment.

Ootori was an adult, not a child, so if he preferred to spend his spare time in his room, that was fine. Shishido didn’t feel the need to point out he wasn’t so unkind as to tell Ootori to stay out of sight on his day off.

Shishido knew though that thinking was one thing and doing was entirely another.

He walked back to the kitchen table, sitting down again to finish his coffee.

In the back of his mind, he realised he was actually just a little glad Ootori wasn’t in here with him. Since Ootori had arrived, Shishido couldn’t step into any room of the house without feeling as though objects had been moved about or things had been touched. Even the way Ootori had put his clean laundry into his cupboard this past week had bothered him and he’d taken everything out, tossed it onto the bed and then refolded it.

The fact that Ootori had washed his underwear and folded it, placing it back in the right spot in Shishido’s drawer was the thing that bothered him the most though. He couldn’t help but think of Ootori’s hands touching it – dirty or clean, it didn’t matter. It had been years since his mother had done his laundry and though he’d had a few women stay at his apartment since he’d lived here, they never really went into the other rooms of the house. To have someone else’s presence throughout the house was unnerving.

Shishido finished his coffee in silence, trying not to think about the hands touching his underwear; trying not to think about the hands touching every surface in his apartment, cleaning the floor, touching the shelves, dusting the books, making the bed.

Since Ootori had arrived, Shishido’s personal space hadn’t just decreased by half.

It didn’t feel as though he had any personal space left at all, and though he wouldn’t say it aloud, he was glad that Ootori didn’t emerge from his room until after five, and even then, it was only to tell Shishido he was taking a walk and wouldn’t be back for another hour.

After Ootori went out of the apartment, Shishido turned on his TV, flicking to the security channel. He watched Ootori in the lift and watched him walk out of the lobby; off the field of vision of the last security camera of the building.

Then he flicked off the TV, feeling relieved and irked at the same time, and walked to his bedroom, leaving the door wide open.

The sheets on his bed smelt vaguely of lavender laundry detergent.

+

“Ootori?” Shishido asked.

He was trying to keep the irritation from his voice, but he wondered if he’d already failed. The look Ootori gave him was a wary one, though he didn’t flinch or move away.

“Yes, Shishido-san?”

“Have you moved my tie?”

Ootori shook his head automatically.

It was a stupid question. Stupid firstly because there was no question that Shishido’s tie had been moved and stupid secondly because he knew he hadn’t been the one to move it, which could only mean it had been Ootori.

Shishido had a habit of leaving his ties draped over the handles to his wardrobe after he’d worn them, and he knew he’d worn the blue tie he wanted on Thursday. Logically, it could only be somewhere in the apartment and yet he couldn’t find it anywhere.

He pursed his lips a little as Ootori continued to give him a blank look.

“Did you wash it?” he questioned.

Ootori shook his head quickly. “No, I didn’t wash it… Which tie are you talking about?”

Shishido bit the inside of his cheek. Ootori shouldn’t answer questions before he was even sure what he was talking about.

“Nevermind. I have to go to work; I’m late,” he frowned, flipping his collar up and walking back into his bedroom quickly. Through his window he could already see the woman opposite was going out her door and the young boy a few apartments down was already at the piano by the window. The traffic in the streets below was already moving almost bumper to bumper; heading into Central, towards Wan Chai along the main roads.

He was late and he’d only had half his coffee. The only tie he could find that vaguely matched his shirt was a light blue and as he went out the door, he avoided looking Ootori in the face, too annoyed at him to trust himself not to say something rude.

At times like these, the training days he’d undergone as a new employee at Atobe Co. came back to him. He imagined the employee workshops he’d had to take in appreciating diversity and dealing with conflict in the workplace, and he remembered thinking he’d wanted to tell Atobe and HR to shove it where the sun didn’t shine because anyone with half a grain of common sense already knew everything they’d been taught.

It was times like these too, that he felt stupidity was an aspect of diversity he’d never be able to appreciate. It was why he liked to be alone in his free time, he reminded himself. Ootori better have found his other tie by the time he got home. That one had been his favourite.

+

The MTR was even more crowded than usual. Shishido guessed it was probably because he was running ten minutes later than usual since there were a lot more school children than he normally saw, and there was a lot more bumping and accidental elbowing.

He grunted as a woman beside him lost her footing as the train took off from a station. She bumped into his side and her briefcase banged his calf, reminding him why he normally didn’t mind sacrificing a bit of sleep to get an earlier train.

She did apologise quickly though, so he felt obliged to give her a quick smile, even if it probably looked forced and not meant at all.

His tie felt a little tight, so he loosened it, noticing as he glanced downwards that his knot actually seemed lopsided.

+

“Chan,” Michael informed him, giving him a bit of an odd look over his coffee.

Shishido leaned back against the counter of the kitchen and tried to look as though he was just checking. It was a bit pathetic after so long to not have noted his coworkers’ names. Michael’s was one of the few he remembered, and that was only because he was a foreigner, much like Shishido. It was hard to confuse his name with anyone else’s when he was the only guy with blond hair – though technically it was starting to grey – and green eyes on the entire floor.

“Her name’s Chan Li,” he repeated.

Shishido glanced out the window. The kitchen for this floor and the one above was in a bit of an awkward spot at the side of the building so it simply faced the building next to it. The sun came in at an awkward angle but for the most part, the fluorescent lights and the heavy tinting on the windows kept the room bright and cool throughout the day.

The two microwaves in the kitchen were on shelves above each other, rather than on the counter. Shishido had a sneaking suspicion that Atobe had had even the kitchens here designed to his taste, even if he spent ninety percent of his time on the top floor of the company and never ate at the office anyway. Who put microwaves on shelves?

He opened the bottom microwave door and pulled out his lunch.

Ootori had asked him again the night before if he wanted a boxed lunch.

He didn’t.

He wanted Ootori to stop asking.

+

“You okay?” Chan asked, rolling her chair back a little so she could see Shishido properly.

“Ah, yeah,” he responded quickly, awkwardly.

He hadn’t expected her to talk to him since they didn’t normally, and he wondered if Michael had said something to her about their conversation in the kitchen at lunch.

He hoped he hadn’t. He felt stupid enough already and it wasn’t as though he could check anyone else’s names. They didn’t wear nametags here since they didn’t deal directly with many clients face to face and when they did, it was usually on one of the floors below in one of the meeting rooms. Giving a handshake and a name wasn’t really appropriate when he ought to have memorised peoples’ names a long time ago.

“Um… You’re finished for the day already?” he questioned, glancing at the clock over Chan’s shoulder. It was after six already and the office was starting to empty. It seemed odd for Chan to still be here at this time since she usually seemed like she had everything under control and was in and out perfectly on schedule.

She gave a slight smile. “Not yet. I have a little more to do on one of the accounts. Marketing just faxed some things up and you know they’ll be wanting them back tomorrow morning.”

Shishido snorted and gave a wry grin, feeling a bit stupid. “Yeah, they’re like that, aren’t they?”

Chan nodded, her smile widening. “The other day Ming asked me,” she paused, considering. “You know who Ming is, right? He’s the one with the grey suits and the blue socks in sales. I think he’s responsible for B to B sales in our region.”

Shishido vaguely recalled a guy downstairs who had grey suits, though he couldn’t say he’d ever taken note of the socks. He nodded, encouraging Chan to continue, casting half a glance at his own socks to see if they even matched his suit today.

He couldn’t see them from the angle he was sitting at in his chair so he hoped Chan couldn’t see them either.

Women were good at noticing those sorts of details, he reflected, half wondering if she’d ever gossipped about him to other people before. He’d probably be “that unsociable guy in accounting; the one with the wrinkles on his forehead, you know?”.

“The other day we were discussing one of his clients’ accounts, you know… They’ve been lagging on payments lately…”

Her voice was a little more accented when she spoke English than some of the other people in the department. He’d never quite noticed it before, but with the softness to her voice, it made it hard to catch the ends of every word. He tried to listen though, realising she’d moved on from talking about Ming to talking about someone he’d never heard of before.

“I guess he’ll go in the next quarter,” she mused, looking thoughtful for a moment. “It makes it a little neater, I guess, allowing more time for transitions between comings and goings.”

Shishido nodded, tuning back in properly. Apparently they were talking about people firing and being fired, hiring and being hired. He’d missed the part where they changed topics.

Chan wasn’t so bad, really.

“But then, I guess you’d probably know a lot more than I do,” she smiled, sipping at the last of her coffee. “You know the boss well, don’t you?”

Shishido froze.

“Er… yeah…” he muttered, suddenly not feeling quite so talkative anymore. “Yeah, we went to school together…” he elaborated, turning his attention back to his monitor and noticing the data he’d wanted had already finished downloading.

Apparently he wasn’t “that unsociable guy in accounting with the wrinkles on his forehead”, he was “that guy in accounting who probably only got his job because he’s friends with the boss and probably kisses his arse”.

He shook his head to himself slightly, frustrated.

He ended up nearly deleting all the data he’d been transferring over and cursed, having to madly bang his finger on the ‘undo’ button to stop from having to wait another ten minutes to copy and paste again.

+

Ootori could feel the tension at the table.

Shishido was practically oozing stress and the way he was hunched over his bowl really wasn’t making Ootori feel particularly good.

He knew what he’d do if it were his sister sitting opposite, or his father, or even Mizuki or Yuuta or Hiyoshi, but when it was his employer sitting there looking cranky as hell as he shoved rice into his mouth, Ootori didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to do.

He swallowed a mouthful of tea as he looked at Shishido’s shirt, unbuttoned and his tie pulled loose and lopsided.

He didn’t think it was a good time to mention that he hadn’t found Shishido’s tie and didn’t have a clue where it had gone.

“Are you busy at work at the moment?” he asked instead.

Shishido’s eyes met his as his hands froze in their movements.

“Not particularly,” he answered, shaking his head before putting another mouthful of rice in his mouth. “The chicken’s good.”

Ootori was thrown by Shishido’s comment, not knowing whether it was a sign he ought to try a conversation again or a sign to be quiet.

He settled for the former. “It’s simmered in soy sauce,” he explained, poking a little at his own bowl with his chopsticks. “And there’s ginger and anise in here as well.”

“Does it take long to cook something like this?”

Ootori shook his head. “About an hour? The chicken needs to be marinated first and then there’s the actual cooking time and since it’s cooked slowly, it takes a while… Perhaps an hour and a half then?”

Shishido nodded. Right now, he didn’t care whether it had taken Ootori one hour or ten to cook dinner, since he was eating it, it was edible and it filled his stomach.

Ootori didn’t sound like someone who had ever been trained to think before he spoke. In fact, he didn’t come across as being terribly on the ball at all.

It was probably too much to think Ootori had even bothered looking for his tie today, Shishido thought cynically, the frustration left in him from Chan’s words finding an outlet in the form of his maid. He stabbed at his rice, annoyed.

He couldn’t really deny he was still working for Atobe Co. simply because it was easy, because Atobe was his friend, because Atobe had offered him a job and he’d taken it. It had been too hard looking for anything else once he’d finished university. He had no drive to find a job because he had no love for accounting, and no amount of interviews and applications could have convinced anyone otherwise.

Thinking of work, he glanced across at Ootori again, staring at the way he was slow to chew his mouthful and swallow it.

It seemed as though they both weren’t in the best of moods, though Shishido suspected Ootori had probably been feeling a little more upbeat before he’d come home, rung the doorbell thrice while he was waiting for Ootori to answer the door, and then kicked off his shoes, dropped his briefcase against the wall and pulled his tie loose.

When he replayed his actions in his head, they seemed somewhat childish really, but who didn’t have their bad days at work? Not everyone was a damn maid spending time flitting around and cleaning things with a fucking feather duster.

He stuffed mouthfuls of his dinner into his mouth as he thought, feeling the muscles in his face tensing as he frowned.

Damnit.

Maybe he really would be ‘that wrinkly guy in accounting’ soon enough.

“Are you still hungry?” Ootori questioned.

“No, I’m full thank you,” Shishido answered, not even sure if he was telling the truth or not. He hadn’t really lost his appetite; he just didn’t feel like eating anymore.

He pushed his chair backwards, ignoring the fact that it scraped on the kitchen floor.

“Shishido-san?” Ootori questioned, watching him leave the room.

He tilted Shishido’s bowl so he could see its contents and he tried not to feel disappointed as he realised Shishido really hadn’t eaten much at all.

Shishido had said the dinner was good though, hadn’t he? It wasn’t as though Ootori had even asked him so it wasn’t something he’d said because he’d been pushed.

Ootori sighed.

He was falling back into habits so easily. He knew it wasn’t as though he could even begin to compare this job to his old one at Minami, but he couldn’t help it. He hated the thought that he never knew where he stood with Shishido. There were no performance criteria he could measure himself against and there weren’t even any other people he could measure himself against. He had no benchmarks or goals, his days were pretty unstructured since it wasn’t as though cleaning the same floors every day or dusting the same shelves could really be justified and yet, he couldn’t do nothing either.

Minami had told him before he’d left, that his job as a maid was to keep the home clean and tidy and give his employer peace of mind, but Ootori couldn’t help but wonder if that would have been easier done if he’d been looking after someone other than Shishido.

It wasn’t as though he disliked Shishido, no. Shishido-san was nice enough, most of the time.

It was just that… They hadn’t really clicked.

Their game of tennis on Sunday had been good – great, even – and sometimes Shishido did give him the odd look which might have been a hint of a smile, but Ootori was someone who liked pleasing people and who liked seeing smiles or sharing laughs, and the way Shishido kept to himself at home just made him feel downright awkward.

It wasn’t as though he could even escape the feeling either, as Shishido was his employer and he was the employee and it really wasn’t his place to say anything.

He stared down at his dinner, his appetite long gone.

Funny, wasn’t it? He’d spent so long testing the flavour of the meal to make sure it wasn’t too salty, too sweet, too sour… but now he didn’t care for the flavours in the slightest.

He stood up, stretching his back and then fetching some empty containers from the cupboard to pack up the rest of the meal. He’d end up having it for lunch tomorrow anyway, since he didn’t like things to go to waste and Shishido never took lunch to work with him.

Glancing through the open window, he could see the woman in the apartment opposite was also in the kitchen. Hers was a brightly lit kitchen and it always seemed busy since there were usually children going in and out in the afternoons.

Ootori assumed it was because they were her own kids, though he really couldn’t see them that well to be able to tell. It was funny, the things that he amused himself with while he worked.

It wasn’t the first time he found himself missing his family’s kitchen at home.

+

Continue on to Part II of Part V.