As It Is, If It Were

Two / Tokai Teio

Teio sometimes wished she was weaker in the morning, because then she would have an excuse to sleep in a little longer. However, on a quick second thought, she knew that the excuse would not fly, and she was definitely not weak in the morning.

Old habits die hard, and her habit of a morning jog stayed very much alive to the very present, far after she retired from the turf. She would wake a few minutes before the sun was up, start her rice cooker, don her jersey, adorned her right ear, put on her shoes, and make rounds for fifteen minutes around her neighborhood. She would spend the time greeting her neighbors as she passed by, sometimes stopping by to grab some snacks or drinks as well (if the seller lady by the park had opened stand), so she never used her earbuds during jogging. She would rest for five minutes tops in the park, feeling her legs and making sure everything was okay, and finally make her way back home.

Her route home from the park was closer than to the park, so she always arrived faster than she left, clocking her jog at around half an hour a day. After that, it was only a matter of cleaning up, dressing up, and eating her breakfast with the rice she cooked before she jogged. She was aware that she wasn't the most punctual—not that she was lax or anything, but it wasn't like she always looked where the clock hands were pointing either—but generally speaking, she always ended up with more than enough time to make for the train commute to work.

She had stayed in the same rented apartment since her college days. She did consider moving away, but something always stopped her in the end of the fleeting thought. Sometimes it's her closeness with her current neighbors. Sometimes it's her realization of her current routine. Sometimes it's that her old friends from Team Spica would occasionally drop by for no reason but to talk, and telling them that she moved would be too much of a hassle. Sometimes it's that McQueen crashed there for the night, sometimes drinking, sometimes just talking, more often than she'd like to talk about. Most of the times it's just Teio's own sheer laziness, though.

Again, it's not that she's lax, but it would be a lie to say she lived light enough to move her things quickly.

Maybe it's just about the chance, she'd thought to herself. If the chance to move ever actually comes up, I'd probably move. Maybe. Who knows?
Not her, that's for sure.

*

Teio had thought that, all things considered, from the way she presented herself to the way everyone thought of her, she would get placed in Sales. Maybe become part of the sales force, or help negotiate things. Okay, maybe not negotiate things, someone fluent like McQueen would be much better for that. But Rudolf had always praised Teio on how quickly she made friends, on how easily she smiled, on how effortlessly she influenced people with her sincerity. And if Teio listens to anyone, that would be Rudolf.

So, yeah. Sales force. Sales department. Or maybe HR. Teio thought she would generally end up in places where she would have to connect with a lot of people, and that was exactly what she wanted as well—she liked being around people. She needed it, and she sold as much in interviews.

What she did not expect, however, was for her to end up with the Marketing team. Heck, Teio could probably handle Marketing if she was the errand girl who had to go here and there to contact third parties or conduct market surveys and stuff, but nope. The team actually wanted her on the administrative end of things. As it turned out, everyone on Marketing wanted to go out and be with people, so no one wanted to do the actual job of, well, being the Marketing team. The team director had to make the hard decision of dividing the team with random lottery, and even take himself into the equation as well. Until the team's hidden talents came up, or until they showed promise on one thing or the other, they were to stick to their assigned roles and flexibly back each other up if anyone was lacking. The team considered role transfer an easy thing because it might help adjust the members to their proper roles, so helping each other was pretty much encouraged. The higher ups didn't take it very kindly, though, because the department looked like it went rogue with no discernible structure. The director couldn't care less.

Today was Teio's lucky day—the team had to present to a partner company, and the assistant girl who was supposed to go had called in sick. No stacks of paper today! Hurray!

… was what she thought, until she saw the presentation deck herself and realized that half the things there were the very things on the papers she just sorted out. On one hand, it should be easy, because she knew it all off the top of her head. On the other hand, well, it's hard for her, because she knew it all off the top of her head. Mainly because the memories were associated with the stacks of paper, a lot of energy drinks, and an entire week's worth of overtime. She did not appreciate the memories, thank you very much.

So into hell she went, and present the deck she did. It was nothing like presenting topics at school, or in the team. Teio thought she was used to scrutinizing eyes from her days out in the turf, but the intimidation of seeing older men and women staring at her as she tried to make sure to not say the wrong thing—with the lives of just about everyone in her company at stake—was something else entirely. Thankfully, she was not alone. It was a team presentation, after all, and Teio's job there was mainly to be the assistant and sounding friendly and confident when she had to speak. If nothing else, she was the nice pretty doll, and her partner was the presenter.

She had no complaints about the arrangement. Maybe she would, in the future, when she's older and better, but not now.

It wasn't until she was going to leave the company that the surprise really came—in the form of a very short call.

"Teio?"

She looked around, and found herself in the presence of an attractive young woman with the fluffiest reddish chestnut hair she'd ever seen. Her adornment was on her right ear, and it was red with green streaks. Teio's eyes widened. "Nice Nei-chan?"

"It's Nice Nature!" the girl snapped. They stared at each other for a moment, but then let out a laugh.

"It's been so long!" Teio exclaimed as she hugged Nature. "How many years has it been?"

"Seven since we graduated, four since our last reunion," Nature said.

"You were keeping count?"

"Not that I intended to," Nature blushed at the remark. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, it's, uh," Teio showed her arm to her teammate, "a presentation."

Nature raised her eyebrows. "Where do you work now?"

Teio pointed to her company's building, standing tall and clear amongst the others in the block. Nature's eyes widened.

"So we've been this close all this time?" she exclaimed. Then her watch beeped once. "Oh gosh—oh, has your contact address changed?"

"Nope, same as always."

"I'll catch up to you later then," Nature said. "It's really nice to see you again, Teio. It really is!"

"It"s nice to see you again too, Nei-chan!"

"It's Nature!"

Teio simply laughed it off as she left. That was an unexpected reunion, but it gave her a much-needed cheer-up. Maybe she should tell McQueen all about it after the day's work was done.