First Sight

18: A Little Space

"There we go! All fixed!" Izumi said happily, handing Shoto back his clean business suit. 

Shoto looked at the suit and noticed the coffee stain was invisible, as it was no longer there. 

"Wow, you really did get it out." Shoto said, looking at his suit. 

"Of course! It's not something I can't do! I'm used to making big stains on clothes, so I can fix them better than just a simple visit to the dry cleaners!" Izumi said, happily crossing her arms. 

Shoto looked at the greenette, she was certainly different from any woman he'd met in the past.

"You... you look familiar." Shoto said. 

Izumi jolted her head and made direct eye contact with him. 

"M-Me? Oh no! I'm sure you're only thinking that because of the eye patch! It's just a disguise!" Izumi said, removing the eye patch and shaking her hair out a bit. 

"There we go! You might be thinking that I'm Emra Flame, right? I'm actually her cousin!" she said. 

"Her... cousin?" 

"That's right! People mistake us to be sisters since we look so similar, but we're actually cousins, and she's 4 years older than me. Our personalities are a bit different too..." Izumi said, and when she looked back up at him, he just batted his eyes.

"Ack- I'm sorry! I didn't mean to go into a little monologue there! I just feel like I have to clarify when people mention how similar I look to my cousin. Heheh..." Izumi said, rubbing the back of her head. 

Shoto felt his phone buzz in his pocket and read a message that came from his Secretary. 

"Hm, I know this is short notice but..." Izumi looked at him. 

"Are you free to have lunch with me?" The greenette froze. 

"Ah- huh?" 

"You don't have to, it's just that since my meeting has been delayed to another day, I have some free time at the moment. Do you happen to have free time as well?" Shoto asked her kindly.

"I- Y-Yes! I'm free! This could make up for running into you and spilling coffee on your suit!" Izumi said, eyes beaming with joy. 

"Ah- that's good, follow me then." he said, as he turned and started walking out of the building. 

'Holy Woah, did I just get pulled into some kind of date with one of the most successful businessmen in Japan? And this is all because I spilled coffee on him! And here I thought this day was going to get worse!' Izumi thought, and followed right behind him.

'Holy Woah, this place is fancier than any place I've been to.' the greenette thought. 

"I hope this place isn't too much trouble for you." Shoto said, helping her with her chair. 

"N-No no! This is just fine! I do apologize again for running into you the way I did earlier. I was just a little frustrated is all." Izumi said, rubbing her hair again. 

"It's alright, I'm just glad you were able to help clean my suit. I just happened to not have a spare for the day, even though my meeting was delayed." Shoto said. 

'Wow, now that I look at him... he's pretty handsome... and he's so calm and collected, even when I did run into him. This kind of feels surreal for me, since no one's ever been this nice to me before- well, not in the past 5 years at least.' Izumi thought.