Relationships in the Workplace

Memories The Day After

Mano wakes up with the sun as he blinks his eyes a couple of times. He stretched a little but noticed his movement was slightly restricted. "Hm?" he noticed Ari sleeping next to him peacefully. It brought a smile to his face and a warmth to him seeing how she slept. He tries to distance himself from her so that he can start his day when... something is wrapped around his waist. "What?" He lifts the blanket to see that at some point in the night, Ari has locked her legs around Mano. He was stunned with his eyes wide open but that soon became a glare, "You sneaky little..." He hears a giggle and snaps his attention to her seeing one eye quickly close. "YOU'RE AW-" he cuts himself off as he finds it too early in the morning to shout. "You're awake?! Really?!" he exclaims in a moderate volume. She opens her eyes and sticks her tongue out at him.

He didn't have the energy for this so he just stuffed his face into his pillow groaning loudly. Her eyes grew wide, as if in shock, and blinked several times before saying, "The car isn't even in the garage yet Mano." It took Mano a moment to process that, once it processed he yelled into his pillow even louder to where it did not sound muffled anymore. Ari laughs so much she is in tears, "I should stay overnight more often!" He unearths his face, stares at her, pokes her cheek, and says, "Let me go." She stops laughing as if she had an off switch, gives him a blank stare, and says, "No." He yanks the blanket off cause he wants to get moving when he asks, "Why not?" Still with the same blank face, she says, "I haven't had my fun with you yet." Mano sits up, like a stepped-on shovel, forcing her legs to loosen their hold on him, and stares out the window and says, "OKAY! I'M GONE!"

Quickly there was movement that Mano didn't expect, so there was no reaction from him until it was too late. Mano was now flat on his back looking up at Ari, now straddling him, as her white button-down shirt was showing a little too much due to a button or two undone. He blushed looking away from there, Ari noticed looking down at her loaner shirt and fixed it, but not before she smiled loving how respectful he could be no matter how many times she teased him. He was expecting her to be pervy, but she was quiet. He looks back up at her with a questioning look  on his face, "Um?" Ari now having his attention spoke, "I'm making you breakfast. And I don't want to hear you argue with me. Go do whatever you were planning on doing but I'm cooking this morning."

His heart may have skipped a beat or sped up, but he couldn't tell as he was too focused on the moment he was in. "S-sure... but did you really have to get me in this position?" She smirked, sneaked a quick kiss on his cheek, and said, "It's the best way to get your attention." After she said that she hops off of him and leaves going down to his kitchen.  "Don't you mean the easy way?!" Mano calls after her and she responds with, "Yeah! That too!" Mano stayed in the same position looking up at the ceiling trying to process what had just happened. "Cold shower... cold shower it is...", he sits up chanting in a whisper "Cold Shower...Cold Shower... Cold shower..." as he walks into his shower room to do just that.

Mano has a towel around his neck, a sleeveless tank top with Lucario from Pokemon on it, and Riolu-themed shorts. She already prepared some scrambled eggs, coffee, and toasted bread. "That's quite the spread you got going on here" yet he noticed she was still cooking. "I'm not done yet Mano," she says quickly as she focuses on some sausages. He's surprised that she's cooking this much as he takes a seat at the table, "I can see why you didn't want me to argue. You're doing a lot here." She just nods and soon after lifts the saucepan, "Voila!" She brings the sausages over and has them drop on a plate in the middle of the table.

Time passed by and Ari finished eating before Mano did, so she took this opportunity to ask, "Do you remember when we first met?" Mano drinks half his cup of orange juice before responding, "Yeah, you were a shy mess." She scoffed playfully, "Of course I was! I was transferred into a building full of people I, at best, spoke to in emails or brief phone calls or even at the yearly company parties!" Mano takes a paper towel and cleans around his mouth, "And here I thought that there was no way we'd ever be a couple..." he begins to reminisce on their past.

Over A Year Ago

"Crew, the reason why we have you come in almost an hour earlier than usual for our meeting is that we have some new faces joining us today, after we're done we can have breakfast on the company" a well-dressed businesswoman in her mid to late thirties speaks up as she walks around the office. Everyone else is sitting down in office chairs watching their higher-up speak, "We'll go around and have everyone introduce themselves." One by one the new people started introducing themselves until it was Ari's turn, "Nice to finally meet the faces behind the voices and emails that I've been working with all this time. My name is Ari, Ari Letti." Everyone chimes in welcoming her as Ari smiles at everyone sitting back down.

After the new people were done it was now the long-time team member's turn to introduce themselves. Everyone took their fair share of introducing themselves up until it was Mano's turn, "Heyo! Welcome one welcome all to the team! Sorry newbies if you can't keep up with me. It's a blast to have new faces! It livens things up." Mayve pokes his shoulder with a grin, "Some of them are not newbies Mano. They're just new here in this team." Mano rolls his eyes and says, "Can't I generalize? Sheesh." There were a couple of laughs within the team before it continued to Mayve who was next.

"Don't mind Mano too much. He's literally the life of the party here. It's always a scary day when he's been quiet or he doesn't form a conversation. I'm Mayve Mancuso you'll usually find me as Mano's cubicle neighbor or having coffee in the breakroom" she speaks proudly of her habits. The introductions continued until they were all done and began with breakfast. Mano looked around for Ari and found her, in the break room, eating food away from the groups of people who were all chatting between the breakroom and main office area. "Hey!" He walks over to her and looks down at her. Ari looks up with a gentle smile and a soft, "Hello." He looks back at the crowds of people and then back at her, "You're not mingling with the others. Social anxiety or something?" 

She looks up at him sorta surprised but nods, "Something like that. I'll warm up to them eventually since we'll all be working together now." He shrugs, "You seem cool, so you always have a spot to hang out with me and Mayve by our cubicles if you want." He bends over so that she can hear his whisper, "Just don't become like Mayve, please... Why have enemies when I have her around." That sparked a light laugh out of her as she gave him a wider smile. "See! I knew I'd be able to get you out of your shell!" he grins proudly with his hands on his hips victoriously. She laughs a bit more and says, "Are you always this lively?" He gives her almost a manic expression, "Oh you haven't seen anything yet." She broke out laughing realizing how animated he was. Her laughter was loud, but it brought him a nice warmth, so he smiled brightly as he let her let it all out of her system.

Back to the present day

"Dork..." Ari gets up out of her seat, walks over to him, and sits down next to him. "You know that phrase about the way to a man's heart is through his stomach? Well to mine is laughter and Mano... Whenever you made me laugh back then and even still now I forget all the troubles of my life. I can confidently say that no one has accomplished that, but you." Mano felt pride hearing that from her, "Well most men's paths to their heart may be food, but for me it's character and you're the main one in my book." She grew quiet as she processed that, then her eyes slowly grew wider and wider as if trying to hold something back then, "PFFFFFFT BAHAHAHAHAH!" she bursts out laughing so hard it fills the house. "Was that supposed to be your corny romantic line or something?!" When she looked over at him he was laughing too and he said, "The opportunity came up okay?! I had to take it!" She punched his shoulder but she didn't have the strength to make it hurt as she laughed too much, "You dork!"