Conquering the Great King

𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 28

Daichi and Suga had gone ahead to procure a table. When Iwaizumi walked in Suga gave a small wave and a bright smile to beckon him over.

"Where's Oikawa?" he asked as Iwaizumi sat down heavily across from them.

"He said he would be a little late because he was running a bunch of errands."

"Aah," Suga cooed. Then he cut himself off to tip his head at Iwaizumi. "Is something wrong?"

Iwaizumi was glaring down at the menu. He blinked up to Suga's face, and while he had fully planned to say "No, nothing at all", the sheer amount of attention that Suga was paying him made him close his mouth wordlessly. Finally he leaned back in his seat and sighed, "Irihata-san kept me back in the office to speak with me, as you noticed."

Daichi and Suga nodded.

Iwaizumi ran his hand through his hair, fingers twitching and wishing for a cigarette. "He's giving me a new client, well, we're forced to take on a new client because she blew up at our sister publishing house."

"Oh?" Daichi asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"She's way behind and I'm going to have to kill myself and my editing team to get it all done."

Suga frowned deep, "That's rough."

Iwaizumi squinted, eyes not latching onto anything specific, "And Irihata-san made note of my... slower work output?"

Iwaizumi almost could have mustered a laugh at the way Suga and Daichi identically furrowed their brows.

"It has me feeling like shit," Iwaizumi finished frankly.

"That doesn't even make sense," Daichi said, leaning forward, "We haven't been behind or cutting it too close on any project of late..."

"I don't know," Iwaizumi said, "I do feel like I've been there less. Doing less. You know," Iwaizumi said, flicking his wrist in frustration, "actually being happy and shit."

Daichi shook his head, "Shouldn't matter. As a company and a department you've been doing extremely well recently. Whatever he said was out of line."

"In his defense," Iwaizumi said, holding out his hand, "he said that my previous pace was 'terrifying'. He just also said that I needed to regain that pace and stop giving myself slack."

"Nope," Daichi said with a curt shake of his head, "still unacceptable."

Iwaizumi shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe Irihata-san got used to seeing me sleep in the office."

Suga scoffed, "As if Irihata-san was in the office enough to see that."

Iwaizumi felt himself smile.

"Listen, Iwaizumi-san," Daichi said, voice level and trying its best to be reassuring, "Don't let it get to you. He's strange with motivation. Maybe he  just thought it would help bring out... whatever game is above your A-game."

"Sure," Iwaizumi said with a nod, "My pride aside, I'm going to have to live in the office for the next month and I'm not looking forward to that either."

I knew this would happen.

Suga blinked like he was hit with a sudden realization. He cringed at Daichi, "You think our sister company is going to take care of marketing for that author or... are we..."

Daichi's eyes grew wide.

"I'll ask their Sales Manager tomorrow," Iwaizumi said.

Daichi waved him off, "Don't worry about it, we'll deal with that."