Chapter Text
New Year's break was over too soon and everyone was filtering back into the offices from the holidays. It was really more of a staggered arrival across the first few weeks as vacation usage varied per person. As one of the first people back in though, Fubuki was instantly greeted by his boss who was already on a phone call while standing in the building lobby.
“Fubuki, happy new year!” Kidou waved at him in greeting, then went right back to his phone call. “Right, as I said, we are pretty interested in discussing this potential design—.” Fubuki silently waved back in greeting, leaving Kidou to juggle the two phones in his hands while trying to put away a third one. He was already used to responding halfheartedly to the fleeting greetings caught in the crosshairs of Kidou’s phone calls. The man was a legend with the mute button and the ability to appear in up to three places at once. Absently patting down his bed head as he got in the elevator, Fubuki zoned out and thought about how many new emails might be in his inbox. He’d settled on the nice round number of a hundred when the elevator stopped short of his floor for a new arrival. His first impression of his supposed coworker was interrupted by him sneezing heartily while backing up in the elevator and trying to get out of the hit radius of whatever wildly floral perfume had just entered, too.
“Would you like a tissue?” A surprising deep voice, but not someone from his department, at least.
Fubuki blinked away a few tears to see the face of someone that belonged on a fashion magazine cover looking at him with utmost concern. Long golden hair, striking red eyes, and strangely enough, close enough for Fubuki to see they had long gold eyelashes, too. That was enough to startle him into yet another round of sneezing. He felt a tissue get stuffed into his hand and he began cleaning his snotty face up with it as the elevator continued moving upwards. It took a few floors before he could lower his hand and start absorbing in the awkward silence in the elevator. For once, he wished they had elevator music to fill up the space.
“Feeling better?” The speaker glanced at Fubuki again, then back at the coffee in his hand. “That’s the only tissue I have, sorry. Wish they gave more with coffees.” Fubuki was still trying to figure out something polite to say back when the elevator pinged to a stop and slid open its doors.
“This is my floor, I’ll see you around again sometime!” His impromptu elevator mate sailed out the doors and waved back at him, heels clicking on the linoleum floors as he waltzed off into a part of the building Fubuki had never even ventured into before. Sniffling slightly, Fubuki wondered how they’d ever even cross paths again, considering he rarely left his corner of the office.
He doesn’t even know my name, no way he can find me in a company as large as this. At least I won’t embarrass myself again like that, Fubuki thought as he exited on his floor and headed towards the nearest restroom. Once he’d cleaned himself up, he’d give his inbox a go and intended to get it down to zero by the end of this week just to see if it was doable.
—-------
“Fubuki.”
“Huh?!” Fubuki jumped slightly as he looked up over his cubicle wall to where he’d heard his name come from. The only person he saw was Kidou, who was standing on the side while texting on two phones, but at least he wasn’t on a phone call yet so Fubuki could follow up on whatever this was about.
“Kidou, did you call for me?” It was uncharacteristic of his boss to come find him directly, causing Fubuki to feel slightly on edge already.
“Yeah, did you see Aki’s email?” Kidou put both his phones away and looked over Fubuki’s shoulder at his inbox, which still showed a nice ‘91’ at the upper corner.
“Uh…”
“I’m guessing not yet, no worries. Been a busy morning getting back in, right?” He pulled out a phone and sent the call to voicemail, then reached over and firmly grasped Fubuki’s shoulder in a decidedly fraternal move. This only caused Fubuki to panic even more internally as anything that made Kidou ignore a phone call for him was decidedly not good news.
“It’s alright, that email doesn’t explain very much, since I’m the one that’s supposed to do the explaining.” Kidou switched to some quick shoulder pats, then leaned on Fubuki’s cubicle entrance. “Congratulations, you’ve been assigned as our representative engineer on the traveling team for this year. You’re to report to me about starting it up, which we’re going to shortcut since I’m right here and telling you all this anyways. Other than that you can go talk to Aki, she deals with all these interoffice things and is supposed to set you up with getting started and your new work schedule. That make sense?”
Fubuki stared at Kidou, having felt his jaw slightly loosen upon hearing all this.
“Um, no. What do you mean I’m assigned? What about my projects and deliverables? And what is this position about and how have I not heard of anyone else in our team doing it?” The questions came tumbling out faster than he could stop them, his near-panic now turning into full panic upon seeing project timelines flash across his eyes as this news had been delivered.
“Okay, no worries, let's get through things one at a time. So you’ll have lower performance requirements and slightly different ones now that you’re assigned to this interoffice team. I think I’m supposed to talk about that with you but I’ll just forward you the documents and you can read it yourself, it’ll make more sense that way. You’re assigned means you’re assigned. And it’s a new position and Kazemaru has been doing it the past year, but he sits across the office and has often been out on these sales trips so you haven’t had much of a chance to see him. Does that answer all your questions?” Kidou silenced another phone call, tapping his fingers slightly on the cubicle wall as he waited for Fubuki to finish processing everything. This was an important moment in his direct report’s career after all, and he didn’t want Fubuki to question more past these next few minutes.
“I…guess,” Fubuki had reached the acceptance stage of the five stages of grief remarkably quickly, deciding to just go with the flow as fighting Kidou wasn’t something he was up for. “I’ll…go talk to Aki.”
“Yeah, or just send her an internal message, she’s scary fast. Almost like she’s always on the computer.” Kidou grinned and gave Fubuki a conspiratorial nod. “Anyways, I have to go hop on a call real quick but let me know if you need any other help with this.” Without waiting for a response, he trotted off in the opposite direction of his own office, his voice already ringing through the halls as he followed up on the half-dozen phone calls he’d missed. Fubuki stared at his receding supervisor for a while longer, before sinking down at his desk and placing his head in his hands for what he figured wouldn’t be the last time today.
—
After taking some time to go through all the other “quick” meetings this new position entailed, the day was already over and Fubuki even had paperwork to deal with during his commute home. Kidou had sent over the documents in a surprisingly timely manner after their impromptu meeting, which meant that figuring out his new position was an immediate priority now for Fubuki. Squinting at his phone screen, he enlarged the document preview from his email and scanned it briefly while experiencing the human equivalent of being a sardine in a can, except his can was the subway train. He’d strategically positioned himself near the middle of the car against some seats, so he was able to have both hands free which came in handy as he almost dropped his phone when his eyes caught on some choice information.
Work travel?!
Fubuki had barely made a round trip of Japan in his life, and now he was about to be traveling?! He clenched his jaw to keep it from dropping as he continued absorbing all the accompanying information. Not only would he be delegated within Japan, that was a high chance he’d be going abroad, too. He’d specifically picked this position and company because it very rarely forced relocations to branch offices, but he hadn’t thought temporary relocations of a couple days at a time would be a thing that could happen.
I can barely talk to people!! What’s worse, the team was of two: him and one other person from the Sales Division. Not knowing how he would be any sort of asset to Sales, he felt himself wilt slightly as the pressure from everyone crowding around him started feeling very real. Feeling a blind panic begin closing in, Fubuki was barely aware of getting himself off at the right stop and making his way back home to his apartment somehow. Stumbling in through the front door, he sank down at the entryway and put his head in his hands again.
A traveling engineer, who’s ever even heard of that…?!