Going To Work

I moved to Tokyo from Hokkaido when I got into a decent college here and after graduation I found a job and just went along with it. Despite my ease at which I went through high school and college I never really had any big ambitions and hence some people called out my missed potential, but since I never felt like I had to prove anything, it didn't bother me much.

My parents still live there together with my younger sister, who was a senior in high school by then. I didn't really have any contact with my friends from college anymore and the friends I still had back home I maybe saw once or twice a year. But I didn't mind any of that. I had my own place and there were enough things that kept me busy. In college I was what some might call a party animal and I would never pass on an opportunity to drink, but these days I was quite content to just be at home and listen to music in my downtime. This was one of the reasons I didn't mind not having contact with my friend from college anymore, because if I saw them, it would end up in drinking heavily without a doubt. Not that I minded having a drink every now and then, but the excess they represented didn't sit right with me anymore. Seemingly I was turning into a grandpa at 25 years of age.

One thing that brought some excitement into my life was my way to work. Because that's when I passed the flower shop where the girl I like works. In the morning the shop is still closed, but the thought of her still made me smile when I passed by the location.

In the afternoon when I was on my way home, the shop was open and on most days she was working there. I was so enamoured with her that on most days I couldn't stop myself from looking at her for minutes at a time whilst she was working. I knew how creepy this probably looked, but when I saw her all semblance of logic and manners left my brain and I could only see the cute girl I had a crush on. She never seemed to notice it, so most of the times I only stopped staring when someone bumped into me because I was standing in middle of the sidewalk. I never went into the shop, because frankly, I was way too scared to ever talk to her, so my wish of being in a relationship with her or even knowing her name or anything other than how she looked and where she worked weren't progressing very smoothly. 

But that was the afternoon, for now I still had work to content with and when I arrived there I was greeted by Suzuki Aoto who was the only person at work I would call a friend and one of the very few people I would call a friend at all these days. I got along with pretty much everyone at work, but with most people I kept contact to the necessary minimum if possible."Did you watch the game last night?" he opened with a frustrated impression."Of course I did.""They suck so much.""Of course they do, what did you expect?"

Our mutual interest in Baseball was what made us friends to begin with and we even went to see some games in the stadium from time to time. I had fond memories if watching baseball with my family as a kid, so for me it held a very special place in my heart. I also tried my hand at it in High School when I joined the baseball club. It quickly turned out I wasn't any good at it and I ended up quitting pretty soon. I ended up joining the dance club, which made me the butt of quite a few jokes amongst my friends, but I was the one who got to dance with the pretty girls, so it was well worth it as far as I was concerned.

We kept badmouthing the team we loved for a couple more minutes until it was time for work. Although we both worked in the accounting department, he felt much more like he belonged there, as he was a very by the numbers person and knew and insane amount of statistics about baseball, whilst I approached the game more on a by feels basis, which made us clash sometimes, but at the end of the day the desire to talk trash about our own team always brought us back together. Aoto was also quite an avid baseball player himself, despite his cliched accountant look, including glasses and slim build. The couple times I went to watch him play at his amateur games, I was quite impressed.

Work itself luckily was quite relaxed for the day and I was able to keep a low profile and not get involved in any office rumours, which was something that happened quite often to my dismay. Sometimes I myself was the topic of said rumours, but most of the time I just caught some stray fire by being talked to by someone who heard something from someone about someone else and wanted to tell me about it. But as I said, luckily today everyone that came to my desk actually had something work related to ask me and everywhere I went it was the same. But that probably only was the calm before the storm. 

After work Aoto invited me to a bar with some other colleagues of ours and even though I was in the mood to go with them, embarrassingly enough I had memorized the days the flower girl was working and as today was one of those days I didn't want to miss my chance to see her and so I made a quick excuse and left work alone. When I arrived at the flower shop and spotted the flower girl I couldn't help but look at her again, it was like I was put under a spell that didn't allow me to look anywhere else. This time I was only shaken awake by my phone making a beeping noise and informing me that a coupon at the super market I was frequently visiting was about to expire. I hurried to get home.