Can I Please Have an Understanding Client?

A café visit with Hiroyuki turned out well enough. It wasn’t the end of the world as she feared it to be. Though it also ironically didn’t answer anything either. They talked, but with the interruption and their equal failings, not a lot happened. She knew a little more about why he liked her but the more important question to be asked remained.

Did she like Hiroyuki?

It was important. And she didn’t know how to answer that or if she could. Maiko had about as much luck with love as her. The two of them could quote a dozen different shoujo and josei manga that they read, but it wasn’t a substitute for real experience. As much as she lived in fantasy land most days, she had enough awareness to know it wasn’t going to give her anything useful when facing Hiroyuki. Her inexperience or unwillingness to become involved in romance doomed her to be as blind as a teenager.

About the only thing in her favor was that she wasn’t as emotional or hormonally challenged like she was in that time.

That was a clear blind lie.

And such non-committal resolutions meant that her days mostly returned to normal.

A message popped up on her work computer one day in the afternoon. She immediately saw that it was Hiroyuki, but not what the contents of the message was. Her mind just read his name and jumped straight to questions. ‘Why is he using the office messenger to contact me? He shouldn’t be using work for personal things. Is it about the café? Does he want another date? Is he wanting something else from me? We haven’t talked outside of work. Should I have called him or texted him? Was that my responsibility? What sort of thing should I say to him? I don’t know what he likes. What do I do?’ And that was just ten seconds of her mind going into overdrive.

It took another twenty for her to actually get the courage and curiosity to look at the message. She finally remembered the flashing bar on her taskbar asking to be clicked. Noriko made certain that it took three times as long to drag the mouse over. And even a little more to just click, but she finally opened the message.

“Need help with Nakadai, he’s in another of his moods.” It was work related. She was actually stunned for a moment. It wasn’t any of the hundred fears that she had. The stress poured out of her. Though it was a little concerning still.

Noriko’s definition of normal days clearly needed some refinement.

She promptly stood up looking around the office. The message came from Hiroyuki, but that didn’t mean that was where they were. Nakadai was their direct superior. He managed everyone on the floor juggling the two projects that they worked on. Overall as a boss, he was well liked, but everyone also knew that he had a crippling flaw as well.

From what she could see, they weren’t anywhere near his desk. ‘If he’s involved it must be the same project as me. Is there a meeting happening?’ It felt like the most logical conclusion at the moment. She wasn’t invited if it had been, but she wasn’t that high up. Unless it was about her work specifically, the project lead or team lead would handle it. Who she figured Hiroyuki would have gone to about dealing with Nakadai’s troubles.

Standing around didn’t really give her any answers and he did ask for her help. She walked over to the far side of the floor getting confirmation that Hiroyuki was in a meeting. The message must have been sent from his phone. ‘I really shouldn’t be interrupting a meeting. I don’t even know what’s going on. But dealing with the boss when he gets like that is hard on anyone.’

Down the hall, she left the open floor of the cubicles to the offices and meeting rooms that made up much of the rest of the space. She found the one meeting room currently in use and paused. ‘I know he asked for me, but I could be interrupting it. Though that is why he called for me.’ Noriko finally knocked on the door, though not as clearly as she probably could have. She needed to repeat a second and third time before it was loud enough for the door to move.

Hiroyuki popped his head out in a hurry making Noriko reel back to avoid him. “Ah, you’re here! We need your help!” He opened the door and took her hand to inject her into the meeting.

Almost immediately, Noriko looked around the room a little uneasy about what she walked into. She didn’t know him to be so bold. Though perhaps with their boss it made sense.

Most of the chairs were empty, she only saw four people and she recognized three of them. One was their boss and the other two were leads. It made it seem like it would be a management meeting, but Hiroyuki wasn’t a lead, so she didn’t know why he was present. “What’s going on?” She looked back to Hiroyuki for a little help. He did request her.

“Mr. Kajitani wants us to take a month off the schedule.”

That made her eyes widen almost immediately and turn towards the table. “But we aren’t ahead of schedule. We need that time to finish. We won’t have time for bug fixing and debugging.”

“Which is what I said as well, but...” She saw that Hiroyuki cast his eyes over to their boss, Nakadai. And then it all made sense to her.

Noriko leaned close to Hiroyuki so that she could whisper. “Is Masami in today?”

“Koji’s already trying to find her.”

“So we need to stall?”

Mr. Kajitani started to look a little annoyed and looked straight to Nakadai. “You quoted me seventeen months, Mr. Nakadai. Are you saying you can’t follow through with our contract?”

Their boss sheepishly looked away rubbing a finger nervously over his cheek. “Y-yes, we can—“

‘Damn, he knows Nakadai’s weakness!’ Noriko jumped a step forward. “You’re paying for the software, sir. If it has bugs and is incomplete, you're not going to be able to use it.”

“If it’s unusable it’ll be a failure on you to deliver what you promised.”

Noriko looked over at Hiroyuki. He shook his head. She got the feeling that he had been trying the same battle since before she arrived. ‘How long are we going to have to stall?’ Crisis management wasn’t really her area. She wasn’t a manager, but she saw her boss. There wasn’t a firm bone in his body.

“If we have everyone do extra hours…perhaps we could…”

Their client started to glow seeing Nakadai finding a way. “Sir, that would be several months to take on that loss.”

“I think Mr. Nakadai has the right thinking. You have a commitment to keep.”

Noriko bit back a reply. She didn’t know what they had in writing about their contract for the project. Her only hope was that the man was twisting words to be able to suit his needs. Though she didn’t even know why they were so persistent about the moving up of the schedule. The immediate guess would be saving money, but she felt that would be the cynical side talking.

“There’s—“ She couldn’t finish her words as the door swung open. There wasn’t even a knock making the room turn to see who boldly interrupted them. Even if Noriko had already started that habit.

A beautiful mature woman stepped in that looked in her mid-twenties even despite nearly approaching her forties. Gracefully gliding in on heels and an office skirt, she made looking professional effortless, but also appealing. More than a few women found her desirable, not to mention men, if she wasn’t already married.

Noriko sighed with relief. “Mr. Kajitani, I believe the quote was seventeen months for development time. With another month to debug,” Nakadai declared, suddenly with a firm hand on the table. “I also know that I impressed upon you that we would need to be in contact with your networking staff so that we can arrange trials to test the integration into your existing systems. Old and new software don’t like playing nice. I’ve sent two requests already to your assistant for a meeting to be scheduled for it. She said it had been passed along to you for approval.”

“Well…yes, but I haven’t been able to schedule time with the leads yet. They’re currently overhauling the system.”

“It would appear there isn’t a rush for our contract to be complete. Your staff sounds burdened as it is.”

“I will speak with them when they can meet with you.”

“At your earliest convenience. We still have time.”

“Of course, thank you, Mr. Nakadai.” With this tail firmly between his legs, the client bowed and beat a retreat from the meeting.

Once the visitor left, Nakadai broke his stoic stance and jumped out of his chair. With almost ballet-like bounding flair, he rushed over to his wife. And sparkles in his eyes, he took her hand smiling. “What are you doing here, dear? It’s not dinner already is it?”

She grinned warmly back, giving him a pet on his head. “I just wanted to see how your day was going. I heard you were feeling a little stressed.”

“Stressed? Aww, dear I’m feeling wonderful every time I see you!”

With the crisis resolved, Noriko joined the rest of the room in exiting as the two lovers would only get more embarrassing before it finished. Though recalling what she had seen the married couple do before, made her feel fleshed suddenly as Hiroyuki stood outside in the hall. ‘What do I do?’