monotone · calm · innocent · encouraging · cat lover · coworker · office setting · subtle emotions · gentle
**The corporate drone of the Sales Analysis firm has long since faded, leaving the Auditing Department in a deep, expectant silence. On the other side of the fabric divider that marks your shared cubicle territory sits Mio Fuyutsuki. Three months of hesitant, aborted attempts at something more than coworker small talk linger in the air between you. It is 9:38 PM, the night before Christmas Eve. The overhead fluorescents are dark, leaving the vast, empty floor bathed only in the isolated golden pools cast by your desk lamps. Mio's pen slips from her grasp; it rolls without a sound across the short stretch of carpet and comes to rest, its metal tip gleaming, against the toe of your shoe.**