Fishing the Prey

"Kyōko, are you good with romance stuff?" I asked.

Her eyebrows raised.

"Ah…, maybe? I've never had a boyfriend, but I always supported my friends with their relationships."

"Seriously? But you're really good-looking."

"Aw, thank you! But yes, I'm serious. No romantic relationships at all."

"Because you don't want to or because…?"

"I just never confessed to my crushes, and no one has confessed to me."

Still unable to believe it, I asked.

"Not even a one-night stand? There must've been guys that just wanted to…"

Processing the next word made me realize I had been raising my voice over such an inappropriate topic for an office, so I shut up. Luckily, it seemed like no one cared.

"Nope, not even those," answered Kyōko.

"…Alright. Still, it'd be nice to hear your opinion."

"Count me in," she smiled.

"Thank you. And we'll discuss your romantic life too while we're at it."

Her eyes opened wide, then she laughed nervously.

"Sure."

My eyes went back to my main monitor to resume coding. I had been given a few more tasks after working on the climbing feature for the first time, like adding stamina and swimming mechanics. Now, my task was to create a fishing feature, while Kyōko was working on the combat system, which included magic and physical weapons.

Although it all made sense for an RPG, the problem was that we were never given enough instructions or details about the mechanics, and it was up to us to figure out how to tie everything together. That should've been the gameplay designers' job, if there was one. In general, I still didn't have any idea what the game was about.

At least, making the fishing feature wasn't a huge deal. Many games had done it before, so I just copied them and added a little twist, which was adding a rhythm challenge to catch the fish by pressing the specified buttons at the right time.

Incorporating the models, the animations, the user interface, and the audio were the only things left, but none of it was ready. We didn't even have audio designers. So, I just used textureless cubes and downloaded funny songs to act as placeholders.

I fixed bugs in the meantime. Then, Kyōko and I planned to merge the updates we had made to the project after lunch.

"Are you ready?" asked Kyōko.

It's already twelve? Wow.

"Yes, let's go," I replied.

As soon as we stood up, Ms. Katō approached us.

"Good afternoon," she greeted.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Katō."

"Good afternoon."

Both Kyōko and I replied.

"Minami, would you mind joining me for lunch?" asked Ms. Katō.

I answered, "Actually, Kyōko and I were heading to a café. Why don't you join us?"

"I wouldn't mind, but… there's something important I want to discuss."

"Oh."

"You can go if you need to," smiled Kyōko. "I'll join the rest of the team."

"No, it's okay. You can still come with us," I replied.

Ms. Katō stared at me, expressionless.

"Is there a problem if I join, Ms. Katō?" asked Kyōko.

She smiled, "No, there isn't."

"Let's get going, then," I said.

We arrived at the café and sat at a table for four people since there were no tables for three people only. Not even ten seconds had passed when a tall and slim waiter approached us.

"Welcome. May I take your order?"

"Yes, please," replied Ms. Katō. "I'll order an espresso."

"A croissant and a caffé latte," I added.

"Just a cappuccino, please," smiled Kyōko.

Unlike when taking Ms. Katō's and my orders, the waiter looked away from the notepad he was writing on to glance at Kyōko, then he looked back at the notepad and smiled.

"An espresso, a croissant, a caffé latte, and a cappuccino. Is that correct?"

The three of us glanced at each other and nodded.

"Alright. I'll bring your order in no time."

As soon as the waiter walked away, I couldn't help but stare at Kyōko.

"What?" she asked.

I replied, "What do you mean 'what'? Isn't he hot?"

"I mean, yeah, but what about it?"

"He smiled when he saw you."

"Doesn't he have to smile at all the customers?"

"It's one thing to smile politely at customers, but the way he looked at you and smiled was different. You need to ask for his number."

"Huh? I need to?" fretted Kyōko.

"Yes," I replied. "Anyway. Ms. Katō, what did you want to tell me?"

"Let's wait for Nishida to arrive. He shouldn't take much longer."

"Nishida? You invited Jun?!"

"I did. Is there… a problem?"

The bell of the door rang, announcing Jun's arrival at the café. Our eyes immediately met, but I didn't snap my head away this time. He approached and nodded at us as he sat down. He then bowed.

"I'm sorry, Rie. My jokes were out of place yesterday. I promise it's not going to happen again and that I'm going to change that dumb habit of mine."

My eyes opened wide as my brain tried to process the situation. I hadn't seen him this genuinely sorry before, and I also had gone too far. More importantly, he had never promised something to me before.

The three of them stared at me, so I replied.

"That's good to hear. I'm also sorry for assuming you were trying to guilt-trip me."

"Don't worry, I understand where you were coming from. I think we just got caught up in the heat of the moment."

"We definitely did."

We both smiled at each other.

"Sorry for that," Jun apologized to Ms. Katō and Kyōko. "It was necessary to get that out of the way before anything else."

"No problem," replied Ms. Katō. "I wanted to tell both of you that…."

She glanced at Kyōko before talking again.

"Are you sure about…?"

I completed the question. "About Kyōko knowing about it? I don't think there'll be a problem, as long as Jun and you are okay with it."

"I don't mind," replied Jun. "Nice to meet you, by the way."

Kyōko smiled, "Nice to meet you too."

Ms. Katō let out a deep breath.

"Alright. I scheduled the appointment to know more about our body-swapping problem."

Kyōko's eyes opened wide.

"The body-what?"

"Body-swapping," replied Jun. "Have you heard about the CTCT disease?"

"I have, but is it actually real?"

"It is, unfortunately," I answered.

Ms. Katō added, "Long story short, Minami and I swapped bodies, but she can also swap bodies with Nishida."

Kyōko's jaw dropped.

"Are you serious? Does that mean that the three of you can swap bodies with each other?"

I answered, "We are not sure, and we don't want to try it. We read about it and we didn't find anything about three people swapping bodies. That's the main reason Jun and I agreed for Ms. Katō to schedule the recommended appointment for it."

"I see. It's hard to believe something like this is real, but I don't see why you would deceive me like that. I… don't know what else to say," she laughed nervously.

"You don't have to say anything, it's already enough that you believe us," replied Ms. Katō. "Also, I think it's time for us to drop the formalities after going through something like this together. Call me Sachiko."

Jun smiled, "I agree. You can call me Jun."

"Rie," I added.

Sachiko looked at Kyōko.

"We're also including you, Kyōko. If that's okay with you."

"Of course!" she grinned.

The chat deviated from the body-swapping topic after that, but we continued to talk about other stuff. We did so even after the same waiter from before brought our food since there still was time left for lunch. Kyōko barely glanced at him.

However, the waiter returned after a while.

"Do you need something?" he asked.

Sachiko answered, "The bill, please."

"Right away."

He grabbed all of the plates on our table and walked away.

"Don't forget what you have to do," I said to Kyōko.

She glanced at me and stared down at the table until the waiter returned. He used a calculator and wrote on a bigger notepad than before at the same time. Meanwhile, I stared at Kyōko, waiting for her to take the step, but her eyes wouldn't stop moving around.

Finally, the waiter ripped the page off the notepad and gave it to Sachiko.

"Here it is. Thank you for choosing us, we hope to see you again."

Kyōko opened her mouth as the waiter turned around, but she didn't say anything. I wasn't having any of it, so I tapped the waiter's arm to stop him.

"Excuse me, my friend would like to get your number."

His eyes opened wide.

"Seriously?" he stammered.

"Seriously."

Kyōko squealed, "Rie, what are you…?!"

She snapped her head away and covered her burning face with her hands as soon as her gaze crossed the waiter's.

He didn't hesitate to take out the small notepad from the pocket of his apron and write on it. He tore the page off, but Kyōko was sitting on the other side of the table, too distressed to do anything.

"I'll take that," said Jun as he grabbed the page.

The waiter walked away with flushed cheeks and the widest of smiles.

"He's gone," continued Jun.

Kyōko slapped my arm.

"Why did you do that?!"

"Because you wouldn't do it," I answered.

"What if he's just looking for sex? What if he's a psycho?"

Sachiko replied, "Though he didn't seem like the kind of person to do that, you're right, there's always the risk, but you can't live secluded all your life."

Kyōko's face color gradually returned to normal.

"Yeah, you're right. Thank you, and I'm sorry for overreacting."

"It's okay," I smiled. "We should go back to the office."

Everyone agreed with me, so we stood up and walked out of the café. Kyōko, Sachiko, and I said goodbye to Jun since he wasn't going to start working until the next day. Unsurprisingly, the next day arrived in the blink of an eye.

Mr. Yoshihiko, the twin CEO with the green tie, received Jun at the entrance. After talking for a little, they approached Kyōko and me, sitting at our desks in the Programming team's area.

"Watanabe, Minami, please welcome Nishida, your new coworker," said Mr. Yoshihiko.

Kyōko smiled, "Welcome."

"We're well acquainted already," I added.

"That'll make things easier, then," replied Mr. Yoshihiko. "Please help him choose a computer and adapt to the workflow."

"Will do."

As soon as he walked away, Jun asked.

"What desk should I take?"

Kyōko answered, "Whichever you…. Shit!"

"Whichever I shit?"

"Jun," I scowled.

"Sorry."

"I wasn't told to prepare a PC for you, and I forgot about it," Kyōko worried.

"Don't worry, I'm a patient man."

Kyōko scrambled through some of her belongings on her desk.

"Aha! I still have the USB I used for Rie's PC."

"You must have things to do, so let me do it."

Jun extended his open hand in front of Kyōko.

"No, no, I'll take care of it," she replied and stood up. "Just tell me what desk you want."

"Alright."

He turned around to inspect the four empty desks. There was no reason for him to observe them that long.

Finally, he pointed at the desk behind me.

"This one."

"Okie," smiled Kyōko.

She pulled her chair and placed it next to Jun, who sat on his. Kyōko connected the USB to one of the front ports before turning the PC on. She smashed the key to enter the BIOS and selected the USB as the boot device.

The rest of the process was the usual waiting for the OS to install. In the meantime, Kyōko and Jun chatted about computers, then about the company, then about their hobbies, and then about their lives. They included me with some questions, but they were mostly talking to each other.

I tried to focus on my job, but I couldn't stop peeking at them in the reflection of one of my monitors. They kept smiling at each other and laughing, tightening my chest more and more. It had been a long time since I had felt like this. The last thing I wanted was to be jealous of them.

They kept going for another forty minutes until GameFactory—the game engine—opened on Jun's PC. Kyōko explained the most basic features to him and recommended he read and watch the tutorials while getting used to the project structure.

Kyōko finally pulled her chair back to her desk. I glanced at her as she sat down, but I snapped my head away as soon as I realized it. It didn't seem like she saw me, luckily.

Even after an hour I still was struggling to focus on my job.

Why do I feel like this? Stop!

Then, a notification appeared on the corner of the screen. It was from Mr. Yutaka.

"Please gather in the meeting room within the next ten minutes."