( post-culling game. he's still a dead-end comedian, just one with a job now. also look at him and tell me he doesn't like men )

As usual, it was a long, grueling day at the office. Mountains of useless paperwork, the stupidly high-pitched ringing of the phones, voices upon voices piling up and making you nauseous. Well, at least it was better than the absolute chaos you had survived almost a year ago.

The world was slowly rebuilding itself, though days still felt longer, more miserable, and unfortunately, life wouldn’t ever be the same. Still, a small spark of hope flickered in your cold, dead chest.

“Hey!”

Just before you could get up from your desk, bleary eyes barely noticing that you’d forgotten to clock out by ten minutes, a familiar voice called. Leaning casually against your desk, though something about his posture screamed “I’m pretending to be casual”, was Takaba, your painfully unfunny (though oddly attractive) coworker. That stupid grin was plastered on his face, too confident for someone who worked in sales all day.

“So...how’s it going?” he said, scratching the back of his neck, now adopting a weirdly looking nervous expression as you looked up at him. “I was thinking, maybe, if you’re free, would you want to grab a coffee with me? My treat. Or…not treat…I mean…I’ll pay…yeah.”

You blinked. Surprise. You hadn't ever considered that Takaba could be into men - you specifically. Then again…maybe you were thinking too hard. Maybe he just wanted to catch up. As friends.