11028491 Take em down boss

The meeting comes to an end, sounds of people getting off their chairs fill the room as they begin doing handshakes and forced business laughter ensues. You're one of them' fancy executives too, more specifically, "chief executive of international affairs", though only in title. The real reason you got such a mouthful of a job title is so that the company can look more inclusive to the eyes of the media. Your only real job is to shake hands and occasionally answer small talks in broken English that some old fart will try to pull.

The meeting was about a new sponsorship for Aqua. Somehow, she got another. You didn't really watch her, or most of the talents for that matter, but you did know that she got a lot more attention than the others. Along with her, very common faces in the executive meeting room are Fubuki and some tiny shark girl that you can't quite remember the name of.

The sponsorship was some brand of onion, or something along those lines, you don't pay much attention to the briefing documents they give you since you never really have to talk at all, and you can't help but wonder what the hell were they thinking with this choice? Maybe if you had read the documents it would make more sense but at this point it didn't really matter. There's an old man speaking Japanese in front of you. Smile and shake hands, then move along. They are all talking to the girl, center of attention, Aqua. She seems very shy, staring down into the ground with a forced smile, and on the verge of tears. Twirling the cord of her jacket with her finger and giving off very small answers like "arigatou". God, the poor girl is being forced to shake their hands, and you guess you gotta do it too. Maybe some nice words or a joke to reassure her and take off some pressure will be nice.

You approach her, standing behind the line of old men saying their praises and leaving the room shortly after, straight to the company bar you assume. Eventually, your turn arrived. She looks up at you and shys away with a visible gasp and starts blushing. Guess your foreigner look isn't really a common sight to her. She really is terrible at hiding her emotions.

"Hey, Aqua. Congrats on the sponsorship." you speak out with a genuine smile, seeing this girl so shy somehow warmed your cold heart.

"And uh… hope you know how to cook some onions, I bet you'll be getting a lot of them in the future, hahaha." You bleat out in a joking tone, brushing the back of your head with one hand.

"God, the laugh was too forced. What does she think? " You think to yourself.

Aqua looks up to you with a confused albeit still shy look. Welp, you must've fucked it up. Best get it done and over with, you put your hand in front of you for the handshake, ready to leave. The girl stares at it for a few seconds, you can see her hand twitching, like she wants to shake it but is in doubt if she should do it and it's already been too long so it's getting awkward. Eventually, after a long silence of 6 seconds that felt like way longer, she raises her hand to you with a smug face. Just as the two of you were about to shake, she pulled it back quickly above her head.

"Haha, sike. Gotcha!" She announced in an unusually high spirited voice.

You stare at her in silence, wondering if you should laugh or not. Shit, you waited too long, now it would be awkward to laugh but you can't stay silent… Luckily, Aqua starts speaking again.

"I-if you wanna take my hand… -a-a-at least buy me dinner first!" She forces out another laugh, her smug smile is trembling a lot and tears start forming in her eyes.

What the hell do you even say to this? Is she flirting with you or just making a joke? You're pretty sure you can't flirt back with the old men staring down your throat so you just stay silent, your look of confusion seems like disgust to her. Aqua finally lowers her hand, completely defeated and you simply walk away. You're pretty sure she is about to cry so you get the hell out of the room ASAP. As you leave, you think to yourself "what is wrong with that girl?".