My jaw dropped.
It was Guy #1 from Kat’s series of photos, and no wonder he looked so awfully familiar. I finally remembered occasionally catching a glimpse of him around Associate, and usually it was when both of us happened to be browsing the latest titles Kat had added to Associate’s shelves.
“Um…” I could only watch dumbly as he folded his length into the chair on my left. This guy had his own dedicated desk, so what was he doing here—
“Schulyer?”
I jerked in my seat. What in the world was happening? I had been a member of Associate for fourteen months, and in all that time I had never been approached by a stranger here. As far as I knew, only Kat and Wyatt—
A shadow fell over me, and it was like suddenly finding myself falling into a rabbithole when I saw who it was taking the other vacant seat next to me.
While his harshly refined features made him seem like the real-life inspiration for tsundere, eyeglass-wearing bishounen of Japanese comics, it was the fact that he was Guy #4 from those photos Kat had shown that made my jaw drop for the second time. And…and…oh, no wonder this guy looked familiar as well! Whenever I failed to nab the last cup of instant cheese ramen from the pantry vendo, it was usually because this man had gotten to it first.
There had to be some mistake, I thought right away. Something like this had never happened to me before, and my misgivings grew when I belatedly noticed the way the other women in the room were all looking at me, and suffice to say, it wasn’t because they wanted to make friends.
Shit, shit, shit.
I cleared my throat. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake.” And whatever it was, I really didn’t care. Right now, all I knew was that the sooner I got the hell away from these attention magnets, the better, too.
I tried getting up, but both men automatically held on to each of my arm, and I nearly yelped in surprise. My discomfort must’ve shown as the two swiftly apologized and pulled their hands back.
“Don’t go,” Guy #1 coaxed.
“I’m sorry if we took you by surprise,” Guy #4 said gently.
“I really think there’s been some mistake—” I stopped speaking when I saw the two men rising on their feet, and I panicked. “Wait.”
Both men stilled.
“I’ll sit,” I told them quickly and did so right away. Since female members outnumbered men 3:1 in Associate, one of the most important rules among my sex was not to do anything that could be considered as “monopolizing” the men’s attention. And with how tall and good-looking these two were, I might as well have painted a target on my back if all three of us had remained standing.
So whatever this weird encounter was about—
Oh.
Too late, I realized that both men had been watching me the entire time and felt myself turn red. “S-Sorry,” I stammered. “Were you saying something?”
Guy #1 only smiled. “We were simply admiring the view.”
Oh. Right. I nodded in relief. “I like how the renovation turned out, too—” My voice trailed off when the men suddenly started coughing in an ill-disguised attempt to hide their laughter. “What’s so funny?”
“Err…nothing.” Guy #4 cleared his throat. “So…have you been on Tinder for long?”
Tinder?
“I’m betting hers is a new account,” Guy #1 commented.
New account?
“True,” the other man murmured. “We’d have seen her before this otherwise.”
My confused gaze flicked from one guy to another as the two men moved their chairs backwards as they started talking to each other.
“Clay, right?” Guy #4 went on to ask.
“And you’re Kazuya, if I’m not mistaken.”
“How long have you been doing Tinder?”
“About three years now,” Kazuya admitted with a grimace. “It was the only way to get my mother off my back about marriage.”
“You can say that again.” Clay’s tone was pained and disgusted at the same time. “I’ve got someone like that in my life as well, a grandfather who keeps threatening to die if I don’t present him with a bride soon.”
“May the best man win then.”
“May the best man win.”
Both men’s gazes suddenly turned towards me, and I echoed without thinking, “May the best man…” I stopped speaking. Wait. Things were starting to click and add up, and I could feel my head starting to reel. “Wait.” This time, I spoke the word out loud, my voice dazed and confused.
“Are you alright?” Kazuya’s tone was concerned.
“I…”
“You look a little pale,” Clay observed with a frown.
“Um…” I cleared my throat. “This is going to sound stupid…” Not to mention insane and impossible. “But can I just ask…” Gaaaaaah. “Did you two see my photo on Tinder?”
Thirty seconds later, and I was walking as fast as my legs would permit, hell-bent on looking for a certain Greek heiress who thought it would be fun for some reason to create an account for me on Tinder.