ルキシエム: IS THIS GUY REALLY MY BF?!

5: Taking Time

A day later, Luca should've asked the girl out by now. And you of course assumed he swooped the girl off her feet. You felt your heart heavier than before, but you accept the fact that you can't do anything about it. The real question is, did you really accept it deep down?

It felt like a dread to get up from bed for work. It felt like there were shackles tied to your ankles, your thoughts and useless motivations were weighing you down. You washed your face and looked at yourself for a moment, were you really okay? Maybe you needed a break from reality, maybe a spa day sounds nice. A distraction from the blond man.

"A spa? Sure, why not. I have a friend in a different department that can link us to a good spa. In exchange, she'll have to come with." Aia says over the phone. "Are the guys coming?" Millie asked. "Most likely not, the main reason why we're going to the spa in the first place is because it's a girls out." Reimu answers before sipping something. "We can invite others too, maybe the fish girl. She's in the same department as the girl who's linking us to the spa." Aia suggested. "Sounds good." You sigh.

"You good?" Enna asks, concerned. "Yeah, just still bummed out from what happened." You replied, your voice getting softer and softer. "It's alright. You'll move on for sure!" Aia cheers on. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are other guys that are hotter than him. Take Fulgur for example." Millie suggests. "Nah, Fulgure's with Uki. And trust me, you don't wanna mess with Uki." Enna replies.

After more conversations, you all say goodbye and drop the call. You put your phone on your nightstand, laying down as you sigh. Maybe it wasn't meant to be after all. But that's alright, there are almost 8 billion people in this world, right? You hope to find someone else better.

You ready yourself to bed, preparing for the day of work ahead of you. Having to see Luca's face again would be a challenge for you to move on but hey, this could be some kind of training for your heart to handle heartbreak... You thought it was ridiculous.

It's better off if you started to not care about Luca, you thought. Caring about the positive things he brings to you makes you equally care about the negative things that affect you. Of course you hesitated on this conclusion considering this will hurt Luca. But it's for the best, isn't it?

You tuck yourself into bed, hoping for the best in the next upcoming days.

The first working day of the week, Monday. The traffic is heavier than most days since most people have shifts on the first weekday. You sit there in your car, eating your sandwich. You were just looking at the other cars, honking their horns and cursing each other out. While you were watching the chaos unfold, you saw a pale black haired man and a blond stuck in the bus, looking bored.

It was Vox and Luca, the bus was packed with passengers and you were pretty sure that route had a lot of stops. You took your phone out to text Vox, texting him that he and Luca can hope in the car that's too their left. You could see Vox looking at your text through the bus window. He looks over to your car and Luca waves. You lower your car window and wave back. The 2 hopped off the bus, paying.

"Go in the back, I'm taking the front seat.", "But I called shotgun!", "No one does that anymore, go sit." Luca pouts as he enters the back and Vox sits at the front. "Traffic seems so much more hectic than any of the Monday's we've gone through." Vox says, buckling his seatbelt. "Probably some ratty motorcyclist got into an accident." You sigh, crumbling the sandwich wrapper to a ball. "Speaking of vehicles, why are you guys taking this route?" You turn over to the 2.

"We wanted to save gas for now, me and Vox also take the same way to work so we decided to commute together." Luca replies. "Pfft, that's incredibly unlucky." "I knoooow.." Luca buries his face in his hands as you and Vox chuckle. "Hey, I heard you and the girls were going to some resort." Vox faces you, wanting to know more.

"Yeah about that, I'm starting to feel like I don't want to go." You sigh, "Why not? Maybe you'll get into another incident again." You smack Vox as he laughed. "What incident?.." Luca asked confusingly. "Before we got into this job, we were already close friends. Our college class has hosted a hot spring spa type of party since we passed our finals." "Dear god, please no." "Basically, this idiot got a bit too much sake. Everyone was goofing around and was on the topic of hard topics during the exam. They asked our teacher which was the hardest question to answer for fun and the teacher replied. Apparently, while this dumbass was drunk," "Hey! I'm not a dumbass." "She got to answer the question effortlessly, following weeks later, she had to keep declining recruitment emails." Vox giggled as you looked over to your side window.

"Wow, I never knew you were so smart." Luca looked over to you as you avoided eye contact.

"Oh yeah, what happened to you and that girl?" You asked, curious to hear the results of your love advice. "I.. didn't ask her out yet." "What?" Luca looked down as you were taken off guard. "Yeah.. after what you said with step 5 and all, I realized I needed to know her more in order to secure my target." Luca sighs as you listen for more. "I want her to be with me already, but I have to take things slow, of course." Luca continues. "I see, well good luck with you getting to know her more." You start moving the car forward as the road finally begins to loosen up.