The Beautiful Kuudere Woman Who Always Reads Books While Standing Next to Me at the Laundromat Turns Out to Be the Vice President of One of Our Clients
A serious incident occurred on Minato san’s sofa at his home. The log of that incident remained in my mind as a warning.
Since I caused physical damage, it is my duty to compensate him. If the other party were someone else, it would be a crime of property damage. But the problem is what to buy. Choosing a sofa for Minato was an extremely difficult task.
“…Haa.”
I was sitting in the break room, holding a cup of black coffee from the vending machine, and unconsciously sighing. Minato san’s 1DK apartment. I just couldn’t figure out the optimal solution for the sofa to place there.
“Tsukishima san, great work ! You look like you’re troubled for some reason. What’s wrong?”
A high-energy voice came from behind me. It was Tanaka san.
“Oh, nothing…just a little something. Just thinking.” “
“Hmm. Oh, right, Tsukishima san ! We’re thinking of introducing the latest office chairs as part of our employee benefits, but we’re having trouble deciding on a manufacturer. You’re knowledgeable about gadgets, aren’t you? Do you know of any good furniture manufacturers?”
“Furniture…..actually, I’m the one who wants to know. By the way, how much does a sofa for a single, high-income man in his thirties living alone usually cost?”
“Eh…..? H-huh……well, that’s a very specific question, where would I find that information….? By the way, why are you suddenly asking about sofas?”
“Well, I need to compensate someone for a sofa.”
“C-xompensate !? What do you mean !? Did you break something !?”
Tanaka san exclaimed in surprise.
“…Well, I didn’t physically destroy it, but…I threw up on it.”
“What were you doing…”
“Well, I’m definitely the one most at fault here. I misjudged my drinking capacity and completely ignored my body’s warning signs. It was entirely my human error. But the second most at fault is definitely that taxi driver. His driving was really reckless.”
“Huh… There are drivers like that in this day and age?”
“Hmm. Well, there was a reason. Apparently, he was shocked because the girl he liked rejected him.”
“Ah……I can kind of understand how he feels…..it makes it hard to focus on work, right?”
Tanaka san looked off into the distance, showing empathy. Does love really have such a significant impact on human performance?
At that moment, a familiar J-POP song suddenly started playing from Tanaka san’s bag.
“Whoa ! Sorry ! It’s an alarm. The silent mode was off !”
Tanaka hurriedly took out his smartphone and stopped the music.
“What song was that?”
“Eh? It’s Ayu, Ayu.”
He was rejected by the girl he liked, and he liked Ayu… No, surely such a coincidence couldn’t happen.
◆
The night before we went to buy the sofa, on Friday. I was feeling a little more nervous than usual as I watched the washing machine spin.
What should I wear? What kind of restaurant should I take her to for lunch? Will she enjoy herself?
As I repeated these questions in my head, I heard the sound of the automatic door opening.
It was Tsukishima san.
But today, she looked a little different than usual. The laundry bag she was holding was unusually large. Tsukishima san waved at me and hurriedly headed toward the washing machine.
“Tsukishima san, good evening. You have a lot of laundry today, don’t you?”
When I said that, she turned around, her shoulders shaking noticeably. Then, averting her gaze, she spoke quickly.
“Ah, no, it’s nothing ! I just brought these clothes that I’m considering wearing tomorrow, but they were wrinkled in the back of the closet, so I brought them just in case ! That’s all ! Absolutely nothing else !”
Her excuse, which exposed all the circumstances and the state of the room, made me laugh involuntarily.
“…I see.”
After I replied with just that one word, understanding everything, Tsukishima san turned red and muttered, “Ugh…” before turning back toward the washing machine.
Watching her back, I felt an overwhelming sense of tenderness. The genius CTO who silences everyone at work was here in the middle of the night, washing clothes because she was worried about what to wear for tomorrow’s date.
After finishing the laundry, Tsukishima san sat down next to me, looking a little awkward.
“…A first date is kind of like launching a product, isn’t it?”
Tsukishima suddenly said that.
“Eh? Launching?”
“Yeah. You prepare everything beforehand, get yourself in the best possible condition, and then release it to the market, right? But you don’t know how the user…I mean, the other person will react until you actually try it. It’s nerve-wracking, isn’t it?”
“…That’s true. It’s like the ultimate user test, I guess.”
“The success criteria for the test is….to make the other person think, ‘I want to see them again,’ right?”
“I guess so.”
“Then…maybe the test wasn’t necessary after all?”
She said that and stared intently at her washing machine spinning. Since the incident with the sofa, there had been an awkwardness or strange distance between us, and neither of us delved any deeper into it.
Soon, both of our washing machines finished their cycles. There were no other customers in the store.
After drying, as she took out the warm laundry next to me, Tsukishima san suddenly looked at me with a determined expression.
“…Hey, Minato san.
“Huh? What?”
“No one else is here, so would you mind helping me with a test?”
“Eh? A test…?”
“An A/B test. It’s a method used when there are several candidates for website design or UI, to choose the one that users prefer.”
Tsukishima san hesitantly took a piece of clothing out of a large laundry bag. It wasn’t the casual T-shirt she usually wore, but a beautiful lavender-colored blouse with a slightly feminine design.
“…So, this is Option A. What do you think? Is it intuitive? Or is it a bit confusing?”
She held the blouse up to her body. The vibrant pink hair and the soft lavender color complemented each other beautifully. It was a side of Tsukishima san I had never seen before, and the suddenness of it left my thoughts completely frozen.
“Um, well, no…I mean…I think it’s really nice. The color palette is harmonious, and the overall…well, the silhouette is very effective, I guess…”
At my incoherent comment, Tsukishima san furrowed her brows slightly.
“….A simpler opinion would be fine. Like, ‘It suits you’ or ‘It doesn’t suit you.’”
“It suits you ! I think it suits you very well !”
When I blurted that out, she nodded slightly, looking satisfied. Then she took out a simple black dress.
“How about this one? Option B. This one has a different architecture from the previous one. It’s a more monolithic design philosophy.”
Tsukishima san, holding the black dress up to her body, had a different kind of mysterious and fragile charm compared to before. I couldn’t speak. I was just mesmerized by her appearance.
“…Minato san? What’s wrong? You’re frozen.”
“Ah, no…..this one looks good too. Both are really good. Both look really…..good. So, um…I’m in trouble.”
“…You are? Why?”
“Ah…no…well…both are so good that I can’t choose…”
“Haha…an A/B test with a sample size of 1 has no statistical meaning. Just choose the one you like.”
“Then…the black dress.”
Tsukishima san nodded once, then stopped mid-motion and smiled slyly.
“I’m looking forward to seeing what you wear tomorrow.”
“Is there a possibility it might be different?”
“Well, it depends on the random number.”
“You’re deciding by random number !?”
“The sample size is 1, so.. I wonder what to do…”
Tsukishima san was pretending that she would definitely wear the black dress. She was smiling so broadly that it was obvious, carefully folding the black dress.
Maigetsu