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
It was a sunny Saturday morning.
I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, taking care of my face. Washing my face, trimming my nose hair, shaving my beard.
And then, just as I was about to trim my slightly overgrown eyebrows with an electric razor, it happened.
“—Achoo !”
A sudden, powerful sneeze shook my body. And in that split second of vibration, my right hand made a fatal mistake, and a disturbing vibration moved across my left eye.
I cautiously opened my eyes. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I felt the blood drain from my face.
“……..It’s gone.”
A voice that couldn’t be heard escaped my lips.
My left eyebrow was gone. It had vanished completely, leaving no trace or shadow. A component that had been a natural part of my face for 28 years had been completely erased by my carelessness.
“……….Uwaaaa !”
I stood alone in the bathroom, holding my head. What am I supposed to do now? A face with only one eyebrow. The overwhelming sense of discomfort was far beyond what the word “foolish” could express.
I can’t go out like this. I can’t even go to the convenience store. It’s social death.
Am I supposed to go to work next week with this face?
[Minato san, is something bothering you?] [No, I just shaved off my eyebrow.] Just imagining that exchange made me dizzy.
In my panicked state, the face of one person suddenly came to mind. That’s right. She can do it. With her superhuman problem-solving skills, she might be able to fix this situation.
I picked up my phone with trembling fingers and called Tsukishima-san.
[Tsukishima san…help me…]
She read the message immediately and called me back.
[…Hello, Minato san? What’s wrong?]
On the other end of the line, I could hear Tsukishima san’s voice, still sounding a bit sleepy.
“T-Tsukishima san…! I-it’s a big problem…..!”
[Calm down. First, give me an accurate report of the situation. Separate speculation from fact. Did the system go down? Is there any physical damage? Or did we suffer a cyberattack?]
She sensed my urgency and instantly switched to her usual calm CTO mode.
“No, it’s not that…! My…my eyebrow…!”
[…Eyebrow? What’s wrong with your eyebrow?]
“…One side is completely gone…this is a fact…”
When I whispered that, there was a perfect silence on the other end of the phone for a few seconds. Then I thought I heard a faint sound like someone trying to suppress a laugh.
“You just laughed imagining me with one eyebrow missing, didn’t you?”
[No, I just said ‘pfft’…fufu….]
“You’ll die laughing when you see the real thing, won’t you…?”
[Well, I understand the situation. An incident has occurred. Wait there. I’ll be right over.]
She hung up the phone, her voice trembling slightly as she tried to suppress her laughter.
◆
About 30 minutes later, the intercom rang, and I opened the door, pulling my hat down over my eyes.
There stood Tsukishima san, dressed in her usual casual hoodie, with a serious expression on her face. But I didn’t miss the fact that her eyes were clearly smiling.
“…Excuse me. …So, where’s the incident site?”
I silently took off my hat and showed her where my left eyebrow used to be.
“I sneezed…and then, with the momentum…”
She stared at my face as if examining a rare bug log, then nodded in understanding.
“I see. An unexpected physical impact from a sneeze caused an operator input error. Typical human error. Complete deletion of the left eyebrow resource…this is bad. It’ll take several weeks to recover. Well, I once blew up the database of a live system too.”
“…What should I do, Tsukishima san? I can’t live in society anymore…”
As I was genuinely depressed, she said this with a slightly amused expression for some reason.
“Well, don’t worry. There’s a technique called an emergency patch for situations like this.”
Saying that, she took out a pouch from her bag. Inside were various cosmetics such as eyebrow pencils and powder.
“Oh…I just need to draw my eyebrows !”
“Yeah. That’s it. I’m pretty confident in my facial makeup skills.”
“The materials are good too.”
Tsukishima san blushed and pointed to the living room chair, saying, “Sit there !”
I sat down on the chair as instructed, and Tsukishima san stood in front of me. She bent her slender body forward and peered closely at my face.
It was close. Too close.
The distance between our faces was less than 20 centimeters. Her large eyes analyzed the “incident site” on my face with a serious gaze.
I could almost count each of her long eyelashes.
I held my breath. I was genuinely worried that the sound of my heartbeat might be too loud for her to hear.
“…Don’t move. I’m adjusting the coordinates pixel by pixel.”
Her whispering voice. Her faint breath touched my cheek. The warmth made my body stiffen. The familiar sweet and clean scent of her hair completely paralyzed my thought processes.
This is an emergency maintenance. Just a bug fix. I try to convince myself, but it’s impossible. My brain’s resources are completely exhausted just processing her proximity.
“…Tsukishima san. Are you okay?”
I can’t endure this heart-stopping silence any longer and manage to squeeze out a neutral remark.
“Well…the flow, angle, and density of the hair on the right eyebrow…I completely copied those parameters and reversed them. Then I reconstructed them on the left side. …Minato san’s eyebrows actually have a pretty nice arch. You discover new things when you look closely.”
She continued to analyze the results calmly while keeping her face close to mine. The gap between her professional tone and the uncomfortably close distance made me feel like I was suffocating.
How much time had passed since Tsukishima san picked up the pen and started “drawing”?
“…Hmm. Done.”
She suddenly pulled her face away. In that instant, I exhaled the breath I had been holding.
Tsukishima san said that with a satisfied expression and handed me a hand mirror. I cautiously peered into the mirror.
“…Eh?”
What was reflected there was my usual face. The left eyebrow that was supposed to have disappeared was perfectly recreated, as if it had always been there.
“Amazing…Tsukishima san, you’re a genius…”
When I sincerely exclaimed in admiration, she snorted proudly.
“It’s nothing. Any girl can do this.”
“That’s true…Tsukishima san is a girl, after all…”
“Huh…what’s with that creepy yet funny way of saying it…fufu…did you think I was a guy?”
“No, that’s not what I meant ! I just realized it again…”
As I hurriedly tried to cover up, Tsukishima san leaned in closer to me.
“Hmm. That’s not wrong.”
Tsukishima san smiled right in front of me. As I blushed and looked away, she started saying something unsettling: “Your profile is beautiful too, and you’d look amazing if you really put on makeup.”
“I don’t plan on putting on makeup !”
“Well, but it’ll come off, you know. What are you going to do on Monday? I could draw it for you every day until it grows back.”
“No…that’s a bit much…you know what they say, right? ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’”
“I’m not good at teaching.”
“Well, don’t say that. I can’t have you draw it for me every day. Tell me your recommended pen. I’ll go buy it.”
“If it’s for Minato san, I’d come every day…”
Tsukishima san was muttering something under her breath.
“Huh? What?”
“Oh, nothing. Let’s go buy it together. I’ll teach you ‘how to catch a fish.’”
Tsukishima san approached me again and traced the spot where my left eyebrow used to be with her finger, smiling.
Maigetsu