Chapter Text
Rain washed away all the worries. Ajax learned this from the young age. He could get into any fights, any life problems. However, the second he could feel the drops of water on his clothes or see them out the window of his office it was all over.
For them, not for him. In his head he was already in his white space. Ajax found it awfully comforting and private experience. Not even his closest friends knew about it. It was something he could call his own. Something in the depth of his heart that meant to him more than words could say. The sacred feeling of warmth that he called his own.
Today their office got a new worker. She was a short, blonde with big golden eyes. Ajax thought she was rather beautiful. However, her beauty didn’t compromise the feeling of uneasiness. Ajax hated any changes in his life. For some reason it felt like this golden eyed lady may bring some kind of trouble into his.
New workers were always a trouble after all. They didn’t know whose mug belonged to who. They constantly misplaced the papers (was it that hard to read the labels of the folders?). Ajax was a perfectionist by nature. His demeanour always leaned towards it. From the young age he tied his shoe laces strictly that only two fingers fit in each one of the loops. He’d never put any sauce on the right side of the plate (imagine reaching with your left hand and a fork across the whole plate to get some sauce?!).
His mother, a tough Snezhnayan woman now in her early 50s always told him that with his attitude he’ll never get friends. And to Ajax’s dismay she was right. The soft child was forced to toughen up due to his mother’s and father’s constant abuse and pressure.
No one could handle Ajax’s behaviour, his constant “rituals” and such. The “rituals” which got worse with every year. What was even worse for Ajax’s family is at the age of 16 he got diagnosed with OCD. After a yearly visit to the psychologist Ajax’s accidentally mentioned his usual rituals when waking up, when cooking, when eating, when brushing teeth.
Anything that was proactive or had any sort of meaning had some sort of ritual to it. He explained the complicated way the books are arranged on his shelf, how he changes his tooth brush exactly every 3 months at 9pm, how the toothbrushes always consist of the colours of the rainbow all in order. How the intrusive thoughts of failing the rituals kept him up at night sometimes multiple days in a row.
The psychologist’s brows kept lifting higher and higher. Ajax didn’t see a problem in his behaviour. But after getting scolded by his parents after the session for “making stuff up and seeking for attention” he never mentioned the behaviours again. Kept lying how they reduced and bothered him less and less.
How Ajax could form healthy friendships and most of his friends didn’t notice his behaviour. The psychologist said that he is one of the most improved clients. If only he knew. Ajax was out of the weekly visit with in 6 months, the rituals tripled. The psychologist’s office was a constant night mare.
The walls were dyed the shade of pastel white, Ajax hated it. Everything in his room was a shade of baby blue, if anything went any dimmer he’d immediately recolour it. Ajax couldn’t fidget his fingers every 5 minutes, it always felt like the office will burn on fire. And all of it would be his fault.
But he lived through it, once his sessions were finished he could come back to his normal behaviours. The lack of friends caused Ajax to always sit on the back row, he always sat to the right window, as it felt the safest. He always checked if the window was locked properly before sitting down at his desk. Most of the time it was, but checking it three times before sitting down was a must.
And now he was looking at this new co-worker trying his hardest to hide his disgust. What if she didn’t follow his office rituals, what if she also found him weird and annoying but wouldn’t say anything because she was being too nice or worst of all… a spy.
Ajax always had a feeling he was being spied on. He always sat in the corner of his office room, his back facing the baby blue walls (yes he even dyed his office in baby blue).
For the first few days of Lumine’s (the name of his new colleague) work in the firm he watched on her almost everywhere. She didn’t seem like a bad person. Lumine was being polite to her colleagues she seemed to quickly get a grasp on where the folders are and how to place the items in there (maybe mainly because every time she had to put away a document Ajax was watching her like a hawk, it was hard not to notice him).
He even had a few conversations with her, she was on the shy side. She rarely looked him into the eyes and her voice was rather monotone. Probably because of the pressure he put onto her with his constant arrangements, but Ajax was too self-centred to see that.
In a few weeks Lumine grew a bit braver. She started looking him into his eyes, her voice became less monotone, and the worst thing of it all is that it didn’t frustrate Ajax. Most of the other new shy workers couldn’t last more then a month. Ajax’s way of living was almost impossible to comprehend for anyone who disagreed with it.
Lumine was different, not severely but different. For the first few weeks it did seem like she was suffering and it was hard for her, but it felt like her attitude changed as well. Ajax understood that she wasn’t scared of him like others were. Lumine mostly tried to get onto his soft side. Did Ajax even have a soft side?
Ajax didn’t remember much of his childhood. It was all mostly a blur due to his constant fights with his mother and lack of friends. He mostly sat in his room reading books, they were mostly all nonfictions life stories, most people in those books lived alone. Even though Ajax denied it all his childhood he felt alone.
That feeling was eventually severely supressed the older he grew. He knew he had to adapt alone, no one in this cruel world will be there to help him. The older he got the more fights he had with his family, in the morning of his 18th birthday he left the house.
He found a part time job a year earlier and now could afford to finally live alone. He rented a room in the back of the town area, about a one-hour bus drive to University he was satisfied with the arrangements. The lady who owned the house was a bit suspicious at first about an 18-year-old boy moving out.
But eventually he became one of her favourite householders. He was always on time with rent, never any noise complaints and best of all he never invited anyone over. She was even a bit worried. Ajax’s day to day life style never changed. He left his house at 8am on the dot, and returned home 7pm on the dot 5 days a week.
And every Sunday at 5pm he went to go grocery shopping and returned at 7pm on the dot. But she had no say over his personal life and even after 4 years of him living there and finishing university she wasn’t even sure what degree he just finished. Neither did his parents, he hasn’t communicated with them since he moved out and they didn’t reach out either.
Ajax got accepted into the prestigious Fatui firm for his cold demeanour. He became one of the main office managers with in 6 months of him working there. He interviewed most of the new recruits. The firm trusted him like no one else. He could easily see through people with dead accuracy, people snapped in front of him.
Lumine didn’t go through the interview process with him. For the first time in 4 years of working in a firm he got an awful flu and was home sick for a week. His replacement was another office manager Scaramouche, he was more aggressive then Ajax was so Ajax was surprised Lumine how Lumine with her shy personality got through him.
A few more months went by and Lumine completely caught up with all the work. She was going ahead faster then most of the people and in Ajax’s opinion deserved a promotion. For some time, he was thinking of getting a manager assistant, she’d still do the work she already did but it’d add some more management related stuff.
Maybe he’ll grow less suspicious of her if she worked by his side.
Out of the entire office in his opinion she was suited for the job the most. He grew less disgusted of her in the past few months. He blamed the stupid attachment to her looks. But in reality, she reminded him of a sunflower. Ajax used to love sunflowers.
Back when his grandma was alive he used to go to a sunflower farm every summer, it was one of the happiest moments of his childhood. The beautiful golden flowers facing towards the sun. His grandma’s soft voice in his memory saying “Be like the sunflower always face the sun.”
Ajax followed it even after her death. To her funeral when he was only 6 he brought a big sunflower he found on the farm they always went to. It felt ironic that she died during the sunflower blooming season.
His family laughed at him for such a stupid idea and his mother thought it was disrespectful for him to bring such an idiotic flower to the funeral. The laughter of the adults surrounding him was engraved into his memory to this day.
It was the day Ajax’s heart began to slowly grow a wall around it. His mother’s remarks on his looks, personality, out look on life felt like a stab in the back. His heart was getting stabbed and it was bleeding away. Eventually Ajax stopped facing the sun.
The wall around his heart growing larger and larger every day. Until his heart was blocked out at all, the emotional connection cut out from this cruel world.
But suddenly she tingled something inside him. At first, he felt like it was a heart attack, his heart didn’t feel like anything for the past decade. He didn’t talk to her much, he felt like talking to her would cause some attachment.
Ajax didn’t know how to deal with attachment. He hasn’t thought of his mother since he left the house, he was sure she didn’t put him in her will. Ajax would never find out if she died. He rarely thought of other people outside the work-related stuff, it made him invincible. Ajax saw himself as a hero of his own life. He felt like he learnt something other people couldn’t: detachment.
Suddenly however, she was in her thoughts. Not often but it still annoyed him. The excel sheets in his head suddenly got replaced with the fond memories of his grandma, the sunflower fields and best of all Lumine’s smile. She rarely smiled, which is why it felt so precious. He was almost 100% sure she also went through some stuff in her life. She was only 25 but sometimes he wanted to refer to her as “ma’am”.
For once in his life he caught himself day dreaming. He usually never zoned out, the world inside his head was empty. But for once it filled with those sunflowers and occasionally even she came for a visit.
After about 7 months of her working at the company he called her up to his office. He was slightly worried about what her reaction might be. That thought worried him even more. Ajax never really worried even before his final exams. Which is how he got the valedictorian in his university and finished with honours. In the past 7 months it seemed that he got most of his emotions back. Even the feelings of worry didn’t bother him as much as they did at the beginning of her work at the firm.
The soft knock on his door brought him back to reality. Despite growing softer he was still as attentive to little details as ever. The handle turned and she walked in. Her golden hair was put back in a bun, she was wearing her usual black pencil skirt and this time a baby blue shirt, it almost matched the colour of his walls. He felt like she’s done it on purpose, he lowered his brows. A thought coming through his head “Did she want to impress me?”
“Mr Ajax?” a small cough escaped her lungs “Sir you called me into your office.” She stated rather calmly looking him into his eyes. He noticed about a month back that her stuttering became almost non-existent and she maintained eye contact with him on regular basis.
“Ah yes Lumine, please take a sit” He pointed at the chair in front of his desk, he specifically put it there a few hours ago he wanted to be ready for this serious talk before hand, he walked around his office three times (it felt like a lucky number) and checked every single book and paper.
To his dismay nothing was sticking out, so the three walks around the room in total took about 10 minutes.
Lumine walking over to the chair with her head help up high. She gracefully put her hands on the knees, unlike many of the other workers she didn’t have a habit of fidgeting. Ajax decided to cut the chase, he felt like if he sat silent for too long it’ll make her uncomfortable.
“You’ve done quite exceptionally in the past few months Lumine” He gave her a soft smile, something that made her heart tingle just the right way “I, as the manager of this office level wanted to offer you an upper position as my manager assistant.
The work load is slowly becoming unbearable and I often have to stay for 10-12 hours a day in the office. I thought an option of an assistant would be an excellent opportunity. I watched over your progress in the company and it seemed like you were the most reliable person. You were never late to work, nor you never complained about the amount of work there is to be done.”
He swallowed. Why on earth was he getting nervous?! He continued his speech a little less confidently. “Would you like to become my assistant?” Silence filled the air for a few moments. Lumine slightly parted her lips, then closed them again. She wasn’t really sure what to say, it felt like the once intimidating Ajax from 7 months ago was becoming less and less scary.
During this speech he even smiled at her. What the hell was going on? “Y-yes I shall accept” She said this with out even thinking. It felt like thinking will make her more unsure of her position. When she just started working this man watched her with a hawk eye, and now days he more reminded of a caring overprotective partner. She shook her head, he definitely noticed.
“Did the question make you uncomfortable?” ah as always straight to the point. She shook her head again “No, no Mr Ajax, it was just subtle it made me a bit confused for a second, it’d be my honour to become your assistant and share the work load.”
She shared another soft smile, this was the first time Ajax saw her smile this much in a span of less then a day. He also let out another smile, the soft blush filled her face. Ajax being too much of an idiot to see it continued his speech.
“Well your moving day to my office is tomorrow.”