Ch 3

Chapter 3

Working on the architectural details of a Gremlin Bank remained tedious. Honoka wasn't lead designer, that architect worked in a posh office on a floor high above the plebes. Architects fresh off the assembly line begin working in large firms like BAS, taking abstract art and translating them into functional blueprints. The exact procedures are different for every company, but at BAS, lower-tier architects spent most of their days with a CAD program open in one window and a collection of notes, revisions and memos filling dozens of others. Her desk was an explosion of other handwritten notes, stickies, piles of books for city, state and federal building regulations cross-referenced with company compliance and SOP packets. It sounds confusing because it was.

The short of it, architectural design is less let me design for you a magnificent building! and more can this outlet be three feet from the window, or is that against code?

*click* *clickclick*

*clackclack* *click* *click*

*page turn* *click*

“Honoka?”

*click*

*clickclick*

“Honoka?”

“Hmm?”

“Honoka, you need to go home.”

Honoka blinked, her eyes gummy from staring at computer screens for so long. The young woman was surprised to find quiet cubicles, the faint sound of a vacuum in the distance and the soft whoosh of AC the only noises in the building. Spinning her chair around, she found a haggard Meredith looming outside her cube, a concerned look wrinkling her eye.

“What?” asked Honoka, obviously not yet fully back in the real world.

“Girl, it is ten o’clock. We are the only ones here, and your last bus leaves in fifteen minutes.”

“Oh.” The addled woman turned back to her computer. “Just a minute, need to finish this track lighting layout…”

“Now.” Meredith grabbed Honoka’s bag and gently looped it over Honoka’s shoulder with one giant hand. “Save the file and go home. It's alright. We’ll finish it tomorrow.”

Honoka didn't say anything, just stood and walked out listlessly. She didn't want to tell Meredith she - maybe unconsciously - was trying to finish in time to arrive at the FBB tournament. It was impossible, she knew, but desperation makes people do stupid things. Despair, or something else, her emotions were a jumbled mess at the moment.

“Stupid bills, making me job all day,” Honoka spat quietly, alone at the bus stop. “If I won the tournament tomorrow, I'd earn sponsors and become a professional esporter. No more Gremlin Bank, no more Steve, no more…” Her head was still a bit hazy. She mumbled the rest of her rant distractedly, feeling as if she forgot something important.

Between her legs, stretched velcro popped loudly while her bus pulled up.

Uh oh.

She'd forgotten to clean the gun, jerk the johnson, pound the fudge, slap the salami, wax the carrot, choke the chicken, slay the one-eyed dragon. As her mind forcibly reminded Honoka of what she ignored all day, her second pair of pelvic floor muscles contracting with a vengeance. The strength of her erection shifted the straps of her harness out of place and made Honoka wonder if the Beast would break free under its own pulsing power. She entered the bus, dizzy and clammy, hunched over and thankful there were not many people riding with her this late at night. Picking a seat in the back and throwing her bag on her lap, the anxiously dread-filled hermaphrodite pulled out her phone to distract herself.

A wall of texts flooded her screen, lots from her team, but also a surprising amount from concerned family. Even her father, notorious for his unloquaciousness, sent two texts. None from her mother, but yesterday’s was enough and still the most urgent. Pausing with her finger over the screen, she bit her lip and called her kaa-chan.

*ring*

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