AN: I figured I needed another 'M' story up since Love and War is taking me a while.
AU: Characters older - mid-twenties or so
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Leon Oswald was 22 years old when he met Layla Hamilton.
To be precise, he chose to meet her on the second month of the year, on the twenty second day of 2012, making it 2/22/12. If he could, he would have met her on the 22nd month if the monthly system worked that way and he wasn't willing to wait for 2022 to make her acquaintance, making him 32 years old when they finally meet.
The odds of her being around in 2022 were slim - he was entering his last years of undergrad school and he wasn't certain yet if she had chosen to go into the masters program, which could lead into a doctorate. If she did become a grad student, there would be a lesser chance of him having anything with her - he knew because he did the calculations of the probability of her staying at the same school to do those programs. By the time he was 32, she would most likely be married with at least two children under 10 and a half years old.
So he had to settle for the 2nd month of the year he turned 22.
He didn't like to settle but alas, such was life.
He was 23 years old now.
On 3/3/2013, they decided on seeing each other regularly.
It was the closest thing to dating as he had ever envisioned. She thought the terms 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' were misleading. Neither of them were children and they weren't just friends. She was relieved to hear that he didn't like those terms either.
The distaste of silliness was something they had in common.
4/4/2014 was the month of decisions.
He decided to graduate. She decided to wait on her masters.
Then, as they told each other their decisions, they decided to get married.
6/6/2014 was the date they were supposed to get married at the courthouse.
However, there was a mix up and they were scheduled to be married later, 6/17/2014.
It wasn't right. The numbers bothered him. It wasn't all even or odds or even similar digits. He tried changing the date, but her family were already flying in for that day. It would be too much of a hassle to change it.
He was bothered by it, but he came anyways.
5/15/2015
At the tidy desk of Leon Oswald stood a man around his age.
This man with pale blond hair and violet eyes was Yuri Killian, heir to the 'K to K Accounting' company that Leon worked in. He was a year older than Leon, being 26 and looking smart in a white suit with a purple dress shirt underneath. He was new to the office, having graduated from his masters in business. From what Leon heard, he was shooting for a doctorate. Leon thought of all of this as he continued typing at his desk, waiting until the man did something to break his concentration.
"So Oswald..."
Leon stopped typing. Talking was a common disruption to his focus. He sighed to himself, taking off his small square computer glasses and putting it securely in its case, right next to his bonsai tree before turning his chair around to the speaker.
"I heard that we got some kind of a firewall breach?"
"Yes."
Yuri crossed his arms. "And how do you plan on fixing it?"
Leon sniffed a little derisively. He didn't like Yuri's accusing tone.
"I'm in the process of locating the origin of the breach."
"Origin?"
"Yes." Leon sharply swiveled back and put his glasses back on. "By finding the source, we can dam the leakage up." He typed rapid codes of 1s and 0s. "Whoever opened it up probably clicked on some link in their spam or an online ad." His computer beeped as he traced the source. His grey eyes rolled upon reading the information. "Apparently some fool opened up a porn site on our servers."
Yuri blinked at that. "Porn?"
"Yes." Leon typed some more. "It wasn't one of our main computers...and they used Internet Explorer. Idiot," Leon muttered under his breath. Every tech savy person could tell you that Internet Explorer was the most virus susceptible browser on the planet. "I'm getting a lock on the computer..."
"Maybe it was by accident."
"For over an hour? Unlikely."
"Listen Oswald." Yuri leaned his head to speak lower. "Maybe you can just patch up the breach without -"
"Found it." Leon tapped a few more keys, printing out the data. "It was on the corporate floor on a backup computer." Leon grabbed the top printed page. "Computer YK - 007."
"Ah, that's...fantastic." Yuri cleared his throat. "Now about patching - what are you doing?"
"I'm faxing the results to the heads of each department."
"Don't do that!"
Leon lightly frowned. "Why not? We need to be aware that our employees are misusing our computers."
"Oswald - look." Yuri placed his hand on Leon's shoulder. "Can we keep this under wraps? I mean, there's no reason to punish everyone for one person's mistake. That's why you're here." He laughed a little. "You clean up all the messes splendidly."
Leon eyed the hand on his shoulder and then looked down at the computer name.
"It was your computer."
The typing in the cubicles around him paused altogether. Yuri took his hand off of Leon's shoulder and then straightened his suit jacket.
"That is a wild accusation. If you send out that piece of fiction you call research, I will have you fired and without any recommendations." Yuri lifted his head up. "Do we understand each other?"
Leon said nor did anything for five full seconds. Then, he nodded.
Yuri left his cubicle and the typing began again.
While waiting for the elevator to take him to the lobby, Yuri checked his phone. The elevator dinged, and he automatically started walking in, but then immediately paused upon seeing the tall blond exiting the elevator. To Yuri, she looked fresh in her cream skirt and baby blue blouse.
"Excuse me," came her cool tone of voice.
Yuri gave her a smile. "Of course."
She gave the man a glance as he made a show of giving her room to walk. Then, she turned her face forward and headed for her husband's cubicle. They were due at the travel agency and then they'll have lunch.
Yuri watched her walk a couple of seconds more and then he went into the elevator.
At 12:10 in the afternoon, Layla met Yuri.
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AN: If the dates annoyed you, I promise you, that was mainly for the beginning. This chapter's kind of a prologue to the rest of the story.