A/N: Hello again!

Sakura had just started her position as Senior Accountant and was getting the hang of dealing with more high-profile cases. There were some additional duties that she didn't have as a Junior Accountant but after she finished the training, she slowly acclimated to the heavier workload.

Now she has three months to prove that she's cut out for the position.

Sakura gave herself a thumbs up. She can do it!

She jumped a little when her phone rang.

Sakura picked it up. "Haruno speaking. Ah, yes, what can I do for you, kachou?" She nodded to herself. "Okay, I'll be right there."

Replacing the phone, Sakura pushed away from her desk and got up. She walked briskly over to her kachou's office. The door was open but she knocked on the door frame to announce her presence before walking in.

"You wanted to see me, kachou?"

Genma looked up from his work. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of the woman in front of him. "Yes, yes, please come in and close the door behind you, will you?"

Sakura backtracked a bit to close the door.

"Have a seat," Genma gestured to the chair in front of his desk and Sakura sat down, patiently waiting for Genma to address what he wanted to talk to her about.

He shuffled a few things around on his desk before starting. "I just wanted to check in with you, have you gotten the hang of things yet?"

Sakura nodded, "Yes, so far, so good." She smiled at him.

Gennma felt like time stopped and all there was in the world was the two of them.

In the perfect world, it would only be the two of them, together.

Sakura said nothing else. She drummed her fingers against her slacks-covered thigh. Genma stared at her. She tried not to noticed his obvious stare.

Damn. Why must it always be like this with her kachou?

What did she do to deserve this?

Oh yeah, she applied for a job at the company that her son's married father owns, putting herself in a potentially very dangerous position.

This must be karma. And you know what they say, karma's a bitch. She must've been like, "Oh, you think you're being sneaky, do you? You think you can slowly edge your way up the corporate ladder and just so happen meet the father of your child and then he'll leave his wife for you and it'll be happily ever after? Well too-frickin'-bad, honey. I'll let it slide but only if I can give you a manager who's lovesick for you, just to get in your way."

Sakura mentally gave karma a one-fingered salute.

Karma must've also been like, "Oh, while we're at it, let's give you a hunky exec to friend-zone so hard that you don't even realize that you're doing it–that's how hard you're friend-zoning him. And, and, and, oh this is so fun, let's bring back the old friend that you cheated on your ex with. Let's make him unhealthily obsessed with you to make it more interesting. Okay, I'm done. For now."

Sakura mentally sulked.

"Haruno-kun?"

Sakura's head jerked up. She hadn't realized she had zoned off until now. "I'm so sorry, kachou, what was that?"

Genma gave a good-nature sigh. "I was only asking if you're prepared for what's to come. You know that it'll only get harder from here, right?"

Doesn't she know it.

"Yes, of course. I'm fully ready to take on as much as you would allow me to."

Genma smiled and nodded.

A beat of silence.

"Um, was there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?" Sakura asked awkwardly.

"Actually, yes, there is." He took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for the inevitable. "I know it is highly unprofessional to ask this during the middle of the workday but I was wondering if you would like to have dinner with me tomorrow night." He looked straight into her eyes to show how serious he was about her.

"Oh." Sakura broke eye contact to look down at her clasped hands, one thumb rubbing over the other. "Kachou–," she tried to start before she was interrupted.

"Please Haruno-kun, I want you to know, first, that I am completely serious about this, about you. This is not me apologizing for being a fumbling idiot, though I am very sorry for the pain I caused you with the coffee, but I found myself really falling for you. I think about you all the time, more than I should. Especially when I know there is an extremely slim chance that you'll ever return my affections." He took another deep breath to calm his nerves. "I just want to ask you to give me the chance, to show you who I really am." He looked back into her eyes.

This time, she didn't look away.

She pursed her lips trying to think of the easiest way to let him down. She straightened her spine to respond to him properly.

"Kachou, Genma, I am so sorry," she shook her head slowly while her eyes saddened, "but I can't give you that. You, yourself, said there is a slim chance of me reciprocating your feelings and I can't give you a chance if it'll only lead you on and raise your hopes up for nothing. I can't do that to you. You're my supervisor, but you're also a good man. I'm sure you'll find a woman who'll appreciate everything you can give. But I'm not her." She tried to convey just how sorry she was.

Genma stared into her beautiful green eyes just a bit longer before slumping down in his chair, his chin dropping to his chest. He brought a hand up to rub at his temple tiredly. When he looked up, Sakura was looking back down at her hands again.

He had told himself before that he was going to keep his head held up high no matter what her response was and that's what he did.

"Thank you."

Sakura looked up at him shocked.

"Thank you," he repeated. "For keeping my well-being in mind. It was one of the reasons why I fell for you." He smiled sadly as he shifted his gaze to his desktop. "So hard," he muttered under his breath to himself. "So beautiful."

He cleared his throat when it started to tighten. "If I may ask, is it because there is someone else?"

Sakura froze in her musings, her thumb stopped its track up and down the other.

Was there someone else, she asked herself. Technically there was and yet, technically there wasn't. But what was she going to say?

If she was being completely honest with herself, she wanted there to be someone else. Someone she can turn to and lean on. Did she want Fugaku to be that someone? She felt a twinge in her chest she didn't quite understand.

She'll attempt to unravel that later, but for now she'll answer truthfully, because that was what her kachou deserved.

"Yes. There is someone else."

It might not be Fugaku and there might not be someone else at all but she was still emotionally unavailable to entertain her kachou's notions of trying to sway her to his side.

Silence rang through the office as the two looked straight into each others' eyes calmly.

Genma let out a quiet sigh with a small sad smile. "That'll be all."

He was letting her go.

Sakura returned his sad smile with one of her own as she nodded and left.

Once the door to his office clicked shut, Genma spun his chair around to face the wall behind him and dropped his face down into his hands. He allowed himself a few body-wracking sobs for a moment before pulling himself together and got back to work.

He still had the rest of his life ahead of him.

Sakura stared at the memo that had appeared on her desk when she had been rejecting her kachou in his office.

She blinked once. Twice. Thrice.

Nope, the words haven't rearranged themselves to say, "Psych! Fooled you, sucka!"

They stayed, unmoving, on the innocent little bi-fold note card that she's received countless memos with before, sealed with a bit of tape.

She looked around her little cubicle for anything that could tell her what to do.

Her eyes landed on a picture of Rei she had pinned to the cork notice board she had.

Sakura looked away because it was sending her mixed signals.

She looked back down at the message written on the small little card.

Schedule a meeting with my secretary to discuss your report. Lunch time will be best.

Her eyes were still wide with shock, her mind blank and stagnant. It was having difficulty processing the implications.

On one hand, she would be delighted to discuss her report and further expand upon it.

On the other, she was trying to get over the fact that Fugaku had subtly asked her on a lunch date disguised as a business meeting.

Her thought process jammed even more after that thought.

She didn't know what to do.

Well, she must've came up with something because here she was, sitting across from Fugaku at a nice little restaurant not far from the company.

The rest of that day had been a blank. She had worked on autopilot to finish the day's work and thankfully there hadn't been any errors when she double-checked her work the next day. Now it was the next week, because apparently, Fugaku's go-to-method of dealing with important clients was lunch meetings.

Her mind jammed again.

Sakura must've called his secretary after blanking out and scheduled a meeting with him and he had only been free today. Every other day had been booked. But Sakura was fine with that, it gave her time to mentally and physically prepare herself for this meeting.

Like seriously, she worked out for two hours yesterday compared to her usual daily thirty minutes of exercise. She even asked Rei to sit on her back as she did push-ups. She wasn't messing around.

And here she was, gearing up to stay professional while simultaneously resist the urge to fall back into the easy flow of conversation they had in Vegas.

Oh, the struggles.

Fugaku was looking at the menu, deciding what he wanted, while Sakura was looking at him, while trying to look like she wasn't looking at him. Except she was failing miserably so. He looked up and caught her eye with a raised eyebrow. Sakura quickly broke eye contact and hid behind her menu. She heard his deep chuckles.

Great. So much for trying to stay professional. She was doing such a swell job, don't you think?

She cleared her throat awkwardly and opened her mouth to say something that would most-assuredly make her look even more like a fool, but luckily, the waiter came by to take their orders.

They gave their orders. Anything to drink? Just water for the both of them.

Ah, deja vu.

All she needs is to hear a crinkling in her bag when she moves it to complete the awkward flashback. She moved her bag slowly and froze when she did, in fact, hear a crinkling.

What the hell?!

She quickly opened it and looked inside. She knew she most definitely would not have a small plastic baggy of condoms in her work purse. When she found the culprit that had all but caused her to have a heart attack, she let out a breath of huge relief, ignoring the look she was getting from Fugaku.

It had been a damn protein bar!

She had thrown it into her purse that morning to supplement the vigorous workout she had had yesterday.

Sakura had forgotten all about it, obviously, since her stomach had been in knots since she went to sleep last night.

Frickin' hell!

Sakura looked back up to Fugaku after she finished putting her bag behind her on her chair, to see him studying her intensely. She awkwardly avoided making eye contact and took a sip of her ice water that had arrived when she had been freaking out about her bag's misleading content.

She was successful so far, but had to surrender after their food arrived. After they tasted their respective dishes, he started talking. She automatically looked into his eyes as proper conversation etiquette called for.

"I remember my first reaction when reading your report."

Sakura patiently waited for him to continue as she ate a bite of her chicken katsu curry donburi. She had gotten the lunch special that came with a bowl of miso soup and a side of vegetable tempura. He had gotten the box set with sashimi, nigiri, sushi, and gyouza.

"I read through the the entire report without knowing who had written it, it gives me an objective perspective. After finishing it and realizing that your proposal was a viable idea, I flipped back to the front, and imagine my surprise when I saw your name on it."

Sakura nodded politely, acknowledging his compliment and surprise, the former was nice to receive while the latter had been expected. He already knew that she hadn't expected for her report to reach the top.

"I scheduled a meeting with the Board for the next day to discuss it with the rest of them and to get opinions from the others who have seen it, too. They only had good things to say, only adding that some details still needed to be ironed out and expanded. We adjourned the meeting with the plan to each come up with the projected details if we went through with your proposal."

Sakura still had nothing to say but she was eager to hear how it went.

"So far, the reports that have come back have been showing only success and profit with little loss." He waited for and watched her reaction intently.

When Sakura couldn't help the wide grin that broke across her face, he gave her a small smile full of pride.

"Honestly, I don't think any of us Board members would have entertained this idea seriously. We are a proud bunch, and proposing to start a partnership with the new Namikaze-Senju superpower was equivalent to begging them to not leave us in the dust, in our eyes. But after seeing everything laid out in your report, it really opened our eyes to the many opportunities and advantages it would give us, presently and in the long run."

Her grin wasn't going anywhere and that was making it difficult for her to chew and eat. After swallowing the bit that she had in her mouth, she finally spoke.

"Thank you, kaichou, for taking my proposal seriously. I hope we will only thrive from now on."

They held each others' gaze, ignoring, yet quietly acknowledging, the double meaning that the last bit could have.

A/N: Teehee.

Thanks for reading and please review!

Updated – 5/7/2016