"Taki-kun, is that you?"

Mitsuha had just been relaxing on their bed, browsing the Internet on her laptop and such. Usually around this time, she'd be preparing dinner, but earlier in the day, Taki called her and told her he wanted to go out for dinner, to celebrate. When she asked what they were celebrating, he told her he wanted to wait until he could tell her in person. She had a pretty good idea of what it was, though.

The sound of Taki's dress shoes against the floor made it apparent that he was home, and Mitsuha could only manage to get up and put her laptop down before she found herself in Taki's bearhug. He was crying, uncontrollably. He radiated with happiness and a feeling of accomplishment. "Mitsuha…Mitsuha…"

"I…I think I know what's going on. Congratulations, darling." Mitsuha wrapped her arms around Taki, stroking his back and burying her head into his chest.

"I did it…Mitsuha, I did it."

"So does that make you Supervisor Tachibana now?"

"Yes! Yes, it does!" Taki, stricken with emotion, tried in vain to contain himself, but the overall realization of his goal made it impossible. After trying and failing, Taki attained the position he sought after so much. And the prospect of having the life he wanted with Mitsuha became more of a reality in waiting overwhelmed him.

"Mitsuha…we can move out of this apartment…we can do so many things together now!"

But despite the ample amount of happiness in the room, Mitsuha was met with conflicting emotions. She'd grown used to living in this apartment with him. She came to appreciate the small space, and always being near him. The homey feeling and the coziness held a lot of sentiment, so while she was happy and proud of Taki for earning this promotion, she wasn't sure how she could tell him she didn't want to go anywhere, and that she was content with this apartment.

"Ye- yeah…"

Taki noticed restraint in her voice, almost regret. He almost got mad, since this wasn't exactly the reaction he wanted from her, but he decided to ask her about it first. "Mmm? You don't seem all that excited."

"Taki. I'm beyond excited for you. I'm so proud of your hard work to get this job. But…I dunno."

"C'mon, tell me. Would this have anything to do with the whole money thing?"

"It really does. I…I feel like you looked at getting this promotion as a means to an end. Just so we can move out and get a house together. I get that, and I don't fault you for wanting a nicer place to live. It's just that…I've grown so fond of this little apartment. We've shared some strong memories, powerful memories…moments that I will cherish forever. I'm not sure, it's…"

"You think if we get outta here and live somewhere else, you'll feel like we're leaving all that behind. Is that right?"

Mitsuha nodded her head, slightly choked up from emotion herself. "It's just…I want as much time with you as possible. And not only do you wanna move into a bigger space, where we won't be as close to each other, but you'll also be busier. And I'm just afraid I won't see you as often."

He disagreed a little bit, but Taki felt and understood her sentiment. I get it. Nothing's more important to me than you, Mitsuha. "I feel the same way. But as far as I know, I still come home the same time every day. Nothing about our time together changes. Look. I really just want you to be happy. And I think having a nice place to live would help with that."

"How soon were you looking to move out?"

"I'm not sure. Definitely not any time soon. As I'm sure you can imagine, I'm gonna be extremely busy for the next few weeks. I don't think I wanna deal with moving during that time." He noticed a look of relief on Mitsuha's face, and patted himself on the back for saying the right thing. "Tell you what. We'll stay here until your call. You'll ultimately give the green light to move out. I want you to enjoy yourself and be happy, and if staying here will do that, then I have zero problem with that." He pulled her back into a hug. "I'm the same way, sweetie. I wanna spend every single second I can with you."

"I just don't wanna rush things. Things are perfect the way they are now. And I promise, as soon as I'm ready to make a change, I'll let you know. I know how excited you are to move forward."

At dinner, Taki explained how exactly he got the job, which included the fact that his supervisor was in the hospital.

"Oh, Taki. I'm very sorry to hear that. I know how much he means to you."

"Thank you. It's gonna be a little hard to do this with all that hanging over my head. But. Better me than anyone else, I guess."

"You're gonna do great, honey. I believe in you, and clearly so does everyone else."

"Well, I dunno about that. I don't think the other candidates would necessarily agree with that."

"Well, that's too bad for them, then."

"Alright, that's enough about me. What's going with you? How's work, I feel like I don't ask you that enough."

"Taki, you ask me about work every day. And don't put the spotlight on me, this is your big moment!"

"And I just noticed too, we didn't do anything big when you got your promotion!"

"You got me a congratulatory sake, and that was good enough for me."

"Alright, then…"

"Tell me more. What else happened?"

"Nothing much. Just standard interview questions, like 'how will being a supervisor advance you' and 'where does your long term goal with this company lie in your professional goals'. But I think the one thing that got me the job was my relationship with Moroboshi. I guess hawking him and watching him do his thing paid off."

"It sure did." Mitsuha was gleaming with pride and happiness for Taki.

"But realistically, I guess the best part about all of this is having you with me to tell you. To celebrate with you."

And as per usual, their food arrived in the midst of conversation. But Mitsuha didn't let that be a distraction, and held her wine glass to about face level.

"Well here's to a very successful tenure as a supervisor, a prelude to your role as a director one day. But also a very happy life together. I don't think we've ever done that before."

"We haven't. And we had a lot of good moments to do so. But I'll absolutely settle for this."

Taki and Mitsuha clanked glasses and enjoyed their meals. And the two of them got vibes harkening back to their first night together. The one the spent at the Italian restaurant. Very much of the same sentiments and feelings were there. And they knew it seemed cheesy, but with Taki taking on this new job, it felt like they were stepping into yet another stage of their relationship. And just like last time it felt special.

The following work week couldn't have been more stressful for Taki. He spent the next week getting introduced and meeting with what felt like everyone on the entire planet, learning what their roles were and what areas of design they were responsible for. Even if you set aside the functional tasks of a supervisor, being a leader, period, was new to him. It wasn't in his personality to go out of his way and check on people. But despite all of the aneurisms he got from cramming this job into his head, he knew that at the end of the day it'd be worth it, because the paycheck was bigger.

That being said, coming home to Mitsuha everyday became much more worthwhile. The first couple days on the job, Mitsuha would pretty much have to catch him as he was collapsing from exhaustion. And every time she did, she would tell him how proud of him she was and to never stop working hard.

With work being so busy, he began to value his time with Mitsuha tremendously more. And she noticed it, too. She, if anything, thought he'd come home every day really tired, and not wanting to do anything. But he would come home with a strange amount of motivation to do something with her.

"Mitsuha, I know this sounds really, really weird. But…I've always wanted to draw you."

"You've drawn me before. It was beautiful."

"Yeah, but I was just drawing you off of memory. You're sitting right here."

"Then ask me formally."

"Really? Huh…alright. Mitsuha, will you be my model?"

Mitsuha stripped off her clothes down to her underwear, and jumped onto their bed. She laid on her side with her head propped up with her hand, with that elbow on the bed, the other arm on her side, and her legs crossed.

"Draw me like one of those Paris girls."

And she giggled at how fast Taki got aroused. He lost awareness to just about everything else in awe of Mitsuha's body. And when he realized what was going on, he shook his head violently and scrambled to find sketch paper and drawing utensils.

Her arm began to get tired holding that pose, but figured that quality art takes time to craft, and left Taki alone as he concentrated on her body. Huh. This is new. I've never had anyone stare at my body for this long before. But. It's Taki. Wouldn't have it be anybody else.

"Alright. Done."

"Lemme see!"

Mitsuha hopped off the bed and went over to see Taki's masterpiece. And as if she could expect anything else, it was a near flawless recreation of the scene from just a few moments ago. Mitsuha had seen Taki's drawings of her before, but this was on another level. And he was right. The ones from the first time weren't as good, since he was just going off of memory. But being right here in front of him afforded Taki the ability to capture the most minor details. There were parts of Mitsuha's body depicted in the drawing she didn't even know about. And quite frankly, she almost had a hard time believing that she was as beautiful in real life as she was in this drawing.

"Taki…"

"I think it looks pretty good. What do you think?"

"Is…is this really me?"

"Yep!"

Mitsuha then began to feel a little awkward about how little clothing she was wearing in the drawing, but couldn't stop marveling at its incredibleness. And it wasn't until she happened to catch the clock when she realized how much time had gone by. She knew it'd been a while, but when she realized Taki had spent a little over 2 hours drawing her, she was taken aback at how late it was. But, seriously, though, did I just admire myself for that long?

"Oh, jeez, yeah it's late. We should probably get to bed. And it looks like you're all ready for it, ha ha!"

She pouted a little bit and didn't really appreciate how Taki made such a remark at the current imbalance in decency. Angrily, she turned her back and jumped in the bed, threw the sheets over her with her back turned to Taki.

Why's she so sensitive? "I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." Even though he didn't really understand how he could've offended her, he felt bad about it nonetheless. Seeing her upset killed any playful mood there was. He decided to let her be for a little bit while he got ready for bed, and lifted the sheets to get under them. Shifting himself closer to Mitsuha, he wrapped his arms around her stomach from behind, pressing his body against her back. "That was a little insensitive of me. I know you were just being playful. For what it's worth, you're a very, very beautiful woman with a physique to be very proud of. And I'm not just saying that because I'm your boyfriend."

It looked like Mitsuha was only half awake, as she didn't say anything back to him, but snuggled back against him, pressing against him harder. So Taki took it as a sign of forgiveness and turned out the light above him.

Taki was used to waking up to sunlight, or at least the 8am alarm, but when he opened his eyes to darkness and realized it was still the middle of the night, he got confused, and then a little cranky. But when he felt Mitsuha's hand caressing his cheek, his frustration dissipated, and proceeded to do the same to her.

"Hi, baby…"

Mitsuha's voice was low, and soft. With a very intimate inflection as it cooed a little bit. "Listen, I just wanted to…apologize. For earlier. That wasn't the most mature reaction from me. I know you were just kidding."

"I mean, I'm definitely to blame, too. I didn't mean to make you feel self-conscious. But anyway, what's going on? Why are you awake?"

Taki could feel her hand, still stroking his cheek, tremble a little bit, which all but meant she was getting a little emotional. "I actually wake up in the middle of the night like this more than you know. You usually just sleep through it. This is the first time you've woken up."

"How often does this happen?"

"Maybe every 3 nights or so. It used to be every other night, or every night, when I lived with my family. And it was even worse when I lived alone."

"Wait, you lived by yourself at one point?"

"Mmhmm. When I graduated from college, I had a place by myself. But the solitude, the loneliness, the emptiness became too much. That's why I moved back with Yotsuha and my grandmother. Just because I was getting too lonely."

"I see…"

"So…the reason I find myself caressing you like this, the reason I wake up in the middle of the night, is all because…I have to thank someone for being with me. And I do try to figure out how I got so lucky finding you again. And from what it looks like, you feel the same way." With the hand on Taki's cheek, she could feel his warm tears rolling from his eyes.

"Mitsuha…" Taki began to lose control of his emotions, and his throat became heavier. Choked up so much so that it was almost hard for him to talk. It wasn't long ago that he himself was experiencing the same feeling of being in a void. With no one to talk to. And Mitsuha was lucky; she had a strong relationship with her family. Taki, on the other hand, was a little distant from his own. "The loneliness, the quietness, the lack of…any purpose. I was a little more familiar with that than I would've liked, too." He moved hand to the back of her head, preparing to pull her closer. "You have no idea how much you mean to me."

"I'm…I'm so happy! Almost a month spending every single second with each other. And you still feel this way about me. I was so afraid that we'd grow each other out, get tired of each other. Everything was going by so fast! But all these wonderful things happening, over and over again. I want this to last forever…"

Taki cut the discourse and pulled her in, landing his lips on hers. Mitsuha wrapped her arms around his chest and tangled her legs with his, as they kissed each other to sleep yet again.

The board meeting at work was new to him. Mainly because he wasn't really sure what he could contribute. So he just rolled with it and decided the next best thing to do was to listen. He knew the director was the head honcho to some degree, but his commanding presence and aura were much stronger in this meeting.

"Okay, so now that we've gotten the plan done, we can start to get the financing done. Obviously with Moroboshi being out, we suffered some minor setbacks. However, they were only minor setbacks, and not major ones, because of the hard work from Tachibana Taki. I'd like to recognize your ability to adapt to this new role beautifully, and demonstrate a tremendous amount of leadership for the back end of the approval process. I knew you could do it, and I know you knew you could do it, but I'm not sure that anyone else in this room did. Everyone, let's take a moment to applaud Tachibana for his dedication to our cause."

Taki felt tremendous as the applause from the people in the room carried throughout. And his confidence as a supervisor shot up, and motivated him to do more work for the company. But the director was quick to redirect the attention of the meeting to its intended purpose. "So now we can move into the financing phase. Now, because of the delay caused by Moroboshi's incident, we're gonna do this a little differently. I have a list of lenders here with points-of-contact, I'm asking that each of you call the point-of-contact you're given and see what we can get from them."

Ha. Wouldn't it be funny if we had Mitsuha's credit union finance the mall…

The director walked over and placed a paper down on his space of the table, and from the top of the paper, he could see that, of course it was the credit union where Mitsuha worked. Further along the paper was some general information about the organization, stuff that Taki couldn't care less about, but when he got to the bottom of the paper, he was ready to jump out of his chair in joy and happiness. Because the bottom of the paper read "Representative: Miyamizu Mitsuha". Huh. So we're gonna be business partners now…

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A/N: Heyo! Hope you guys liked this chapter, because I myself am not really sure how it turned out. I'm not sure if I want to create a co-workers arc, since I feel like it wouldn't be about Taki and Mitsuha anymore. So we'll see. I do intend to get Hitoha, as well as Yotsuha and her friends, back involved in the story, so no, I haven't forgotten about them. I also want to get Taki and Mitsuha's high school friends into the mix too, just haven't found a good opportunity to. Don't wanna just pointlessly shoehorn them into the story. I wanted to give a sincere personal thank you to all of you for your support. The fic as reached 50 followers and that to me is the biggest motivation to keep writing. And the reviews. All your kind, heartwarming reviews do more for me than you probably realize, and one of my bigger regrets is not responding to them personally like most good authors do. Any reviews from this point on, I'll make a better effort to respond to it. Thanks a ton to anyone still reading, even if you don't like it, it's still awesome to know you took your time of day to read. That's enough from me for now. Until the next one, y'all. Cheers.