Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Adachi finds this note stuffed in an outer pocket of his backpack one morning, about a week before his 29th birthday. The handwriting is neat and clear, but there’s no signature. It definitely hadn’t been there when he’d left this morning, but he has no idea when it appeared. The best he can think is someone took advantage of the crowded elevator this morning, but that means it could have been anyone. He flips the paper over, looking for clues, but the back is blank. This person was smart - if they’d used company stationary at least he’d know which of the offices they belonged to, but they’d clearly thought of that too. 

“Adachi!” Urabe says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Adachi jumps and instinctively crumples the paper in his hand.

“Good morning,” he says, ducking his head in greeting.

“Chief has asked me for a summary of the last three months’ sales, you’re not doing anything right?”

“Oh, uh-” Adachi thinks of the coding he’d been looking forward to being done with today and resigns himself to debugging next week instead, “No.”

“Great,” he says, dropping a large binder on Adachi’s desk. Adachi just sighs. He looks down at the piece of paper, now irreversibly wrinkled. He sighs again. There’s no way this note was meant for him. It’s too bad, really. He wouldn’t have minded having a friend at work. 

Still, that was no reason to deny a friend to somebody else. During his morning break, he writes a brief I think you’ve got the wrong person on a post-it, refolds the original note as best he can, and tucks both under the coffee pot in the break room. 

And that should be that. He spends the rest of the morning compiling data into an excel spreadsheet and tries not to feel sorry for himself.

It should be that. But when he returns from lunch and opens his laptop, there’s a new note tucked inside.

Adachi looks around the office, quickly. Most everyone is still at lunch, but there’s a handful of people around - Watanabe and Tanaka from his own department are working on a project together, and have been since early that morning, and the star of the sales department Kurosawa is on the phone, presumably with a client. Oh and his new subordinate, what was his name, Rokka-something? He was still working on the paperwork involved with joining the company. None of those people seem like good candidates, although he supposes that the new kid might just not have figured out yet that he is, quite literally, the least cool person in the company. It’s possible that it was someone from another office, but then how would they have known which laptop was specifically his?

On the other hand, no matter who the note writer is, it would be nice to have a friend at work. Tsuge doesn’t really get it - he’s locked up at home writing all the time, and it’s an admirable job, but Adachi can tell that sometimes when he’s complaining about work Tsuge has stopped listening because it doesn’t make sense to him. And writing notes might be the perfect way to make a new friend - low pressure, and he can edit what he wants to say, which is so much better than talking to anyone in person.

Whatever decision he makes, it doesn’t need to be made right now. He pockets the note carefully, and returns to work, and if there’s a small smile creeping across his face, well, nobody will notice, right?

That night, he pulls out the sheet of paper, unfolds it on the table, and spends a significant portion of the evening contemplating what it would mean to respond to this note. He’d get a new friend, he hopes. Worst case scenario it’s a practical joke that Urabe is trying to pull on him, although he doesn’t really think Urabe is quite that mean. Short of that, though, there’s no harm, right? Nobody else ever has to find out, so they won’t ask him what he’s doing writing notes to somebody he doesn’t know.

He traces a finger over the neat lines of characters. He doesn’t specifically recognize the handwriting, so even if it is Urabe, he went to a lot of trouble to get someone else to write it for him. Surely he wouldn’t do that, and especially not in the middle of the work day to reply to his original post-it. 

What it comes down to, though, is that a part of Adachi really wants this. The idea of a mysterious penpal who he can become friends with while being able to filter his real personality through a pen seems so intriguing.

Decision made, Adachi gets a sheet of paper and one of his nice pens. He hasn’t had much use for all this stationary over the years, but he’s glad now that he kept it. 

It takes Adachi the better part of an hour to think through the exact phrasing he wants to use, and then he waffles over asking who the writer is, because if they’d wanted him to know they would have said in the first place, but maybe now that he’s agreed to write back they’ll feel better telling him who they are. 

Or maybe they’ll be embarrassed that they want to be friends with him and never admit it. It’s a toss-up really. 

He folds up the note before he can change his mind, and sticks it in the pocket of the suit he’s planning on wearing tomorrow. He’ll just have to wait and see.

He tosses and turns all night, and by the next morning he’s half convinced that he made up the letter writer from yesterday. Why would anyone at work actually care about him, the pencil-pusher nobody who spends his whole day entering numbers into spreadsheets and running code that doesn’t work? If he were Kurosawa, he could see them being shy about approaching him. But why-

These thoughts carry him all the way to the morning train. Finally, he decides that there’s no use worrying over it any more - though it takes several tries to push it out of his head, and he still fiddles with the note in his coat pocket the whole way. He hates when he makes a decision he can’t act on right away, because it’s always like this, this incessant stream of worries in his head. Once he gets off the train the adrenaline tingles start, until it feels like both his feet have fallen asleep, as well as his arms all the way up to his elbows. He gently smacks his face, trying to get some feeling back into his hands and keep himself focused away from the impulse to run.

Finally the elevator reaches the tenth floor and he forces himself to head the opposite direction from the office - luckily he was late enough that nobody else got off the elevator with him. The break room is empty somehow, so he quickly slips his note under the coffee maker, which he discovers is much more difficult to do while it’s hot and brewing, and then hurries back towards the office before anyone catches him. The elevator dings as he walks past and he speeds up even more. He doesn’t even look to see who gets off the elevator.

Adachi spends the morning distracted and on edge. What if it wasn’t good enough? What if they realize I’m not worth being friends with? What if? What if? When he goes for his morning break he can’t take it anymore, and attempts to discreetly retrieve the note he wrote, but it’s already gone. Since he can’t get it back, he instead paces by the window, staring out over Tokyo and wishing he hadn’t been so impulsive. 

By the time lunch rolls around, he’s made himself so nervous that he has to force himself to eat the Onigiri he brought from his favorite food truck. They taste like dust in his mouth and he has to force down the urge to throw up.

He’s so preoccupied that on his way back to the office he runs directly into Kurosawa, apparently on his way out. 

“Are you ok?” he asks, reaching for Adachi’s shoulder but pulling back just before he touches him.

“Mm,” Adachi confirms with a nod, and just steps around him to head back to his desk. 

There, tucked underneath his laptop, is a corner of paper.

Adachi frowns and flips the paper over, but there’s nothing else. Slowly he pulls open the drawer, half expecting there to be a live bug or some other kind of prank. Instead, there’s a white paper bag, folded over itself neatly. Inside is a single, fresh croissant, wrapped in a napkin.

Chapter Text

Adachi has the note stashed under his laptop where he found it, and keeps pulling it out to reread on the sly. In the three months that they’ve been corresponding, Adachi has found a kindred spirit in Someone. They have far more in common than Adachi thought he’d ever have with anyone. Someone always provides something for him to talk about and then rambles about their own experiences, with several compliments for Adachi woven in throughout. They notice things that Adachi doesn’t even notice about himself, and point them out regularly. Adachi isn’t used to someone paying such close attention to him, and he’s finding he actually likes it.

“What are you smiling about?” Urabe asks, leaning over his shoulder. Adachi shoves the note back under his computer.

“Nothing! I’m working!” Adachi protests. Urabe quirks an eyebrow up but thankfully drops the issue.

Was he smiling? He hadn’t noticed. That’s weird. He rubs a hand through his hair and attempts to refocus on his code.

He’s only successful for about ten minutes, and then his mind wanders to the letter again. He still doesn’t know who they are, or why they picked him, though the way that they talk about him makes him suspect that they at least work in the same office. Otherwise they’ve been careful about all identifying information. Adachi isn’t even sure about their gender - they have consistently used formal pronouns in a way that might suggest they’re female, but their interest in books like Ragna Crimson doesn’t seem to fit any of the women in the office.

Not that it matters. Adachi is just grateful to have this one spot of light in his days. He looks forward to each letter, and even if he doesn’t know when there will be one, there’s always at least one every day. Sometimes, if they’re both excited, they can fit two exchanges in - if Adachi leaves one in the morning, he’ll often get a reply by lunch, and if he dares to write another when he should be working, sometimes he’ll get a second response before he leaves for the night. Once, he’d even responded again, though that was only because he’d stayed late that night. Sure enough, first thing he noticed upon coming in the next morning was a letter, peeking out from between two binders on his desk.

Usually he waits until mid-morning to take his first break of the day, but today he’s impatient. He wants to reply to his letter, and he thinks maybe if he does he’ll have an easier time of concentrating for the rest of the day. He pockets the letter, a pen, and a piece of paper and excuses himself to the break room.

The letter took longer to write than Adachi expected, so he hurriedly folds it and shoves it under the coffee maker before heading back to work. If anyone asks he can just say that he’s feeling a little under the weather today, or something.

As he sits down to go back to work, he feels a little bereft. The note from Someone in his pocket has been responded to, and now it will be a full week before he hears back, unless Someone is particularly on top of things. He knew this was coming, logically, but he also didn’t want it to. 

He sighs and tries to refocus on his work. It’s the day before a week of holiday, so he wouldn’t have to - Urabe is spending all his time wandering around his subordinates’ desks not doing anything so if Adachi wanted to goof off, he could, as long as Urabe doesn’t notice. But really, work should distract him from this weird empty feeling that he has when he thinks about not hearing back from Someone.

What is that feeling anyway? He’d called it missing them in his letter but that didn’t feel quite right. He’d missed people before - when he first moved out from his mom’s apartment and realized he didn’t know how to adult, and that one time that Tsuge locked himself in his apartment and turned off his phone for two whole months because he had a deadline. But if those were what missing felt like, this was something else entirely, because it was way stronger than any of that. Which is weird, considering he doesn’t even know who Someone is.

This puzzle occupies him all the way until lunch, and he only completes half the work he normally would. He absently eats his way through his lunch bento, and wanders back to his desk in a daze, nodding to his coworkers if they say anything but missing entirely what it is they say as they go past. 

He’s so preoccupied that it takes him a moment to realize that his chair crinkled when he sat down. He stands up and looks, and there’s a small folded sheet of paper there. He opens it gingerly, not sure what to expect. The note is short.

Adachi blinks. This wasn’t what he’d expected. To be fair, he hadn’t really thought about what he’d expected, but this was definitely not it. There’s a tingle behind his nose and he’s surprised to find that he’s so close to crying. He mutters something about going to the toilet, and gets himself out of the office as quick as he can. 

Once in the bathroom, he leans against the wall, and then slides down it, the note held up between his fingers. He has never had anyone other than his mother be so unconditionally supportive, and he feels like it has knocked all of the air out of his lungs. What did he do to deserve such unwavering confidence?

Whatever he did, he finds he likes it, and that feels like the most dangerous thing of all. If he gets used to this, when it inevitably ends there will be no recovering. He has to find a way to lower their expectations, so that he doesn’t get any more attached.

Wait. More attached? Does he…? Is he… attached to someone he’s never met? 

Oh, this is so embarrassing, he thinks with a groan. He’s actually developed a crush on someone who he’s never met, someone who would prefer not to meet him. 

He ruffles a hand through his hair. This is overwhelming. He doesn’t know what to do. He should just stop writing, just leave it there and let the correspondence fade. But-- 

Disappearing from Someone’s life isn’t fair to them. He’d be disappointing them immediately after they’d said he couldn’t, and besides they deserved some kind of explanation for his disappearance. Not the real explanation - “Hello, I’m sorry we have to stop writing, but I’ve developed a crush on you” is too much, even to put into writing. But something must be said.

He pats his pockets, looking for a scrap of paper. There’s a packet of post-it notes from a meeting the last time he’d worn this suit, so he pulls one off and flips it over.

He pauses. It’s written in pen, so he can’t change it, but he doesn’t know how to finish the sentence either.

He looks at the finished note and fights the urge to just throw it in the trash and go back to Plan A: never writing back. He folds it in half, sealing the words inside with the sticky part of the post-it. At least it will be a week before he has to read whatever the consequences of writing this are.

Before he can lose his nerve, he goes to the breakroom. Since it’s still close to lunch time, there are more people here than he usually prefers, but the only one he recognizes from their office is Kurosawa and he’s very engrossed in whatever is going on on his phone. Adachi sidles over to the coffee maker, discreetly slips his post-it note underneath, and then hurries back to his desk.

After that, his afternoon is shot. The anxiety spiral never really gets better, and by the time 5:30 rolls around he’s had enough. He pleads a headache and leaves early, determined to go home, find a good, distracting book to read, and forget all about the entire day.

“Adachi!” Kurosawa calls from behind him, and he turns, halfway to the elevator, “You dropped something.” Kurosawa adds a smile that is so blindingly bright that Adachi squints reflexively. He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t even noticed Kurosawa coming up behind him.

Adachi looks at the thing Kurosawa is holding out - a folded sheet of paper. He pats his pockets in a panic. Surely today’s notes hadn’t fallen out. Did he have a hole in his pocket? But no, there’s the telltale feel of paper right where he left them. 

Kurosawa is holding out the paper and looking at him expectantly, so he nods and takes it.

“Thank you,” he says before spinning on his heel and rushing to the elevator, just short of a run.

Chapter Text

Adachi rereads his letter and then folds it up and sticks it in his backpack to take with him to work tomorrow. He often doesn’t end up being the one writing over the weekends, but he’s glad he did this week, because it gives him something to do while out enjoying the weather. Then he pulls out his sketchbook from the main pocket, and flips it open. Instead of sketching, however, he pulls out a worn sheet of paper - the letter that Someone had given him right before New Years. Its creases have greyed with folding and refolding, and Adachi thinks that he might need to try to reinforce them soon. The only reason he hasn’t yet is he’s afraid of damaging the letter permanently.

He rereads it again, even though he knows the words by heart now. They have become his security blanket, the thing he holds on to when the world becomes overwhelming and the anxiety is too much. Proof that at least one person thinks that he’s enough.

He really should have stopped writing to Someone, and he tells himself every time he sends a letter that it will be the last one. Every time he gets a letter back, he breaks his promise to himself that he will get over Someone. He scours each letter for hints of their identity, clues to why they picked him, and hopes that they perhaps feel the same way. And he finds them, too, but always hidden behind possibilities. Sentences constructed to hide meanings and words that are kind but reserved. Each time, he convinces himself that he’s making it up, that there’s no way Someone means any of it the way he wants them to mean it. 

And so, more often than he likes to admit, Adachi pulls out that letter, the New Years’ letter, and he pretends. He pretends that they weren’t just trying to cheer him up, that there’s more behind the letter than just the things they said. But he has discovered that the more he pretends, the more it’s not enough. His crush has only gotten stronger, no matter how much he tells himself that it’s just pretend. 

In an attempt to make his crush go away, Adachi has redoubled his efforts to figure out who Someone is, with the theory that at least if it’s one of his married coworkers he’ll have a better reason to try and stop. It has been clear for a long time that this person works in the same office space, because they’ve observed him in so many different situations, but otherwise he has no clues. Asking has never worked, and he feels bad pestering, and no matter what he does he cannot seem to catch them retrieving or placing any of the notes. Lately he has resorted to work talk, referencing various of their colleagues to see what Someone’s perspective is. There are three different units that work in the same office space after all, and if they have a particular dislike for one of the bosses, there’s a chance that rules out the other two units. 

No such luck so far, of course, but he keeps trying. Since Someone seems to have almost no opinions on anyone, he figured he’d pick the most visible person in the office that the most people appreciate, and then he can work from there. Jealousy might mean they’re in the same department, for example, or, he supposes, that they like one of the girls in his fanclub, though he hopes fervently that that’s not the case. On the other hand, an overly exaggerated list of praise could mean that Someone is in the fanclub. 

Adachi sighs, and refocuses his attention on the letter in front of him. No use speculating until he has Someone’s response. He reads the New Years letter one last time and gently refolds it, tucking it back inside the sketch book. Then he leans back on his hands and looks up. A single petal falls and sticks to his cheek and he smiles. It would be nice to come here with Someone someday. No, not Someone, just lower-case someone, he shouldn’t get his hopes up.

On impulse, he takes the petal from his cheek, gets the letter he wrote back out, and folds the petal up inside.

In comparison to Sunday, Monday is awful. Adachi is grumpy before the morning is over, stuck with code that doesn’t work for no apparent reason, and thinking longingly of his afternoon outside with Someone yesterday. Even Urabe has the sense to steer clear of him this morning, though that could just be there’s no work for him to push onto Adachi.

The only thing keeping him going this morning is the thought of a response from Someone. No matter how long the letters have gotten, it very rarely takes Someone more than a few hours to write back. When morning break goes by and there’s no letter, Adachi tells himself that Someone has just been busy, and surely there will be a response when he gets back from lunch later. 

When there’s no reply after lunch, though, Adachi gets impatient. He wonders if he somehow missed it, if Someone picked a new hiding place and he just hasn’t seen it yet. He flips through binder after binder, checks under and in his laptop three times, and then turns to the drawers of his desk, rifling through his extra supplies.

“Lose something?” Fujisaki asks as she goes past, coming back from her own lunch.

“Oh, um,” Adachi scrambles to think of something a normal person would have lost, “My pen. My favorite pen.” He mentally berates himself - normal people don’t have favorite pens!

“Is it that one?” Fujisaki asks, pointing to the breast pocket of his suit. He looks down. Why couldn’t he have picked something that wasn’t so obviously where he’d left it? 

“Um. Yeah,” he says, pretending as best he can that this is all normal, “Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it. We all get a little distracted sometimes.” She gives him a bright smile and continues past to her own desk. Adachi’s eyes follow her, and he tilts his head. Could she be Someone? It’s possible, he supposes. It would be easy for her to leave notes at his desk without anyone noticing, since she often goes past it to the door anyway. Had he ever had notes from Someone on a day that she was out? He can’t remember specifically, but Someone has never missed a day, and he’s pretty sure Fujisaki has. It’s possible, though, that those were days where it was Someone’s turn in the morning, and she had just left that note the night before?

How would he feel if Someone really is Fujisaki, he wonders. A part of him would be relieved, because she’s not married, which would mean he’s not crushing on someone already taken. Well, taken permanently, he’s not sure whether she’s seeing anyone. And she really is quite pretty, and kind, and, he supposes, Someone being Fujisaki wouldn’t be that bad actually.

With that theory in mind, he decides to test it. If Fujisaki is Someone, then she might have been going past his desk to hide a letter, and he just happened to already have made it back. He stretches, making sure she’s watching, and then gets up and goes to the bathroom, exaggeratedly pushing in his chair.

He takes his time in the bathroom, fiddling with a game on his phone. He wants to be sure she feels like she has enough time to hide the letter and get back to her desk before he gets back, or she might not do it.

When he arrives back at his desk, he does a quick inventory. Nothing looks out of place, or like it had been moved, but he checks under the papers he’d been working with and discreetly tips his laptop up - no letter. His face falls. Ah well, perhaps she hadn’t noticed him leaving after all. Or maybe he was too exaggerated and she was suspicious.

After that, the afternoon drags. Adachi’s code still won’t work, and if it weren’t for Fujisaki asking if he was coming as she goes past he would have completely forgotten their weekly department meeting - whose terrible idea was it to have meetings on Mondays anyways? The only benefit is that this week he doesn’t have to talk, and it takes up most of the rest of the afternoon. He just barely has time to go back to his desk to collect his things before it’s time to leave for home. And still, no letter-

Wait. There. It’s sticking out from a pile of papers that he’d been working with just before he left for his meeting, and it definitely hadn’t been there before. He smiles, pockets the note, and shoves the papers into a binder to look neater until he can get back to them in the morning. He’s very tempted to sit down and read it right away, but there’s always the chance that Urabe would see him still here and dump more work on him. Still, the letter feels like it’s burning a hole in his pocket the whole way home. 

Often when Adachi has a letter overnight, he takes his time with it, going over it again and again before he decides what he wants to write back. This time, however, he immediately goes for the stationary and a pen. He has so much he wants to say that he feels like if he doesn’t write immediately the words will leak out of him.

Adachi sits back and rereads what he’s already written. He really does feel bad for being so mean about Someone’s ideas on Kurosawa. It just seems so unfair of them, when they’re so kind towards everyone else. But since they’re in the middle of this conversation about being their authentic selves, he feels like it’s important to leave it in.

He sighs and gets up to fix himself a cup of tea. While the question about Kurosawa did give them plenty to talk about, it didn’t actually serve its purpose. They don’t sound jealous of him, either in work or romance, so that doesn’t narrow it down at all. The best he can guess is that they almost never work with him, if they really can’t see beyond his face. That might rule out the rest of the sales department, but it’s a big department, so probably not. And asking about Kurosawa was a last-ditch attempt, so really, it’s back to square one. 

Tea made, he returns to the letter. He takes a cautious sip from the mug, and then twirls the pen in his fingers. He’s not really sure where to go next. He’d answered all of Someone’s questions, and there isn’t anything new in his life since yesterday. His mind wanders back to that letter, and the flower petal he’d included. He wonders what Someone thought about it. It’s kind of funny, really, that he did that on impulse, and then today ended up talking about gifts helping to make friends in a video game and how he wished that were real. Would Someone realize that he’d done it? He considers throwing out the letter and starting over, so that he could make it less obvious but--

Would it be a bad thing for Someone to realize that he wants… Well, he’s not sure what he wants, but he knows it’s more than this. He frowns. If he can’t figure out what he wants, then they probably can’t either, right? But he doesn’t feel relieved at that thought, and he’s not sure why.

He shakes his head to refocus, and takes another sip of tea. Dwelling on his crush never makes it go away, and he should know better. 

He adds a few lines of pleasantries, and decides to skip the scheming to find out Someone’s identity tonight. He reads it through once more, before signing. Perhaps it’s the mood he’s in, or perhaps he’s just feeling lazy, but tonight, for the first time since writing to Someone, he leaves off the “friend.”

Chapter Text

Adachi looks up from writing at the sound of Watanabe and Fujisaki entering to get coffee. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and his turn to write to Someone, so he’s taking his afternoon break to sit in a corner of the break room and write. 

“Did you hear?” he hears Watanabe say, “Kurosawa just closed another huge deal for the company! Chief is taking all of us out to celebrate!”

Oh no , he thinks, not another company party . The women keep talking but Adachi stops listening, planning his exit strategy for the end of the day so that he can be miraculously missing when the official invite goes out. These things aren’t required exactly, but they kind of are if you’re around when the chief announces them and you don’t have previous plans. As if Adachi ever has previous plans. 

A few minutes later he realizes his afternoon break is almost over and he hasn’t finished his letter.

When Adachi returns to his desk, he finds a new project sitting in his email, a customer satisfaction survey that went out to all of their major contracts that needs keywording before analysis. Adachi bites back a groan and rolls his eyes. Free answer surveys are always the worst to work with. The one or two jokers that leave funny responses are never worth the secondhand embarrassment of reading every little complaint, especially when he knows that some of them are completely baseless. He sighs and downloads the responses to begin sorting.

As soon as he starts, he discovers a bug in the software that split the kanji incorrectly, meaning that the filters won’t work right. He rolls his eyes and dives into the base code of the software, attempting to find the bug. He reads through every line of code twice and still can’t find it, so he begins working on a line by line test.

“Adachi!” Urabe claps him on the shoulder, and Adachi jumps, looking up from his coding, “Didn’t you hear what the chief just said? He’s taking us out for drinks! Pack it in!”

Adachi’s eyes shoot down to the corner of his computer screen, checking the time. Sure enough, 6:15. Shit. He’d meant to leave 20 minutes ago, but had gotten so swept up in what he was doing that he’d completely forgotten. He looks back up and smiles weakly.

“Let me just finish this last bit,” he says. There’s no getting out of it now.

20 minutes later he finds himself sitting at the corner of a table in an izakaya, Fujisaki next to him and Urabe across. A waiter brings out giant mugs of beer for everyone, so Adachi takes one, just to be polite. Someone starts Cheers down the table and he dutifully takes a sip every time one is called. There are quite a lot, actually. This must have been a big deal. 

Adachi eyes Kurosawa, sitting a few seats down on the other side of the table. His suit is still perfectly pressed, even this late in the evening, and not a single hair is out of place. Besides that, he really does have the perfect manners, modest but still accepting the praise of his colleagues. Adachi doesn’t understand what kind of lottery Kurosawa won to get everything, but he sure seems to have it all.

“So, Adachi, seen any good television lately?” Fujisaki asks, and Adachi tears his focus away from Kurosawa to make small talk with Fujisaki for a bit. He wonders again if Fujisaki could be Someone, even though he’s had that theory and ruled it out several times since the first time he thought of it last March. Whether she is or not, having someone to talk to is nice.

As the night wears on, the crowd thins a little bit. Rokkaku leaves first, claiming a previous commitment to go drinking with friends from high school. He’s followed soon after by Tanaka and Nakamura, who remind the chief of their joint meeting with clients the first thing the next morning. Adachi searches for an excuse to leave, but he really doesn’t have a good one. All he’s doing is going home to sleep, just to come back in the morning. 

“Hey, Adachi!” Urabe says loudly, partway through his third beer, “I hear you’ve never had a girlfriend is that true?” Adachi chokes on his own spit. Are they really going to have this conversation here? Within earshot of their boss?

“Oh, uh. Yeah,” Adachi mutters. 

“Seriously? Oh dude, you gotta let me help you, I’m a great wingman. I can fix you up with someone real nice, I promise.”

“Oh that’s ok, you really don’t have to.”

“Hey, Fujisaki, you could go out with him!” 

Adachi wishes he could just die on the spot, but Fujisaki puts on her most fake smile and just shakes her head.

“I’m not available at the moment,” she says.

“Ahhhhh, a boyfriend? Tell us about him!” They continue back and forth a bit longer, Fujisaki refusing to give in, and Urabe pressuring anyways. Eventually Urabe must get bored because he turns back to Adachi.

“Adachi, seriously, I can hook you up. What do you like? I bet there’s someone in this bar right now!”

Perhaps it’s the beer, or maybe he thinks it’ll just get this over with, but before he can stop himself he blurts out “Please stop! I already have a crush on someone.” 

Of course, the entire table fell silent halfway through. Of course they did. Adachi can feel his cheeks burning, and it is definitely not the alcohol. He takes a quick sip of beer to give himself something to do, and the other conversations resume. He takes two slow breaths, trying to calm his nerves. He hasn’t told anyone about Someone, or his crush, and for Urabe to be the first person he told and the entire rest of the office to hear it is mortifying.

“You have a crush, huh,” Urabe says, and Adachi is grateful that he’s at least lowering his voice, “Who is it? I’ll help you out.” 

Adachi tries his best not to tell him, he really does. But Urabe is persistent and the easiest way to shut him up is to just give him what he wants. Adachi takes a quick look around the table. Aside from Fujisaki, he’s ruled out basically everyone here as potential candidates for Someone, he thinks. Hopefully they’re not here, and if they are, well, hopefully they won’t hear him if he does it fast enough.

“Look, I don’t know. I-” he hesitates, suddenly realizing how this is going to sound, “I’ve just been talking to them, ok? I don’t know their name.”

Urabe looks like he’s going to loudly make fun of him again, but just then Kurosawa starts coughing. Adachi hadn’t been paying attention, maybe he choked on something. The entire table rushes to get him napkins and water, and Adachi is just glad that the focus is off him.

“I’m going to go,” he mutters to Fujisaki, as he scrambles up from the floor. He makes a beeline for the door, without looking back.

That night he barely sleeps. He’d told his coworkers about Someone. He’d told them and he’d said he had a crush. Someone could have been there. Even if they had taken his advice and skipped out, the rumor mill tomorrow would get around and soon everyone would know that Adachi has a crush on someone he’d never met. What was he thinking?

Maybe they’d assume he meant online dating! You can fall for someone online without meeting them right? And surely some sites have it so that you have a username instead of your real name, that’s just basic security, right? It’s nerdy, but, well, possibly a better rumor to be going around while he still doesn’t know who Someone is. Except if Someone does hear that rumor and happens to return his feelings, then they’ll think he’s talking about someone else, and give up, and he doesn’t want that, does he?

He tosses and turns all night, and when he does sleep, he dreams of the entire office laughing at him as he turns up in his suit coat and a pair of underwear and nothing else. To top it off, the underwear have neon pink hearts and cherry blossoms on them.

When his alarm finally goes off in the morning, Adachi turns it off and lays in bed another few minutes before getting up. Why not call in sick for the day? He has plenty of sick time, and he’s tired enough that he’ll never get anything done. 

He enjoys that fantasy for a few moments, but quickly realizes that he would never be able to avoid telling people that he’d been lying if it comes up later. Groaning, he climbs out of bed, throws on the suit that looks the least wrinkled and a tie that at least doesn’t clash, and heads out the door. 

Halfway to work he realizes that being tired is the least of his worries. Today it’s Someone’s turn to write first, which usually means a letter as soon as he arrives. If they were there last night, and heard him, then he is about to find out.

That thought is almost enough to make him turn around and go right back to bed. He does not need to know if he just indirectly confessed to his crush at a work event. Oh, why is everything about having a crush so embarrassing . He suspects his cheeks are red, and glances around at the rest of the passengers on the train, hoping that none of them are noticing.

He somehow convinces himself to get off the train and walk the rest of the way to work, but halfway there he impulsively stops in the bakery. He hadn’t eaten breakfast because he was in a hurry, and buying breakfast will also buy him a few minutes before he has to deal with whatever Someone has written. Not that he thinks he’ll actually be able to eat anything, with the nerves clouding up his stomach.

Sure enough, the moment he reaches his desk, he spots the corner of paper peeking out from under his laptop. He sets down his things and waves the croissant bag as an excuse to go to the break room, discreetly pocketing the note. 

Instead of going there, however, he heads straight for the bathroom. Usually a few people will eat breakfast in the break room instead of at home, and even though it’s large enough that he could probably find his own corner, he doesn’t want to be around anyone when he reads this, just in case. 

Once there, he locks himself in a stall. This is it. He closes his eyes before unfolding the note. What if they just tell him they don’t want to write anymore? What if they make fun of him? What if it’s just the word “Loser” written in giant characters? He cracks one eye open. The letter is more than two lines long, so that’s promising. He slowly opens his other eye and begins reading.

Adachi feels like he swallowed an apple whole and it’s lodged in his throat. He has completely forgotten his worries that Someone overheard him at dinner last night. This is the closest Someone has come to saying anything about letting Adachi know who they are. Adachi closes his eyes and hugs the letter to his chest. He doesn’t know if this means he has a chance, but he’s going to pretend it does. Somehow, he has to make meeting Someone happen.

Chapter Text

Adachi almost rips the paper in his hurry to get it folded and put under the coffee maker. That’s all it is, certainly not his nerves at the thought of meeting Someone, finally. That’s definitely not why his hands are shaking either. 

“Good morning!” Kurosawa says from behind him and he jumps, nearly tipping the full coffee maker over. He just barely catches it and rights it, but burns his fingertips on the hot coffee pot in the process. Once it’s steady, he notices Kurosawa’s arm reaching over his shoulder and balancing the top of the machine - this would have been a much smarter and safer option, but since when did Adachi do the right thing when he was panicking? He jumps back and blows on his fingers.

“Are you alright?” Kurosawa asks, as Adachi waves his hand in the air to cool them.

“Mm,” Adachi says with a quick nod. There’s an awkward pause and Adachi isn’t sure why. Then Kurosawa gestures with his coffee mug.

“I’ll just… get some coffee then,” he says, and Adachi realizes he is directly in the way. Ah. Well, this morning is going just swimmingly , isn’t it. 

“Right. See you,” and Adachi walks off back to his desk, hoping that these slip ups aren’t an omen for his meeting with Someone later. 

If Adachi did believe in omens, he’d have cancelled their meet-up by lunch. First his computer refused to accept his password three times in a row, and then his favorite pen broke, leaking black ink all over some important papers that he was preparing to hand over to Urabe. Upon trying to reprint them, the printer jams, and it takes almost an hour to undo. When lunch finally comes, he breathes a sigh of relief. Hopefully Someone will have written by the time he comes back.

Sure enough, there’s a note tucked under his laptop. The message is short.

Adachi feels like the little bubble of anxiety that has been sitting behind his collarbone since this morning has popped. It’s going to happen. He’s going to meet Someone today . 

After Someone’s note, Adachi’s day gets infinitely better. He barely even notices when Adobe forces him to update in the middle of something, spending the five minutes waiting for his computer to reboot thinking of how nervous he’d be if he were Someone. He’d have convinced himself five times over that Someone would leave after finding out who he was, if it wasn’t for the fact that Someone already knows. He floats through his afternoon, thinking of ways that he can make Someone more comfortable, show them that he doesn’t care who they are at work, he cares about who they are in the letters. 

If he said he wasn’t at all nervous he’d be lying, of course. Someone had been writing to him for a whole year, and something made them change their mind about being anonymous. Adachi still isn’t sure what, and they insist that they’ll only tell him later, after they’ve met in person. And, of course, there’s the whole crush problem to deal with. He’d decided about a month ago that if they’d gone a whole year without mentioning a significant other, then Someone probably didn’t have one, but there was always the chance that that wasn’t the case. And even if they didn’t, writing notes for a year didn’t necessarily mean that they’d like him. They could be attracted to people of different genders than him. Or people who are cooler than him. Or just… anybody who isn’t him. 

Thinking about what to do about his crush after they meet is getting a bit ahead of himself. He doesn’t need to worry about that yet. First he just has to get through meeting whoever Someone is and not being awkward as hell at it. Or, at least, not being more awkward than usual. He shouldn’t set the bar too high for himself.

He’s so busy thinking through what-if scenarios that he almost forgets to take his afternoon break. By the time he remembers, it’s only an hour till the end of the work day. He takes it anyways, and leaves Someone a note that he will definitely be there, no matter what. He thinks about telling Someone that he considers their meeting a thing to look forward to, a treat for getting to the end of the day, but decides that’s probably too much to write right before he meets them in person and has to look them in the eye. 

At 5:45, Adachi begins slowly closing applications on his computer. He gets up to use the bathroom, and then comes back to do his stats report for the day. He flips through binders to look busy, and goes to the supply closet to refill his stapler.

At 5:57, Urabe scoots over in his chair. Adachi groans inwardly.

“Hey Adachi! Listen, I’ve got this big thing tonight, any chance you could…?” he trails off waving his laptop in one hand. Adachi swallows hard. He really can’t be late tonight, but also he’s never said no to Urabe before.

“I- I- I-” Adachi stutters, and then lets out his breath, feeling defeated, “What is it?”

“It’s just a real quick thing, I promise, I just need you to run this code on the sales data from the last few months.” 

Adachi wants to roll his eyes. Running code on sales data is never a quick job, because once the code has been run, the results have to be interpreted, and that’s probably what Urabe actually wants him to do.

“Can it wait? I’ve…” Adachi takes a deep breath, “I’ve actually got plans too.”

“You? Have plans?” Urabe blinks in disbelief, “Don’t tell me you finally got that crush of yours to go out with you?”

“Too loud, Urabe!” Adachi shushes, looking around at the few people who haven’t left, “Not exactly, but… this is the first step.” It feels so strange to admit that out loud, and to Urabe of all people. Adachi makes a mental note to wonder at the shambles of his life later - he’s now five minutes late leaving the office, and if Someone missed his note because it came so late, they might leave before he even got there. He makes a show of looking at his watch.

“Please, Urabe, my plans start in two minutes, and it’s a five minute walk. Let me go?”

Urabe looks startled, but nods, gesturing toward the door. Adachi scrambles to get the rest of his things shoved into his backpack, and jumps up, rushing to the door. He just misses the elevator, and by the time he does make it out of the building, he’s going to be ten minutes late, even at a run. 

Please don’t let Someone leave before I get there , he thinks, and then he takes off, all anxiety lost in the desperate attempt to make it on time.

He stops running a few shops down from the blue awning of the little French bakery. It’s fairly dark outside by now, but there’s a warm glow from the windows, and he can smell the fresh bread. It’s familiar, and steadying, and he gulps air down trying to slow his breathing. He flattens his hair, hopes he doesn’t look too sweaty, and pulls open the door. Before he can even look around, he hears someone calling his name.

“Adachi-San!” Adachi turns to find a man waving merrily from the corner.

“Rokkaku? If you wanted to be friends, why didn’t you just say so!”

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Adachi arrives home and lets out the breath he feels like he’s been holding since he left the bakery. He’d had a lovely, and enlightening evening with Rokkaku, but after all that adrenaline and excitement, he still hadn’t met Someone.

For about ten minutes he thought he had. He’d had so little idea who Someone could be that he thought Rokkaku might well be them. His enthusiasm made sense for Someone’s overwhelming support, but as the night went on more and more things made less and less sense. About when Rokkaku started talking about his high school friends being interested in dance, not the various ball sports that Someone had described, Adachi decided he had to test it, and so he brought up the beach.

Rokkaku loves the beach. He loves the sand, and beach volleyball, and swimming, and spends fifteen minutes talking about this past summer’s trip to a lovely spot on the coast with all his friends.

Rokkaku is not Someone.

At that point, Adachi took a quick look around the bakery, but they’re the only ones left. There had been a few other people there when he got there, but it’s been an hour and the place has cleared out. Could it have been anyone else? Adachi wonders, but he had been too worried about being late to take notice of anyone after Rokkaku called his name.

After that, Adachi tried to get out quickly. He told Rokkaku that he was getting a headache and needed to go home, and, after exchanging numbers and promising to hang out more, he left. 

Now that he’s made it home, though, he’s not entirely sure what to do. Or rather, he knows he should write a letter, but he’s not sure how he should say “I fucked up please forgive me” without, just, saying that. 

He pulls out some stationary and a pen, and cracks his knuckles. It’s been a while since he had trouble writing to Someone. Maybe if he just starts, it’ll come out okay.

Adachi can feel himself shaking as he writes the last paragraph. It’s dangerously close to the truth, dangerously close to his crush, but he feels like he must write it anyway. He cannot let Someone think that he did any of this on purpose. He sighs. Ideally he would never have made such a mistake. Ideally he would have already figured out who Someone was, so that this couldn’t have happened. 

He scrubs a hand through his hair, and then folds the letter up carefully. He can’t change the past. He just has to hope that Someone isn’t so offended that they’ll give up on him.

The next morning, Adachi is a whole half hour early to work, so early that the coffee maker hasn’t even been started yet. Remembering yesterday’s burnt fingertips, Adachi takes it as a good sign, and slips his note underneath. Surely Someone will want more closure than a missed connection, and will think to check. Right?

By lunchtime, Adachi is beginning to think he was wrong. There’s been no new note, despite him being away from his desk in a meeting most of the morning, and then immediately leaving again for lunch. 

By his afternoon break, Adachi has convinced himself that Someone is just taking a long time to reply. There’s plenty to cover after all. And maybe they’re busy tonight, and they’re trying to figure out how to let him down easy, while still promising to do it another time. Surely that’s it. But his anxiety won’t leave it alone. He wants to believe that Someone wouldn’t do this to him. Anxiety just keeps saying “what if.” 

In order to make his anxiety shut up, Adachi checks under the coffee pot. If his note is missing, which it will be , then it’s just like he thought, Someone is working on responding but hasn’t had enough time yet. He tips the coffee maker slightly and… oh. His note. Right where he left it.

Adachi feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him. He’d been so sure that it would be gone. 

That night, Adachi writes again.

By the time he finishes writing, Adachi finds tears dripping down his cheeks. He sniffs, and wipes them to keep them from dripping on the paper. He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. He’s actually surprised at how calm he feels on the inside. A day ago, he hadn’t been ready to tell Someone anything yet. Now that he’s about to lose them, though, he feels completely clear. If they don’t want anything to do with him after this, well, then he has to accept that. But maybe, after they read what he’s written, they’ll understand what happened and they’ll be ready to forgive him.

Unless they already gave up. But he has to hope that isn’t the case.

Adachi does his best not to check the coffee maker every time he has a break the next day, but his resolve falters midafternoon. The letters are still there. His eyes sink closed in pain. He’ll leave it a little longer, but if they haven’t picked them up by the time he leaves work tonight, then he has his answer.

Not ready to go back to his desk yet, Adachi sits at a table near the window, his head in his hands. He doesn’t know what to do now. Without knowing who Someone is, he has no other way to get their attention.

He jumps at the sound of a chair scraping out next to him, and turns to find Fujisaki sitting down.

“Goodness, it’s like the mood in the office is contagious. What’s up with you?” she asks.

“Oh. Nothing,” Adachi insists, and does his best to give her a small smile. She doesn’t look like she believes it, but doesn’t push.

“If you say so. The whole office seems down, what with Watanabe and Tanaka moping over Kurosawa being out.”

“Mmm?” Adachi tries to be polite, but his mind really is on other things, and he can’t focus.

“Mmm. I guess he went to visit family suddenly? Maybe there’s been an emergency. Anyway, they’re moping just because they can’t see his smile, how silly is that?”

Adachi nods, because it seems like that would be appropriate from Fujisaki’s tone, but his mind is still elsewhere. When it seems like she doesn’t have any more to say, he excuses himself, saying he has lots of work to do, but really all he wants is to be left alone. 

That night, Adachi collects his letters from under the coffee maker. He has his answer. He fucked up, and this is what he gets. 

When he gets home, he locks the door behind him, drops his backpack on the floor, and trudges over to the bed. He doesn’t think he’s ever fucked up this badly before. And the worst of it is, he’s left with a crush on someone he never even met that he has to get over somehow.

Before he realizes it, there are hot tears running down his cheeks. Why did it have to end like this? Why did he have to hurt Someone so bad that they left? Why are people always leaving him?

Soon it becomes hard to breathe. The tears are falling fast, and he can’t stop them. Wanting something, anything, for comfort, he digs out his stuffed Doraemon from where it hides underneath his bed. He sets it on his knees in front of him.

“I fucked up, Doraemon,” he says, and his voice cracks halfway through, “I fucked up, and I can’t fix it.” 

Unable to hold it in anymore he wails and hugs Doraemon to his chest. 

It’s a long time before he stops crying.

Chapter Text

It has been three weeks, two days, and seven hours since Adachi made his mistake. He counts the time because it’s the only way he knows what day it is anymore. He dreads going to work, because it reminds him of Someone, but he dreads coming home more because at home the numbness wears off. At work he has to keep up appearances, and pretend that he’s not walking around in a daze. At home he has no reason to do so, and is left crying himself to sleep more often than not.

Adachi’s 30th birthday comes and goes, and he barely notices. The day itself is quiet - three texts in the morning, from Tsuge, Rokkaku, and his mom. The development of magical powers is unexpected, but Adachi quickly adapts to avoiding touching anyone, and gets on with his life. Besides, it’s probably not real anyway, just his subconscious manifesting his own loneliness to spite him. By the time a week has gone by, he’s almost forgotten that his life had been any different.

Adachi sighs as he waits for the elevator. It’s become really difficult to get to work, with the last bit being in an elevator. No matter how early he comes, the elevator is always busy, and getting on when there’s few enough people that he won’t be touched is almost impossible. He ends up waiting through 2 or 3 different crowds, always at the back of the line leaning against the window. 

Today, like many days, he finds his thoughts wandering to Someone as he waits. He wonders if he would have told Someone about his power, if that’s what it is. If they were still writing letters, he might. It’d be hard to admit to something so strange out loud, but maybe they’d have suggestions for how to deal with it, or how to figure out if it’s real or not. 

The elevator comes a third time, and Adachi allows everyone else to go first, decides that it’s still too full for him, and steps back with a sigh. Maybe the fourth will be emptier. The doors close, and Adachi falls back into his thoughts.

He would really love to have someone to talk to about this, and Someone is so good at listening. Was so good at listening. They gave good advice, too, when he needed it. But he doesn’t have that anymore, and that’s why he feels so lost, and-

He shoves that line of thinking away before it can make him cry.

A crisp “Good morning,” startles Adachi out of his thoughts, and he instinctively jumps away from Kurosawa. Shit. Now that someone who recognizes him is here, he’ll have to take the elevator or he’ll think he’s weird. 

Sure enough, the elevator is packed, and before Adachi can do anything about it he’s pushed back into Kurosawa. 

Just my luck, running into each other this early. I’m so unprepared for this.

What? Kurosawa doesn’t want to run into someone? Why could that be? Adachi almost wants to laugh at his own subconscious for coming up with something so ridiculous. He starts looking around at the people who got on the elevator with them, wondering who his subconscious thought Kurosawa could possibly be fighting with, and then remembers that this is not real anyway and gives up.

Oh and the cute bedhead again. Fuck. I’m supposed to be getting OVER this crush, not letting it get worse.

Wait. Kurosawa has a crush ? And that’s why he wants to avoid this person? Adachi finds himself grinning. He hadn’t ever thought about Kurosawa having a crush that was unreciprocated, probably because he’d never thought of having anything in common with Kurosawa. Perhaps she was already dating someone? Adachi can’t imagine any other reason she’d refuse to go out with Kurosawa, of all people.

The elevator dings and someone right at the back shoves his way forward, knocking Kurosawa over. Kurosawa just barely catches himself against the wall before falling on Adachi.

Shit! He’s too close! I wonder if Adachi can hear my heartbeat? Ugh, why can’t I just get over him.

Adachi’s eyes widen in shock. Kurosawa has a crush on him ?! Surely not.

That settles it. This definitely isn’t a real magical power, it’s all hallucination. Adachi must subconsciously wish that Kurosawa had a crush on him, and really who wouldn’t? But there’s no way that could be real. Could it?

Adachi’s day passes slowly, and more often than not he finds himself staring at his code without seeing it. He still thinks that whatever he heard was a hallucination, but even if it wasn’t, there’s nothing he can do about it. Kurosawa can like him all he wants, crazy as he is, but Adachi still has a crush on Someone. But that doesn’t matter, because none of this is real . Adachi may wish that someone like Kurosawa would pay attention to him, but that’s all it is. Wishful thinking. 

Halfway through the day, Urabe hands over a project that he should have fixed without Adachi’s help, but Adachi just absently agrees. More time in the office means less time at home. He’s barely a third of the way through by the end of the work day, and soon Adachi is the only one left in the office. He’s sure of it because the rest of the lights are out. It always feels so strange being in the little halo of light around his desk by himself in an office that’s normally full of people. He imagines this is what it would be like to be in a museum after dark, and shivers. Leaning forward, he refocuses on his work, letting the numbers act as anchors for his thoughts. 

“Still here?” Kurosawa asks, making Adachi jump. He hands over a can of coffee with a flourish, and says that it’s an extra, but Adachi hears wisps of thoughts about him buying it special, even though he knows he shouldn’t have.

Not. Real . Adachi tells himself, before thanking Kurosawa and saying goodnight. Instead of leaving, Kurosawa offers to help him, retrieving several years worth of paperwork, and removing his suit coat to settle in for a long evening. 

Luckily the evening is uneventful, though Adachi keeps hearing the hallucinations. Kurosawa keeps noticing things about Adachi, like his smell, and the way he messes with his hair when he’s frustrated, and then berating himself for noticing them. The way that Kurosawa swears at himself internally is actually quite funny. Adachi has to bite his lips to keep from smiling. Then he remembers that this is all hallucinations and Kurosawa is not actually noticing any of those things, and that sobers him up quickly.

Finally, after a long evening of data entry, the night is over, and they can go home. Adachi feels a bit relieved to be allowed free of Kurosawa’s thoughts - no, the hallucinations about his thoughts. He’s got to stop thinking about this power as if it were real, now that he has proof it’s not. He marvels at the feeling of wanting to go home, a feeling that he hasn’t had in three weeks. His nose tickles in the cold night air, and he sneezes violently.

“Are you ok?” Kurosawa asks, concerned.

“Oh, yeah, it’s just cold,” Adachi says.

“Here,” Kurosawa digs a scarf out of his bag and holds it out, “Put this on.”

“What? No you use it! We’ll all be in trouble if you get sick!”

“Just wear it!” he insists and starts looping it around Adachi’s neck. Adachi braces himself for the hallucination that he knows is coming.

Why does he still think so poorly of himself, after everything I told him in our letters? He is extremely kind and nice. He lets everyone else use the elevator first in the mornings, and doesn’t complain about his supervisor pushing work onto him. All these reasons are why I fell for him in the first place, and why it’s not fair of me to keep…

Kurosawa’s hands drop away from his neck and the hallucination stops. Adachi swallows hard. Somehow, between this morning and now, Adachi’s subconscious has conflated Kurosawa and Someone, and the hallucinations now feature Kurosawa thinking about the compliments Someone gave him. Great. Just great. He misses Someone and that manifests as the most amazing man in the company actually being Someone. Am I really that shallow? He wonders to himself. Clearly he is, if all he wants is for someone as handsome as Kurosawa to give him compliments. 

Adachi sniffs, and is glad he can blame the tears in his eyes and stuffy nose on the weather. He shakes himself out of his daze and turns to head home, after thanking Kurosawa. Before he gets very far, Kurosawa stops him. Adachi wishes he could just get away, go home and hide, but Kurosawa insists that he must come over since the last train has gone, and Adachi can’t find a good enough reason to refuse him. Decision made, Kurosawa claps him on the shoulder, a brief What the hell am I doing to myself? comes through, and they’re off for a taxi.

Over the next few days Adachi notices Kurosawa more and more. Well, it was never easy to miss him, but Adachi starts noticing just how often they’re near each other. And every time their shoulders brush, Adachi hears yet another compliment tinged with self-flagellation. This hallucination is so bad for him, he knows, but it’s like he has Someone back in his life, and he has to resist the temptation to actively try and touch Kurosawa.

A few days later, Kurosawa is standing by his desk as Adachi returns to get ready to leave for the night.

“Good work today,” Kurosawa says, when he notices Adachi approaching, “You still have work to do?” Adachi shakes his head.

“I just have to put this away, and then I’ll leave,” he manages to say, but his insides are quivering. He’s so afraid that one more hallucination will push him too far and he’ll tell Kurosawa everything. It isn’t fair to Kurosawa to make him the object of all of his fantasies rolled up into one. Adachi is no better than Kurosawa’s fan club, and he absolutely hates himself for it. 

Still, it would be weird to keep standing across the room. He slowly walks to his own desk, dreading what will happen when he gets there. Kurosawa doesn’t say any more, however, and just holds out the binder.

“What’s this?” Adachi asks.

“I heard Urabe mentioning that you’d be working on Asukita corp next. Since I have a bunch of data on them, I figured if it could be of help to you, you should have it.”

“What? Seriously?”

“Of course! You’re my colleague, we should help each other, yes?”

“Mm,” Adachi nods, reaching for the binder. Kurosawa doesn’t think he’s weird, hasn’t noticed the way that Adachi has become nervous around him over a crush that isn’t even about him. In his relief he grabs the binder the wrong way, and the entire contents cascade to the floor. He scrambles to catch them, but fails miserably.

“Oh, sorry!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Here, they do need to be in a certain order, though, so hold that?”

Adachi kneels on the floor, and braces himself for another hallucination. He has to keep it together, and act normal. Not like an addict desperate for their next hit.

He accepted it! I’m so glad. I know I shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be getting closer to him. I can’t help myself though. If he’ll accept me as a colleague then so be it. Maybe eventually, he will even see me as a friend. Whatever he’ll give me I’ll take. Now that he thinks Rokkaku is Someone, it’s all I have left.

Adachi’s eyes dart up to look at Kurosawa’s face, but there’s no change. He’s as kind-faced as always. Surely this is another hallucination… right? Except, Adachi doesn’t think Rokkaku is Someone, and he hasn’t for nearly a month now. Why would he hallucinate something he didn’t believe?

He looks back down at the papers Kurosawa is shoving into the binder, repeating a mantra of not real, not real, not real , against the growing suspicion that it’s very real. He finally attempts to ignore his own thoughts by watching Kurosawa’s hands, and notices a small scar on the back of his right, a small puckered ring on the very outer edge of his hand. He tilts his head to get a better look - Kurosawa had always seemed perfect, but Adachi supposes everyone has scars.

What is he looking at? Ah, the jellyfish scar. Man that hurt. I should have known better by the time I was 8, but Aneki dared me to… Besides, I’m not great at avoiding things even when I know better, if this last month has proven anything.

Nope, still hallucination, Adachi thinks. I knew about that scar, and I could have guessed that his sister dared him, even if he never told me that. 

Eventually Kurosawa finishes and they both stand. Adachi apologizes again, and Kurosawa says goodnight. As he goes past, he pats Adachi on the shoulder.

And to think, I thought someday I might even get to kiss that mole behind his ear.

Adachi turns around, staring after Kurosawa. A mole? Behind his ear? He doesn’t… does he?

He packs up his things quickly, and then detours to the bathroom on his way out of the building. It’s a struggle to twist himself so that he can see behind his own ear in the mirror, but sure enough, just behind the earlobe, there’s a tiny mole. 

Adachi hadn’t known about the mole. This can’t have been a hallucination, which means none of the rest of it is either.

That means...

Kurosawa is Someone. 

Chapter Text

Kurosawa is. Someone. Kurosawa . Is Someone. 

Adachi can’t let go of that thought, as he rides the train home. This is unexpected. No, more than unexpected. This is unbelievable. Why on earth would Kurosawa be afraid to approach him? Why on earth would Kurosawa want to approach him?

And then there’s the part about Kurosawa having a crush on him. That part is almost even harder to believe. It might explain why Kurosawa was shy to approach him, but it doesn’t explain the crush itself. What does Kurosawa see in him?

Now that he’s sure, though, he decides that he has to do something about it. Learning that Kurosawa is Someone is important, of course, but the more important thing is that Kurosawa believes that Adachi still thinks Rokkaku is Someone. That means that somehow Kurosawa didn’t get his letters after the fiasco, though Adachi’s not sure how, or he did and he didn’t believe them. Perhaps he thought Adachi wouldn’t want to write to him anymore, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Even if everything had gone smoothly and they’d met as planned, Adachi probably would have wanted to keep writing. Everything is so much easier in a letter. 

Adachi sighs and ruffles his hair a little. This is a huge mess. A misunderstanding wrapped up in so many feelings that neither of them could see the truth. If it weren’t for his magical ability, they might never have figured it out. Adachi thanks whatever lucky stars gave it to him, because it means he has a second chance.

The problem, of course, is how to use the second chance. He can’t very well go up to Kurosawa and say “hey guess what, I figured it out by reading your thoughts, and now you have to listen to me so that we can fix it.” Kurosawa should have a choice in this. Besides, Adachi knows there’s no way that he could actually follow through on that in person anyway. He’d stutter and it would come out wrong, and he’d screw it up more than he already has. But he has to do something.

And then he realizes. He can’t do it in person. But knowing that Someone is Kurosawa, he could write him another letter. He knows where to leave it now. He can explain what happened that night, and then let Kurosawa decide whether he wants to fix it. Yes. That’s what he’ll do. 

He stands and walks to the door of the train, impatient to get home now. He taps a foot and rolls his shoulders, unable to contain his nervous energy. He needs to fix this. He needs to do this right. He can do this. He can do this.

Once off the train, he runs from the station the rest of the way home. Dropping his backpack on the floor, he doesn’t even stop to take off his suit coat. He sits at the desk, and pulls a piece of stationary to him, pausing to close his eyes and send a wish off to whoever gave him this magic that he would find the words to make this right.

He reads it one more time and then closes his eyes, making one more wish. He doesn’t even wish for anything specific, because he can’t articulate what he wants to happen next. Then he carefully retrieves the two notes he wrote right after the fiasco from the notebook where he’s been pretending to write to Someone since, and folds the new note together with them. He’ll leave all three at Kurosawa’s desk right before the end of the day, so that he can leave work straight after, and not have to face him right away.

For the first time in a month, Adachi feels the slightest stirrings of hope in his chest. It’s small, but there’s finally a chance.

The next day Adachi is on edge. He constantly feels slightly nauseous, and by midafternoon, Fujisaki has asked him if he’s feeling unwell twice. He is, but taking sick time won’t fix this. He has to make it to the end of the day, and leave Kurosawa his letter, and then maybe he’ll feel better. Well, probably he won’t, but at least he won’t have the nerves from trying to pull this off without getting caught.

When he’d made this plan, he’d thought the hardest part would be to deliver the letter. Now, though, his mind wanders to the aftermath. To the conversation that might eventually happen, where he has to explain how he knew. He can’t explain his magic - just doing this will take all of his bravery for the entire week. Maybe it’s plausible enough that he guessed the scar on Kurosawa’s hand was from the jellyfish?

After his afternoon break, Adachi stops trying to work. He’s too distracted. He pulls up a long article on how to speed up your VBA code and leaves the window on top of his computer screen so that if anyone walks by it looks like he’s working, but every few seconds he steals a glance at Kurosawa, willing him to leave for a break, or a business meeting, or anything so that Adachi can get this done. Fujisaki catches him looking three different times, and raises her eyebrows at him, but he just buries his nose in the article he’s not reading and scrolls a bit so that he looks busy.

Finally, five minutes before the end of the work day, Kurosawa gets up. He doesn’t have his bag, which means he’s not leaving for good, so Adachi can leave the note and Kurosawa will still get it today. He quickly shoves the rest of his things in his backpack, says goodnight to his deskmates, and walks to Kurosawa’s desk. He has no idea where to hide the note, though. Kurosawa always put it under his laptop, but he also knew to look for it there, so maybe he should put it somewhere more obvious?

“Adachi?” Kurosawa says, and Adachi jumps. Shit. He’d taken too long and Kurosawa is back already. 

“Can I help you with something?” Kurosawa asks, when Adachi just stands petrified, too anxious to speak. Adachi’s eyes drift to the desks nearby. A few people have left, and the rest are looking fairly busy, probably on purpose so that they don’t look like they’re prying. Well, onlookers or no, this is Adachi’s last chance. He holds the packet of letters out with a shallow bow.

“Just read it,” he says, and he knows it sounds rude and abrupt, but it’s the best he can do. 

It takes a moment for Kurosawa to take the letters from him, and as soon as he does, Adachi takes off for the exit. He can’t wait to see what happens when Kurosawa reads them, or what everyone else in the office thought. He can’t go through that.

He reaches the elevator bank, and pushes the call button, but every elevator is down on the first floor, and it feels like they’re taking years to reach him. He keeps darting glances at the door to the office, but so far nobody has followed him to make fun of him.

Finally he can’t take it anymore, and he runs to the stairs. At least then he’s moving. At least nobody will look for him in the stairs. 

Halfway to the first floor, he notices that his cheeks are wet. Is he crying? Why? This is what he wanted, he’s gotten his second chance and tried to fix it. It’s the best he can do. So why is he crying?

He bursts out of the stairwell at a run, using the momentum of the stairs to push him across the lobby and out the front doors. He is so ready to be at home, where it’s safe and quiet and there’s no one to make fun of him for… any of this. It’s all so ridiculous.

“Adachi!” A yell behind him stops him in his tracks. Why? He just wants to go home. 

“Wait, Adachi, please!”

Adachi closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He swipes a hand under each eye and blinks several times, so that there’s no evidence he’s been crying. Then he turns around.

“Adachi, please!” Kurosawa finally catches up to him, panting from running.

Adachi doesn’t say anything. He said everything he needed to say in those three letters, and he has nothing left to give. Kurosawa gulps in air, clearly trying to catch his breath.

“Did you mean it?” he asks finally, waving the opened letters in his hand.

“Yes,” Adachi replies, not even asking which bit, because he meant all of it. He’d said that in today’s letter. Did Kurosawa not believe him?

“You’re sure?” Kurosawa asks.

“I just humiliated myself in front of the whole office and you’re asking me if I’m sure?” Adachi finds himself angry for some reason. He’s spent a month pining after Someone, and done the most brave thing he’d ever tried in his life, and Kurosawa still doesn’t believe him?

But before Adachi even finishes that thought, Kurosawa drops his bag and rushes toward him, wrapping him in a hug. 

“I thought--” Kurosawa’s voice breaks, and is he crying? “I thought that you thought--”

“I know,” Adachi says, when it seems like Kurosawa isn’t going to finish that thought, “I’m sorry. I figured it out eventually.”

“This month has been so miserable,” Kurosawa wails.

“I know. Me too.” Adachi pats Kurosawa’s back awkwardly.

“How did you--?”

Adachi pauses. The real answer is a bit complicated, but if he edits a bit, maybe--

“The scar, on your right hand. I noticed it the other night. That’s from when you got stung by a jellyfish, isn’t it? When you were 8?”

Kurosawa pulls back to look Adachi in the eyes. 

“Seriously? That’s all it took?”

“That started it. It took me a minute to put the rest together.”

“Oh, I like you so much ,” Kurosawa growls, pulling him back into the hug. Adachi chuckles nervously.

“You do, huh?” 

“Yes. I do. I have since before the letters, but I was so afraid…”

“Well. You read my letters. You know--”

“Know what?” Kurosawa asks, pulling back again with an impish look in his eyes.

“Know… um. Know how I feel,” Adachi says with a blush. Kurosawa smirks, and it is unfair that he can look this good with tear tracks down his cheeks.

“And how’s that?”

“Really? You’re going to make me say it?”

“Saying things is important! We’ve both learned that lesson after the month we’ve had.”

Adachi ducks his head and shuffles his feet. Saying things is hard , even if it is important. He looks back up at Kurosawa, and then around to see if there’s anyone nearby. There isn’t, but he’s still nervous, so he leans in, and whispers in Kurosawa’s ear.

“I like you.”

“What was that?” 

“I like you,” he says slightly louder.

“What?”

“Oh for-” he takes another quick look around and then darts in and kisses Kurosawa on the lips. He feels a bolt of heat go through him at the touch, and oh dear, he would really like to do that again. But he pulls back, out of Kurosawa’s reach, waiting to see if Kurosawa is ok. 

Kurosawa blinks at him for a few moments, clearly surprised, and then surges forward. He grabs Adachi’s face and kisses him, so fast that Adachi can barely keep up. Their teeth and noses bash against each other, and Adachi giggles, but Kurosawa doesn’t stop, kissing and kissing and kissing, until they’re both breathless.

“Does that answer your question?” Adachi asks with a smirk.

Kurosawa gives him a triumphant smile, and reaches for his hand.

A few weeks later