Fumiko Yamaguchi had always believed there were two kinds of silence in an office.
The first was the useful kind. The kind that let people read reports, check figures, answer emails, and survive until lunch without someone explaining their weekend golf score in detail. That silence was clean. Helpful. Almost kind.
The second kind was the one that formed when everyone had decided something about you, and nobody had bothered to ask if it was true.
At Sakura Capital's Shinjuku office, Fumiko lived inside the second kind most days.
The office was on the twelfth floor of a glass building two blocks from the station, close enough to Shinjuku's noise that the city never fully disappeared, but high enough that all the people below looked like they were being moved around by a careful child with too many toys. From the break area window, she could see the tops of trains sliding in and out of the station, buses turning through the traffic, and office workers crossing the street in waves that somehow never crashed into each other.
Inside, everything was bright, polished, and quietly exhausting. Glass meeting rooms. Gray carpet. White desks with company-issued monitors. A coffee machine that sounded like it resented being touched. The kind of place where people said "quick check" before asking for something that would eat forty minutes and part of your soul.
Fumiko liked parts of it. She liked clean spreadsheets. She liked when numbers matched. She liked that formulas did what you told them, unless you made a mistake, in which case they punished you immediately and without emotion. There was a fairness in that. People were much less tidy.
"Yamaguchi-san, could you look at the Q3 adjustment sheet before the client prep meeting?"
Fumiko looked up from her monitor. A junior employee from the sales planning team stood beside her desk with both hands on a folder and an expression that suggested the folder contained a wild animal.
"Sure," she said. "Did they update the expense allocation tabs?"
"Um." He looked down at the folder as if hoping the answer had been printed on his sleeve. "Maybe?"
Fumiko smiled politely. Not too much. Never too much. "Send me the latest file. I'll check."
"Thank you. Sorry."
"No problem."
He hurried away with the relief of someone who had handed off a curse.
Across the aisle, Mizuki Arai leaned back in her chair and looked over the top of her monitor. Her dark forest green hair fell around her face in soft layers that somehow still looked office-appropriate, which Fumiko found unfair. If Fumiko had hair that color, everyone would assume she had entered her dramatic second form. Mizuki made it look like a reasonable business decision.
"That boy is going to start leaving offerings on your desk," Mizuki said.
Fumiko kept typing. "He's stressed."
"He's always stressed. I once saw him apologize to a printer."
"The printer was jammed."
"That made it worse. He lost to an object."
Fumiko glanced at her. "You apologized to the coffee machine last week."
Mizuki rested a hand against her chest, "That was diplomacy. I need her cooperation."
"You call the coffee machine her?"
"I know a woman under pressure when I hear one."
Fumiko looked back at her screen, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her.
Mizuki noticed, because Mizuki noticed everything. That was her special curse. Or talent. Depending on whether you were the person being observed.
They had worked together for almost three years, which in office time meant they had survived enough budget seasons, client presentations, and emergency "sorry, one more thing" emails to qualify as war companions. Mizuki was one of the only people at Sakura Capital who could sit beside Fumiko in silence and not fill it with panic. She was also one of the only people who knew Fumiko's quietness was not weakness. At least, she knew part of it.
Nobody at work knew the rest.
Nobody knew that Fumiko had stayed up too late reading a suspicious fantasy book from a delivery worker. Nobody knew she had brought handwritten notes to a café near Nakano Station. Nobody knew she had talked about abandoned gods and scar symbolism over cheesecake with a man who looked like he might apologize to furniture if he bumped into it.
And nobody, absolutely nobody, knew that since last night, she had checked her phone more times than necessary.
Which was fine.
It was normal.
People checked their phones. There were work messages. Weather alerts. News headlines. Her mother sending photos of bargain vegetables like they were rare treasures. It did not mean anything.
Her phone buzzed. Fumiko's hand moved before her dignity could stop it.
Senda Tooshiro: My friend says he is glad Selena has one fan brave enough to defend her this early.
Fumiko stared at the message as the office noise faded to a dull hum.
He told him already? Or he says he told him. Or he is making that up. No, why would he make up something that specific? Because he is weird, but not in a bad way.
Her thumb hovered over the screen, then she typed.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: One fan? That sounds insulting. Selena has presence. The author should be grateful.
She paused, then added before she could overthink it.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Also, "this early" worries me.
His reply came faster than expected.
Senda Tooshiro: He says worrying about Selena is probably wise.
Fumiko pressed her lips together. She was smiling. Not a polite office smile. Not the small customer-service expression she used when someone from sales brought her a receipt photographed under the lighting conditions of a haunted tunnel. A real smile. A soft one. Dangerous in public.
"Ah, look at that."
Fumiko looked up. Mizuki was staring at her. She had turned in her chair, one elbow on the armrest, chin resting on her knuckles, eyes bright with the kind of interest that should have required a permit.
"What?" Fumiko asked.
Mizuki smiled, "Oh. Nothing."
"That was not nothing."
"I said nothing. People say nothing when they mean something. It's office culture."
Fumiko turned her phone face down on her desk. Too late. Far too late.
Mizuki's smile grew, "Who is he?"
"There is no he."
"Oh, excellent. We've skipped to denial."
"I'm working."
"You were smiling at your phone."
"People smile."
"Not you."
Fumiko looked offended, "I smile!"
"At completed spreadsheets. Occasionally at discounted lunch sets. Once at a typo in a report, but that one was deserved."
"I'm allowed to smile at messages."
"I agree. That's why I asked who he is."
Fumiko adjusted a cell width in her spreadsheet even though it did not need adjusting. "A person."
"A man person?"
"Mizuki."
"That was not a no."
"It was your name."
"Names carry many meanings."
Fumiko finally looked at her fully, "It's… about a book."
Mizuki blinked once, "Uh… a book?"
"Yes."
"Wait. A man is texting you about a book?"
"Yes."
"And this made you smile like a woman in a shampoo commercial who just remembered spring exists."
"I did not smile like that."
"You did. It was alarming. I almost called HR and the news!"
Fumiko opened her mouth, but no useful response arrived. She looked back at her screen. The Q3 adjustment sheet had become impossible to read, which was rude of it.
Mizuki rolled her chair closer with the quiet menace of a predator on office carpet, "What kind of book?"
"Fantasy."
"Hmmm. Interesting."
"No."
"I didn't say anything."
"You said interesting."
"Yes. Because it is."
"It is not."
"You, Yamaguchi Fumiko, hidden princess of the finance department, are smiling at a man's messages about fantasy novels during work hours. Interesting is the mild version."
Fumiko lowered her voice. "Please don't say it like that."
Mizuki's expression changed slightly.
The teasing remained, but something gentler moved underneath it. "I'm not making fun of you."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Fumiko looked down at her keyboard. The letters were starting to blur together, not from tears or anything dramatic, only from the pressure of being seen too suddenly. She hated that feeling. Not Mizuki seeing her. Mizuki was safe most of the time. It was the speed of it. The way one smile had become a door.
"It's just a book," Fumiko said.
Mizuki looked at her for a second longer, then leaned back with a lighter tone. "Fine. It's just a book. And the person?"
"A delivery worker."
Mizuki's chair stopped moving.
Fumiko regretted every choice that had brought her to this sentence.
"A delivery worker," Mizuki repeated.
"It's not like that."
"I haven't decided what 'like that' is yet, but my imagination has begun running wild."
"He delivered the book."
"Is that not what delivery workers do?"
"It was extra."
"What? Extra how?"
Fumiko looked at her screen with the focus of a monk attempting enlightenment. "It's complicated."
Mizuki stared. Then she laughed once, sharp and delighted, "Oh, this is bad."
"It's not bad."
"It is either bad or the beginning of a late-night drama. Possibly both."
"Mizuki."
"Did you order the book?"
Fumiko hesitated.
Mizuki's eyes narrowed. "Yamaguchi."
"No."
"No?"
"He gave it to me."
"Like a gift?"
"Like a promotional copy."
"From a delivery worker."
"From his friend."
"His friend, the author?"
"Yes."
"Convenient."
"I know."
Mizuki folded her arms, "Is the delivery worker handsome?"
Fumiko's hands froze over the keyboard. The office seemed to get louder at exactly the wrong moment. A phone rang. Someone laughed near the meeting rooms. The coffee machine hissed like it was also listening.
"He is…" Fumiko started, then stopped as Mizuki leaned forward, but Fumiko chose the safest possible word, "Polite."
Mizuki's smile returned with violence, "Oh no. He's cute!"
"I said polite."
"Women only say 'polite' to cover their lusty desires when the real answer has cheekbones."
"He has a normal face."
"A normal cute face?"
"A delivery face."
"What is a delivery face?"
"Um, reliable."
"Yamaguchi-san, you are worse at this than I hoped."
Fumiko pressed her fingers to her forehead, "I regret telling you anything."
"Please. You told me three percent. I stole the rest."
"You always do."
"It's how I show care."
Before Fumiko could answer, a calm voice came from the aisle, "Are we discussing something classified?"
Mizuki rolled back to her desk as if she had been working the entire time. Fumiko looked up to see Haruto Saeki standing beside the partition with a slim navy folder in one hand and a coffee tumbler in the other.
Haruto had the kind of presence that made people sit straighter without realizing it. He was twenty-nine, only three years older than Fumiko, but somehow carried himself like he had already read the next page of every meeting. Dark suit, neat tie, clean shoes, watch that probably cost more than Fumiko liked to think about. Not flashy. Worse. Tasteful.
He was not one of those seniors who acted kind in public and made juniors suffer in private. He answered questions. He remembered deadlines. He gave clear feedback. When people panicked, he lowered the temperature of the room simply by speaking.
That made him popular. It also made him dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with malice.
Mizuki smiled at him with perfect innocence, "Yamaguchi-san has secrets."
Haruto looked at Fumiko, "That sounds serious."
"It's not," Fumiko said quickly.
"It's about a book," Mizuki added.
Haruto's expression softened with interest, "A book?"
Fumiko wanted to place her forehead gently on the desk and remain there until retirement, "Yes," she sighed, "A novel."
"What kind?"
"Fantasy."
Haruto nodded as if this was a perfectly normal answer in a finance office, which it was not, but he had the courtesy to make it feel that way, "I didn't know you read fantasy."
"I read many things," Fumiko said.
Mizuki made a tiny sound of stifled laughter. Fumiko ignored her with years of practice.
Haruto smiled lightly, "That's good. I used to read more when I had time."
"Used to?" Mizuki asked, "That is the saddest phrase in adulthood."
"It is," Haruto said, "Now I mostly read reports that make me miss fiction."
"That's why your eyes look tired," Mizuki said.
"I thought that was budget season."
"That too."
Haruto turned back to Fumiko and held out the folder, "Sorry, Yamaguchi-san. I came over for work before Arai-san exposed your private library. Could you check the revised numbers for the Arakawa client? The investment summary and the forecast sheet don't match. I think the error is in the regional tab, but I'd like another set of eyes before the three o'clock meeting."
Fumiko accepted the folder, "Of course."
"No rush. Before two-thirty is fine."
"That is rush."
He smiled, "A small rush."
"That's still rush."
"I apologize deeply."
Fumiko glanced at him despite herself. Haruto's smile was small, warm, and not pushy. That was the thing about him. He never pushed, which somehow made it harder to step away. He fit into the office neatly. Everyone trusted him. Even Mizuki teased him without claws.
"I'll check it," Fumiko said.
"Thank you. I owe you coffee."
"She drinks café latte," Mizuki said at once.
Fumiko turned, "I do not need coffee."
"You always need coffee."
Haruto looked amused, "Café latte, then."
"That's not necessary," Fumiko said.
"Then consider it as payment for saving the meeting."
"You don't know if I saved it yet."
"I'm optimistic."
Mizuki rested her chin on her hand, "Reliable senpai confidence. Disgusting."
Haruto laughed softly, "I'll take that as praise."
After he walked away, Fumiko opened the folder and tried to focus on the numbers. She really tried. The error was easy enough to find once she looked. One cell had pulled an old percentage from the previous quarter. A normal mistake, but the kind that could infect three slides and make everyone look haunted in front of a client.
Mizuki did not let the silence last, "So…"
"No."
"I haven't said anything."
"You breathed like a person preparing to be awful."
"That is profiling."
"That is experience."
Mizuki tapped her pen against her notebook, "Haruto Saeki brought you a folder, offered coffee, and looked at you like you personally keep the building from collapsing."
"He looks at everyone kindly."
"No, he looks at interns kindly. He looks at you like a man mentally scheduling lunch."
Fumiko kept her eyes on the spreadsheet, "You are imagining things."
"I am observing things."
"You observe too much."
"That's why you like me."
"I haven't confirmed that."
"Cold."
Fumiko fixed the formula, checked the linked totals, and sent the corrected sheet to Haruto with a short message. He replied almost immediately.
Saeki Haruto: Perfect. Thank you. You saved us.
A second later, another message appeared.
Saeki Haruto: Coffee after the meeting, if you have time.
Fumiko stared at the screen. It was not a confession. It was not even necessarily personal. In offices, coffee could mean coffee, apology, gratitude, quick discussion, or Please help me before the client destroys us. Still, Mizuki's comments had taken a normal message and wrapped it in suspicion.
Her personal phone buzzed beside her keyboard. Fumiko looked down.
Senda Tooshiro: I asked my friend about the website. He says he is working on something but has no taste, so it may take time.
She covered her mouth before the smile got too obvious, but it was too late. Mizuki's chair creaked. Fumiko did not look over.
Mizuki whispered, "Delivery face."
"Work," Fumiko instructed.
"I am working. On the mystery."
"You are being paid by Sakura Capital."
"My talents overflow."
Fumiko picked up her phone and angled it slightly away.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: No taste?
Senda Tooshiro: His first idea was black background, red text.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Absolutely not.
Senda Tooshiro: That was my reaction.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Tell him a mysterious author still needs readable design.
Senda Tooshiro: I will. Gently.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Do not be gentle. This is serious.
Senda Tooshiro: Understood. Website intervention.
Fumiko had to stop reading there because her face was no longer obeying office standards.
Mizuki wheeled her chair closer again, "I want his name."
"No."
"So there is a name."
"Everyone… has a name?"
"Not everyone makes you look like that."
"Like what?"
"Like someone gave a spreadsheet a romantic subplot."
Fumiko put her phone face down again, "I'm blocking you from my life."
"You would miss me by lunch."
"It is already past lunch."
"Then you're safe until tomorrow."
The three o'clock meeting took place in Conference Room C, which was the smallest room with the coldest air conditioning and the worst marker pens. Fumiko sat beside Mizuki and across from Haruto, who led the discussion with his usual calm. Their manager, Takeda, nodded through the forecast explanations with the tired approval of a man who understood enough to be nervous.
Haruto used the corrected sheet without drawing attention to the mistake. He did not say Yamaguchi-san fixed this or I found an issue. He simply presented the clean version. That was one of the reasons Fumiko respected him. He did not turn basic teamwork into theater.
During the meeting, Fumiko caught him glancing her way once. Not long. Not inappropriate. Just a quiet check, as if asking whether the numbers sounded right. She nodded slightly and he continued. Mizuki noticed though, of course.
By the time the meeting ended, Mizuki had the expression of a woman holding three pieces of gossip and trying to decide which one to sharpen first.
Fumiko gathered her notebook quickly, "Don't."
"I haven't spoken."
"You're glowing."
"I contain multitudes."
Haruto approached before Mizuki could continue, "Thank you again. That correction saved us some embarrassment."
"It was a small fix," Fumiko said.
"Small fixes are usually what prevent large disasters."
"That sounded like something from a management book," Mizuki said.
Haruto looked at her, "Was it effective?"
"Unfortunately."
He smiled, then turned back to Fumiko, "About coffee. I was going to the café downstairs. Would you like anything?"
Fumiko hesitated. If she said no too fast, Mizuki would become unbearable. If she said yes, Mizuki would also become unbearable. There was no clean route.
"A latte, please," Fumiko said.
Haruto nodded, "Hot?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"Arai-san?"
"Iced coffee," Mizuki said, "Since you're being generous."
"I walked into that."
"You did."
Haruto left for the elevators.
Mizuki watched him go, then leaned toward Fumiko, "He remembers hot latte."
"He asked."
"He asked because he is collecting data."
"That is not sinister."
"I didn't say sinister. I said data. Finance romance."
"There is no finance romance."
"Not with that attitude."
Fumiko sighed and returned to her desk. Her personal phone waited beside the keyboard like a small animal pretending it had not caused trouble. She should not text during work again, but she opened it anyway.
Senda Tooshiro: Out of curiosity, what would a good author website need?
Fumiko stared. Her fingers moved before her brain finished its objections.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Clean layout. Simple author profile. Book summary. Update page. Contact form. Maybe a short note about why he writes.
His reply came after a moment.
Senda Tooshiro: Why he writes?
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Readers like knowing there is a person behind the story.
Fumiko paused. Then, because she was apparently choosing danger today, she typed more.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Not too much. He can stay private. But something honest.
The typing dots appeared, stopped, then appeared again.
Senda Tooshiro: Honest is the hard part.
Fumiko looked at that message for longer than needed. It felt different from the others.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: It can be for some, yes.
She did not send anything else.
When Haruto returned with coffee, Fumiko placed her phone down and accepted the cup with both hands.
"Thank you," she said.
"You're welcome."
Mizuki took her iced coffee and lifted it toward him, "You may live."
"I'm honored."
"Don't get comfortable."
"I'll try not to."
The rest of the afternoon moved in the usual office rhythm. Emails stacked. Numbers were checked. Someone from sales sent a message with the phrase just confirming three times in one paragraph, which made Fumiko distrust every sentence. Mizuki disappeared into a call, returned with the face of a woman who had seen hell in presentation format, and wrote FIX THIS NONSENSE in her notebook with alarming pressure.
At 5:42, the office began its slow transformation. Some people packed up with hope. Others stayed seated with the lifeless posture of overtime. The sky outside the windows deepened into evening blue, and the buildings across the street lit up one floor at a time.
Fumiko was organizing tomorrow's task list when Haruto stopped by her desk again.
"Yamaguchi-san, are you free tonight?"
Her pen paused. Mizuki's head lifted from behind her monitor like a forest animal hearing a twig snap as Fumiko looked up, "Tonight?"
"A few of us are going for dinner after work. Nothing formal. Just the project team. You helped with the Arakawa prep, so I thought I'd ask."
It was a normal team dinner. Not a date. There would be other people. Probably Takeda, someone from sales planning, maybe two analysts who would drink too much and complain about client revisions. Still, the timing landed strangely because her phone, facedown beside her keyboard, held messages from Tooshiro about honesty and author websites.
Fumiko was about to decline out of habit. Then she remembered what she had told Tooshiro in the café. That being open felt precarious. That people liked others to be simple and plain sometimes. That she let the office version of herself exist because it was easier.
And she remembered him saying she beamed. It had stayed with her. If I keep refusing everything, I don't get to complain that nobody knows me.
"Sure," she said.
Mizuki's eyebrows rose.
Haruto looked pleased, "Good. We're leaving around seven. Is that okay?"
"Yes."
"Arai-san, you're coming too, right?"
Mizuki leaned back in her chair, "Someone has to supervise."
Haruto smiled, "I expected that answer."
"You're learning."
"I try."
When Haruto left, Mizuki rolled over immediately, "You said yes!"
"I did."
"To dinner."
"A team dinner."
"With Haruto."
"And several other people."
"Details."
"Mizuki."
"I'm not saying it's romantic. I'm saying you said yes before the world ended. Personal growth."
Fumiko looked at her, "Do you want me to go or not?"
"I want you to do things because you want to. And because watching you navigate two handsome men and one fantasy author situation may extend my lifespan."
"There are not two handsome men."
"So the delivery one is handsome."
"I hate you in this office."
"You love me."
"I tolerate your presence under labor law."
Mizuki grinned, "Close enough."
At 6:58, the team gathered near the elevators. Haruto had chosen a small izakaya tucked into a side street near Shinjuku-sanchome, close enough for everyone to walk but far enough from the office that people could pretend they had escaped. Fumiko stood with Mizuki while two junior analysts debated whether they could survive tomorrow's client call. Takeda checked his phone with the exhaustion of a man whose family group chat had become active at the worst time.
Fumiko checked her own phone once.
No new message. That was fine. She put it away. Mizuki watched but said nothing, which was somehow worse.
The walk to the izakaya took them through the evening rush. Shinjuku after work was a different creature than Nakano. Bigger. Louder. Brighter. People moved in streams, pouring out of office towers and stations, crossing under signs, vanishing into restaurants, convenience stores, and underground passages. Trucks idled near curbs. Bicycle bells cut through conversations. The smell of grilled chicken and tobacco drifted from a narrow alley where red lanterns were already glowing.
Fumiko walked near the middle of the group, with Mizuki on one side and Haruto slightly ahead, speaking to Takeda about tomorrow's meeting. He looked natural there. Suit jacket open, coffee gone, tie still neat. This was his world. Or close to it. He fit inside the clean public version of adulthood that Fumiko had worked hard to build.
Her phone buzzed in her bag. She should have ignored it, but she did not.
Senda Tooshiro: Work finally done. Route tried to kill me but failed.
Fumiko slowed without meaning to.
Mizuki glanced at her. She typed while walking, which was dangerous in Shinjuku and possibly a moral failing.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: Congratulations on surviving your enemy, Route.
Senda Tooshiro: Thank you. Route 17 sends its regards.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: I'm going to a team dinner. Wish me luck.
There was a slightly longer pause.
Senda Tooshiro: Good luck. Finance dinner sounds more dangerous than my route.
Yamaguchi Fumiko: It can be.
Senda Tooshiro: If they staple receipts in the middle, escape.
She smiled before she could stop herself as Mizuki leaned closer, "Delivery face again."
Fumiko nearly dropped the phone, "Stop."
Haruto looked back from ahead of them, "Everything okay?"
"Yes," Fumiko said quickly, "Sorry."
"No need to apologize. We're turning here."
They turned onto a narrower street lined with restaurants. Warm light spilled from sliding doors. Men in suits smoked near a vending machine. A delivery van was parked half on the curb up ahead, hazard lights blinking.
Fumiko noticed it only because Mizuki had trained her into awareness that evening.
Nekonoha Express.
Her steps slowed again.
At the back of the van, a delivery worker in a teal and navy uniform was lifting a stack of flattened crates from the cargo area. Messy dark hair. Slightly hunched shoulders. The posture of someone whose day had involved too many stairs and not enough gratitude.
Tooshiro stood in front of her.
For a moment, Fumiko's heart did something so inconvenient she almost got annoyed at it. It beat harder as he looked up and their eyes met across the sidewalk.
Surprise hit his face first. Then recognition. Then something smaller that disappeared quickly when his gaze moved from her to the people around her.
To Haruto walking beside the group. To Mizuki beside her. To the office clothes, the dinner crowd, the clean Shinjuku version of her life.
Fumiko lifted one hand slightly. Not quite a wave. More of a reflex. Tooshiro did the same, holding a crate awkwardly against one hip.
Mizuki saw and Haruto followed Fumiko's gaze, "Someone you know?"
Fumiko's mouth opened. There were several answers. Delivery worker. Reader messenger. Friend? Person from a suspicious book incident! Man who knows too much about Selena and not enough about website design. None of those worked in an office group.
"He delivers to my apartment sometimes," Fumiko said.
It was true.
Tooshiro must have heard part of it, because his expression shifted in a way that made her chest tighten. Not hurt exactly. Not enough to accuse her. He gave a quick polite bow, professional and distant.
"Nekonoha Express," he said to the group, because that was what he was here as. A uniform. A job. A man carrying someone else's boxes.
Haruto nodded back politely, "Long day?"
Tooshiro's smile was brief, "Most of them are, but mine is thankfully over. Just packing up."
"Thank you for your work," Haruto said.
It was a normal thing to say. Kind, even. Somehow it made the air more awkward.
Tooshiro bowed again, "Have a good evening."
Then his scanner beeped from inside the van as he turned away.
The group kept walking and Fumiko moved with them, because stopping would have been strange. Because she was with coworkers. Because the izakaya was fifteen steps away. Because adult life was mostly being held by the obligations you had already agreed to.
She glanced back once. Tooshiro was watching for a second. Then he looked down at his equipment and shut the van door.
Mizuki leaned close enough that only Fumiko could hear, "That's him?"
Fumiko did not answer.
Mizuki's voice lost its teasing edge, "Yamaguchi."
"It's nothing," Fumiko said.
The words felt wrong the moment they left her mouth.
Ahead, Haruto slid open the izakaya door and held it for the group. Warm air, voices, and the smell of fried food rolled out into the street. Everyone stepped inside one by one.
Fumiko followed, but part of her stayed outside near the blinking hazard lights, watching a delivery worker become smaller in the reflection of a restaurant window.
Across the street, Tooshiro sat in his van, telling himself the same thing.
It meant nothing. She had coworkers. Of course she had coworkers. A life. A proper job. People who wore suits and knew which wine to order at client dinners. People like Haruto Saeki, who looked like he belonged beside her under Shinjuku lights.
Tooshiro looked down at his scanner, his only daily constant, "Normal day," he laughed sullenly and pulled away from the curb before he could look back through the izakaya window.
Inside, Fumiko sat between Mizuki and one of the analysts, with Haruto across the table. Someone ordered beer. Someone else ordered oolong tea. Menus passed around. Conversation rose, easy and office-safe.
Fumiko placed her phone in her lap under the table. No message. She should not send one as there was nothing to explain. Nothing had happened. Still, her fingers rested against the screen as if waiting for an answer to a question nobody had asked out loud.
Mizuki looked at her from the side, quiet for once. Haruto asked Fumiko whether she wanted yakitori or karaage, and she answered politely.
Outside, somewhere in Shinjuku traffic, Tooshiro headed back to drop off the van and return home for the night. Home with the thoughts of the advice given, the alter author self still hidden, and of a woman in a completely different league than him. When we're left to stew in our own thoughts for long enough, we start coming up with some crazy explanations for anything and everything.
ns216.73.216.214da2
and then Add to home screen.