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Kurosawa Yuichi has all the subtlety of an elephant in neon orange. Fujisaki has known this for years, of course, but lately she’s been surprised that everyone else doesn’t know. Anyone with eyes can tell he’s got a crush on Adachi, but somehow he still has fangirls desperate to get his attention and make him fall for them.
It’s only gotten worse now that they’ve started writing letters to each other. Kurosawa hovers over Adachi’s desk at least once a day, sometimes more, always hunting for the best place to leave his letters. She had assumed he’d just not wanted to out them to the office, until a few weeks ago, when she caught a glimpse of one of the letters over Adachi’s shoulder and noticed that it hadn’t been signed “Kurosawa” but rather “Someone.” Anonymous letters make quite a bit more sense, and now she suspects she knows why she keeps noticing Adachi hanging around the coffee maker in the break room, when he’s never been much of a coffee drinker before.
Kurosawa had been getting bolder ever since the New Years’ holiday. She’d been coming back from the bathroom when he’d run up to Adachi and told him that he’d dropped a letter - a clear lie, but for some reason Adachi accepted it. Since then, he’d been taking greater and greater risks, hiding Adachi’s letters while he was just in the bathroom, and even, once, while he’d been at the copy machine. Adachi had almost caught him that time, and so Fujisaki had rushed to find something that she needed Adachi’s help on.
Today is no exception. Coming back from a department meeting with Urabe, Adachi, and the department chief, she’s the first one through the door to their main office. She spots Kurosawa leaning over Adachi’s desk, and shares a look with Adachi’s next-door neighbor, who just rolls her eyes. Luckily Adachi went to the bathroom after their meeting, or he’d have seen Kurosawa already. Fujisaki weaves her way through the desks, and passes right by Kurosawa.
“He’s right behind me, hurry up,” she hisses. Kurosawa jumps and drops the letter in his hand. Seconds later, before he has time to pick it up, Adachi comes through the office door himself, tripping over the unevenness in the carpet. Kurosawa seems paralyzed by indecision, so Fujisaki gently nudges the letter under Adachi’s desk with her foot.
“Get it later,” she whispers, and keeps going to her desk, hoping he follows her advice. By the time she sits in her chair Kurosawa is heading out the door, and Adachi has reached his own chair, none the wiser.
“That was close,” she mutters to herself, and shares another eyeroll with Adachi’s neighbor.
Kurosawa comes back five minutes later, and she notices a few drops of water on his bangs, as if he’s just splashed water on his face. Fujisaki hopes it was cold water, because she has never met anyone who needs a cold shower about their crush more than Kurosawa.
An hour later, Kurosawa has become more fidgety than a five year old hopped up on too much cotton candy. In that time, he’s jumped up to check on whatever Rokkaku is working on at least five times, gone to the coffee maker, and made copies three different times. For the few brief seconds he’d sat down, he’d twiddled a pen so fast it had become an invisible blur, jiggled his knee so hard that it had spilled the coffee he’d just gotten all over the desk next to him, and nearly chewed a hole through his bottom lip.
Fujisaki sighs. At this rate, he’s going to give himself away by achieving internal combustion. Someone has to take pity on the man. She casts around herself for something to get Adachi away from his desk for long enough that Kurosawa can hide his letter. There’s got to be something that they need from the supplies room that she can ask for Adachi’s help with. But the only thing in there big enough that she can’t get herself is paper boxes, and she’s been away from the copier the whole time.
Her eyes light on the small calendar on her desk. She has a presentation in a few days to a few of the shareholders. Perhaps she can ask for Adachi’s input on how to represent the data? It’s not a great excuse - in fact it’s pretty lousy, she’s already got a mock-up of the presentation done, and it shouldn’t need more than a graph or two. But, it’s something. And by the looks of Kurosawa, he needs something. She grabs a small notebook so she can look like she’s taking notes, and makes her way over to Adachi.
“Hey, Adachi, I was wondering, could you help me with something?”
“Oh, sure Fujisaki, what is it?” Adachi doesn’t even look up from entering the last few numbers in his spreadsheet.
“This, um, this dataset I’m presenting to the shareholders next week, you analyzed it right? So I was just wondering if you could, um. Explain it to me and help me think of ways to make it interesting to them,” Fujisaki says, lying through her teeth. She could do this meeting in her sleep. Even Adachi seems to know that, because he looks up at her, brow furrowed in confusion.
“You’ve done these meetings every year for the last five years, Fujisaki, I’m sure you don’t need my help,” he tells her. Fujisaki does her best to keep her eye roll internal.
“Yeah, I just thought I’d mix it up this year, you know? And you know the data the best since you’re the one who analyzed it. Come on, let’s go to Conference room A and talk about it, please?”
Fujisaki doesn’t really give Adachi time to say no again, which she hates doing because people - okay, mostly Urabe - walk all over Adachi all the time. I promise never to do it again, she tells him mentally.
As she reaches the door to the office, she glances over towards Kurosawa. He meets her gaze, clearly having watched her have this whole conversation.
“Good luck,” she mouths, and then she heads for the conference room. She’s done all she can, and hopefully that’s enough.