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She hated high heels.
Loafers would’ve been so much easier and more comfortable to wear, especially for someone on her feet all day. But she’d never even owned any summer loafers since that one boss’ remark back in the city:
- “You’re not a schoolgirl. You’re a woman. And if you want to climb a career ladder here, you’re gonna do it in some decent heels.”
For the record, she’d hated that bastard just as much as high heel shoes. But she had complied. Because she’d indeed wanted to succeed in her job no matter what, and convinced herself that trying hard but losing her chance because of something so dumb as footwear would be ridiculous.
Eventually, she realized that hoping to succeed with the skills at the workplace that voiced such an idiotic condition was a lot more stupid on her part. Had she been less naïve, she could’ve predicted the outcome back at the start. But she chose to believe that the results would outweigh her “insufficiently amicable and feminine” personality.
Which played a large role in her demotion to Inaba.
With an exhausted sigh, Adachi neared the front gates of the house she didn’t even live in – and cursed under her breath. Last thing she wanted after spending 8 hours at the police station was to play house with two underage girls, but that was the only reason she didn’t need to stay in the precinct until midnight.
- “You’d be more useful there than helping with paperwork here anyway. Consider it your assignment.”
Adachi clicked her tongue, remembering Dojima’s words. What did the old alcoholic even know about her ‘usefulness’, when he’d dismissed her to a coffee fetcher the day she had arrived?..
..Not that she was going to try hard again, anyway.
“..Adachi-san?”
A girl’s voice drew Adachi out of her thoughts.
Having turned to the left, she saw Nanako and her cousin with plastic bags in their hands and some ridiculous matching scrunchies in the hair. Yuna – the one with the braids – was almost as tall as Adachi was in her high heels, and didn’t even try to conceal her height by wearing a skirt long enough to reach her ankles.
“Oh. Hey there, kids,” Adachi forced a smile, hoping the effort wouldn’t be too evident under the dim street lights. “Doing some late shopping, huh?”
“They had a huge sale at Junes,” Nanako enthusiastically nodded in reply.
“Yosuke-kun warned me about it at school today,” Yuna smiled and looked at her cousin. “So we both made sure to catch it.”
“Ah, the power of insider information,” Adachi smirked. “Got any stuff for a steal?”
“A 5.5-cup rice cooker for just 4,000 yen!” Nanako grinned, poking at the bag in Yuna’s hands.
Adachi whistled.
“Now that’s a real bargain,” she admitted, crossing arms on her chest and slightly grimacing from the pain in her feet. “Wish I had a more flexible schedule to visit Junes at the proper hours.”
“As far as I can tell, your hours are already quite flexible, Adachi-san,” Yuna chuckled.
Adachi chuckled in reply.
“Snarky little brat.”
“Is uncle here too?”
“No, Dojima-san’s still at work. I, uh, kinda got an assignment from him to babysit you two.”
“We don’t need babysitting,” Nanako replied, pouting. “Right, big sis?”
Surprisingly, Yuna looked not as much defensive as sympathetic, and Adachi wished she got home as fast as possible, to wash this look off her skin.
“We don’t need one,” Yuna agreed, “but we could use some company. Have you ate already, Adachi-san?”
“I’m on a diet,” Adachi smiled wryly.
“Let me guess, something along the lines of a coffee for breakfast and beer for dinner?” Yuna asked with her head slightly cocked to the side.
“Add some ramen in between – and you’ve got it.”
“You don’t need to be on a diet, Adachi-san,” Nanako chimed in, while Yuna was shaking her head in open disapproval. “Our neighbor once said that if you stopped wearing skirts and cut your hair short, you would look exactly like her 'very handsome son'.”
“That’s.. some sweet son the lady’s got there, with an A-cup,” Adachi said with a shaky laugh.
“..A.. cup?” Confused, Nanako looked up at her cousin and whispered. “What does our rice cooker have to do with this?”
Chuckling at Adachi’s joke, Yuna didn’t explain anything to Nanako and simply shook her head instead.
“I don’t think that’s a nice or a polite thing of our neighbor to say,” She looked back at Adachi. “But I do think that you should worry more about your health than figure, which is good enough as is.”
“Kiss-up.”
“So, maybe you’ll join us for dinner?”
Adachi let out a voiceless sigh and glanced down at her sore feet. If she wasn’t about to stay, she had to go back to the precinct, and she wasn’t sure she could make any more steps in these goddamn shoes.
“..Fine,” she exhaled. “Don’t expect me to cook up something nice, though.”
“No need to,” Yuna replied calmly, already leading the way to the door. “Dinner's almost ready.”
“Yeah! We’ve started preparing it before the sale,” Nanako confirmed.
From the looks of it, the kids didn’t need any babysitting indeed, and Adachi finally let out her first genuine sigh of relief.
Giving out another one didn’t take long, as she soon entered the house and could finally take off the shoes.
“Oh, fuck, at last,” she said under her breath as she literally dropped the second shoe on the floor. Nanako was already in the kitchen, unpacking the new rice cooker, and Yuna just smiled somewhat satisfied, as if pleased to have some dirt on her uncle’s coworker to share later.
Yet just a second later a frown appeared on her face.
“Adachi-san, there’s.. blood on your shoes.”
Adachi turned around and looked back at her feet – and there it was, too. Dried up blood on the slightly torn pantyhose, on the lower parts of both her Achilles tendons.
“..Had a feeling it hurt a bit too much for just some blisters,” she exhaled heavily.
“Nanako, can you please finish up with the dinner on your own? We’ll be right back,” Yuna already took the first-aid kit out of the cabinet in the hallway and, looking at Adachi, gestured to the stairs. “Can you walk?”
Adachi barely stifled a scornful snort. Of course she could walk. Did this girl think she’d never hurt her feet before?
She made a step forward – and almost howled in pain, but bit her lip.
“..Sure,” Adachi mumbled and silently followed Yuna upstairs, to what apparently was her room.
With a heavy sigh, Adachi lowered on the dark-green couch and started awkwardly pulling the pantyhose down while keeping her black, knee-long skirt in place.
“Wait. Careful,” Yuna warned Adachi before she could fully take her pantyhose off. Sitting on the floor and holding a cotton pad drenched in peroxide in her hand, the girl looked Adachi in the eyes. “It’s gonna hurt for a second, all right?”
Adachi wasn’t sure when exactly it had been decided that Yuna would be the one to tend to her wounds, but as confusion and exhaustion clashed in her mind, her chin slowly lowered on its own.
The next moment, Yuna gently detached the synthetic fabric from the bloodied skin and immediately pressed the cotton pad to the freshly damaged wound.
“It’s.. been a second.. already,” her eyes slammed together, Adachi was wincing at the burning sensation just above her heel.
“Sorry,” Yuna muttered apologetically and looked up again. “It should be better soon.”
The pain did subside a little, and Adachi nodded. Yuna then slowly detached the pad, took the band-aid out of the kit, and, while carefully holding Adachi’s foot in her hand, placed the band-aid on top of the fresh wound.
“Put up with it one more time, please,” Yuna said as she was letting a new cotton pad absolve the peroxide.
After her second wound was disinfected and a band-aid was placed on it, Adachi exhaled, closed her eyes, and threw herself to the back of the couch.
“Are your shoes new?”
“Did they look like it?” Adachi chuckled. “These are just summer ones. First day I wore them here, forgot that’s it’s better to wear them with preemptive band-aids.”
“..You mean, you’ve hurt your feet like this before?”
“Of course I have,” Adachi laughed.
“Why do you still wear them then?” Yuna sounded bewildered.
“Part of the job description, I guess,” after a pause, Adachi opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling. “You’ll get it once you’re an adult.”
For a while, Yuna stayed silent.
“Is.. uncle’s ‘babysitting’ request part of the job description, too?”
Surprised by the almost apologetic tone, Adachi straightened her neck and glanced at the girl, who was now sitting on the floor with her back to the couch.
“..Yeah,” Adachi exhaled. “I’m fond of neither kids nor cooking, but he thinks I’m best with that just because I’m a woman.” She shrugged. “Well, that’s what all men think. They don’t care about what education, experience, or aspirations you’ve got. They see your breast – and believe they know your potential and your needs.”
“That’s.. really disgusting.”
Chuckling at Yuna’s genuine annoyance, Adachi relaxed and put both her arms on the back of the couch.
“Tell me about it, girl. Not sure I should be saying this, but there have also been stupid rumors about me dating your uncle. Since day freaking one I moved here. I’m getting those “knowing” looks every time I fetch him a coffee. Makes me sick.”
“You didn’t try to disprove those rumors?” Yuna looked at her over the shoulder.
“How would I do that?” Adachi snickered tiredly. “They got their minds made up with no proof to begin with, and now Dojima-san’s just making it worse with these ‘gopher assignments’. The more I try to deny it, the more ‘proof’ they have. And they apparently think it’s their priority case, although even if I were into men and did hook up with someone, it would’ve been none of their business at all.”
“..Shit.”
Realizing she'd said too much, Adachi clammed up, but after a short, surprised pause Yuna just smiled.
“I also think it should be nobody’s business but yours, Adachi-san.”
Replying with a smirk, Adachi relaxed again and went on rambling without realizing it.
“I curse the day I thought I could build a proper career in this field, using my brain,” she got her right hand behind the head and unpinned the messy dark hair, letting it fall down her shoulders. “No one’s ever treated me seriously in the workplace. And I got so tired of it I decided to not treat myself seriously either.”
“I don’t think that’s fair to yourself,” Yuna noted.
“What else can I do, though?” Adachi shrugged. “I’m tired of fighting a losing battle. No matter how much energy and time I sacrifice, no one’s giving someone like me a promotion I deserve. The only kind of woman who can succeed at such a workplace is someone, who's both cute and capable, sociable but not too needy, fragile physically and strong at heart...”
She paused and fixed her eyes on Yuna.
“..Someone like you, I guess.”
Her voice ended up sounding dry, but Yuna chuckled.
“I’m doing my best to not be physically fragile, though,” she jokingly flexed her arm.
“Show-off.”
“Hence the kendo training and all, eh?” Adachi smirked, twirling the lock of her hair around her finger. “Wonder where you get the chance to practice. Does your school even have the club?”
Just the shortest moment of seeing Yuna at a loss felt refreshingly good.
“Not yet, so I’m just.. practicing with friends,” she replied after a halt.
“Ah. Satonaka-san, Amagi-san, and.. what was your boyfriend’s family name again?”
“Yosuke-kun’s not my boyfriend,” Yuna calmly shook her head.
“Well, your uncle sure thinks differently," Adachi snickered. "He’s been grumbling to me a lot about how he wished you didn’t get involved with that troublemaker.”
“We’re just friends. He’s fun to be around but can.. turn a little overzealous when it comes to girls,” Yuna said, indeed showing no genuine interest.
“Yeah, I've heard he was a little too desperate with Konishi-san.. By the way, he seems to be recovering from the trauma fast enough,” Adachi made an innocently sounding dig. “Good for him, I guess, but speaks volumes about his dedication, don't you think? Namatame-san’s depression – that’s some proper level of grief.”
Visibly disturbed by the topic, Yuna pursed her lips for a while – and then smiled.
“Yosuke-kun’s going through things in his own way. He’s a kind guy, but we aren’t dating.” She then playfully tilted her head to the side. “But.. even if I were into guys and dated one, would it be.. anyone else’s business?”
Not sure if this was just a snarky comeback or not, Adachi blinked, but soon appreciated the banter with a chuckle.
“Guess it won’t,” she shrugged – and watched Yuna smirk in return before getting to her feet and nearing the chest of drawers.
“Is size B okay?” Yuna asked as she turned around and showed a new pack of pantyhose.
“You sure?” Adachi bent an eyebrow. “I can just go buy new ones tomorrow.”
“I think you should save money on new shoes instead,” Yuna smiled, already nearing Adachi and giving the pack over to her. “Something on low heels would work great, too. I don’t see why you should wear high heels with your height.”
Now that Adachi thought about it, she couldn’t see why she should keep on wearing them in the sticks.
Not even high heels were able to change her life for better now.
“I’ve seen some nice summer loafers on sale today,” Yuna's face was still a beaming smile. “Want to go see them tomorrow together?”
Adachi’s lips slowly shaped a mischievous curl.
“Sure, why not. Maybe they will even have those rice cookers on sale, huh... Worth checking the electronics department, don't you think?”