Work Text:
“Dear Miss Kiara, Dear Miss Mori”
(Prompt: Kiss me when you’re drunk, write me letters when you’re sober)
Dear Miss Kiara
Good evening
My name is Calliope Mori, I work under you at KFP INC. I am 3 cubicles next to your office, where I see you passing by every day. I am writing to you because of what happened three nights ago, after the presentation of the project on which I worked with you.
You see, miss, I don't normally act like that...
Before I arrived, you could ask everyone in the office about me and they would all tell you the same thing: I'm almost like a ghost, almost unnoticeable to everyone. Get in, do my job and get out, that's what I used to do here.
Until you came along.
When you were introduced as my new boss, I felt something in me change when I saw you, and although I couldn't describe it in words, I noticed something different in me after I saw for the first time.
To me, you are like the sun: bright, cheerful and warm. I can't help but start to want to be around you every time you are present. Even now, I can't stop smiling every time I think of you.
For the first time, I started to love going to work, just to find any opportunity to interact with you, even if was the slightest occasion. Every day I tried to look for moments to look at you without you noticing, and I felt completely embarrassed about it.
But I didn't want you to notice all the changes I was going through. I didn’t’ want to be seem like I was crazy about you, even if I was. So I kept this strange curiosity I had for you and locked under key.
But naturally, as a superior and employee, we began to have more interactions. As I got to know you more and more, my feelings were blooming more and more. Growing like climbing plants, looking for any hole to escape from the corner where I kept them and keep growing.
But no, I was trying cut the feelings myself. I thought it was not good to have feelings for a co-worker. Even if it was you. I thought these urges to seek you out would go away in time, once I got to know you more.
But sometime later, we were working together and I helped you with something very little, and you told me in your soft voice:
"Thank you Calli"
Calli, Calli, Calli. You only removed a few letters from my name, but I felt that what you dismantled was me. You easily knocked down the walls I put up for you and planted flowers on the debris.
But what are nicknames if not a way to get along with the workers? An adult shouldn't make such a fuss over something as trivial as that.
But when I went to sleep, your voice kept ringing in my dreams.
Even that time I heard you singing in the hallway, I had that tune in my head all week playing over and over again.
Even though you were my direct superior, there was some distance between the two of us. So I devoted myself to cherish you from afar, to treasure every moment I saw you as if it were just that: my unique and special treasure.
But one day I was called to your office, you and the boss were there. We had both been chosen for a project and we would be working on it to expose it in front of many people. Once again, the threads of fate were pulling me closer to you when I was trying to stay away.
And that's when I discovered more of that warm side of you, how you laugh at everything, how you hum the songs you like without realizing it, how you have that exceptional gift of treating people, how you make me feel when you look at me.
God, I was starting to feel guilty about how happy I was.
Then I discovered that you loved chocolate, and that very night after work I walked without thinking to the nearest chocolate shop, bought the first box I saw and I saved it with the hope that someday I would have the courage to give it to you.
It was there and right there that I realized my love for you. I had wanted to keep it from growing but it had taken root to the deepest part of my being.
And then you invited me to the movies, what were you thinking with that?
I know you invited me just because you didn't want to go alone and got stood up, but you have no idea how incredibly happy it made me.
I didn't expect anything from it, just to sit and enjoy a movie next to you. But at one part of the movie you started to hide behind my arm; when you told me if you could stay like that, I just accepted as if it was nothing. But it was anything except nothing.
Maybe you didn't notice anything different, but I stopped paying any attention to the movie and was just focused on feeling your warmth against my arm for the remainder of the movie.
And don't think that only those were the moments that made me fall in love with you. I fell in love with you in each and every moment I spent with you. Unbeknownst to you, all of that turned me into the mess I am now.
And how could you love me being this mess? So I promised myself that as long as I was within my five senses, I wouldn't try anything romantic with you.
But the night after the presentation I was not in my five senses....
We were in your hotel room, talking about whatever was on your mind. But by the time I realized it, I had had more wine than I could hold. This gave free rein to the feelings I had tried so hard to hide from you.
"Wow, whoever your partner is must be really lucky," I said without thinking.
When you let out that little laugh you melted my heart. But by the time you asked me the reason why I said what I said, I was already only focused on your lips.
"Because you are fantastic, Kiara" I replied and then kissed you.
It was only after I kissed you that I realized what a mistake I had made. I got up, made a crude attempt at an excuse and went to my room. I cried all night about the mistake I had made.
That is why I am writing this letter, I want to apologize for what I did that night. I promise not to come near you again. Along with this I am enclosing my resignation, so that you will not have to look for another job after this.
Still
My sincerest apologies.
Calliope Mori.
......
Dear Miss Mori
Good afternoon
First of all, I ask that you do not use work resources to deal with personal matters.
Second, even if ghosts are imperceptible to most, sometimes they leave a trace that lets us know they are there. That's the same thing that happened to me with you, even when no one else noticed you, I kept seeing you since I got here.
Don't think I never noticed how you kept looking at me every time I passed by you. How you looked for me with your eyes when we were in a meeting, and when you found me you wouldn't stop looking at me until I turned to look at you. That's when you would turn your gaze quickly and look embarrassed, but even so you kept giving me discreet glances during the whole thing.
It was these two things that got me interested in you, and that made me choose you for the project.
I never told you this before, but I chose you for my project. I could have chosen anyone else; but of all the people in the office, I only wanted to meet you.
Do you think I would invite someone I barely know to the movies just because I got stood up?
I had been planning to invite you for a long time, but I had no idea how to invite you casually.
Regarding the scary part of that movie…
No comments.
And about what happened that night; I never thought you would actually kiss me. But, I knew that moment was an all or nothing moment for both of us; even if you hadn't done anything, I would have taken the initiative.
That's the whole truth, it was never fate that brought you to me. It was me all along. But who knows, maybe it was fate that brought me to you.
With love.
Takanashi Kiara
PS: I don't even want to see your resignation. I have a reservation for a nice restaurant for 9:00 pm for both of us. Hope to see you there, Calli.
THE END