Work Text:
Elias Hartley looked up, and with perfect tactical precision launched a pencil into the office ceiling above him, where it firmly embedded itself next to four others with a satisfying thwock.
He leaned back in his chair as the plastic hinges creaked under his weight. Elias admired his work with a calculating eye, bringing a hand up to measure the distance between the pencils. He’d messed up the spacing between the second and third pencils as compared to the fourth and fifth, so the line wasn’t quite straight. Elias clicked his tongue with frustration. He could do better than that.
“Busy day, Hart?” A voice, from somewhere over Elias’ left shoulder.
Elias tilted his head. Cracked a lopsided smile. “You could say that.”
Hayase Nakamura regarded him coolly from behind a pair of thin-rimmed spectacles. He had blue-black hair, clearly pomaded by its shine, and eyes of a crystal clear gray that caught little flecks of color from the screen on Elias’ desk.
“Mr. Schelling would like to see you,” Nakamura said, “Assuming you aren’t in the middle of something.” He cast a meaningful glance at the pencils stuck in the ceiling.
Elias looked up again, taking another hand measurement. “No, I think that about does it.” With a small grunt of exertion, he spun in his chair so that when he half-slid out of it, he was standing in front of Nakamura. He had to look up to address the other man— Nakamura had a good three inches on Elias, and made sure Elias felt every single one.
“Your work ethic is truly inspiring.” Nakamura said, dryly.
“It’s a point of pride,” Elias replied, “One of my many highly employable qualities.”
The barest twitch of a smile, at that. Nakamura tended to keep his face in an ordered, neutral mask, which made those little flickers of the person beneath all the more precious. Elias held on to that tiny smile, folded it away in the cabinets of his memory like a good luck charm. He had a feeling he was going to need it.
Elias didn’t have to pay much attention to his surroundings on the way to Karl Schelling’s office. There were only the rows of near-identical cubicles and flat gray carpet that muffled all footfalls into a soft shuf-shuf-shuf. He watched his companion instead. Nakamura’s posture was as rigidly disciplined as the rest of him, not a crease out of place on his white shirt or black trousers. Elias, meanwhile, slouched a little. When he put his hands in his pockets, his clumsily tucked shirt threatened to come untucked just as easily. Nakamura knew better than to comment on that by now.
Karl Schelling, as the branch manager for this division of the Papaver Pharmaceutical Company, kept a separate and significantly better lit office three floors up from where most of the employees, Elias included, worked. In the lift on the way there, Nakamura looked like he wanted to say something, but instead elected to impatiently tap one foot on the tiles until they arrived. Elias didn’t push for an answer, or elect to worry about what that small break in composure could have meant. He knew why Schelling wanted to see him, and the rest could come after they’d had their little chat.
There was no need to check in outside Schelling’s office— Nakamura was nominally his secretary, and he’d fetched Elias personally. The pair breezed past the currently unoccupied outer appointments desk and through a door to the branch manager’s office proper.
Schelling’s office was not lavishly furnished, though all of the pieces it contained were no doubt expensive. A wide wooden desk with sloped edges was faced by two matching chairs, red cushions ribbon-tied around the legs to keep them in place. The desk was flanked by two bookcases, half-full with books and otherwise mostly containing various business conference awards and the odd personal effect in the form of an old-timey astrolabe and a tasteful bronze sculpture of a snail on a log, the latest in a rotating cast of sculptures that Schelling collected and displayed.
The office was backlit by the window that dominated the far end of its uniformly rectangular length. There was an overhead light, circular, turned on despite the fact that it was daytime and the natural light provided ample illumination. It served to make the primary figure of the room, Karl Schelling himself, look stiff and waxen as he raised his head to acknowledge the entrance of Elias and Nakamura.
“Mr. Hartley,” Schelling said, in a voice that was low-pitched but nonetheless carried a nasal edge, “I must congratulate you on your first day back in the office following what I assume was a restful holiday?”
Karl Schelling was tall, even seated as he was now. He had a thin, ferrety face, with a long sharp nose and an equally pointed chin. He had platinum blond hair, clearly dyed, slicked back away from his face. Schelling also wore glasses of a severe construction, all sharp angles and pointed ends. The suit he wore was crisp and spotless. A watch sparkled on his wrist below the cuff of one immaculately laundered sleeve.
Nakamura closed the door behind them, settling into the leftmost chair after retrieving a cushion that he placed onto his lap, followed by a typewriter that went on top of the cushion, braced on one side by Nakamura’s knee as he crossed his legs more comfortably. It was a familiar routine, but Elias still waited until it was over to sit down in the rightmost chair, catching Nakamura’s eye over the rim of his glasses for the barest instant.
The languid posture that Elias had adopted thus far slipped away. His shoulders straightened out of his slouch into knife-sharp attention, and he lifted his gaze to look Schelling directly in the eye. “If that’s what you want to call restful, sure. You got my report.”
Schelling made a gesture to Nakamura, who readied his hands over the keys of his typewriter. “I did. I was hoping you could provide some further detail.”
Elias nodded. “I’m not going to mince words here. I think your supply chain operations have a leak. It’s the only explanation for the things I saw at the southern branch office.”
Schelling narrowed his eyes. “What makes you so certain?”
“I already put the notable discrepancies in my report,” Elias said, though he was fairly certain Schelling hadn’t even skimmed its contents, “But if you need more than that, it was the people. The guy who runs cargo and inventory down there said he couldn’t for the life of him understand why there were so many more trucks inbound than outbound, even if all the numbers checked out. And he wasn’t the only one to smell something fishy.”
“Well,” Schelling said, his impatient tone betraying his nervousness, “What do you intend to do about it?”
“I still have things to review from my time away,” Elias said, as evenly as he could manage, “But I have a bad feeling the problem may run deeper than just the southern branch.”
Schelling had the good sense to look aghast at that. “You can’t mean to say that sensitive information is in jeopardy at this branch as well?”
Elias’ gaze flicked briefly to Nakamura, who had his gaze set straight ahead out the window while his fingers played out across the stiff typewriter keys, moving swiftly enough to look like distinct entities from the body to which they were attached. Elias looked back at Schelling. “That’s what I’m saying, yes.”
Schelling shook his head. “No. That is simply not possible.”
Elias leaned forward, lacing his fingers together in his lap. “How long have I been working for you, Karl?”
Schelling looked briefly taken aback by Elias’ impertinence at using his first name. He adjusted his glasses. “Six years.”
“Right,” Elias leaned back again, hands still clasped, “And in those six years, how many times have I been wrong?”
Schelling hesitated. “Only once. Unless you count the incident at Juneau.”
Elias quirked an eyebrow. “Are we counting the incident at Juneau?”
“God, no.” Schelling said, making a waving gesture with his hand like he was trying to get rid of a bad smell.
“Just once, then,” Elias said, “Just once in six years I’ve been wrong. So what are the chances I’m wrong now? I’m sure you can do the math for me.”
Schelling adjusted his glasses again, clearly stalling for time. “What,” he said, at length, “Do you need me to do?”
“Nothing!” Elias spread his hands wide, “Like I said, still have things to review. Be ready for my call, though.”
“… Very well,” Schelling said, sounding no more happy than before, “Ah, but one more thing before you are dismissed. I have received some complaints, and as such must tell you to please refrain from defacing office property.”
“I can’t say I know what you mean.” Elias said, rising from his chair.
Nakamura’s typewriter went ding! as if on cue.
“The pencils, Mr. Hartley.” Schelling said. “I implore you to act as though you actually do work here.”
“You got it, boss.” Elias said, with a little mock salute. He turned to Nakamura, who’s fingers had at last stilled on the keys, and gave him a nod. When Nakamura returned the gesture, Elias left Schelling’s office.
The first thing Elias did when he got back to his desk was climb on top of it to retrieve his pencils from where they were still resolutely embedded in the ceiling tile. He allowed himself the barest instant of pride at that, though he felt a bit less than dignified reversing his work like this. With all the pencils now returned to their place in a long since requisitioned coffee cup, Elias settled in to his desk to do actual work, as had been so kindly requested by his boss.
The plaque on his cubicle and the badge that Elias wore around his neck both stated his job in deceptively simple terms: “Information Specialist.” Without further explanation, one might assume Elias worked in data analytics, or possibly customer services. The cubicle itself was part of the spectacle, an alibi in and of itself, if anything. It was easier for everyone if they pretended that Elias had any reason to keep a desk.
It was accurate enough that Elias worked in information. The information itself, and the manner by which it was collected… these things were less readily apparent. Nakamura and Schelling were among the very few at this Papaver Company office who knew the whole truth. Not every branch office had an operative like Elias, either. He had been dispatched from the central office a year after his hiring, for a variety of reasons. Papaver valued him highly, but they valued his work even more, and they wanted to keep it all plausibly deniable. The distance from headquarters helped with that.
Elias hadn’t been grateful for the change of scenery at first. He’d nearly come to blows with Schelling at their first introduction, because Schelling expected the kind of rigorous efficiency that was antithetical to the methods Elias was accustomed to. And then there was Nakamura, a fixture of the office already, tucked into his chair with his typewriter, who had asserted with quiet certainty that they should at the very least give Mr. Hartley a chance, since he’d come so highly recommended. It was astoundingly rare for Nakamura to voice an opinion like that, Elias would come to learn. Not so strange that Schelling respected his secretary enough to listen, when the secretary himself was almost certainly the highest paid member of the branch office staff, Schelling himself excluded.
Hayase Nakamura was an Esper. An Analyst-type. Individuals with latent psychic or extrasensory abilities had started popping up something like 50 years ago, and by now there were easy categories to sort the various manifestations of such abilities into. And it’d been a bureaucratic nightmare at the beginning, but now things were more like a stable bad dream.
Nakamura, for his part, functioned as the human lie detector of the Papaver office, manifested through the use of his typewriter. That ding! to signify the start of a new line also indicated that someone had just spoken untruth, after which Hayase would record what the person had intended to say regardless of what was actually spoken. He could only do this as long as he didn’t look at the typewriter keys, instead using his extra sense to “key” into that which had not been said. It was an incredibly useful skill in a corporate setting, and Schelling took advantage of Nakamura’s gift as much as he possibly could. Elias did, too, when it was necessary.
Nakamura would be back to playing secretary at the appointments desk upstairs, by now. Elias put the thought out of his head and tried to focus on the data he’d gathered at the southern branch office. There was a lot of it to go through— he hadn’t lied to Schelling about that. Elias wondered briefly if he should be charging double for working a field operation and doing all the analysis himself, but knew that Schelling would never sign off on it. He sorted through the inventory reports, the firsthand accounts from the cargo bay managers, every invoice from the past six months, and compiled the discrepancies into something that a person other than Elias might be able to parse. It was a painstakingly slow process of cross-reference and comparison, and by the time Elias had worked through three months of records it was already nearly dark.
The other half of the data could wait until tomorrow. Schelling had Elias’ preliminary report already, and Elias was never keen on working overtime. He stretched, grunting with the effort, and logged out of his work computer. Elias stood from his desk, glancing across the other cubicles to see the other telltale signs that the workday was drawing to a close. Papaver employees shuffled about, collecting lunchboxes from fridges, offering farewells, taking overcoats off hooks. Elias blended into the press of bodies making for the lifts to the ground floor, moving in a mass of white shirts and slacks and skirts through the lobby out onto the street.
Elias walked home, like always. The apartment building he lived in was an easy twenty minutes away, passing by a small number of storefronts and coffee shops. The streetlights were just starting to come on as the velvety blanket of night descended, puddles of light spilling out across asphalt and pavement. There was the slightest chill to the air, now, at the cusp of winter. Elias tucked his hands into his pockets against the bite of the breeze and took a mental note to bring a jacket to the office tomorrow.
The flat that Elias lived in was on the seventh floor of an upscale apartment building— it was a one-bedroom, exorbitantly priced for its size, but the expense was mitigated by the fact that Elias shared it with another person. The flat had a generously sized kitchen with a gas stove top, and a bathroom with one of those glass box showers, which was an interesting choice on the designer’s part. The bedroom, off to one side past a small living/dining room, was furnished with a walk-in closet and a large bed, low to the ground. When Elias stepped inside, he found his suitcase still waiting by the door. He’d come in too late to unpack it the night before, and had slept on the couch in his dirty clothes.
Elias could tell his roommate was home by the extra pair of shoes near the door. He kicked off his own shoes and slipped his work badge over his head before dumping it unceremoniously on the kitchen counter, then untucked his shirt and took down the first two buttons. Thus prepared for maximum relaxation, Elias went to look in the bedroom.
A man with blue-black hair and clear gray eyes sat in a chair near the foot of the bed, holding a number of typewriter sheets in his lap. He looked up at the sound of Elias entering the room, and smiled, full and genuine.
“Welcome home,” said Nakamura, said Hayase , and he moved to the doorway to loop his arms around Elias, pulling him into an embrace. He pulled away to kiss Elias on the lips, a gesture which Elias swiftly reciprocated.
Elias folded his arms around Hayase’s torso, burying his face in the crook of the other man’s neck. “I missed you,” Elias said, into the warm silence.
“Mm,” Hayase made a vague noise of agreement, “You could have dropped in last night. I wouldn’t have minded.”
“I didn’t want to wake you,” Elias said, still entangled, “You’re an early bird.”
“True enough,” Hayase laughed a little, and Elias thought it might be his favorite sound in the world. “I missed you, too.”
The two of them couldn’t stand in the doorway forever. At length Elias let go and stepped back, though something in his chest twinged as contact ceased. Hayase looked at him from behind his spectacles, the corners of his mouth still upturned in that soft smile.
“Did you start working as soon as you got home?” Elias asked.
“More or less.” Hayase said, a little sheepishly.
“You want me to cook something?”
Hayase’s lips parted in a small “o” of surprise. “That would be lovely.”
“Alright,” Elias nodded, “What are you in the mood for?”
Hayase considered the question, frowning slightly. “I don’t think we have much here… I didn’t go shopping as often while you were away.”
“Makes sense,” Elias shrugged, “I’ll see what I can throw together.”
“Thank you,” Hayase leaned down to kiss Elias again, “I shouldn’t be busy much longer.”
“No rush.” Elias said, and let his gaze linger on Hayase for just a moment more before he turned to survey the contents of the kitchen.
Hayase followed a few minutes later, carrying his stack of typewriter sheets out to the couch in the living room so he and Elias could occupy the same space while they worked. It was the kind of gesture to make Elias feel like he might die if he thought about it for too long, so he turned his attention entirely on trying to figure out what the two of them were going to eat for dinner.
Hayase hadn’t been kidding— there wasn’t much. Elias started putting ingredients on the counter at random, doing the mental calculus as he went along to figure out what might taste good. Eventually he managed to form an idea, solidified by his discovery of an unopened and unexpired bottle of salad dressing on the top shelf of the refrigerator.
“Hey,” Elias called over to Hayase, “How do you feel about a big salad?”
“Hmm,” Hayase frowned from his place on the couch, “What kind?”
“Arugula, spinach, feta cheese, candied walnuts? And I found some raspberry vinaigrette, so that might be good.”
Hayase considered it. “Decadent. But sure, why not?”
Elias went to work assembling the salad, while Hayase settled back into reviewing the conversations he’d transcribed, manually correcting the errors for digital input later. Every so often Elias would hear the shuffling of paper, or a noise from Hayase as he found something of note. The rhythm of it was comfortable and familiar. Elias found that he was smiling a bit without even thinking about it.
Elias had just finished chopping the walnuts when Hayase made a particularly aggrieved sound. “What is it?” he called out without turning to look.
“This always happens,” Hayase said, which wasn’t much of an explanation.
“What always happens?” Elias asked, turning around this time.
Hayase lifted a sheet of paper. Elias squinted, but couldn’t quite read the contents from where he was standing.
“It’s your talk with Schelling earlier,” Hayase said, “When you were discussing the pencils you put in the ceiling.”
“Yeah?” Elias said, still not understanding.
“I have your words verbatim again,” Hayase said, shaking the sheet a little, “I only caught the lie because I saw what you did for myself.”
“Still can’t read me, huh?” Elias dumped the walnuts into the bottom of a large bowl, “Is it ‘cause you like me?”
“I know you’re joking, Elias, but that is an actual possibility. The line between Analyst and Empath is quite thin.”
“Is this the part where you tell me to go get tested again?” Elias shook out a half-full bag of arugula into a salad spinner, followed quickly by the spinach, “I’m not going to.”
“New government positions open up all the time,” Hayase said, as if it followed logically, “The benefits are often quite generous.”
“I don’t want to ride a desk the rest of my life,” Elias pulled off the seal under the lid of the salad dressing, then screwed the cap back on, “Besides, if government Esper jobs are so good, why don’t you have one?”
Hayase adjusted his glasses, the lenses catching a glare from the overhead lights. “There’s more freedom in private contracting.”
“And money.” Elias said.
“And money,” Hayase agreed, “But you should really consider—“
“Nope,” Elias cut him off, punctuated by the sound of the salad spinner revving up to speed, “Not my problem.”
And Hayase knew that once Elias had decided something wasn’t his problem, there was very little to be argued. So he went back to his work, and Elias finished their salad, and the pair ate a surprisingly delicious meal sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch in their flat. After that, Hayase helped Elias unpack his suitcase, remarking only once upon the shoddy work he’d done shoving all the dirty clothes into the bottom compartment. And after that they went to bed, routine restored, and slept with limbs entwined in the warm and quiet darkness.
Elias awoke to Hayase pressing a kiss to the crown of his head.
Hayase’s morning ministrations were long since completed. He was an early bird, as had been previously stated.
“Good morning.” Hayase ran a gentle hand through the tangled mess of Elias’ hair. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and smiling that soft smile again, features still mostly obscured by the darkness of the bedroom in the thin morning light.
“Mmgh?” Elias said, helpfully.
“I made coffee already. It’s in the kitchen.” Hayase said, as if the noise had actually managed to form a question.
The thought of coffee brought Elias slightly more awake. “Thank you,” he half-mumbled, tongue still heavy with sleep, “I love you.”
Hayase was well past the point of surprise at such a declaration, however sleepily given. “I’ll see you later,” He said, and then: “I love you, too.”
Elias smiled up at Hayase, then yawned and nestled back under the sheets.
“Elias,” Hayase cautioned, “Don’t play this game. You made Schelling nervous at that meeting, he’ll want you on time today.”
“Not my problem,” Elias said, voice muffled by a blanket.
“Very much your problem,” Hayase said, peeling the blanket away to Elias’ great dismay, “Be a professional, Mr. Hartley.”
“Don’t call me Mr. Hartley,” Elias groaned, “It makes me sound old.”
“I’ll do much worse if you don’t get moving.” Hayase said.
“Promise?”
“Elias.” Hayase’s tone indicated he was not in the mood for jokes.
“Alright, alright,” Elias wrenched himself upright, “I’m moving.”
“Good.” Hayase stood from his place at the end of the bed, “See you at work, Hart.”
“See ya, Nakamura.” Elias gave a two-fingered salute, followed by a lopsided grin.
Hayase smiled in return, once again adjusting his glasses until they caught and reflected the light to obscure his expression. Then he was gone, out the door of the bedroom and soon after from the apartment itself.
Elias took a hot shower, chased by an ice-cold rinse. He went through the motions of trying to brush his hair, dressed in his work shirt, slacks, and tie, and then finally made his way to the kitchen. A near-full pot of coffee was waiting for him, as Hayase promised. Elias poured himself a cup and added a sensible amount of salted caramel flavored coffee creamer. Sniffed at it, appreciatively, before taking a contemplative sip. Hayase always made the coffee perfectly, even though it came pre-bagged with all the proportions written out. Elias hadn’t decided if he thought that was an Esper thing or just a Hayase thing.
He stood in the kitchen and sipped his coffee for a solid stretch of minutes, letting Hayase lengthen his head start to the office. Technically the schedules the two of them worked were only staggered by about an hour, but Hayase was always early on top of that. The upside of the arrangement was that Elias never, or very rarely, came home to an empty apartment, which he liked. It was comforting to know that there was another person in his orbit no matter how he filled the day.
Eventually, with a heavy sigh, Elias headed for the door. He remembered to grab a wool overcoat on his way out, and smiled a little at the way it smelled, half musty from lack of use, half like Hayase’s coats from proximity. Buoyed by the thought, by the simple reminder of his feelings for the man he’d spent the past five years with, Elias went to work in a far better mood than usual.
Once he was securely tucked into his cubicle once more, he got into the business of… business. There was still quite a lot of data from the southern office to work through, and Elias already wanted to pull records from this branch office to see if he could find a pattern. He’d been in this line of work long enough to have something like intuition in these types of situations. Even if the western branch didn’t directly oversee supply chain operations and chemical compounding like the southern branch, Schelling’s office had the capacity to influence the way records were kept. What Elias hadn’t yet figured out was the purpose of the leaks, irrelevant of how far up the chain the leak itself was. He needed more information. And more time.
The day dragged on. Elias finished with second half of his findings from the southern branch office and requested the relevant records for his theory before heading to the office cafeteria for an overpriced tuna sandwich. He ate in silence at a dirty table in the back, occasionally catching a wave or a smile from one of the other workers on his floor.
“Is this seat taken?” A voice caught Elias’ attention, and he looked up.
Hayase, Nakamura, now, Elias corrected, smiled down at him, a paper wrapped parcel of food in one hand.
“’S not,” Elias said, around a mouthful of bread and tuna, which had the added benefit of keeping him from smiling too obviously in return. He waved Nakamura permission to the seat across from him.
Nakamura settled into the plastic chair, its metal legs shrieking against the tile of the cafeteria floor. He set the wrapped whatever it was down without opening it, and instead waited for Elias to stop chewing his bite.
“How’s it hanging?” Elias asked, setting down his sandwich.
“Don’t be crude, Hart.” Nakamura said, “I’m here on business.”
“Schelling wants a status report?” Elias leaned back in the chair, which did little to accommodate his recline.
Nakamura nodded.
“I can send him my initial findings,” Elias said, “But, to be honest, I was thinking about taking a half day.” A bit of code that Nakamura was certain to know. There was sensitive information Elias didn’t want to access on Papaver property where someone could look over his shoulder, digitally or physically.
“Ah,” Nakamura said, “That should be fine. I’ll let him know.”
“Something must really have him spooked,” Elias said, slinging one arm idly over the back of his chair, “He knows better than to ask for an update this early.”
Nakamura expertly raised one eyebrow, but said nothing.
“Just makes me wonder,” Elias said, still leaning back, “If he knows more than he’s letting on.”
“Mr. Schelling surely only wants what is best for the company.” Nakamura said, smoothly.
“Right,” Elias nodded. He pointed to the wrapped thing that Nakamura put on the table. “You gonna eat that?”
Nakamura gave that ghost of a smile again. “It was more of an excuse to deliver the message. All yours, Hart. That said…” Nakamura paused, “I heard there’s a sale on eggs today.” Code, again. Pick up groceries on your way home.
Underneath the table, Elias tapped the side of his foot against Nakamura’s in silent acknowledgment. “Really? Thanks for the tip.”
“Of course.” Nakamura rose from his seat again, pushing the parcel he’d come with across the table to Elias. “Enjoy the rest of your lunch.”
Elias went home with a heavy folder of documents and 1.5 sandwiches, the former which he left on the counter, and the latter in the fridge. Then, in an insult to more efficient minds, he went out again to do his grocery shopping. His one non-work obligation therefore satisfied, Elias put the groceries away and started in on the next part of his investigation.
Elias used every wiry bit of muscle he had to push the coffee table away from the couch so he had a good area of floor to work in, then proceeded to dump the file folder all over the floor. The paper fluttered to land in a scattershot pattern on the carpet. Elias grunted as he shifted to sit on the floor, pulling a pillow off the couch to sit on. For lack of better options, he had to sacrifice his joints to be a better spy.
Half of the papers that Elias brought were from the southern branch, and the rest from the western branch, where he worked. The fact that he’d mixed them indiscriminately on the floor was part of the process. If there really was a pattern, he’d be able to match it better not knowing which set of data belonged to which office.
Elias stood up, walked around his piles, lifted two sheets of raw dates and numbers to compare, set them down again. At one point he retrieved a highlighter from a messy drawer in the kitchen and marked out messy lines of yellow ink across several pieces of paper. It wasn’t an organized process, but it always worked for him when he had to play data analyst.
Still, some indeterminate number of hours later, every line of text started to blur together in his vision. Elias set down the papers he had been holding, tucked the highlighter into the pocket of his work shirt, and lowered himself onto the couch with a protracted groan. To think this morning he’d been whinging at Hayase for saying something that made him sound old— here he was, at the venerated age of 31, with all the back problems of someone two decades his senior.
Elias closed his eyes, then, as an added measure, draped his arm across his face. The data still scrolled out across his vision begging to be understood. Elias felt his mouth tense into a frown. There was something to it, something he couldn’t see yet. A pattern cut against the grain. Numbers that didn’t match when they should have, like they’d been hastily altered, clipped, edited.
“Someone’s scared,” Elias said, out loud into the empty apartment, “This isn’t a leak. Someone’s cooking the books.”
He needed to know who had access to those records at both offices. They’d have to be high-level, of similar clearance to Elias. Someone without much oversight. Someone who—
A key ka-chunked in the lock of the apartment door. Elias made no motion to move his arm off his face or get up from the couch as Hayase walked inside.
“Oh,” Hayase said, presumably looking between Elias on the couch and the carnage of paper on the carpet next to him, “I see you’ve been busy.”
“I love my job,” Elias said, dryly. And then, more as an afterthought: “I got groceries.”
“Thank you,” Hayase said, and suddenly his voice was very close.
Elias moved his arm and looked up into clear gray eyes. “Hi.”
“You shaved today,” Hayase observed.
“Someone I know likes me with a clean face,” Elias said, resisting the urge to crack a lopsided grin.
“Uh-huh,” Hayase said.
“Shit,” Elias said, “I forgot about the sandwiches.”
Later, after Elias cleaned up his documents and Hayase went through his usual transcription process, the two enjoyed a quietly delicious dinner. It was too early to retire to the bedroom after that, so the pair ended up on the couch instead, one blanket across two sets of legs, Hayase with his head resting on Elias’ shoulder while some meaningless program scrawled out across the screen of their TV.
“I’m thinking about asking for an office transfer,” Hayase said, entirely without preamble.
“Yeah?” Elias said, half-listening. “Karl do something to piss you off again?”
“Not really,” Hayase said, “though I don’t know how you tolerate him sometimes.”
“Karl’s pretty tolerable as assholes go,” Elias said, bringing a hand up to tangle in Hayase’s hair. “’Tolerable’ is about the best I’ll give him, though. You’re thinking about moving to the central office, or what?”
“…Maybe,” Hayase said, leaning his head against Elias’ shoulder, “I’m still considering my options.”
“You could probably make it happen,” Elias said, “you’re a hot commodity, Hayase.” He chuckled lightly.
Hayase stiffened slightly under his touch. “Would you want to come with me?”
“Yeah,” Elias said, “Yeah. It’d be tricky, though.”
“But you would try.”
Elias sighed, bringing his free hand up to run through his hair. “Yeah, I would try.”
Hayase pulled away, just slightly. “You make it sound like a chore.”
“It wouldn’t be easy, is all. Not on short notice. Not to mention I kind of like it here, so… it’d be nice to know what’s bothering you this badly?”
Hayase frowned, his expression unreadable. “No. It’s alright.”
Elias wanted to push, wanted to insist on answers. It was the sort of instinct that made him such a good spy. But that wasn’t his job right now.
“… Okay,” Elias said, “just keep me posted?”
“Of course,” Hayase said, without looking at Elias.
Evening spooled into night. Elias slept with a head full of numbers still spinning behind his eyelids and Hayase curled against his back.
When morning light pressed up against his face through the curtains on the bedroom window, Hayase was gone already, and Elias had his questions ready. He found coffee waiting for him as usual, and his papers from the day before neatly straightened and stacked. Elias wondered vaguely if Hayase had looked through the data at all, and if he should ask what the other man made of it, even if these weren’t the kind of numbers that usually fell under Hayase’s purview. Still, knowing Hayase, he’d looked. For some reason that guess sat oddly in Elias’ chest.
If he hadn’t been feeling weird about it, Elias might’ve booked his appointment with Schelling properly. If he hadn’t been feeling weird about it, he might not have waited until Hayase was on his lunch break to ride the lift three floors up. Was he upset with Hayase? For the night before? The conversation had been a little weird, sure, but everyone was on edge since Elias had gotten back from his trip down south…
Schelling was alone in his office—Elias could see him through the glass behind the empty receptionist’s desk. Good. Elias had a lot of room to do as he pleased at Papaver, but barging into meetings was never a good look, especially when Elias had gone to such lengths to curate his generally unkempt air.
He pushed open the door to Schelling’s office. Schelling startled to attention, hastily closing the magazine he had open on his desk. Men’s fashion, from what Elias could tell in the brief instant before Schelling shoved the magazine out of sight.
“Mr. Hartley,” Schelling said, managing to keep most of his startlement out of his voice, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I need to pull some staff records,” Elias said. “Off the books. Think you could set that up for me?”
Schelling eyed him. “Certainly. If you would be so kind as to place the request with Mr. Nakamura—“
“I don’t want Nakamura to know.” The words were out of Elias’ mouth before he could think about them, before he could process the implications.
Schelling’s eyebrows lifted above the sharp frames of his glasses. “Is that so? You don’t think he could be… involved, do you?”
Elias put his hands in his pockets. Was he shaking? He couldn’t tell. “Can’t rule anything out. I thought you liked it when I practiced discretion.” He winked.
Schelling’s whole face contorted. “Mr. Hartley!”
All of this was almost worth it for Schelling’s reaction, though Elias could only enjoy it at a remove—the more things solidified in his mind, the unhappier he was starting to feel. “Can you get me those records or not?”
Schelling sighed, dragging a hand across his face. “I will issue you a temporary access code. Take a half day, Mr. Hartley. The fewer eyes you have on you, the better.”
Elias almost, almost, could have laughed. Under any other circumstances, Schelling’s play was the smart one. Instead he forced his mouth into a neutral line and nodded. “I’ll have something for you tomorrow. Might be what we’re looking for, might not.”
“I assume this is not ‘your call,’ then?” Schelling said, “I should continue to wait for the actual results of your investigation?”
“Can’t promise you’ll like what you get,” Elias said, still trying not to grit his teeth.
“I do hope Nakamura isn’t the one responsible,” Schelling said, with another full-body sigh. “It would be quite troublesome to hire another secretary.”
Elias had to play it cool. Had to keep calm, had to look disinterested. His heart was an unsteady beat in his chest, his tongue dry and heavy in his mouth. His hands shook as he took his coat and computer home, walking briskly and silently through the still-bright streets. He put the wrong key into the door of the apartment, swore sharply under his breath, and then did it the right way.
Elias stationed himself unhappily at the low table in front of the TV, setting his laptop down hard enough that he actually winced. When he checked the plastic casing, a section of it had cracked. The machine still turned on just fine, though. Elias found the staff records he needed and put in the code from Schelling that would let him page through the information. He tried to take a deep breath. This was just work.
It was just work, and maybe he’d be wrong. The twisted echo of Elias’ own words to Schelling played back in his head: “In those six years, how many times have I been wrong?”
And then, of course, Karl’s reply: “Only once.”
Let it be twice, Elias thought, almost prayerful, though he’d never been religious, please let this make it twice.
He opened up the list of staff permissions first, to see who would be able to edit the inventory logs that’d been tormenting him since he got back from his trip to the other branch. Obviously the people who actually worked with the backstock at Papaver were there, the drivers, the warehouse managers and their endless chains of redundant supervisors. Elias didn’t recognize every name from the logins listed, and they were alphabetical, so really he just had to get to “H” before he could start breathing again.
… But there it was, obvious as anything: “ [email protected] ”
“Still doesn’t mean anything,” Elias said, out loud, to himself. He kept the tab with the staff records open and went into the actual inventory pages to cross-reference. The same names, mostly, and then, with conspicuous regularity, there was hnakamura again.
The fact that Hayase even had access to warehouse inventory records was a dubious use of his position at best—the fact that he’d actively been editing said records was as damning as anything. Someone should have caught this sooner. Elias should have caught this sooner, he was still wearing his goddamn “data analyst” badge, though with that thought Elias practically ripped the lanyard off his neck and tossed it across the room.
He put his head in hands. Took a deep breath. He needed to talk to Hayase about this before he did anything else. Maybe there’d be some kind of explanation he was missing, some kind of motivation, an internal probe from Central, or… something. Why would Hayase need to alter warehouse inventory numbers, anyway?
Elias closed his laptop. Stood up, forced himself to walk to the bathroom and splash cold water onto his face. He took a cupped handful of liquid and choked it down, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He dragged a hand through the curls of his hair and wondered if he should just try and make himself throw up while he was in here, given the sorry state of his insides at present.
But no, that would just be another mess to clean up. He had to focus on the one in front of him first.
Elias spent two hours pacing and sighing and trying not to lose his mind before he heard Hayase’s keys jingle in the lock outside.
He was still standing in the middle of the kitchen when Hayase walked in, his whole expression shifting to surprise as soon as he saw Elias.
“Oh,” Hayase said, “you’re home early.” And then he stood there and smiled and waited for Elias to kiss him.
Elias wheezed like he’d been punched in the gut. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. What he said was: “Hey, ‘Yase. Why have you been editing the warehouse inventory logs?”
Hayase blinked. Elias watched him carefully, saw the slightest twitch of shoulders tightening before they were very deliberately loosened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Elias knew Hayase so well.
He could tell when the man he loved was lying.
“Sure,” Elias said, like something in him wasn’t going to pieces. “I can show you where I saw your login, if you want. Think you got hacked?”
Something in Hayase slumped, more genuinely this time. He sighed. Took off his glasses, tucked them into a pocket. “I can’t convince you to let this go, can I?”
“Probably not,” Elias said. “Explain it to me. Like I’m stupid.”
“I suppose I don’t have anything to lose by telling you,” Hayase said, evenly. “Why don’t we sit down?” He gestured toward the couch.
“No,” Elias said, “I don’t want to.” He doubted he could , to be completely honest. Every bit of him felt electrified and raw. He didn’t know how Hayase could be so calm.
“Alright,” Hayase said, “I suppose that’s your prerogative. I’ll ask you this, then: what percentage of people in Papaver’s clinical trials are Espers?”
Elias frowned. “Something like 30%. I think.”
“In the public trials, yes,” Hayase nodded. “In the private trials? It’s 90%.”
“What?”
“These aren’t numbers they disclose,” Hayase continued, as though Elias hadn’t spoken, “Though Papaver is hardly at risk for legal recourse when they over-hire Espers. And Esper science is still oh-so-new, you know. There’s plenty of subsidies for the work. What do you think happens to that 90% after the trials are over?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” Elias said, honestly.
A smile flickered and faded across Hayase’s face. “Of course not. Very few of that 90% make it through unscathed, but that’s not something they can talk about. The contracts are airtight, the non-disclosure agreements suffocatingly broad, but the money is often simply too good to refuse. Owing to those generous subsidies, of course.”
“Papaver’s not the only company doing this,” Elias pointed out.
“Of course not,” Hayase agreed, “Papaver is just the biggest.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question,” Elias said, “I get why you’d be upset about Esper exploitation. Obviously. But it’s the cargo drivers who get punished when you alter inventory records.”
Hayase sighed. “I know. I would have liked to make better provisions for that, but we can’t afford to lose the materials.”
For treating those harmed by the clinical trials, Elias had to assume. “Who’s we?”
“The organization I work for,” Hayase said, “ really work for, I mean. To further the cause of Esper liberation. Does that answer your question?”
It did. Elias had the information he needed, everything it would take to call Schelling and wrap up all the loose ends. Means, motive, opportunity, like a shitty crime drama.
What he heard himself say was: “You could’ve told me. I could’ve helped you.”
“No, Elias,” Hayase put his glasses back on, “I never could have told you. You’ve never cared about what it means to be an Esper.”
“What, because I won’t get tested? What does that have to do with any of this?” Elias couldn’t help it—his voice started to rise incredulously.
“I can’t trust you to empathize with a future you refuse to believe in for yourself,” Hayase said, as easily as though he’d rehearsed it. And then his expression softened fractionally. “I’m going to ask you something, Elias. I’m sorry. I think I need you to hate me.”
Elias took three steps out of the kitchen so he could stand in line with Hayase, still at a distance. “Say it, then.”
“Why,” Hayase said, slowly, “do you think I asked you out? All those years ago.”
If this had been another time, another conversation, Elias might have said: “Because I’m charming and handsome?” but what he said now was: “Why?”
“Because I always knew you’d blow my cover,” Hayase said, and when he smiled and looked at Elias he was still so beautiful. “The fact that I can’t read you has always made you dangerous, to say nothing of what you do for the company. I was going to take things public, make a big show of dumping you, and forever compromise your judgment.”
It really was just like a shitty crime drama. “You didn’t, though,” Elias said. “We’ve never told anyone that we’re together.” He didn’t want to think about what that meant in relation to everything Hayase had just said.
“I know,” Hayase looked away, “I made a mistake. But you’re not a surgeon, Elias, you’re just the scalpel. It’s clear to me you’ve never wanted to be more than that.”
Elias fumbled for words, but he kept coming up empty. “What are you going to do?” He half-gasped, finally.
“I’m going to leave,” Hayase said, “I’ll be gone by the time you’re done giving your report to Schelling. Goodbye, Elias. If you ever loved me… you won’t come looking.”
Hayase left Elias in the crushing emptiness of the apartment.
He didn’t take his coat.
“This is all quite a shame,” Karl Schelling said, looking across the expanse of his desk at Elias, “Nakamura was incredibly gifted and by dint of that will be equally difficult to replace.”
Elias, unslept and unshaven, nodded. “You’ll have to be careful with who you hire next.”
“Of course,” Schelling agreed. And then, with a half-squinted glance at Elias: “I’m sure you must be rather disappointed as well. Nakamura was… a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”
“Something like that.”
