“Kuronomiya, you okay?” Yamato-san stopped me as I walked past his desk on the way to mine, returning from Hamada-san’s cabin. “I… heard about the mess up.” “It’s fine. I’ll figure something out.” I smiled weakly at him. “It’s not… a total loss. The client just decided that my proposal was not modern enough. I mean, I admit that it isn’t my best work.” “So, what now? You’re resubmitting?” … “No. I’m off the project.” “What? It was a huge one though! And… this is the kind of project that you excel at. Wha- I mean, how come…” He did not complete what he was going to say. ‘How come you messed up?’ ‘What went wrong?’ ‘This isn’t like you.’ ‘What happened to you?’ Hamada-san had already pinned me with all those questions earlier. I had had absolutely no answer to give. All I could do was apologise and promise to do better next time. “Yeah. I know. It was my fault entirely. I messed up.” I scratched the tip of my ear. “I’ll do better

Hiro-san had called me just before I left office to inform me that he would be late but that he would definitely be coming over for dinner. While I had found that a little weird because he would usually have chosen to go straight home, I had absolutely no complaints. He knew exactly what he was doing. I heard the front door opening and checked the time on my phone. It was just past 07:15 pm. Hikaru-nii was early. “Welcome home.” I stepped out of the kitchen to greet him. “You’re early today.” “Mm. I finished work early.” He replied. “And I have a bad headache. Could I get a cup of tea?” A headache? “Okay. Wait a bit.” I went back into the kitchen and began preparing tea as well along with dinner. It had been a while since he asked for anything other than alcohol. “Here.” I took a cup of tea out to him when I had finished making it. “Have you been working too much?” “No. I didn’t sleep much last night.” He answered. “Oh.

I couldn’t sleep. It was already 02:43 am and I was still wide awake. Even my eyes were not feeling tired. I was working on my laptop up until half an hour ago because I had not felt ready to sleep but then I thought that I should probably try to just close my eyes and force myself to sleep. That had not worked either. In fact, I had done so much work prior to lying down that I would have been fine not going to work that day. I couldn’t possibly stay at home though. I had nothing to do here. I sighed and sat up in bed, throwing off the blanket that I had been using only to cover my stomach. The lack of sleep was annoying. There really was no reason for me to not be able to sleep either. It had been a fairly decent day. Work had progressed smoothly, Hikaru-nii and Hiro-san had both come home for dinner and Hiro-san had left only past 10:00 pm. It had been a better day than most others. I got off the bed and made my way to the ki

The first thing I noticed on waking up was the smell of food. I was feeling a lot better already and the clear nose confirmed it. Seemed like the fever had been because of the fatigue and all I had needed was sleep. How long had I slept though? I checked my watch. It was already 07:20 pm. 07:20?! I thought I had asked Hiro-san to wake me up- Wait. I really could smell food. I got off bed slowly and went out into the living room. “You woke up, Kake-chan? How are you feeling?” Hiro-san asked from the kitchen doorway. “I’m fine.” I replied and turned to the other man who was seated on the couch. It seemed as though they were having a conversation before I walked in. “You’re… early today, aren’t you, Hikaru-nii?” “I finished work early.” My brother replied but said nothing more. He was still in his work clothes so I concluded that he had come here straight from office. I looked at Hiro-san questioningly. There was only one

Hiro-san was sitting on the bed, one hand on the towel, slowly drying his hair. When I entered his room, he stopped to look at me, then looked out the door and called out to my brother. “Hikaru, is it really okay? I have a futon.”“No. It’s okay. The couch is enough.” Hikaru-nii responded.Hiro-san’s eyes shifted to me. “Shouldn’t we get him the futon?”“It’s okay. He’s not the type to give in to such things that easily anyway. You shouldn’t have mentioned that it needed dusting. He doesn’t want to give you additional work.” I said, looked back at my brother who had already settled himself in and then slowly shut the door. It was probably weird for him that Hiro-san and I were so comfortable with sharing a bed like this. It was already standing out to him how Hiro-san and I had gotten so close.I… really wasn’t trying to hide anything though.Hiro