Catching Wishes; Tezuka, Fuji & Cast, PG, 8179 words, complete.
Summary: Tokyo’s third office of the Wish Granting Co. Ltd. is headed up by one Tezuka Kunimitsu, supported (in theory) by his staff - people like Momoshiro, Kaidoh, and Fuji Shuusuke. The company relies on technology, but when it comes to Fuji, what Tezuka actually needs is just a little bit of magic.
Notes: This was written for the Christmas_cacti exchange. Apparently fifteenth or sixteenth time lucky. :>
Thank you so much to Anjenue, who betaed this for me with very short notice, and who helped infinitely with encouragement both for this fic and the one it replaced. I can’t tell you how thankful I was for it. :3
Comments would be love.
“So what do you actually do again? I mean, we - what do we do?” Minami asked.
“We catch wishes,” Fuji smiled. “Catch them, collect them, categorise them, store them, grant them, and record it all.” He paused. “Preferably in that order.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s easy enough, isn’t it?” Fuji laughed. “What makes you happy, Minami? What would you wish for, if you could?”
He considered. “Manga. I’d wish for the world’s biggest stack of manga. Or maybe a bookstore or a lifetime’s supply.”
Fuji nodded. “But our wishes don’t have anything to do with possessions,” he explained. “They’re more people-oriented.”
“What do you mean? You mean you can only wish for other people? Like Koda Kumi or something?”
Fuji tilted his head. “If you wanted a date with Koda Kumi, perhaps. I think the rulebook says we can’t do that for celebrities though, otherwise they’d be overloaded all the time and it might draw too much attention to us. But basically,” he explained, “It’s a bit like a system. You wish for something and we try our best to deliver it to you. Systems don’t always work, but when they do, people end up happy.”
Minami nodded slowly. “So we try to make wishes happen for people who can’t do it themselves.”
Fuji smiled. “That’s the idea anyway.”
“I see.” Another nod.
“How exactly did you get a job here if you didn’t know what we do?” Fuji asked.
Minami continued grinning. “Contacts. Someone who said I’d like it here, and he was right. He said I wouldn’t know what went on here until I was on the inside anyway.”
“Mm.” Fuji smiled. Most people came to work here because they had contacts. He himself had come because Yumiko had told him it would bring him good luck working here, and because she could see the company in the first place. Most people didn’t know of its existence.
Minami would first be working in the store rooms down below in the basement. Wishes were fragile things. They were sheltered and cared for because few people had the confidence to shout them out loud, so the ones which made their way there were mostly little whispers or thoughts, or even the secret things people almost didn’t dare think.
It was a strange company - born out of a scientific accident one day when Inui Sadaharu discovered he could hear people’s thoughts. But not all thoughts - only wishes. He had put his head together with Yanagi Renji and they’d come up with data transcription and encryption systems to make everything run smoothly and maintain confidentiality, and what were generally accepted to be (no one actually asked) illegal ways of managing the costs of their venture. Some said they’d developed the technology to grow money from modified trees. Others suggested the two were funding it from their own pockets somehow, or that Inui’s line of commercial energy drinks actually banked a profit. Others still said they had a deal going with the government of the day to keep people happy as the economy slumped.
Nowadays they both worked odd jobs around the company when they weren’t continuing their research, flitting from branch to branch together to keep an eye on their employees. All eight thousand of them.
Wishes were a growing business.
Fuji was always glad his sister had pointed him to the company. There was, however, one catch about working here.
“Just remember,” he said as they went up the ladders. “As long as you work here, wishes you make will still be collected, but almost none are ever granted. If you want something, you’ll have to make it work for yourself.”
“It’s just a policy,” he explained, when Minami gave a confused look. “I’m sure Kaidoh will make you read the rule books, so you’ll learn we have a lot more where that one comes from. To avoid conflicts of interest, see,” he smiled.
***
The third Tokyo office of the Wish Granting Co. Ltd. sat on what had been, until five minutes ago, a vacant block awaiting redevelopment.
Its lobby (no one really knew why they had one when they were invisible to the normal eye and had no visitors besides higher-ups they didn’t want anyway) was currently decorated with stacks of toppled books, turned over chairs and pot plants looking worse for wear, while Oishi fretted about his interior decoration gone to waste and Echizen regarded what had been, until five minutes ago, his lunch. Now upside down on the floor.
“Are you sure here’s a good place?” Taka-san asked a little nervously, rubbing at his neck. “It’s a bit busy, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it noisy here?” Momoshiro complained. He’d already eaten his first lunch of the day, so his stomach rumbling wasn’t adding to the discontent, but his second lunch was upturned right beside Echizen’s, and he was annoyed.
“Shut up!” Kaidoh hissed at him, “I didn’t see you offer any other suggestions.”
“I did!” Momo bickered loudly. “I said that block next to the burger joint.”
“Useful suggestions,” Kaidoh growled. “You just wanted to go there so you could stuff yourself between jobs.”
“Did not!” Momo grumbled. “I just wanted to try that new double deluxe thing. With the five layers of meat and extra eggs.”
“See,” Kaidoh hissed. “You don’t need any more eggs. You’re starting to look like a giant one anyway.”
“Better than looking like you,” Momo growled back. “At least people don’t run away from eggs when they try to talk to you.”
“Yeah, because they’re too busy running away for fear of getting squashed,” Kaidoh hissed.
“Oi, Mamushi!” Momo stormed across the room, arm swiping for Kaidoh’s shirt when Fuji stopped him.
“Now now,” Fuji smiled, “I think Kaidoh did a good job finding us a new location and moving us. Now all we have to do is get all the connections to National Headquarters fixed up and we’re back in business.”
Momo scowled. “Yeah, well,” he huffed. “If we hadn’t decided we had to uproot, we could’ve been in business all day already. You know how behind we are already and they had to go and transfer us? Why do we have to do Aoyama too now? Aren’t these people rich enough that they can buy their own wishes?”
“Momoshiro.” A warning from the doorway.
“Oh, Tezuka,” Fuji smiled, waving him over.
“See, I bet he’s here because Kaidoh did such a crappy job of moving us that everything in his office fell over too,” Momo grumbled.
“My office is fine,” Tezuka corrected. “Thank you; you did a good job, Kaidoh.”
An embarrassed hiss, then Kaidoh stalked over to the doorway leading to the stairs, intent on resuming his normal work where he’d left off. Their communication lines were still down - Inui and Yanagi were working on that - but he had work piled up on his desk and about two weeks of wishes backlogged. Not to mention he had the job of training their new staff - a couple of jimmies who just didn’t seem to understand the rules they were to operate under, or the fact that they couldn’t file things like “I wish Sparky were alive again” or “I wish my cat would cough up my sister’s pet mouse because I don’t have enough money to buy a new one” in the incoming tray.
Being the guy in charge of procedures and protocol was all kinds of trouble for Kaidoh, especially when he had to deal with idiots like Momo all the time. Idiots who might just pick up those kinds of assignments and scratch their heads over them.
***
“Wires are back up!” Inui yelled loudly, coming into the lobby.
“Inui-” Tezuka began with an exasperated look.
Inui tweaked his glasses between thumb and finger. “Yes, Tezuka?”
“Don’t yell,” Tezuka sighed. “I’m two metres away. I can hear you.”
He’d had enough yelling in here. Someone ought to change the room when they had spare time - they were all sick of their own voices bouncing off the granite floor.
“Okay, lines are back up, so get back to work,” he instructed the group. “Momoshiro, you and Echizen left yesterday’s job unfinished.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Momo waved, grinning as he flipped out a set of keys. “Hey Echizen, are you coming or not? Last one to the garage has to buy burgers!”
“Race you there!” Eiji yelled back, sprinting out of the room just as quickly as he’d entered a second before.
“O-Oi! Eiji-senpai!” Momo protested. “I didn’t say you too! I don’t have that much money!”
“So don’t lose,” Echizen grunted, taking a head start on him.
“Why is it that we’re a wish granting company and we can grant marriages and long lost reunions but we can’t grant a burger?” Taka-san sighed.
“Rules,” Fuji smiled.
“And I thought you were all for breaking them,” Tezuka murmured, raising an eyebrow.
Fuji smiled. “Why? Was there one particular rule you were thinking of?” he asked.
***
Things were back to normal soon enough. Tezuka straightened the books on his shelf and had just sat down with some of the morning’s incoming messages - management issues, staffing shortages, problems with transport, run-ins with the law, procedural difficulties, failures to comply with OHS regulations (he still didn’t know how Inui and Yanagi managed to keep their company afloat with all the rather… illegal things their staff’s jobs entailed) - when Fuji walked in.
He jangled a set of keys in his hand. “Well, shall we?” he smiled.
“Shall we what?” Tezuka asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
He put down the folders on his desk.
“I’m lacking a partner for the day, and you said yesterday you were sick of being in the office,” Fuji pointed out. “So why don’t you come with me?”
Tezuka shook his head. “No, I still have work to finish,” he frowned, remembering. “And by the way, did those numbers come through yesterday?”
“Numbers?” Fuji looked thoughtful. “Oh, those numbers,” he said after a moment. “They did.”
“And?” Tezuka waited, hands folded on his desk.
“And we’re the least productive office of any in the country and we handle the least wishes per year, fulfil them in the least time and resource-efficient ways and cause the most amount of paperwork to go through the company’s National Department of Code Violation Investigation,” Fuji smiled.
“That was the good news,” he added. “Do you want the bad news now or should I get you some coffee first?”
Tezuka sighed and rubbed at his temples. “No. No coffee,” he cringed. “Send me through a copy of the report, would you?”
Fuji nodded. “Okay, but I think rather than a copy, the head of the report team was going to telephone you.”
Tezuka looked at him sharply. “Did he have a reason for the personal contact?”
Fuji smiled. “Well, it was Sanada who headed the-”
“Sanada Geniichirou,” Tezuka interrupted.
Fuji laughed at his reaction, as Tezuka stood up and slipped on his jacket. “What sort of jobs do you have lined up for today?”
“The usual,” Fuji grinned. “I’ll take it that you’re coming.”
Tezuka pursed his lips. “Tomoka can take my calls while we’re out.”
Fuji winked at her as they walked past. He suspected she liked talking to Sanada. She liked most of the people who called, actually, which made her a perfect candidate for the job as she more than made up for Tezuka’s brevity on the telephone.
***
“Hang on, I just need to grab a file,” Fuji smiled, stepping into the records room.
The room itself was wall to wall and floor to ceiling with drawers, none of them particularly well labelled - Inui’s fault, not Yanagi’s. But the computer system itself worked perfectly, a mechanical arm with motion-sensor technology travelling up and down columns and along rows, fetching whatever the user keyed in from the keypads down below and delivering it directly to user hands.
Fuji glanced at the other two people in the room - two of their newer employees - Ootori, who had finished his training and had been out on missions for three months now, and Shishido, who had just finished training last week. Fuji had heard they’d gone to school together and Ootori had been Shishido’s kouhai. It wasn’t uncommon to hear them in the hallways with their distinctive “Shishido-san!” or “Choutarou”.
For some uncharacteristic reason, Kaidoh had sympathised with Ootori and allowed him to have Shishido for a partner, and Ootori’s former partner - one Tachibana Kippei - wasn’t overly sorry to be rid of him. Having a partner who kept taking the long way around the office just so he could check up on Shishido, he said, was like only having half a partner anyway.
“Just press here, like this,” he was instructing, “And see? The arm comes down and gets whoever’s file you ask for. So if I ask for Tachibana Kippei…” He gestured, and the arm moved. “See?” he said, once it had delivered the file to the desk in front of them. “They’re neat, aren’t they?”
He smiled, still a little in awe of the technology here. Each file functioned as a continually updated chip. The information stored on them could be accessed from anywhere within the building, but once outside, you had to have the original file with you.
“So… Do we have everyone’s stuff in here?” Shishido asked. “In the whole of Tokyo?”
“I think so,” Ootori answered. “My file’s in there,” he blushed, “But you’re not supposed to read other employee files, just so you know.”
Shishido snorted. “Yeah yeah. Like yours would be interesting anyway.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Ootori laughed nervously. God forbid Shishido fall over the ones that said “I wish Shishido-senpai would accidentally fall asleep at my place more often. I like his sleeping face” or “I wish I could see Shishido-senpai in a wedding dress. He’d look better than Tomoka did”.
Actually, he hoped Tomoka never fell over that one. He hadn’t meant it.
…Well, only a little bit.
“Uh, anyway,” he frowned as his pager went off. “I think Tachibana needs me for a bit, so I’ll be back.”
“Mm hm,” Shishido answered distractedly, punching in another name. He glanced over his shoulder as the arm brought the file down and he nearly dropped it from his hand when he saw Fuji smiling at him.
“Getting used to the system?” Fuji asked, walking over.
Shishido startled, instinctively shoving the file behind his back. “Yes,” he answered stiffly.
Fuji nodded. “Good. I’d like to check out a file, if I may.”
Shishido stepped away from the station and let Fuji press his thumb to the screen and then input a name.
“You start missions this week, don’t you?” Fuji enquired. “I’m sure Ootori will take good care of you,” he murmured. “Just do him the same favour and don’t ignore the rules.”
He raised an eyebrow before smiling and leaving the room.
Shishido frowned after him and then flipped out the folder from his back.
Atobe Keigo, apparently, wished for a lot of things. Surprising, Shishido thought, all things considered.
Chief amongst his worries were things like “I wish Kabaji would hurry up and get here. What’s he thinking making me wait?” and “I wish Oshitari would shut up. Only Gakuto likes hearing him talk”.
Further back in the outdated files were other things which amused Shishido. But the one he didn’t find amusing was:
“I wish Shishido would hurry up and cut his hair already. I nearly fell over it today again.”
“By the way,” Ootori said, making Shishido jump when he walked back in, “The system records whose files you take out, so if you do read other employee files, it takes demerit points. When you lose all ten points, you get stuck doing paperwork at the office for a month.”
“Whatever,” Shishido muttered awkwardly. “So how do I put files back in again?”
Good thing he hadn’t had enough time to get down Ootori’s file, but he really hoped Ootori never read his. It probably said all sorts of awful things now, like “I wish Kabaji would just cut off all Atobe’s hair while he’s sleeping, and shave off his eyebrows too.”
***
“I’m still working on that case from last week,” Fuji mentioned to Tezuka as they walked.
Tezuka shook his head. “Why?”
Fuji tilted his head slightly. “Well, it’s complicated. You try matching a mouse and a raging rhino and see what you get.”
Tezuka frowned. “A mouse and a what?” he repeated.
Fuji pulled the files out from under his arm, handing a sheet of information over to Tezuka. “Transcription there,” he pointed out.
Tezuka blinked.
“‘I wish Akutsu-senpai would take me out to Disneyland for my birthday… desu,’” he read, glancing at Fuji.
“‘And I wish he’d say nice things instead of swearing all the time… desu,’” Tezuka continued.
“And this is a problem case for you?” he clarified, holding out his hand.
Fuji obligingly handed over the rest of the files. “Dan Taichi isn’t the problem,” he smiled. “It’s this one who’s the problem.”
“Akutsu Jin,” Tezuka read, flipping open the other file. “Fourteen years old. Third year at Yamabuki Middle School. Common daily activities include tennis, martial arts. Other activities include smoking, fighting, skipping school and damaging property. Occasionally skips tennis practice and/or extends interest in fighting to the tennis courts.”
He could see why Kaidoh had allocated the files to Fuji.
***
“We need a strategy,” Tezuka stated, fiddling with the folders.
“Starting with coffee,” Fuji teased.
“Yes,” Tezuka answered, a little tersely. “I didn’t have time for any this morning.” He paused, considering. “That new employee - Shishido,” he paused. “How is he? I heard Kaidoh allocated an old case to he and Ootori yesterday but I didn’t have time to check because of our sudden move.”
Fuji nodded. “The Sengoku one.”
Tezuka looked enquiringly at him, waiting to be filled in properly.
“I don’t remember the details,” Fuji shook his head. Suddenly he had a funny feeling that the Sengoku case had remained open for a reason - no one had wanted to touch it. Files were opened and closed and re-opened all the time - people’s wishes changed. Sengoku however, was a tricky one.
“What do you recommend in the Dan Taichi case?” he asked.
Tezuka tapped his finger at the files again. “It would be easiest to plant tickets in Akutsu’s locker and have someone remind him of when Dan’s birthday is,” he suggested.
Fuji stared at him deadpanned. “And of course Akutsu’s going to find them, waltz up to Dan and ask him out.”
Tezuka blinked. “Couldn’t he?”
Fuji sighed. “Tezuka, I’ll show you Akutsu and then you can tell me if that would really work. He’d be more likely to use them for cigarettes.”
“Do you think he went to school today?” Tezuka asked.
“I would assume so,” Fuji responded thoughtfully. “I hacked into the database after nine, but they don’t fill in attendance until the end of the day. He hasn’t missed as many school days lately though, and he needs enough attendance to graduate.”
Tezuka nodded.
“But actually I don’t think strategy really works with Akutsu,” Fuji laughed. “Unless it’s emergent.”
Tezuka gave him an uncomfortable look.
“Of course, if you really wanted planned strategy, then I did have a few ideas,” Fuji teased. “I think he’s the jealous type, since there’s definitely something there every time Sengoku goes near Dan.”
“Sengoku?” Tezuka frowned. “Why did you let Kaidoh give the Sengoku case to Ootori and Shishido if he’s related to ours?”
Fuji blinked. “It wasn’t. His was related to a teacher.”
Tezuka had the decency to look uncomfortable, while Fuji’s smile grew. “He really does pick them, Sengoku,” he teased. “That was what he was on file for anyway.”
“Is that legal for us to…” Tezuka trailed off, shaking his head in resignation.
“I had a crush on our homeroom teacher in second year high school,” Fuji pointed out.
“Suzuki-san,” Tezuka said slowly, imagining their old teacher with her hair tied up in a bun and her gold rimmed glasses.
“She was first year,” Fuji smiled. “I meant Kashiwa-san. He used to coach the soccer club, remember?”
Tezuka swallowed a large mouthful of coffee, hiding his momentary surprise. “Yes, I do,” he answered evenly. “So about Akutsu-”
“Maybe we could dress you up as a high school girl and have you hit on Dan right in front of Akutsu. See what happens,” Fuji said quickly, laughing.
“And you’d have to cart me to the hospital afterwards,” Tezuka frowned. “I don’t think something like that would work.”
“Besides,” he added. “Do we have proof that Akutsu enjoys Dan’s company and wants to go anywhere with him? If this is one-sided again…”
Fuji chuckled. “I was working on this last week. On Thursday, the notebook Dan uses to manage the tennis club was stolen from his locker and the whole thing burnt. Akutsu chased down the boys who’d done it and had them buy him a new one. He beat them up a little, but they could still walk afterwards. Sort of.”
Tezuka pursed his lips, suspecting he was being given the very condensed and sanitary version of the story.
“A notebook is a notebook,” he pointed out.
“So you think it doesn’t say anything about their relationship?” Fuji tilted his head a little. “That he went out of his way to do something he didn’t have to?”
Tezuka looked away. “I would replace one of your notebooks if you lost it. That doesn’t necessarily-”
“Let’s go and watch them then, hm?” Fuji suggested shortly. “I didn’t follow Akutsu around all week to turn up blank. And you haven’t seen him at all.”
Tezuka sighed as they left their seats. That hadn’t quite come out the way he’d meant it.
To replace someone’s notebook was a small thing and, to Tezuka, one of the most basic things you could do for a friend. Had Fuji asked him, he’d have said so, although he did belatedly have to admit Fuji was probably right. Akutsu may have used… unacceptable methods to do it, but the reasoning behind his actions was to look after something important to Dan.
***
There were times Tezuka wished Inui would have limited their wish-fulfilment policies to people aged over 20. It would mean they most probably wouldn’t have to sneak around high schools or middle schools, where they would look suspicious if pulled from the bushes by their ears and asked what their business was there.
Fuji adjusted the focus on his binoculars as Tezuka pulled a twig from his pants pocket.
“Akutsu’s on the left, see?” Fuji indicated, holding the eyepieces up for Tezuka to look through. “The one with grey hair.”
“I thought he was fourteen,” Tezuka stated. “He looks fifty.”
Fuji shook his head. “And Dan’s to his right.”
Tezuka panned. There was a boy hanging onto Akutsu’s arm - and being shaken off it to the ground. But he was undeterred, getting up and continuing to talk from the look of it.
“It would still be more time-efficient to leave the tickets in his locker,” Tezuka reminded Fuji, who frowned.
“That wouldn’t be helpful,” he objected. “Besides, I think Akutsu’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t like Dan,” he said. “It’s that he can’t express himself.”
“Or doesn’t want to,” Tezuka added.
Fuji nodded. “That was why I thought perhaps a third person would be useful, to give him some reason to act before it’s too late. People like that need incentive.”
“I don’t believe I have the figure for a skirt,” Tezuka observed with a straight face. “Maybe you should do it.”
Fuji chuckled and shook his head. “No. I don’t look like enough of a…” He paused.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly. “We need someone who’s enough of a threat that Akutsu would react, and someone who at least can make it look to him like Dan’s interested.”
“Because Dan doesn’t look very interested in anyone else,” he sighed, after a minute longer.
“Perhaps a different plan is in order,” Tezuka said, shaking his head.
Fuji sat back, concentrating. “What did you like back in high school?” he asked.
Tezuka pursed his lips, finding the question difficult to answer. “Tennis,” he answered carefully.
“Just tennis?” Fuji looked at him.
“No,” Tezuka frowned. “Reading, climbing, fishing. The things I enjoy haven’t changed much since then.”
Fuji smiled. “Do you still like the same person you liked back then?”
Tezuka lifted up the binoculars again. “I do,” he said quietly, concentrating on watching Dan and Akutsu, because it was easier than looking Fuji in the eye.
“Do… Did you like anyone back in high school?” he returned.
“An idiot,” Fuji said briskly, keeping up his smile. “An idiot who, as far as I can tell, is never going to realise I like him until I write a memo and stick it on his forehead.”
Tezuka swallowed, watching Fuji stand up abruptly and brush off his trousers. His hands were jerky with frustration.
“Fuji?”
“Let’s go.”
***
“Make any progress yesterday?” Momo asked, and leaned over Fuji’s desk to bite into his burger. It was his second breakfast for the day.
“No, not much,” Fuji admitted, looking through Akutsu’s files again. He set them aside and picked up his water bottle, glancing out the window behind him. The company’s technology was so advanced that Fuji had the pleasure of choosing what he wanted to see in it, rather than being treated to the concrete mess he knew to really be there.
Today he was looking at a tropical jungle and there was a flock of birds crowding the tree branch that pressed against the window. Likewise, the fact that the company was invisible to the average person was due to Yanagi’s work in mirroring surroundings for camouflage, and their ability to transport the office when necessary was thanks to Inui’s work in… whatever he’d been talking about the day Fuji had fallen asleep with his mouth open. Kaidoh had listened all the way through, which was why he was now in charge of it.
Their business was aided by technology, but the granting of wishes itself - that was something that required talent, and just a little bit of magic.
“I heard Ootori and his partner made some progress,” Momo commented. “Didn’t they have a request related to yours?”
Fuji looked at him. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Same location, different subject.”
But he walked to Ootori’s office after Momo had left to go and do some work - something he rarely seemed to do since he and Echizen spent a lot of time in burger joints - and checked in with Tachibana, who still had the office next to his.
“They mentioned they had to get a backup copy of someone else’s file from the system because the original was out and they said it was related to Sengoku’s case,” Tachibana said, typing at the same time. “I think the name was Tan or Dan.”
Fuji nodded. “Thanks Kippei.”
“Dan Taichi,” someone corrected, and Shinji’s head popped up from behind a bookshelf. “They said it enough times that Tachibana-san ought to remember, but I suppose he wasn’t listening, just like he wasn’t listening when I told him he should tie down his bookcase before we moved because everything would fall out otherwise, and now look what happened... The whole shelf nearly hit him on the head too, then he’d have a bump on the back of it to match the dot on the front, and now I have to clean it all-”
Fuji smiled. “Thanks, Shinji,” he cut him off. “Do you know where they went today, Kippei?”
Tachibana shook his head. “I’d guess the school that Sengoku goes to.”
***
“Sengoku’s a bit fickle, don’t you think?” Ootori asked uncomfortably, holding up his file to the light. “I know not every wish is recorded on file, I mean… They’re filtered,” he emphasised, “But most of his are just…”
“Women?” Shishido grunted.
Ootori nodded. “Except these,” he sighed. “From three days ago.”
Shishido took the file from him, re-reading the one they’d started working on. “I wish Akutsu would lighten up about Dan; we were just joking around.”
Then somewhat later during the day: “I wish Dan would pay more attention to me. That was a lucky shot and he was busy watching Akutsu! What a shame!”
“I wish I could take Dan to Disneyland for his birthday, but Akutsu probably wouldn’t let me, even though he doesn’t want to go either.”
“If we’re working on the assumption he likes Dan,” Shishido pointed out, “Why aren’t there more mentions of him in here? How do you know he doesn’t like Akutsu?”
Ootori scratched his head. “Just a hunch,” he answered. “Besides, I don’t think Akutsu likes Dan like that. You saw how he hit a ball at his head yesterday.”
Shishido frowned. “So? Maybe he was sick of him. I’d be sick of him if he stuck to me like glue.”
Ootori startled, looking a little worried all of a sudden. “I guess…” he mumbled. “You don’t think it’s cute of him?”
Shishido snorted. “What’s cute about having to hear “Akutsu-senpai! Akutsu-senpai!” all the time? I’d stick that bandanna over his mouth, not his head.”
Ootori laughed nervously, touching his hand to his hair. “Anyway, let’s just work on Sengoku today, Shishido-senpai.”
“Stop calling me that,” Shishido grouched. “I’m not your senpai anymore.”
“You’ll always be my senpai,” Ootori protested. “And anyway, I think I have a plan, Senpai.”
“Choutarou…”
***
Tezuka winced as he manoeuvred another branch which was sticking into him in an uncomfortable, indecent sort of spot. He decided the bush was becoming a bit too familiar with him, and wished Fuji hadn’t insisted they hide behind them again. But as he’d pointed out, this brought them a lot closer to Yamabuki’s courts without having to go too near the club building.
“There are four days until Dan’s birthday and we still don’t have a plan,” Tezuka pointed out.
“You shouldn’t complain,” Fuji chuckled. “You have to go back to doing office work after we’re finished here.”
Office work didn’t involve sitting around in bushes, Tezuka wanted to point out. But office work also didn’t allow him much time to talk with Fuji.
“I heard from Tomoka that Sanada wanted to come and see you personally some time next week. Apparently he didn’t appreciate having his ear talked off on the phone,” Fuji informed him.
Tezuka sighed. “Did he tell you that?”
Fuji grinned. “Half of it I heard from Tomoka, but as for his thoughts exactly - I believe they were along the lines of “I wish she’d shut up already. She could talk the ear off an elephant.””
Tezuka turned to look at him, unimpressed. “You were reading his file?”
Fuji smiled. “It was an accident.”
Tezuka shook his head and picked up the binoculars between them, focusing in on Dan Taichi.
“Who’s the redhead with them?” he asked quietly.
Fuji frowned. “It should be Sengoku Kiyosumi, I think. I forgot to check his file.”
Tezuka looked past Sengoku, scanning the other boys on the court. None of them were familiar, although he hardly ever handled cases so perhaps Fuji would know more about them. It was inconvenient not being able to access all files from outside the building, but he understood the reasoning behind it.
Mostly the boys were uniformed, and he recognised the drills they were going through. First years were picking up balls, second years seemed to be jogging, and third years were playing and watching matches. And behind the tennis courts on the other side -
Tezuka pushed the binoculars at Fuji quickly. “Look, I think Ootori’s on the other side.”
Fuji could see him even without the binoculars, and from the way Ootori suddenly looked very panicked, Fuji knew he’d seen them too.
Ootori was gesturing, but Fuji couldn’t pick up what he wanted to say, and not ten minutes later, everything was being packed up as the training session finished early - it was pouring down with rain.
By the time Fuji and Tezuka had pulled themselves safely from the bushes, and all the Yamabuki boys were out of their path of escape, they could just see Shishido’s back.
“I think we should follow him,” Fuji said, grabbing Tezuka’s wrist. “Come on, before he gets away.”
***
“I don’t see a problem with wearing this,” Fuji said, ignoring Tezuka as he fixed up his hair in the bathroom mirror. “We don’t have time to go back to the office and there’s no point walking around in wet clothes if I don’t have to.”
He hadn’t quite given up his original idea of dressing Tezuka up, so he’d been carrying around Yumiko’s old uniform in his bag, but even though he wasn’t the one wearing it, Tezuka still had objections.
Fuji ignored those though and straightened his skirt and adjusted the ties on his top.
“We’ll lose our table if you don’t go back to it,” he warned, when Tezuka continued standing stiffly next to him.
Tezuka gave a sigh. “Fine,” he gave in. “Just be careful,” he added as he walked to the door.
“I’m just in the bathroom,” Fuji smiled. “What’s there to worry about?”
“You’re in the men’s bathroom,” Tezuka pointed out.
Fuji rolled his eyes and put his hand on his hip, skirt swishing as he moved. “I am a man. Can’t you tell?”
Tezuka thought the question best left unanswered and quickly opened the door.
Fuji returned to their table a minute after that, sliding into his seat and brushing his hair back. “You don’t have a hair clip, do you?”
Tezuka pursed his lips. “I don’t.”
“So what are they talking about?” Fuji asked and lowered his voice. Two tables away from them, Dan was sitting and swinging his legs on one side, and Ootori sat on the other, hands clasped around his cup of coffee.
Dan was slurping at a milkshake, looking a bit nervously from side to side.
Tezuka began answering. “I can’t hear much, other than-”
“…desu.” Dan’s voice cut in.
“That,” Tezuka sighed, as Dan finished yet another sentence.
Fuji chuckled. “Maybe we’ll just have to sit and wait.”
Tezuka cleared his throat. “That was why I ordered us drinks.”
Fuji smiled, looking down at his iced coffee. For a split second, he felt like they were back in high school again. But Tezuka was wearing a tie and suit, and Fuji was… admittedly not looking much like a high-schooler right now, even if he was wearing a uniform, and back in high school they hadn’t had to worry about being fired if they didn’t do their jobs properly. (Back in high school, everyone steered clear of Inui’s inventions. Now they actually paid for them.)
“What are you thinking of?” Tezuka asked.
Fuji blinked and smiled, putting his finger to his lips. The table of people next to them had left, and it was now possible to hear what Dan and Ootori were talking about, and they were talking a whole lot about Sengoku and not terribly much about Akutsu.
“He’s good at tennis, but it’s hard for me to be like Sengoku-senpai, because I have no muscles desu, see desu?” Dan was saying.
Ootori made a noise of encouragement.
“It’s hard to be short and play tennis desu,” Dan sighed. “I want to be like Akutsu-senpai desu. I’ve loved his tennis ever since I saw it desu. He’s really amazing desu. But he doesn’t come to practice much desu.”
“What about Sengoku?” Ootori persisted. “He goes to practice, doesn’t he?”
“Well desu,” Dan paused. “It’s different desu.”
“How do you mean?” Ootori asked.
“Sengoku-senpai’s not Akutsu-senpai desu,” Dan chirped happily.
“Have you looked at a copy of Sengoku’s file lately?” Fuji whispered quickly.
Tezuka shook his head, and Fuji groaned, wondering if Shishido and Ootori were up to what he thought they were.
“I think we should interrupt before this gets mess-” Fuji stopped abruptly, half-standing from his position, hands on the table.
“Messy,” he said and sat down again.
Tezuka tilted his head slightly. “Problem?” he asked quietly.
Fuji’s glance flicked towards the doorway and Tezuka’s eyes followed his. He stiffened in his seat to see Shishido walking in, and behind him, Sengoku.
“I should have checked what they were doing earlier,” Fuji sighed. “I’m just going to hope they have medical insurance because that guy,” and he pointed out the window, “probably isn’t going to like them much after this.”
Tezuka jerked. “How long has he been there?” he asked quietly, trying not to meet Akutsu’s eyes.
Fuji shook his head. “The whole time. I told you, he’s been following Dan all week.”
“Dan!” Sengoku grinned, lazily striding up to their table and pulling the chair from the next table over. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to take candy from strangers?” he asked, and ruffled his hair.
“It’s ice cream desu,” Dan pointed out. “And it’s okay desu. He said I can trust him desu.”
Sengoku gave a sigh, tapping a foot on the ground. “Can he trust you?” he asked Ootori, holding out his hand and curling his fingers lazily. “Don’t you have some sort of ID? Where are you from anyway?”
Ootori fidgeted uncomfortably. “I’m not actually…”
“Oh, a secret, hm?” Sengoku grinned, and winked. “Well I’ll let you keep it, as long as you buy me something too.”
Ootori gave a hapless glance towards Shishido at the counter, and called out for him.
“What do you want?” he asked Sengoku, who got up and skipped over to the counter.
“Lucky!” he crooned, hands all over the glass where the ice cream flavours were displayed.
Ootori and Shishido had looked up Dan’s file. In retrospect, they ought to have looked up Akutsu’s as well, because it might have prepared them better for the whirlwind that came in the door only five minutes after Sengoku.
“So.” Sengoku took a long lick of the top of his ice cream (triple scoop in a double cone, peppermint choc chip, Baileys and cookies & cream ice cream) and stared at Ootori.
Shishido glanced at his watch under the table, signalling to Ootori to get on with it.
“Ah, well,” Ootori muttered. He had no intention of admitting to being a stalker, and he was sure even Dan would sooner or later come to that conclusion if he started listing all the reasons why he thought they should take a set of tickets and go.
“We’re…”
“He said he grants wishes desu,” Dan chirped, and slurped his milkshake. “He’s a fairy desu.”
Ootori coughed, Shishido looked rather disgusted, and Sengoku’s smile widened. Outside the window, a boy with grey hair dropped his cigarette on the ground, smothered it, stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles.
“I thought fairies wore tutus,” Sengoku joked.
Ootori sighed and pulled the tickets from his pocket, handing them to Shishido, who waved them at Sengoku’s face. “Look here,” he grunted, “You like Dan, Dan likes you… enough, anyway, and here are your tickets. Take the kid to Disneyland, happy dating, happy birthday, happy good riddance,” he snapped, picking up his jacket and standing.
Dan eyed the tickets, taking them from Sengoku, cheeks pink and eyes wide. “Are these really for us desu? Can I really go for my birthday desu?”
Ootori smiled, taking a softer approach to Shishido. “That’s what we’re here for,” he smiled.
Dan beamed. And then a shadow fell across his face and he looked up. “Akutsu-senpai!” he said happily. “Look desu!”
“Taichi,” Akutsu growled, snatching the tickets up. “What the hell are these?”
“Read ‘em and weep,” Sengoku winked. “Dan and I are going on a date.”
Akutsu’s eye twitched.
“I heard they have princesses walking around posing for photos at Disneyland, but I bet they’d pose for other things if you pressed the right buttons,” Sengoku beamed, and threw his arm around Dan’s shoulders.
“The hell,” Akutsu muttered, glaring down at Sengoku. “Who said you could take Taichi anywhere?”
Sengoku blinked. “These two,” he said, and pointed to Shishido and Ootori, conveniently trapped from leaving the table.
***
“You know,” Fuji teased quietly, “I think he’s blushing.”
“I think he’s angry,” Tezuka murmured, putting his hand to his temple.
“So what was our strategy again?” Fuji asked, sipping the last of his drink.
Tezuka watched his lips around the straw and sighed. He was reminded that situations like these were exactly why he liked office work. “We don’t have one,” he admitted, nearly ready to stand up and interfere himself.
“So make one up,” Fuji whispered, and got up quickly to beat him to it.
Perhaps he’d forgotten he was wearing a skirt, or perhaps he’d remembered and it was exactly why he walked over to stop next to Sengoku. “Now now,” he smiled, “What seems to be the problem here?”
“What’re you?” Akutsu glared at him. “Freaking fairy.”
“No, he’s the fairy desu,” Dan said helpfully, pointing to Ootori.
“Yeah?” Akutsu spat. “So you’re just-”
“Lucky!” Sengoku crooned, grabbing Fuji’s hand. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”
Behind him, Dan held out his hand. “Akutsu-senpai, can you please give those back to me desu? They’re for my birthday desu.”
Akutsu’s upper lip curled. “I’m not doing what you say just because it’s your birthday, Taichi,” he growled, stuffing the tickets into his pocket.
Dan’s lower lip wobbled a little bit. “B-But Akutsu-senpai! Sengoku-senpai’s going to take me desu!”
“He’s not takin’ you anywhere!” Akutsu snapped. “I’m taking you, so shut up about Sengoku.”
Dan blinked. “You’re taking me… desu?”
“That’s what I said,” Akutsu growled, hand twisting around Dan’s wrist and dragging him. “I’m not sayin’ it again.” And then they were gone, out the door and down the street with a flourish of happy “Akutsu-senpai!”s and half-hearted “Stop clinging, Taichi”s.
Tezuka finished his drink and stood up, just in time to see Sengoku lifting Fuji’s hand rather close to his lips, still crooning about how pretty Fuji was and how his skirt was much too long and he should have been showing off more of his legs.
Suddenly, Tezuka decided that was quite enough, and he walked over just in time to stick his hand on top of Fuji’s to separate the two of them. He ended up with a pair of hot lips on his hand, but it was better him than Fuji, he decided.
“Since everything’s wrapped up, I think we should go,” he murmured to Fuji. “Finish things off and come back soon,” he instructed Ootori, slipping his fingers between Fuji’s to pull him out of the café.
Sengoku whistled after them. “Nice legs,” he sighed. “Too bad she’s into old guys or I might have a chance.”
Ootori had slumped with his forehead against the table, and Shishido didn’t look much better, leaning back and staring dully at his partner.
“So what do we do now?” he asked.
Ootori sighed.
Sengoku sat down in his chair again, looking at his ice cream fallen top down on the floor. “So who’s going to shout me another ice cream?” he grinned at them.
“You’re the senpai,” Shishido scoffed at Ootori, crossing his arms in a huff.
“Yes, Senpai,” Ootori sighed.
Sengoku looked between them. “Why are you both senpai?”
***
“Coffee,” Fuji announced an hour later, walking into Tezuka’s office. “And look,” he pointed out. “Akutsu’s file.”
Tezuka took the file from him, leaving him to put the coffee on his desk and seat himself.
“I wish that stupid Taichi would just leave off already. And what's Sengoku doing with him? I wish he'd just piss off and stop touching him…”
“I wish Taichi’d do what he wants already. I hate it when he gives me that stupid puppy dog look.”
“I wish Taichi’d quit holding my hand already. It’s effing annoying and I wish that stupid bugger over there’d quit staring or I’m gonna go teach him a lesson…”
Fuji smiled. “Success, see? Another case closed.”
“Until Dan wishes Akutsu would stop smothering him perhaps,” Tezuka sighed.
He shook his head, typing up the last of his thoughts on the case to go into the file, and took another glance at Fuji’s uniform. “We’re back in the office now. You should take that off,” he murmured distractedly.
Fuji smiled teasingly. “That’s a bit forward of you, don’t you think?”
“You should have a spare suit in your office. Now go and put it on,” Tezuka ordered tersely.
Fuji rolled his eyes. “And here I was, enjoying the breeze for once.”
Tezuka pursed his lips, seeking a change of topic as he typed. “I’m just glad it’s over.”
“The mission?” Fuji smiled, sitting back down again.
Tezuka nodded, saving his file. “Sometimes,” he sighed, “I don’t see much point to granting wishes for people like…”
“Sengoku,” Fuji supplied.
Another nod. “Wishes change over time,” Tezuka pointed out. “If they don’t have the will to make it happen themselves, why do we?”
Fuji glanced down, smiling as usual when he looked up again. “Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly that you wished and wished for it, but you never quite got it?” he asked quietly.
Tezuka was quiet.
“Some people are fickle,” Fuji agreed, “But maybe it’s only because they really have everything they want already. Maybe their wishes are things we can’t grant anyway,” he mentioned, still thinking of Sengoku. “Greatness, in anything, for example.”
Tezuka nodded, conceding the point.
“Some people can wish for things their whole life and never have them, and that’s why we’re here,” Fuji smiled. “Isn’t it nice to think that Dan gets what he wanted for his birthday and Akutsu gets what he wanted without them having to wait another year or longer for them to get the ball rolling?”
Tezuka nodded. “I suppose.”
The phone rang at his hand, and he picked it up.
“Ah… Good afternoon, Sanada,” he said stiffly, frowning at Fuji’s laugh as he went out the door. Apparently he could wish and wish not to have to deal with Sanada’s reports, and never have his wishes granted.
After he’d finished on the phone, he found himself walking to the filing room.
The arm delivered a file to his hand, and he opened it with a little unease, already sure of what he would find in it. As he moved through the pages on record, he swallowed.
His own file was full of page after page mentioning sometimes Momoshiro or Kaidoh, sometimes Oishi or Inui, sometimes Echizen or even Tachibana or Shinji. But on every page, there was one name that stood out. It was Fuji.
Wishes for the times he’d wanted to ask Fuji to stay, and hadn’t. Wishes for the times he’d wanted to spend time with him alone, but couldn’t. Wishes for the things he’d wanted to do with Fuji, and didn’t.
The record of all the people who had ever checked his file was listed on the access screen showing on the computer - Fuji’s name not among them.
“Tezuka, what are you doing in here?”
He spun around, unnerved to see Fuji standing there, still ridiculous in his sister’s uniform.
“I was just…”
“You weren’t breaking any rules, were you?” Fuji teased.
Tezuka glanced down at the file in his hands. Technically reading his own file was probably against the rules - he was an employee after all, but…
“You’ve never read my file, Fuji?” he asked.
Fuji shook his head. “I don’t need to,” was his simple answer.
Tezuka smiled a little wryly, closing his eyes for a second. “Fuji,” he said.
“Hm?” Fuji stepped closer.
“Do you have time for one last job today?” Tezuka asked quietly.
Fuji blinked, a little surprised. “What?” he questioned. “Did I miss something urgent?”
Tezuka laughed a little dryly. “Only urgent in that… I wish I had done it years ago.”
Fuji opened his eyes, looking carefully at Tezuka, who hesitated a little. He stepped close enough that he could have touched him, but his hands remained stiff at his sides, the file in his hands a reminder of all the times before he could have said the words he’d wanted to say.
He fingered it, and opened it to the first page, handing it to Fuji.
“Can you grant me that one wish?” Tezuka murmured. “Stay with me, Fuji.”
Fuji slumped against him, startling Tezuka as his arms wrapped instinctively around him. The file between them dropped to the floor in pages.
“I didn’t think you’d ever say that,” Fuji whispered, muffled against Tezuka’s clothes.
“Neither did I,” Tezuka muttered, letting out a little sigh.
“You know it’s against the rules,” Fuji whispered.
“I do,” Tezuka answered. “But you said it yourself. What are rules for except to be broken?”
Fuji smiled when he leaned up to kiss Tezuka.
“Indeed,” he agreed. “Indeed.”
Notes: This was written for the Christmas_cacti exchange. Apparently fifteenth or sixteenth time lucky. :>
Thank you so much to Anjenue, who betaed this for me with very short notice, and who helped infinitely with encouragement both for this fic and the one it replaced. I can’t tell you how thankful I was for it. :3
Comments would be love.
“So what do you actually do again? I mean, we - what do we do?” Minami asked.
“We catch wishes,” Fuji smiled. “Catch them, collect them, categorise them, store them, grant them, and record it all.” He paused. “Preferably in that order.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s easy enough, isn’t it?” Fuji laughed. “What makes you happy, Minami? What would you wish for, if you could?”
He considered. “Manga. I’d wish for the world’s biggest stack of manga. Or maybe a bookstore or a lifetime’s supply.”
Fuji nodded. “But our wishes don’t have anything to do with possessions,” he explained. “They’re more people-oriented.”
“What do you mean? You mean you can only wish for other people? Like Koda Kumi or something?”
Fuji tilted his head. “If you wanted a date with Koda Kumi, perhaps. I think the rulebook says we can’t do that for celebrities though, otherwise they’d be overloaded all the time and it might draw too much attention to us. But basically,” he explained, “It’s a bit like a system. You wish for something and we try our best to deliver it to you. Systems don’t always work, but when they do, people end up happy.”
Minami nodded slowly. “So we try to make wishes happen for people who can’t do it themselves.”
Fuji smiled. “That’s the idea anyway.”
“I see.” Another nod.
“How exactly did you get a job here if you didn’t know what we do?” Fuji asked.
Minami continued grinning. “Contacts. Someone who said I’d like it here, and he was right. He said I wouldn’t know what went on here until I was on the inside anyway.”
“Mm.” Fuji smiled. Most people came to work here because they had contacts. He himself had come because Yumiko had told him it would bring him good luck working here, and because she could see the company in the first place. Most people didn’t know of its existence.
Minami would first be working in the store rooms down below in the basement. Wishes were fragile things. They were sheltered and cared for because few people had the confidence to shout them out loud, so the ones which made their way there were mostly little whispers or thoughts, or even the secret things people almost didn’t dare think.
It was a strange company - born out of a scientific accident one day when Inui Sadaharu discovered he could hear people’s thoughts. But not all thoughts - only wishes. He had put his head together with Yanagi Renji and they’d come up with data transcription and encryption systems to make everything run smoothly and maintain confidentiality, and what were generally accepted to be (no one actually asked) illegal ways of managing the costs of their venture. Some said they’d developed the technology to grow money from modified trees. Others suggested the two were funding it from their own pockets somehow, or that Inui’s line of commercial energy drinks actually banked a profit. Others still said they had a deal going with the government of the day to keep people happy as the economy slumped.
Nowadays they both worked odd jobs around the company when they weren’t continuing their research, flitting from branch to branch together to keep an eye on their employees. All eight thousand of them.
Wishes were a growing business.
Fuji was always glad his sister had pointed him to the company. There was, however, one catch about working here.
“Just remember,” he said as they went up the ladders. “As long as you work here, wishes you make will still be collected, but almost none are ever granted. If you want something, you’ll have to make it work for yourself.”
“It’s just a policy,” he explained, when Minami gave a confused look. “I’m sure Kaidoh will make you read the rule books, so you’ll learn we have a lot more where that one comes from. To avoid conflicts of interest, see,” he smiled.
***
The third Tokyo office of the Wish Granting Co. Ltd. sat on what had been, until five minutes ago, a vacant block awaiting redevelopment.
Its lobby (no one really knew why they had one when they were invisible to the normal eye and had no visitors besides higher-ups they didn’t want anyway) was currently decorated with stacks of toppled books, turned over chairs and pot plants looking worse for wear, while Oishi fretted about his interior decoration gone to waste and Echizen regarded what had been, until five minutes ago, his lunch. Now upside down on the floor.
“Are you sure here’s a good place?” Taka-san asked a little nervously, rubbing at his neck. “It’s a bit busy, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it noisy here?” Momoshiro complained. He’d already eaten his first lunch of the day, so his stomach rumbling wasn’t adding to the discontent, but his second lunch was upturned right beside Echizen’s, and he was annoyed.
“Shut up!” Kaidoh hissed at him, “I didn’t see you offer any other suggestions.”
“I did!” Momo bickered loudly. “I said that block next to the burger joint.”
“Useful suggestions,” Kaidoh growled. “You just wanted to go there so you could stuff yourself between jobs.”
“Did not!” Momo grumbled. “I just wanted to try that new double deluxe thing. With the five layers of meat and extra eggs.”
“See,” Kaidoh hissed. “You don’t need any more eggs. You’re starting to look like a giant one anyway.”
“Better than looking like you,” Momo growled back. “At least people don’t run away from eggs when they try to talk to you.”
“Yeah, because they’re too busy running away for fear of getting squashed,” Kaidoh hissed.
“Oi, Mamushi!” Momo stormed across the room, arm swiping for Kaidoh’s shirt when Fuji stopped him.
“Now now,” Fuji smiled, “I think Kaidoh did a good job finding us a new location and moving us. Now all we have to do is get all the connections to National Headquarters fixed up and we’re back in business.”
Momo scowled. “Yeah, well,” he huffed. “If we hadn’t decided we had to uproot, we could’ve been in business all day already. You know how behind we are already and they had to go and transfer us? Why do we have to do Aoyama too now? Aren’t these people rich enough that they can buy their own wishes?”
“Momoshiro.” A warning from the doorway.
“Oh, Tezuka,” Fuji smiled, waving him over.
“See, I bet he’s here because Kaidoh did such a crappy job of moving us that everything in his office fell over too,” Momo grumbled.
“My office is fine,” Tezuka corrected. “Thank you; you did a good job, Kaidoh.”
An embarrassed hiss, then Kaidoh stalked over to the doorway leading to the stairs, intent on resuming his normal work where he’d left off. Their communication lines were still down - Inui and Yanagi were working on that - but he had work piled up on his desk and about two weeks of wishes backlogged. Not to mention he had the job of training their new staff - a couple of jimmies who just didn’t seem to understand the rules they were to operate under, or the fact that they couldn’t file things like “I wish Sparky were alive again” or “I wish my cat would cough up my sister’s pet mouse because I don’t have enough money to buy a new one” in the incoming tray.
Being the guy in charge of procedures and protocol was all kinds of trouble for Kaidoh, especially when he had to deal with idiots like Momo all the time. Idiots who might just pick up those kinds of assignments and scratch their heads over them.
***
“Wires are back up!” Inui yelled loudly, coming into the lobby.
“Inui-” Tezuka began with an exasperated look.
Inui tweaked his glasses between thumb and finger. “Yes, Tezuka?”
“Don’t yell,” Tezuka sighed. “I’m two metres away. I can hear you.”
He’d had enough yelling in here. Someone ought to change the room when they had spare time - they were all sick of their own voices bouncing off the granite floor.
“Okay, lines are back up, so get back to work,” he instructed the group. “Momoshiro, you and Echizen left yesterday’s job unfinished.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Momo waved, grinning as he flipped out a set of keys. “Hey Echizen, are you coming or not? Last one to the garage has to buy burgers!”
“Race you there!” Eiji yelled back, sprinting out of the room just as quickly as he’d entered a second before.
“O-Oi! Eiji-senpai!” Momo protested. “I didn’t say you too! I don’t have that much money!”
“So don’t lose,” Echizen grunted, taking a head start on him.
“Why is it that we’re a wish granting company and we can grant marriages and long lost reunions but we can’t grant a burger?” Taka-san sighed.
“Rules,” Fuji smiled.
“And I thought you were all for breaking them,” Tezuka murmured, raising an eyebrow.
Fuji smiled. “Why? Was there one particular rule you were thinking of?” he asked.
***
Things were back to normal soon enough. Tezuka straightened the books on his shelf and had just sat down with some of the morning’s incoming messages - management issues, staffing shortages, problems with transport, run-ins with the law, procedural difficulties, failures to comply with OHS regulations (he still didn’t know how Inui and Yanagi managed to keep their company afloat with all the rather… illegal things their staff’s jobs entailed) - when Fuji walked in.
He jangled a set of keys in his hand. “Well, shall we?” he smiled.
“Shall we what?” Tezuka asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
He put down the folders on his desk.
“I’m lacking a partner for the day, and you said yesterday you were sick of being in the office,” Fuji pointed out. “So why don’t you come with me?”
Tezuka shook his head. “No, I still have work to finish,” he frowned, remembering. “And by the way, did those numbers come through yesterday?”
“Numbers?” Fuji looked thoughtful. “Oh, those numbers,” he said after a moment. “They did.”
“And?” Tezuka waited, hands folded on his desk.
“And we’re the least productive office of any in the country and we handle the least wishes per year, fulfil them in the least time and resource-efficient ways and cause the most amount of paperwork to go through the company’s National Department of Code Violation Investigation,” Fuji smiled.
“That was the good news,” he added. “Do you want the bad news now or should I get you some coffee first?”
Tezuka sighed and rubbed at his temples. “No. No coffee,” he cringed. “Send me through a copy of the report, would you?”
Fuji nodded. “Okay, but I think rather than a copy, the head of the report team was going to telephone you.”
Tezuka looked at him sharply. “Did he have a reason for the personal contact?”
Fuji smiled. “Well, it was Sanada who headed the-”
“Sanada Geniichirou,” Tezuka interrupted.
Fuji laughed at his reaction, as Tezuka stood up and slipped on his jacket. “What sort of jobs do you have lined up for today?”
“The usual,” Fuji grinned. “I’ll take it that you’re coming.”
Tezuka pursed his lips. “Tomoka can take my calls while we’re out.”
Fuji winked at her as they walked past. He suspected she liked talking to Sanada. She liked most of the people who called, actually, which made her a perfect candidate for the job as she more than made up for Tezuka’s brevity on the telephone.
***
“Hang on, I just need to grab a file,” Fuji smiled, stepping into the records room.
The room itself was wall to wall and floor to ceiling with drawers, none of them particularly well labelled - Inui’s fault, not Yanagi’s. But the computer system itself worked perfectly, a mechanical arm with motion-sensor technology travelling up and down columns and along rows, fetching whatever the user keyed in from the keypads down below and delivering it directly to user hands.
Fuji glanced at the other two people in the room - two of their newer employees - Ootori, who had finished his training and had been out on missions for three months now, and Shishido, who had just finished training last week. Fuji had heard they’d gone to school together and Ootori had been Shishido’s kouhai. It wasn’t uncommon to hear them in the hallways with their distinctive “Shishido-san!” or “Choutarou”.
For some uncharacteristic reason, Kaidoh had sympathised with Ootori and allowed him to have Shishido for a partner, and Ootori’s former partner - one Tachibana Kippei - wasn’t overly sorry to be rid of him. Having a partner who kept taking the long way around the office just so he could check up on Shishido, he said, was like only having half a partner anyway.
“Just press here, like this,” he was instructing, “And see? The arm comes down and gets whoever’s file you ask for. So if I ask for Tachibana Kippei…” He gestured, and the arm moved. “See?” he said, once it had delivered the file to the desk in front of them. “They’re neat, aren’t they?”
He smiled, still a little in awe of the technology here. Each file functioned as a continually updated chip. The information stored on them could be accessed from anywhere within the building, but once outside, you had to have the original file with you.
“So… Do we have everyone’s stuff in here?” Shishido asked. “In the whole of Tokyo?”
“I think so,” Ootori answered. “My file’s in there,” he blushed, “But you’re not supposed to read other employee files, just so you know.”
Shishido snorted. “Yeah yeah. Like yours would be interesting anyway.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Ootori laughed nervously. God forbid Shishido fall over the ones that said “I wish Shishido-senpai would accidentally fall asleep at my place more often. I like his sleeping face” or “I wish I could see Shishido-senpai in a wedding dress. He’d look better than Tomoka did”.
Actually, he hoped Tomoka never fell over that one. He hadn’t meant it.
…Well, only a little bit.
“Uh, anyway,” he frowned as his pager went off. “I think Tachibana needs me for a bit, so I’ll be back.”
“Mm hm,” Shishido answered distractedly, punching in another name. He glanced over his shoulder as the arm brought the file down and he nearly dropped it from his hand when he saw Fuji smiling at him.
“Getting used to the system?” Fuji asked, walking over.
Shishido startled, instinctively shoving the file behind his back. “Yes,” he answered stiffly.
Fuji nodded. “Good. I’d like to check out a file, if I may.”
Shishido stepped away from the station and let Fuji press his thumb to the screen and then input a name.
“You start missions this week, don’t you?” Fuji enquired. “I’m sure Ootori will take good care of you,” he murmured. “Just do him the same favour and don’t ignore the rules.”
He raised an eyebrow before smiling and leaving the room.
Shishido frowned after him and then flipped out the folder from his back.
Atobe Keigo, apparently, wished for a lot of things. Surprising, Shishido thought, all things considered.
Chief amongst his worries were things like “I wish Kabaji would hurry up and get here. What’s he thinking making me wait?” and “I wish Oshitari would shut up. Only Gakuto likes hearing him talk”.
Further back in the outdated files were other things which amused Shishido. But the one he didn’t find amusing was:
“I wish Shishido would hurry up and cut his hair already. I nearly fell over it today again.”
“By the way,” Ootori said, making Shishido jump when he walked back in, “The system records whose files you take out, so if you do read other employee files, it takes demerit points. When you lose all ten points, you get stuck doing paperwork at the office for a month.”
“Whatever,” Shishido muttered awkwardly. “So how do I put files back in again?”
Good thing he hadn’t had enough time to get down Ootori’s file, but he really hoped Ootori never read his. It probably said all sorts of awful things now, like “I wish Kabaji would just cut off all Atobe’s hair while he’s sleeping, and shave off his eyebrows too.”
***
“I’m still working on that case from last week,” Fuji mentioned to Tezuka as they walked.
Tezuka shook his head. “Why?”
Fuji tilted his head slightly. “Well, it’s complicated. You try matching a mouse and a raging rhino and see what you get.”
Tezuka frowned. “A mouse and a what?” he repeated.
Fuji pulled the files out from under his arm, handing a sheet of information over to Tezuka. “Transcription there,” he pointed out.
Tezuka blinked.
“‘I wish Akutsu-senpai would take me out to Disneyland for my birthday… desu,’” he read, glancing at Fuji.
“‘And I wish he’d say nice things instead of swearing all the time… desu,’” Tezuka continued.
“And this is a problem case for you?” he clarified, holding out his hand.
Fuji obligingly handed over the rest of the files. “Dan Taichi isn’t the problem,” he smiled. “It’s this one who’s the problem.”
“Akutsu Jin,” Tezuka read, flipping open the other file. “Fourteen years old. Third year at Yamabuki Middle School. Common daily activities include tennis, martial arts. Other activities include smoking, fighting, skipping school and damaging property. Occasionally skips tennis practice and/or extends interest in fighting to the tennis courts.”
He could see why Kaidoh had allocated the files to Fuji.
***
“We need a strategy,” Tezuka stated, fiddling with the folders.
“Starting with coffee,” Fuji teased.
“Yes,” Tezuka answered, a little tersely. “I didn’t have time for any this morning.” He paused, considering. “That new employee - Shishido,” he paused. “How is he? I heard Kaidoh allocated an old case to he and Ootori yesterday but I didn’t have time to check because of our sudden move.”
Fuji nodded. “The Sengoku one.”
Tezuka looked enquiringly at him, waiting to be filled in properly.
“I don’t remember the details,” Fuji shook his head. Suddenly he had a funny feeling that the Sengoku case had remained open for a reason - no one had wanted to touch it. Files were opened and closed and re-opened all the time - people’s wishes changed. Sengoku however, was a tricky one.
“What do you recommend in the Dan Taichi case?” he asked.
Tezuka tapped his finger at the files again. “It would be easiest to plant tickets in Akutsu’s locker and have someone remind him of when Dan’s birthday is,” he suggested.
Fuji stared at him deadpanned. “And of course Akutsu’s going to find them, waltz up to Dan and ask him out.”
Tezuka blinked. “Couldn’t he?”
Fuji sighed. “Tezuka, I’ll show you Akutsu and then you can tell me if that would really work. He’d be more likely to use them for cigarettes.”
“Do you think he went to school today?” Tezuka asked.
“I would assume so,” Fuji responded thoughtfully. “I hacked into the database after nine, but they don’t fill in attendance until the end of the day. He hasn’t missed as many school days lately though, and he needs enough attendance to graduate.”
Tezuka nodded.
“But actually I don’t think strategy really works with Akutsu,” Fuji laughed. “Unless it’s emergent.”
Tezuka gave him an uncomfortable look.
“Of course, if you really wanted planned strategy, then I did have a few ideas,” Fuji teased. “I think he’s the jealous type, since there’s definitely something there every time Sengoku goes near Dan.”
“Sengoku?” Tezuka frowned. “Why did you let Kaidoh give the Sengoku case to Ootori and Shishido if he’s related to ours?”
Fuji blinked. “It wasn’t. His was related to a teacher.”
Tezuka had the decency to look uncomfortable, while Fuji’s smile grew. “He really does pick them, Sengoku,” he teased. “That was what he was on file for anyway.”
“Is that legal for us to…” Tezuka trailed off, shaking his head in resignation.
“I had a crush on our homeroom teacher in second year high school,” Fuji pointed out.
“Suzuki-san,” Tezuka said slowly, imagining their old teacher with her hair tied up in a bun and her gold rimmed glasses.
“She was first year,” Fuji smiled. “I meant Kashiwa-san. He used to coach the soccer club, remember?”
Tezuka swallowed a large mouthful of coffee, hiding his momentary surprise. “Yes, I do,” he answered evenly. “So about Akutsu-”
“Maybe we could dress you up as a high school girl and have you hit on Dan right in front of Akutsu. See what happens,” Fuji said quickly, laughing.
“And you’d have to cart me to the hospital afterwards,” Tezuka frowned. “I don’t think something like that would work.”
“Besides,” he added. “Do we have proof that Akutsu enjoys Dan’s company and wants to go anywhere with him? If this is one-sided again…”
Fuji chuckled. “I was working on this last week. On Thursday, the notebook Dan uses to manage the tennis club was stolen from his locker and the whole thing burnt. Akutsu chased down the boys who’d done it and had them buy him a new one. He beat them up a little, but they could still walk afterwards. Sort of.”
Tezuka pursed his lips, suspecting he was being given the very condensed and sanitary version of the story.
“A notebook is a notebook,” he pointed out.
“So you think it doesn’t say anything about their relationship?” Fuji tilted his head a little. “That he went out of his way to do something he didn’t have to?”
Tezuka looked away. “I would replace one of your notebooks if you lost it. That doesn’t necessarily-”
“Let’s go and watch them then, hm?” Fuji suggested shortly. “I didn’t follow Akutsu around all week to turn up blank. And you haven’t seen him at all.”
Tezuka sighed as they left their seats. That hadn’t quite come out the way he’d meant it.
To replace someone’s notebook was a small thing and, to Tezuka, one of the most basic things you could do for a friend. Had Fuji asked him, he’d have said so, although he did belatedly have to admit Fuji was probably right. Akutsu may have used… unacceptable methods to do it, but the reasoning behind his actions was to look after something important to Dan.
***
There were times Tezuka wished Inui would have limited their wish-fulfilment policies to people aged over 20. It would mean they most probably wouldn’t have to sneak around high schools or middle schools, where they would look suspicious if pulled from the bushes by their ears and asked what their business was there.
Fuji adjusted the focus on his binoculars as Tezuka pulled a twig from his pants pocket.
“Akutsu’s on the left, see?” Fuji indicated, holding the eyepieces up for Tezuka to look through. “The one with grey hair.”
“I thought he was fourteen,” Tezuka stated. “He looks fifty.”
Fuji shook his head. “And Dan’s to his right.”
Tezuka panned. There was a boy hanging onto Akutsu’s arm - and being shaken off it to the ground. But he was undeterred, getting up and continuing to talk from the look of it.
“It would still be more time-efficient to leave the tickets in his locker,” Tezuka reminded Fuji, who frowned.
“That wouldn’t be helpful,” he objected. “Besides, I think Akutsu’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t like Dan,” he said. “It’s that he can’t express himself.”
“Or doesn’t want to,” Tezuka added.
Fuji nodded. “That was why I thought perhaps a third person would be useful, to give him some reason to act before it’s too late. People like that need incentive.”
“I don’t believe I have the figure for a skirt,” Tezuka observed with a straight face. “Maybe you should do it.”
Fuji chuckled and shook his head. “No. I don’t look like enough of a…” He paused.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly. “We need someone who’s enough of a threat that Akutsu would react, and someone who at least can make it look to him like Dan’s interested.”
“Because Dan doesn’t look very interested in anyone else,” he sighed, after a minute longer.
“Perhaps a different plan is in order,” Tezuka said, shaking his head.
Fuji sat back, concentrating. “What did you like back in high school?” he asked.
Tezuka pursed his lips, finding the question difficult to answer. “Tennis,” he answered carefully.
“Just tennis?” Fuji looked at him.
“No,” Tezuka frowned. “Reading, climbing, fishing. The things I enjoy haven’t changed much since then.”
Fuji smiled. “Do you still like the same person you liked back then?”
Tezuka lifted up the binoculars again. “I do,” he said quietly, concentrating on watching Dan and Akutsu, because it was easier than looking Fuji in the eye.
“Do… Did you like anyone back in high school?” he returned.
“An idiot,” Fuji said briskly, keeping up his smile. “An idiot who, as far as I can tell, is never going to realise I like him until I write a memo and stick it on his forehead.”
Tezuka swallowed, watching Fuji stand up abruptly and brush off his trousers. His hands were jerky with frustration.
“Fuji?”
“Let’s go.”
***
“Make any progress yesterday?” Momo asked, and leaned over Fuji’s desk to bite into his burger. It was his second breakfast for the day.
“No, not much,” Fuji admitted, looking through Akutsu’s files again. He set them aside and picked up his water bottle, glancing out the window behind him. The company’s technology was so advanced that Fuji had the pleasure of choosing what he wanted to see in it, rather than being treated to the concrete mess he knew to really be there.
Today he was looking at a tropical jungle and there was a flock of birds crowding the tree branch that pressed against the window. Likewise, the fact that the company was invisible to the average person was due to Yanagi’s work in mirroring surroundings for camouflage, and their ability to transport the office when necessary was thanks to Inui’s work in… whatever he’d been talking about the day Fuji had fallen asleep with his mouth open. Kaidoh had listened all the way through, which was why he was now in charge of it.
Their business was aided by technology, but the granting of wishes itself - that was something that required talent, and just a little bit of magic.
“I heard Ootori and his partner made some progress,” Momo commented. “Didn’t they have a request related to yours?”
Fuji looked at him. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Same location, different subject.”
But he walked to Ootori’s office after Momo had left to go and do some work - something he rarely seemed to do since he and Echizen spent a lot of time in burger joints - and checked in with Tachibana, who still had the office next to his.
“They mentioned they had to get a backup copy of someone else’s file from the system because the original was out and they said it was related to Sengoku’s case,” Tachibana said, typing at the same time. “I think the name was Tan or Dan.”
Fuji nodded. “Thanks Kippei.”
“Dan Taichi,” someone corrected, and Shinji’s head popped up from behind a bookshelf. “They said it enough times that Tachibana-san ought to remember, but I suppose he wasn’t listening, just like he wasn’t listening when I told him he should tie down his bookcase before we moved because everything would fall out otherwise, and now look what happened... The whole shelf nearly hit him on the head too, then he’d have a bump on the back of it to match the dot on the front, and now I have to clean it all-”
Fuji smiled. “Thanks, Shinji,” he cut him off. “Do you know where they went today, Kippei?”
Tachibana shook his head. “I’d guess the school that Sengoku goes to.”
***
“Sengoku’s a bit fickle, don’t you think?” Ootori asked uncomfortably, holding up his file to the light. “I know not every wish is recorded on file, I mean… They’re filtered,” he emphasised, “But most of his are just…”
“Women?” Shishido grunted.
Ootori nodded. “Except these,” he sighed. “From three days ago.”
Shishido took the file from him, re-reading the one they’d started working on. “I wish Akutsu would lighten up about Dan; we were just joking around.”
Then somewhat later during the day: “I wish Dan would pay more attention to me. That was a lucky shot and he was busy watching Akutsu! What a shame!”
“I wish I could take Dan to Disneyland for his birthday, but Akutsu probably wouldn’t let me, even though he doesn’t want to go either.”
“If we’re working on the assumption he likes Dan,” Shishido pointed out, “Why aren’t there more mentions of him in here? How do you know he doesn’t like Akutsu?”
Ootori scratched his head. “Just a hunch,” he answered. “Besides, I don’t think Akutsu likes Dan like that. You saw how he hit a ball at his head yesterday.”
Shishido frowned. “So? Maybe he was sick of him. I’d be sick of him if he stuck to me like glue.”
Ootori startled, looking a little worried all of a sudden. “I guess…” he mumbled. “You don’t think it’s cute of him?”
Shishido snorted. “What’s cute about having to hear “Akutsu-senpai! Akutsu-senpai!” all the time? I’d stick that bandanna over his mouth, not his head.”
Ootori laughed nervously, touching his hand to his hair. “Anyway, let’s just work on Sengoku today, Shishido-senpai.”
“Stop calling me that,” Shishido grouched. “I’m not your senpai anymore.”
“You’ll always be my senpai,” Ootori protested. “And anyway, I think I have a plan, Senpai.”
“Choutarou…”
***
Tezuka winced as he manoeuvred another branch which was sticking into him in an uncomfortable, indecent sort of spot. He decided the bush was becoming a bit too familiar with him, and wished Fuji hadn’t insisted they hide behind them again. But as he’d pointed out, this brought them a lot closer to Yamabuki’s courts without having to go too near the club building.
“There are four days until Dan’s birthday and we still don’t have a plan,” Tezuka pointed out.
“You shouldn’t complain,” Fuji chuckled. “You have to go back to doing office work after we’re finished here.”
Office work didn’t involve sitting around in bushes, Tezuka wanted to point out. But office work also didn’t allow him much time to talk with Fuji.
“I heard from Tomoka that Sanada wanted to come and see you personally some time next week. Apparently he didn’t appreciate having his ear talked off on the phone,” Fuji informed him.
Tezuka sighed. “Did he tell you that?”
Fuji grinned. “Half of it I heard from Tomoka, but as for his thoughts exactly - I believe they were along the lines of “I wish she’d shut up already. She could talk the ear off an elephant.””
Tezuka turned to look at him, unimpressed. “You were reading his file?”
Fuji smiled. “It was an accident.”
Tezuka shook his head and picked up the binoculars between them, focusing in on Dan Taichi.
“Who’s the redhead with them?” he asked quietly.
Fuji frowned. “It should be Sengoku Kiyosumi, I think. I forgot to check his file.”
Tezuka looked past Sengoku, scanning the other boys on the court. None of them were familiar, although he hardly ever handled cases so perhaps Fuji would know more about them. It was inconvenient not being able to access all files from outside the building, but he understood the reasoning behind it.
Mostly the boys were uniformed, and he recognised the drills they were going through. First years were picking up balls, second years seemed to be jogging, and third years were playing and watching matches. And behind the tennis courts on the other side -
Tezuka pushed the binoculars at Fuji quickly. “Look, I think Ootori’s on the other side.”
Fuji could see him even without the binoculars, and from the way Ootori suddenly looked very panicked, Fuji knew he’d seen them too.
Ootori was gesturing, but Fuji couldn’t pick up what he wanted to say, and not ten minutes later, everything was being packed up as the training session finished early - it was pouring down with rain.
By the time Fuji and Tezuka had pulled themselves safely from the bushes, and all the Yamabuki boys were out of their path of escape, they could just see Shishido’s back.
“I think we should follow him,” Fuji said, grabbing Tezuka’s wrist. “Come on, before he gets away.”
***
“I don’t see a problem with wearing this,” Fuji said, ignoring Tezuka as he fixed up his hair in the bathroom mirror. “We don’t have time to go back to the office and there’s no point walking around in wet clothes if I don’t have to.”
He hadn’t quite given up his original idea of dressing Tezuka up, so he’d been carrying around Yumiko’s old uniform in his bag, but even though he wasn’t the one wearing it, Tezuka still had objections.
Fuji ignored those though and straightened his skirt and adjusted the ties on his top.
“We’ll lose our table if you don’t go back to it,” he warned, when Tezuka continued standing stiffly next to him.
Tezuka gave a sigh. “Fine,” he gave in. “Just be careful,” he added as he walked to the door.
“I’m just in the bathroom,” Fuji smiled. “What’s there to worry about?”
“You’re in the men’s bathroom,” Tezuka pointed out.
Fuji rolled his eyes and put his hand on his hip, skirt swishing as he moved. “I am a man. Can’t you tell?”
Tezuka thought the question best left unanswered and quickly opened the door.
Fuji returned to their table a minute after that, sliding into his seat and brushing his hair back. “You don’t have a hair clip, do you?”
Tezuka pursed his lips. “I don’t.”
“So what are they talking about?” Fuji asked and lowered his voice. Two tables away from them, Dan was sitting and swinging his legs on one side, and Ootori sat on the other, hands clasped around his cup of coffee.
Dan was slurping at a milkshake, looking a bit nervously from side to side.
Tezuka began answering. “I can’t hear much, other than-”
“…desu.” Dan’s voice cut in.
“That,” Tezuka sighed, as Dan finished yet another sentence.
Fuji chuckled. “Maybe we’ll just have to sit and wait.”
Tezuka cleared his throat. “That was why I ordered us drinks.”
Fuji smiled, looking down at his iced coffee. For a split second, he felt like they were back in high school again. But Tezuka was wearing a tie and suit, and Fuji was… admittedly not looking much like a high-schooler right now, even if he was wearing a uniform, and back in high school they hadn’t had to worry about being fired if they didn’t do their jobs properly. (Back in high school, everyone steered clear of Inui’s inventions. Now they actually paid for them.)
“What are you thinking of?” Tezuka asked.
Fuji blinked and smiled, putting his finger to his lips. The table of people next to them had left, and it was now possible to hear what Dan and Ootori were talking about, and they were talking a whole lot about Sengoku and not terribly much about Akutsu.
“He’s good at tennis, but it’s hard for me to be like Sengoku-senpai, because I have no muscles desu, see desu?” Dan was saying.
Ootori made a noise of encouragement.
“It’s hard to be short and play tennis desu,” Dan sighed. “I want to be like Akutsu-senpai desu. I’ve loved his tennis ever since I saw it desu. He’s really amazing desu. But he doesn’t come to practice much desu.”
“What about Sengoku?” Ootori persisted. “He goes to practice, doesn’t he?”
“Well desu,” Dan paused. “It’s different desu.”
“How do you mean?” Ootori asked.
“Sengoku-senpai’s not Akutsu-senpai desu,” Dan chirped happily.
“Have you looked at a copy of Sengoku’s file lately?” Fuji whispered quickly.
Tezuka shook his head, and Fuji groaned, wondering if Shishido and Ootori were up to what he thought they were.
“I think we should interrupt before this gets mess-” Fuji stopped abruptly, half-standing from his position, hands on the table.
“Messy,” he said and sat down again.
Tezuka tilted his head slightly. “Problem?” he asked quietly.
Fuji’s glance flicked towards the doorway and Tezuka’s eyes followed his. He stiffened in his seat to see Shishido walking in, and behind him, Sengoku.
“I should have checked what they were doing earlier,” Fuji sighed. “I’m just going to hope they have medical insurance because that guy,” and he pointed out the window, “probably isn’t going to like them much after this.”
Tezuka jerked. “How long has he been there?” he asked quietly, trying not to meet Akutsu’s eyes.
Fuji shook his head. “The whole time. I told you, he’s been following Dan all week.”
“Dan!” Sengoku grinned, lazily striding up to their table and pulling the chair from the next table over. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to take candy from strangers?” he asked, and ruffled his hair.
“It’s ice cream desu,” Dan pointed out. “And it’s okay desu. He said I can trust him desu.”
Sengoku gave a sigh, tapping a foot on the ground. “Can he trust you?” he asked Ootori, holding out his hand and curling his fingers lazily. “Don’t you have some sort of ID? Where are you from anyway?”
Ootori fidgeted uncomfortably. “I’m not actually…”
“Oh, a secret, hm?” Sengoku grinned, and winked. “Well I’ll let you keep it, as long as you buy me something too.”
Ootori gave a hapless glance towards Shishido at the counter, and called out for him.
“What do you want?” he asked Sengoku, who got up and skipped over to the counter.
“Lucky!” he crooned, hands all over the glass where the ice cream flavours were displayed.
Ootori and Shishido had looked up Dan’s file. In retrospect, they ought to have looked up Akutsu’s as well, because it might have prepared them better for the whirlwind that came in the door only five minutes after Sengoku.
“So.” Sengoku took a long lick of the top of his ice cream (triple scoop in a double cone, peppermint choc chip, Baileys and cookies & cream ice cream) and stared at Ootori.
Shishido glanced at his watch under the table, signalling to Ootori to get on with it.
“Ah, well,” Ootori muttered. He had no intention of admitting to being a stalker, and he was sure even Dan would sooner or later come to that conclusion if he started listing all the reasons why he thought they should take a set of tickets and go.
“We’re…”
“He said he grants wishes desu,” Dan chirped, and slurped his milkshake. “He’s a fairy desu.”
Ootori coughed, Shishido looked rather disgusted, and Sengoku’s smile widened. Outside the window, a boy with grey hair dropped his cigarette on the ground, smothered it, stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles.
“I thought fairies wore tutus,” Sengoku joked.
Ootori sighed and pulled the tickets from his pocket, handing them to Shishido, who waved them at Sengoku’s face. “Look here,” he grunted, “You like Dan, Dan likes you… enough, anyway, and here are your tickets. Take the kid to Disneyland, happy dating, happy birthday, happy good riddance,” he snapped, picking up his jacket and standing.
Dan eyed the tickets, taking them from Sengoku, cheeks pink and eyes wide. “Are these really for us desu? Can I really go for my birthday desu?”
Ootori smiled, taking a softer approach to Shishido. “That’s what we’re here for,” he smiled.
Dan beamed. And then a shadow fell across his face and he looked up. “Akutsu-senpai!” he said happily. “Look desu!”
“Taichi,” Akutsu growled, snatching the tickets up. “What the hell are these?”
“Read ‘em and weep,” Sengoku winked. “Dan and I are going on a date.”
Akutsu’s eye twitched.
“I heard they have princesses walking around posing for photos at Disneyland, but I bet they’d pose for other things if you pressed the right buttons,” Sengoku beamed, and threw his arm around Dan’s shoulders.
“The hell,” Akutsu muttered, glaring down at Sengoku. “Who said you could take Taichi anywhere?”
Sengoku blinked. “These two,” he said, and pointed to Shishido and Ootori, conveniently trapped from leaving the table.
***
“You know,” Fuji teased quietly, “I think he’s blushing.”
“I think he’s angry,” Tezuka murmured, putting his hand to his temple.
“So what was our strategy again?” Fuji asked, sipping the last of his drink.
Tezuka watched his lips around the straw and sighed. He was reminded that situations like these were exactly why he liked office work. “We don’t have one,” he admitted, nearly ready to stand up and interfere himself.
“So make one up,” Fuji whispered, and got up quickly to beat him to it.
Perhaps he’d forgotten he was wearing a skirt, or perhaps he’d remembered and it was exactly why he walked over to stop next to Sengoku. “Now now,” he smiled, “What seems to be the problem here?”
“What’re you?” Akutsu glared at him. “Freaking fairy.”
“No, he’s the fairy desu,” Dan said helpfully, pointing to Ootori.
“Yeah?” Akutsu spat. “So you’re just-”
“Lucky!” Sengoku crooned, grabbing Fuji’s hand. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”
Behind him, Dan held out his hand. “Akutsu-senpai, can you please give those back to me desu? They’re for my birthday desu.”
Akutsu’s upper lip curled. “I’m not doing what you say just because it’s your birthday, Taichi,” he growled, stuffing the tickets into his pocket.
Dan’s lower lip wobbled a little bit. “B-But Akutsu-senpai! Sengoku-senpai’s going to take me desu!”
“He’s not takin’ you anywhere!” Akutsu snapped. “I’m taking you, so shut up about Sengoku.”
Dan blinked. “You’re taking me… desu?”
“That’s what I said,” Akutsu growled, hand twisting around Dan’s wrist and dragging him. “I’m not sayin’ it again.” And then they were gone, out the door and down the street with a flourish of happy “Akutsu-senpai!”s and half-hearted “Stop clinging, Taichi”s.
Tezuka finished his drink and stood up, just in time to see Sengoku lifting Fuji’s hand rather close to his lips, still crooning about how pretty Fuji was and how his skirt was much too long and he should have been showing off more of his legs.
Suddenly, Tezuka decided that was quite enough, and he walked over just in time to stick his hand on top of Fuji’s to separate the two of them. He ended up with a pair of hot lips on his hand, but it was better him than Fuji, he decided.
“Since everything’s wrapped up, I think we should go,” he murmured to Fuji. “Finish things off and come back soon,” he instructed Ootori, slipping his fingers between Fuji’s to pull him out of the café.
Sengoku whistled after them. “Nice legs,” he sighed. “Too bad she’s into old guys or I might have a chance.”
Ootori had slumped with his forehead against the table, and Shishido didn’t look much better, leaning back and staring dully at his partner.
“So what do we do now?” he asked.
Ootori sighed.
Sengoku sat down in his chair again, looking at his ice cream fallen top down on the floor. “So who’s going to shout me another ice cream?” he grinned at them.
“You’re the senpai,” Shishido scoffed at Ootori, crossing his arms in a huff.
“Yes, Senpai,” Ootori sighed.
Sengoku looked between them. “Why are you both senpai?”
***
“Coffee,” Fuji announced an hour later, walking into Tezuka’s office. “And look,” he pointed out. “Akutsu’s file.”
Tezuka took the file from him, leaving him to put the coffee on his desk and seat himself.
“I wish that stupid Taichi would just leave off already. And what's Sengoku doing with him? I wish he'd just piss off and stop touching him…”
“I wish Taichi’d do what he wants already. I hate it when he gives me that stupid puppy dog look.”
“I wish Taichi’d quit holding my hand already. It’s effing annoying and I wish that stupid bugger over there’d quit staring or I’m gonna go teach him a lesson…”
Fuji smiled. “Success, see? Another case closed.”
“Until Dan wishes Akutsu would stop smothering him perhaps,” Tezuka sighed.
He shook his head, typing up the last of his thoughts on the case to go into the file, and took another glance at Fuji’s uniform. “We’re back in the office now. You should take that off,” he murmured distractedly.
Fuji smiled teasingly. “That’s a bit forward of you, don’t you think?”
“You should have a spare suit in your office. Now go and put it on,” Tezuka ordered tersely.
Fuji rolled his eyes. “And here I was, enjoying the breeze for once.”
Tezuka pursed his lips, seeking a change of topic as he typed. “I’m just glad it’s over.”
“The mission?” Fuji smiled, sitting back down again.
Tezuka nodded, saving his file. “Sometimes,” he sighed, “I don’t see much point to granting wishes for people like…”
“Sengoku,” Fuji supplied.
Another nod. “Wishes change over time,” Tezuka pointed out. “If they don’t have the will to make it happen themselves, why do we?”
Fuji glanced down, smiling as usual when he looked up again. “Haven’t you ever wanted something so badly that you wished and wished for it, but you never quite got it?” he asked quietly.
Tezuka was quiet.
“Some people are fickle,” Fuji agreed, “But maybe it’s only because they really have everything they want already. Maybe their wishes are things we can’t grant anyway,” he mentioned, still thinking of Sengoku. “Greatness, in anything, for example.”
Tezuka nodded, conceding the point.
“Some people can wish for things their whole life and never have them, and that’s why we’re here,” Fuji smiled. “Isn’t it nice to think that Dan gets what he wanted for his birthday and Akutsu gets what he wanted without them having to wait another year or longer for them to get the ball rolling?”
Tezuka nodded. “I suppose.”
The phone rang at his hand, and he picked it up.
“Ah… Good afternoon, Sanada,” he said stiffly, frowning at Fuji’s laugh as he went out the door. Apparently he could wish and wish not to have to deal with Sanada’s reports, and never have his wishes granted.
After he’d finished on the phone, he found himself walking to the filing room.
The arm delivered a file to his hand, and he opened it with a little unease, already sure of what he would find in it. As he moved through the pages on record, he swallowed.
His own file was full of page after page mentioning sometimes Momoshiro or Kaidoh, sometimes Oishi or Inui, sometimes Echizen or even Tachibana or Shinji. But on every page, there was one name that stood out. It was Fuji.
Wishes for the times he’d wanted to ask Fuji to stay, and hadn’t. Wishes for the times he’d wanted to spend time with him alone, but couldn’t. Wishes for the things he’d wanted to do with Fuji, and didn’t.
The record of all the people who had ever checked his file was listed on the access screen showing on the computer - Fuji’s name not among them.
“Tezuka, what are you doing in here?”
He spun around, unnerved to see Fuji standing there, still ridiculous in his sister’s uniform.
“I was just…”
“You weren’t breaking any rules, were you?” Fuji teased.
Tezuka glanced down at the file in his hands. Technically reading his own file was probably against the rules - he was an employee after all, but…
“You’ve never read my file, Fuji?” he asked.
Fuji shook his head. “I don’t need to,” was his simple answer.
Tezuka smiled a little wryly, closing his eyes for a second. “Fuji,” he said.
“Hm?” Fuji stepped closer.
“Do you have time for one last job today?” Tezuka asked quietly.
Fuji blinked, a little surprised. “What?” he questioned. “Did I miss something urgent?”
Tezuka laughed a little dryly. “Only urgent in that… I wish I had done it years ago.”
Fuji opened his eyes, looking carefully at Tezuka, who hesitated a little. He stepped close enough that he could have touched him, but his hands remained stiff at his sides, the file in his hands a reminder of all the times before he could have said the words he’d wanted to say.
He fingered it, and opened it to the first page, handing it to Fuji.
“Can you grant me that one wish?” Tezuka murmured. “Stay with me, Fuji.”
Fuji slumped against him, startling Tezuka as his arms wrapped instinctively around him. The file between them dropped to the floor in pages.
“I didn’t think you’d ever say that,” Fuji whispered, muffled against Tezuka’s clothes.
“Neither did I,” Tezuka muttered, letting out a little sigh.
“You know it’s against the rules,” Fuji whispered.
“I do,” Tezuka answered. “But you said it yourself. What are rules for except to be broken?”
Fuji smiled when he leaned up to kiss Tezuka.
“Indeed,” he agreed. “Indeed.”