The meeting room was steeped in a heavy silence, broken only by the faint hum of Hiroshima city murmuring beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. Evening had folded itself across the skyline, casting a bruised, amber glow that slanted through the glass, cutting sharp, broken shapes across the polished floor. The overhead lights remained off, leaving the room bathed in the fading fire of sunset, the shadows stretching long and thin.
Koizumi-san stood at the window, his back partly turned toward Daichi. One hand disappeared casually into his trouser pocket; the other, more deliberate, held a neatly folded document. His reflection shimmered faintly in the glass, blurred as dusk painted smudges across the pane.
Daichi remained by the table, arms loose at his sides but fists faintly clenched, the air between them thick with something raw and suffocating.
For a time, neither spoke.
Then, Koizumi-san's voice drifted out, calm and smooth—so practiced it sounded almost rehearsed.
"Your transfer request has been approved."
He turned slightly, extending the document toward Daichi without meeting his gaze, as though this were any other formal announcement, any other day.
Daichi didn't move. He only watched.
"You'll be moving to the main office in Osaka next spring," Koizumi-san continued, tone clipped and professional, eyes still turned to the city. "It's a good opportunity. You'll have more autonomy, better chances of promotion—"
"Cut the bullshit."
The words landed between them like a sharp crack in the silence.
Koizumi-san went still.
Daichi moved, the soft shuffle of his footsteps breaking through the hush as he slowly crossed the room. But he didn't reach for the letter. Instead, he stopped just a step away, sharp eyes locking onto Koizumi-san's profile, gaze burning with something unreadable, something jagged just beneath the surface.
"You're kicking me out, aren't you?"
Koizumi-san's fingers twitched around the paper, the faintest curl betraying tension before he forced them to ease. His face—always careful, always unreadable—remained composed, but Daichi had memorized it too well over these past years since he joined the company. He saw it. The stiffness in his jaw, the way his shoulders held a fraction too tight.
Daichi let out a quiet laugh, dry and humorless.
"Your wife knows, doesn't she?"
Nothing. Not a flinch, not a word. Just the steady, silent weight of a man who had already chosen.
Daichi felt something twist deep in his chest, but his voice stayed level, steady as steel.
"That's why you're doing this," he murmured, slower now, the syllables sliding out like a dare. "You're trying to get rid of me before she can ruin you."
The paper crinkled softly under Koizumi-san's tightening grip. His gaze flicked away—barely, briefly—toward the darkening city.
Daichi swallowed hard, throat tight.
"Say it."
No answer.
"Say that you don't want to have anything to do with me anymore."
The demand hung low and weighted in the room, roughened by a crack he couldn't quite hide.
Still, Koizumi-san didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't look at him.
And that was all Daichi needed to know.
His breath hitched slightly, chest rising and falling in short, shallow pulls. He let out another bitter scoff, shaking his head.
"Three years," he muttered, voice rougher now, laced with something raw. "And this is how you end it."
Only then did Koizumi-san look at him, at last.
"Morikita-kun..."
His expression stayed guarded, but Daichi saw through it—the heaviness, the regret, the silent, unspoken thing neither of them would ever name aloud.
But he wouldn't say it.
Wouldn't ask him to stay.
Wouldn't admit what this truly was.
Daichi reached out sharply, snatching the transfer letter from Koizumi-san's hand. The paper crumpled slightly under his grip, the edges bent and warped, but he didn't care.
"Fine," Daichi said quietly, the words sharp and clean. "If this is what you want—kacho."
He stepped back, the word like a cold knife between them.
Koizumi-san didn't move. Didn't stop him. Didn't call his name.
And so, Daichi turned, his footsteps echoing through the cavernous quiet of the room.
Now, here he sat—alone within the unfamiliar hush of a private office far from his old desk in Hiroshima. The glass walls boxed him in, cutting him off from the life bustling just beyond. Even in the stillness, he could imagine it: the steady rhythm of photocopiers and fax machines, the soft clatter of keyboards, the quiet murmur of voices floating between work updates and personal chatter… and, maybe, whispers.
Whispers about the man who had arrived under a cloud of questions.
The man they were already calling the suspicious transfer.