Chapter Text
When Hanamaki accepted the Dynamic Relations Specialist position in Seijoh Incorporated’s HR department, he didn’t expect that he’d come to fear the presence of profiteroles.
“Are you trying to butter me up?” Hanamaki asks, leaning against Matsukawa’s door frame and holding the ribbon-wrapped box of cream puffs aloft. They were left on his desk but could only have come from the one man brave enough to willingly walk into HR. “Seriously man, what’s the damage? Why’d you get so many for me?” And all in his favorite flavors too; he’s drunkenly waxed poetic about Beard Papa’s too often, and it looks like Matsukawa listened.
There is a single strawberry cream puff. Hanamaki doesn’t get why it’s there; he hates strawberries.
Matsukaka gives him a look. “First of all, I believe those are filled with cream and not butter, so I think you’ll find that —”
“Gonna stop you right there.” Hanamaki holds up his hand in the universal language of please stop, for the love of god, while stepping into the office. “I’m HR, remember? Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in front of a child or your boss.”
“I’m sure Oikawa can handle a pastry.”
He makes himself at home in the chair on the guest side of Matsukawa’s desk. Although he’s not quite sure what Matsukawa does all day — whatever Marketing Analysis is, which could be witchcraft — he knows his friend and colleague rarely has guests besides him. The office is sparsely decorated, with just his diploma, a print of Ueno Park, and a few gifts from satisfied customers.
Hanamaki opens his mouth and shuts it, while Matsukawa eyes him. “You’re right. Oikawa could handle this,” he amends, before hefting the box onto the desk. “Now explain this bribe to me, Mattsun. What’s the damage? What am I in for today?”
As Hanamaki takes out two of the cream puffs — placing the strawberry one in front of Matsukawa with a grimace — Matsukawa pinches his brow.
“They’re at it again,” he groans.
“Gonna need a little bit more than that to file an incident report, buddy.”
“Do they teach you to use the little nicknames in HR training, or am I special?”
“You think I was trained?” There’s quiet for a long moment before Hanamaki looks up to see Matsukawa staring at him in horror. “Kidding, kidding! Seriously, what’s my annual bonus doing today?”
On either side of Matsukawa’s office are his two higher-ups in marketing — otherwise known as the source of Hanamaki’s annual bonus — Oikawa and Iwaizumi. An Alpha and an Omega, they contribute to at least 25% of the incident reports Hanamaki has to handle, and they’re his go-to examples at his quarterly reviews to advocate for the raise he might never get.
They do result in a hefty bonus, though, and that’s enough to keep his wallet lined with cash and his belly lined with dessert.
He’s saving a lot, though, because Matsukawa keeps buying him pastries.
Before Matsukawa can ruin his perfect morning, he raises a question, just to prolong his peace.
“Why do you like the strawberry one so much?” Hanamaki asks, crumbs dropping onto the suit pants he bought in a panic after acing the interview with HR. “It tastes like dirt.”
“I dunno,” Matsukawa mutters, holding the pink-frosted cream puff aloft and squinting at it while he looks at Hanamaki. “I just think they’re neat.”
Incident Type: Extraneous Expression
Reported by: Oikawa Tooru Employee ID: 200701
Incident Description: Iwa-chan reeks!
HR Handler: Hanamaki Takahiro
“You and I both know that you can’t use condescending and demeaning language about a colleague’s scent when you file an incident report, Oikawa,” Hanamaki says, twitching at his notes.
“It’s not my fault that some of us are stinky,” Oikawa insists, crossing his arms and wrinkling his — expensive, probably — wool suit. He plugs his nose and Hanamaki is only half convinced it’s for show. Alphas live their entire lives smelling everyone’s pheromones; surely he’s used to it by now.
Over the past two and a half years of dealing with this horror show, Hanamaki has come to perfect the art of keeping a straight face, suppressing the urge to twitch or laugh at Oikawa and his performative disgust.
On the one hand, it’s made him really good at poker.
On the other hand, he’s gotten banned from all of his poker nights.
On the third hand, it means he can find better poker nights, if he had the time.
Which he doesn’t, mostly because of the man in front of him.
“When you say stinky, Oikawa,” Hanamaki puts all of the lessons in drilling directly to the point that Kita-san, the former head of HR, taught him before she retired in order to spend her twilight years weaving baskets and staying far away from the marketing department, into practice, “what exactly are you referring to?”
His job, as the sole Dynamic Relations Specialist for a company of around 1500 people, has three key responsibilities.
The first is the easiest: keeping a record of every employee’s dynamic, and approving heat and rut leaves when necessary. It does mean he needs to keep in close contact with Yahaba, their Payroll and Leave Analyst, who only gets a little bitchy when Hanamaki rolls up to his desk on the fifth floor at 4:53 PM on Friday afternoon to get an emergency request approved for Kunimi, who always tries to work until the eleventh hour of his heat despite knowing how unpredictable they can be, and Yahaba has plans to be at a goukon thirty minutes later.
The second is a little more work: handling special dynamic requests. This can range from things like moving offices because someone’s scent is incompatible with their neighbors, or making sure that the office is ordering enough emergency scent patches, or dealing with situations where their employee handbook comes up a little short.
(If Hanamaki drank an extra beer or two at the Izakaya the night after the great Karasuno Acquisition Disaster of FQ422 was finally resolved, he deserved it. Who knew there were companies that didn’t have equitable leave policies for betas because they never hired one?)
But they pale in comparison to the stress of his third responsibility, the reason he’s perfected his poker face: handling Incident Reports. Because Alpha and Omega dynamics can be so fraught — as a beta, Hanamaki is grateful he doesn’t have to deal with any of that — and unpredictable — see: the Shiratorizawa Merger Nightmare — someone at Seijoh needed to be able to deal with any issues that might present themselves on the nature of presentation.
Ideally, a Dynamic Relations Specialist is meant to be a kind and nurturing beta.
Oikawa narrows his eyes suspiciously at Hanamaki’s carefully blank face, and he can’t help but squirm a little in his chair like he’s getting stared down by a particularly sadistic teacher. “Are you making fun of me?”
Unfortunately, Seijoh has Hanamaki.
“I am here for you,” he insists, leaning forward to pat Oikawa’s arm in a manner that could be considered consoling, or could also be read as mocking if you were literate, “but this is the third incident report you’ve filed about Iwaizumi this month.”
It is April 9th.
Oikawa is trending upwards in terms of reports filed this quarter, according to the analytics Hanamaki tries and fails to put in some semblance of order to present to his boss, Ushijima, who might love data more than people and thinks pie charts are the work of the devil.
Who hates pie charts? They’re shaped like dessert!
Matsukawa helps sometimes, because he’s an analytical wizard who could probably automate this if Hanamaki could show him the data, but it’s confidential and Hanamaki is bound by the law — but mostly the fear of his boss — to keep it secret.
“I can literally hear Iwaizumi and Oikawa while they cackle about filling in their reports,,” Matsukawa said once, after Hanamaki had a breakdown over pivot tables in his office. “They always come to me because they forget where on the intranet the link is. What do you mean I can’t help you?”
“Take it up with Legal,” Hanamaki replied.
Unfortunately, Oikawa has either dealt with him for too long or can read Hanamaki like a book, because he slams his fist down triumphantly on the desk — technically a disturbance of the peace, as per section 5 item 3 paragraph 2 clause 2 of their employee handbook (Do not partake in actions that could be perceived as threatening) which he’s memorized but refuses to actually enforce — before standing and pointing a finger in his direction.
This is also a violation, technically speaking.
“You’re patronizing me, Makki!”
Honestly, Oikawa is a walking hazard for their employee handbook and the notion of propriety in the workplace. If anyone in HR but Hanamaki had to deal with him, he’d probably be fired on the basis of his nicknames alone.
Death by Kyouken-chan.
Matsukawa is the only source of light in his miserable life.
“It can’t have been that bad,” Matsukawa says, taking a sip of his stupid watered down highball. “At least you got out of there in an hour.”
“An hour of misery” Hanamaki groans, pushing his beer out of the way to puddle his head on his arms. And he can’t even tell Matsukawa, because of confidentiality laws or whatever. But he’d had the mortifying experiencing of having to ask Iwaizumi to please wear stronger scent patches in order to tamp down how strong his scent had gotten to Oikawa — reeking apparently means that Iwaizumi smells like himself, just more — and then having to requisition budget to stock the entire office with a new brand of them to avoid singling one Omega out.
At least they’re in his third favorite bar tonight. Whenever he and Matsukawa grab post work drinks — which is often, given who they deal with on a daily basis — they have to switch off between the ones they prefer.
Oikawa and Iwaizumi work slightly later than either of them. If they were creatures of habit, the dynamic duo would follow them right down to hell. Hanamaki doesn’t want to get banned from a good Izakaya because Oikawa saw fit to bare his teeth at another Alpha.
Or if Iwaizumi decided to bite one. He’s a little too feral for his own good.
Hanamaki likes this one because it’s close enough to his apartment that he doesn’t need to leave early to catch a train or a bus, and whenever they step outside for a smoke break, the streetlight catches Matsukawa’s hair just right.
Which reminds him — “thank you for the pastries,” he says, running a finger along the rim of his glass. “I’m pretty sure the chocolate hazelnut one is the only reason I’m still standing.”
Matsukawa nods in the sage way that only a man down three beers and a plate of tebasaki chicken wings can manage. “You’re not standing, Makki. You do know that, right? You’re probably doing the opposite.”
He reaches out to finger walk up Hanamaki’s arm, like he’s trying to mock his current horizontality, but the slight pressure of his fingertips is kinda soothing, so Hanamaki doesn’t stop him.
“But you know what Mattsun? You’re not allowed to get me those pastries anymore,” he hiccups, because he’s a beer and a half down but a lightweight, and feels Matsukawa’s fingers falter and still on his arm, he tries to pull them away.
None of that, he thinks, grabbing his hand to press it down on his arm and keep it there.
Matsukawa isn’t necessarily looking at him, but he’s staring at the spot his hand is touching. “Why’s that?” he murmurs.
“You’re pavloving me into associating my favorite food with a bad time!” Hanamaki says, triumphant.
He’s not imagining it, is he? The way Matsukawa seems relieved?
Matsukawa sighs, leaning back on the bench and taking his hand with him, which Hanamaki can’t help but mourn, already missing its warmth. “Is that what I’m doing?”
“What else would you be doing?”
The sage-like visage breaks, and laughter pours out of the cracks. “You’re right, Makki,” he says, wiping away a tear. “I’m doing the stupid dog experiment on you.”
“Leave Kyoutani out of this!”
Incident Type: Extraneous Expression
Reported by: Iwaizumi Hajime Employee ID: 100604
Incident Description: Oikawa is a menace to society.
HR Handler: Hanamaki Takahiro
HR Comment: Iwaizumi, you know that’s not a proper description.
Updated Incident Description: Oikawa smells horrible.
This time, Hanamaki doesn’t need pastries from Matsukawa to know how bad it’s going to be.
“Of all the times to be running late,” he mutters, cursing his morning bus and all the gods of punctuality.
Who knew that his phone would pick the quietest song on his Spotify playlist to wake him up that morning? What even is 4’33 anyway?
It’s left him in the unfortunate position of arriving around an hour later than usual, and overlapping the time his least favorite nuisances arrive at the office.
One of them — Oikawa, who looks alarmingly cheery — is holding the elevator door for him.
“Just go on ahead,” he calls out. “I’ll walk.”
“We are on the eighth floor,” Oikawa says, with an edge to his voice that Hanamaki doesn’t like. “And you skip every workout class I invite you to, Makki! Get in the elevator.”
With a gulp — and the sudden desire to start jogging to work — he steps into the elevator.
Oikawa presses the button for their floor, and the way Iwaizumi and Oikawa have already claimed their positions means that Hanamaki has to step right between them.
Does the B in Beta stand for buffer? He feels like one. The aura in the elevator is tense already, and it's like he’s stepping into molasses.
Not that he’s ever actually done that; stepped into molasses, or honey, or anything really sticky. It’d be a waste, and imagine the cleanup? Horrible.
“Morning,” he says to Iwaizumi, who clutches his messenger bag tightly and grimaces.
“Hmm,” Iwaizumi replies, which makes Oikawa lean over and rest a hand on Hanamaki’s shoulder which is probably a policy violation.
“Don’t be grouchy to our sweet little Makki,” Oikawa says, and there’s a hint of a sneer in his voice. “Iwa-chan is in a bad mood today,” he faux-whispers to Hanamaki.
Please keep me out of your shit, Hanamaki thinks, but he is a professional and Ushijima would kill him if he said that to a colleague, so instead he —
“Well, that’s our floor and I’m running late, you know how it is!” he says, breaking free of Oikawa’s hold and getting out on the fifth floor, bursting past Kyoutani, a fellow Beta, three keyboards in his arms.
— Blesses the elevator gods, and runs up the remaining three flights of stairs.
Even a Beta would know something was wrong with them.
Sure enough, exactly fifteen minutes after Hanamaki sits down at his desk — long enough for Iwaizumi to go through his morning routine, which involves a particular K-cup of coffee and adjusting his office until it’s just so, something that Matsukawa tried to call ‘nesting’ before Hanamaki sent him a screenshot of the employee handbook that categorized it as an Omega microaggression — there’s a new open ticket in his inbox.
Along with a stern email from Ushijima demanding to know why he’s late, but he’ll ignore those. It was one time, and he’s good at his job, and because he was late, he now has a leg-up on the investigation.
“You are like the world’s weirdest detective,” Matsukawa says, pulling Hanamaki’s attention away from his laptop. “Aren’t you supposed to scope out clues at the scene of the crime?”
He has two cups of coffee in his hands and suddenly Hanamaki realizes he is desperately in need of one; cutting through the fifth floor meant he had to skip his morning cup, partly because he wasn’t sure where the kitchen was, and mostly because he’d been privy to the dozens of tickets raised about Yahaba’s attempts to exert control over the kitchen and replace everything with kombucha.
“My hero,” Hanamaki says when Matsukawa puts one of the cups directly in front of him. It’s exactly the way he loves it, sweet and creamy and with a little touch of the hazelnut syrup that he keeps in a secret drawer in the kitchen to avoid Oikawa’s notorious sweet tooth. “How’d you know I needed this?”
“I had a feeling,” he replied, taking a sip of his own. “The dynamic duo has been bickering outside of my door all morning so far, and you came up twice. Well,” he demurs. “Oikawa has been mostly arguing at a brick wall, if the brick wall is a 5'10 Omega.”
Hanamaki snorts. “Dynamic duo… you can never call them that on the record, you know? It might be considered harassment.”
“Oh yeah?” Makki leans forward; he’s stil standing so he looms over Hanamaki a little bit, making him lean his head back to catch his face. “Are you gonna show me where in the employee handbook it says that?”
“No, but I will assign you a mandatory cyber training if you want it. Do you want that, Mattsun?”
Is there a way to frame an expression? Matsukawa’s look of horror is worth its weight in gold. Before Hanamaki can remember his phone, though, he brushes it away with another sip of his coffee, and he sits down instead of looming.
“So, what’s the story? Strictly under the table.”
“You know I can’t tell you anything, Mattsun.”
His friend frowns. “Not even for coffee?”
Hanamaki puts on his best Iwaizumi expression. “That’s called bribery, Matsukawa, and it is very illegal.”
It takes a second before Matsukawa bursts into laughter.
Hanamaki isn’t sure why marketing and HR are on the same floor. Maybe it’s serendipitous, that their worst infractors are a short walk away from them, but it’s good to have an ally in the madness right here, too.
“I can’t say a word, but if there’s anything you know that might be able to help me in the investigation, I’d really appreciate it. I got stuck in the elevator with them today —”
Matsukawa nearly chokes on his coffee.
“- and Iwaizumi looked like he wanted to murder Oikawa.”
“What else is new?”
“I thought he was gonna kill me, too.”
“And again, I ask, what else is new?”
“Some ally you are,” Hanamaki sighs, crossing his arms.
“Aren’t you HR? I thought you didn’t have allies.”
There’s a good point there, but “-aww, you know you’re special to me, Mattsun,” Hanamaki purrs, batting his lashes at Matsukawa.
It’s half a joke.
He doesn’t know which half, though.
But what he does know is that he’s probably a genius, and should also get a raise. “Don’t tell Ushijima that last bit, though,” Hanamaki says, lowering his voice like his boss might have hidden microphones around, just to trip him up on policy.
“I do my best not to talk to him, Makki; no one wants to talk to HR.”
Hanamaki gasps, feigning shock. “But you talk to me every day.”
“It’s called Stockholm Syndrome. Read a book.”
“I do. It’s called the Seijoh Employee Manual and I read it once a week because Ushijima quizzes me on it.”
He can’t tell Matsukawa anything without breaking approximately thirty laws, but what he can do is give him a heads up for any fireworks.
“Keep your door open at about 2:45. I’ve scheduled a 15 minute touch-base with Oikawa that might get fiery.”
He’s not kidding.
Departments like Marketing, which deal with serious budgets and external clients and a mountain of clout, constantly have people vying and jockeying for the department’s — read: Oikawa’s — favor.
That means that they have an incredibly strict gifting policy.
(It’s also meant to help deal with bribery laws, but Hanamaki’s telling a story, dammit.)
No single employee is allowed to accept a gift of over 10,000 yen, but there’s no graceful way to ask the price of a gift when it’s received — without substantially offending other companies and their mothers — so employees are instructed to accept it without accepting it.
Hanamaki is willing to admit that Ushijima’s Magnum Opus of an employee manual might need a bit of tweaking on the language there, but that’s a conversation with Legal and they — read: Tendou Satori, of the Shiratorizawa merger — hate him.
Oikawa is a master at this; Hanamaki doesn’t want to blame his Alpha charm, but something about the guy makes people believe every word he says — with the exception of Iwaizumi, who has to help put Oikawa’s marketing schemes into fruition, and himself, who has listened to Oikawa complain about the “post-rut productivity slump” enough to know he’s just selling snake oil — and he’s able to gracefully set the gift to the side and charm a website into advertising for Seijoh and get more money than their ad buys are worth, without ever officially accepting it. Ushijima wants to use him as a case study.
All the gifts are then set aside and sent to Legal for analysis, who sends them to Accounting because “do you think I know the cost of an orchid in this economy? Seriously, let me do my job,” but when Accounting scoffs and says “we handle Seijoh money, not other people’s,” they forward them to Yachi in Design who can’t say no and begrudgingly admits she knows the going rate of designer goods nowadays.
She’s also meticulous about documentation.
Which means that Hanamaki — who can see on Oikawa’s calendar that he had a dinner meeting with a client three nights ago — also knows that Yachi filed a ticket to intake the gifts and had them itemized by that morning.
Of the bounty — which included a piece of carved jade, a golden necklace that clashed with Oikawa’s hair, a leather-bound journal and fountain pen set that looked like it was inset with tiger’s eye, and the roundest melon that Hanamaki has ever seen — only one item was approved for Oikawa to keep.
A candle.
‘A candle? But that’s so boring! Can’t we eat the melon? Won’t it go to waste?’ Hanamaki can hear Oikawa’s voice in his head so clearly that he might need to start charging him rent for taking up residence there.
Yachi’s helpfully put the cost of the candle — 3,750 yen — as well as the website, which Hanamaki clicks through.
He has a theory.
A stupid one.
One that is going to make his job so much more annoying.
The website looks normal - the usual mix of citrusy and leather scents that high end candle brands prefer — but none of them match the minimalist packaging and pale shade of the one gifted to Oikawa.
Which he took, by the way, despite his snide protests.
It’s in one of the harder to find sections of the website that Hanamaki finds it; under a tab marked ‘For Special Occasions’, it’s listed as a gift for an Alpha, and a customizable one at that.
And there’s a special option, one that brings the cost to way higher than 3,750 yen, that — pennies to profiteroles — Hanamaki will bet that Oikawa’s dinnermate — whose gifts seemed a little too personal for a business deal — took advantage of.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Coffee break in an hour?
I’m gonna need it.
“Makki! You know I’m a very busy man,” Oikawa says, wearing the fake glasses he only puts on when he’s trying to pretend to be busy. It only really works on Yahaba. “Can’t this wait?”
Hanamaki closes the door behind him, very aware that Iwaizumi’s head is poking out of his office and glaring in their general direction. Every day of his life Hanamaki is grateful that pheromones are as imperceptible to him as like… Atoms, or the fine print at the bottom of a free trial sign up, because he’d probably be cowering from whatever Iwaizumi’s putting out.
He’s seen Yahaba — for all the Alpha he is — run away from Iwaizumi with his tail between his legs.
“Your afternoon is booked for — let me check my notes,” Hanamaki says, squinting at his clipboard, which currently has a blank sheet on top of it, “going through your emails.”
“They really do pile up!”
Hanamaki pretends not to notice that Oikawa is frantically trying to turn his monitor away from him — the monitor, open to Outlook, which has a completely empty inbox. “You should really get a privacy screen,” Hanamaki says, already scribbling down a reminder to sign Oikawa up for more security training since he’s a perfect target for corporate espionage.
Instead, he takes a deep breath, and starts to recite a familiar speech in a practiced voice. “As Seijoh Inc.’s Dynamic Relations Specialist, I’m here to walk through and assess a report raised about you—”
“Dammit, Iwa-chan!”
“Nicknames, Oikawa,” Hanamaki reminds him. He won’t bring up the language, this time. “And remember, I am a neutral representative of the company.”
“I knew you always liked Iwa-chan more than me,” Oikawa huffs, crossing his arms and frowning at Hanamaki like they’re in elementary school and he wasn’t picked first for their sports team. “I knew you favored him. That’s why you’re entertaining his nonsense!”
Honestly, if Hanamaki had a choice — and there were any need to pick between the two of them — he’d pick Oikawa. Iwaizumi’s a little too intimidating and keeps trying to get Hanamaki to go running with him on weekends.
Not jogging. Running. That’s illegal for anyone over the age of 27. Iwaizumi is trying to murder him.
Maybe he should raise an HR case against him for that.
“I’m not here to cast aspersion, or blame,” Hanamaki continues, in the same bored tone of voice he relies on when he’s trying to hide his amusement or frustration, “but instead to find the root cause of the dispute and guide us towards a way to rectify the core issue, so we can all be a big and happy Seijoh family.”
He concludes with a smile.
Oikawa, who has listened to this same spiel over a dozen times already — Hanamaki’s stopped counting because it triggers his depression — claps snidely.
“Nice speech,” he says, the way he always does. “Did your daddy write it for you?”
“Please do not call Ushijima my father.” Hanamaki can’t bring himself to say the d-word, so instead he scribbles a little doodle of Oikawa’s grave on his notes before erasing it because Ushijima does in fact look at those. “Anyway, I can tell you have a little bit of an idea why I’m here, right Oikawa?”
Maybe his smile is a little strained.
The good part about being a Beta is that he doesn’t have to smell the way Oikawa relaxes; he’s heard — from Iwaizumi, over post-work drinks that he couldn’t get out of — that Oikawa smells like mint and leather, and the very idea of it makes Hanamaki itchy.
Unfortunately, he does have to watch it happen: Oikawa slipping off his (useless) glasses and rubbing at the bridge of his nose.
“Iwa-chan’s being mean.”
“Clarity of language, man, we’ve talked about this.”
“And I meant what I said! He’s being mean! You saw how much of a grump he was in the elevator today, and he’s been like that all day. Just grumpy and short and mad at me- Well, I guess he was already pretty short, huh, Makki?”
Hanamaki would rather forget riding in an elevator with them, and the reminder that he has to stay for an extra hour to make up for his tardiness makes him want to sink into the floor or spontaneously bloom.
“Did he happen to mention why?”
“He said my scent was wrong.” Oikawa sneers the last word, as if his — “My scent is the best. Everyone knows that!”
Wow.
Shot? Chaser.
“He only said it was wrong, not that it was bad, right?” There’s no reason he has to tell Oikawa what Iwaizumi said in the ticket.
“Iwa-chan said I smelled like the wrong side of the dumpster. What does that even mean!”
“It means,” Hanamaki says, leaning forward and putting his pencil down on Oikawa’s desk, after pushing aside one of the five different awards for Recognition at Seijoh he keeps lined up, making sure to avoid the framed picture of him and his nephew, “that our dear Iwa-chan might be able to make a killing as a writer, if that’s how good his metaphors are.”
Oikawa blinks, and then springs forward to point an accusatory finger at Hanamaki. “Nicknames are against employee policy, Makki!”
This is going to be the longest fifteen minutes of his life.
“And that’s when I told him about the candle,” Hanamaki says an hour later, spitting out a mouthful of crumbs that Matsukawa wipes up without a second thought. “Thank you,” he amends, around the croissant Matsukawa’s ordered for him.
It’s no choux cream, but it’ll do.
“What candle?” Matsukawa asks, raising an eyebrow lazily, if that were possible. He’s not sure what it is about Matsukawa but everything he does looks fluid and leisurely, like he’s a model in one of those television ads pretending to wake up for the first time in the morning. Even when he takes a sip of his hibiscus tea he looks graceful, unlike Hanamaki, who definitely has a white mustache from the whipped cream in his hot chocolate and — “Makki?”
“Hmm?”
“What candle?”
Oh.
He must have gotten lost in thought.
“You’re gonna hate it,” Hanamaki says, swallowing down the last of his croissant and mourning it already. He sees Matsukawa eyeing the counter, like he’s going to go up and get another croissant for Hanamaki and a matching canele for him. “No,” he kicks Matsukawa’s ankle under the table, making him huff, “it’s not two-pastry bad.”
“I hope you’re not lying to me, Makki.”
“Would I ever lie to you?” Hanamaki winks, and then adds — “except for October 28th,” he cuts in hastily, seeing Matsukawa open his mouth.
It snaps shut.
“Anyway,” he continues, not removing his foot from Matsukawa’s ankle, “that stupid candle that Oikawa got? He had it lit all last night while trying out the meditation techniques Ushijima’s been pushing. Yachi had it down as a bergamot-yuzu scent, but get this! It was doctored up. The Omega gifting it had their actual pheromones imbued in the wax. Apparently you’re supposed to light it when your Alpha is in pre-rut to soothe their symptoms or something.”
“Or something?” Matsukawa leans forward in interest.
Hanamaki nods, and drops his voice a notch. “But I saw online that people use these candles in order to covertly scent an Alpha to try and claim them.”
Matsukawa blinks, his expression going blank. “What does that mean?”
Sweet summer Mattsun, innocent boy, born into a family full of Betas and not in possession of the cursed knowledge that Hanamaki has.
His family? They were so sure he’d present as an Omega. Every Hanamaki fell into one extreme or another, and he’d been brought into the Omega fold to prepare him for his future.
When the doctors finally revealed that Beta was his true nature, his family had stopped including him in those same channels, and for a while he’d felt like a failure.
But then he realized he could parlay his knowledge into a career, and make money off of his childhood trauma.
“It’s like —” he doesn’t really want to say it, he realizes, so instead he rests his hand on Matsukawa’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“I am barely a month younger than you.”
“But rest assured, when Iwaizumi said that Oikawa smelled horrible, he meant it. Oikawa thought it was a normal candle, because the pheromones and the scent were pretty similar and he acclimated to it, but Iwaizumi could smell the Omega’s all over him. It’s all because of the candle! Come on, Mattsun, congratulate me, I’m a genius.”
Matsukawa frowns, like he’s thinking. Hanamaki’s hand is touching him.
He’ll only let go if Matsukawa says something about it
“And Yachi didn’t catch it? The candle, I mean.”
“She’s a Beta! She shouldn’t have to catch stuff like this.” And neither should I, Hanamaki thinks, but now his career revolves around the life and times of Alphas and Omegas. “It’s not her fault, but I’ll have to make a detailed note in the ticket to make that clear.”
That’s what he plans to spend the extra hour he has to stay doing, at least.
Funny how things work out.
As he relaxes to finish off his drink — and because they should really start heading back to the office around now — he lets his hand slide down Matsukawa’s suit jacket.
If he were an Omega like his parents thought he’d be, he’d leave a trail of his scent on the fabric. But because he’s a Beta, he just leaves a remnant of his cologne — the one Matsukawa bought him for christmas, because “you’re an adult, man, smell like it.”
And isn’t that kinda the same thing?
He’s about to apologize preemptively for having to miss their post-work hang — he’d never make Matuskawa wait for him in a crowded bar. He’s too handsome! Someone might steal him away — when Matuskawa suddenly jolts upright.
“Wait, wait, wait. So what you’re saying is that Iwaizumi thought that Oikawa smelled like an Omega, and he thought that was disgusting?’”
Hanamaki frowns, and Matuskawa leans forward to brush off the remnants of whipped cream from his lip.
It’s probably against the employee handbook, but what does he care?
“Yeah,” Hanamaki replies, slowly. “What, you think it means something?”
“I don’t wanna think about them at all,” Matsukawa shudders.
Yeah.
That’s the best course of action.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Seriously???????
Makki it’s a three hour training course. I have deliverables!! Do you hate me? Yes or no.
[Oikawa Tooru has invited you to fill out a poll!]
From: [email protected]
Subject: can’t you just walk to my desk like a normal person
Message: this is unsanctioned and approved software, Oikawa, do you want me to report it?
[Oikawa Tooru has [revoked] a message]
Incident Type: Uncategorized - Reporter Comment: I am scared.
Reported by: Kyoutani Kentarou Employee ID: 071216
Incident Description: Please do not make me type this out. It is embarrassing.
HR Comment: Kyoutani, please. Just a few words.
Ticket Status: Deleted by Reporter.
Ticket Status: Reinstated by HR.
HR Comment: I will make sure that Yahaba does not touch the hazelnut coffee pods. Don’t delete this ticket.
Updated Incident Description: They are fucking in the bathroom.
It’s been a hell of a Friday, and someone is knocking on Hanamaki’s office door.
Isn’t that illegal? It’s 8PM and he’s had to stay late dealing with the whole mess that had emerged this late afternoon, first by — metaphorically — tugging Oikawa and Iwaizumi apart and then trying to convince Kyoutani to not quit on the spot.
This is very harrowing stuff, for HR. Career counseling is not on Hanamaki’s CV.
The knocking continues, relentless but soft, and It’s almost soothing in a weird way. It keeps pace with the pulse of his headache, the migraine that hasn’t quite gone away since he read Kyoutani’s report and realized the 8th floor bathroom wasn’t locked for maintenance at all, unless you count maintaining sexual health.
“Makki? You there? Forget it, I’m coming in,” he hears, and of course it’s Matsukawa.
“I thought you went home already,” Hanamaki says.
He’d emailed him hours ago, explaining that there was an emergency with a capital Y and he couldn’t make it to their standing Friday night dinner & bitch session that they never missed, even if they’d spent every single day that week talking to each other, grumbling over their Alpha and Omega colleagues.
There’d been a little sting of regret as he sent it, too. Yahaba has his group dates, Kindaichi and Kunimi attend a board game club, Oikawa does something that has him giddy all afternoon. Iwaizumi jogs.
Matsukawa and Hanamaki go to dinner, and he gets the chance to admire the way Matsukawa looks when he’s unraveling himself after a long week.
He frowns as Matsukawa enters his office with a big plastic bag and a few bottles balanced in the crook of his elbow. He’s not wearing his suit jacket — or a tie — and he’s unbuttoned the top of his shirt, leaving a little glimpse of his neck and chest, and the silvery chain he always wears. And — even worse for Hanamaki’s sanity — his sleeves are rolled up, revealing strong forearms that make Hanamaki think he’s been working out with Oikawa.
He’s violating five separate points of their employee dress code. Hanamaki cannot find it within him to care.
“I did.” Matsukawa frowns at the mess of Hanamaki’s desk, before putting the bag and the drinks down and starting to clean it off, aligning Hanamaki’s notes and pens exactly the way he likes. “In fact, I got all the way home before I decided to check my phone, and do you know what I saw, Makki?”
“If it requires a report to HR, please refrain from submitting it until Monday.”
Matsukawa laughs, just a little huff of a thing, and it loosens the tight, stressed spool in Hanamaki’s chest, the knot of tension he’s been riding all afternoon and evening.
“I had an unconscionable number of texts and missed calls from Oikawa,” he says, clapping his hands before resting them on his hips to survey how clean he’s made Hanamaki’s desk. “So many voice messages. I had my jacket off, Makki. I was about to start cooking. But Oikawa was apologizing to me, and asking me to ‘please check in on Makki, pretty please, it’s all my fault that he’s having a horrible Friday night and I don’t want him to hate me.’”
“Nice Oikawa impression.” Hanamaki leans back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest as he raises an eyebrow at Matsukawa, who raises a matching one back. “Didja practice it?”
“Just for you, Makki,” Matsukawa croons. “Don’t report me to HR?”
That makes him smile. “I’m off the clock officially, Mattsun, as of,” he looks at his watchless wrist, ”fifteen minutes ago.”
“Then why were you still here?”
“Decompressing,” Hanamaki shrugs. “Plus I was scared that Oikawa might be standing outside of my door, waiting to confront me.”
“He just wanted to apologize, probably,” Matsukawa says, looking back at the closed door like he suddenly shares Hanamaki’s fear. “You were right. I think he was waiting until seven before giving up.”
Hanamaki was locked in his office with Kyoutani until at least 7:30pm. Thank god Oikawa had left before Kyoutani emerged, because it would have ruined all of his hard work, and then he’d probably be here till midnight.
“But what does Oikawa have to do with you coming back to the office?” Matsukawa lives a whole thirty minute train ride away, instead of the quick bike ride Hanamaki has.
Matsukawa starts unloading the contents of the plastic bag. At first, Hanamaki thought they might be full of snacks from the Lawson near the office, but even the idea of cold konbini food sounded like a feast when the only sustenance he’s had since morning was a soft apple he found in the back of his desk and the vending machine cup ramen he’d treated Kyoutani to during this whole mess.
Instead — manna from heaven — it’s takeout from Hanamaki’s favorite lunch spot near the office. He didn’t know they did dinner. The boxes of Korean fried chicken smell amazing as Matsukawa opens their lids. There’s a mysterious paper box next to them too, that looks like it might be from his second favorite bakery, but Matsukawa smacks his hand away when he reaches towards them.
“When he realized you weren’t going to come out of your office, he sent me money and told me to make sure you had dinner, and to ‘treat myself to a little somethin’ special,’ too.”
“Wow,” Hanamaki lets out a low whistle. “He didn’t expense it?”
“That would have been improper,” Matsukawa says with a straight face, and that’s what makes Hanamaki break, finally.
He launches into laughter, doubling over so his forehead makes contact with his desk. After a moment of this, he feels Matsuakwa’s hand rest on the middle of his back, big and warm and grounding, and that just makes him feel free to laugh more, tears springing to his eyes.
This whole day has been improper, starting from the moment he saw the ping from Kyoutani in his inbox.
Demonic little Kyouken-chan, as Oikawa called him once, last year, when Kyoutani had just joined their IT department and blocked Oikawa from using Oikawa13 as a passcode.
Normally, he has nothing to report to Hanamaki. As a fellow Beta, they’ve shared a few nods of mutual displeasure when they sit next to each other at all-staff meetings, watching Alphas near-rut posture and preen at the Omegas from Research & Development. Hanamaki takes notes of their names and employee IDs because he knows they’ll need a few extra days of rut-leave and he’ll definitely have to ruin Yahaba’s afternoon about it. But their IT department is full of Betas — it’s him, Koganegawa, and Tsukishima — and if there are any complaints there, it’s someone else’s problem.
But today, Iwaizumi had a problem with his laptop, and Kyoutani was the lucky little duckling who had to help him. When he’d arrived at Iwaizumi’s office — after triaging as much of the problem as he could from his desk, sending him a meeting invitation, and getting there right on time with sufficient forewarning — Iwaizumi wasn’t there.
In fact — according to Kyoutani — the whole of marketing was uncharacteristically quiet, with the exception of Matsukawa, plugging away at his analysis.
And the exception of the single user stall at the end of the hallway.
“It sounded like someone was dying,” Kyoutani said, “like a wounded dog.”
After stifling his laughter, Hanamaki smoothed that language over in the official record; Kyoutani has a particular way with language that suits him just fine in IT but would get him reprimanded elsewhere.
Kyoutani — burdened by a mix of concern and curiosity — went to investigate.
“And then,” he shuddered, “I made the worst mistake of my life. I opened the door.”
It was unlocked, and inside he caught —
Of all people —
Oikawa and Iwaizumi, engaged in an extracurricular affair.
Kyoutani screamed.
Iwaizumi yelled.
Oikawa, whose mouth was full of Iwaizumi’s neck, gasped and said “Kyouken-chan!”
And Matsukawa emerged from his office, drawn away from his SQL queries by the sudden din, just in time to see Kyoutani bolting through the hallway and down the stairs.
“That’s what I missed?” Matsukawa says, once Hanamaki’s regaled him with a summary of his day — nothing that’s confidential, he’s a good employee, dammit, but enough — and they’ve polished off the chicken. He’s using his long and elegant fingers to untie the ribbon on top of the bakery box. “I didn’t realize they were fucking. That answers half a dozen questions.”
Hanamaki winces. “And raises six more. You know that Kyoutani’s note about that is on the ticket forever? I had to close it once we were done. This is going to be the worst summary ever.”
Laughing, Matsukawa leans forward over the desk and pats him on the shoulder. It’s warm and consoling, and he’s grateful for it. “Fucking Alphas,” he says, holding the box to Hanamaki for his pick of the pastry.
This late, there were slim pickings available, but he takes the almond croissant with grace, leaving behind the strawberry — blech — scone for Matsukawa to eat.
“Fucking Omegas,” Hanamaki replies, closing his eyes as he bites into his croissant.
His shirt must be covered in crumbs and there’s probably frangipane and powdered sugar on his lips, but it’s practically medicine for how much it helps melt away all the stress of the day, as well as his foreknowledge of the impending nightmare of having to deal with all of the follow up on Monday morning.
And — maybe — while his eyes are closed, he feels Matsukawa’s hand against his chest, brushing away the hypothetical crumbs, lingering for a moment over his heartbeat, steady and firm.
When he opens his eyes, his shirt is clean and Matsukawa’s hands are occupied with his own scone.
His crumbs are nowhere to be seen.
From: [email protected]
Subject: emergency heat leave
Message: see subject
From: [email protected]
Subject: well that explains things
Message: granted and approved