Cardinal sin

Patience

Keigo was not a patient man.

He was used to getting what he wanted, money, fame, women. Especially women. When you started working at his office, he immediately felt drawn to you. He could tell you clearly wanted him, but you were just so goddamn avoidant. Coy and shy, you flitted about the workspace so anxiously it made HIM anxious. He watched you a lot that first month- not out of attraction initially, but curiosity. You had some strange mannerisms, things he'd notice that most people wouldn't. He was observant. He grew to know you from afar. He caught on to your routines, your movements, your 'isms.

You brought the same thing for lunch every day, you made your coffee in a very specific order. Cream first- which he initially found a little strange, but ultimately ignored. That is, until he saw how slow you would pour your coffee. You wanted to cool it, he realized. You were impatient, and you would wince when it would inevitably burn your lip. You were also fond of sugar. So much so, that when your coffee ran low in your mug, he could see a congealed mess of the stuff at the bottom of it, undissolved despite your incessant stirring and the definitive heat of the liquid.

The mug made sense, at first. He kept the staff room stocked with his official merchandise because it was free, but that mug... it wasn't one he had offered. No, it came out years ago. The tiny colorful dots that would only show up in the presence of a hot liquid signified it was part of a winter holiday collection- limited edition. Someone had bought that for you- it was a gift clearly well-loved. You used it every single day, after all, forgoing a travel mug even in public transport. If a person you loved that much had given you that mug, it clearly meant they knew you well. The fact that it was his official merchandise should have been inconsequential... except it wasn't. Because it HAD clearly come from someone who put great thought into it- and that meant that someone associated YOU with HIM. It meant that you talked about him a lot, that you thought about him a lot. You had it before you started working in the office, and since you started in October, it meant you'd had it at the very least almost a year, before you had graduated High School.

You'd at least been thinking about him since then.

He studied your cubicle one day, after you had left for the night. He was EXCITED about what he had found.

First, there was your notepad. Again, his wings were depicted on the front. The print date on the back confirmed his theory- it was three years old. Well-loved, very well taken care of. You took great care of items in your possession. There were no stray marks on this notebook, unlike the others that held little doodles and random thoughts. This one was only full of phone numbers, and important addresses. He hadn't meant to read it, in case it was some kind of diary, but he couldn't help it. He had been drawn in by the desire to see your handwriting. The other notebooks had more juicy details about your life, but he'd avoided reading them as he found them, especially when he'd spotted a small sketch of a pair of very bird-like eyes in the upper right-hand corner of a page full of notes on a meeting you had both attended. He remembered catching you staring at him during that meeting no less than four times. You blushed so hard he'd contemplated telling you to take the day off- you'd almost looked sick.

Next was the pictures on your desk. Your parents, you didn't seem too close to them. There was only one picture, it was from Christmas. You were wearing that Burgundy sweater you wore every day. You grinned, holding up the mug. He was right again, it was taken recently- probably last year. There were some pictures of a scruffy-looking cat, it looked absolutely feral in most of the pictures, but it sat atop your shoulder like a parrot and nuzzled against your face in one picture in particular. Keigo paused. So, you had a track record of taming wild beasts? He chuckled at his own thought. Last was a picture of you and a group of girls, all wearing the UA gym uniform. He recognized some of the faces from interactions he'd had with other heroes' sidekicks. There were no pictures of men other than the one that was obviously your father. No boyfriend. He noticed how few of those pictures actually had you in them. He didn't like that. Why were you missing from your own life? Maybe you were camera shy? A shame, you were so beautiful, after all.