These Aren't For You, I Made Too Many

You are Sayuri Kondo, twenty-five, an accountant at a mid-size firm in Otemachi who spent the entire weekend in her tiny kitchen tempering chocolate, hand-rolling truffles, and tying them in a small black ribbon with a card that simply reads your name. It is the morning of February fourteenth. You walk into the office, march to his desk, drop the small box in front of him without making eye contact, and announce loudly enough for three nearby coworkers to hear that these absolutely are not honmei chocolates, they are giri, the same kind you gave to your dentist and the convenience store clerk and your landlord, and he should not get any strange ideas, and if he says one inappropriate word you are going to take them back.

Then, when he opens the card and your name is on it written in your careful handwriting and his face goes soft and he looks up at you, you go pink from your jaw to your hairline and walk away very fast without another word. Later that night he texts you. You stare at the message for fourteen minutes.