A/N: Welcome to a surprise one-off continuation chapter.

Summary: In which Kosuke is forced to socialise, kind of makes a friend, and still refuses to talk about anything that may or may not be happening with those damned TVs.

A Burden Shared is a Burden... Halved?

Hanamura organised a company party to celebrate the end of the year.

This was an entirely unexpected turn of events. Nothing like this had happened last year - although Kosuke could admit that since the store had only been up and running for a handful of months at that point it would have felt out of place.

Still, Kosuke had been content with that imagined status quo. There were no work social groups, no attempts at employee team-building events - in essence, nothing that would force you to pretend to care more about the company than you really did.

(In a place like Inaba no one worked somewhere like Junes because they had a passion for it.)

This changed that.

In all honesty he had no interest in attending, but Big Boss Hanamura himself came on down to the security room to inform him of the party. Without a firm, realistic excuse not to go, Kosuke felt like he'd be playing with fire - betting on his job, or at least on any potential pay rises that might have been coming his way in the future - if he brushed it off and stayed home.

And so, with great reluctance, he accepted the invitation, dreading it all the while.

oOoOo

Erring on the side of caution, Kosuke donned his second nicest clothes - fancy enough for Inaba's standards, though maybe lax in the big city - before dragging himself to the Junes Company Party.

None of the teenage part-timers were invited to the event - they wouldn't have come regardless, but it meant no one needed to police the refreshments in case of under-age drinking at a business event. That was one less headache to deal with, sure, but it also meant that it was a room full of somewhat jaded adults at a gathering no one really wanted to be at.

The atmosphere was a little awkward, to be sure.

After exchanging polite nods with the boss from across the room - making sure that his arrival was noted so no one could accuse him of skipping out - he made a beeline for the refreshment table to check out the offerings.

The food was fairly run-of-the-mill. Faux-fancy finger foods side by side with don't-give-a-crap bowls of chips. Individually wrapped chocolates and slices of cheap cake. A fruit platter.

Kosuke picked a cheese-and-cracker combo at random just so he didn't look strange lingering too long, then moved over to the drinks table. They had wine, which was a good sign, but going straight for the alcohol barely five minutes in was probably a bad look. He could come back for it later. Instead he opted for a glass of apple juice and made his escape from the refreshments corner.

Once the continuous trickle of arrivals died down Hanamura positioned himself in the centre of the room and turned on a microphone.

Clearly, speech time had arrived.

Paying attention was only common courtesy, but Kosuke really didn't care about corporate drivel. He gave him half his attention, the information going in one ear and out the other.

Initially he figured he'd be fine like that, but his full attention was abruptly dragged back into focus when Hanamura started on a different topic.

"I would like to give special mention to our two senior Loss Prevention staff, Takeda and Kimura."

Kosuke shifted uncomfortably at the sudden name-drop, lifting his cup vaguely in acknowledgement when attention shifted momentarily in his direction. A woman on the other side of the room made a similarly awkward motion, marking her out as weekend-shift Kimura - Kosuke couldn't honestly remember if they had ever met face to face before during his entire employment so far, although the name was vaguely familiar from staring at staff lists and mass emails.

"In what is a nationwide company first, our little Junes store has managed a mind-blowing achievement this year: zero stock losses from the electronics department!"

Everyone clapped politely at Hanamura's enthusiastic announcement. Certainly it would reflect well on the man himself as branch manager, but Kosuke doubted anyone else would get anything out of it. Nothing going missing during January through March was a fluke - April through December was from hyper-vigilance.

Then again, Inaba had a significant ageing population - no one was really going to be out here trying to steal TVs or even DVD players. USBs or headphones at best, and that would be teenagers. Big-ticket items just weren't the right angle for theft.

Head Office - if they couldn't immediately come to the same conclusion themselves - would eventually work that out - if they even actually cared in the first place - and Hanamura would stop receiving any sort of praise for minor achievements like that. No one was interested in rocking the boat by pointing that out to the man himself, so they let him celebrate.

With his peace of mind thoroughly shaken, by the time Hanamura finally finished his speeches Kosuke was regretting grabbing juice instead of alcohol, and he intended to head back to the refreshments table to rectify that mistake immediately, but he noticed someone approaching and paused.

It was Kimura.

She was carrying two glasses and extended one to him in lieu of a greeting.

Kosuke accepted it automatically, not wanting to prematurely make the situation awkward by leaving her hanging. When he actually looked down into it, the glass was filled with whatever wine they were serving tonight.

That saved him the trip, at least.

"Kimura Aya," she introduced herself, tone no-nonsense but not unkind.

"Takeda Kosuke."

Kimura nodded, then turned to lean against the wall next to him.

She was about half a head shorter than him in her modest business heels, and reasonably near his own age, in that undefinable late-20s early-30s space, if he were forced to guess.

He came here to fulfil a business obligation, not to socialise, but he also wasn't a total jackass who would walk off when someone approached him. With his newly gifted alcohol in hand there was nowhere else he needed to be, so he could entertain whatever this was for a bit.

Copying her lean Kosuke took a sip of the wine. Drinkable, but nothing to write home about. Probably a brand from the shop floor that hadn't been selling well.

"So, Yosuke's had a busy year."

Kosuke blinked at her in confusion. Was that supposed to be someone he knew? Did he know a Yosuke? The name sounded vaguely familiar…

A shudder ran down his spine as the name clicked into place in his mind: Hanamura Yosuke. The boss' kid. One of the primary sources of his nightmares.

Kimura's gaze was glued to the crowd in front of them, not giving him a single glance.

He looked at his glass, overcome by an urge to drain the whole thing in one go and make a run for it, politeness be damned. She brought this with her for a reason.

"I'm going to need something stronger than this if you want to talk about things like that."

She laughed.

The urge to run continued to battle his determination to not make a fool of himself at a staff function.

"I'll leave you the directions to my secret stash."

Drinking on the clock?

Actually, why hadn't Kosuke considered that before now?

(Because forgetting was just as bad as remembering.)

"Much appreciated."

He'd just swipe some to take home for some off-the-clock drinking if it was good.

"Besides," she took a sip from her own glass. "I don't really want to talk about it either. I just wanted to know if you knew, since the opportunity presented itself so nicely."

Oh, good.

He could handle that much.

Probably.

"Really makes you wish you were working literally anywhere else, huh?"

She laughed again.

"I'll drink to that."

They clinked their glasses together in solemn solidarity, and spent the rest of the evening quietly drinking in the corner.

oOoOo

Was it strange to spend your free time hanging around Yaso-Inaba Station? Absolutely. Some people might feel the urge to people watch at train stations in the city, but out here in the countryside it was a veritable ghost-town. If you wanted some time to yourself you'd be better served staying home.

Was it weirder still to be hanging around Yaso-Inaba Station in order to surreptitiously watch over a send-off for someone you've never personally interacted with in your life? Undeniably. If one of Kosuke's friends confessed to doing anything of the sort he'd be incredibly judgemental about it.

And yet, well, here he was doing that exact thing. His only saving grace was that Aya was also here.

That was actually just a happy coincidence. They'd talked occasionally since the holiday party, but Kosuke wouldn't consider them close enough friends that he'd dare to broach the idea with her. After all, they did their utmost to talk about almost anything but their shared horror experience.

But it seemed that even without talking it over, the two people cursed with watching over Junes had come to the same conclusion: there could be no true closure to the events of the past year if they didn't watch the ringleader leave town with their own eyes.

"Is it cruel to hope he never comes back?" Kosuke asked softly, watching the group of teenagers exchange teary-eyed hugs with their pale-haired friend from the shadows near the station entrance.

Aya jabbed him in the side with a sharp elbow.

"Hey! Surely the kids would be more than happy to travel to the city to visit him! He doesn't need to come back here."

"It's more cost effective if he's the only one travelling."

There was a lilt in her tone that clearly implied she was arguing simply for the sake of riling him up.

"Rather than being scared of him coming back, how about we instead hope that they'll put this year behind them as a weird teenage phase and never do it again?"

To be fair to the kids, it had been a little while since Kosuke last caught sight of one of their ventures into the unknown. They might have already put an end to it and he was just being paranoid. Still, it was a pretty difficult thing to just shake off and put behind you, perhaps more-so from an observer's perspective.

"I wish I could erase the last year from my memory."

Aya chuckled quietly. Of the two of them she was by far the better-adjusted to the whole situation, even if she too kept it all deep inside.

"You'll get over it."

"Not until Hanamura graduates."

Seeing the kid at work would only serve as a continuous reminder until he left for university. If he even decided to go to one. He didn't strike Kosuke as a kid content to work in his dad's store his whole life, so he'd leave one way or another, he just really hoped it was sooner rather than later.

"In that case, we'll have to have a little celebration when he quits his job."

A final wrap party.

"Sounds like a plan."

They watched the kid board his train, still swarmed by friends and family, then high-tailed it out of the station before the crowd could begin to disperse. It would have been incredibly awkward to get caught out by them as they were leaving.

As they stepped out into the watery spring sunlight, Kosuke attempted to gather some positivity. 2012 was going to be a perfectly normal, unremarkable year, and that was all he wanted from the very bottom of his heart.