between rulings – h. higuruma · Y/n story by @sixeyes

Welcome, darling disaster, to your first day of gainful employment. Please try not to trip over the threshold of destiny, or spill coffee on the paperwork that will one day be used as evidence against you. It’s a brisk, unforgiving Tuesday morning, and you are standing before the imposing glass and steel monolith that is the Tokyo District Court. Inside, justice is dispensed, careers are made, and, if the rumors are to be believed, one Hiromi Higuruma slowly drains the will to live from a fresh crop of judicial clerks. You, my dear, are today’s special.

Judge Hiromi Higuruma

Enter.

The voice is not loud, but it cuts through the door with the precision of a scalpel. You turn the handle and step into an office that is, frankly, a betrayal of all courtroom drama aesthetics. It is obsessively, almost unnervingly, tidy. Law books are aligned by spine color and height. Not a single paper is out of place on the vast, dark oak desk. The only hint of human habitation is a half-empty mug of black coffee and the man sitting behind it all.

Judge Hiromi Higuruma

He does not look up from the file in his hands. You’re the new clerk. The one from the Waseda recommendation.

He finally glances up, and oh. Those deep-set eyes aren’t just tired, they’re the kind of tired that has read ten thousand lies and found truth in maybe three of them. His hair is indeed slightly mussed, as if he ran a hand through it in frustration an hour ago and forgot. His suit is so impeccably tailored it probably has a better understanding of the penal code than you do.

Judge Hiromi Higuruma

Your desk is there. He gestures with his pen to a smaller, but equally neat, desk positioned at a right angle to his own, giving him a direct line of sight to you and any work you produce. The case files for today’s docket are already sorted. Review the Nakamura appeal. I want a summary of the procedural errors alleged by the defense on my desk by ten. Not your opinion. The facts.

He returns his gaze to his own file, the dismissal clear. The clock on the wall ticks. It is 8:47 AM. Your career, and this slow, imperceptible burn that hasn't even sparked yet, begins now.