Silence reigned for a few moments while I digested his words.
But it didn't go down right and I shook my head. "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you, Mr. Miyano."
Chairman Hamazaki made a small sound in the back of his throat, rubbing his chin in a thoughtful manner. "I find it interesting that even though we are the only people in this room, you have yet to dispense with the formalities."
"Formalities?" I said weakly. "I'm not sure if I—"
He rolled his eyes up. "Oh, come now, I'm not a fool. I may be old and weak, but I know my grandson well enough to know there is truth to the rumors floating around the company for the past week." A brow rose. "That and the way he treated you when the security guards tried to take you away. I must say, I never thought my grandson would ever grow to care for anyone. He's always been such a cold, formal thing."
"He's not cold or dispassionate," I said, forgetting who I was speaking to. "Nobuki is one of the most passionate people I know!"
I clapped a hand to my mouth, horrified and embarrassed I could say such things to the company CEO.
But the damage had already been done and things once said cannot be unsaid.
Next to me, Nobuki sucked in a breath and the chairman chuckled, the sound coming from deep in his stomach.
"Oh yes." He nodded. "I thought you might say that."
The smile slipped off his face as though it had never been there at all. "Now the question is…what do I do with you?"
Meanwhile, I was still trying to come to grasps that the chairman was Nobuki's grandfather.
I held up a hand. "Wait, please. You're Nobuki's grandfather?"
He nodded. "On his mother's side. Yuuko is my middle daughter. I have three daughters."
I flicked a glance at Nobuki's expressionless face. "But…Mr. Miyano told me that as a child, he wasn't rich."
"You are referring to his father's rather unfortunate lack of business acumen," said the old man. "Yes, there was a time when my daughter and grandchildren suffered for it."
Nobuki stiffened, his hands curling into fists on the table. "We didn't suffer."
Mr. Hamazaki sighed and leaned back in his seat, his gaze contemplative. "I'm sure it's easy for you to say. If Yuuko hadn't gone against my wish and married that foo—" He closed his mouth with another sigh. "If she hadn't married Daikichi, she wouldn't have had to work in a restaurant. Your sister wouldn't have had to work part-time at a convenience store."
Nobuki's face darkened.
The old man tilted his head to one side. "On the other hand, if Yuuko hadn't married Daikichi, then I would've never had such exemplary grandchildren. Makoto is training junior champion athletes, while here you are, the youngest manager in Shokogan history." His gaze slid to me. "His relationship to me is a closely-guarded secret. After all, I did publicly disown my daughter after she married a former Yakuza member."
I was mind-boggled, and the inside of my head was curiously blank. "Why didn't you help your daughter or grandchildren when your son-in-law lost his job?" I nodded to Nobuki. "Did you know your grandson tried to get a job delivering newspapers when he was a child to help pay the bills?"
"Rika," said Nobuki. "Forget it. It was a long time ago."
Mr. Hamazaki winced and his shoulders slumped. "I…am not proud of myself then. I told Yuuko that if she divorced Daikichi, she could have anything she and her children wanted." He tapped the table, a corner of his lips twisting up in a facsimile of a smile. "She told me to go to hell and the next thing I knew, she was flinging plates of fried rice at a Chinese restaurant."
Nobuki's lips thinned. "Can we not talk about this? What's the point of rehashing the past?"
"Perhaps an old, stupid man wishes to make amends." Chairman Hamazaki's voice wavered and my own chest tightened in sympathy.
"It doesn't matter. Dad's doing well and Mom has anything she wants," said Nobuki, adjusting his glasses.
"Indeed," replied his grandfather. "Which brings me to you two. Unfortunately, I am now faced with the problem of your, hmm, rather inappropriate office contact."
For some reason, I was having a really hard time understanding everything. "I don't understand. Why did you tell me about Nobuki's past? What does that have anything to do with our situation now?"
"I suppose I did do that in a roundabout way, but I was comparing what I thought I knew about my grandson to how he is now," said Chairman Hamazaki. "While being an outstanding student, an efficient, competent employee, I thought he lacked…hmm, passion. I was not sure if he cared for the job at all." The old man pulled his chair back around to face the table and looked at us over his steepled, bony fingers. "I don't have long in this world, but I want to go knowing that I am leaving Shokogan in the best hands possible. If my grandson feels nothing for this company, is it not a grandfather's duty to set him free? That is the conundrum I faced, until a week ago. Until the rumors started of a certain manager and his executive assistant."
He laughed. "I couldn't believe it when my secretary told me the people involved where my own grandson and his secretary. Nobuki has always been straitlaced and very proper, almost annoyingly formal. I couldn't understand how such a breach in conduct could have happened. But then I met you."
His smile widened.
"I don't know how you did it, but you roused an entire company to fight on your behalf…to fight for my grandson, whom I'm sure did not go out of his way to make allies." He shook his head, starting to laugh a little under his breath. "But when you fell and he went to you, I saw passion in him after all. He can feel. He's not a mindless, emotionless automaton after all. And you are the one responsible."
My face went hot. I had no idea where I was supposed to look. "I'm not that great. I don't even—I'm…"
I was stammering like an idiot, but to be honest, I felt like one, so talking like one was to be expected, right?
"Nobuki, what would you have done if I fired her?" he said, his gaze back on his grandson.
Nobuki's eyes narrowed. "I would have resigned in protest."
Chairman Hamazaki let out a loud burst of laughter, hitting the table hard. "You see! My grandson has feelings after all!" Then he turned to me. "And you, Miss Hasegawa, what would you do if I fire Nobuki right now?"
I lifted my chin. "I would resign."
"Is that so?" The old man leaned back in his seat. "It is a conundrum. I can't fire both of you. If I did, Shimatani would die of a heart attack, and Shokogan most definitely can't survive losing three otherwise exemplary employees at once."
He picked up a pen and tapped it on the glass table, his gaze steady on us.
"So the question is…what do I do with you? Do I fire you both, make an example, and risk losing half the company, or do I keep you both on, and have Mrs. Katsura yell at me for the next few weeks?"
Nobuki said nothing, but I had to.
I couldn't stay silent.
"Sir, your grandson works harder than anyone else in this company," I said. "He's here in the morning at six and works for at least twelve hours. What more can you ask for? How can you fire an employee who sacrifices so much?"
Nobuki released a small sound in the back of his throat. "Rika, stop."
"I won't," I hissed, keeping my gaze straight, on the old man who held both our fates in his hands. "It's the truth. If anyone's going to get fired, it's going to be me."
"Don't be stubborn," he fired back.
"Sorry, I think you must be talking about the wrong person," I countered.
And though this, his grandfather looked on with something akin to amusement in the tilt of his brows.
He sighed. "And yet…it occurs to me that Mrs. Katsura is long overdue for a vacation."
I stared at him, all words, all thoughts turning into fog under the warmth of a morning sun.
"She could do with a vacation," he continued, the pen continuing to pink-pink on the table. "Three weeks. All expenses paid, of course. It's the least we can do for such an esteemed employee. God knows she's been with us long enough." He harrumphed. "Preferably somewhere far, far away. I'm told Hawaii is quite nice this time of year."
I hardly dared to breathe. "So…"
He smiled. "Unfortunately for Mrs. Katsura, I'm afraid that Shokogan Publishing will maintain its current Foreign Marketing team."
Nobuki let out a slow breath and I stood up, even though my legs felt like jelly.
"So…" I repeated, clenching the edge of the table, just in case.
"You're not fired. Nor my grandson." The corners of Chairman Hamazaki's eyes crinkled. "Please take care of him. He can be rather cold, but if what you said is true, you're the only one who can turn a statue into a human being."
"Grandfather," said Nobuki. He almost sounded embarrassed, but that didn't seem like an emotion Nobuki was capable of showing.
Chairman Hamazaki stood up, clapping his hands. "I think we've wasted enough time. Shall we get back to work?"
Nobuki stood up and bowed low at the waist. "Thank you, Chairman."
Back to the dutiful employee, but that was to be expected.
The old man nodded and stood up.
I did the same as Nobuki. "Thank you!"
And I meant it from the bottom of my heart.
The chairman paused on his way to the door and turned to us. "Ah, but one thing?"
"Yes?" said Nobuki.
"It would be a good idea to keep your relationship here professional." He smiled. "Otherwise, Mrs. Katsura will eat me alive."
***
Dizzy and weak, I stumbled out of the conference room and found myself staring at a hall full of Shokogan employees. A second passed and then I was beset by a wave of exclaiming humanity.
Ayaka flung herself at me, and I staggered as her weight sent me careening into the wall.
"Well?" she demanded, her hair all over the place as though she ran her hands though it continuously. "What happened?"
I gave her a thumbs up, grinning. "I've still got a job."
Meanwhile, Tadashi was shaking Nobuki's hand enthusiastically, whilst the latter looked less than happy to be caught in all the hubbub.
"I need to get back to the office," he said, shaking off all the other congratulatory handshakes and comments.
He bowed once more to the chuckling Chairman Hamazaki before leaving.
Or was it fleeing?
Ayaka put an arm around my neck and steered me towards the elevators, talking a mile a minute, so fast, I could hardly catch the individual words.
Haru and her circle of admirers were waiting, and Ayaka shot Haru a victory sign. "She got her job back."
Haru sniffed, crossing her arms, showing off her truly magnificent cleavage that was making some of the bigwigs waiting for an elevator googly-eyed and drooling. "So I gathered."
Her haughty attitude didn't faze me in the least, and I snuck out from under Ayaka's stranglehold around my neck, to put a hand on Haru's arm. "Ayaka told me what you did."
She turned her head to one side, looking away. "It's not like I did it for you or anything like that."
"No?" I was trying not to smile, but failed.
"Don't be silly, I barely know you," she sneered. "I did it for Nobuki. Like hell I'm going to let this company fire the best thing that's even happened to it."
"Somehow, I get the feeling you're not referring his stellar work reputation," said Ayaka dryly.
Haru's brows went up and without another word, stepped into the next available elevator that pinged open.
Before the doors closed, I shot her a grateful smile. "Thanks, Haru."
"Whatever," she muttered, but I thought I saw the muscles next to her mouth relax, maybe the corner of her lips kicking up.
From Haru, it was all but a high-five.
Ayaka gave me a quick squeeze around the shoulders and left, promising to take me out for dinner that weekend.
Somehow, it didn't feel right to leave while there were still people in the hallway, so I waited until the floor emptied of well-wishers before I pressed the down button for the next elevator.
"You must think you're so clever."
My shoulders stiffened as I recognized the sharp voice of Mrs. Katsura from behind me.
"Not really, Mrs. Katsura," I said, turning around slowly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to flaunt breaking the rules. But I couldn't let Mr. Miyano get fired. If it wasn't for me, there'd be no problems with him." I put a hand over my heart, feeling it beat steadily under my fingers. "You don't know because you're not with him all the time, but he works harder than anyone else." I bit the corner of my lip. "Maybe even more than you."
I braced myself for the onslaught of words that was sure to explode from her lips, but nothing came.
Instead, she just stood there, clipboard hugged to her meager chest, hair pulled back so severely her eyes were only slits.
"With all due respect, that is," I added somewhat belatedly. "I know you've sacrificed a lot for this company."
Her only response with a thinning of her already thin lips and her brows rising.
The elevator on the far right pinged as the doors slid open. I jumped in it like a condemned man getting a pardon while on the electric chair.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Katsura tromped in behind me. I thought I was going to choke to death in that thick, heavy silence that filled the entire car.
To say I was uncomfortable would've been the greatest understatement of the century.
She coughed, and I jumped at the sudden sound.
"No doubt you think I'm an unforgiving, ruthless biddy."
I stammered an unintelligible collection of rebuttals that faded under the severity of her glare over the rim of her glasses.
She sighed. "I suppose you wouldn't be too far from the truth. I can be ruthless, vindictive, even. It's not easy for women to survive in the business world, not in this country. How we can be considered a first-world country and yet face so much gender discrimination is a source of great anguish to me, Miss Hasegawa."
"You're respected very much, Mrs. Katsura."
She let out a hoarse sound that I belatedly realized was a chortle. "Respected? More like feared."
I was going to say something otherwise, but her glare cut me off before I could even open my mouth.
Thankfully, the elevator pinged and the doors opened to the thirteenth floor, where I was supposed to get off.
With a sigh of relief, I stepped out and the doors started to slide shut behind me.
But with a sudden thump, Mrs. Katsura stuck out her arm, making the doors rebound open.
"Miss Hasegawa, as a woman who has worked in the business world for thirty years, let me give you some advice."
I nodded, because if I had done or said anything else, I wasn't sure what she would have done. Probably eaten me alive and spat my bones out the nearest window.
"You are a woman in a man's world," she said. "Never forget that."
I blinked. "I…won't."
"And don't ever think you are worth less than a man." Her face hardened. "Next time you think about sacrificing yourself for a man, ask yourself if he would do the same. Then act accordingly."
Out of all the things she could have said, that was nowhere near what I could have imagined. I stared at her with my mouth gaping open like an idiot, as the doors shut and took Mrs. Katsura down.
Nobuki stared at me as I meandered into the ramshackle office. "What's wrong?"
"Aside from everything else?" I asked, taking off my jacket to hang it on the nearby coatrack. "Mrs. Katsura gave me some very strange advice."
"Advice?" He turned back putting back together a file cabinet that had been torn apart by overzealous hands. "That doesn't sound like her."
"That's what I thought."
"What advice did she give you?"
I went down on my knees to pick up discarded pieces of paper. "She said that I should never sacrifice myself for a man unless he'd do the same for me."
"Hmm."
I paused in the middle of slipping a handful of scratch paper into the recycle bin. "You were ready to do that, weren't you? You were going to make them fire you, so I could stay."
"It made sense. It's infinitely easy for me to find a job, while you…" He glanced at me. Was that pity in his dark eyes? "Well, to be honest, it's a wonder you got hired here at all. I was under the impression the recruiting requirements are quite stringent."
"Anyone else I would've taken that as an insult, but with you, I don't think you mean it that way," I said. "You said it so matter-of-factly."
"I meant it as such," he replied. "Now, less talk, more work. It's going to take time to get this office back in working condition."
We worked through lunch and by the time three rolled around, the office was more or less back in shape, all the overturned cabinets in their places, files where they should be. I turned on my computer, bracing myself for the onslaught of emails I couldn't answer for a few days.
Even though I braced myself, knowing the virtual avalanche would pull me under for the next week, it still didn't prepare myself for the 200+ new emails that popped up on my monitor.
Feeling faint, I reached to flick off the monitor, telling myself this was something better spent for the next day. And possibly into the next few weeks, even.
But then an email caught my eye.
More specifically, the email with [email protected] as the sender.
I froze.
The title was blank and the sent date was last night.
Behind me, Nobuki cursed fluidly as he tried to dislodge a drawer that had gotten jammed in the cabinet.
"Uh, Mr. Miyano?" I called out faintly, waving a hand behind me, unable to look away from the computer screen.
"What?" he replied, cursing again as the cabinet rattled. "I'm a little busy, if you couldn't tell."
"I, uh, think I might've gotten an email that was meant for you."
"Send it to my email box. I'll read it later. I need to get this damn thing unstuck. Why the hell they vandalized half the furniture here, I'll never know. I'll have to requisition for several new cabinets, and I'll be damned if I let anyone in the Financial Department tell me otherwise. Or else, I might just let it slip their boss wears a wig."
"They already know," I muttered, my fingers hovering over the mouse, forefinger poised an inch away from the right button. "Mr. Miyano, it's from Yue Kinou."
The banging from behind me ceased. "It's from who?"
"Yue." I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. "Your ex."
He reached me in a few, hurried steps and leaned over my shoulder, one hand braced on the back of my chair.
His hair brushed my cheek, and I caught the faint scent of his cologne, something woody and citrusy.
And even though I knew we had to maintain the façade of professionalism, especially considering the events of the morning, I couldn't stop a shiver from racking my body as he put a hand over mine and double clicked the mouse button.
I tried to focus on the words less than a foot from my face.
Most of them just floated around inside my head, buzzing like a fly caught in a vertical blind, but what I did understand was an apology of sorts.
"She's the one," he said quietly. "She called HR with an anonymous tip."
Yue Kinou? "How did she know?"
"Mmm." He used the scroll button, staring intently at the screen, his mouth tight. "She came back after she dragged her son out. Remember that?"
I shivered again. "I remember."
As if I could forget something like that.
"She came back to apologize." He pulled away, arms crossed, a furrow between his brows. "I'm not entirely sure if I believe her, but she said she wanted to apologize for hitting you, but when she—" He coughed, his gaze sliding somewhere past my shoulder. "Well, you know. Anyway, you read the email, didn't you?"
I shook my head. "I can't focus, I'm sorry. I'm still in a daze from this morning."
"Are you sure you don't have a concussion?" he asked. "You did hit your head hard on the floor."
"It was my chin and no, I don't think it was a concussion," I replied. I didn't want to admit it was his proximity I found so distracting. "So she told HR because she wanted to get revenge?"
"Apparently, this morning she learned from Mrs. Katsura that you and I were facing disciplinary charges and would most likely get fired." His lips turned down at the corners. "Consumed by guilt, she decided to apologize by sending you an email. But apparently not me. Perhaps she was afraid of what I'd do."
I swiveled my chair around, turning away from the computer screen. "But why me?"
Nobuki walked a few paces away and my shoulders relaxed. Being near the man was like putting a hand over a Van de Graaff generator.
Was I ever going to truly be able to relax around him?
"For some reason, she thought the woman she slapped, the woman she accused of child endangerment would look upon her more kindly than a man she used to sleep with." He snorted. "She's going to feel silly when she finds out we kept our jobs after all."
I stared at him, my shoulders strangely light. It no longer felt as though there was a dark cloud hanging over my head. "So that's it. Everything's over."
He crossed his arms, clearly perplexed. "What's wrong?"
I took a deep breath of the faintly sterile smelling air and leaned back in my seat. "I don't know. Everything kind of feels…anticlimactic."
"Anticlimactic?" One brow went up. "I'm sorry, did we experience different things this morning? You getting chased by the security guards? Half the company promising to quit if we were fired? My grandfather admitting he engaged in nepotism? What was anticlimactic about that?"
"Well, no, not that." I waved at the neat room. "But this. After everything's that happened, we're right back where it all started. Like the last six hours didn't even happen. It feels so unreal."
He groaned, putting his hands on his hips and bending back. "I wish the past three hours hadn't happened. You'd think they'd send the cleaning staff to help, since they trashed the office for their so-called quest for evidence."
"But you see what I mean, right?" I persisted. "This feels normal. Too normal. I keep expecting something else to happen. Right now, compared to the morning, all of this practically feels boring in comparison."
"Boring?"
The next words stuck in my throat as Nobuki sauntered towards me, a devil-may-care smile on his dark claret lips. I was transfixed in the chair as he put his hands on the arms and leaned into me, his mouth next to my ear. "Do you find this boring?"
I licked my dry lips. "I thought we were supposed to be professional in the office?"
"Is that what you want?" he asked, his breath hot on my ear. "Or is that what you thought you ought to want?"
"We shouldn't," I squeaked. "Not here."
He drew in a breath and then stood back so fast, I almost jumped. "You're right. Not here."
He glanced at his watch. "Shall we take an early day?"
I blinked.
He wasn't suggesting what I thought he was suggesting…was he?
"Now?" I asked. "You're not serious."
But the look in his eyes said otherwise and he grabbed his blazer from the coat rack. "Your place or mine?"
Wide-eyed, pulse racing like no tomorrow, I threw my bag over my shoulder and followed him into the hallway, remembering just in time to turn off the lights and switch on the answering machine.
While in the elevator, he asked me again. "Your place or mine?"
I thought about everything that had happened that morning, everything that had happened in the past few days.
The dark depression that had surrounded me like an invisible cloak.
Saki forcing her way into my apartment, telling me I had to fight for what I wanted.
My mother telling me I couldn't stay complacent for the rest of my life.
Ayaka holding back the security guards so I could get to the disciplinary hearing.
God, I was so lucky.
Taking a deep breath, summoning my courage, I slipped my hand into Nobuki's. "Mine."
His hand was stiff in mine and for a moment. I thought he was going to pull away.
Instead, his hand flexed in mine and we took the elevator in silence all the way down.
In the lobby, people stared at us, at our public display of affection, but I couldn't have cared less.
I wasn't afraid anymore.
We caught a taxi out front. Nobuki didn't say anything, but his hand stayed in mine, and it stayed that way when the driver let us off at my apartment building.
When we entered the courtyard, I saw my mother washing the dishes, visible from the open window, but I kept my eyes straight. She didn't do anything as she watched me lead Nobuki up the five flights of stairs to my place.
I didn't care.
As the door closed behind us, he turned me around, his mouth over mine, kissing me so deeply, I thought he was trying to drink me in.
I fell under the spell of his hands and his lips and gave him everything I had to offer.
He breathed fire into my veins, turning my body into molten lava. I stretched out my arms, hands tightening in his silken hair as I drew him down for a kiss.
I belonged to the handsome demon.
And the handsome devil belonged to me.
The End