I woke up the next morning at six-thirty, bright and early, my phone vibrating madly.
My eyelids felt heavy as I groped along the nightstand and almost knocked over the lamp.
With the lamp firmly back in place, I checked my messages.
Three new messages.
Two from Ayaka, welcoming me to Japan and telling me we'll talk at lunch that day.
I flicked to the third message and my smile faded.
It was from Nobuki.
Don't come in today.
Rest.
I stared at the screen. What was I supposed to do?
He'd told me to take the day off, but I was sure he'd go to work. If that was the case, then I ought to go as well. A boss needed his secretary. Besides, I couldn't take the whole day off knowing he was working while I sat at home, twiddling my thumbs.
I was merely fulfilling my duty as the executive assistant.
Not because I wanted to see him.
No, absolutely not.
And if anyone tried to say anything to the contrary, I'd punch their lights out.
Right.
With that somewhat bracing thought in my mind, I replied to Ayaka, saying yes to the lunch date, and rolled out of bed, ready to meet the brand new day.
My optimism flagged as I crowbarred myself into the crowded Monday subway car. The air was stuffy and stale, but I was taller than many people, so at least I had some fresh air to breathe. Anyone under a hundred and sixty centimeters would have a hell of a time. I witnessed a small schoolgirl, a high school student judging from her uniform, try to turn around.
But she was pinched between the doors and a wall of bodies all turned away from her.
I wanted to help her, but my station was next. Being pretty much pushed off the car, I didn't walk, just floated with the tide that deposited me on the subway platform, looking like a chicken with ruffled feathers.
I should've taken the bus. Usually I did, but after coming back from Los Angeles, I had the urge to stand on the train platform, just another face in the mass of workers headed to their offices.
After smoothing down my hair and my rumpled spring coat, I joined the mass of commuters flooding out of the station, and walked the remaining four hundred meters to work.
The marbled and chrome lobby was filled with people, and I paused to look around, to suck in the professional, polished atmosphere. This was the only place I ever wanted to work at, from the moment I read the books published by Shokogan at the age of seven.
My good mood continued until I tried to get on a crowded elevator that kept binging every time I stepped in.
"You weigh too much," muttered someone, much to everyone's amusement. "Get off."
Face hot enough to cook eggs, I slunk off and a petite woman I saw working in Ayaka's department took my spot. The doors closed smoothly and I waited for the next car, ignoring the titters behind me.
A suave-looking young man in a smart slate-gray suit with artfully arranged hair stopped next to me.
"That little chit only weighed five kilos. Don't take it hard," he said loudly.
Most of the time, Tadashi Murai had to look down on his adoring fans, but not with me. We were the same height, something he always teased me about.
"Thanks, Tadashi," I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, noticing the snickering had stopped.
He laughed as we got on the next elevator and winked goodbye when he got off the eighth floor with the other editorial staff.
By the time I got off the thirteenth floor, only a few people remained. As the door pinged shut behind me, I took a deep breath and strode down the marbled hallway to the Foreign Marketing Department.
What would Nobuki say if he saw me?
Would he scold me for coming in?
Or would he accept it?
My desk was immaculate and dust free, courtesy of the cleaning crew. I sat down at my computer, turning it on with my toes after I shucked off my ballet flats.
As much as I loved flats, I wished I could get away with wearing sexy heels. Ayaka looked like dynamite in stilettos, but if I wore heels like hers, that would easily put me over one-hundred-and-ninety-five centimeters, almost too tall for a woman.
Not for the first time since I arrived, I missed Americans, where they had all been tall and big. I had felt small compared to some of them.
Too bad I was in a country where small, skinny women were considered the flowers of beauty while most people thought I should've been a supermodel and nothing else.
I spared a glance at the open door to the inner office where I heard sounds of typing. My gaze went to the clock by my keyboard.
Not even eight in the morning and my boss was working like he'd been at it for hours.
Then again, maybe he had. He had that kind of mentality.
I stretched, fists over my head, toes pointed before turning on my monitor and plunging into the day's work. As much as I enjoyed our business trip to America and Julian's attention, it was comforting to come back to something I did well and felt pride in completing.
Nobuki had set up the phone system so it would connect to his extension, so I had it changed to go through me. I sent him a quick email that I would handle his calls so he could spend his attention on what he needed to do. He didn't need to field calls like a lowly secretary.
The message was almost perky. I even included an emoticon although it's kind of crass in a professional atmosphere.
My email box pinged a minute later with one word.
Okay.
Okay? I grinned.
Why did I expect anything else? If the response had been any different, it wouldn't have been Nobuki sending it.
The morning passed in a blink of an eye as I responded to emails that had accumulated the week I was gone, returning calls clogging up the office voice mail.
The next time I leaned back in my seat, the clock read a few minutes after twelve and I blinked, hardly believing the day went by so fast.
I thought of the Tupperware sitting in the bottom of my bag and sighed, sending a text to Ayaka to tell her I wouldn't be able to make our lunch date. There were too many things to do, and Nobuki had been hard at work, almost always on the phone, the clanking of his keyboard like the beat to a snare drum. If I left now, I would've felt as though I was cheating.
A minute later, Ayaka replied with a frowny face and told me I'd pay for standing her up. I promised to take her out to dinner some night and stood up, stretching slowly, the kinks starting to loosening everywhere.
Time to fulfill one of my executive assistant duties.
Workplace etiquette dictated that executive assistants worth their salt showed up before their boss and left after them, but I don't think they'd ever have to contend with Nobuki before. If I tried doing that, I'd end up in the hospital from exhaustion.
Nobuki typed furiously, a thick manuscript on the desk between his arms, eyes centered on the flat-screen monitor.
And he looked… amazing. He wore a white dress shirt that made his face luminous, like a light shone underneath his skin. His hair was slicked back, the ends brushing his stiff collar.
It was surprising how attractive I found him, no matter how many times I saw him. To be honest, I could've stood in his doorway and stared at him like some lovelorn twit until the day I died.
He made no notice of me even though I stopped in front of him, so I knocked on the edge of his desk.
"Mr. Miyano?"
He stopped typing for a moment, looking at me with his dark chocolate eyes, before turning back to the monitor, his fingers continuing to type. "I thought I told you to take the day off."
"Yes, but I was uncomfortable with you working while I stayed at home," I said.
Geez. How could we sound so professional, like we were two strangers when we had done things to each other that…
My cheeks flushed, and I swallowed a lump in my throat.
Nobuki shrugged. "Have it your way."
I nodded. "Yes, sir. Um, about lunch—"
"What about it?" So brusque and short. Yes, this was the Nobuki Miyano I knew. Not the man two nights ago who had…
Crap. Couldn't think of that right now.
"May I order anything for you?" I asked, noting a bottle of water by his elbow, half empty. "It's lunch time. You say it's important I remain healthy, but we'll end up in a mess if you don't take a break every once in a while. You've been working nonstop since I got here. When did you come into the office, Mr. Miyano?"
"Couldn't sleep," he said. "I came in early. Five, if I recall."
I blinked. Not even the cleaning crew started so soon. "Security let you in?"
"I have a master key."
Of course. As one of the top people of the company, he was afforded privileges and given things we peons only dreamed of.
Although, being gifted a key to the office building wasn't my idea of a reward. "Can I get you anything to eat, Mr. Miyano?"
He paused and shook his head. "No, I'll be leaving in a few hours anyways. I have a dinner meeting with Mr. Yamashiro."
Mr. Yamashiro was the VP of the Marketing Division and Nobuki's direct boss, but not really. More like, someone a half-step higher than him on the company ladder. "I was not aware of any such—"
"I would've let you know, but I didn't think you'd be in." His brows furrowed. "Will that be all, Miss Hasegawa? I am quite busy."
"Of course, sir," I said, mortified, and scurried back to my desk like a scared mouse.
It was the last thing I wanted to do, to be a bother to Nobuki, regardless of whether we were sleeping together.
To be honest, I was still a little in awe of him. He was cool, complicated, accomplished. With a single glance, he could cut a person short and render them speechless.
But a few hours was a long time away. I dug through my desk drawers stuffed with sugary snacks to keep me going through the long work day and found something not too sweet, a plain CalorieMate bar. I must've bought it by mistake because I wouldn't dare let such a bland thing pass my lips.
Still, maybe it would be enough for Nobuki.
I crept back to his office, and hunched over, slid the bar across his desk.
Anyone else might've roared with laughter at my exaggerated actions, but Nobuki's face didn't change at all. He continued typing, taking a second to flip a few pages of the manuscript in front of him.
Then I slipped out, butt first in what was supposed to pass for a respectful manner, but I was sure I merely looked ridiculous.
I returned to my email, taking bites of Mom's leftover beef and potatoes that was still wonderful cold.
A few minutes later, plastic crinkled in the inner office, and I stifled a very childish giggle.
It was a stupid, silly thing to be happy about, but I took his acceptance of my gift as good news.
The rest of the day passed just as quickly, and I was on hold with one of the publisher's overseas publications department when Nobuki's office went dark.
He walked out, pulling on a navy blue blazer that fit him so well it couldn't have been off the rack.
"Hold all my messages and calls. If you think it's important, send it to my phone, but I'm having dinner with Mr. Yamashiro, so I'd rather you didn't. Keep that in mind, will you?"
One hand over the receiver, I bowed low over my desk, the perfect executive assistant. "Have a good night, Mr. Miyano."
He walked away without another word, without another glance, and I sighed.
As expected.
If he had said anything else, well, it wouldn't be him, now, would it?
I finished the call and set the phone back on its hook.
A thought occurred to me and I laughed.
Nobuki had warned me to tell no one about our arrangement, but even if I had, it wasn't as though anyone would believe me.
I mean, I had a hard time believing it, and I was the other party.
When five o'clock rolled around, I turned off my computer and pushed away from my desk, stretching again. It had been a productive day and even though normally, I would have been chomping at the bit to sneak in some reading, I hadn't had the mindset or the time to indulge in that tiny insubordination. Perhaps later in the week…and only if I had an electronic copy, although I missed leafing through paper. There was something almost mystical about the printed word I couldn't get from an ebook. Probably explained why I hadn't latched onto the ebook fad, even with my voracious reading habits.
The building still hummed as I left, which wasn't unusual. Luckily, I wasn't part of a department that had to deal with deadlines on a regular basis. I knew the editing department and design department clocked in a lot of overtime and hardly got paid for it, if at all.
I took the bus home, bypassing the afternoon subway commute that was almost as bad as the morning rush.
Even with the traffic jams, at least on a bus I always found a seat, and I dozed off, forehead pressed against the window, almost missing my stop.
Clambering over a bunch of legs, mostly belonging to high school students, I jumped off the bus and took another deep breath of the flower-scented air as I walked home.
I shuffled up the five flights of stairs, wondering if I could persuade my parents to install an elevator or see if anyone was moving soon on the lower floors. Washing the Tupperware, I went back downstairs to pass it over to Mom who wanted to know all about my day at work. Dad came in half way through the admittedly short conversation, having overseen someone getting their bathroom faucet fixed.
Thirty minutes later, belly full and another Tupperware container in my hands, I staggered up to my apartment. A little past seven, I was looking forward to reading in bed before falling asleep.
As I closed the door behind me, I heard my phone vibrating on the coffee table and lunged for it before I lost the call.
"He-hello?" I asked, still out of breath from trudging up the steps.
A woman cried on the other end and I checked the phone again, convinced someone was playing a scam on me. Was I an unlucky recipient of those phone calls seniors got from scammers who pretended to be their sons lost in the country and needed money to get back home?
But no, the caller ID read Ayaka's name and number.
"Ayaka?" I asked, worried. "Hey, are you okay? Why are you crying?"
Beyond her crying, I heard music, soft piano, a saxophone's wailing cry.
She sniffed, blowing her nose. "Were you serious about that dinner date?"
I winced, putting a hand over my distended stomach. "Um, yeah. Now?"
"Yes, now. I'm at the bar across the street from Sakuradamon station."
"The whiskey bar, right?"
"Yeah. Can you get here now?"
I sighed, mentally kissing my bed and books goodbye. "See you in fifteen."