The thirty-eighth floor was never on her itinerary.
Yukari Tanaka took the temp job for one simple reason: she needed the paycheck, not a destiny. But when the Ichijo Group's elegant corporate planning office turns out to be a front for something far stranger, she finds herself staring down a contract that will change everything — 550,000 yen a month, a twenty-million-yen penalty clause, and a single, impossible condition.
She must become the fiancée of Toma Ichijo, head of a hundred-and-thirt
The Billionaire's Thaw - The last line of the contract—the name of the ice-cold heir.
From the far end of the hallway, she thought she heard a low voice.
Yukari Tanaka closed her eyes inside the elevator. The doors hadn't opened yet. The numbers read 38. That was all it was — and yet something deep in her chest was pounding violently.
It wasn't quite the same as fear.
But what it was, exactly, she couldn't yet put into words.
―――
The Ichijo Center Building in Marunouchi was nothing like what Yukari had imagined.
The moment she surfaced from the subway exit, what struck her first was the height. A five-minute walk from Tokyo Station, standing in one of Chiyoda Ward's most prime locations, the building rose thirty-eight stories above ground and three below. Its presence was unmistakable even from a distance — a cut above everything around it. When she passed through the automatic doors of the main lobby, a marble floor spread out beneath her feet. On the polished stone, people in suits came and went. Behind the reception counter, four female staff members with impeccable poise bowed at precisely the same perfect angle.
Yukari paused for just a moment in front of the automatic doors.
(I don't belong here.)
That's what she thought. What she couldn't help thinking.
But — she tightened her grip on the handle of her bag. Straightened her back. Pressed her weight into the soles of her shoes and took a step forward.
That was all it was. Just walk in.
She walked, conscious of the pale gray of her tight skirt brushing against her ankles. She'd checked the top button of her white blouse three times this morning. The heels of her black pumps clicked, clicked against the stone floor. The small jade earring on her left ear swayed faintly in the cold air.
Up to the thirty-sixth floor by elevator. She repeated in her head the only thing she'd been told beforehand: that she would be assigned to something called the Corporate Planning Office.
―――
The Corporate Planning Office was a vast space, roughly four hundred square meters.
Desks were arranged in orderly rows, and twenty-eight employees went about their respective tasks. As Yukari was guided around by her handler, she tried as best she could to match faces to names. She bowed to those whose eyes met hers. A few responded with smiles.
(That person is... Tamura-san, I think. And over there...)
She'd always considered herself good at remembering names, but in an environment like this, her memory seemed to run at half its usual capacity. She'd commuted from her family home in Saitama to a mid-tier private university in Tokyo, studied Japanese linguistics in the literature department, and after graduation drifted through a series of small and medium companies in the city. She hadn't chosen temp work for any particularly strong reason — she simply hadn't been able to take the step toward the weight of a full-time position. That was all.
The Ichijo Group — annual revenue of 2.4 trillion yen, thirty-two subsidiaries, roughly eighteen thousand employees. A conglomerate with a hundred and thirty-five years of history since its founding in 1889. Spanning real estate, finance, medical equipment, and IT — one of the nation's foremost business empires.
And Yukari Tanaka had come here. A temp worker earning 220,000 yen a month.
When she sat at her desk and spread out the first-day orientation materials, a voice called out from the desk beside her.
"Tanaka-san, right?"
She looked up to find a petite woman standing there with a friendly smile. Twenty-six, maybe. Round, bright eyes and light brown hair. She wore a name tag — the mark of a fellow temp worker.
"I'm Mizuki Sonoda. I've been here about half a year, also as a temp. If there's anything you don't understand, just ask me anything."
"Thank you. I'm Yukari Tanaka."
She returned the smile. She was genuinely grateful — and at the same time, (but how much should I really tell her?) a wariness was definitely there. They'd met for the first time today. She couldn't afford to lay everything bare.
As she was thinking this, Mizuki leaned in close.
"Hey, can I ask you something? Yukari-san, did you come through an agency? The temps who end up here usually follow a pretty set route."
"Ah, um... yes, from a company called Est Staff."
"Ahh! Est! They send people here a lot. But when we heard you were coming, Yukari-san, apparently the office manager arranged it personally, so everyone was a little curious."
Something about those words caught in her mind. But before she could think on it further, the morning's work began.
―――
At lunch, Yukari ordered the daily set meal at the employee cafeteria, "Marunouchi Kitchen." Six hundred and eighty yen. The spacious basement cafeteria had two hundred and eighty seats, about eighty percent of them filled.
Eating alone, she gazed out the window. The Tokyo sky visible from ground level was thinly overcast today, tinged with white.
(It's just a normal company,) she thought idly. The people checking their smartphones in the corner of the cafeteria, the groups deep in conversation — the scenery was no different whether it was the Ichijo Group or a small business. Marble floors or not, the food was the same set meal.
Her tension eased, just a little.
―――
At two in the afternoon, she was summoned by the office manager.
Toma Asakura. Forty-one years old, manager of the Corporate Planning Office. She'd met him for the first time this morning, but his impression had been firmly etched into her. Slender and tall, with clean-cut short hair and deep-set eyes. His tone was calm, carrying a quiet intelligence. The type whose eyes softened before his mouth when he smiled. And — she couldn't say why, but Yukari had intuited that this man was sharp. Behind the calm, a cool calculation.
"Tanaka-san, do you have a moment?"
She was led to a private room. When the door closed, the temperature seemed to drop a degree.
Asakura indicated the chair across from him and sat down slowly himself. On the desk lay a single thin file.
"I may be catching you off guard with this."
His voice was gentle. Which only made the chill run further down Yukari's spine.
"I'd like to ask you to take on a different position, Tanaka-san. The role of contract secretary."
"Secretary...?"
"As the exclusive secretary to the head of the Ichijo Group, Ichijo Toma. Publicly, you would act as his fiancée. Monthly compensation of 550,000 yen. Contract period of one year. There's a confidentiality clause, with a penalty of twenty million yen for breach."
For a moment, Yukari couldn't process the meaning.
Monthly — 550,000. Penalty, twenty million. Fiancée.
"The family has taken issue with the head's bachelor status," Asakura continued. His calm words seemed to pass straight through her eardrums. "We need to present the appearance of a strategic marriage. You were selected as the person for the role."
"...What was the reason I was chosen?"
Even she was surprised by how composed her voice came out.
Asakura paused, just briefly.
"Because you were the least conspicuous — someone not dyed in the colors of the Group."
It was a considerate way of putting it. Polite.
And precisely because of that, the meaning beneath it struck her straight through.
Not because she was special. Because she had no presence — that was the reason she'd been chosen.
Yukari kept her smile. She'd always done so. No matter how her emotions wavered, she never let them show. Since elementary school, that was the one thing she'd practiced enough. Her parents both worked, and their returns were always late. Her father was at the city office, her mother an elementary school teacher. Serious, kind people — but when they came home, they were tired. So Yukari had stopped letting her own feelings trouble anyone, from a very young age.
"Let me confirm the terms."
Those words came out calmer than she'd expected, even to herself.
―――
Alone in the private room, Yukari opened the contract.
It was thick. Nearly a hundred pages.
She began reading carefully from the first page. She wasn't in a hurry. At times like this, she'd never once thought she could rely on someone else. So she would read it all herself. Whether that was the right thing to do, she didn't know — but signing without reading was something her own integrity wouldn't allow.
Confidentiality clauses. The method for calculating penalties upon breach. Conditions for contract termination. The obligation to follow the head's instructions, and the definition of that scope — The text, written in legal language, was close to a foreign tongue for Yukari. But if she read carefully, she could grasp the meaning.
With each page she turned, reality grew thinner.
What was she about to do?
From 220,000 yen a month to 550,000. Her mind tried to comprehend the gap. But her body couldn't keep up. A contract marriage with the head of a business empire — such a thing had never existed within the assumptions of her life.
(But—)
Next month, there was a student loan payment. Her savings were not much.
Reality wasn't sweet enough to survive on pretty words. That, she'd learned over twenty-eight years until she was sick of it.
She reached the final page.
The signature line.
The moment she saw the printed name — something struck deep in her chest.
"Counterparty: Head of the Ichijo Group, Ichijo Toma"
She was afraid.
But—
What came after that "but," Yukari still couldn't put into words.
It was the name of a man she'd never seen. Letters. Print. That was all it should have been — and yet her heart was beating strangely. She'd kept romance at a distance all this time. It wasn't so much that she was afraid of falling for someone — she simply didn't know how to let anyone in.
And yet, why—?
Yukari picked up the pen. She hesitated, just slightly.
But she wrote.
Yukari Tanaka.
Outside the window, the sky was already beginning to stain orange. Marunouchi at dusk. The dry autumn air of Tokyo seemed to reach her through the glass.
―――
When Asakura returned to the private room, Yukari was sitting with both hands folded neatly on her knees.
"I've signed."
"...Thank you."
She thought his voice had changed, just slightly. A color that could be taken as relief, or something else entirely.
"Is Ichijo... a frightening person?"
She hadn't meant to ask. But it slipped out.
Asakura moved his mouth, just a little.
"...He's a cold person."
With that, he stood. "You'll go to greet him today. To the thirty-eighth floor."
―――
The private elevator was in a different location from the regular employee one. When she held up her security card, the doors opened silently. Stepping inside, she found it spacious and quiet. She gazed vaguely at her own face reflected in the mirror.
Her deep green hair shifted color slightly under the elevator's light. Her amber eyes were a little wider than usual with tension. The jade earring on her left ear swayed faintly.
(I look proper,) she thought. Maybe it was only appearance. But for now, appearance was enough.
The numbers climbed.
Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven.
A memory of a night long ago surfaced unbidden in Yukari's mind. On days when her mother came home late, Yukari had stood alone in the kitchen. Waiting for the sound of the front door unlocking, reheating dinner. That feeling — the feeling of waiting for someone. Wanting to hand someone warmth, but having nowhere to hand it, and simply waiting.
Now, something like that was in her chest.
But it was different. Clearly different from that night.
Thirty-eight.
The elevator stopped quietly.
Just before the doors opened — Yukari noticed that her heart was beating irregularly, for what felt like the umpteenth time today.
The hallway was long and silent. Her footsteps were swallowed by the carpet. At the far end stood a heavy door.
From beyond it — she thought she heard a low voice.
The door was still closed.
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