The Framed Accountant and the Cold Vice President's Doting Love
One mistake was all it took to bring Ren Mise's quiet life crashing down. Six years of honest work at Katsuragi Corporation's Accounting Department mean nothing when a forged approval log bearing his ID surfaces—thirty million yen, funneled through a system he never had the authority to touch. With no way to prove his innocence and whispers spreading through the office like wildfire, Ren finds himself on the verge of resigning. But just as he's ready to give up, the executive elevator doors slid
The Framed Accountant and the Cold Vice President's Doting Love - Morning of False Accusation — A Glance with the Ice Vice President
Katsuragi Tower in the morning is like a giant anthill. Mise Ren always thinks so as he walks through the office district of Minato. Thirty-eight floors above ground, four below. The headquarters building where roughly two thousand people work gleams brilliantly in the morning light. Five minutes on foot from the nearest station. Today marks exactly six years of walking this route.
At the building entrance, Ren caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass. Serious black hair in a short cut. Clear brown eyes. A slender frame, a hundred and seventy centimeters tall, dressed in a crisp white shirt and navy slacks. A plain necktie. However you looked at him, he was a rank-and-file employee of a major trading company. Twenty-eight years old. Katsuragi Corporation, Accounting Department. Sixth year on the job.
"Good morning."
He gave a slight bow to the security guard at the reception desk and held up his employee ID. The automatic gate opened. Every morning, this is the moment when the reality of working at this company sinks in.
He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the twelfth floor. Just as the doors were about to close, someone came running.
"Sorry, hold the door!"
Ren hurriedly pressed the "Open" button. The person who dashed in was a colleague from Accounting. When the man saw Ren's face, his expression stiffened for just an instant.
"Oh, Mise. Morning."
"Good morning."
That was the end of the conversation. Ren stood in the corner of the elevator, watching the numbers climb. He was used to this kind of silence. He was bad at striking up conversations, and the other man seemed to find it awkward to talk to him too.
Katsuragi Corporation was a general trading company founded seventy-two years ago. With four core divisions—metals, energy, food, and textiles—it employed about four thousand eight hundred people. Annual revenue: two trillion three hundred billion yen. The company motto: "Sincerity, Speed, Challenge." A fine company. Ren had joined six years ago, straight out of university.
When they reached the twelfth floor, the elevator doors opened. The Accounting floor had an island-style desk layout where forty employees worked. The department head's seat was visible by the window. Ren's desk was in the center of the floor—a spot where everyone could see him, yet no one ever noticed him.
Ren sat down at his desk and first opened his planner. He checked the day's schedule. His fingertips were slightly red—a habit from constantly flipping through this planner. It was a routine he had kept up every single morning since joining the company.
"Mise, the boss is calling for you."
The one who spoke was the senior colleague at the desk diagonally in front of him.
"The department head? Did something happen?"
"Beats me. Anyway, he wants you at his desk."
Ren closed his planner and stood up. Department head Saeki Yasuo was fifty-five. A gentle but indecisive man, whispered to be a little unreliable when it came to running the Accounting Department. Even so, Ren didn't think badly of him.
As Ren approached the department head's desk, Saeki was staring at his computer screen with a troubled expression. When Ren spoke up, Saeki raised his head and knitted his brows in visible pain.
"Mise... could you come to the meeting room for a moment?"
Something small creaked in Ren's chest.
The meeting room was at the far end of the twelfth floor. When Saeki closed the door, the noise outside suddenly felt distant. The white fluorescent light shone down on the two of them. Saeki gestured for Ren to sit, then lowered himself into the chair across from him.
"I'll get straight to the point."
Saeki took a breath before speaking.
"In the approval logs of KFN, our expense settlement system, there's an irregular transaction left under your ID. The amount is thirty million yen."
Ren didn't understand what he was hearing.
"...What?"
"Katsuragi Finance Network. The core system for expense settlement. Approval authority rests with department heads and above. But the approval is logged under your ID. The record is right there."
"Wait. I never did anything like that."
Ren's voice rose. His heart pounded like a drum. His fingertips trembled.
"I've never approved anything in KFN. I don't even have approval authority in the first place."
"I know that. But the log shows your ID. It's possible someone used your ID, but... so far, you're the only one who could have."
Saeki's voice was heavy. His eyes wavered with something like apology as he looked at Ren.
"Hold on. If my ID was used, then someone impersonated me. Please, investigate."
"I did. But the log shows a login with your ID and your password. You're the only one who knows your password, aren't you?"
Ren was speechless. He changed his password regularly. He had never told anyone.
"...Please believe me. I really didn't do anything."
Ren forced the words out.
"Department Head Saeki, I've never once committed fraud since joining Accounting. I've always done my work honestly. That much, I need you to understand."
Saeki stared at Ren for a while. Then he let out a deep sigh.
"I know. I want to believe you're not the kind of person who would do this. But, Mise. The evidence points to you. The higher-ups already suspect you."
Ren bit his lip. There was so much he wanted to say. But the words stuck in his throat and wouldn't come out.
"...For today, you're on standby at home. Until the detailed investigation is complete, I need you to stay away from the office."
Ren stood up. His legs wouldn't cooperate. His hand, gripping the meeting room doorknob, slipped with sweat.
"I didn't do it."
That was all he said before leaving the meeting room.
When he returned to the floor, the atmosphere had changed. Everything had been normal just moments ago, but now every time Ren walked, glances were exchanged all around him. Two female employees were whispering in front of the break room. Near the copier, a male employee kept stealing looks at Ren.
"I knew it." "That guy was always so plain—it was suspicious."
He shouldn't be able to hear them. But he did. Ren returned to his desk and turned off his computer. He cleared his desktop. Put his planner in his bag. The whole time, he felt eyes stabbing into his back.
"Mise."
The one who spoke was Kurahashi Atsushi, at the desk diagonally in front of his. Thirty-four years old, three years Ren's senior. A mild-mannered man who was kind to everyone. When Ren had first joined, Kurahashi had taught him a great deal about the work.
"You okay? Did something happen?"
Kurahashi approached Ren's desk with a worried look.
"...No, I'm fine."
"I see. Don't push yourself too hard. I believe in you, you know."
Kurahashi patted Ren lightly on the shoulder. That hand seemed oddly theatrical. Ren glanced at Kurahashi's eyes for a moment. Kurahashi was smiling. The face of a kind senior colleague. But somehow, the depths of those eyes weren't smiling.
"Thank you."
Ren bowed his head and left the floor quickly.
He rushed into a stall in the restroom and locked the door. He sat down on the toilet seat. His breathing was ragged. His hands shook. His head was a mess—he couldn't think about anything.
"Again, huh."
Ren muttered. His voice was trembling.
He remembered his university days. A friend from his seminar had framed him for data falsification. No one had believed him then either. The professor, his friends—everyone had doubted Ren. He had cried alone. He couldn't talk to anyone.
After that, Ren stopped relying on people. He developed the habit of shouldering everything alone. Even if he confided in someone, they wouldn't believe him anyway. So he had no choice but to do everything by himself from the start.
Ren pulled a resignation form from his bag. Where he had gotten it, even he didn't know. At some point, it had ended up in the bottom of his bag.
A resignation form.
If he wrote his name on this paper, everything would be over. If he quit the company, no one would say anything to him anymore.
Ren placed the form on the toilet seat lid. He gripped his pen. His hand shook so badly he couldn't write properly.
"...I didn't do it."
He said it out loud. But no one was listening.
Ren crushed the form in his fist. He crumpled it up and shoved it into his bag.
"No. I can't run away."
Ren stood up. He looked at his face in the mirror. He looked terrible. Dark circles under his eyes. Dry lips, disheveled hair.
Ren left the restroom. He headed for the elevator hall. He wanted to sort out his feelings somewhere.
The elevator hall was quiet. It was before noon, so there was little foot traffic. Ren leaned against the wall and looked up at the ceiling.
"What am I supposed to do..."
That was when it happened.
The doors of the dedicated executive-floor elevator slid open silently.
The man who stepped out was alone.
His dark gray, silver-tinged hair was swept back in a slicked-back style, and his ice-cold blue-gray eyes stared straight ahead. A hundred and eighty-five centimeters tall. He wore a black suit to perfection, his necktie knot flawless to the millimeter.
Himuro Rei. Thirty-four years old. Vice President of Katsuragi Corporation.
The man feared within the company as the "Ice Vice President." A perfectionist with merciless decisiveness. He never showed anyone his true feelings. His coldness was said to make even board members hesitate to approach him.
Ren instinctively straightened his posture.
When Himuro noticed Ren's presence, he paused for just a moment. Expressionless, he looked at Ren.
Those eyes wavered—just slightly.
Ren noticed. This man had just felt something. Something had flickered in the depths of those cold eyes.
"...Good work, sir."
Ren bowed his head. Himuro said nothing and walked past him. Watching that back recede, Ren felt something stir deep in his chest.
This person is different.
Ren's intuition told him so. He didn't know why. But the presence of the man named Himuro Rei caught in his heart.
Ren took the resignation form from his bag. He tore the crumpled paper apart with both hands.
With a ripping sound, the paper shredded into pieces.
"...I will uncover the truth. No matter what."
Ren clutched the torn paper. In his heart, he made that vow.
But he knew. The evidence had been forged perfectly. The internal reporting system, the "Katsuragi Hotline," existed, but it had been flagged as dysfunctional. No matter who he consulted, it might be pointless.
Ren pressed the elevator button. He descended to the first floor. Outside, it was clear and sunny. The Minato office district was bustling as always.
Ren exited the building and looked up at the sky. Blue sky. White clouds. The world hadn't changed at all. But Ren's world had changed in an instant.
Suspicion of embezzling thirty million yen.
Ren started walking. Nowhere in particular—he just walked.
He passed by "Beans," the café on the first floor of Katsuragi Tower. Before the lunch rush, the shop was still empty. The smell of coffee drifted out. Ren stopped and stood there for a while, breathing it in.
He had been born the eldest son of a metalworking factory in the old downtown. His father's factory had gone bankrupt when Ren was in university. Burdened with debt, his father had vanished in what amounted to a midnight escape. At the time, Ren knew nothing about money. If he had understood accounting, he might have been able to save his father's factory.
That was why Ren had applied to the Accounting Department.
A job managing the company's money. A job that faced numbers head-on and never let fraud slip by. Ren had taken pride in that work.
And now he was being treated like a thief.
Ren kept walking. As he walked, he took out his planner. He opened it to today's date. On the blank page, he wrote with his pen:
"Uncover the truth."
Ren stared at the words. His fingertips were still slightly red.
The battle had only just begun.
R
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.