The Secret Between the President and Me in Our Office for Two
Rui Takane, a sharp and ambitious executive, has just been appointed the new president of a special division at the giant talent agency 'Hololive.' Her first order of business is hiring a personal secretary, and she chooses the most unlikely candidate: Kakeru Aoi, a timid and seemingly incompetent young man.
'You. You're my secretary from today.'
With that single, high-handed declaration, Kakeru's quiet life is thrown into utter chaos. Rui runs the office like a typhoon, scattering documents,
The Secret Between the President and Me in Our Office for Two - Cold War and the First Declaration of War
My stomach hurts.
Aoi Kakeru stood frozen for a moment in the elevator hall on the seventh floor of Hololive Central.
This was the office he'd desperately returned to yesterday, soaked by the rain. What had he been trying to do here?
(*I want to protect President Rui.*)
(*But what I did was nothing more than acting without permission.*)
Deep in his chest, a foreboding feeling swirled.
Pressing a hand firmly against his stomach, Kakeru stepped onto the floor.
That instant.
"Aoi Kakeru!!"
The air itself seemed to tremble.
The furious shout echoed throughout the department, and Kakeru froze in place. Several colleagues at their desks looked up all at once, holding their breath. Their gazes pierced into him.
(*Ah... I knew it.*)
The door to the president's office flew open with force.
Takane Rui emerged, wearing her usual silver-rimmed fashion glasses, but the dark brown eyes behind them were like frozen flames. Her shoulder-length black straight hair swayed softly, as if stirred by her anger. In her hand, she clutched the bundle of proposal documents Kakeru had made alone yesterday.
"I heard you went to Stellaglow by yourself yesterday?!"
Kakeru tried to think of an excuse. But all that came out of his mouth was a trembling voice.
"...Yes."
Rui slammed the bundle of documents in her hand onto her desk with a loud *thud*.
The impact knocked over a pen holder. A ballpoint pen clattered across the floor, the sound echoing unnaturally loud.
"How could you be so stupid...! Without even knowing how I feel...! Going alone to a man like that—what were you planning to do if something happened?!"
Her voice was nearly a scream now.
The atmosphere of the office froze and shattered. This wasn't just a cold war. This was a death sentence.
"...But I couldn't stand seeing the frustrated look on your face, President."
Kakeru forced the words out.
Desperately scolding himself for almost being cowed by her fury.
"I just couldn't sit still anymore... I thought maybe there was something I could do too..."
He felt so pathetic he was on the verge of tears.
He'd wanted to protect her. He'd wanted to be of help. That, and only that, was his true and honest feeling.
But Rui's anger didn't melt at such words.
"What could you possibly do? Turned away at the door, laughed at by that man—what did you gain from that?"
Rui stepped closer and picked up the documents stacked on Kakeru's desk, one by one.
Talent data he'd spent days compiling. Schedules. Draft contracts.
Things he'd made not for himself, but for this department, for her—agonizing over them until his stomach ached.
"This trash."
Rui dropped the stack of papers right in front of Kakeru's eyes. They fluttered down, scattering across the cold flooring.
One of their colleagues let out a small, "Oh..."
"I'm never asking you to be my secretary again!"
A cold blade pierced Kakeru's chest.
It hurt.
Physically, truly, a sharp pain shot through the very center of his chest.
"Clean out that desk by the end of today. There's no more work for you here."
Rui's voice had returned to a terrifying calm.
She glanced at the trembling Kakeru with cold eyes.
(*Ah, it's over.*)
(*All I wanted was to be useful to this person.*)
(*And even that wasn't allowed.*)
Kakeru couldn't even pick up the papers scattered on the floor.
His fingers trembled and wouldn't obey him.
Rui turned her back.
The door to the president's office slammed shut with a loud bang.
A heavy silence fell over the floor.
His colleagues hurriedly averted their gazes back to their own desks. No one looked at Kakeru. Pretending not to see. *If I get involved, I'll get burned too.* That cold, calculating air was painfully transparent.
—So this... was my place here.
Kakeru stood there alone, rooted to the spot.
The pain in his stomach was already gone. Instead, the core of his body was slowly going cold.
It was a cold war.
Kakeru sat at his desk, but there was nothing for him to do. Rui had stripped him of all his work, and even confiscated the tablet he used for schedule management.
A phone rang. A colleague at the next desk quickly picked up the receiver.
"Yes, Talent Innovation Department."
Kakeru had stopped even trying to listen in.
He went to the break room to make some coffee.
Then he heard two female employees whispering to each other.
"...See, the president finally got sick of him. Makes sense. Going to a rival company without permission? Peak stupidity."
"He's done. Those try-hard types who are actually useless—they always lose sight of everything around them and self-destruct."
When the two noticed Kakeru's presence, they awkwardly fell silent and scurried out.
—*A try-hard type who's actually useless.*
He knew they were talking about him. It hit the mark. He couldn't say anything back.
Kakeru returned to his desk, holding a steaming coffee cup.
He'd never felt a day drag on so long.
During lunch break, no one invited Kakeru to the cafeteria. He'd wanted to eat Matsuda Toshiko's fried udon, but he didn't have the courage to show his face, so he ate a rice ball he'd bought at the convenience store alone in the corner of the break room.
It didn't taste like salmon at all.
The afternoon brought no change. Rui remained shut in the president's office and didn't come out once. All Kakeru could do was sit still and wait for time to pass.
Was this really his fault?
He knew. It was because he'd acted on his own.
But was that feeling of "wanting to protect" that had welled up inside him back then... wrong?
The clock hands pointed to 7 PM.
When quitting time came, his colleagues fled as if escaping. Everyone probably wanted to be free of this oppressive atmosphere even a second sooner.
"Excuse me for leaving first."
The last person said that with a bow and left the floor.
*Click.*
In the now-silent office, only the hum of the air conditioner sounded unnaturally loud.
11 PM.
Outside the building's windows, the Tokyo nightscape spread out. The lights of Tokyo Tower in the distance looked blurred.
Kakeru was still at his desk.
He didn't have the energy to go home. Even if he did, there was nothing there. If he was just going to stare into the darkness alone in that tiny one-room apartment, it was still better to be working.
But there was no work either.
An empty desk, with only the traces of the removed documents remaining.
It was as if he was being shown the inside of his own heart.
(*I...*)
What am I even here for?
He headed to the break room, thinking he'd take some stomach medicine.
He opened the cabinet. There was a small box with his name on it. And next to it, a document tucked inside a clear file.
Kakeru picked it up casually—and caught his breath.
It was the draft contract he'd made just last week.
The one full of typos and formatting errors, the one Rui had thrust back at him saying, "This is useless."
But now, the document inside the file looked like something else entirely.
It was covered in corrections written in red ink.
"*Use humble language here, not just polite speech.*"
"*This clause's interpretation is disadvantageous to us, so rewrite it like this.*"
"*The date here is wrong. Always double-check dates on submitted documents, or you'll lose the other party's trust.*"
Familiar handwriting—slightly rounded, with a distinctive character.
It was Rui's handwriting.
That late night, in the empty office, she had been alone, fixing all of his mistakes like this.
While saying things like, "Your handwriting is neat, so take pride in that."
As he flipped through the file, he found a single sticky note on the last page.
*'Don't do anything reckless again. Are you taking your stomach medicine properly?'*
With just that one line.
The dam broke, and tears spilled over.
"...Ngh... uu..."
Stifling his voice, Kakeru crouched down.
Clutching the box of stomach medicine and the heavily corrected contract to his chest, he cried, holding back the sound.
(*No... that's not it, President.*)
(*I didn't want to cause you trouble.*)
(*I just... wanted to be someone you could rely on.*)
He had never cursed his own worthlessness so much.
I'm useless. Nothing but a burden.
(*I'm... not good enough for this role.*)
It was just as he lifted his tear-streaked face.
*Bzzz bzzz...*
His smartphone, left on the desk, vibrated.
Kakeru's entire body froze in terror as he looked at the screen.
The name displayed.
*Kamiya Ren.*
It was from that perfect rival president.
With trembling fingers, Kakeru pressed the call button.
"Hey there, Aoi-kun. I said some rude things yesterday. I've been reflecting on that."
That smooth, temperature-less voice, just as always.
Coming through the speaker, it was so composed it felt like he could see right through everything in Kakeru's heart.
"...What do you want?"
Kakeru barely managed to say that much.
On the other end of the line, Ren laughed softly.
"Look, I can see you're trying hard. But think about it for a second. Rui-kun has always been a woman who needs someone to protect her. She seems capable and resolute, but she's actually fragile. She can't do anything alone."
Those words gouged directly into Kakeru's chest.
It was as if Ren was saying he knew everything about a Rui that Kakeru didn't.
"And what about you? You just get protected by her and do the work you're given. Isn't that right? Even today, you got yelled at, nearly fired, and still couldn't say anything back."
He wanted to say *that's not true*.
But his mouth wouldn't move.
It was all exactly right.
"That's why I told you, didn't I? It's impossible for you."
Mockery.
Clear, unmistakable mockery that denied Kakeru's very existence.
Something in the back of his mind snapped with a *crack*.
It wasn't resignation.
It wasn't frustration or sadness.
It was something more primal, hotter.
—Rage.
"...Shut up."
Kakeru said it in a voice so low it surprised even himself.
"What do you know...?! I...! I know she stayed late, alone, fixing documents for someone like me! I know she left stomach medicine for me, even though I'm useless and always getting yelled at! She's awkward, she's harsh, but she sees people more than anyone else... What do you know about her!!"
The tears wouldn't stop.
His voice trembled.
But the words wouldn't stop.
"I will protect her!"
Kakeru screamed.
His voice echoed through the empty late-night office.
"I... I will never lose to you! I will never hand her over to you, of all people!!"
There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line.
Then.
"...Well, isn't this interesting, Aoi Kakeru. Those eyes. Those are the eyes I wanted to see."
For the first time, a faint hint of pleasure mixed into Ren's voice.
"I'll be looking forward to it. How far a tiny, tiny cog like you can throw my destiny off course—let's see."
*Beep, beep,* went the cold electronic tone.
The call ended.
Clutching his smartphone, Kakeru breathed heavily.
It felt like all the blood in his body was boiling.
(*I won't lose.*)
(*No matter what, I'll protect her.*)
It was the first time.
The first time he'd ever declared war on someone himself.
The first time he'd ever held such a burning feeling for someone else's sake.
There was no way he could win. His opponent was the young, charismatic president of a massive corporation, and he was a lowly secretary on the verge of being fired.
But he couldn't back down.
He'd be damned if he let a guy like that say whatever he wanted about her clumsy kindness.
Kakeru roughly wiped his tears with his sleeve.
That moment.
*Clatter.*
There was a faint sound at the entrance to the break room.
Rui stood frozen at the entrance to the break room.
She had only come back to get something she'd forgotten.
And yet, she had heard it.
Kakeru's soul-rending cry of rage.
(*That idiot... for my sake, he...*)
Deep in her chest, a heat bloomed.
A powerful heartbeat, unlike anything she'd ever felt, raced through Rui's entire body, bewildering her.
(*This is... unfair.*)
T
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