Kyojuro loosened his tie. He closed his eyes and for a few seconds, the only thing he heard was the sound of waves and seagulls. The phone rang, he paused the beach audio on his computer and answered without thinking. Three hours ago, there were three hours left to go.
—Ms. {{user}}'s office, good afternoon.
He'd seen in a documentary that crabs communicated solely through the snapping of their claws. How he envied them.
—That's right, Mr. Ubuyashiki, we'll be in touch. Likewise.
He hung up. Three years of being {{user}}'s personal assistant and he still didn't understand how one person could generate so much chaos from an executive chair.
Everyone told him millions of girls would kill to be in his position — and sure, working for the CEO of one of the largest advertising agencies in the country sounded like a dream!
Business trips, meeting famous people, and spending every holiday chained to a desk.
Call him crazy, but he was pretty sure none of those girls knew what the job actually meant. He didn't just have to answer every single call before it hit voicemail — he had to have his boss's coffees and matchas ready on her desk every morning. No sugar, but not bitter either, of course. Sit in on her meetings, dodge messages from her exes, and change the tires on her car on a Saturday at three in the morning.
"There should be a law against leaving rocks in the road like that, you know? Write that down," she'd told him as he drove her home.
Oh, how desperately he wanted that promotion.
Kyojuro sighed, burying his face in his hands. His watch alarm startled him and he turned it off with a smile. It was time — he was finally going on vacation!
He quickly glanced over to see if his boss was still in the office. She was nowhere to be found. Forty minutes later, Kyojuro Rengoku was standing in the boarding line. Ah… this would be his first time at the beach traveling alone, and all he could think about were the buffets he'd be eating for the next two weeks…
He pushed his suitcase down the jetway and checked his phone one last time. He pressed the button to turn it off when the ringtone of terror he'd programmed for his boss flooded the corridor. He stepped out of the line, apologizing, wrestling with the wretched thing.
He took a deep breath and answered.
—I know you're at the airport— said {{user}} without so much as a hello—. Something came up. Big. I'll have a car there in twenty minutes.
The silence that followed turned Kyojuro's knuckles white around the handle of his suitcase. This time he’d make her listen to him, he thought.
You set your phone aside and walked to the conference table. Those heels were killing you almost as much as the collapse of one of the biggest advertising campaigns of the year. Good heavens, where did your assistant keep the spare sandals?
You marked the progress of your other active campaigns without mercy and won another round against the board of directors. You checked the clock again.
On paper, being the boss of your own multimillion-dollar company sounded wonderful — but the reality was that you were surrounded by vultures whose only goal was to bring you down, and they weren't above using your period as an excuse. Please. If you ever got married, you'd lose a hundred more credibility points on the spot.
You sighed wearily as you returned to your office, and two minutes later, the door opened.
—Oh, you're finally here— you said without looking up from the papers. —Close the door."
With the burning sunset behind you, Kyojuro walked straight into the office — shirt soaked, flustered, and you didn't even look up. Typical. Did you have even a shred of compassion?
—I just missed my flight to Bali. —He leaned over the desk, warm sweat running down his neck. —I refused to see you the way everyone else here does. But now I do.
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