At the Year-End Party He Thanked Me for Doing His Paperwork, So I Took the Microphone novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: The Sixth Floor
Chiaki sent Kaname Tsukishiro one text on Monday morning, from the train.
"I'll be late. I'm getting fired first."
He answered before the next station.
"Do you want me there?"
"Clause five."
"Clause five is about your work, not your firing."
"Then clause six. I'll end this with one sentence if you show up."
He sent back a single full stop. She decided that meant yes.
She had walked into Hanamori's head office in Nihonbashi every working day for seven years.
At five to nine on the sixth floor, a hundred and twenty people were standing between the desks, and none of them were working.
They had pushed back the chairs. Somebody had wheeled the projector screen out from the meeting room.
When Chiaki came out of the elevator, the whole floor turned.
It went silent so fast she heard the printer by the window finish a page.
The managing director stood at the front by the screen with his hands folded.
Reina's father had a face that always looked about to give a speech at a wedding.
The HR director stood beside him, holding a folder against his chest.
Ryota sat at the projector with a laptop open, his new department-head lanyard around his neck.
He didn't look at her.
"Hayase," the managing director said. "Thank you for coming in."
"You asked so nicely."
Someone in the back coughed to hide a laugh.
"I'll be brief. This company has learned that during the Tsukishiro negotiation you passed confidential pricing to the other side. To a man with whom you were, it turns out, in a personal relationship. And who has now rewarded you with a job."
He nodded at Ryota.
Ryota clicked.
The screen filled with an email from Chiaki's work address to Kaname's.
It was sent at 2:14 in the morning, in September.
Attached was a pricing table.
Ryota clicked again, and again, to one sent at 1:40 and one at 3:05.
"There are more than two hundred of these," the managing director said. "Sent in the middle of the night. Hanamori's numbers, to Tsukishiro's vice-president."
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