Aoki turned out to be the ideal secretary for exactly seven business days. On the eighth, she spoke back to Naomi.
It was subtle, at first. A minor disagreement over formatting a motion to dismiss, phrased like a suggestion. A helpful tip, offered with a diplomatic smile and the energy of someone who once took a Coursera class on leadership.
Katsuki didn't look up from his screen when it happened. He didn't need to. He could feel the temperature drop from across the office.
Naomi's response was quiet. Flat. The vocal equivalent of being buried under administrative data and shame.
Aoki cried.
Actually cried.
Not misty-eyed dignity. No. Full-tear, sniffle-interrupted, lip-quivering dramatics. Then she went to Kai.
Kai listened like he was deeply invested in every word, chin propped on his hand, eyes narrowed in concern. He even nodded at all the right moments, like he hadn't heard this exact brand of office sabotage before. Like he wasn't mentally categorizing her tells like a poker pro mid-tournament.
"She's been bullying me," Aoki said carefully. "Undermining me in front of others. It's... extremely toxic."
Kai blinked once. Twice.
Then Aoki leaned in. Lowered her voice like she was letting him in on a secret.
"I don't think she contributes to the firm. If we're trying to streamline... maybe it's time to let her go."
Ah.
There it was.
Kai sighed softly and straightened, his expression unreadable. "See," he said with that effortless smile that made people forget they were walking into verbal landmines, "I can't really do that."
Aoki opened her mouth but closed it again.
"She owns a third of the firm," Kai added pleasantly. "If Naomi walks, more than half this building walks with her. And the espresso machine, probably."
Aoki's expression faltered.
"Unless," Kai continued lightly, "you'd like to go tell her she's redundant yourself. I'd love to watch."
She didn't.
She didn't even finish her tea. Just slinked off like someone who'd realized too late that the chessboard wasn't hers to play on.
It should've ended there.
It didn't.
The gossip started next.
Subtle, at first. A question here. A joke there. But when a junior associate walked into Kai's office looking half-traumatized and whispering, "She asked if you and Katsuki are, uh, married," he realized subtlety had died somewhere around week two.
He'd barely raised an eyebrow before the associate blurted, "She said you seem too... codependent for it to be just business."
Kai had to pause. Because sure, Katsuki could be intense. Territorial. Possibly sociopathic. But the idea that he, Kai, had somehow given off husband energy-
Well. That was an affront.
So naturally, he stood in the middle of the firm the next morning and called out, loud enough to rattle the interns, "Honey, where's the docket folder? You know I can't function without your gentle touch."
Katsuki, who was mid-conference call with a high-profile IP client, calmly reached over and muted himself before turning, very slowly, to glare at him like he was considering arson.
Kai just smiled.
The associates were horrified. The senior partners were too busy to care. Naomi looked up once, made eye contact with Kai across the floor, and gave him the briefest nod of approval before going back to her spreadsheet of doom.
It might've ended there.
But of course, it didn't.
The third week revealed another charming trait: Aoki was slow.
Painfully. Excruciatingly. Soul-drainingly slow.
Katsuki timed her once. Twelve minutes to find a file that Hana used to locate in thirty seconds with one hand while eating a sandwich and cursing about toner shortages.
She didn't even pretend to hustle. She was always on her phone, scrolling with her pinky up like she was browsing Goop and not failing to meet a Supreme Court deadline.
Even Kai, who seemed to possess a spiritual immunity to incompetence, finally cracked.
It happened on a Tuesday.
The office was silent. Morning sunlight poured in. The associates were working. Naomi was humming something vaguely threatening under her breath. Aoki was texting.
And then-snap.
"AOKI."
The building stilled.
Everyone froze, even the copy machine.
Kai stood in the center of the bullpen, hands on his hips like a game show host about to throw hands.
"If you do not stop scrolling through inspirational quotes and send the goddamn merger file to Legal in the next ten seconds," he said, voice pleasant but loaded with doom, "I swear on every overpriced pen in this office, I will personally reassign you to manage the intern inbox for the rest of your natural life."
Aoki blinked. "I was just-"
"Nine."
She fumbled with her mouse.
"Eight."
Katsuki didn't look up, but he did smirk faintly at his monitor.
"Seven."
"Okay, okay, I'm sending it!"
"Wow. Look at that. She does have fingers."
Silence.
Somewhere, a first-year associate clapped once, then immediately pretended it wasn't him.
Kai dusted off his hands and walked back to his office like nothing happened.
Katsuki didn't say a word.
But he did make a note.
Right beside the timestamped record of how long it had taken her to find the folder.
-----
It could've ended there.
But Aoki, apparently, believed in legacy.
The final straw came on a Thursday morning. Cloudy skies. A client dinner looming. Katsuki was reviewing settlement figures when Naomi walked in, tablet in hand, eyes sharper than usual-which was saying something.
She said nothing.
Just dropped the tablet onto his desk and tapped the screen once.
It was a dating profile.
"KATSU," the header read in aggressive all-caps, 33 / CEO / Alpha Male, Gym Rat, Aries.
The bio: Looking for a submissive queen to balance out my corporate dominance. Must like murder documentaries and emotionally unavailable men.
Katsuki blinked.
Then scrolled.
The photo was of him at the firm's anniversary gala, taken from the internal media database. He remembered that photo. He hated that photo. His tie was crooked. Hana had adjusted it two minutes after.
He scrolled further.
"Attached to your firm's IP address," Naomi said mildly. "Used an internal profile photo. Took the liberty of checking the version history-guess whose name was auto-saved in the metadata?"
Katsuki stood.
Fifteen minutes later, Aoki was seated across from him in the conference room, legs crossed, posture stiff, face composed in the way people think looks innocent but mostly just looks like constipation.
"I was doing it as a favor," she said, unblinking. "You need a personal life. It's called self-care."
Katsuki stared at her.
The kind of stare that didn't blink, didn't shift, didn't soften.
"You stole a photo from our server," he said flatly. "Uploaded it to a third-party platform. And called me an 'alpha male CEO.'"
Aoki didn't flinch. "It was meant to be flattering."
"I've fired interns for less."
She straightened. "If you terminate me without cause, I'll file an ethics complaint."
There was a soft knock.
Naomi stepped in, tablet back in hand. This time, she didn't speak. Just pressed play.
The video was grainy, black and white-security footage from the supply closet. Aoki, mid-raid. Purse open. Office pens, three packs of A4 paper, a still-wrapped mug that said I Don't Rise, I Lawyer.
Katsuki didn't smile.
Naomi did. Barely.
"Per the handbook you signed," Naomi said sweetly, "theft of company property is grounds for immediate termination. No notice required."
Aoki's mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.
Kai leaned against the doorway, sipping something cold and overpriced.
"Rough week?" he asked casually.
Aoki stormed out, heels echoing down the hallway like the dramatic end of a workplace docuseries.
When the door slammed, Kai finally exhaled. Loudly.
"That was... hell."
Katsuki adjusted his cufflinks.
"She misspelled Aries."
"Truly her worst crime."
They didn't laugh.
But the silence that followed tasted a little like relief. Or maybe survival.
-----
By mid-afternoon, the office felt like it had collectively aged a decade.
Kai-desperate in the way only a man cornered by unchecked administrative incompetence could be-stood by the break room and made an announcement with both hands raised like he was surrendering to the universe.
"If anyone knows someone-anyone-who's competent and crazy enough to survive this place, let me know. Immediately. Or I will start interviewing baristas."
There was a beat of silence.
Then someone in litigation muttered, "We could just bring back the gremlin."
It started as a joke. Probably.
But the next thing Katsuki knew, there was a sheet going around. A signature campaign.
"Bring Hana Back."
A handwritten petition. Like this was a high school and not a billion-yen boutique law firm that terrified full-grown judges.
Lines upon lines of frantic, deeply unprofessional confessions followed.
"I miss being told I'm spineless in the mornings. It kept me grounded."
"She once rewrote my whole brief at 2am and stapled a granola bar to it. I cried. I would cry again."
"I'm willing to take a pay cut just to have that gremlin back." -Takahashi, Senior Partner.
Katsuki stared at the paper.
The corner of it was already smudged with someone's lunch.
Ridiculous.
It had been almost a month.
Twenty-six days without her voice bouncing off the walls. Without her cursed post-it notes in chaotic shorthand. Without the desk drawer she kept stocked like a 7-Eleven disaster kit-full of pens, snacks, and questionable rage.
She hadn't said a word to him. Not a text. Not a call. Not even a passive-aggressive typo correction via shared doc.
She had, however, come into the office to return her work laptop.
The associates had taken a photo with her like she was a beloved foreign exchange student leaving for another country.
She didn't even wait for him to come back from court.
Didn't say goodbye. Didn't slam a door. Didn't leave a note calling him a tyrant or emotionally stunted dictator.
Just left.
Like he was nothing more than a paycheck.
Katsuki leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling like it personally offended him.
She hadn't even had the decency to face him.
Coward.
Self-righteous, loudmouthed, over-caffeinated coward.
The kind of person who'd punch a vending machine for stealing her coins but couldn't look him in the eye after shattering him like glass.
His jaw clenched.
He exhaled through his nose.
"Fuck this."
He stood.
Grabbed the signature campaign-still warm from someone's tragically sweaty grip-and stormed out of his office. The bullpen went silent.
Kai was mid-scroll on his phone in his office when the door swung open.
Katsuki didn't knock.
"Come with me," he said.
Kai looked up, slow and suspicious. "Where?"
"Osu," Katsuki snapped. "We're bringing that stupid gremlin back."
Kai blinked.
Then grinned.
"Oh, thank God."
He was already grabbing his coat.