The office clock blinked 9:47 p.m. when Renji realized he was the only one left on the sixth floor. His cubicle was drowning in reports, highlighter marks bleeding across the pages like veins.
He rubbed his eyes and stared at the numbers again. They didn’t add up. They never did. Project after project funding allocated, receipts filed, nothing delivered. Someone had buried it so deeply that anyone careless would miss it.
Anyone except him.
The day he’d reported it to HR, his life at the firm had collapsed. Lunch tables went quiet. Emails stopped arriving. Even his mentor, Matsuo, began treating him like a contagion.
That morning, Renji overheard Matsuo’s hissed words near the pantry:316Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCPUfbkQRqv
“Idiot doesn’t know how things work here. He’ll be gone in a month.”
He had wanted to believe in right and wrong. But in this tower of glass and steel, right was a liability, and wrong signed the paychecks.
That night, as Renji packed his bag, the glass doors to the executive wing opened.
Kael stepped out.
The Director was a myth whispered in corridors ruthless, brilliant, the kind of man whose word could hire or fire half a department. His suit was loosened at the collar, but his eyes were sharp even at this hour.
“You,” Kael said, voice smooth but heavy. “Renji, right?”
Renji stiffened. “Yes, Director Kael.”
“Follow me.”
The elevator ride was suffocating. Renji tried not to stare at the reflection of Kael’s sharp jawline, the way he stood so casually with hands in his pockets, like he owned not just the building but the city outside.
When the doors opened, Renji gasped.
The seventh floor wasn’t like the cramped cubicles below. It was dim, spacious, smelling faintly of leather and coffee. Kael’s office stretched across the corner, glass walls overlooking the city’s arteries of light.
Kael poured himself a drink. Without asking, he poured another and slid it across the desk.
“You stirred the nest,” Kael said, sipping. “That was either very stupid… or very brave.”
Renji clenched his fists. “I just… couldn’t ignore it. The numbers”
Kael’s laugh was quiet, almost cruel. “Numbers don’t matter here. Survival does.”
Renji bit back a retort. But Kael leaned forward, his gaze pressing down like gravity.
“Let me make this simple. You want to last here? You’ll stay under me. I’ll shield you.” He paused, lips curling. “But in return… you’ll give me your Saturdays.”
Renji blinked. “S-Saturdays?”
“One day a week. No questions asked. You’ll come when I call, stay until I’m finished with you. At work, you’re my subordinate. On Saturdays…” Kael’s voice lowered, almost intimate. “…you’re mine in every other way.”
Renji’s stomach lurched. It was insane. Wrong. And yet… what choice did he have? Already, Matsuo was feeding rumors. HR ignored him. Without protection, he’d be forced out.
Renji’s throat was dry. “…Okay.”
The following weekend, Renji’s hands trembled as he knocked on the seventh floor’s glass door.
Kael was waiting, jacket off, sleeves rolled up. He didn’t touch him, didn’t speak beyond clipped instructions:
“Sit.”
“Pour the tea.”
“Take notes.”
For hours, Kael worked while Renji sat in silence, the tension suffocating. It felt like punishment, but also like a test. When Kael finally dismissed him past midnight, Renji stumbled home more exhausted than any weekday.
Kael didn’t let him sit.
He pressed Renji against the floor-to-ceiling glass window, the city sprawled in neon beneath their feet. His voice was low, breath hot against Renji’s ear.
“Don’t flinch.”
Renji’s body betrayed him, trembling under Kael’s steady grip. Yet Kael didn’t push further. He only held him there, suspended between fear and something unspoken, before stepping back with an unreadable expression.
It wasn’t all cruelty.
That evening, Kael mocked the way Renji mispronounced a foreign client’s name, his smirk almost boyish. Renji flushed, muttering excuses but then, to his horror, he laughed.
Kael’s gaze softened for the briefest moment.
And Renji realized: the man wasn’t always stone.
During the week, Kael was merciless. He threw files onto Renji’s desk without warning, barked orders across the floor, forced him to redo reports until his hands ached.
But every time another employee tried to corner him, Kael’s shadow loomed, silent and protective. No one dared move against Renji directly.
It was a leash, yes. But also a shield.
And slowly, dangerously, Renji began to rely on it.
One Monday, Matsuo cornered him in the stairwell. His smile was venom.
“You think Kael’s protecting you? He’s using you. He’s the one who buried the fraud you exposed. You’re just a toy to keep him entertained.”
Renji froze. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Matsuo sneered. “Who do you think signs off the missing projects? Who do you think makes those numbers disappear? He buried it, and you handed yourself to him like an obedient dog.”
The words clawed into Renji’s chest. He couldn’t breathe.
That night, he stormed into Kael’s office.
“Tell me the truth,” Renji snapped. “Did you cover it up? Am I just....just some distraction for you?”
Kael didn’t look surprised. He only leaned back in his chair, eyes unreadable.
“If I said yes,” Kael asked softly, “would you leave?”
Renji’s breath caught.
“If I said no,” Kael continued, standing, walking closer, “would you believe me?”
The space between them shrank. Renji’s mind screamed to run, but his body stayed rooted as Kael’s hand cupped his jaw, touch far gentler than expected.
“You wanted the truth?” Kael whispered. His voice cracked, just faintly. “The truth is, I don’t know why I kept you. Maybe I wanted a toy. Maybe I wanted a witness. Or maybe…” His eyes burned into Renji’s. “…I just didn’t want to be alone on Saturdays.”
Renji’s chest heaved. His heart screamed that this was wrong, twisted. Yet under Kael’s trembling hand, he felt something raw—loneliness so sharp it mirrored his own.
Renji whispered, “Then… what am I to you?”
Kael didn’t answer. He only pressed his forehead against Renji’s, silence louder than words.
Renji still came.
The office lights hummed as he sat across from Kael, papers spread but untouched. The city outside blurred into color.
They didn’t speak of the fraud. They didn’t speak of the rumors.
Instead, Kael poured two drinks, and for the first time, he drank with Renji as an equal. No orders. No commands. Just silence—and a weight neither dared break.
Renji thought: maybe this is what it means to be shackled and freed all at once.
On Monday, Renji arrived at his desk to find Matsuo gone—transferred suddenly, without explanation.
Whispers swirled. Some said Kael had pulled strings. Others claimed Matsuo had exposed himself.
Renji never learned the truth.
All he knew was that the seventh floor still waited, its glass doors gleaming like a secret no one else dared touch.
And every Saturday, he still climbed the elevator, not knowing if he was walking into manipulation, salvation, or love.
Maybe all three.
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and then Add to home screen.