Chapter 35: The Storm in Glass

POV: Kaito Minami

The city spread beneath the penthouse windows—steel, glass, and winter light. Sharp edges. Controlled geometry. A world built on symmetry and calculation.

A world I usually understood.

Not tonight.

My reflection hovered in the glass like a shadowed second self, faint but unmistakable—jaw set, eyes narrowed in concentration. Gray, as always. Predictable. Contained.

But beneath that surface, a tension pulled tight through my chest, coiled from the moment she’d whispered:

“I… Kaito-san… thank you.”

A simple sentence. Soft. Breath-like.

And yet—it had cut through every barricade I kept around myself.

I should have ended the call earlier.

Instead, I lingered.

I checked my phone again. No new messages. Her side was quiet. She was either resting or panicking—or pretending she wasn’t panicking—for her family’s sake.

A knot tightened in my throat.

My gaze shifted to the tablet on the table. The headline glared back:

CEO MINAMI SPOTTED WITH UNKNOWN WOMAN — RUMORED ROMANTIC LINK?

Pathetic journalism. Sensationalism wrapped in digital gloss.

Still—dangerous.

I swiped it away and opened the internal report instead. My security team had already flagged accounts attempting to identify her. At least three had posted speculative comments; two had guessed she was an employee.

That was a problem.

I tapped the screen, issuing directives with practiced precision.

—Prioritize takedown requests.

—Quarantine internal chatter channels.

—Flag any employee sharing the photo.

—Locate the original source.

A cascade of confirmations answered.

Good. Mechanisms were moving. My world was holding.

But mine wasn’t the world at risk.

Her face flickered through my thoughts—wide eyes, flushed cheeks, that instant when panic had cracked her voice. How small she had sounded. How much she tried to hide her fear from me.

It gnawed at something I didn’t have the vocabulary for.

I forced myself to breathe steadily, counting each inhale until my pulse regained its rhythm.

This should not be affecting me like this.

She was an employee. A subordinate. A carefully maintained distance.

And yet—

I rubbed my thumb across the back of my phone, imagining the shape of her name on the screen, the hitch of her breath when she answered. My hand stilled.

I needed to check on her again.

I shouldn’t.

But I needed to.

A knock sounded at the door before I could decide.

“Enter,” I said, voice reverting instantly to its neutral, executive sharpness.

Sato stepped inside, tablet in hand, expression tense. “We have an issue.”

Of course we did.

He approached slowly, aware of my state—or perhaps cautious of it. “The board saw the photo.”

I didn’t move.

Sato continued, clearing his throat. “A few believe this will affect the shareholder meeting. They’re calling for a clarification statement.”

A cold edge sliced through the air.

“A statement?” I repeated.

He hesitated. “…Yes. They want to know if it’s a personal relationship—”

“It is not.”

My voice dropped, low enough to silence the room.

Sato swallowed. “Then they expect you to say so publicly.”

I turned away from the skyline, the city, the sunset fading into steel-blue dusk. My reflection darkened in the glass.

“I’m not issuing anything,” I said flatly.

“But if you don’t, the speculation will—”

“Let them speculate.”

Sato blinked, surprised. I felt the shift in the room—how rare it was for me to refuse a strategic move, how much it unsettled him.

But issuing a statement meant addressing Hana directly in the public sphere.

Dragging her into the spotlight.

Exposing her.

Unacceptable.

I straightened my cuffs, reclaiming my control inch by inch. “Contain the leak. Silence internal chatter. Suppress further distribution.”

“And the board?”

“I will speak to them. Myself.”

Sato nodded slowly, though worry remained etched across his face. “Understood.”

He left. The door clicked shut.

Silence settled again.

I pressed two fingers to the bridge of my nose, letting the tension bleed into my hand. The city lights flickered awake below—thousands of windows, thousands of lives moving without awareness of the storm gathering above them.

I opened Hana’s contact.

My thumb hovered.

I shouldn’t call. Not yet.

She needed space.

She needed calm.

But—

My chest tightened with that same unfamiliar pull. A thin thread, persistent, unbroken since the moment she answered.

The world could twist headlines, spin stories, ignite speculation—but none of that mattered if she wasn’t steady.

If she wasn’t safe.

I locked the screen before I could betray my restraint and set the phone face-down on the table. Hard enough to make the sound echo.

Not yet.

I would call when it mattered.

When she needed it most.

And when I was certain my voice wouldn’t reveal the one thing I couldn’t afford:

That for the first time in years, my gray world was shifting.

And the gray was only getting darker.