Higashiyama, September
She'd called his personal phone.
That should've been the first sign this was going to be a waste of time.
Katsuki didn't give that number out lightly. Hell, half the firm didn't have it. So when it lit up—just as he was shutting his laptop, ready to spend the evening surgically deconstructing the latest Yamato-Lerwick idiocy—he hesitated. Briefly. Long enough for her to leave a voicemail dripping with urgency. "I need your expertise, Hasegawa-san. It's important."
Important, she'd said.
That word should come with criminal penalties for misuse.
Now he sat across from her at a polished corner booth of one of Higashiyama's more discreet restaurants, resisting the urge to stab a chopstick through his own palm just for the distraction. She hadn't brought up a single legal issue. Not one. For thirty-seven minutes and counting.
She was still talking. Something about France. Or French cheese. Or her dog that only ate French cheese. He wasn't sure. He wasn't listening. His brain was screaming in five languages and already calculating how quickly he could wrap this up without violating professional ethics or homicide laws.
Kai had texted him ten minutes in.
Kai: Act nice. She's still a client.
"Yeah, but I like you more," she'd said when he told her to call Kai. "Sato-san's girlfriend scares me."
Hilarious. Because he wasn't scary at all.
She laughed at something she'd just said—god knew what—and leaned across the table, her perfectly manicured hand sliding over his.
And that's when the universe decided to test his ability to remain seated.
Because someone walked in.
Three someones.
Hana. Yuna. And Ren.
Of course they'd pick this restaurant. This table. This moment.
Statistically improbable. Cosmically inevitable.
His eyes found Hana immediately—an instinct more than anything else. She was wearing that black blouse he liked. The one with sleeves that slipped off her shoulders when she moved too fast. She scanned the room, gaze sharp and uninterested, until it landed on him.
And then—she smiled.
No comment. No pointed remark. Not even a look.
Just a soft, unreadable smile and then she turned away like he was no more relevant than the air conditioner. Like the hand currently on his hand didn't even warrant acknowledgment.
Yuna, naturally, waved. Flashy, taunting. Ren grinned at him like he'd just caught him watching porn in a company meeting.
Hana sat down, laughed at something Yuna said, and began dissecting the menu like she hadn't just walked in on her boss on what appeared—falsely—to be a date.
She didn't even look back.
Which was great.
Wonderful.
Flawless, really.
Because now, despite the fact that he'd said absolutely nothing and done nothing wrong, he was the one sitting here with a hand on top of his like a fucking politician trying to appear relatable—while Hana acted like she didn't care.
He didn't owe her an explanation.
It was a coincidence. A public restaurant.
She didn't tell him her weekend plans, why the hell would he tell her his?
Besides, this wasn't even a real dinner. It was—
The woman laughed again. Loud. Fake. Plastic.
He blinked. Remembered she was still talking.
He pulled his hand back, slow and deliberate. Looked her dead in the eye.
"Is there anything important that we still need to talk about?"
She paused, confused. "Oh, I just wanted to have dinner with you."
He inhaled once. Measured.
"I'm in the middle of a corporate clusterfuck that requires my undivided attention," he said flatly. "If you have any legal issues that need handling, contact your lead counsel. Otherwise—"
He stood. Reached for the bill. Paid it.
And then—because the universe had already set the stage—he walked over to the other table.
To her.
To the woman who smiled and said nothing, and in doing so, said everything.
Because if Hana had misinterpreted what she saw?
She didn't look upset.
She looked indifferent.
And somehow, that was worse.
-----
He didn't bother clearing his throat. Just walked over and slid to the seat next to her chair, sharp and silent, the way predators moved when they weren't hungry—but still dangerous.
Hana didn't even look up.
"Oh, I thought you were with someone?" she said lightly, eyes locked on the menu, voice flat and curious like she was asking if the weather was humid.
Katsuki's jaw ticked. "What are you doing here?"
Wrong question. Weak. He knew it the second it left his mouth. It sounded like guilt. Like defensiveness. Like he owed her an explanation when he didn't—when he shouldn't.
But then again, he also shouldn't have let that woman touch his hand. That wasn't defensible either.
Ren answered first, tone casual, legs slung under the table like he'd just rolled out of a punk concert. "Yuna-nee got a voucher. For three. Said it'd be a waste not to use it."
Yuna added brightly, "Perks of writing about food for a living." She popped a grape tomato into her mouth from a tiny appetizer plate like she lived in a commercial.
Katsuki's gaze swept the table. They were entirely unfazed. Not a flicker of discomfort. Not even a glance toward the woman he'd just walked away from.
His attention snapped back to Hana. She was biting her thumbnail now, squinting at the menu. And for some reason, that irritated him more than it should have.
She wasn't going to ask. Wasn't going to poke. Just… moved on.
Then she finally glanced up.
"You ordering?" she asked, perfectly neutral. "Yuna can only cover for three though."
He didn't answer right away. Just exhaled once, sharply, and stood up.
"I'm leaving. Lerwick and Yamato are waiting."
"Okay," Hana said. She smiled at him, all sweetness and false professionalism. "Happy weekend, boss-man."
Boss-man.
She hadn't called him that in weeks.
So that was how it was. She could switch back. Pretend she hadn't smiled at him that morning. Pretend she hadn't spent her lunch break yesterday curled up in his office chair, proofreading a litigation brief with one hand and eating karaage with the other while he adjusted the goddamn thermostat so the smell wouldn't stick to his suit.
Fine.
He straightened his cuffs, voice like a blade. "When you're done, go to my penthouse. We have to finalize some things for Lerwick. Your Viking is agitated."
Her eyes flicked up again. Flat. Annoyed. "Henrik is not my Viking."
But it was Yuna who added, sing-song and unhelpful, "But he did keep calling you."
Hana's head snapped toward her best friend. "Yuna."
Katsuki turned before he could hear the rest. "Talk to you later."
Outside, the air had cooled. Crisp for September. He didn't bother checking the weather; the drive would be short. He slid into his car, closed the door with a little more force than necessary.
Henrik. Calling her.
Multiple times, if Yuna was to be believed—which she usually was, unfortunately.
He hadn't authorized any off-hours contact. The project was in chaos, yes. But Henrik knew better than to bypass protocols. Hana wasn't a liaison. She wasn't his contact point. She wasn't even technically part of the international strategy team. And still—he was calling her.
Repeatedly.
Because Henrik was friendly. Unthreatening. Soft around the edges in that vaguely Nordic, annoyingly affable way. And Hana—
Hana was too polite to ignore a client. Even when she should.
She also hadn't told him.
Not because she was hiding it. But because she didn't think it was worth mentioning. Which, in a way, was worse.
He'd have to fix that.
Remind her that personal communication with foreign executives wasn't part of her job description.
And maybe remind Henrik too.
Politely, of course.
Strategically.
A lesson.
Just enough pressure to leave a bruise.
Purely professional.
-----
The penthouse was quiet.
Too quiet.
Which was ironic, considering that was usually the goal. Silence. No junior associates pacing outside his door, no unnecessary chatter, no one knocking just to ask something they could've Googled. Just him, his laptop, and a city skyline that looked expensive enough to justify his monthly maintenance fees.
But tonight?
The silence grated.
Katsuki sat behind his desk, back straight despite the late hour, the dim light reflecting off the marble floors and glass surfaces. He'd moved his workspace to the living room—out of habit more than necessity. Hana usually sat on the far end of the sectional with her laptop and a stack of documents that she somehow managed to scatter like she was nesting.
But tonight, she wasn't coming.
Stomach flu, she'd said.
"Unless you want me to ruin your fancy toilet 💀," her message read.
And a line break.
Then: I'm serious. It's bad.
Professionalism, as always.
He didn't reply. Just sent back a task list. Bullet points. Deadlines. Drafts to review. Things she could handle from home.
She responded with "👍🤮"
He should've left it there.
He should've gotten back to work—Lerwick's projections were a mess, the Yamato emails were escalating, and the Oslo coordination still wasn't clean. Everything needed tightening. Streamlining. Focus.
Instead, he opened his phone.
Called IT.
"Pull up all communications between Sukehiro and Henrik Andersen," he said. "For compliance."
The pause on the other end was just long enough to be inconvenient. "Any specific date range, sir?"
"All of it."
Five minutes later, the files came through.
Katsuki opened them like a man reviewing evidence he already suspected to be damning. Which was irrational. He knew that. Still—he clicked. Scrolled. Read.
The messages were boring.
Strictly business. Scheduling. Shipment clarifications. PDF attachments. Even the grammar was disappointingly clean. If someone handed him this transcript and told him to guess which of the two had been referred to as your Viking, he would've assumed it was a sarcastic nickname from Hana.
But then—
Henrik Andersen: "If you ever make it to Oslo, I'd love to show you the fjords."
The fjords.
Katsuki blinked once. Closed his eyes. Reopened them.
As if that would somehow change the font.
Hana Sukehiro: "Haha, that sounds beautiful. I've never seen a fjord before."
She was polite.
Too polite.
He could count on one hand the number of times she'd been polite to him, and most of those involved sarcasm. This was—actual civility. Like she was trying to be agreeable. Normal. Pleasant.
Which meant she was giving Henrik something she never gave him.
He did not like that.
And then—
Henrik Andersen: "Can I have your personal number? Easier to communicate that way."
And without hesitation—
Hana Sukehiro: "Sure! It's 090—"
That was it.
No delay.
No "why?"
No "let me ask my boss."
Not even a fake number to test if he was serious.
Just gave it-like it was nothing.
Katsuki leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled beneath his chin, gaze fixed on the conversation log like it might blink first.
It was perfectly normal. Technically compliant. There was no breach. No misconduct. No policy violation.
But it didn't matter.
He'd seen enough.
Henrik was too familiar. Hana was too polite. And Katsuki?
Katsuki was going to remind them both who she actually worked for.
For efficiency.