Disclaimer: I don't own Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi or its characters.

For the rest of the day Ritsu made sure to stay away from Takano. It wasn't particularly hard, everyone was so enveloped in their work that he had no reason to be with Takano alone.

"Ah!" Kisa's scream drew his attention to his side, "Where is Takano-san? I need him to check through this." Kisa was looking around the mess in the room. Ritsu followed his gaze, really where had Takano gone? Ritsu was so engrossed in his work that he had never noticed the man leave the room.

"He was called out about an hour ago." Hatori replied calmly from his seat

Called out? Ritsu looked back at his work, he was beginning to feel guilty. It couldn't have had anything to do with their scene in the storeroom right? True, someone had run away after seeing them, but he had tried to put his mind past it. He could easily explain it away as just falling on top of the man when the door opened. And surely no one would go out of their way to complain about something they had no proof over? But one hour was a pretty long time.

With a million thoughts running through his mind, Ritsu once again found it hard to focus.

"Called out at this time?" Kisa sounded disappointed. He looked at the almost finished manuscript in his hands and looked back at Hatori. The man waved at him, "Bring it over, I'll do a quick look through." Kisa jumped out of his seat and went to Hatori.

Ritsu could vaguely hear them talking in the background. He shook his head, whatever it was he would deal with it when it became a real problem. He didn't have any reason to believe that Takano had been called out for misdemeanor, so he held his guard. What was most important then was finishing his work.

But Ritsu kept a close eye at the door. When would Takano be back?

Takano had returned almost an hour after Ritsu became aware of his absence. So he had been gone from the office almost two hours? Ritsu was worried by the time the older man returned, but he had shown no change in his behaviour, and had gone right back to work.

Ritsu hoped that was a good sign.

Later that night, while they were leaving, he found himself alone with Takano again. If only he didn't have so much work to do, he might have an excuse to not stay back quite so late. Takano hadn't been acting any differently since he had gotten back, but Ritsu noticed that he was standing a little further than usual from him. He hadn't made any movements to touch Ritsu at all, not even when they were alone in the elevator. The train ride back home had been jampacked full of people and he had lost sight of Takano. The curiosity was beginning to kill him; it really didn't have anything to do with sexual misconduct at office, did it?

The first time he felt comfortable talking to Takano about that topic was when they were walking towards their building, "Takano-san, about today…"

"Hmm?" The man looked distracted

"Is everything okay?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Takano was looking at him, but his eyes gave the impression that he knew what he was talking about.

"Well… you were called out today. And you were gone pretty long, so I was wondering if it had something to do with…"

"It's fine." Takano interrupted him, "I've taken care of it." The man reached out his hands and slightly ruffled Ritsu's hair

"Takano-san! Stop that." Ritsu wasn't sure what Takano meant by that. Taken care of what? What had he been called out for? He felt as if the man had just evaded his question. It made him uncomfortable to pursue the topic any further. For the rest of the journey, neither of them spoke about work.

The next week had flown by in a rush. The final drafts were beginning to flow in, and there was so much work to be done. Between finishing the typesets, adding tones where Takano felt something should be done and going through the color copies, Ritsu barely had any time to breathe. Everything felt normal, everything except the part here Takano had been leaving the office for almost an hour every day. It was not like the man to leave work behind if something wasn't important.

Was he being called out again?

Takano had said that it was nothing important, but this strange anomaly had become almost a regular occurrence. Kisa and Mino had brought it up as well, but Hatori had always been the one to come up and say that he was simply meeting the Executive Managing Director. What was he doing meeting that man every day? Not knowing bothered Ritsu, and Takano's refusal to make him privy to the information irritated him.

Why wasn't he allowed to know? It was obvious Hatori knew what was going on, so why couldn't he be told as well? Why was it that when it came to everything including work Takano expected Ritsu to tell him everything, but he himself lost no chance to treat Ritsu like a subordinate. He knew that was exactly what they were, but Takano had made him feel as if there was something more special between them, that he could be trusted with important information. He wanted to know what was going on in that man's life and once again he was left thinking that he hardly knew Takano Masamune at all.

He could feel his irritation rise as Takano made his way back into the room and scowl settled on his face. He would find out what was going on. He would sneak after Takano and figure out what was really happening. The timing was too coincidental to not have anything to do with the storeroom. He had no idea what they were talking about everyday, and ideas he had initially found absurd – such as the thought of Takano giving special favours to the Executive Managing Director to keep his job – were feeling more real to him by the minute. He refused to let this continue.

"Onodera!" A whack on the head made him turn around. Takano was standing there with a manuscript in his hands, looking very irritated, "I said, have you finished your proposal yet?"

Ritsu silently ruffled through the papers on his desk and brought out the required paperwork. He handed it over to Takano, and turned back to his work. Takano had made him redo that at least ten times, especially since it was for the author who had almost defaulted less than a week back. Ritsu wanted it to be better than just 'good'. He would push up the sales, no matter what.

He heard Takano give a low grunt of approval and with that, the two men went back to work.

Three days later, Onodera Ritsu felt fried.

He was finally done with his backlog. And he had been moving at such speed that he had finally run out of things to do. He was probably the only person in that situation since Kisa was going crazy next to him, and Mino and Hatori had left the office to collect finished manuscripts from their respective authors. Takano was busy working in his chair, and for the first time in a while, Ritsu found that he had the time to observe the man work.

"Richchan, if you're done, can you help me with this?" Kisa pleaded and piled papers on top of his table

"What? Ah, okay." It felt good to do someone else's work for a change. Kisa was managing more authors than he was, so he understood the man's pain. Three was bad enough for Ritsu.

Just maybe, he wasn't in the wrong line of work after all.

After lunch break, Takano was nowhere to be seen.

Ritsu felt his irritation rise again, he felt sure that if he asked anyone in the room the answer would be 'the Executive Managing Director's office' Well, for once he had enough time in his hands to go and try and figure out what was happening. If Takano was indeed being punished for sexual misconduct, then Ritsu should have been questioned first. It's not like he made any complaints to the Human Resources, and constantly pulling the editor-in-chief out right before the year end deadlines was unreasonable. That, and he was sure that Takano would try to help him if he was in the same boat.

He quietly excused himself the office, Kisa was too busy to notice and Mino was just coming back. He walked straight towards the elevator. His heart was thumping in his chest, why didn't Takano come to him when something had happened? After all his big talks on being in love with Ritsu and heavily implying that he wanted to be in an exclusive relationship with him, did the man think that relationships were a one way street?

The closer the elevator got to his destination, the more he began to feel sick. He felt angry, betrayed, irritated and a small twinge of what he refused to admit was 'fear'. He slowly walked out of the elevator. Maybe this hadn't been a good idea after all. But he kept walking towards the EMD's office. He was sure all the thoughts flowing through his head was just him coming up with worst case scenarios. One hand reflexively went to his stomach as he lifted his hands to knock on the door.

Muffled voices from inside drew his attention. He brought his ears closer to the door and stopped to listen. He could feel a blush forming on his cheeks, what was he doing eavesdropping? He was just glad that the floor was empty, people still hadn't returned from their lunch break. Everyone wanted to rest a bit, especially since the cycle was coming to a close.

"What do you mean?" Takano's voice rang through the door. The loud tone made Ritsu almost jump in his spot, and he accidentally ended up knocking on the door. Oh no.

The voices inside paused then said, "Come in."

With trembling hands, he opened the door and poked his head through, "Excuse me."

"Onodera?" Takano was standing near the door. He looked startled to see Ritsu.

Other than Takano and Isaka, there were three other men in the room, Yokozawa was one of them. Ritsu couldn't recognize the last two, "Uh… I was uh… looking for Takano-san." Towards the end of his sentence, his voice had fallen to a low whisper. Had he interrupted some kind of meeting?

"Well, if you'll excuse me." Takano walked out of the room and closed the door. He started walking towards the elevator when he noticed that Ritsu was still frozen in place, "Onodera, come on." He grabbed Ritsu by the scruff of his neck and pulled him along.

Well, at least Ritsu was almost sure there weren't any sexual favours involved. Once they were alone in the elevator, he whispered, "I'm sorry."

"For what? I'm glad you came." Takano was looking annoyed, he rested his back against the back of the elevator and stared straight ahead.

"You are?"

"He was thinking of merging Emerald with another department." Takano sounded angry again

Ritsu looked shocked, "What? Why?"

"I don't know and I don't care. But it's not happening."

"Uh… is that alright? He's in charge of the company and…"

"I'm in charge of Emerald." Takano finished, "I didn't come to work here so he could disrupt everything I did and fuse us with a completely unrelated department."

"Oh?" Ritsu looked around the elevator, Takano was suddenly telling him everything, and despite the fact that even an hour back he had been annoyed about Takano keeping secrets, he was so taken aback he wasn't sure how to react, "Well, maybe it's a good thing. You know, we never have enough people and…"

Takano sent him a look that made him stop talking, "Are you saying you would be comfortable with teaching a whole new bunch of people how to do your work?"

"Huh? No. I mean…"

Takano sighed, "If I want more people to work at Emerald, then I'll interview them myself."

The elevator stopped at their floor and Takano got out, "Onodera?" He turned around to look at the man. Ritsu was standing in the elevator with his head down and his fists clenched, "You took me."

"I took you because you had a good resume, not because I'm obligated to do everything the higher ups tell me. You've been working here for a while now, and from where I'm standing, it looks to me as if I've made the right choice." Takano grabbed Ritsu's hands and dragged him out of the elevator. He actually was obligated to follow orders, but there was no way he would admit to that right there. Within his department, he wanted full control over who worked there and who didn't. He simply refused to have to teach rookies every year, especially when Emerald never advertised any vacancies.

He continued to drag the man all the way back to their office, "Takano-san." Ritsu tugged at his hand, "People are watching."

Takano didn't reply, but tightened his grip around Ritsu's hand.

Hatori's voice greeted them as they entered the office, "How was it?"

"I was pulled out before I could get angry." Takano pointed towards Ritsu.

Hatori nodded and sat down.

So Hatori had known about this? Takano had been going to that room almost every day to fight for the office. Ritsu hadn't known how protective Takano was about Emerald; he knew the man had dragged it out from the bottom and rocketed it to the top but even though he had wondered how that was possible, he had always chalked everything up to Takano simply being good at his job. This side of the man was new to him, new yet strangely familiar.

Takano sighed as he went back to his seat. Kisa was giving Ritsu a confused look, and he was uncertain about whether he should let the man know.

"Onodera, finish this." Takano was pointing to the pile of paper on Ritsu's desk.

"Yes." Ritsu jumped back into his seat and immediately got back to work. That was Takano telling him not to talk, and he would respect that.

Towards the end of the day, Takano had come to Ritsu's desk, "We have to go back after work."

"Huh?" Ritsu wanted to continue, but Takano gave him a look that said they would talk about it afterwards.

By the time they were near Isaka's office, Ritsu couldn't hold his curiosity anymore, "Takano-san, why are we…?"

"He called us."

That was not a good sign. Were they going to be reprimanded for leaving the meeting so abruptly?

He watched as Takano knocked on the door and made his way inside. Ritsu followed. Isaka was the only person in the room, and he sat there looking cheerfully at them both, "I'm glad to see you made it."

Takano closed the door behind them and stood defiantly. Isaka chuckled at the man's response, "You really don't want this do you?"

"I have already stated why." Takano's voice didn't betray any emotions, but the tension in the room was enough to make Ritsu want to shrink back against the wall.

"Yes, but I still have the final say."

A snort from Takano made Ritsu jump. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to be so openly disapproving in front of the Company Head.

"Ah well, I was doing this for Emerald. I was sure you needed more employees, didn't you complain to me before about how much work there was and how little time."

"Pardon my words, but I don't complain to my superiors." Ritsu could vouch for that despite never being there, it wasn't like Takano to complain about work.

Isaka leaned back in his chair and sighed, "Well, the Sales Department seems to agree with you." Takano looked a little surprised, "Though I suppose that has nothing to do with your personal connections."

The tension in the room was getting thicker. Ritsu knew Takano would not say anything untoward, or at least he hoped.

"I really don't see why you're so against having new employees." Isaka continued, "Your team is overworked." Isaka looked at Ritsu as he finished.

What? Was he supposed to say something? He absolutely did not want anything to do with this conversation.

"New employees are fine, merging us with an unrelated department that are used to working on a different genre is not." Takano's voice sounded a little strained.

Isaka shrugged, "It was just a suggestion I was looking into."

So Isaka hadn't planned to go through with it? It did seem strange to him that a man working at the head of a successful publishing house might decide to do something so suddenly without approval from both the teams. He looked at Takano and his eyes narrowed, Takano didn't look surprised at all. So he had known all along. The reason why no one but he and Hatori were aware of this was because they had known this idea would not pull through. So what was the point of coming here every day to argue his case?

"But I appreciate your efforts." Isaka placed his hands on his desk and smiled, "Onodera-kun, I wanted to congratulate you on your proposal."

"Excuse me, what?" Ritsu blinked. What proposal? The one he had given Takano the other day.

"Of course it still needs to go through a meeting, but it was useful looking through the documents beforehand. It helped that Yokozawa was here as well."

At this point Ritsu was completely confused, what had Takano been doing exactly? He turned to stare suspiciously at the man.

"What? I used it as an example of how we operated." He looked completely unapologetic about showing his boss Ritsu's proposal without asking him first, "I had passed it already, so I knew there wouldn't be any problems." Ritsu was once again reminded why he found that man annoying.

"Now now…" Isaka waved his hands in the air, as if consoling two fighting children, "Here's what I suggest. You can see how Emerald handles the new workload for a trial period of six months, and if things don't work out, look into having new team members."

"New work load?" Ritsu felt dizzy, too much was happening too fast.

"We're starting a new bi-monthly issue." Takano shrugged, "He wants us to create a new issue aimed at older audiences."

"Yes, new audiences." Isaka nodded, "Do you think you can do it?"

Takano nodded. Ritsu stared on despairingly. As if getting one issue out in a month wasn't bad enough, two was going to be hell.

"Before you leave, Onodera-kun." Isaka smiled at him, "If you need your editor-in-chief, be sure to call him first next time, okay?"

Ritsu felt evil intentions floating in through the smiles. He quickly nodded, bowed and as soon as Takano opened the door he all but dashed out.

"I'll see you after New Year." Isaka called out after him

"Huh? Why?" Ritsu turned around.

"We're throwing a party to celebrate the new year. I've already told your father, but please, I want you to be there as well."

Ritsu bowed one last time before moving away from the door. He wasn't entirely sure why Isaka had called him inside, was it just to reprimand him and then invite him to a party all within a span of five minutes? Takano was looking amused, and the arrogant smile on his face drove Ritsu's confusion away, "If you have something to say, you should say it." He glared at the man

"Being a spoiled son of a successful publishing house does have its perks." He started laughing loudly.

"Huh? What?" Ritsu's glare became even more fierce

"I'm saying I've seen people being shot down for much less. It was never all smiles either." Takano stopped laughing to look at Ritsu.

Ritsu wasn't sure how to deal with that statement. Was he trying to be mean? He didn't sound like it, he didn't look like he was trying to make Ritsu feel bad either. And he had said it all to the man's face.

"Don't worry about it; I'll make sure no one goes easy on you in the office." Takano smirked as he started to walk towards the elevator.

"Takano-san!" Ritsu felt frustrated as he chased after the man. It was somewhat true, ever since he had started working at Emerald, nothing about his job had been easy. It didn't help that Takano demanded perfection from everyone, but Ritsu felt that that was what had helped him come along so far in a line of work he had no prior experience in.

Isaka sighed in his office, did those two have to flirt just outside his door? That made pushing aside the complaint he had received from Human Resources that much harder.

He hoped he had gotten through to Takano though. He must maintain a distance from his personal life at work, or there could be consequences. Takano had said that he understood, and Isaka was fine with that. It gave him what he needed as well, now that he had a reliable person looking into producing a Josei magazine along with a Shoujo one, the company might be able to make profits from this.

He would first have to see if Emerald could gather enough authors to make an issue. He would know if it was possible by the end of six months, and if it wasn't, he could try meeting with other departments. Takano really overworked his team members. Isaka wondered if that was how he had managed to turn Onodera Ritsu into one of the team's assets. Isaka lightly tugged at Ritsu's project proposal, his father would be pleased to hear about this.

Ritsu had a billion questions that he wanted to ask Takano, but the minute that had entered their office, it was work all over again.

By the time they were leaving the office, he was too tired to even talk. That, and he simply couldn't fathom how going to work and back had become something he did with Takano every day. His life was quickly turning into a romantic drama and he was feeling more and more flustered with the situation. Why was Takano keeping so many secrets from him? And why was it okay to tell Hatori about the possibility of a new issue being released but not him?

"Onodera, I know I've told you this before, but if you don't stop scowling all the time, your face might just end up changing into that." Takano prodded at his forehead as the rounded the corner towards their apartment, "Not that I'm sure you wouldn't mind."

"I would!" Ritsu shouted before trying to grab on to the man's hand, "And stop doing that… ah…" Ritsu finished with a sneeze. Takano was looking slightly annoyed as he brought out a handkerchief and started wiping his hands on it, "I am sure none of that touched you! And even if it did, it's your own fault!" Ritsu was scrambling for his own handkerchief, but a part of him felt deeply satisfied with the sudden sneeze.

"Sure." Takano smirked, "Careless accident."

Ritsu nodded furiously before plunging his face into the piece of cloth. Was he coming down with a cold? This was the absolute worst time to get sick. There was still work to be done, and the Year End parties and then… he dreaded the thought of going home. He wanted to see his parents, but the thought of being introduced to women bothered him. His mother simply refused to realize that this was a part of his life he wanted no interference in.

"Do you want to drink with me today?" Takano asked him as they passed in front of a convenience Store

"Why would I want to do that? I'm going to go home and sleep," Ritsu said as his stomach growled slightly.

Takano laughed at the sound, "More bento for dinner?"

Ritsu was actually planning on skipping, but he wasn't going to tell him that, "You could just have dinner at my place. I'll make something."

There was a small blush forming on Ritsu's cheeks. It was the cold weather, he was sure of it.

"Fine, it's decided." Takano flung his bag over his shoulders and started walking ahead of Ritsu.

Startled, Ritsu picked up his pace, "Please don't decide things for yourself!" Well, at least he wasn't going to have to skip dinner. He didn't want to risk eating the last bento he had in his house, not after the stomach ache from that morning. With bright red cheeks and throbbing heart, Ritsu followed Takano home.

AN: Well, that's the third chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know what you think. :)