"It's a subscription-based pipeline that delivers regional products to customers nationwide. I visited the producers one by one, listened to what they had to say, and designed it around that. With this, we could—"
"All right, that's enough. What a presumptuous proposal, for someone so young."
Section Chief Kaori Tadokoro didn't even hear me out. She tossed the proposal I'd spent three days putting together straight into the trash.
The paper sank with a crumpling sound.
"Chief, could you at least look it over—"
"Oh, I heard it. Enough to know it's rubbish."
None of the senior staff around us would meet my eyes. They were all used to this scene. Every time I, Misaki Fujimiya, in my third year at the company, submitted a proposal, the section chief's trash can filled up. That was just another day in the Second Planning Section.
I went back to my desk without a word.
Beside me, Yui Kamiya, who had joined the company the same year I did, was clenching her fists under the desk.
"Misaki, that was way too much. That proposal would've gone through for sure, you know it would."
"It's fine. I'm used to it."
"You shouldn't have to get used to it..."
Yui was genuinely angry. She was always the one who got furious on my behalf.
My third year at the company. Every time I submitted a proposal, I got hit with the same words.
"Presumptuous, for someone so young." "Don't go sticking your nose in when you've got no experience." "Your generation doesn't understand seniority. It's a real problem."
In the beginning, I'd sometimes cried in the middle of the night.
But at some point, I stopped crying.
Instead of tears, I started taking notes. What the section chief said. The dates. The titles of the proposals she'd thrown away. And then—money moving in ways it shouldn't.
"Misaki, are you listening?"
"Yeah. I'm listening."
"I heard they dumped organizing the welcome-and-farewell party on you again, too. And the section chief's going to be the one holding the money from everyone's fees, right? That woman is definitely skimming off the top."
I quietly opened a fresh page in my notebook.
That afternoon, the section chief came back from the department heads' meeting.
"Listen up, everyone. For the upcoming new-business pitch competition, the department head absolutely raved about the 'Subscription-Based Regional Specialties Plan' that I came up with. That's experience for you."
Applause broke out.
I clapped along, while inwardly counting the ticks of the clock.
Because that plan was identical, right down to its framework, to the proposal I had explained to her in person three weeks earlier, the one she'd thrown in the trash.
That proposal had been packed with the pipeline design I'd built by spending my days off visiting farms out in the regions and gathering the producers' voices one by one. Delivering regional products nationwide on a subscription model—it was something only a person who'd actually walked those places could have written.
And the section chief had presented it as her own achievement. All with a single word: experience.
"Fujimiya."
After the meeting, the section chief came over to my desk.
"You've been working a lot of overtime lately. What are you doing?"
"Organizing materials for tomorrow."
"Hmm. Well, if a young girl like you pushes too hard and ruins her health, the company won't take responsibility, you know."
With that, the section chief smirked.
I quietly closed my laptop.
On the screen had been an open folder.
The folder was named "Accounting_ApprovalFlow_Copies."
The suspicious figures the section chief had attached to her expense reports again and again. Fictitious business trips, padded entertainment expenses. I had spent half a year picking them up, one at a time.
"Responsibility, huh," I murmured.
"Right. Nobody's going to take it, Chief."
On the way home, Yui walked with me to the station.
"Misaki, how are you so calm about all this? I could never put up with it."
"I'm not calm. It's just... there's someone who picks them up."
"Picks them up?"
"The proposals that get thrown away. There's someone who actually reads them."
Yui tilted her head.
I took out my phone and sent a single message.
I've shared today's batch. The Regional Specialties Plan—that one—got stolen, too.
It was marked read right away, and a short reply came back.
Got it. You held up well. It won't be long now.
The Regional Specialties Plan will get the spotlight it deserves soon. Under your name.
I read those messages over and over.
I hadn't told anyone the sender's name yet.
The truth was, my proposal, sunk at the bottom of the trash can, had been quietly picked up that very same day by a certain someone.
Who that person was—the section chief still didn't know.