The venue for the company-wide meeting was so packed it was standing room only.
At the front was a giant screen. Section Chief Tadokoro sat in the front row, wearing a triumphant look.
"We will now announce the new project—"
Just as the emcee began to say it, the lights in the hall went down.
A stir ran through the crowd.
In front of the screen stood a single figure. A tall, quiet man.
"Thank you for gathering on such short notice. I'll be the one speaking today."
Beside me, Yui caught her breath.
"Misaki, isn't that... the CEO, Aoi Sakurai?"
That's right. The one who had taken the stage to advance the slides was this company's chief executive officer, Aoi Sakurai.
"Today, I'd like to talk about a certain outstanding proposal."
A proposal I recognized appeared on the screen.
The Regional Specialties Plan I'd submitted three weeks earlier—the one that had been thrown in the trash.
"This has been reaching my hands for half a year now. I picked it up out of a trash can in the office, late at night."
The smile drained from the section chief's face.
"Every time I picked one up, I was amazed. Why would a proposal this good be thrown away?"
Aoi advanced the slide.
What appeared next was—the expense records. Fictitious business trips. Padded entertainment expenses. Timestamped logs of the stolen credit. Transcripts of recorded workplace harassment.
The hall froze.
"All of this is evidence of embezzlement, workplace harassment, and stealing credit from subordinates, committed by Section Chief Kaori Tadokoro."
The section chief shot to her feet.
"Th-There must be some mistake! I would never—"
"There's no mistake."
The one who spoke up was me. I stood and looked the section chief straight in the eye.
"The Regional Specialties Plan. Author: me. Created on March fourth. You submitted it to the department head on March seventh. I wrote it, it was thrown away, and three days later it went in under your name. The data still exists."
Every eye in the hall turned to the section chief.
"And the fictitious business trips—if you check the dates, you were in the office on those very days. The facts prove all of it."
The section chief's lips trembled, but no rebuttal came.
Aoi nodded quietly and clicked the remote to the next slide.
The section chief's own voice played through the hall. What a presumptuous proposal, for someone so young. There. Rejected.
There was nowhere left to run.
The air in the hall had clearly changed.
The senior staff who had always curried favor with the section chief all lowered their eyes at once. These were the people who'd spent half a year looking the other way.
Aoi went on, unruffled.
"I don't judge people based on emotion. Facts, however, are another matter. Everything here is verified evidence. Accounting, Legal, and outside auditors have all been involved."
The slide advanced once more.
A list of the young employees' proposals the section chief had quashed over the past three years. Several of them had been presented under the section chief's name, and praised.
"It isn't incompetence that rots an organization. It's people who crush talent to protect their own positions."
"Kaori Tadokoro. Embezzlement of twelve million yen, multiple cases of workplace harassment, and the misappropriation of proposals. As of today, you are subject to disciplinary dismissal."
Security guards stepped up on either side of her. The section chief crumpled.
"Wh-Why... Why would the CEO care about some ordinary employee's proposal...?"
Aoi looked straight at me.
And then, in a voice that carried clearly, he said:
"Because Misaki Fujimiya, who wrote this proposal, is my fiancée."
The hall erupted. "No way," Yui said, covering her mouth.
I stood and slid the ring I'd taken out of the drawer back onto the ring finger of my left hand.
Aoi smiled from the stage.
"As of today, her proposal officially launches as a company-wide project. The person in charge, of course, is Misaki Fujimiya."
Applause spread like a wave.
I walked slowly past my former section chief as she was dragged away.
"Chief."
Stopping, I spoke quietly.
"That proposal you threw in the trash—the one who presses the approval stamp is my fiancé."
The section chief couldn't say a thing anymore.
A few months later, my project produced results beyond all expectations, and regional products reached dinner tables all across the country.
Yui, who had been covering her mouth in the front row that day, was now my right hand on my team.
"Misaki, you're amazing. You gathered evidence on your own for half a year, right? I never noticed a thing."
"If anyone had noticed, it would've been over. But because you got angry for me every single day, Yui, I never broke."
Yui scratched her head, looking embarrassed.
I'm glad I didn't let myself sour, even when I was thrown away.
I'm glad I believed in the person who picked me up.
Sipping the coffee Aoi had made for me, I signed that day's approval documents in my own name.
The proposal that began at the bottom of a trash can is now in a place where no one can ever throw it away.