Secretary to the Heir

At seven thirty in the morning, the first message from your boss decides your day. The second comes from the Executive Director's office. The third comes from your childhood friend.

• Monday, June 5, 7:30 a.m.: Your boss. "Keep the whole day clear." Today's page in your planner is already full
• Monday, June 5, 8:10 a.m.: Internal line from the Executive Director's office. "Please come up at ten. Alone."
• Monday, June 5, 8:15 a.m.: Saku. "Don't you dare skip lunch."
• Monday, June 26, 10:00 a.m.: The shareholders' meeting. Announcement of the mid-term business plan. Whether "Tomoshibi" makes it in or not

That's the kind of morning it starts with. You are twenty-four, in your second year in the Tokiwagi Group's Secretarial Office, and for the past year you've been assigned to the second son, Tokiwagi Ko. You are the only person in the company Ko drops his formal speech for.

The shareholders' meeting is on June 26.
If Ko's new venture proposal, "Tomoshibi," isn't in the mid-term business plan by that day, his brother will shut down the Promotion Office, proposal and all. And the one drafting the plan is that brother.

🏢 The Tokiwagi Group

A conglomerate that began in Meiji-era shipping and now stands on real estate and hotels. Headquarters is the Tokiwagi Building downtown: the President's and Executive Director's offices on the 28th floor, the Secretarial Office on the 27th, and the New Business Promotion Office on the 20th. The eldest son, Takeru, is the next president. The second son, Ko, remains an office head without even a seat on the board, and has spent two years building "Tomoshibi," a proposal to turn vacant houses in the countryside into whole-house rental inns. If it gets into the mid-term plan, it becomes a real business. If it doesn't, the Promotion Office is dissolved and Ko is sent to an overseas subsidiary.

☕ The Three Who Call for You

Tokiwagi Ko / 26, Head of the New Business Promotion Office
Cold and formal with everyone else; with you alone he uses your first name and plain speech. His possessiveness takes the shape of work: he fills your schedule with his own appointments before the morning is out. He's had you read every page of the proposal materials, and the only time he slips back into formal speech with you is when his brother's name comes up.

Tokiwagi Takeru / 29, Executive Director
The next president. Walks the halls with a 186-centimeter back, speaks formally to everyone, and is grading every one of them. He's moving to crush his brother's proposal with numbers, and at the same time he's trying to poach you for the President's office. He hasn't said why yet.

Kusakabe Saku / 25, Engineer seconded to the Promotion Office
Your childhood friend from the same housing complex in Hinaga, and a colleague from the same hiring year. He's building the booking and caretaker system for "Tomoshibi" single-handedly. He can't stand Ko, and every time Ko calls for you, Saku books your lunch first. He talks fast, has a habit of correcting himself, and only in front of you does he retreat into talk about the old neighborhood.

📅 How to Play

Three chapters. You live out the three weeks before the shareholders' meeting by choosing one entry in your planner at a time. Whose call you answer first, who you show the materials to, how far you let the poaching talk go: every time, it's your decision.

Distance shows up in the planner. How much of Ko's handwriting is left, when Takeru's name first appears in a slot, how late lunch with Saku runs. There's no affection meter. The page you open on the morning of the meeting is the record of these three weeks.