I looked up just in time to see Katherine Cho, my boss's boss, storming across the floor like a woman possessed.
She was clutching a thick stack of printed pages so tightly her knuckles were pale. Her heels stabbed the carpet with every step.
People started turning, one by one. Heads popped up over cubicle walls. Whispers rippled through the air like static.
Before I could stand, before I could even breathe, Katherine slammed the papers down on my desk, pages flying.
Then,
She flung the rest.
Dozens of them. Charts. Graphs. Spreadsheets.
"Are you out of your goddamn mind?!" she shrieked.
My brain short-circuited.
"I, what?"
"Are you trying to sabotage us?" Katherine's voice cracked through the entire office. "Are you actually stupid or are you just reckless?"
The room had gone still. Even the intern near the printer stopped mid-click.
I scrambled to gather the papers, my hands shaking.
"I don't, I don't understand, I, "
"You tweaked numbers," she snarled, stabbing her finger at a red-circled figure on one of the pages. "Right here. You manipulated results from last quarter's client projections. We presented this to investors this morning and do you know what happened?"
I shook my head, throat dry.
"Do you know what happened, Kina?"
She wasn't asking to be answered.
"I was humiliated. In front of the VP, in front of investors. They caught the error, your error, and now it's my name that's being questioned."
"I didn't, "
"You did. You were the last one to handle this report. You submitted it. Your name's on the goddamn metadata. What were you thinking?!"
My heart was pounding. Too fast. Too loud.
I tried to speak. To explain. "I, I double checked everything before leaving Friday night, I swear, "
"Apparently not," she spat. "Because either you're incompetent, or this was intentional."
People were still watching.
Some whispering.
Some just… staring.
And I was shrinking by the second. Drowning.
I didn't know how to defend myself. I knew I didn't tamper with anything. I worked late. I cross-referenced data from three different sources. There was nothing wrong when I submitted it.
There was nothing wrong.
But now…
There was.
And somehow, it was my fault.
"I, I'm sorry," I whispered.
It was all I could manage.
It was all I had.
The papers scattered across my desk like ash. Each one felt like a bullet. And Katherine? She was holding the gun and firing with every word.
"-you have no idea the damage you've done. This isn't just a typo, Kina. This is corporate sabotage. This is grounds for a fucking disciplinary review."
My throat clenched so tight I could barely breathe.
"I swear I didn't, "
"Stop lying!" she snapped, voice rising even higher. "You want to make it in this company, but you can't even triple-check a goddamn figure. What do you think this is? A university project? This is real business. These are millions. This is people's trust, and you just burned it like garbage."
Every word was a lash. Every sentence was a noose tightening around my neck.
People were staring. Watching.
A junior staff from procurement wouldn't stop whispering to the girl beside him.
And someone from HR, I didn't even know her name, was just standing near the coffee machine, eyes wide and almost… excited.
I could feel it. My reputation? Gone.
My body? Frozen.
My mind? Screaming.
"I didn't change the numbers," I said again, this time quieter, but firmer. "I swear. I stayed late. I double, triple checked. There was nothing wrong when I sent that report in."
"Oh, so now the report changed itself over the weekend?" Katherine hissed, arms crossed. "You're not only incompetent, you're delusional."
The tension was suffocating. The whispers were louder now. Like a wave about to crest and crash.
Then,
A voice sliced through it all. Calm. Cool. Deep.
"What's going on here?"
Time stopped.
Katherine went stiff like she'd touched a live wire.
I turned my head slowly, my chest tight and still hurting from where the shame lived.
There he stood.
Aaron. My boss. My everything.
Navy blue suit, perfectly crisp. Tie straight, hair slicked back, silver cufflinks flashing under the fluorescent lights. His usual expression: unreadable. His gaze? Sharp and cold enough to cut through a blizzard.
Everyone parted for him like he was royalty.
Katherine straightened immediately. "Oh Aaron, I was just... "
"I asked," he repeated, voice colder now, "what's going on."
No one dared to speak.
My heart was thundering in my chest. My palms were sweating. My whole body wanted to shrink.
Aaron's eyes landed on me.
And for the first time that morning, I breathed.
"Aaron," Katherine's voice instantly softened, like flipping a switch, her tone far more familiar than professional as she stepped toward him. "It's Kina. She submitted that data set on Friday, the client performance projection? Well, someone caught it in the board meeting this morning."
She thrust the papers at him like proof of a crime scene.
Aaron took them slowly. His eyes flicked over the sheets, scanning, calculating. Unreadable.
"It was wrong," Katherine pressed, voice tightening again. "Grossly tampered. It made Mr. Henry look like an idiot in front of the Japanese investors. And we all know how much was riding on this presentation."
My spine pressed against my chair. Every bone in my body itched to run.
"She's claiming she double-checked it, but at this point, I don't know if it's incompetence or deliberate. Either way, this can't be ignored. It's a firing offense."
Silence.
The air buzzed like static. I swore even the printers stopped whirring.
Aaron's gaze lifted to me.
It wasn't cold. Not quite. But it wasn't kind, either.
It was… assessing.
He folded the papers once, then again.
"Kina," he said, voice calm, "come to my office. 10:30 a.m. sharp."
"Y-Yes, sir."
"Until then, keep your head down and finish the backlog from this morning. I'll forward the clean data set to your inbox. You'll redo it, alone. From scratch."
I swallowed, nodding. "Yes, sir."
"No breaks until it's done."
"Yes, sir."
"Good."
Then, just like that, he turned to Katherine.
His hand gently, gently, touched her elbow. Barely a graze, but enough to guide her away from the crowd.