Pokemon: The Spy and the Idol

Two weeks had passed since the ghosts reentered the living world. It passed just like that, with no fireworks, no headlines. Just quiet coffee machines, elevator chimes, and the dull echo of office shoes along PSIA's sterile halls.

Hiroshi blended in so well it was almost forgettable. Like a throw blanket thrown over a chair—visible, sure, but unremarkable. He gave the same impression every single day — and it was all completely, painfully intentional. A young man way too green for the seat he sat in. That was the image he needed. The one he built, layer by layer, with just the right cracks in his mask to sell it. It wasn't just an act; it was a shield. Because Makima had too many eyes on her, and someone had to operate in the blind spots.

So he became the cover.

By being underestimated, by being "not a threat," he could keep the others — his real team — moving in the dark. Wiretaps, call logs, movement data, bank access, internal pass tokens. He slipped them out like someone misfiling forms, while upstairs they were busy laughing at him mixing up internal extensions. Hiroshi had to remove all suspicion first. No one could think he was Makima's trusted subordinate, let alone her knife in the dark. If they did, none of this would work. His hands had to look clumsy so the tools he carried would never be checked.

The rest of the office had already built a mental file on him. Just another political placement, clearly. Maybe a Diet member's nephew. Maybe someone Makima owed something to. It wasn't just a good cover — it was one Makima herself planted. Once, in passing, she had been overheard in the open-plan bullpen muttering to a "trusted" colleague, not loud but not exactly whispering either: "I had no choice. I owed someone a favor. He's harmless. Let him push papers and stay out of the way."

The seed was planted. And Hiroshi played his part to the end.

Always that slightly hunched posture in meetings, shoulders drawn in like a kid fresh out of his university internship. A smile just a bit too wide. Eyes that darted like he was afraid of messing up. And those stutters — not always, just enough to sound like he was struggling with protocol or remembering abbreviations he wasn't supposed to know yet.

He bowed too much. Way too much. Even to people technically below him in the hierarchy. Division heads, floor managers, hell, even the janitor on 4F. And he asked for help all the time. Which document to sign, which seal to use, what shortcut opened the secure email client. The kind of boss who depended on everyone around him like a little brother trying to manage the family shop.

A complete non-threat.

They called him harmless. Behind his back, of course, but sometimes not even trying too hard to whisper. Some of them pitied him. A senior officer from the Analysis Bureau once left a neat little note on his desk, handwritten in blue ink on squared PSIA letterhead. It read: "Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it." There was even a smiley face.

Someone else in the Strategy Team whispered that Hiroshi was Makima's failed golden boy — a prodigy she'd tried to groom, who flopped so hard it turned into an office joke. The story went around that he had passed the entrance exams by fluke or favor, and now Makima couldn't fire him because it'd be too awkward. Like a failed project shoved in the corner of the office where no one had the heart to throw it away.

And Takeda, the Kanto Branch Chief who was now secretly under Makima's watch, believed every second of it.

To him, Hiroshi was just another unfortunate name pulled up through some behind-the-scenes string-pulling, probably hand-fed to Makima by the Prime Minister himself. A clueless greenhorn, pretty face, not much else. Maybe even a political favor she had to repay. People whispered worse — that Makima was the Prime Minister's mistress, that he was grooming her for something higher, that this entire administrative stunt was just their power play. None of them could figure out how she climbed so fast otherwise.

Because Makima hadn't just been promoted — she'd leapfrogged.

She skipped past men with three decades of war rooms and intelligence desks behind them. Men who once shook hands with CIA brass, who had lunch in Shanghai with ghost diplomats, who signed off on black ops nobody ever heard of. And now this thirty-something woman with cold eyes and no faction — not LDP, not MOJ, not even the Old Guard of PSIA — was sitting at the very top of Japan's intelligence network, with no alliances except one: the Prime Minister himself.

No one liked that.

And they liked her pet project even less. The brat assistant director with the soft face and empty resume.

So of course they tested him.

Takeda, especially. Always with that rehearsed, friendly smile, pretending to be the wise old mentor. Calling him "Hiroshi-kun" a little too often. Handing over draft documents marked confidential — internal eyes only and urging him to "take initiative" and "show some leadership."

Once, Takeda gave Hiroshi an older, complex proposal on regional surveillance revisions and said something like, "Why don't you walk this into Makima's office? She might respect you more if you stop hiding behind her skirt."

It was always like that. These people didn't see Hiroshi as a threat. At worst, they thought he was a plant. A spy Makima had placed there to snoop on them — which, in fairness, he was — but they couldn't prove anything. That Makima once ran intelligence in Kanto. That she was smarter than she looked. But they'd underestimated her. Underestimated both of them.

So Makima leaned in. She gave Hiroshi more power. Not just covert, but visible. She even let him carry her latest reform draft into the building — an internal shake-up plan she'd been quietly fine-tuning for months. Hiroshi signed it as the initiator. On paper, it looked like his idea. No one would think otherwise.

It was a masterstroke. And the bait worked.

The moment Takeda got wind of the reforms — a direct shift of power from veteran chiefs to the Director-General's oversight — he called Hiroshi into his office with that same smooth, oily grin and said, "I think you're moving a little fast, son. But I respect the enthusiasm. Let's polish this up together."

Next thing Hiroshi knew, Takeda had stapled a pile of "minor" addendums to the proposal. Bureaucratic fluff. Oversight committees that would rubber-stamp everything back to status quo. Loopholes that made the Director-General toothless. Enough red tape to choke a horse.

Then he casually suggested Hiroshi present the package at the weekly roundtable with all the division heads. "Good experience for you," Takeda said, smiling just a bit too wide. "Makima-san will be proud."

Hiroshi nodded like a clueless intern. Then, on the day of the meeting, he simply didn't bring it.

He showed up late, papers out of order, mumbled an excuse about printer errors, and never mentioned the reform again. The original draft went into his bottom drawer. No updates. No explanation. Nothing.

And Takeda, watching from across the table, leaning back in his chair with arms crossed, took the bait.

He saw it as confirmation. That Makima's pawn was useless. That maybe even he'd turned. That the Director-General had lost her edge, her grip, her men. The little whisper campaign started by a few jealous officers now had fuel — "She's slipping," "her reforms are dead," "even her assistant's not listening to her."

But what really sealed the illusion was Hiroshi's patience.

He endured it all — the jabs, the disrespect, the subtle humiliation — without ever lashing back.