An usher of gasps came from just outside the door, with Brandon still turning red.
"Oh my--"
"You did that, huh…"
"...I'll go get you a towel or something…"
As we waited for someone to get me some cloth, Brandon opened the door and lowered Lucas and Ken down from the ladder above us. When I got a fresh new pair of pants and a shirt, I was then ushered down to the end of the hallway. The group of people that had come up to investigate the ruckus stared at me and Brandon as we made our way to the lower floors. It was almost as if eyes were attempting to burn a hole into our backs without our noticing. Ken tried to help the discomfort by cracking some jokes with the other colleagues, but the atmosphere was still grim.
"So… was there a reason you guys did that in the middle of work? I mean, we all do our stuff at home like normal people… but don't you ever get anything done?"
Ken looked at the person talking and seemed slightly offended by his remark, and decided to demand a few things from him. Leaning over to look at the young man, he spoke in a bit of a whisper.
"I get that my status is high, and that I act relaxed at the moment, but I still require the same respect that I give the rest of my employees throughout the work day. What's your name and current company?"
The man seemed flustered by Ken's assertion, and it seemed to have finally clicked in his head on the gravity of the situation.
"Er… my name is Erthwells. Berwin Erthwells. I work in the executive function department and along with your sales team leader…"
"So, you do a lot of analytical work, yes? Then I'm sure you can analyze that not only do you still need to call off the police that you've called in order to not waste their time, but to also apologize to Brandon for your presumptuous actions and rudeness."
Silence followed from the hallway in turn from Ken's remark. Not like they could really retaliate, boss-man's word was the word that they kind of had to take. Once we got down to the main floors, I was dragged along to Ken's office to my own desk while the rest of the people who had gotten caught up in the mess scattered off to do their own work. As I began to sit down at my desk, almost ready to get back to work, Ken tapped me on the shoulder from behind.
"Ruiji… you okay? I know I went too far… I was just—"
"Yeah, I get it, Ken. But, I mean… I wasn't totally against it. And you've helped me out a lot since the beginning of this whole mess. I came to you practically broke and with no work experience, yet you dragged me in."
He nodded and smiled, remembering our first encounter. The elevator ride up, with me making an absolute fool out of myself from arousal… it seemed like those days were so long ago. Then he paused from looking up in thought and shot his gaze straight at me.
"Also, as the boss of this company I do have to inform you of any new employees that come in, and we are getting one momentarily. She's new, so I expect you to greet her with respect… but she's also a foreigner from Japan. I know in your resume you stated you knew a little bit of Japanese, so I want you to learn as much as you can in the time being that she moves into her office before you greet her."
I nodded, taking in the information surprisingly well for what I was used to.
"Do we have a name for this… new employee?"
Once he heard the word, 'name,' he scrambled over to the desk to find something. After about a minute of searching, he held up a similar Application Folder to the one I had filled out when I arrived and opened it.
"Er… her name is… Urarae Niichi? It's a bit hard to say, but it shouldn't be for you…"
"So… Niichi-San. She's probably gonna be calling me Nakama-senpai and possibly be calling you Johan-Sensei. Just saying… mentally prepare yourself…"
He chuckled to himself as he listened to me blabber on about being professional— not like I thought he was really listening.
"I get the point. She should arrive in about a few days time, which should give you enough time to finish up that final draft report that's been sitting on your desk for some time, Nakama- s e n s e i."
Really emphasizing that word… huh. Maybe he's got a thing for that. Turning over to look at my desk, it was an absolute shit hole. It looked like a grenade had been tossed over the supply room, only for all of its contents to fall on my desk and my desk alone. One of the first folders I had to get done was this presentation from the 'Management Team.' I didn't even know they existed…
"You working on whatcha need to be working on?"
A familiar voice shocked me out of my train of thought, forcing me to look behind me. I heard shuffling and immediately knew that whoever it was, they were messing with me.
"Just stop messing around, what do you want?"
Brandon poked his face around to my left shoulder, giving me a jump fright for a split second.
"Ken asked me to check in while you were working."
He held up his fingers, doing a quote for 'working.' Shrugging him off, I continued to work on the PowerPoint. It wasn't even that hard— it was almost as if most of the stuff I'd learned during high school was practically useless. I'd learned pretty much all of my power point skills during middle school and elementary school, so it wasn't like I was stressing my brain that much. Around 2 hours of working into my pile, and it was almost done and I was greeted by Ken who walked to the front of my desk, leaning on it.
"Yo."
"Sup."
"..."
"Want a break?"
I looked up in my usual bored face, hoping to get him to leave me alone. Instead he took it as me being tired and came to behind me to massage my shoulders. I moaned, thinking about possibly buying myself a date with a masseuse— marrying one would be nice too.
"Did you practise? You seem to know where to touch…"
I rolled my head back as he continued to massage my shoulders, neck, and my back. Then I felt his hands pat twice and the sensation stopping.
"Let's go to the cafe and grab a drink. I know I've had enough to do for the day."
Chuckling at this, I looked backwards at Ken.
"You mean having sex with me, your brother, and the mechanic, Lucas for the whole day?"
He blushed and walked towards the door with his face turned away from me. I could tell he was blushing from his reddened ears but I knew he wasn't the one to expose himself that easily.
"Let's just go, Riuji…"
Following after him, I could feel the eyes lay on me as I walked down the hallway. It was almost like deja vu, with the same cold eyes following my every step. It had seemed that the rumors were spreading far faster than I had anticipated.
"Did you feel that?"
I asked Ken as we both stepped into the elevator together, finally alone without a gaze being cast.
"Yeah… I doubt it's gonna be better in the lobby."
It wasn't like he was wrong by any means. We heard the whispers as almost as if they were talking. What was worse, was that any attempt to make eye contact or attempt to make any kind of conversation would be seen as "a distraction" and they would turn their heads a complete 180 to do another task they weren't doing before. Once we sat down at the tables of the cafe, only did it seem to quiet down.
"Hello, Mr. Johan. Would you and…"
She audibly paused, trying to think of my name.
"Riuji. Don't stress over it."
I smiled at her, which made her uncomfortably smile back and continue taking our order.
"Yeah. So Mr. Johan, what would you like to order?"
He turned and looked at me, who was still processing the fact that she had blatantly shown favoritism towards Ken.
"I think Miss Nakama would like to order first. Isn't that right?"
Nodding, I went along with it.
"Yes… may I please have a large black coffee and a chocolate croissant?"
Hesitation, and then she spoke.
"Oh, I'm sorry, we ran out of the croissants a while ago…"
Just as she said that, three croissants were being delivered to the table directly adjacent to us, completely making a fool of the waitress. I chuckled, admiring the balls of this chick…
"Huh. No more, she says."
As I would��ve done outside or inside of any restaurant or in the presence of anyone, I strolled right over to the female at the table with the croissants. She had striking red hair, and an hour- glass figure that not even I could be on par with. It was almost as if she was a model. She took off her sunglasses and looked at me with over outlined eyes in eyeliner and mascara.
"Oh my goodness! Are you Secretery Nakama?"
I tilted my head to the side— how in the hell would I know such a beautiful woman?
"Er… yeah. I just came over to take one of these…"
She chuckled.
"I see the busser inside of you…. I still do the same. The name's Niichi. Urarae Niichi. *Yorushiku onegaishimasu~"
———————
A/N: * = Japanese phrase (in my own spelling) for "Nice to meet you/ Pleased to meet you."
———————
I clicked my tongue, but said nothing out loud that would cause any disruption. They hired her?! Right as she mentioned her name, Ken jumped right over and introduced himself while I sat at her table eating what I thought was probably the worst chocolate croissant in my life.
"Yorishku, Niichi-San."
She laughed as he butchered the pronunciation of the word, and shook his hand. They both stood there laughing, and acting all giddy-like. It looked like Ken was up to something…
"Anyways, I've got to finish my work once I'm done with my coffee. I'd love to show you around the office… any or all times work for me."
Flashing back to when he showed me around, it was when he tied me up to the swing and fucked me senseless. I could feel my anger rising as I saw the way he looked endearing at her, almost wanting to feel her up as he did to me.
"Let's go, Ken. We've got work."
I dragged his arm as he asked me questions about Niichi-San and why I was pulling him.
"Why must we leave so fast? I was only just getting acquainted with her."
"You know why."
He stopped me, and looked right in my eyes, the blue waves seeming to circle and move as he stared into mine.
"I'm not going to go against anything I've said, nor against the contract that I'm going to give to her. It won't be like what we did, and I promise that. I can't risk having another person leave me again."
The last sentence really helped… me, at least— maybe I pushed it to far? I stared off into the distance at my desk after the elevator ride up. During that ride, we were all alone with each other. He stood behind me until the elevator doors closed and said nothing. I felt his large shoulders get close to me, the heat seeming to radiate off of his chest. His shoulders and arms swung around each side of me, enveloping me in a comfortable hug. I buried my head in his arms, and even when more people got on, no one said a word. I didn't even feel a single glance on me— yet all I felt was Ken's warmth and his alone. His presence was all that mattered to me in that moment; and for a brief second I would have been completely fine with anything he did to me. Even if he shot me in the head. It all just felt… justified. I felt guilty even though I hand't done anything. Walking silently to his office was probably the most lonely I had felt in my life. Not even my mother walking out on me could create the feelings that I was feeling in that moment.
"Riuji…"
His blue eyes shot open again to look at me, now from his desk after I hadn't heard him walk in.
"Just finish up your work and go home."
It wasn't like I had much to do anyways— it just was that I had no way of focusing after those list of events happening one after the other. It was almost too much to handle. As I took my keys from the hook and bid him goodnight, I left. My cheeks began to hurt, so I touched my face to find it smiling.
-CLICK CLACK-
-CLICK CLACK-
"Ah, Miss Nakama-Senpai!"
I bowed in my lost train of thought and responded.
"*Oyasume, Niichi-San."
—————
A/N: * = A Japanese phrase (in my own spelling) commonly said to bid one "a good night."
—————
Thinking nothing of it, I trailed off, and into the elevator. Then I realized how late it was… There wasn't anyone else on that floor BUT Ken, and it sure as hell didn't seem like she was going in for just an interview. Trying to press the call button on the elevator, I tried getting it to stop, but with no avail. Nothing was working, and I was getting really frustrated. What was he doing? Was he going against what he said? When the elevator reached ground level, I quickly pressed the button for the top floor and paced around. Not like pacing would've helped at all, because really what it was doing was making really panicked.
-DING-
I took off the heels I was wearing and began to silently run towards the room I knew Ken was going to be in. Was I physically prepared? Probably. Mentally? Not a chance. Opening the door, I saw that same, red haired, doll- like figure sucking off the same person I'd practically given my all to. I felt a tear well up in my eye, clouding my vision. Not hesitating, I walked over to Ken. I wasn't too sure if I wanted to fucking kill this bitch, or slap the absolute shit out of my boss. But what I did was unexpected, even to me. Kissing him in the cheek, I left a lipstick impression on him. He looked at me with the same look he'd given me when he saw me with Brandon. Distressed, strained, and at the end of his own rope. Right as he came into that bitch's mouth, I could feel my tear drip down my cheek.
Walking away from that building never felt better.
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