The CEO was silent as I briskly stalked out of his room, glowering fiercely at the papers in my hand.
You will stay there, and you will cause me no more issues, got it?
The papers stoically allowed themselves to be held, pretending they were innocent angels who had done no wrong.
Since I had time, I took the elevator down, putting in the new time into my phone. XX:35 it was.
Looking at the papers, I read through them, wondering why they were declined. I scoffed at the spelling mistakes in two of the papers but was glad to see I wasn’t wrong when I saw the other three named the company as Kageson.
I hummed as I read through them, using my phone to figure out what some of the names or words meant.
Arriving back in the lawyer’s office area, I set the papers in the yellow-cornered wire basket and stood about five feet from Scott, awkwardly standing there and shifting from foot to foot in his peripherals.
“… Yes?” Scott asked irritably, leaning back and staring at me.
“The CEO wants sticky notes denoting whether a paper is urgent or not.”
“What?” Scott asked.
“The boss wants, like, something signifying that the urgent papers are, in fact, urgent,” I clarified, gesturing awkwardly.
Scott glanced at my hands when I gestured, “What, are you Italian?”
My hands dropped. Then I crossed them, “Um, no? Maybe?”
Scott rolled his eyes and turned back toward his monitor. A few very awkward minutes of silence later, he gestured at his printer, which had started making noise.
“Pin that to the bulletin over there,” Scott gestured to his left. I walked to his printer, as each lawyer seemed to have their own wired connection to an individual printer, and grabbed the paper. I read it as I walked.
‘ADD “URGENT” ON A STICKY NOTE TO THE URGENT PAPERS’
Pinning it to the wall, I went back to my seat, scrolling through my phone and looking through soup kitchens and other things that might help me eat tonight.
The very next hour I glanced at the time before I entered.
06:42.
Nice, seven minutes instead of eight. That it took eight minutes at all to climb thirteen floors was kind of concerning, though. Just how weak was I?
Walking into the office, I set the papers down.
“You are early,” His warm voice was stoic.
I wondered if he was just a naturally cold and monotone person before remembering it was just a cultural difference. An answer to what he said slipped out as I wandered to the yellow bin, seeing only the page I’d noted earlier with the spelling mistake.
“Better early than late,” I quoted.
“I would prefer it if you were exactly on time, henceforth,” The CEO refused.
I sighed lightly, “Of course. Have a good one.”
What a needy bitch. Did he have OCD, or was he just that uptight in keeping to his schedule?
Shaking my head, I read through the paper, wondering if the spelling mistakes were the only reason it was refused.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
It all looked like legal jargon, which was needlessly complicated. Or, wait, if this was a contract with acquisition in mind, wouldn’t it need to be more complicated?
No… Wait…
Weren’t contracts about this stuff typically several pages long? And these didn’t have any places to sign, were they suggestions for contracts? Individual pages of an already drafted contract?
I guess I’d find out if I read more, I mused.
The next hour, I sighed heavily as I arrived three minutes early. I observed the secretary. He had a nameplate on the wraparound desk he was at. He was the CEO’s assistant, not a secretary.
At the moment it looked like he wasn’t all that busy, scrolling through his phone with his cheek squished against his fist.
“Hey,” I started awkwardly, trying to make a single friend, “Wassup?”
“Huh?” The man, Shawn his ID said, looked up, green eyes looking surprised and innocent, “Wh—“
The phone rang, though, and I sighed, walking to slump into a chair as I waited. The rest of the three minutes were spent listening to Shawn speak with someone about scheduling a meeting several months in advance.
Walking in exactly on time, slightly irate, I gently set the papers down. |
No words passed between the CEO and I, and I relaxed as I glanced at the yellow corners of the metal bin for a moment before turning and walking out with three new papers that had been refused.
The rest of my day passed similarly, with me attempting and failing to talk to the secr—assistant—several times. I guessed fate just wouldn’t give me a friend, and I gave up on talking to the busy man.
I ended up staying until the last lawyer left, several men calling me to stop every time I left to attempt to explore the building and requesting I stay. Exhaustion filled me, and I looked at the time after delivering the papers.
“Shit,” I managed at the 17:38.
I burst into a sprint, not even caring as I slipped part of the way to the door, sprinting out of the CEO’s office. I ran as fast as I could to the elevator, hoping it wasn’t busy.
The streets were gray and the skies grew dark, and I stood at the last soup kitchen I’d tried. My stomach twisted, and I felt sick as I turned away.
I wanted to die anyway.
Losing one night’s worth of food to play rich wasn’t the worst.
My eyes were glazed over as I walked back into Kageson’s building. Food. My mouth was dry and my stomach was twisted painfully from my full-out sprint, and I wandered through the lobby to observe the handy map that was there. A giant list took up the entire black side, and the map was not very useful.
On floor 54, though, there was the recreation. It had a gym, showers, and other things, according to the map. I wandered through, easily finding the showers.
The water was really warm, and the water pressure was surprisingly excellent. Luxury in the smallest of forms, I supposed. Getting out of the shower, I dried myself using my shirt, knowing the shirt would be dry by the time I found a place to sleep for the night.
Rooftops…
Cars flew past far, far beneath. I turned, glancing back at the roof. Gravel and the roof access greeted me as I wandered to the side. I stared out across other rooftops.
When did I even get here? Didn’t I just get out of the shower? Christ, I was hungry.
The individual roofs splayed out before the giant skyscraper, and I glanced at a single person a few buildings away and getting farther.
Parkour. Freerunning. Right, that was a thing here, wasn’t it?
“I hardly think missing a day’s worth of classes is bad enough to constitute this,” A deep, silken voice called out stoically.
I glanced behind me, turning. I stared at the man on the rooftop, not recognizing him. He was tall, very tall. His hair was dark, and his eyes were a light gray. After a moment I realized it was the CEO.
“Sorry,” I said, stepping from the ledge casually, a lie escaping my lips easier than it was to breathe, “I was thinking of freerunning.”
“Ah,” The CEO looked slightly more relaxed, “I would prefer you did not do that from this roof.”
My lips twisted into a vicious grin as I passed the man to go inside, wondering if anyone forgot their lunch at work, or something, “It’s too tall. I couldn’t if I wanted to. I won’t be up here again, don’t worry.”
I’m hungry, I noted.
No. Was I thirsty? I think I was just thirsty.
On my way out of the building, I filled my stomach with water until I felt sick. Wandering the streets in a daze, when my alarm went off I was asleep on some grass. Sitting up, still dazed, I walked to work.
I was a lot closer than I thought I would be, and my very early alarm had me inside Kageson at just before four in the morning. I went to the 54th floor, taking an intense shower and using the blow-drying mechanisms to dry my no-longer-grass-stained clothes. My hair was next as I ran my fingers through it again and again.
Walking out of the bathroom clean as heck was nice, though I wished I’d had anything except what was on me. Wallet, phone, charger, and me. The rest was lost to other scavenging homeless, and I found myself oh-so-very hungry.
I moved past, ignoring the sole person actually using the gym for its intended purpose as I wandered to the floor I needed to be at.