The part of the day that could be considered morning was over, and the sun was just past its apex. While I would’ve loved a chance to freshen up, I was starting to run late for my interview.
I exited the highway into the nearby suburbs and navigated the local roads to my destination. I pulled into the apartment complex and parked my car in the visitor parking. Even though I had no suit, I’d made sure to wear my best set of clothes, a white dress shirt and khakis. I was the definition of business casual! At least I was when I first left my old place. The AC in my car broke partway through and there were sweat stains forming underneath my armpits.
Hopefully nobody would notice as long as I kept my arms down, but just to be sure, I gave my hair one last comb over. Everything counted when making a good impression, after all.
I locked my car door and made my way to the front office, past several three-storey buildings that littered the property. After a quick knock on the door, I was welcomed with an aged, yet lively voice from the other side.
“The door’s open, please come in!”
Taking the cue, I twisted the handle and made my way inside.
The main office was exactly as I expected it. The floor was covered in carpeting somewhere between forest and puke green, the walls were covered in a yellow and white striped wallpaper, and the desk at the center was made of a heavily worn wood. Sitting at the desk was an equally old man. He had a pleasant demeanor and was of some kind of asian ancestry. He was probably in his 70s or 80s, and looked like he’d been sitting in that office for at least half his life.
“Uh, hi. I’m Chuc- I mean Mike. Mike Smith. I’m here for an interview…” I said, my words beginning to cut out. I silently cursed at myself. This was an interview, confidence mattered! But this was also an interview for a job I knew nothing about. How could I not be nervous?!
“Oh, you must be Eunice’s friend! She’s told me so much about you, and I don’t think you’ll disappoint!” He flashed me a smile, which was all I could make out of his face. His eyes were entirely covered by his white hair.
“Thank you, sir,” I replied, returning the grin.
“Please, call me Hiroi, I’m the manager here at Karling apartments. We’ve been looking for a new handyman since the old one was promoted, and you might just fill that role!”
I nodded along.
“For your interview, I’ll just have you fix a broken oven. If you do well, the job’s yours!”
My head froze. “Uh, Hiroi… what exactly will happen if I can’t fix it?”
“Then you won’t get the job,” he shrugged.
“And then what would I do?” I thought to myself. “It wasn’t like I had any other career lined up here, and I only have a hundred bucks on me!”
As if he could read my mind, the old man let out a short chuff of laughter. “Eunice told me about your circumstances, how you came here for a fresh start. I actually have several jobs lined up for you, but I figured I’d start by seeing how well you’d do at the highest paid one first. If you don’t have an aptitude for that, I could have you tending the grounds. That doesn’t pay as much, but it’s still more than enough to live a comfortable life.”
I let out a sigh I didn’t know I was carrying and a weight lifted off my shoulders. Hiroi was right, but I didn’t remember telling Eunice about why I’d actually quit. Maybe she figured it out on her own after talking to me, or maybe she was just giving me a more sympathetic backstory. Either way, I was grateful to her.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you drifting off?”
“Huh? Oh no, sorry. It’s just that I’ve never actually repaired an oven before, I don’t think I’m qualified to do it.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve saved the manuals for all of the appliances we have here, so you can refer to that. Everyone has to start somewhere, am I right?”
I nodded back. “Sure, I’ll give it a shot.”
“Great, let’s head out then!” exclaimed Hiori. He bent down and with a grunt, slowly lifted a large tome and placed it on top of his desk. “This baby should have everything you need to figure it out!”
I stared at the massive stack of papers with a blank expression. They didn’t exactly have video tutorials I could look up online in this world, so this is how they made up for it. I lifted the book and followed my hopefully would-be boss outside.
----------------------------------------
I followed Hiroi out the front door at a sedate pace, taking in the sights of what might be my new home. The apartment complex was constructed on a very sizable lot of land, with there being 4 separate buildings that each housed a collection of apartments and various utilities, such as a large trash and recycling bin, and parking spaces.
Each building was labeled by letter, starting from A all the way to D, the latter of which being where we started. Each was built somewhat differently, the first few buildings looking a little more worn than the others.
“So you’ve seen the lettering?” asked Hiroi. “These buildings weren’t constructed all at once. We’ve had to expand to meet the needs of the city and its growth over all these years. Even when my family and I were interned during the second World War, the apartment complex continued to grow! I was lucky that the family I handed this place over to during that time was kind enough to return it in even better condition and with a new building.”
I nodded along, but couldn’t help opening my eyes wide. Even with how hyper sexualized this world was, it still matched with the darker parts of history from back home. World War II, the internment of Japanese Americans. Who knew what else? A few ideas on how the horniness of this place could’ve affected those dark parts of American history flew through my mind, but I quickly shook it off. That just felt disrespectful, their people had suffered enough.
After some time, the apartment manager came to a stop in front of a door on the ground floor of building A. “Here’s the apartment with the broken oven. Let’s go on inside and-”
“You fucking whore!” came a muffled shout from inside. “And you! You son of a bitch!”
The old man and I stared wide-eyed at the door. Hiroi slowly walked over to the window to see what was going on.
I looked at him, utterly aghast at his behavior. Staring into peoples’ houses was rude, no matter what kind of juicy drama was going on inside. But that didn’t stop me from following his lead.
“Hey man, it’s not like that, I’m just doing my job!” came another voice from inside. It was another man. “Hey, what are you doing with- oh shit!”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I grabbed Hiroi and jumped down onto the grass below us as a massive CRT television flew through the window. Glass shattered and was sprayed out in the flying TV’s path, but we were thankfully far enough away to be left untouched.
“Get back here, you motherfucker!” shouted the first voice as a young man opened the front door and ran out.
“Hey Hiroi,” said the sprinting newcomer as he passed us by. “That guy’s out for my blood, so it looks like I’ll have to quit and move! I’ll be back to pick up my things later, sorry!”
The old man nodded understandingly, and waved the young man goodbye from his spot on the grass.
“Where the fuck is he?! I’ll kill him! I’ll fucking kill him!!!” shouted the same voice from before. The man it belonged to emerged from the open doorway, his bloodshot eyes and 5-o’-clock shadow contrasting the business casual button up shirt and dress pants he wore. And I couldn’t get past how despite all of that, he still somehow looked better than me. “You, landlord! Where the fuck did he go?!”
“Away, apparently,” replied Hiroi. “He didn’t tell me where, sadly.”
“Wh-why? What did he do?” I blurted out, realizing too late that I already knew the answer to that question, and that I’d just dug myself into this shitshow.
“That bastard fucked my wife!” shouted the man in a scream wrought with pain. “I’m gonna kill him!”
The landlord and I stayed silent as we regarded the victim, whose head jerked left and right as if expecting the man whose blood he craved to simply appear to his side. Eventually, he finally realized that he wouldn’t be able to get at him, so he set his eyes on the other half of his anger.
“You…” he said in a low growl, looking back towards his apartment.
A woman peeked her head out the doorway, a look of utter fear plastered over her face… along with another substance. She held a phone in her left hand and was frantically talking into it, making motions with her free hand that looked akin to scribbling something down on a piece of paper.
“You chose to fuck that fucker!” shouted the man. “How the hell could you?! We’ve been married for years, and this is how you repay me for everything I’ve done for you?!”
The woman finished her phone call and disconnected the landline, letting the corded receiver fall to the floor. “Everything you’ve done? You’ve been working nonstop, never spending any time with me! I’m your wife, Harold!”
“And that’s why I’ve been working so hard! To provide for you!”
“You love your job more than me, and I have needs! I was just getting what you couldn’t provide! Love!”
Before the argument could escalate further, I began to hear a faint siren. As the man named Harold approached his wife, the sound grew louder, until it was apparent to everyone that they were headed here.
A heavily armored car, followed by an ambulance, barreled into the apartment complex, and parked right in front of us. Out of the car came a pair of what I could only describe as SWAT officers. Decked from head to toe in thick slabs of body armor, the two were a menacing sight to behold.
But they would’ve been even more intimidating if they carried real weapons with them. Rather than semi-automatic shotguns or tear gas, these officers were equipped with batons, pepper spray, and a colorful book that looked like a cross between a bible and a children’s magazine.
“Everything will be fine, you two!” shouted the first officer as he pulled open the book and began reading from it. “For the goal of life is to create a story, and a life of excitement creates the greatest story, so says Ultarian.”
The couple froze as they looked upon the officer and took in his words.
His compatriot approached the two with open arms and hugged the man, letting him bleed off his range as he impotently pummeled the officer’s thick, padded armor.
“What is this, the sexual inquisition?” I whispered to Hiroi, having picked up on the religious vibe from the two policemen.
“Domestic Dispute Mediation officers,” replied the old man. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of DDM, they’ve been around from even before my time!”
“Uh, I don’t get out much, actually.”
“Oh, you youngins. What do they teach you in school nowadays? No matter, I’ll be the one to do the job then.”
As the manager collected his thoughts, I searched the recesses of Mike Smith’s mind for any details on this “DDM,” and what they were all about. All I was able to find was the fact that such a group existed, so I decided to let my tour guide be the one to elucidate me.
“Whenever a domestic dispute like this gets violent, they dispatch the DDM to defuse the situation. The woman probably mentioned that she and her husband are religious, so that’s the strategy these two fine officers are using to calm them down, quoting scripture.”
“I’ve never heard of that scripture before,” was all I could say.
“You need to go to church more often, then. I know it isn’t fun, but what you learn there will help guide you through the rest of your life.”
I silently nodded along. Once again, Mike Smith’s old memories only told me that such a scripture did exist, and nothing more. Was he really this sheltered or was I losing touch with what was left of him?
“Perhaps we should go?” asked Hiroi as he nudged my arm, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah, I think I’ve seen enough.”
The old man nodded. He turned around and faced towards Harold. “Excuse me, we’re here to fix your oven! Mike Smith here will be doing it as part of his interview, if you don’t mind.”
Harold looked towards us with murder in his eyes. “Someone just tried to fuck my wife. I’m not letting anyone else get near her today.”
Hiroi sighed, then looked at me apologetically. “That was the only call I had today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow when he’s calmed down or someone else has something that needs fixing.”
“But what about the other positions?” I asked.
“I’m in a hurry to get someone new for any of them, so whichever one you interview for is the one you get.”
I looked down at my feet. With only a hundred dollars to my name, who knew if I could actually last until then? But I could’ve just gone for another position, like groundskeeper. Still, I didn’t like the idea of letting a better job slip through my fingers like that. I was going to regret what I was about to do.
“Sir, I’m not going to touch your wife.” I said, looking intently at the man. I felt something flowing through me, a glibness that didn’t feel entirely natural, but was still part of me somehow. It was the System, my Charisma. “I respect what you two have and would not dare get between that.”
Harold stared at me with a glazed look, his anger having slightly abated.
“Please, trust me. I just want to help get your oven fixed so you can live your best life, I swear on the Scripture.”
“The Scripture itself?” He growled. “You’d better not be saying that in vain, buddy.”
“I’m not.” I totally was.
Harold exhaled. “Then fine, get in here and fix it, already. I’ll be watching you, though.”
The manager looked at me with an appreciative smile and began to lead me inside the apartment. “Wow, you have quite a way with words, Mike.”
“Thanks,” I nodded. “It was honestly a miracle that they worked.”
Hiroi nodded. “I could especially use you now, since I have yet another employee I need to replace.”
“Wait, you mean the guy that just ran away?” I asked.
“That’s right. He used to be the handyman before his promotion. Now I have three jobs I need to fill.”
I just hoped that whatever job I ended up with would be much more quiet than that guy’s.
[Level Up! (4)]
[Str: +0 | Con: +0 | End: +1 | Cha: +1 | Atr: +0 | Dex: +0 | Int: +1]
[Str: 12 | Con: 12 | End: 12 | Cha: 16 | Atr: 10 | Dex: 12 | Int: 13]