𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐌𝐀𝐍. - 𝐉𝐉𝐊

1 → birthdays suck

You tightly wedged the phone between your ear and your shoulder, shifting the weight of the bags over your shoulders until they hung comfortably. The double doors hissed open upon the crowd's dwindling patience—the sound was loud enough to pierce your senses and force you to bellow into the phone once again. It was agonizing, this conversation. It seemed to have gone on for hours—which it probably had been, but your mind no longer wrapped itself around the concept of time. No, that was for the tolerance of somebody possessing patience.

"I'm sorry, what'd you say, sir?... Oh, I see... yes, it is loud over here." You shuffled down the aisle of booths and seats, apologizing when the mess of bags and belongings grazed somebody's shoulder, but you inevitably discovered an empty booth to the right. You shimmied into the window side and dropped everything into the space beside you. Now, with free and fully functioning hands, you gripped the phone in a much more comfortable position, apologizing to your boss once more. "I am so sorry about that. I just caught the last train and am on my way to headquarters now. I checked last night, and it's a three-hour ride, so I might as well get comfortable." You let out a little chuckle, but it seemed to go entirely unnoticed—or ignored—or both.

Your boss groaned into the other end of the line, and your heart skipped an anxious beat. "And listen to this. Somebody in the division screwed up a story, so now the public thinks a group of criminals are running around Tokyo stealing doormats. I don't know why the hell they'd believe that bullshit, and I don't even know how someone could screw up that much." You remained silent, having no idea who did it. The male's gruff voice echoed through the line once again. "I want you to find out who did and report them to me as soon as you can... Oh, and my meeting's been moved up to Thursday, so I'm going to need your story done by midnight tonight so that I can start editing by tomorrow. Make sure, this time, you don't word it so that the doormat thieves are on the move. Understand?"

Stomach sinking, you nodded—it was foolish, lo; he couldn't see it. You swallowed, feeling the train car lurch forward. "Yes, sir, I—"

"And make sure HR's doing their job. I keep getting complaints that somebody's going around harassing people with a toothbrush, and I don't have that kind of time to deal with this. Just fire them yourself if HR can't."

You didn't have that kind of power. You probably never would at this rate.

"[Last Name], just do whatever you can. Haru has to do news anchoring at headquarters for her story, so confirm that she is prepared and report back to me with that as well."

"Yes—"

He had hung up. And didn't even wish you a happy birthday.

Hearing the call terminate, you pulled your phone away from your ear and puffed your cheeks—this was typical behavior, but it always stung a little when it happened—even if it was just a little.

But before long, you found yourself jotting down a list of everything he had told you to do: he wanted you to find somebody who inadvertently freaked the public with doormat thieves—with his tone, he made it seem on purpose; he wanted you to finish your latest story by midnight—which meant you would be spending the next three hours working on this, plus any time you had outside of it; and he wanted you to make sure Haru was prepared for her news anchoring—she always had a little bit of stage fright growing up, and she never fully conquered it, so your boss preferred to have you as a backup; that was why you were traveling. Your boss was never irritated by Haru and her antics, for some reason, so it was never a big ordeal.

You placed the phone on the table, simultaneously reaching into one of the bags crammed into your booth. You pulled out a thick laptop and placed it in front of you, prying open the top panel so that it instantly flickered to the desktop wallpaper with icons spread around the screen. Your eyes instantly made eye contact with the mail in the bottom left corner, seeing it completely crammed.