@awashsquid tumblr won’t let me do any formatting on asks and you probably don’t even remember sending this prompt, BUT I WROTE A THING. It’s not worth the nearly two months it’s taken, and it’s kind of a mess, but here’s 3.3K of Rei and MIchiru being ridiculous stubborn business women!
Rei
slumped down in her chair as the final shrine visitor of the day disappeared
down the stairs. She sighed and pushed back her hair. All that was left was to
clean up, then–
“You’ve
gotta loosen up, fireball.”
“Shut
it, Mina.”
Minako
merely leaned into Rei’s shoulder. “If you want to close on time, close on
time. Then you wouldn’t have to be so late for the important things.”
“I’m
not late for important things.” There was a long stretch of silence. Rei
wondered if that had dipped towards cruel. “What I mean is, you understand.
Things like the shrine, or business meetings, they’re unmovable.”
“They’re
not though! Mina squared and faced Rei soldier to soldier. “You are Rei fucking
Hino, and you reshape how the world works when you don’t like it.”
“You
just don’t understand, Mina–”
“I
don’t understand? You just said I did, which is it?”
“It’s
not that simple.”
“Of
course it is!” Mina threw up her hands. “If you wanted to be with me, you’d
make time instead of excuses.”
“I’m
not making excuses, I’m just telling you how it is!”
“And
I’m telling you it’s not good enough.” She turned, hair whipping behind her in
a cinematic fashion, and huffed her way down the stairs.
—–
“She’s
not wrong, you know,” Michiru said, taking a sip of wine later that night.
“Michiru!”
She
gave her particular wry Michiru smile. “You always give such direct honesty,
I’m only returning the favor.” She swirled her glass. “Do you think Haruka
would still be with me if I let anything keep me away so often?”
“We
have very different circumstances.”
“Oh?
Are we not both young business executives with extensive side projects and
deeply affectionate partners?”
“You
were born into your business, Michiru. You have far more leeway than me.”
“No,
I merely know where the limits truly are.”
Rei
glared at her over their wine glasses. “If you had to work as hard as I do,
you’d understand.”
“But
you don’t have to work as hard as you do.”
“Why
is everyone like this?” Rei pressed her toes hard against the floor beneath the
table. “I don’t do all this for fun. I do it because it needs doing. If I had
your position and status, I could be lax and cushy too.”
“I
would hardly say I’m lax. The key is management, Rei. Of your time and of your
people.” She hummed thoughtfully as she took a sip. “Why don’t I show you?”
“Show
me?”
“Let
me do your job for a few days. A week, let’s say.”
“You
can’t just do that.”
“Of
course I can. You’ll hire me as a business consultant. Companies do it all the
time. I’ll even do it pro-bono.” Michiru smiled, knowing Rei could never turn
down an opportunity to save money.
Rei
huffed. “If I hire you, you have to hire me. I’ll show you how much more gets
done my way.”
“Hm.”
Michiru paused. “I don’t have any performances coming up. We’ll fully switch
for a week, and you’ll see how much better things can be managed.”
“Or
you’ll see I’m right.”
Michiru
smiled. “I suppose the game is set.”
—-
There
were whispers as Michiru walked through the office. “I hear Ms. Hino and Ms.
Kaioh hired each other as consultants.” “Is she here to fire us?” “Ms. Hino
didn’t seem happy about the whole thing, so–”
It
simply would not do. No one could accuse Rei of being too soft, but she clearly
had not brought her employees to heel. “There will be a meeting at 9:15,”
Michiru said to a baffled group of cubicle workers. “Anything you have to say
can be said there.”
The
conference room was too small for the entire crew, but Michiru gave no
acknowledgement to those who had to crowd along the wall rather than sit. She’d
have to tell Rei she needed more space.
“Now,
who can tell me our numbers from last week?”
Silence.
Michiru frowned.
“Which
of you ran the report? I will not tolerate slacking off.”
Another
long silence, and then a mousy woman with oversized glasses raised a shaking
hand. “Um, Ms. Hino usually runs the report herself. She has me make copies of
it sometimes.”
It
was all Michiru could do not to put her face in her hands. “Then you go do it.”
“I–
I’m just a secretary, I don’t…”
“Do
you have access to the databases?”
“I
have a login, but–”
“Then
I trust you will bring me a report before this meeting ends.”
She
scurried off, and another woman slipped away from the back of the room to help
her. Michiru took note of her. She was either too willing to do someone else’s
job, or else cunning enough to appear kind while getting credit for what got
done. Rei would be well-served by the latter as she transitioned to doing less.
The former always burnt out too soon.
“While
we wait on our numbers, let’s talk about why I am here.” Michiru faced the room
with her shoulders squared and chin up. For all they’d dealt with volatile Rei
Hino, all the workers in the room shivered. “I have no intention of having any
of you fired–” A collective sigh– “So long as you do your job.” And the room
froze again. “It seems there are many inefficiencies in the day-to-day business
practices here. Each of you will have the opportunity to step up to solve
them.”
A
man who Michiru, perhaps unkindly, thought looked like he belonged in IT with
his wiry frame and an open button down that flaunted dress code the slightest
bit because he felt irreplacable, rose a hand. “What about departments that are
already efficient?”
“Hmm…”
Michiru smiled. “And your department is?”
“IT.”
“Thank
you for volunteering for first audit. I will walk back with you once we are
done here.”
He
slunk down in his chair slightly.
Michiru
walked along the front of the conference table. “Complacency is never an asset.
The drive to improve should come from each and every one of you.” She stopped.
“I would like each department to present something they would like to do better
in tomorrow morning’s meeting. Throughout the week I will work with you to plan
how to bring it to fruition.”
The
tension dropped. It surely seemed easy enough to them. But Michiru was not
finished.
“I
will be focusing on the bigger, structural inefficiencies. As they are
identified, some of you will take on greater responsibilities.”
With
timing that could not be better had Michiru planned it, the secretary and other
woman returned, reports in hand. “You,” Michiru said to the woman. “What is
your name?”
“Nagisa.”
“And
what do you do here?”
“Data
analysis.”
“Good.
Every morning you will run the report and deliver it to Ms. Hino’s office. By
the end of the week, I expect to start seeing notations on key points.”
“Understood.”
Michiru
smiled. This wouldn’t be hard at all.
—-
Rei
collapsed into Michiru’s office chair. She hadn’t thought about how big
the place would be. No wonder Michiru outsourced most of the work. Just finding
her office took half the morning.
“Good
morning, Ms. Hino.” A woman Rei assumed was Michiru’s secretary, dressed primly
in a navy skirt suit. “Would you like coffee or tea? Mrs. Kaioh did not tell me
your preferences, I apologize.”
Rei
waved her off. “I’m fine, I can get my own.” Probably, so long as she could
find the break room– or one of them, a place this big had to have several.
“Very
well. I am right outside should you need anything. The earnings report for last
week is on your desk, as well as stock prices and our projected goals.”
“Thank
you.” Rei leaned in to look at them as the secretary left the room. Earnings…
Rei sat back again. There was a difference, of course, between a diversified company
your family built over generations and a small printing firm you bought when it
was on the brink of failure and brought back to life, but to see it so plainly
in numbers… Rei looked a second time. And that was only last week.
She
scanned over the goals. The only thing to do was to push beyond the numbers
here, show Michiru that her way was better.
Someone
knocked on the office door. A large man in a suit entered, looking like a
perfect caricature of a businessman. “Ms. Hino. Mrs. Kaioh said you may want to
meet with me after your arrival.”
She
motioned for him to sit. He introduced himself and began explaining the
structure of the company and workforce.
“Wait,
she lets who run payroll?”
“No,
I should be in that meeting, let me write that down.”
“What
does she do all day? I have to do that too.”
After
a while, the man stopped, looking slightly pained. “We do ave departments for a
reason, Ms. Hino…”
“Yes,”
Rei said, filling in Michiru’s desk calendar with red pen, “and as CEO and
owner Michiru is the head of every department and should act accordingly.”
The
man sighed. “Mrs, Kaioh did say…” He shook his head. “I’m on extension 265
should you need anything.”
Rei
nodded and let him leave as she surveyed her new schedule. She certainly had
her work cut out for her.
—–
There
was a wave of uncomfortable surprise as Rei strode in to the conference room.
Every man adjusted his tie or cufflinks and looked to the man to the side of
him to confirm she was really there. And they were all men– Rei would
certainly have to talk to Michiru about that.
“Ms.
Hino,” one of them started, voice layered with condensation thick as honey,
“there is no need for you to be in this meeting.”
“I
have been hired as a business consultant, and I intend to do my job. That means
I must observe you doing yours.”
“Very
well.” He sat back as though it was nothing, but she saw his color rise slightly.
Rei
took a chair and pulled it to the wall at the back, away from the table. She’d
made a folder detailing everyone in the meeting—it was nearly every major
department head. Not a single ground-level employee was involved in any meeting
that was on her radar. It was due to sheer size, perhaps, but it bothered her.
The
men began talking. She let them go for a while. It seemed to her to hardly be a
business meeting at all. They congratulated each other on themselves on their
production and stock performance, agreeing that the outlook for the coming quarter
was excellent.
“But
what did you do?” Rei asked finally.
They
all looked at her as though it was an absurd question. She singled out the man
who’d questioned her.
“The
company did well. Your department did well. What did you do to make that happen?”
He
took on the particular smile of oh, you
don’t understand business. “I run—“
“I
don’t need your job description. I have it here.”
“Then
I don’t understand your question.”
“I’ll
ask something else then. You cut…” she scanned the document. “Over thirty jobs
in the past two months. Who took on those responsibilities?”
“Those
jobs were redundant. Cutting them will save—“
“That
is not what I asked.” She looked him in the eyes. “Who took on the tasks and
responsibilities that belonged to those former employees?”
His
face twisted as though he might like to hit her if only it wouldn’t muss up his
suit. “Other employees at the appropriate levels absorbed their tasks. Now if
you look at the numbers, you’ll see production—“
“I
see the numbers quite fine.” Rei closed her folder forcefully. “I want a
breakdown report of all eliminated jobs in the past six months, what they did
and who’s taken on what tasks. Tomorrow we will restructure to take on some of
the extra work ourselves.”
A
few of the men laughed as though they honestly thought it was a joke. The rest
looked around to not meet her eyes.
“That’s
not how business works, Ms. Hino.”
Rei
stood. “You’re going to learn it can be.”
—–
As
Michiru had expected, it did not take long to start seeing progress. By the fourth
day, she stopped hearing that things were Rei’s job. They simply got done, as
they should have all along. She now could simply walk into her office each
morning and read over the company’s performance as she took her tea. Soon Rei
would see production rise, marveling as Michiru’s efforts cut the time she spent
in the office while rising her profits to previously unimagined heights.
It
was as she took her tea on this fourth morning that the mousy secretary popped
into the door frame, hands aflutter as she tried to speak.
“M-m-mrs.
Kaioh?”
“Yes?”
Rei should replace the poor thing, it would do them both good.
“There’s
a problem.”
“I
trust you will fix it, or call someone who can.” She took another sip of tea,
but the secretary did not leave.
She
rocked back and forth on her heels. “Do you know how we might reach Ms. Hino?”
“That
won’t be necessary.”
“She’s
the only—“
“Fine.”
Michiru set her tea cup on the desk with just enough force to make the
secretary jump. “What is the problem?”
“There’s
a woman on the direct line, she says she says Ms. Hino herself promised she’d
get her delivery by the end of the day yesterday, and—“
“When
did she place her order?”
“Saturday.”
“We
do not operate on Saturdays.”
The
secretary bit her lip. “Yes but Ms. Hino often comes in, she likes to take
orders whenever she can.”
Michiru
sighed. “Well tell the woman her order was taken by mistake—“
“I
don’t think I should.”
“Why?”
“She
orders from us a lot.” She shakily approached and pointed to a large subsection
of production. “Almost all orders on laminated matte 120 pound card stock come
directly from her.”
“Then
why has no one completed her order?” But she knew the answer. Rei did this
woman’s orders. It was the blessing and curse of a small company—customers knew
and trusted specific people. The woman would settle for nothing less than the
company’s best, which Rei had made a point of making herself.
But
Michiru would not throw in the towel. She was right, and this was merely an oversight
that she should have delegated correctly. “Tell her she’ll have her order by
noon.”
“Yes
ma’am.”
Michiru
turned to Rei’s computer, which she’d barely touched in her time there. As she
opened the file, she realized she had another problem. Two, if she couldn’t
remember the secretary’s name. She pondered for a moment. “Keiko?” she called.
The
secretary reappeared. “Yes?”
“Call
someone who can show me how to do this order.”
“Yes
ma’am.” She turned, but then paused. “Also, um. It’s Rika.”
Michiru
was not sure which of them should be more embarrassed. But soon someone was
showing her how to get the order done, and she had no time to think about it.
It
was 11:52 when she finally pulled in front of the delivery address—rarely had
she ever been so aware of the time. She was so focused, in fact, that she didn’t
realize where she was until she was almost to the door.
“You
gave Rei’s poor secretary quite a scare,” she said with a laugh as she pushed
through the door of Makoto’s flower shop. “If she had said it was you I wouldn’t
had worried.”
Mako
didn’t smile. “She told me what’s going on.”
“I
have your order here.” She held the large envelope out.
Mako
took it and began replacing handwritten labels with the printed ones. “I had a
shipment of specialty flowers in this morning.”
“I’m
sorry.”
Mako
stopped to look at her sternly. “I get what you’re trying to do. Rei’s not
great at balance. But she and I are different than you. There are things we
have to do ourselves, because we are our business. I own this place, it’s my
name on the sign. I can have other people water the flowers, or handle the
cash, but I have to know they’re doing it right, and sometimes, the only way to
do that is doing it myself. And for bigger things, that’s almost always true. I
design the special occasion bouquets. I deliver the wedding flowers. And Rei
has to do her own version of that. She does too much, I won’t argue, but she
always does what’s necessary.” She frowned. “If I hadn’t been a friend, you
might have lost Rei business today.”
Michiru
felt shame color her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
Mako
softened. “On the bright side, I’m sure Rei’s doing much worse to your company.”
—-
Rei
knew that they all knew she could have done much worse. She’d designed a
trickle up—adjusting tasks onto higher levels rather than laterally, so that
each level of management took on a little of what they were managing, up and on
to the department heads. They complained, but overall, Rei thought it was going
smoothly. The lower levels were less stressed, and Michiru would have to be
pleased with their increased output, which would surely begin showing in barely
any time at all.
There
was just the small problem of what Rei had allotted herself, and Michiru when
she left.
She’d
said as CEO she was the true head of every department, and she’d followed through
on it—she’d taken on at least one task from each department head to allow them
to take on their additional tasks.
They
were relatively small tasks, but there were so many departments.
For
a day, she’d handled it well. But it had been a long day, and today was proving
longer. An angry text from Mina lit up her phone.
Don’t bother coming home if you love
work that much appeared below the big “7:14pm.”
Another
– Only you could make a cushy job this
long and hard.
Then,
Mina of course not being able to resist being Mina—I guess that’s why it brings you so much pleasure, huh? It was followed
by an eggplant emoji.
Rei
sighed and put her chin in her hands. She missed her old work, and not just
because she suspected she might have overshot and made a mess here—but it was
different to work for a team that believed in her. They hadn’t at first,
granted, but even at the start it hadn’t been this hard.
She
put the paperwork to the side. The problem had been in front of her all along.
She didn’t love this company, and Michiru didn’t either. It was the difference
beyond the size.
Against
her pride, she picked up her phone. “Let’s call it off a day early.”
“Thank
god.”
—-
“You
know,” Michiru said over wine on Saturday, when it had already begun to feel
distant, “I quite like making the department heads work more. I’m keeping that.
But they’re doing everything you gave me.”
Rei
snorted. “Surprise surprise.” She paused. “And you know, maybe not all your changes were bad ideas.”
Michiru
smiled. “I don’t suppose we have to go as far as to say we were both wrong. We
were merely both right.”
“I
like that outlook.” Rei raised her glass in appreciation. Her phone buzzed, and
she downed what remained of her drink. “Looks I’ve gotta run.”
“Oh?”
Michiru raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe—I’m
not saying for sure, but maybe—you had a point about Mina too.”
“Oh
dear, I’ll never forgive myself if I’ve made her life better.”
Rei
rolled her eyes. “Guess you should have let me be.”
“Never.”
SittingOverHereDreaming 