Next day

 

Kotoko researched till late at night and only slept 3 hours. She arrived at the office and sat at her desk. She messages Naoki and hopes this time she will get more constructive feedback. She knocked on his door and handed him her booklet. Kotoko eagerly waited for Naoki’s response. He concentrated on her booklet. Kotoko couldn’t read what he is thinking. He was like a robot without showing any expressions.

 

Naoki POV

Her work is a lot better this time around. “Okay, here is the next task. Again, it is due tomorrow morning. You can go now.”

 

Kotoko POV

Kotoko had a confused look but just accepted the booklet and exited his office. Kotoko cannot believe after all the work she put in, he didn’t even say well done. She tried to put her thoughts aside and focus on her assignment as she is predicting this will be another all-nighter. 

 

The next month

 

For the past month, it was the same routine. Kotoko would hand her research to Naoki every morning and he would flip through her booklet. Usually he doesn’t provide much feedback. At most, it would be a one or two sentence like “You need to elaborate more on this part of the research.” Then he would hand her the next task and expect it the next morning. Kotoko barely gets any sleep the past month and tries her best to not disappoint Naoki. 

 

Kotoko POV

It’s been a month already. I only have two more months left at Pandai. I don’t think I will learn much in this summer internship. Naoki barely gives me any feedback and he doesn’t teach me, but only assigns me tasks. Should I speak to Joanne, the orientation leader, to switch departments? I don’t want this summer to go to waste, as I can be gaining valuable skills. 

 

Naoki POV

Kotoko came into my office and handed me her research. She has improved a lot as I am assigning her tasks to improve specific parts of her skills. She can soon join us in developing our current project. But first I need to see her ideas and creativity. I explained our current project to Kotoko and what we need right now. She has a confused expression for a whole 10 minutes. Then her eyes gleamed and her face brightened. I was wondering what was wrong with her. Her face shows so many different emotions in such a short range of time. 

 

Kotoko 

I cannot believe I can finally work on their project. Oops, our project. I can create games! Woo-hoo. At first, I was wondering why Naoki was explaining about a game all of a sudden. Then, he said I needed to work on the character design and I finally realized I am assigned to design their character avatars. I am so excited. My characters will be world wide famous and there will be plushies and stationary with my cute cartoons. My characters will be in a movie and I will have to draft a royalty agreement. I would also need a lawyer. So much to do in such a short time. 

 

Naoki POV

I explained the specifications that the character needs to have and asked Kotoko if she had any questions, but she is just staring at the ceiling with a creepy smile. Her mind must have wandered off again. I snapped my fingers to get her attention and finally she responded. I asked if she had any questions and she shook her head. I told her to go back to her desk and she bowed and skipped out of my office. 

 

For the past month, I saw her research skills improved and prepared her with the right design thinking to join our team. She still has a lot to learn but I believe she will be able to learn more than expected this summer. I can see her passion for game design but in this industry, having just passion is not enough. I hope this internship can change her life for the better and help her grow. 

 

The next week

 

Kotoko POV

I worked on the character designs for the past week. Naoki gave me good feedback and told me what to change. I met with the other designers and developers and they also gave me some suggestions in altering my designs. Everyone was so friendly and even though this was hard work and I have to pull all-nighters almost everyday; this was so fun. I had to squeeze out my creative juices and come up with all kinds of designs, some out of this world, some too ordinary, and had to keep improving my sketches. From our discussions, I can tell Naoki is very skilled and knows what works and what doesn’t just from a glance of my sketches. He is like a genius who knows all the ropes of this industry and what direction we should head in. I am starting to admire him and his skills. But I know that he put in a lot of work to get to where he is today. When I leave the office every evening, I always see Naoki’s lights still on. Even if it is really late like midnight, Naoki still leaves later than me. Sometimes, I wonder why we works so hard and what keeps him motivated.