Chapter One: Welcome to Upper East

    Shida Mirai tried her hardest not to fidget while the young man seat across from her read over her resume. Even though she was one year older than he, his dark gray suit, white button down and blue striped tie gave him the appearance of being more superior than her. His hair was a dark brown, neatly brushed and dark eyes. A young woman stood next to him. She had dark hair cut to her shoulders with bangs covering her forehead. She smiled at Miari as the man placed her paper down.

    “Well, I am very impressed! What an excellent resume. You’ve got the job! Nana will be delighted to have an assistant to help with the workload. Won’t you?” said the man while looking up at the woman. she smiled and looked at Mirai.

    “Let me properly introduce myself properly. I am Komatsu Nana. Personal secretary to Nakajima Kento, Head of the Marketing Branch here at Upper East Inc. Do you know what your job entitles?” said Nana with a gentle smile. Mirai found herself relaxing.

    “Ah…I am Shida Mirai and…um…I really do not know what my job is.” Nana let out a light laugh.

    “Let’s go down to the lobby  and talk at the cafe. I’ll get it all set up for you.”

Mirai nodded her thanks and bowed to Kento who, in turned, smiled at her.

International Branch Meeting Room

    “I thought we sent the papers asking for a deal with the company last week” said the Head, a young and handsome man named Okamoto Keito. He looked at his personal secretary, a young teen named Yo Marius. Marius was barely out of high school, but Keito chose him because of how advanced his language skills were.

    “We did, but the company refuses to comply with our rules unless we give them something in return” replied Marius. Keith rubbed his temples. For the past week, he has been dealing a rather tough cosmetics company to get them to want to do a collaboration with their company.

    “What did they want? For us to send an employee over for them to sleep with? We can do that.”

    Marius smiled a bit at Keito’s dry humor before stating what the cosmetic company wanted.

    “They want to a collaboration…but with the model Kasumi Arimura.”

    Keito froze upon hearing the name as memories came rushing back to him. Long nights watching the stars. Long hair tickling his nose. Fingers interlaced with his. Soft kisses and sweets words during a thunder storm. Bight flashes from cameras, reporters shoving questions at him. A devil’s smile on his angel’s face. The ring he never gave.

    “Um…Okamoto-san? There’s a Kasumi Arimura in the lobby asking for you” said Marius’s assisantant, a college student named Abe Aran. Keith took a deep breath.

    “Have Sato send her on up.”

Lobby Cafe

    “So,” started Nana. “Your job is basically to help me with whatever work the Head gives me. If I’m working on one piece then you can work another. You’ll have your own desk which you can decorate as you wish and you are allowed days off so long as you allow the Head notice in two weeks. I can’t wait for you to meet everyone!”

`    “Excatly how does this company work? It seems complicated” confessed Mirai. Nana nodded thoughtfully.

    “Well…it is sort of complicated, but here’s how it works. There are 11 floors. Floor one is the Lobby, floors 2 through 8 are the different branches of the company. Each one deals with something different. The branches are Marketing, Real Estate, Fashion, Food, Economics, Entertainment,Books, Arts, and International Relations. Every branch has a Head, who is in charge of the whole branch. Every Head has a personal secretary and every personal secretary has an assistant. You’ll meet the others soon enough. They are really nice” explained Nana.

    “Oh, so there are others likes me. How old are they?” asked Mirai with a grin. She loved meeting new people and making friends.

    “Most are in their twenties, but a few are still in high school and work part time or in college finishing their degree. Also, every month, there’s a Secretary and Assistant Drinking Party or SAADP as we call it. It’s where we all meet up, drink, and throw shade at our bosses and each other. Pretty fun, but it can get pretty wild. Like one year, the Secretary for the Fashion branch, Tanaka Juri, got drunk and totally had a heated make-out session with his assistant, Morimoto Shintaro. Another time was when the assistant of the International Relations, Abe Aran, confessed that he was head over heels in love with this girl from his university…but the girl turned out to be the Arts’ assistant Kishi Yuta in drag!”

    Mirai couldn’t help but laugh.

        “This place sounds like such a fun place to work.”

“It is pretty nice to work…except…should you ever meet the CEO…you better keep your head down and act like you’re in the presence of a king because he can be pretty scary. I’ve only seen him once but it was enough to scare me.”

    “Who’s the CEO? Is he old?” asked Mirai. In her mind, she saw an old guy sitting behind a desk half asleep.

    “He’s young. Very young, around 23. He inherited the company from his father and many of the people working here are his childhood friends. He’s also…quite the playboy.”

    Mirai felt her face heat up but refused to think in such a way. So instead she watched as a girl, maybe 19, rushed in with an out of breath look. Her short, black hair was pinned back with a headband and she wore a red sweater dress over black leggings. 

    “Oh! That’s Hirose Suzu. She the assistant of Lewis Jesse, the Secretary for Real Estate” said Nana. “I bet Iwahashi-kun will be happy to see. He’s been quite lonely without her. They became good friends around their second year of high school.”

    There was a sudden beeping from Nana’s bag and she pulled out her smartphone. Glancing at the screen, she frowned and stood up.

    “Kento says I need to give you a tour of the other branches, but to avoid the International Relations floor. Apparently something is going on. I’ll get details from Ai later. She always knows what’s happening.”

    With that, Mirai found herself walking up the grand marble staircase. She hoped and prayed that she knew what she was doing.