Chapter 2: Fired

The first thing Kyo did was bow profusely as she stepped into the office.

“Mister Shigoto San, thank you for-”

“Close the door!”, he barked.

Kyo unbowed and did so.

“No, no no.”, he said. “Close it like you mean it! Show me the energy I demand from my employees Kyo!!!”

“Do you want me to reopen the door th-”

“Show me!”

Kyo opened the door again, then *slammed* it shut. She shut it so hard that her b-cup breasts bounced boobily from the force of it all.

“Like that sir?”

“Meh, better.”, he grumbled.

Mister Shigoto’s office was the fanciest in the building. This made sense to Kyo, since he was the boss of the company after all. The spacious chamber was situated near the top floor of the building. The actual top floor had its space filled with HVAC pipes and whatnot, as well as a staircase to the roof. So, not of lot of space for an office there in its unaesthetic, mostly metal floor-space.

The boss’s office was quite aesthetic in contrast: at least to him. The wall behind his mahogany desk consisted mostly of reinforced glass panes that gave a nice view over Tokyo. It also had a good view of the giant, building-mounted screen atop the opposite building. Said screen showed a news channel for much of the day. So, he could turn around if bored to watch that TV there.

The building wasn’t a skyscraper or anything, so it wasn’t exactly the *best* view. Still, at 9 stories in height, the building was among the tallest in the block. It was tall enough to see over the building at the opposite end of the street at least, which provided a small dose of superiority every time the middle-aged man looked out of it, but didn’t focus on that building’s TV instead.

The floor of the office was laminated hardwood, as were the walls which were covered almost entirely in cuckoo clocks. The clocks came in all sorts of shapes and sizes and pendulum lengths. While a few stretched tall enough to take up half the vertical room space themselves, others were small enough to easily fit on a desk if not for their unwieldy pendulums, which were often stylized like a pine-cone or some such.

Scant free space between the clocks was taken up by a few framed photos--like one of Mister Shigoto posing next to a golden cuckoo clock--or of award certificates or the like. Kyo’s eyes fell upon one such plaque.

“A-ah, a ‘Cuckoo Enthusiast of the Year’ award certificate for last year. That’s very impressive-”

“Quit it Kyo. Praising my achievements isn’t gonna charm you out of this meeting. Take a seat.”

Mr. Shigoto pointed at the chair opposite his own. Kyo tilted her head.

“Is that a rocking chair?”

“Yes.”, he said, shaking a bit of ash from the cigar he had been smoking this whole time. It fell to the ash tray, where it was supposed to go.

“My usual office furniture is out for cleaning, but I got a good deal on rentals from the old folk’s home down the street. Now, sit down!!!”

Kyo swallowed again, then moved over to the chair. She slowly rocked back and forth as the boss squinted at her. Mr. Shigoto had an intimidating appearance to Kyo. His head was mostly bald with a circle mark of skin discoloration at the top. He called it his ‘power-spot’. His somewhat rotund-body was dressed in a professional black suit, but he wore the jacket unbuttoned and rather loosely. His tie, too, was the widest in the office and a bit at an angle rather than fully straight.

As Kyo was getting her bearings on the unwieldy chair, he kicked his legs up on the cluttered desk. The act showed off both his black business shoes and black business pants, along with black business socks that went up past his ankles at the cuffs. Kyo couldn’t actually see where exactly his sock cuffs ended, but he wasn’t showing off the pale flesh of his ankles or anything, so that much about them she could reason.

Overall, Kyo was very intimidated by his appearances and posture. However, the most intimidating thing about him by far was that he had utterly *mastered* sitting in his rocking chair. While Kyo struggled to control the movements of her own seat, Mr. Shigoto, having had the advantage of time, had clearly learned how to utilize the piece of rental furniture properly. He had no issues gracefully rocking back and forth even with his legs kicked up on the desk. The power-play completely threw Kyo off her game and set the advantage in the meeting very clearly in his metaphorical hands.

He kicked his legs back off the desk. After one big puff of his cigar, he snuffed it out in the ash tray and leaned forward. He opened a drawer on his side of the desk and pulled out a piece of paper.

“This is your report, isn’t it Kyo?”

“Y-yes Mr. Shigoto.”

“Well it stinks!!!”

Mr. Shigoto crumbled up the paper into an origami crane, which he then sent soaring gracefully into the wastebasket by the far wall.

“I-I’m sorry Shigoto San! I will be more careful with garlic at my desk next time.”

“This wasn’t even the worst mistake you made this week. Tell me, Kyo, what kind of company are we?”

“A g-great one Mr. Shigoto-”

“No! Actually, yes! But I mean what do we sell, idiot”

Kyo was trying to think, but the sound of all the cuckoo clocks ticking was making it a tad hard. It got even worse when they all struck 10 o’clock at the same time. An absolute cacophony of gear spinnings and “Koo Koo”s in all tones and pitches rung out at roughly the same time.

Kyo covered her ears.

“The one outside the office is set a couple minutes ahead.”, said Mr. Shigoto. “That way my secretary can remind me of stuff a bit earlier.”

The cuckoo clocks took a bit to settle down. Kyo tried to answer.

“We make uh, uhhh”

Mr. Shigoto slammed his fist like a gavel onto the desk.

“We make paper dammit!”

He rummaged through another desk drawer. The sounds of papers scrunging threw Kyo further off her game.

He held up a sheet of paper.

“You want to tell me what this is?”

“A sheet of paper.”, she said.

“Now tell me what’s wrong with it.”

Kyo took a real good look at it. It seemed the right dimensions to her. It wasn’t flaky or anything.

“I-I don’t know sir!”

“It’s solid black!!!” bellowed Mister Shigoto with another pound of his free hand against the table.

Indeed the paper was jet black, front and back.

“I’m sorry sir! I must’ve inverted the colors by accident in the design software and didn’t notice.”

“This paper is worthless!”, said Mr. Shigoto.

He stood up and stretched his legs around the room, smacking the defective paper while he did so.

“You can’t write on this. You can’t print on this. Most pens use black or dark blue ink, Ms. Dai, how is someone supposed to see what they are drawing or printing on black paper?!? Over one hundred reams were printed before this mistake was noted. One hundred reams!”

Kyo’s knowledge of her industry let her know that was about 50,000 sheets of paper, and the magnitude of her mistake set in further.

“I’m so sorry Mr. Shigoto. It won’t happen again. I-I’ll do better next time.”

“There won’t *be* a next time Kyo. You’ve tarnished the reputation of Divine Paper Company. You’re fired!!!”

He stretched his legs back towards his desk and picked up the phone.

“Secretary, get security in here.”

“N-no please!”, said Kyo.

The door burst open as two sunglasses-wearing be-suited men stomped in. Each burly man had upper bodies that reminded Kyo of a stalwart gorilla, while possessing the nimble legs which reminded her of an ostrich’s.

Kyo fell forward out of her rocking chair, not on purpose, but in any case on her knees from which she begged.

“Please, I need this job, because I need money to live!”, she said.

“Well that’s not my problem. Get her outta here!!!!”, barked the boss-man.

The goons grabbed her by the shoulders and brought her towards a chute on the opposite wall of the boss’s desk. Mr. Shigoto hit a button under said desk, and the chute opened.

“Please no, no!!!”

Kyo’s pleas fell on deaf ears, and also the ears of the other security staffer as well as Mr. Shigoto’s of course. Those two didn’t heed the words either, though, and Kyo was heaved through the chute.

“Nooooooo!!!” she yelled as she slid down the curvy slide. Going down it head first as she did was *not* recommended by the safety warnings. Consequently, she saw her high-heeled shoes fly right off her kicking feet and off the edge of the slide.

“No! Not my heels, which were comfy and didn’t hurt to wear at all...”

Down and down she slide until, eventually, she came out in the ball pit at the bottom. She lingered among the colored spheres for a couple minutes, knocking them around as she looked to try and find her missing shoes.

Kyo heard yelling that was a mix of excitement and disappointment. It was a variety of voices.

“Look out below!”, came one man’s voice from higher up on the slide. “Surprise layoffs were just announced!”

Kyo hopped out of the ball pit to make room, just in time for others to crash into it. She gave up on trying to find her shoes, and walked out the door with a neon “EXIT” flashing above it in curvy font.

Stepping out beneath the blue and sunny sky, Kyo was out on the streets of Tokyo, Japan, and she felt miserable. Her previous fun memories of the 9-story slide were tarnished by getting fired the same day as her last trip down it. Also, she was still pretty upset about the whole being fired thing.

Standing on the sidewalk, shoeless, she sulked. Then, her cell phone rang. She quickly fished the device out of her skirt pocket and saw that her boyfriend Ken was calling.

She smiled, always loving to hear her boyfriend’s voice.

“Ken Kare! My BFF: boyfriend forever!”, she said after accepting the call.

“Hey babe. How’s it going?”, came the suave voice on the other end.

“Not good to be honest, you’re not gonna believe what just happ-”

“That’s great babe. Hey listen, this might sting but I’m breaking up with you.”

“What?!?”

“Yeah sorry babe, but I’ve found a new gal who’s a total A+.”

Kyo shouted her next words into the phone, getting the attention of the passersby on the crowded streets. She started walking along the sidewalk, trying to move off the negative emotions.

“Ken, wait, no don’t do this. I-I can retake the girlfriend exam!”

“Sorry Kyo, you know the rules: no re-dos. You’re always just be a B+ babe to me. I hope you keep fulfillment at your job at the cuckoo factory or whatever though.”

“Ken!!!”

Kyo heard some loud feminine giggling in the background of the call, as well as some splashes.

“Is that her?!? Your new girlfriend? Are you at the beach right now?!?”, she asked.

“Uh maybe babe. Look sorry gotta go good luck with your life and stuff bye.”

He hung up.

Kyo grit her teeth and groaned. She nearly threw down her phone out of rage, but she knew it was expensive so she didn’t. Instead, she angrily shoved it back in her pocket.

“Why?!? Without a career or a romantic relationship, my life just lost so much meaning! My sense of self is shaken!”

She stomped a naked foot and clenched her fists.

“This day can’t get any worse!!!” she yelled.

Everyone on the streets paused. Kyo felt embarrassed, but they weren’t looking at her: they were looking at the sky! A giant brown rock was hurtling straight down towards the street.

Many people erupted in panic, sprinting this way and that, left and right, up and down.

“Is that... is that a meteorite?!? Really?!?”, said an exasperated Kyo.

A man running nearby paused near Kyo. He adjusted his spectacles.

“Acktually, since its entered the planet’s atmosphere, it’s just a meteor. A meteorite would be after it lands.”

He snorted.

“What? Who the heck cares?!? No ordinary person differentiates between that stuff.”

A woman in plain and ordinary clothes ran by. She shouted at the two, pointing at the fire-wrapped rock.

“Watch out! That meteor is about to crash land, at which point it will become a...”