Author's Notes: Modern Fantasy Tale based on Cinderella.
No 02 characters will make appearances in this story. But this means there will be some OCs to cover the gap of the lack of characters. I couldn't bring myself to use my beloved Digimon characters as the evil step-mother/sisters.
Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon.
Sora Takenouchi took a moment to study her reflection after she had finished pulling her hair back into a loose bun for work. She wouldn't call herself drop dead gorgeous, but she had always thought she was pretty. Her hair could be called auburn at the best of times, though some might peg it as more of a burnt orange. Her eyes were a gentle brown that gave a hint of her inclination to nurture anyone that she felt needed it. The tennis she had played in high school and college had given her arms and legs a nice toned look, which she kept up with runs in the morning and the occasional tennis match at the gym. She checked her bun in the mirror one last time before grabbing her purse and bag. Checking to make sure her portfolio and sketchbook were in the bag for the third time that morning (as she did every morning), she picked up her keys, pulled on her coat and walked out of her apartment door to face the winter air, locking it securely behind her.
When she was very young, Sora wanted to be the greatest soccer player in the world, and she had been one of the biggest tomboys in the school. Upon entering high school, she had switched sports (soccer to tennis) but not ambitions. It wasn't until college that she discovered her passion and talent for clothing design. She had picked up doodling in junior high (which had continued through her schooling), but then she had taken one class on clothing her first year at the university and found herself hooked. So after graduating with a major in design and a minor in business, she set out to make her mark upon the world through her clothes. Only she found the fashion industry not as easy to enter as she had first imagined. For three years, she had filtered through clothing stores and fashion magazines in various job positions, but just last year, her luck had turned a little for the better when she finally landed a job at the Ishida Corporation, one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the world.
Sure, she worked for the most horrid woman in the world and with her equally terrible senior coworkers, but she was there. The Ishida Corporation had its hand in all sides of entertainment: movies, TV, modeling, music, and just about anything else. But what was most important to Sora was their fashion design and costume department. A department which she was currently at the bottom rung of, but she had hopes that one day she would be a famous designer. That was the very reason she made sure to bring her portfolio and sketchbook every day to work. She was sure that someday she would have the chance to show it to someone who was important enough to help her.
The trip on the subway was crowded and uneventful as usual, and Sora got off at her stop without too much trouble. She walked the final last block to the building where she worked (which was only one of many the company was run from) where other workers were trickling into the building. She cleared the security checkpoints (the Ishida Corporation seemed to protect their employees more than secret military installations sometimes—Sora knew it was more for the public faces like the actors and models than for the common people like her) and found her way across the lobby to the elevators, taking one up to her floor.
Finally, she entered the office of Terumi Maeda, her boss and one of the many talent managers the company had to offer. Anisa Matsuo and Sela Komatsu were her two exalted assistants, and Sora was nothing more than their errand girl, treated lowlier than the lowest intern by the arrogant woman and her two lapdogs.
Sora glanced around the empty office; she was, of course, the first one to arrive. She walked over to her desk, which was shoved off into one corner of the room as Anisa's and Sela's desks, accessories, and decorations took up the majority of the office. The door leading further into Terumi's office was closed and Sora didn't know whether or not the woman was there yet. She hung her coat off the back of her chair and grabbed her employee card out of her purse. She locked her purse and bag in the bottom drawer of her desk and left the office again to complete her first job of the day: getting coffee for Terumi and her lackeys.
To avoid the elevators as they would be far too crowded and busy taking people up, Sora took the stairs down to the huge main lobby at the base floor of the building. She didn't have to go too far as Terumi's office was only on the seventh floor out of sixty-two floors; it could have been much worse. She passed by those couple few health nuts that took the stairs rather than the elevator on her way down (not that she had anything against them—she actually sort of admired their determination) before exiting out to the lobby, where many an employee was still arriving or milling about.
With her destination now in sight, she weaved her way through the crowd to the modest café in one corner of the vast room. Picking the line to her normal barista, she waited patiently the few minutes it took to get to the front of the line, though others around her were tapping their feet or glancing at watches or cell phones impatiently.
"Good morning, Sora," the barista, a cheerful young woman just a year younger than Sora named Mimi, said. The girl, who had practically flawless features and, if you could believe it, bubblegum pink hair with magenta stripes and glittering silver star clips speckled in it—though it was that very feature that had sort of drawn Sora to her that first day she had seen her—had been working in the café for about the last two months and they had struck up a sort of friendship since the woman had arrived as Mimi's dream was to be a writer for a fashion magazine. Smiling with a wide smile and a bright sparkle in her caramel eyes, she asked, "How are the old hags treating you?"
Sora gave an indulgent smile to the energetic, sincere girl before she said, "Oh, it's not so bad, Mimi."
Mimi shook her head ruefully with half a smile on her face. "You are a saint, Sora," she said with a resigned tone. "An absolute saint. Now, what can I get for you and the evil crones today?" she added at the end with her sincere smile back in full force on her face.
Sora returned the smile as she gave her order to Mimi, who punched it in on the register. She was going to miss her when the girl left the café. Even if Mimi landed her internship with one of the Ishida Corporation's magazines (fashion or otherwise) as she wanted to, those offices were in a completely different building so it was unlikely they would see each other during work. She was most definitely going to have to get the girl's number sometime so that she could actually have some kind of social life outside of work. Which she currently didn't (except for those precious few tennis matches she managed to snag at the gym—but those didn't really count).
As Mimi took Sora's employee card to swipe it through the register, she said, "I don't know how you put up with them. I surely would've done something to get back at them by now if I was in your place." A grin flashed across her face as she said, "I could get their orders wrong on purpose, if you'd like. You can even blame it on me; I wouldn't mind."
"And ruin your chances at the internship?" Sora asked incredulously. "Mimi, I couldn't do that to you. Besides, 'an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind'," Sora added with a small grin.
Mimi gave her a dubious look as she started putting the drinks together with an exaggerated sigh. "Gandhi, Sora? Really?"
Sora rolled her eyes slightly. Mimi's absolute complete sincerity sometimes led her to say whatever popped into her head. She was one of the nicest girls Sora had ever met, but heaven help you if you ever managed to get on her bad side. Sora sometimes wanted to put her in the same room as Anisa and Sela and watch Mimi tear them to bits with her pure honesty. She certainly had the ability to take people down with her frank words. "What's wrong with Gandhi?" Sora asked just the tiniest bit defensive.
Mimi gave an indifferent shrug. "Nothing, but he's just so…so…cliché of a person to quote. You should've gone with 'During your life, never stop dreaming. No one can take away your dreams.' if you wanted to say something inspirational."
"And who said that? Mother Teresa?" Sora asked her with the raising of a single eyebrow.
"Nope. Tupac," Mimi said with a wide radiant grin as she placed the nifty carrying case full of four tall Styrofoam cups filled with hot drinks on the counter in front of Sora.
Sora laughed happily as she gathered up the drinks (one caramel vanilla tea latte—no whipped cream—for Terumi, one peppermint dark chocolate mocha with a peppermint stick for Anisa, one cinnamon pumpkin cappuccino with extra whipped cream for Sela, and one white chocolate raspberry hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate shavings for Sora herself—she'd never been the biggest fan of coffee, as something about the smell just put her off). "Thanks, Mimi," she said appreciatively.
"See you later, Sora," Mimi said vibrantly and with a strange sort of assurance in her tone. "Don't let those witches get you down! Things will get better soon. You'll see!"
With a smile on her face because of Mimi's optimism, Sora walked briskly past the still bustling lobby back towards the elevators where she squeezed in one back up to the seventh floor. Breathing a sigh of relief when she entered the still empty office, since she was sure to be yelled at if they arrived before she and their coffees had gotten back, she set down Anisa's and Sela's drinks on their desks. She stopped by her own desk to set down her hot chocolate and to dispose of the carrying case before she gripped Terumi's cup around its paper sheath and cautiously and tentatively knocked on her door.
"Enter," a cold, harsh voice said from the other side of the wood that almost made Sora cringe just from the sound of it.
Sora opened the door and found Terumi sitting at her desk typing away at her computer. Her black hair was pulled back into a tight bun on her head at the back of her head and her eerie green eyes were covered by her cat's eyes glasses with tear drop shaped lenses. Her impeccable black suit jacket was over a lavender silk shirt that gave an impression of softness underneath a hard exterior that Sora was well aware was only an illusion. Her eyes didn't leave the screen as Sora walked across the room and sent down the tea latte in her hand on Terumi's desk. "Here is your drink, Mrs. Maeda," she said humbly.
Terumi didn't say anything, still did not acknowledge that Sora was even in the room other than to grab the cup and take a sip from the drink. Sora waited patiently for what she knew was coming: Terumi's long list of things for Sora to do for the morning; the afternoon list would come after her brief (if she was lucky) fifteen minute lunch.
After what seemed like hours, but was truthfully probably only ten or fifteen minutes, of Sora standing there waiting for her boss, Terumi said, "Miss Takenouchi, there are a few things that require your attention today. I'll need you to contact the base managers' of Ayako Nerumi, Morpheus Lights, and Kiseki to confirm their schedules for the next two months. Valibella and Kyosuke are scheduled for photo shoots, which I will need you to accompany Anisa and Sela to this morning. You will see to their every need once you are there." Sora noted that Terumi didn't specify whether it was the models or her assistants whose needs Sora should see to; she knew it didn't really matter, whether Terumi specified or not, Sora would be seeing to all of them either way. It was a good thing that it was Valibella and Kyosuke she was assigned to today; they were pretty decent and unassuming as models went. But the photo shoots were still as likely to take most of the morning; it would be a miracle if she had time to call with the base managers and still be able to eat lunch before she had to be back.
"After the photo shoots, I'll need you to go check on the site for The Broken Loyalty's concert this weekend," Terumi continued, shattering Sora's plans to actually sit down for lunch today—she would have to eat on the move to get all that done. "I expect you to be back by one. Once you return, report to me immediately. That will be all, Miss Takenouchi." Terumi dismissed her, not having once even reduced herself to actually look up at Sora the entire time she spoke. The overbearing woman took another small sip from her drink, her perfectly manicured fingernail tapping against the cup, before setting it down and returning to typing on her computer.
Sora breathed the tiniest sighs of relief. She supposed it could have been much worse. She gave a small bow, just the barest inclining of her upper body, knowing a verbal acknowledgement of Terumi's orders was not needed. Sora stepped out of the office and gave a little sigh before heading over to her desk to drink her hot chocolate before it got too cold so that she could get to work. No sooner than she sat down then the door opened and two familiar voices drifted in. "Did you hear the news, Anisa?"
"About the Prince? I heard he left the country again yesterday."
The two women entered practically side by side chatting away at each other. Anisa was the shorter of the two with strawberry blond curls and dark brown eyes. Sela was a tall thin woman with stick straight black hair and cold gray eyes. They didn't even look in Sora's direction as they lounged in their chairs and picked up their cups to drink from as they continued to discuss what they had been talking about when they first came in.
Sora knew who they were talking about. Yamato Ishida, heir to the company, was all they ever seemed to talk about. They called him "the Prince", though he wasn't actually "royal" in any sense of the true meaning of the word, but considering what he was to inherit one day, he might as well have been. They weren't, by any means, the only people to use that nickname. Sora had heard most of the other workers refer to him that way as well. It seemed to be a company-wide nickname. She'd even heard it from others outside the company. If they were in high school, Sora had no doubt that his picture would be the one plastered all over Anisa's and Sela's lockers. That thought drew Sora's eyes briefly to the pictures of him they each had on their desks. Which was just sufficiently creepy enough as it was.
But every once and awhile, he would completely disappear off the face of the map, along with his best friend, Taichi Yagami (another son of important bigwigs in the Ishida Corporation), only to return after a few days as if nothing had ever happened. There were lots of rumors of where he went (secret girlfriends, kidnappings, superhero duties—that last one was completely ridiculous, but some people honestly believed it). But no one actually really knew. Well, Sora assumed that his parents (the owners and CEOs) knew, but they weren't very forthcoming with what it was. Having your son going missing every few months for unknown reasons wasn't exactly something you sent out on a company memo.
In Sora's opinion, she just thought he might take a few days off to go on vacation. She could only imagine the sort of pressure he would be under in his position. She was just the assistant of the assistants and she felt like she could use a few vacation days—more like months, she corrected honestly—herself. Not that Terumi would ever let her. Sora could be dying in a hospital bed and Terumi would still blame her for not getting her latte on time in the morning. But people didn't have anything better to do it seemed than to make up stories about other people. It was supposed to make life "exciting". Sora thought her life was busy enough without having to add an exciting factor to it.
Though she couldn't help but wish she had a little bit more…well, anything really to the more romantic side of her life. A love life that currently didn't really exist in even the barest, most basic sense of the word. Her job was mostly to blame as Terumi, Anisa, and Sela worked Sora harder than she ever had previously in her life (not even those nightmare classes in college came anywhere close). About the only free time she had went into those precious few tennis matches at the gym. She'd been told (by Mimi most of all) that she should just quit, but she couldn't bring herself to leave the Ishida Corporation now that she was actually here.