Bad Company
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Summary: Constantly on high alert, Genjo Sanzo, the egotistic president of Kinzan Publishing Co., had always derided the threats made on his life. Like hell he cared about that. Putting Son Goku, his ever-optimistic, ever-dogging assistant, in said harm's way, however, caused the pompous man to seek and spill blood for the first time in his solitary life.
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A/N: Finally! I can update fics here again! I have uploaded this fic on Ao3 when FFN decided to be down for the past few months. And now, I've returned to my original fandom.
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"Fuck off."
Those were the first words that his boss said to him on an early Monday morning.
Goku huffed, but made sure his boss didn't see his lips curling into a snarl as he bowed and turned to leave, making a mental note not to slam the door on his way out.
"Oh, right. Goku."
Hearing his name stopped Goku in his tracks, and he turned a wary eye towards his boss. "Yeah? I mean, yes?"
"Steep the rice in green tea next time."
And Goku left without a word, patting himself on the back for not slamming the door like his hand felt it would. Working in a company ran by the most polemical person he had ever encountered in his young, 18 years of life seemed to be taking its toll on him as he counted down the months since he had been working under his foul-mouthed boss.
Six. Only six months in, and he was ready to throw in the towel.
"Goku! There's a call on line three for the president," called one of his coworkers, and Goku hopped back to his duty. And the day rolled by without much incidence until lunch break, when the president called him to his office to get the fifth cup of coffee (the president always took six), and Goku, in his quick but clumsy reflexes, tripped on his shoelaces as soon as he stepped inside and spilled coffee all over his boss's pristine white suit. The rain of insults to his clumsiness then followed, and a wincing Goku was hurled out of the president's office to fetch another cup of coffee, wash the ruined suit, and fetch a new one. The door then slammed on his face.
Goku sighed and scratched his unruly mop of brown hair as he wordlessly returned to his cubicle with the dirtied clothes in his arms. A man seated behind him felt pity for Goku and offered help, only to be refused with a smile, and he ran off towards the elevator and pressed the button for the 28th floor, a wide grin still in place. Rocking on the balls of his feet as he hummed, he waited for the soft chime and for the elevator doors to open, and made his way to the president's flat. Fishing out the card key from his pocket, Goku entered the spacious flat, and went to the laundry room to wash the clothes.
Heaving a sigh of relief, he stretched his arms overhead and dragged his feet back to the pristine white hallway. In the lounge were rather simplistic, yet tranquil decorations all around the spotless flat. A lovely cherry blossom bonsai sat atop of a mahogany side table, and above it, a large, round mirror. Adjacent to it was a small, glass cabinet, kept under lock and key, where a green and silver-coated urn was placed inside. Sitting on top of the cabinet was a picture of a smiling, platinum blond man in his early forties, and on his lap sat a small, blond child dressed in a fluffy robe, frowning and clutching on the man's suit.
Goku smiled at the picture, and opted to touch it, but did not, in fear of incurring more of his employer's wrath. He looked at another decoration on the wall, the most noticeable one, and he hummed as he observed the delicate and flowing calligraphy behind the huge glassed frames. A single word written horizontally in Japanese filled the canvas of faded green, a word that his boss had uttered to him from time to time.
Muichimotsu.
Goku tilted his head this way and that, and decided that he couldn't comprehend his employer's words. 'To hold nothing and to be free of everything with no attachment to anyone and anything,' he had once said to a confused Goku on one occasion, but seeing the sole picture on the table now, Goku decided not to jab his boss about whether he was applying his own words. At certain times of the day, Goku would catch the foul-mouthed man looking off at a distance beyond his office windows, with a cigarette idly burning away between his fingers, brows heavily knotted and lips settled in a permanent frown, and he would only snap from his thoughts the moment Goku would actually enter the room with his not-so-graceful entrance.
Goku did it on purpose every time, just so he could snatch the man away from making that cold expression on his otherwise striking features. The blond didn't deserve to look so glum all the time, Goku thought.
The washing machine beeped and Goku ran back to the laundry and took care of the clothes, then he jogged off to his employer's bedroom and rummaged through his quite large wardrobe, and picked out a random suit his hands had caught on—a pair of black pants and a black coat with a deep purple shirt underneath. That would do.
He took a quick look at the bedroom and noted that the bed was neatly arranged, as usual. Nothing out of place. The ashtray sitting near the lampshade was clean for the day. No cigarette butts at the bottom of the bed. No randomly littered cans of beer on the carpeted floor. No jutting chests of drawers beside the bed. The glass windows were kept closed. The heavy curtains were kept shut. The area where his boss usually worked late at night stamping out important documents remained spotless. The books in the shelves near the door were still alphabetically arranged—
Goku nodded to himself, quite pleased that everything was in place.
The warm, inviting caramel-glazed walls gave Goku the urge to sleep on the plush bed, though. However, he stomped on that thought.
He bounded back to the hallway and was about to exit the flat when he heard a small meow from behind him. Turning around, he smiled and saw Tama, his boss's pet cat, pawing at his feet. He gave the feline a quick pat on the head, "Be back in a couple of hours, Tama. Sanzo will kill me if he'd get out of the office with no decent clothes." The cat meowed and looked up at him and sat—the perfect image of a patient pet.
With one last look at the flat and at the cat, Goku closed and locked the door and returned to his boss's office, hastily apologizing with a grin as he was berated for handing in the new clothes too late.
"Hey, puny monkey. I had to look like shit the entire meeting—no, don't tell me that it was just a quick talk, I still looked like shit—and you forgot my coffee, you little shit."
Goku was thwacked on his head with today's newspaper, and ducked for another hit, "But Sanzo, if you looked like shit the entire meeting, then those people you were with were probably even more shit-looking! I mean—they looked creepy!"
Sanzo's arm stopped midway of batting Goku with the newspaper, and mulled over his assistant's words. "What are you trying to say?"
"I mean, they're still shitty-looking while you'd still look 500 times better than them even if you're wearing a loincloth in a meeting—gah!"
"Stop. Saying. Such. Nonsense," he drawled with each hit on Goku's head. Sanzo huffed as he tucked the paper under his arm and stormed off to his desk, and smoked a cigarette as he faced the window.
Goku peered over his arm to check if the coast was finally clear, and when he saw his employer's back facing him, he felt the urge to close the distance, and to keep him away from distant thoughts.
"Sanzo?"
"Hm?" Sanzo turned around and regarded him with a cocked eyebrow.
And it was times like these when Goku wished time would stop, just so he could look at the profile of that pale face bathed in the setting sun's warm glow for eternity. He branded the image in his mind, and filed it away and kept it under a heavy lock and key. This expression of Sanzo, his ever brash employer, looking calm and pensive, was a rare sight—he had the very face of a soul hardened by an unspoken past.
He knew he should have resigned the moment he got yelled at for the first time since he worked under this man, but whenever he did think of quitting, with one look at the president, Goku realized—
"Hey, Sanzo. It's about time to end the day. Could we—"
"Eat out? Sure."
—he could never leave this man alone.
Goku beamed and bounded his way to Sanzo and roughly fixed the wrinkles in the suit he brought for him, even if he got scolded at for trying to help.
He observed the way Sanzo deftly adjusted his coat and loosened his tie with practiced ease, observed the way he puffed the life out of the cigarette and squished its remains on the ashtray, and he followed him to the door, smiling all the while.
Outside the office, Goku's coworkers greeted him, some of them afraid to approach him in fear of their boss noticing them. Goku didn't mind, though. They wouldn't understand how he could cope with their employer's explosive temper day in and day out and still manage to genuinely smile at the end of the day.
The employees watched as Goku babbled on to their boss without a trace of fear, and surprisingly enough, their boss didn't yell profanities at him. Rather, he walked closely with the smaller man, humming at some parts which they think he found interesting. And if anyone dared to take a closer look, one would see the faintest hint of a smile on Genjo Sanzo's lips as Goku prattled on about the latest discoveries in food and culinary arts.
"—and I want to try this new restaurant where they serve lots of sweets! Hey, can we? Can we?"
"Isn't that where we're going, Monkey?"
Goku laughed. Before, the nickname rubbed him the wrong way, often yelling at his boss that he wasn't such an animal. When the yelling had stopped and decided that arguing wouldn't go anywhere, Goku couldn't remember, and decided that only his boss could ruffle and smooth his feathers at the same time.
"Ah, President Genjo," called one of the secretaries as she approached the man, "Vice President Kanzeon called, said she'd like..." The secretary paused and took out a small notepad and read out, "'A golden opulence and some cherries in that new restaurant', she said."
The president's eyebrow twitched, "That fucking bitch. Knows my every move as usual. Tell her to fucking suck it the next time she calls. Goku! We're going."
The aforementioned yelped upon being called and hastily thanked the secretary in place of the man. The two men left, and left the floor to wonder.
"He will never rest swearing, will he?"
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The president and his assistant sat at the far edge of the restaurant, away from prying eyes and sharp ears. They stood out enough as it is, and it was all because of Sanzo's assistant practically breathing in every dish in the restaurant. On Goku's twenty-fourth plate of food, Sanzo finally blurted out the insane amount he would pay at the end of the meal, and Goku merely laughed at his employer's annoyance.
"But you have a lot of cash to burn, Sanzo."
"That doesn't mean you should spend it like it's yours, puny chimp."
Idle conversation flowed throughout their meal, the topics mostly from the company's work for tomorrow. Kinzan Publishing Co. boasted some of the most successful books of the past four decades through strict discipline and expert editorial advice and ideas between the author and the staff. Founded by a family with a devout Buddhist faith, Kinzan's lines of bestsellers were usually of one subject—religion. However, since the death of the 30th president, the company was forced to Genjo Sanzo, who was of the right age to take the burdens of the company.
And now at 23, Genjo Sanzo, one with a very liberal mindset that differed from his Buddhist associates, broke the norm as soon as he took the company's reins four years prior, setting new genres into the shelves of the publishing house and into the shelves of the nation's bookshops—genres of sensitive topics too shameful to talk of in public, books riddled with worldly wants, books that tackled too many of the imagination of the human mind, both in fiction and in non-fiction—and these new books brought in a large slew of writers and clients to their doorstep, and in a short time, Kinzan became a household name about the people with liberal minds.
"Our bill, if you please," grumbled Sanzo towards the waitress that stared at him too much. Sanzo took no notice of it, as was the norm, and huffed on a cigarette instead. "You have your fill now?"
Goku nodded and grinned as he patted his stomach, "Yeah. Thanks for the meal. Ah, don't forget what your aunt wanted—"
"She can get it herself, like hell I'll buy a ridiculously expensive ice cream for her whims," he grunted. "Plus, she could just order her lackey around—that old man what's-his-name—Jiroushin." Sanzo stubbed the cigarette butt on the ashtray as soon as the waitress returned his credit card and stood up, mumbling forced thanks and calling Goku to go with him. "You forgot to feed the cat earlier, didn't you?"
"Uh, yeah. You were already pissed at me enough as it was when I was late."
"Hmph."
They returned to the building at sundown, and Goku greeted the doormen with usual cheer as Sanzo merely raised his brows in a vague greeting. Inside the president's flat, Goku immediately fed the cat and apologized to it, and he hurdled around the apartment in a flurry, fussing over the small details and kept the place as tidy as Sanzo wanted it to be, while the president lounged around the sitting room and read the business section of the evening newspaper.
"'Godworks Publishing House Expands Again', huh. Feh," Sanzo placed the paper on the sofa and plopped on it, leaning his head against the plushness of the couch. An upside-down view of Goku vacuuming the kitchen floor with much focus greeted his sight, and Sanzo fought back a smile. "Hey, Monkey. After you're done with that, you can go to your floor."
Goku stopped in his cleaning and looked at the man, "Eh? Could you repeat that? The vacuum was loud."
Sanzo's brows curled and he frowned, "…Never mind." And he closed his eyes to feign sleep, ignoring Goku's pleas to repeat what the man said earlier.
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"In the end, I ended up sleeping on your couch again. Ugh." Goku whined as his back cracked with every move he made towards the office floor, and Sanzo hummed in agreement and idly checked his nails as the office doors opened.
"Oh, right. I forgot to mention that that couch could be made into a bed."
Silence reigned, and Goku stared at the president's retreating back with a gaping mouth, and felt a rush of irritation at this new information.
"…The fuck? Why are you saying that now, you lousy boss!"
"Fuck off, you didn't ask for its other functions."
"Wha—! No, no. You fuck off for not telling me what it can and cannot do!"
"Ah? Is that the way to talk to the guy who gives you your paycheck, you little ingrate?"
"Gah! Stop pinching my cheek! My salary's not enough to feed me for a week!"
"That's because you devour every piece of morsel you fucking see on the streets before you could even save a fucking cent! And what are you complaining about? You live an easy life right below my flat, punk!"
Banters and pointing fingers flew on an early morning, and the employees scattered about, steering clear from their president and his assistant. How Goku managed not to get fired for openly cursing at his boss on a daily basis was a mystery to them. If the person who cursed the boss were anyone other than Goku, that person would have been sent to the morgue in seconds flat.
"Come to think of it, Goku," the president shuffled papers from his black leather briefcase, "new clients will show up today. Plus there's a really persistent guy wanting to meet up with me after lunch. Says it's urgent and shit. Remind me on that."
Their insult-throwing ended up in an abrupt manner and Goku, suddenly no longer looking offended at the change of topic, accepted the papers and saluted the president with a sudden grin. "Look over these papers of new clients and remind you of this really persistent guy wanting to meet you at lunch. Got it." Sanzo nodded, huffed, and turned away, and Goku called him back. "By the way, Sanzo. You're looking less grumpy today," and Goku ran off to his cubicle, which wasn't much of a distance from the president's office.
"Tch. Senseless monkey," he mumbled and locked himself in his office.
Goku hummed and busied himself with work, and a coworker from beside his cubicle tapped him on the shoulder. Goku greeted him with a smile, "Hi, Jien. What's up?"
Jien, a black-haired guy from the legal department, blinked at Goku's seemingly permanent sunny disposition, and sighed. "I don't know how you handle him everyday. Why are you here yet? Wait, let me rephrase that. How come he hasn't fired you yet for yelling at him everyday? I mean, he's the owner of this entire company and you're just his assistant—no offense, man—but damn, you call him by his first name and you go off on him everyday like it's no big deal. One time an intern called him by his first name on accident, and he was banned from this place because the intern was being 'disrespectful'. But you call him whatever name you please and you're still here and still sane after all his verbal abuse for six months. What's your secret?"
Goku blinked and said the first thing on his mind, "I have no intention of leaving his side, that's what." And Goku swiveled in his chair and skimmed over the papers that the president gave to him, "Besides, I'm his what, eighth? Ninth? Tenth, I think, assistant in line, or so what I hear. No one lasted with him for more than three days, I heard. The interns had it the worst, always crying at lunch for being yelled and cursed at."
"Yeah, and six months is a record. You should be the employee of the year for putting up with him everyday."
Goku laughed, "Though a banquet would be better—ah. Five clients today, I see. Hm, and this guy… Ah, Jien. Do you think this is a tattoo? On his face?"
Jien looked over at a mugshot of a young man with pale blond hair, and a noticeable brown patch on his right eye. "Pretty sure that's a birthmark or something."
Goku scratched his head and turned the picture over, on it was an attached sticky note with the distinctive handwriting from his boss: 'the really persistent punk', and he nodded as he pinned the picture on his small corkboard to remind his boss of this 'persistent punk' later.
Lunchtime rolled by, and Goku rapped on the president's door and peered inside. "Sanzo, I'm here to remind you of that really persistent punk who wanted to meet up with you, he's waiting in the lobby. Ah, reading newspapers again? You're really an old man."
"Shut it, Monkey," the president growled, and placed the newspaper on his desk. He stood up and Goku entered the room, locking the door shut as he did so. "How many are with him?"
"He's alone, from the looks of it," Goku observed as he went over to Sanzo to smooth out the man's maroon coat. "But we can never be too sure. Do you have it with you?"
"Feh. What kind of question is that, idiot? Of course I have it. I always do," Sanzo shrugged and patted the inside of his coat, and felt a small but heavy chunk of metal hidden inside a holster.
"Sometimes I worry if that thing will randomly go off and you'll end up shooting yourself in the ribs," Goku commented, staring at Sanzo's coat as though trying to see through it. "It'll be a funny incident to tell the doctor, don't you think?"
Sanzo snorted, "Some morbid humor you got there, Monkey."
Goku stuck his tongue out and grinned, "That's because I got it from you, stingy boss."
"Bah. Watch who you're calling stingy, you bottomless pit."
Goku merely gave him the finger and smoothed out the president's clothes one last time, "There. All good. Shall I call on Gojyo?"
"Nah. It'll only hinder my otherwise peaceful day. Besides, I gave him the week off, it's good for my ears."
"Shall I call on Jien, then? He's also good with this guarding thing."
"No need. You're enough."
Goku bowed down and hid the flush threatening to stain his cheeks. "I'm enough, huh…"
Sanzo hummed and noticed his assistant's sudden bashful behavior, "Of course you are, idiot. I wouldn't keep you with me if you weren't."
And hearing those words made Goku beam with pride. "Thanks, Sanzo."
"Hn."
And they made their way to the lobby, where they met up with a strange man with a birthmark on the right side of his face. A frowning Sanzo sat opposite of the smiling man, while Goku stood by Sanzo's right side, his golden eyes fixated upon the unknown figure sitting in front of him.
"Well? Cut to the chase. What's your purpose here?" snarled Sanzo, and his frown deepened as he was answered with a bubbling laugh.
"My, my. Such a no-nonsense man you are, President Genjo. And to think that the rumors are still very true—that you are quite rude to everyone."
Sanzo's fingers twitched on the armrests, and Goku glanced at the president with a wary eye. "I don't give a fuck what others think. Well? Did you come all the way here just to pester me? Because I've got shit to do and I'd rather spend my day free from pests."
The odd man covered his face with another giggle—one that was starting to grate on Sanzo's ears by the looks of it—and he bowed in his seat, "I, Kami, am working under Godworks Publishing. You have heard of it, yes? We've been in the industry on par with yours, and I'd like to speak about a few suggestions on how the companies we're both working in will benefit us for the greater good—"
"Whoa, whoa. Slow down there, Spot."
Kami stopped in his words and his eyes narrowed in a sharp glare at Sanzo's austere air. "'Spot'?"
"Yeah, Spot." Goku swallowed down his bubbling laughter as Sanzo spoke, "Last time I checked, my company is in a pretty good shape and I am having no plans on merging it with another company. Got it?"
"But I have yet to say my suggestions—"
Sanzo, who was now scratching the inside of his ear with his pinky, huffed in annoyance, "I don't need to hear it. Go bother another company for all I care." He fished out a cigarette from his coat pocket and smoked. "So? I see you work in that place now. Why are you seeking solace there and suddenly come crawling back here?"
Goku blinked as he stood still with his hands placed firmly behind his back, filing away the new information for later questions to his employer.
"Ah, I see the president remembered me."
"No shit. You were that kid with the fraudulent façade who used to follow me around like some lost puppy. That Ukoku's adoptive son, right?"
Kami looked away from Sanzo's inquiring purple gaze, "Why, yes I am his adoptive son, President. Kind to me, he is. I used to follow you around this building, but not anymore." He stood up and gritted his teeth, gray eyes burning at Sanzo's unfazed demeanor, and he pointed a finger at him, "Not since you fired me from a mistake I didn't even mean—ah!"
A steely-eyed Goku jumped in front of Kami, his hands clawed at his sides and ready to attack the man at any moment. "Look, I dunno who you are or what you did to warrant a pink slip from Kinzan, but heaven forbid, if you badmouth or lay even a finger on Sanzo, you're dead."
Kami stood frozen in place, and looked at the smaller man, to the calm Sanzo, and back. From around him, eyes start to zoom in on his figure. "Hah. I see the president has gotten finally himself a loyal pet—"
"Fuck off. One more word and I'll break your teeth."
"Goku."
The golden-eyed young man glanced at Sanzo, and let out an almost animalistic growl in notice.
"Stand down."
Goku's nostrils flared upon being told to step back, but did as he was told, and returned to stand beside Sanzo with bared teeth and an open glare.
Sanzo sighed and stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray, "Whoever put you up to this task, tell them this: I don't need a fucking parasite gnawing on my company. Goku, escort this fellow outside—"
"No need, President. I know my way out," Kami retorted in a snarl, and Goku was about to make a comment when—
"I know you know. You did become quite familiar with disgraceful exits since you were here, didn't you?"
—Sanzo took the comeback from Goku's mind, and Goku snorted as the doormen approached Kami, and he wordlessly hauled himself out of the lobby, and gave one last insult to Kinzan's CEO, one that Sanzo dismissed with a wave of a hand.
Once out from their sight, Goku howled in laughter while Sanzo merely huffed a small chuckle, and when both calmed down, Goku jogged over to the receptionist and ordered a memo to ban Kami from the company's premises. Once done, he returned to Sanzo's side and offered a trip back to the office, to which the latter accepted with a vague nod.
Goku let Sanzo take the lead to the elevator, and just as when Goku was about to join him inside, the yells and hurried footfalls of the doormen and several employees echoed in the lobby, screaming about stopping someone, and Kami's figure suddenly appeared behind a startled Goku—
"I just realized, President Genjo—"
—and Kami aimed a gun at a wide-eyed Sanzo—
"—I don't take rejections too lightly."
—and shot the golden-eyed young man who had shielded Kinzan's CEO.
"Goku!"
