Author's Note: I need to get into the habit of updating this one or I know I'll lose interest. So from now on, this will be updated every Thursday.
The places/landmarks/hotels in this are all real places, and any information about the areas is as accurate as I can make it. Japanese names will be chosen for their meaning usually. A lot of research has gone into the later chapters of this fic, so it would be lovely if you could take the time to review. It only takes a couple of minutes and means the whole world to me.
"Your car is here, Mr Heiwajima," called a voice through my office door. I didn't bother looking up; I already knew who it was. The new secretary that Tom had hired for me, she had her own little desk just outside my office and needed a few lessons on how to make a proper cup of coffee. Her interruption irritated me, and no doubt she saw that irritation on my face, because she ducked back out of the room just as quickly as she had entered before I replied. I'd yet to find a real use for her, considering I had managed just fine on my own before she got here. I looked overworked apparently, yeah, that was bullshit. I knew Tom well enough to know that he had just hired her because he thought I needed to get myself a girlfriend, and finding one at work was the only way I was going to find one or something along those lines.
My desk was cluttered, stacked with papers and files and folders and about a dozen empty coffee cups that I still hadn't thrown out yet. I'd taken to getting coffee from the machine down the hall; it was shit of course, but a damn lot nicer than the bitter brew that my supposed employee came up with. I often wondered if she had listened when I had told her that I needed a lot of sugar in it. It was getting darker out, mid-afternoon or so the clock on the bottoms screen of my computer told me. A suitcase sat beside my desk, packed and ready for another week or possibly more away from Ikebukuro.
Most people would be clocking out in an hour or two and heading home to their family or pets or just a good night of sleep. Yeah, not I, not the guy with a suitcase packed and at the ready like that. I couldn't really linger in my office anymore now that the damn woman had informed me that the driver taking me to the airport was already here. I had a flight booked for five, to fly me over to Fukuoka city, all the way down, down, down on the island of Kyushu. Hotel was already booked too. It had already been done for me, and I knew already I'd be stuck in one of those big hotels that I hated. They were too big, too clean. I knew that wasn't my world. But a guy has to do what a guy has to do, right? Despite all the paperwork I already had to do, Tanaka Senior had told me that I needed to head out of town to deal with another big boss of some company or another, to deal with a loan they needed or something to do with merging with our company and a conference about financial benefits or something, yeah, yeah. I was kind of hazy on the details, figured I'd be filled in more when I got there.
I clicked the little 'shut down' button for the computer, standing up and grabbing a few important papers and folders that I knew I would need for this trip while the screen logged off and faded out to black. My arms were full by the time I was done, somehow though I managed to balance the work in the crook of one arm, leaving the other free to wheel that damned suitcase to the elevator and down to where that car was waiting for me.
Tom caught me on the way out, wishing me a good flight and to let me know that he'd call me later to confirm details and talk everything through. Apparently there'd be someone waiting at the airport, some lower employee from the offices there who would act as my own little PA while I was staying. I was irritated, yeah, but Tom just ignored that. Everyone did now. I was just irritable. Some grouchy businessman who was damn good at his job, that was all. I shrugged the other man off, eager to get this damned travelling out of the way and just get there already. He didn't seem to care, waving after my scowling form as I headed into the elevator to the lower floor where I could get in the car and just drive to the airport already. It was my job to travel, and I should like it, maybe I had a first, but now I hated it. I hated travelling, really I did. Going from one place to another and all this work, work, work; it made me mean. I just wanted to sleep, get away from this fucking workload for an hour or two. The overtime was killing me. But a man's got to do what a man's got to do, right?
The man sent to greet me at the airport had been holding a sign with my name on it when I arrived. He needn't have bothered really. I could have spotted him a mile away; his whole body language gave him away when he spotted me. He straightened up, as if by somehow impressing me was part of his job too. He introduced himself, Hiroshi or something. I was too busy striding towards what I guessed was our car to really notice. I had greeted him politely nonetheless, but I didn't go out of my way to smile or act like I wasn't in one of the foulest moods.
The car ride was quiet, just as I had hoped. Hiroshi had tried to talk about the hotel and asked how my flight was, but after I just stopped replying and took to checking through my emails on my PDA instead he shut up. A smart guy like him could go a long way after all. I didn't bother looking out at the city as we drove, what was the point? I'd never get the chance to go out and see it while I was here, too much work had to be done for me to do that, so what was the point in teasing myself with something I couldn't have? Maybe that was why I hated travelling now, because it was just work, work, and work.
It wasn't long after leaving the airport that the car was stopping again, five or six or ten minutes at the most. Hiroshi had told me the hotel was close by, but I guess I hadn't been paying that much attention or thought that he was being serious. The driver opened the door for us when it had pulled up in front of the hotel, and I thanked him too, perhaps a little more grouchily than was needed seeing as he'd done nothing wrong. Guess that was just who I was now, I never really did let loose, always seemed to be tense or putting up that 'serious businessman' look when in public. It was my job after all, that was who I was now, had been ever since I'd been hired at the damn company. Hiroshi followed me out of the car and started giving the driver instructions for this or that while I took in the hotel that stretched up in front of us.
The Grand Hyatt Fukuoka.
I didn't need to be as well travelled as I was to have heard of the hotel. It was famous, one of those ritzy, over the top places that some people can only ever dream of staying in and could never afford in a million years. Yeah, I had been right when I had left Ikebukuro; I was going to fucking hate this trip. But a man's got to do what a man's got to do, right?