Kaiba was normally in his office early, and today was no different. He was already getting to work, fingers clacking away at the keyboard, as he occasionally shifted his eyes to the clock. He wondered if that insanely annoying woman would actually show up today. She had shown up to Tsuki's yesterday after class for her usual soybeans and soda combination, but left early, saying she had other things to do. Kaiba had inquired about the device she had left, as he was unable to turn it on the night she gave it to him, and she answered by pressing her palm into the screen before sweeping out of the restaurant. The device lit up, leaving Kaiba to explore it that night.
They were definitely going to have a serious conversation about this today.
"Kaiba-sama, there is a woman downstairs requesting to see you," said a voice over the intercom. It was Isono. "Shall I tell her to leave?"
There was no doubt that this was that programmer he hired. "No, send her up."
"Oh, uh, yes, sir," Isono responded, sounding a little surprised. It's not that Kaiba didn't blame him – he always sent away women that tried to contact him at work. Women required time and energy and that was something that Kaiba didn't have to give. Why didn't they just understand that?
An eternity and a half later, the doors were thrown open quite dramatically as the silver haired woman strutted in. Kaiba looked up from his computer to see that she was dressed in a black blazer over a frilly white blouse and pencil skirt. Her silver hair was whirled in a bun and black-rimmed glasses were perched on her nose. She was even carrying a briefcase. Her overzealous attitude to try and look professional – she had even struck a pose with her hands on her hips, her face contorted with determination – combined with her hair swept out of her face, she actually looked kind of…cute.
"You look ridiculous," Kaiba told her, moving his eyes back to his computer.
Her tinkling laughter filled the air as her heels clicked closer to him. "Well, so do you."
"If you're going to make a comeback, at least say something that's true," he said, flicking his blue eyes up at her, only to see her smiling. "I'm surprised you're on time."
"Aw, it's the first day of work, of course I'd come on time!" she said, laughing. "I'm glad you have faith in me."
"We'll see how long that lasts," Kaiba said, pushing his chair back and standing up. He picked his briefcase from the floor as he moved past her towards the door, but the woman only followed with her eyes. "Hurry up, we have a meeting to get to."
"Ooh, I get to go to a meeting?" she asked, leaving her briefcase on his desk and making her way towards the door.
Kaiba furrowed his brows. "You should bring your briefcase."
She shrugged and giggled. "There's nothing in there."
He sighed and rolled his eyes, leaving the room. Impossible. She was impossible. How was it that a woman of her aptitude was able to correct the glitch on a program written by Kaiba Seto? It had taken her all of three hours to fix something he had been trying to repair for a little under a month. It was, to put it simply, annoying.
"This place is really big," she said, seeming to admire the hallway. Kaiba didn't think there was anything special about the gray walls but obviously she was easily amused. "I'd have gotten lost if Isono-san didn't tell me where your office was."
Kaiba didn't respond, just kept walking. Why was she talking to him? They were at work now, not in the restaurant or in a café – they weren't friends. She didn't need to make friendly conversation. Their relationship now was strictly that of a boss and employee, the only relationship that Kaiba ever really understood. It was simple; he, as the boss, was in power, and employees, as little worker bees, listened to everything he said, no questions asked.
"Did you like my mini-computer?" she asked, hurrying forward to flank him as though waiting to see his physical reaction. "Well, I guess it's sort of a computer. More for games though. I wrote everything myself and built it, too, so right now, it's the only one in the world."
That explained why her laptop she used looked so high-tech. She built it herself. That still didn't explain her designer bag and golden cuffs contradicting her lack of high-end clothing and her duct tape wallet. Even looking at her suit, Kaiba could tell that it was not something she had bought at a custom tailor.
But again, he didn't speak, choosing to keep his eyes in front of her. But it didn't break her spirits, as she seemed to be ignoring the fact that he was ignoring her, and just walked beside him. They approached a room at the end of the hall and he pushed open the door, and stepped through, not bothering to hold it open for the woman behind him.
Placed around a large table were several businessmen, who were chit chatting about other things. They silenced at once when Kaiba stepped into the room, and he strode to the head of the table, placing himself in a chair. The silver haired woman followed him, and sat in a chair on his right side, folding her hands onto the table with a polite smile at the older gentleman across her. He looked a little confused as to why Kaiba Seto would bring someone into the conference room, let alone a woman.
"What was such an important issue that we all had to be here by Friday?" asked a man sitting near the head of the table, to the right of the silver haired woman. Kaiba glowered at him.
"If you could silence yourself for one moment, Tanaka, I was just about to start the meeting and explain why I called you all here," he snapped. He lifted his briefcase and pulled out the device he received the other day, placing it on the table. He pressed his hand in the center, the computer lighting up and displaying a holographic 3D desktop. "This is going to be our new project starting today. I will be asking all of your departments to analyze and upgrade all of the aspects to this computer. The shape, the size, the technology, everything. Mass produce it."
The men around the room all seemed a little confused. Kaiba was about to explain, when the woman to his right interrupted him. "I don't remember giving you permission to make my computer," she said, furrowing her brows together a little. She seemed to not really understand what was going on.
"Excuse me?" Kaiba growled.
"I gave that to you to play with as a thanks for hiring me," she continued. "But I do want it back. It's the only one in the world."
"We're going to mass produce it. The technology is phenomenal and I want to sell it," he said, biting off every word. Why was he explaining himself to this woman? He was the boss, not the other way around.
"But you didn't even ask," she persisted, sounding mildly annoyed.
Kaiba narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw. What was he now, a fucking five year old? The other department heads from his other branches seemed a little amused and that was annoying. Definitely not as annoying as the woman sitting next to him, though. Kaiba stood up abruptly, yanking the woman's wrist. "Excuse us," he snarled, dragging her from the room. He slammed the door behind him and glared, looking down at her. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"What? What am I doing? It's the other way around," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "That's my little game computer."
"And I want to make it our next project. Shouldn't you be grateful?" Kaiba asked, unfazed by her poor attempt to try and be angry. She obviously wasn't that mad. Hell, anyone would be excited if Kaiba Corporations was making their invention the newest company project.
"Yeah, that is great, but you didn't even ask," she repeated.
"Do I really need to ask my own fucking programmer whether or not I want to make her gaming device a project for my company?" Kaiba snapped.
"Yes, I think you do. It is my computer."
"I am five seconds away from firing your stupid ass."
"Well, then you won't get the computer," she replied as a matter-of-fact. "All you have to do is just ask me."
Kaiba clenched his jaw so tightly he thought he might break his teeth. "We're making the computer."
"If it's without my permission, I can sue you."
"You don't think we have lawyers? I doubt you have a patent or any kind of legal evidence you can drag along with you to court. I'll have you fired in two seconds, you'll never work anywhere in Japan again, and I still get your computer," Kaiba snapped.
"Fine," she said, exhaling. "You don't need to ask. Another deal, then, since you're such a fine businessman."
"I'm not making any more deals with the likes of you," he responded immediately.
She, of course, ignored him. "You can have my computer and I'll be the head of the project. I'll make sure that everything goes well and if you give me enough time, then I can even make an upgrade for you, and you don't need to pay me for that. I can still take the salary of the lead programmer," she reasoned, before he could leave.
That actually sounded like a decent proposal. She would do all the work while Kaiba just oversaw everything, and he wouldn't have to pay her a single yen. And he could fire her anytime he wanted. "What's the catch?"
"You come to my shows," she said with a smile.
"Excuse me?" Kaiba growled.
"Did you forget already? Wednesdays I sing at the café for like, an hour or so. You just come with me every Wednesday night after Tsuki's and sit and have coffee, and do the crossword, whatever. And you can have my design and all my help," she said.
"Absolutely not."
"Fine, then we can stand out here while all your business savvy friends think we're having a lover's quarrel and have their opinions on your change because the Kaiba Seto is being bossed around by a girl," she said, raising both her eyebrows. "Because I'm not going to back down and I will embarrass you in front of those people if you either don't ask, or don't take my deal."
"Fine, we have a deal," Kaiba told her, and knocked the doors back open again. A little surprised, the silver haired woman followed him in, feeling a little accomplished. She returned to her seat at Kaiba's right as he took his own, already tired from the day, and it'd only been about half an hour into the start of that wretched woman's workday. "My apologies. My new programmer has some issues about her work being used but everything has been cleared up."
"New programmer?" questioned one of the men.
"Yes, she will be taking over as lead at this headquarters and will be overseeing the project until its end. This is her creation and she will be taking care of everything. Isn't that right?" he asked snidely, turning his head towards the silver haired woman.
"Right," she answered with a polite smile. "It's very nice to meet you all and I am hoping to get to work with you all soon."
They all seemed taken aback by her sudden sweetness and wondered what in the world Kaiba Seto was doing hiring such an innocent looking woman as his programmer. It also made them doubt the authenticity of the device before them. The desktop was still displayed, none of the old, hardened men brave enough to touch any of the holograms in case Kaiba was feeling nasty and just fired them on a whim.
The woman reached out, sliding her device in front of her. She flipped through the options on the little desktop and selected one, and then proceeded into counting the number of men at the table. She typed in that number, and then turned to her right. "Can you place this in the middle of the table, please?" she asked.
The men looked puzzled, but they obliged, passing over the computer to the center of the table. "What are you doing?" Kaiba asked, his voice low as he leaned over to speak to her.
"I've noticed that you've all seemed a little skeptical," she said, ignoring Kaiba. "So I wanted to show a demonstration that I'm sure will cause you fine gentlemen to back my project and not cause Kaiba-shachou any problems. Now gentlemen, how about a game?"
"I did good, didn't I?" the silver haired woman said quietly to Kaiba as all the businessmen left the conference room in chuckles and smiles. Hardened old men, leaving a business meeting with Kaiba Seto smiling.
Kaiba crossed his arms over his chest as he and his new programmer watched the men leave. After a test run, they had all backed up the new project without any questions and would even send over their best programmers to the headquarters to work under her. It was unanimous; they agreed that the project would be at the top of their priorities.
Normally, Kaiba could be a little murderous when it came to proposing a new project. Those men were so used to the kind of company that Kaiba Corporations used to be – the military company – even if that was over ten years ago, that they were still trying to slow down his progress as a gaming corporation as much as possible and he would be pulling out hairs trying to get them to cooperate. But one little test run from his new programmer's new invention and they were sold. She had, indeed, done well.
"You're annoying," he told her, standing up. She stood up also, scooping up her new project as she passed, tailing Kaiba as he left the room.
The new invention she had made was a portable gaming system. From a slim pad with the same thickness of a stack of twenty sheets of paper, she was able to create the same holographic quality as one of Kaiba Corp's duel disks. The desktop had a series of games to choose from, a few of which the user could download off the net for a price – or, at least that was the plan. It was a mixture of holograms and virtual reality; the player's mind was fooled into thinking that he or she could actually feel the surroundings created by the device, such as the loud, chill room of a gambling casino during a game of poker, or the hot sunlight overhead during a friendly match of fencing. It was an advancement of the Solid Vision technology Kaiba had invented.
It was, without a doubt, completely amazing.
And right now, it was the only one in the world. However, that was not going to last very long. Kaiba was determined to make this the next big thing and it would bring in his company billions. After the release, there wasn't a kid that wouldn't own a—well, he'd think of a name later, probably after discussing it with her.
Wait, what? Kaiba owned that woman's little device, he could name it whatever the hell he wanted. He didn't need her permission.
"I could have done without the unnecessary bickering in the middle of my meeting," Kaiba warned. "Don't let it happen again. If you wish to speak in private, then say so, and we'll leave the room. Is that clear?"
"Crystal," she responded with a smile. She really was impervious, wasn't she? She wasn't like most people that shriveled under his gaze, or crumpled from his cold words. She was immune. "Where are we going now?" the woman asked, noticing that they weren't heading back to Kaiba's office.
"Your work room is one floor below this one," he said, pushing open the door to the stairs. "You will come and check in with me every single morning and then head downstairs to start working. If you have any questions, which I sincerely hope you do not, then I am upstairs. The other programmers are ready to meet you."
"Oh, that's nice," she said, sounding actually excited. "Does everyone have to check in with you in the morning?"
"No," Kaiba answered, like this was supposed to be obvious. "I obviously don't have the time to see ten thousand people when they come in. It's only you so I can make sure that you're coming in on time and getting to work right away. You are also required to check out with me before you leave."
"Except on Wednesdays," she said with a smile. "We'll leave together. I end at five, right? I start singing at six thirty-ish, so we have time to grab some coffee and hang out."
"We will do no such thing," Kaiba snapped. "Our deal was the one hour of your set so I will absolutely not be leaving the building with you. I'll meet you there at six thirty and I will leave at seven thirty. I don't have time to socialize."
"Sure you do," she said, quietly her voice a little. "You just don't make time."
"Stop being ridiculous," he said, not looking down at her. The floor beneath his was just a hallway. However, in the center of the room were glass windows that contained the programming department. Inside the glass box in the center of the floor were desks, and computers – it was a regular office, except in a glass box.
He pushed open the door and she followed him in again, all work ceasing. It seemed like a busy place, with stacks of paper all around, and computer parts splayed out across the desks next to a few days' worth of empty coffee cups.
"This is your new lead," Kaiba said, being careful not to put himself in a position where he had to say her name. He looked down at her. "This is your department."
She bowed low. "It's very nice to meet all of you. Douzoyoroshiku," she said very politely, and Kaiba saw the programmers exchange glances. They seemed surprised that their new lead was so sweet. Honestly, Kaiba was astonished at the same thing. For someone of such a high intellect, she was much more humble than he would have expected.
"Get to work," he told her.
She pulled herself up with a smile and a nod. "Which is my desk?" she asked, glancing around.
"Any one, kachou," said one of the programmers. Kaiba happened to recognize him as the interim head of the department. Of course, until a few days ago, that had been Kaiba himself, but if he ever had to blame something on the programming department, it would be that person, Sato Izumi. He was one of the younger programmers, probably only a few years older than Kaiba himself, but he was very kind and lenient on his workers, which caused problems for Kaiba sometimes. Regardless, Kaiba never fired him. Sato was too good a programmer.
"Oh, no, please don't call me that," the woman said, holding her hands and waving them. Kaiba turned on his heels before he was about to leave, but Sato spoke up again, smiling warmly at her.
"What's your name then?"
Kaiba paused for that, glancing back ever so slightly as the silver haired woman smiled. "Kisara."