Hi guys, it's been a while and this chapter is shorter than most . . . I just couldn't find myself to write more. This prompt was from Bittersweet Alchemist, and I had a blast writing this one up. Thanks a bunch for this wonderful prompt. (You may have given me an idea for another chapter with the glitter comment).
Keith: You did, I was stuck cleaning the mess up. (─ ─ ; )
Liulfr: Well, you are a janitor . . . ∟ (●˰● ∟)
Keith: . . . (-_-) LiulfrLokison does not own any characters from the franchise that you recognize, except for her own characters.
Chapter 6: The Notebook Ban
Prompt: Something that always seems to irk every janitor I know (I've got a surprisingly bad track-history with them) is when people leave the fringes of paper from notebooks lying around. I mean, those things get everywhere, so I suppose I can understand the irritation, they're like the glitter of the janitorial world. Unless there's real glitter involved.
-o0o-
"That. Is. It."
Keith glanced up from his desk, an eyebrow raised as he saw who had slammed his office door open at . . .
A quick check of his clock said it was only 12:50PM, usually complaints came in after 3:00PM.
"It's rare to see you upset Katie. What seems to be the problem?"
Katie Holt, was one of the four janitor's under his position that helped co – ordinate cleanups, and were the people to go to for the newbie's in the department. Through them, the other janitors would send any complaints or requests through the four, and at the end of the month, those four would report to him. He liked to call them the Janitor Officers.
Katie was a 28 year old with light brown hair that she always tied back into a short bun on her head, and bright hazel eyes. She was roughly 5'5, and her build was slim but her appearance fooled many. The woman was wicked skilled with a mop, and could kick any man's ass if she chose to. She also grew up in the rough parts of Junon, so she had experience with scuffles.
Keith may or may not have given some janitors self defence lessons in case of terrorist attacks in the building.
(What? It had happened before.)
The two of them had a friendship lasting eight years, the moment Katie had come into the department, he had found a kindred spirit, and a person he could trust to rein him in if his temper got out of place. He had adopted her like a dog adopts a kitten (despite the species difference).
"It's these fricken notebooks!" She brandished an A4 size notebook with a spiral binding in her hand before dropping it down onto his desk. "I keep finding little bits of the edges left on the floor, and its hell to clean up! It's like glitter!"
"Kadoobies."
Katie looked at him like he had just asked her to feed herself to a Malboro.
"What?"
Keith let out an exasperated sigh before picking up the notebook.
"They're called kadoobies. Don't know who in Odin's name made up the term, but that's what they're called. It's that guy in the Records room, cubicle 14, isn't it?"
The guy had been reported by at least seven other janitors, who had quit from the stress after finding the bits strewn throughout the records and files room.
Cleaning up on that floor would be similar to fighting Razor Weeds. Once you thought you got them all, more would appear. And because that specific floor had delicate documents, there had been an agreement between the records staff and Keith that no vacuums would be allowed in there even under the threat of spiders.
The records team were terrified of spiders.
He had been called down at least thirty times a year to deal with random arachnids that lurked in shadows, and he was very tempted to just shift them up a floor despite the massive headache it would be to shift all the files.
He had let the guy off because those previous janitors had been slacking on the job and he sent them to that floor for punishment, but someone would burn if he lost Katie to the Kadoobie litterer.
It was time to take action.
And judging from the grin Katie sported, it would be enjoyable.
-o0o-
Now, it wasn't exactly a fact that was well known around Shinra, but Keith had the authority to ban an item from the building.
He had a limit of three items per year, but over the years he had only banned two things from the building during his time in Shinra.
The first had been gum (a bane for every janitor).
If any was found possessing gum in the building, it would be confiscated and they would be stuck cleaning out the experiment cages in the lab. After the twentieth confiscation, the whole Tower knew about the gum ban, and the last person to violate the ban had lost a toe to one of the experiments.
The second banning had been more of a personal manner.
The one thing that Keith hated cleaning up the most was spitballs.
As a trainee janitor, he had found spitballs everywhere, vowing to ban it as soon as he could. He had been distracted by the gum bam and so after hearing a complaint from a lower ranking janitor, the need for vengeance returned like a hellfire.
Needless to say, the next person he found blowing spitballs was severely punished.
His glare left the infantry man in tears, and the news quickly spread.
There were no more offenders after that incident.
But that had been two years ago, so the fact that Keith had that power was almost forgotten by most of the staff, not to mention the new employees.
After explaining the situation to President Shinra (who knew how much Keith valued his underlings), the ban was implemented.
No one was spared.
They didn't place a punishment down after the first person had practically begged to have their notebook back, terrified at what they might do with the contents. The contents of the notebook turned out to reveal they had written down the guard shifts as their squadron hadn't bothered write down their own times.
The lecture they got from their commanding officer was punishment enough.
Once the word had been spread around the building everyone began to hide their notebooks, but Keith confiscated at least two notebooks a day.
Katie joined him as he read the contents of the notebooks (some notebooks he deemed harmless, and returned them after giving the offender a stern warning), they found some interesting information about the fan clubs, new restaurants and clothing stores, (they had found some coupons but returned those immediately), but their best find was the fanfiction.
Because some of the SHINRA staff wrote it.
The mortification on the author's faces after they returned the notebooks was priceless, although they had been surprised when they saw the comments both Katie and Keith had written in the margins.
But their main goal was the Kadoobie Litterer.
They hadn't been able to catch the man off guard in order to confiscate his notebooks, and it had been a month since the ban had been implemented. They still found kadoobies strewn throughout the records level.
It had been a slow day when Keith got called down to the records floor because of another spider incident, when he finally got the chance.
The Kadoobie Litterer had left a notebook on his desk.
The poor sod came back to find Keith ruffling through the book, and panicked.
With good reason.
The guy was writing down notes from the reports, the number of people per mission, the supplies, the routes, fighting techniques, everything.
He was a goddamn spy for AVALANCHE.
Keith was all too happy to tackle the guy to the ground while security was called, practically beaming when the Turks took him away for interrogation.
President Shinra commended him for finding out their hidden mole (SOLDIER's had been ambushed several times in the past months), and the Turks had been unable to find him until now.
That was the highlight of Keith's week.
Who would have thought a mole would have been found out because he kept littering?
-o0o-
A/N: Well, there you have it. The Notebook Ban. To those who understand the pain of having to pick those little suckers up, I salute thee. To those who have prompts, you can drop them in the review box, or you can go to my tumblr (finally deciding to use it) mojishinprocastinatorextreme dot tumblr dot com (You can also get the links to my AO3 account, where I have a new Avengers series up that I will probably be cross - posting to here in the future. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
LiulfrLokison out! :3
