Chapter 1: An Obnoxious Woman.
In Japan, in Tokyo, in a major building downtown there is a girl named Tohru Honda. She is sixteen and in her second year of high school and working part time at the building. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and had a peachy complexion. She had a smile on her face, and a bright and happy aura around herself. About two years prior to the present day Tohru had gone through a terrible tragedy that involved all the members of the Honda family; Tohru's mother died in a car accident.
"Honda-san, your on floor for the twenty-sixth floor!" Shouted one of the older workers in the main lobby. Tohru turned to the older woman and smiled at her, she nodded smiling. The woman rolled her eyes at the optimistic girl. "So everyone get started, the head of the building is stopping by at nine o'clock sharp! I expect everything to be clean enough to eat off of."
Everyone sighed heavily and headed up to their floors. There were roughly twenty-eight floors in the building and every one of them had to be spotless, most of the staff were not alright with it at all. Especially a girl who just missed the elevator Tohru had just gotten on. She was short with long black hair with blood red bangs, red/orange eyes, and pale white skin. She had an angry aura around herself but it was evened out with one that couldn't be described.
"Yo, Saotome you freak!" Joked another teenager with long red hair and dark skin, she wrapped her arms around the shorter girl's neck. "You have to work on the twenty-sixth floor today. Da, man is making ya clean his damned office." She snarled looking to their left at a skinny man walking to the elevator, then took it up to the top floor.
"Yea, but I have to do my best until I'm going steady. You know until then I can't do anything to upset the boss." She smiled kindly.
"I've heard you say that before, but that completely changed when those punk ass kids chased that kid at the play ground yesterday. But you talked some manners into them, and you didn't even have to get near them this time." The girls laughed to each other for a moment.
"Yea, but the kids weren't being fair. All the boys beating up on that little girl, I had to let them know that it wasn't okay what they did to her. That poor girl got her doll ripped apart." The dark hair girl looked little she was about to cry, but just stuck out her tongue at the other girl and smiled, then they laughed again.
"Saotome, Korobuki! Get back to work." The girl with red hair stuck her tongue out at their boss's secretary, put her finger to her eye and pulled her eye lid down. "Boy, if you weren't the boss's, boss's daughter I would have had you fired so long ago it's not even funny!" The man stormed out to the stairs because the elevators were being filled with the cleaning crews.
"Well got to get to work. I'm on the second and you are stuck with the twenty-sixth. We'll, I'll walk with you home if we get out at the same time. See ya around, chicky!" Called the red head as she squeezed into the elevator that was about to leave. The other girl waved and lined up for the next one to show up. There weren't that many left, they were out having cigarettes or all ready up.
She sighed thinking about what the boss's office was going to look like. It would probably be clean cause at the top of the building you had to be a relatively clean person! She thought this until she got bored of the idea thinking that it would only jinx it thinking about it. She counted the numbers down on which floor the elevators was on. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, ding! Okay, now it's time for Hell…stupid cleaning.
She stepped onto the elevator and looked around at the other people in the box with her. They were all relatively older women, in their thirties or forties. She also felt short in this sea of taller women. But she was happy that they looked happy though. Most of the older women who worked at this building looked dead most of the time, but these people looked alive and happy. All of them got off at the fifteenth floor, and for the rest of the ride she was alone.
When she got off the elevator she walked in the direction of the boss's office, she looked down at her watch, seven ten, she had about two hours to clean the office. Looking up she saw another girl her age cleaning some windows who had chestnut brown hair. The dark hair girl looked away to the upcoming door and walked in. She almost fainted, there were piles of unorganized papers, full garbage cans, a few knocked over pictures, and tons of stuff on the floor. So much for him being a bit organized. She rolled up her sleeves to her elbows.
"Well it's not going to clean it's self." She sighed and got started picking up the pictures of a little boy with blonde hair. He's so cute, little in elementary or something. She organized the papers by date, swept the floor, vacuumed, washed the windows, emptied the garbage and replaced the bag.
"Finished." Shecheered to herself.It took an hour and a half to finish, so she had time to spare. She stretched and yawned with her arms spread out to her sides and above her head.
"I have some spare time. I could go to the lounge." She yawned and walked out of the office to the hallway to a woman near the girl she had seen earlier and she was being down talked.
"Why couldn't you just get it right the first time, huh? Well, whatever. I don't understand how you can mess up so many times at this one job. You hurry through everything and it doesn't ever get done right. Like these windows that had streaks all over the place. You just can't do anything right without being reminded that you aren't doing it correctly!" The girl was Tohru and she kept her head down nodding and saying that she was 'sorry.'
"Hey." The dark hair girl said to the other maid casually, but the woman didn't listen and continues to boss Tohru around. The girl snapped not liking that she was being ignored by such an arrogant person. "Hey! Are you listening! Hey!" She walked over and grabbed the woman by her shirt collar then pushed her to the wall and two feet off the ground! Tohru watch in horror thinking that girl was going to lose her job because of her sticking up for her, but the girl didn't look worried. Instead she spoke calmly and coldly.
"If you ever talk to any more of the employees that work here like you just talked to that girl, then I will be back in your department and I'll look for you so we can have another very kind conversation like this." She smiled the whole time sweetly and somehow sounded like she was about to snap and bite the woman's head off. "It's not very intelligent to ignore me either. Probably more stupid then insulting the employees."
"I'll have you fired for this!" The woman claimed angrily at the girl. Tohru stiffened, that was what she didn't want to hear. This poor girl was going to lose her job now because of her! But the girl didn't even flinch, instead she just smiled evilly.
"If you want to go to the boss and tell them about this then lets go right now." The woman looked confused as the girl's smile grew. "We can tell em' about the little incident that you and the girl behind us, who is on the ground, had!" She was still calm when she talked. Tohru was amazed that she wasn't scared of the woman who had been scaring her since her first day.
"Honda-san is it?" She asked glancing at Tohru, she nodded. "If you ever even think of talking to Honda-san again with disrespect then I'll come even faster…with friends." The woman would have turned white with fear but had been held up for a long time so her face was a rosy red colour. The girl released the woman's collar and she fell down to the ground but landed on her feet then walked away to the elevator. Tohru was still sitting on the ground when the girl turned around.
"Hey you okay, Honda-san?" She asked with a soft voice that she didn't expect to hear from her, she sounded so sweet and kind. Very different from the person who had been defending her only moments before.
"Yes! Thank you, thank you very much! I'm so happy you helped me with Mitawa-san, but she was just doing her job." Tohru smiled as the girl held out for her hand for Tohru to grab it, and she did.
"No, you got to learn how to stand up for yourself, Honda-san." She explained pulling Tohru up onto her feet. "Your smart and you deserve to be treated with respected. It wasn't right that she did that, it's employees abuse, it's a crime, she can not do that."
Tohru smiled at the girl's concern, then realized she didn't know her name yet. "What's your name by the way?" The girl looked surprised, then she smiled as if she were emotionally touch by Tohru's words, which confused Tohru, didn't this girl have family and friends that talked to her?
"My name is Dawn Saotome." She smiled. "What's your full name?"
"My full name is Tohru Honda." Tohru smiled back. Saotome-san, I think she's really nice, she probably has a lot of friends and family. "Wait, Dawn Saotome-san?"
Dawn looked a little confused for a second then responded. "Yea?" Tohru smiled and bowed her head in respect.
"Thank you very much Saotome-san." Dawn gave her a surprised look, after all she wasn't used to respect or anything like that; she almost blushed but instead put on a smile. She had never met anyone like Tohru, that made her happy. Then suddenly Dawn felt lightheaded and fell forward on to Tohru. Tohru started to freak out asking if she was alright.
"Saotome-san! Saotome-san!" Tohru called. "Someone help!" Tohru called out to everyone, from behind her she felt a small and soft hand on her shoulder. His hair was short and blonde and he was wearing a pair of boots, and a dress like shirt that was pink and designed with shiny stones.
"Tohru, what's the matter?" It was Momiji. Tohru was so happy to see him! She turned over and showed Dawn to Momiji. He smiled to Tohru reassuring her that her friend was not hurt, and truly she wasn't. She had just fainted.
"I'll take her back to Shii-chan's house for her to get better." Momiji smiled. Tohru smiled brightly and passed the unconscious Dawn to the body guard behind Momiji. "Don't worry Tohru, I'll make sure Kyo is nice to her. Yuki's going to pick you up after work so I'll see you then."
As Momiji and the taller man when into the elevator Tohru had a feeling, a feeling in her gut that when Dawn had helped her a new destiny for all the Sohma's and her own life were changed dramatically.