Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach
A/N:Sorry, I know it's been ages since I updated. Finishing school and starting my summer job took a lot more out of me than I'd expected. But, finally, here's chapter 3! And notice the name change - many thanks to farley mcgill for the suggestion, which is much appreciated.
Chapter 3
Nanao called Lisa as soon as she got home.
"I've always been a model secretary, but I think he's planning to fire me." Nanao began, without preamble.
"What, exactly, are you talking about?" Lisa asked, calmly.
"Mr. Kyouraku. When I was leaving work today he asked me to come in early tomorrow; he said he needs to talk to me. About my position as his subordinate. What is he implying?"
Lisa gave a gusty sigh, her growing impatience evident. "There is no possible reason Mr. Kyouraku could have to fire you. You know you always do everything right."
"But what," said Nanao, a little anxiously, "if I haven't? What if my work hasn't been satisfactory? I have hit his hands with my pencil when he gets too close. And once with a ruler." she added as an afterthought. "But that doesn't seem like a reason to terminate my employment."
"Of course it isn't." Lisa sounded a little bored, now. "Although I don't see why you'd care if it was." she added. "If you are fired, he'll write you a very poetic letter of recommendation -" Nanao blanched at the thought of what that might contain- "and you'll be well out of it; you've been complaining about how disorganized everything still is."
"Ye-es," agreed Nanao hesitantly.
"And you keep saying it's the same busy work that you always end up with."
"Well, today was a little better."
Lisa ignored her. "So even if you do end up leaving, you should just be glad to have the opportunity to move somewhere else."
"But I don't want to be fired!" Nanao protested. "That would look terrible on my records. And besides, I don't hate working at Sereitei."
"You complain about it enough." said Lisa, somewhat severely.
"And you complain about Vizard all the time," Nanao retorted, "but you love working there."
Half a second later, she could almost hear Lisa's eyebrows going up as they both realized the implications of what she'd just said. Nanao added hastily, "But that doesn't mean I love working at Sereitei! It just …"
"It just what?"
Nanao though for nearly a minute before replying, with some surprise: "I think I do like working there. Things have been running more smoothly lately, and I don't mind the being with the rest of the staff …"
"Oh, what a stunning endorsement." Lisa muttered, mostly to herself.
"And Jyuushiro Ukitake is a wonderful person." Nanao continued.
"He still comes over for tea every few afternoons?"
"At least once a week."
"And your boss?" prompted Lisa. "Shunsui's rather a central part of working at Sereitei, isn't he? Since you're his secretary, and all."
Nanao answered thoughtfully. "Lisa, I think I might actually enjoy working under him - and I'm not sure why. The idea of working under someone like him is terrifying. He's exactly the kind of boss everyone at the agency tells horror stories abuot. I think he makes up meetings so he can hide somewhere and get extra sleep, he leaves flowers all over, he keeps sake in his office, and he avoids working whenever possible."
"Frustrating as ever." Lisa commented.
"It is sometimes," admitted Nanao, "but not as much as I expected. It isn't that he doesn't care. He does do what he needs to for Sereitei and the employees. Really, he's a very understanding boss."
"So you like him?"
"Well, he is very likeable. Inexplicably so."
"Indeed. But I don't think you ought to worry too much about him firing you. He's not an idiot, and only and idiot would fire you."
Nanao smiled wryly. "You're a little biased."
"And you're a little silly. Everyone wants a secretary like you."
"Well …" admitted Nanao, "Toshiro Hitsugaya did tell me he'd hire me if I ever left the marketing department."
"He did? Tell me about him – he came after I left, you know."
Nanao found herself rather distracted that night. While her conversation with Lisa had certainly been reassuring, she was still a little worried. Mr. Kyouraku had always seemed amused by her constant and firm resistance to his attempts at familiarity, but perhaps he was actually frustrated by it. Or perhaps he thought she was doing too much. She was only a secretary, after all. She hadn't been trying to do his job, just make it easier (and better organized) but perhaps he resented it. It seemed unlikely, but Nanao couldn't quite set her worries to rest.
As Nanao was nothing if not carefully analytical, as she lay in bed that night she carefully sifted through her reasons for being unsettled by the situation.
She had been fully truthful with Lisa –a black mark on her record wasn't the only reason she dreaded being fired; she did like working at Sereitei and really didn't want to leave the company. But why? She wasn't particularly attached to any of her fellow employees. In fact several of them seemed to be rather nervous around her. She had no idea why.
She had enjoyed figuring out and implementing the new filing system, which had been a challenge for a few days, but she had finished with it weeks ago. The brunt of her time was taken up with paperwork, reports, memos and the like, as well as phone calls and correspondence, all of which was significantly less interesting that researching and putting together the files on new markets and strategy, which she was forced to do in her spare time.
This left the third major aspect of working at Sereitei: Shunsui Kyouraku. She really did enjoy working under him. Certainly it was frustrating sometimes (alright, frequently, she admitted to herself) but he was so … content. Warm. Calm. Perhaps not calm, she amended darkly. But certainly he was frequently, well, soothing. She was the calm one, she reminded herself, the level-headed one. Shunsui was not.
But she did respect him, deeply. It had taken several months, but now she wondered how she could ever have missed his kindness and understanding.
Not that he didn't enjoy teasing her. On the contrary, he had started trying to take her hand whenever he addressed her as "darling Nanao," and didn't seem at all disconcerted when she consistently produced either a fan or a pencil with which to discourage this. But his teasing was never mean,
She realized, to her dawning horror, that she would miss it if Shunsui stopped calling her Nanao and actually gave in to her constant requests to use her surname. Wait!
Nanao sat bolt upright in bed. Shunsui? Since when did she think of him as Shunsui? That was it, clearly she hadn't been getting enough sleep. Lying back down, she rolled onto her other side and resolutely began to count backwards from one thousand.
The determination to completely professional was uppermost in Nanao's thoughts when she went into the office the next day. You're overreacting, she told herself sternly. You've been a model secretary in action and thought. And Mr. Kyouraku had never expressed displeasure with any of her work. Still …
"Ah, my dear Nanao, you're here."
Nanao started and looked up as the man she had been carefully not been worrying about stepped into her office. From his inner office.
"Mr. Kyouraku!" she said, not registering his use of her first name in her astonishment. "You were already here?"
"I did tell you we would have an early meeting." he said, amused. "Besides, I needed to talk to old man Yamamoto and he scheduled his meeting for 7:00."
"It must have been important." Nanao said, and Shunsui noticed a tiny frown line appear between her eyebrows.
"Vitally, my one and only Nanao. It was about you."
"I would prefer that –" Nanao stopped talking suddenly when her brain caught up with her mouth. "About me?" she repeated, looking up at him blankly for the second time in as many minutes.
"Of course." Shunsui smiled down at his secretary cheerfully. "And so that you will stop worrying, you can come into my office now and I will explain it to you." He stepped back into his office calmly while Nanao collected her wits and followed. What if her behavior really had been unprofessional? she thought wildly, trying to remind herself that she could not possibly be in danger of being fired.
Since she was walking behind Shunsui, she was unable to see either his broad smile or the twinkle in his eye. She hadn't reprimanded him for calling her Nanao, he mused. True, she had started to, but in cases like these, even small steps were important.
"Sit down, yes, just there." he indicated one of the comfortable chairs in front of his desk, and walked around it to sit in his own comfortable leather one. Propping his elbow on his desk and his chin on his hand, he asked seriously, "Nanao, my dear, do you enjoy your work?"
"Once again, Mr. Kyouraku, I would prefer Ms. Ise. But yes, I do enjoy my work."
"You like the department, then?"
"Yes." she responded, curious and a little nervous about where this might be going, and slightly distracted by his pink silk shirt.
"And you're good at what you do, very efficient."
It was really a statement, but she responded anyway. "I try my best to be so, sir."
"Hmmm." He agreed. "But I think, my dear, that you aren't getting a chance to put all of your considerable skills to use. So I would like to propose a change in your work."
"Sir, I-"
"How would you like to be the Associate Director of Marketing?"
Nanao looked at him, finding herself astonished for the third time that morning. "You want to … promote me?"
"Why Nanao, of course!" his brown eyes were dancing as he smiled at her across the desk. "It's what you were meant to do! And I couldn't let little Hitsugaya or anyone else have my ravishing Nanao."
'His ravishing Nanao' gave him a look that would have cracked granite.
"You want to promote me from your personal secretary to the Associate Director of the entire Marketing Department of one of the largest companies in the country." she elaborated. "Just like that, without any warning." It was not a question. "After numerous members of the staff have heard you call me 'lovely,' 'darling,' and now 'ravishing.'" Her tone was perfectly calm, the cadence of her words perfectly even. "And this seemed to you to be a good idea, Mr. Kyouraku? Perhaps you could explain why."
Shunsui was not even the tiniest bit abashed. "My lovely Nanao, you worry too much!" He waved a carefree hand. "Anyone who works will you will see you merited the promotion." The look he gave her was suddenly shrewd. "And you studied marketing after college, didn't you? So you're perfect for the position."
Her look, as she answered him, was possibly even frostier than before. "I am flattered, Mr. Kyouraku, but I refuse to accept. And I will take this opportunity to remind you again that I prefer to be addressed Ms. Ise." She stood. "Will that be all?"
With a sigh, Shunsui moved something across his desk, looking for her reaction. "Perhaps you would consider a smaller promotion first? To see if you feel up to the job, that is."
She looked down at the piece of paper he had pushed towards her. It was a contract. "Assistant Associate Director?" she asked. "I wasn't aware that there was such a position."
"Nanao, dear," Shunsui said, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on his desk, "life is full of surprises."
She studied the contract carefully for several minutes, but couldn't find any faults. It was a fairly standard contract of employment. "Do you need to speak to the agency about it?" he asked.
"No." Nanao replied absently. "Not unless you want them to send a replacement secretary. They'll require at least a week to do so." She looked up. "When do you need my decision?"
He smiled at her cheerfully across the top of the newspaper he had picked up while she was reading through the contract. "Well, the sooner the better, I suppose. Old Yamamoto is getting tired of all the vacancies on my staff."
Standing up resolutely, and still holding the contract, Nanao said, "Then I'll inform you of my decision tomorrow. Will that be all, Mr. Kyouraku?"
"For now, anway." If Nanao could have beaten the twinkle out of his eyes with her fan, she would have.
At 9:00 the next morning, when he finally arrived at the office, Nanao gave Shunsui the signed copy of her new employment contract, having spoken the agency, Lisa, and her mother about it the night before. Shunsui signed it cheerfully, and sent it off to the HR department, before giving her a few more forms to fill out, as well a gigantic bouquet of orchids, which Nanao gave back to him.
Two hours later he stuck his head out of his office and said, "Nanao, since I still don't have an Associate Director, as the Assistant Associate Director you'll also be the Acting Associate Director – until we can find someone to fill the position permanently, of course. Carry on."
He popped his head back in before she could think of a suitable reply. Nanao spent the rest of the day irritably trying to figure out how she could have missed the implications of agreeing to be an 'Assistant' to a position for which there was no employee, and how she had ended up essentially taking the position she'd turned down the day before."
A/N: Reviews and suggestions help me write better. Thanks! :)