To recondite123: Shizuru graduated and left Japan in mid-2007, it was just before the Global Financial Crisis. No one knows when it really started, but there's speculation that it was around late 2007 -2008. I take that you're interested in the matter; we might have a few things in common.
To Anon: actually, Natsuki didn't seek revenge against Shizuru. Are you DsaAnon by any chance?
Thanks to noah114, katfemale, ariasun, oz, Romanica, ikustan, chum-sa and others who've reviewed.
I intended to include in-chapter explanation for the financial terms, but it might be too boring to read, so I'm leaving it here for those who are interested.
Short selling: reverse of the usual buy then sell, the investor will first borrow the assets of interest, sell them with high price then buy back at lower price and return the assets to the lender, with an interest.
Private placement: sales of securities to a relatively small selected group of investors to raise capital (cash). The process is much more flexible and quicker than Seasoned Equity Offering (SEO) – public – sell to the mass, you may say. You often hear about SEO or IPO in the news: the funny Facebook's IPO was a big topic if you remembered.
Private placement is usually organised by intermediary - investment bank.
Metamorphosis
"It's Natsuki."
"What is it?"
"Natsuki, neither Kuga-san nor the girl-with-weird-blue-hair." Natsuki growled.
"Kuga it is." The girl with short red hair said in between her laughter.
"Yuuki Nao, just Nao."
And that was when Natsuki first met Nao, the irritating fourteen-year-old annoyed her to no end.
Nao was two years younger than her, which made the girl now a final year college student. She was surprised that Nao even got in Fuuka University. Don't get her wrong, goody good Mai was surprised too. They always bantered, like cats and dogs. But apparently, Mai thought that their interactions were greatly enjoyable, she called them cute angry siblings-who-love-each-other-very-much. 'Yeah right' – Natsuki mused, they were frienemy, partners in crime, red and blue, red and blue.
'Though having Nao as a younger sister isn't too bad.' She chuckled at the thought.
Nao was a black widow, trapping her preys in her webs of deceits. She had a love/hate relationship with men as they were substitutes for the lack of prominent male figures in her childhood. She was a use 'em then leave 'em kind of girl. Despite that the slender and slightly shorter girl liked to make inappropriate overly sexual jokes, Natsuki suspected that Nao was still a virgin, since the girl often blushed when the jokes were directed to her. Nao was very much similar to her. They liked to break the rules, and they were both afraid of intimate relationships.
Ironically, Nao was majoring in Criminology, and apparently, she exceled in it.
'Criminals make good defendants of justice, don't they?'
Nao's underground connections made her a much more valuable source than Yamada. Natsuki would enlist his help if he was still around. But now, he was enjoying an 'early retirement' in Hawaii after receiving a generous payment from a wealthy client.
"You're late!" The red head said in a slurred tone. 'Has she got drunk already?'
"Rough day at work. Long island iced tea, Kato." Natsuki ordered her drink as she sat beside Nao in the shady looking bar Nao chose to meet up. 'Nao and her weird taste.'
"More like rough night with boy toy." Nao snorted. She wasn't that drunk and Natsuki wondered why it disappointed her.
"You're jealous." Natsuki teased instead of the usual swearing. Truth was the investment banker had slipped a sleeping pill to her boyfriend so she could sneak out in the middle of the night to see Nao, and to carry out her plan. They didn't have that sort of relationship, not yet anyway, but she couldn't care enough to clarify.
"And you're teasing me, with Fujino's tone. Damn it why don't you just request to switch to another team? The snake's got you so whipped."
It wasn't Natsuki's intention to tease the agitated girl, the words came out as a reflex. Natsuki herself had once again built up a defense mechanism against the infuriating brunette's teases over the past three months. Her improved ability to retort Nao's dirty comments left the red head uncomfortable. Instead of answering Nao's question, she continued:
"You look pissed, what have happened? Has Yuuki-san been dumped?" This time, the Fujino's voice was done purposely.
Nao frowned, "Way to persuade your source, Kuga."
'Shit, I may have crossed the line.'
The younger woman chuckled as Natsuki's lop side grin faltered. Decided to stop tormenting her friend, Nao begun to tell the 24-year-old what she wanted to know:
"As you suspect, Hime is definitely fishy. They have conducted illegal insider trading in the past. The court had persecuted several employees, but Hime paid the media a fortune to keep them quiet. I managed to obtain the name and contact details of the accused employees in that year after checking the Hime's private employee lists you gave me last week."
Nao lowered her voice, green eyes darted around the bar before she continued, "Though, I doubt that these employees are really responsible for the crime. They were at the middle of the hierarchy, I suspect that someone from the top management had ordered them to commit the trades."
"Have you talked to the employees?"
"Nope."
"Um, well, have you trie-"
"Nope, can't. Their lips were sealed."
"As in…"
"As in they're enjoying tea with Hades." Nao replied sarcasticly, "The reasons for their deaths were reported as 'Inmates riot', you and I both know someone had them murdered". She sight exasperatedly as she chucked another shot in her mouth.
"I didn't know you read Greek Mythology." Natsuki smiled. The employees list she stole from Hime didn't help, so what? There was always another way. Stubborn, she thought of herself, maybe a little naïve. Revenge was all she had left, she could not give up.
'There must be another lead to find out the bastard behind this, I will infiltrate Hime again later.'
"Thank you, Nao" she continued. Seeing the bluenette's sincere appreciation, Nao's face softened, "You're paying, investment banker. Five more B-52 shots, Kato!"
"I didn't know you drink, and drink this much, Nao!"
"It was my Comparative Criminology professor's fault, you know. That self-proclaimed seventeen-year-old red head drinks like a fish. She's got me addicted to B-52." One shot.
"You go drinking with your professor?"
"Caaan't help it, she likes my essay. Interesting perspective, she said so she invited me out to talk more about my view." Another shot.
"Is that all?"
"That IS aaall." And another shot.
'There is definitely more to it. Nao is a wreck!' Natsuki grimaced, she didn't want to pry, though she was very curious about what had happened to her friend. It might have something to do with the drink-like-a-fish professor.
"Come on finish up, I'm taking you home!"
"Eeeever my hero." Nao snickered, as she gulped another drink.
"Heroine, and up, up now Nao!" Natsuki was a little over protective of Nao. After learning about the red head's abusive father and her sickly mother, she felt for the younger girl. A part of her wanted to save her, just like what Shizuru did to her a long time ago.
Shizuru.
After dropping a drunken Nao at her apartment, Natsuki drove towards Hime. It was 1 a.m that she reached the bank's head quarter. The bankers usually finished their works at 2 a.m, but thanks to Shizuru's promotion, they had left the building early. After disabling the cameras, Natsuki entered Seizo Fujita's office using her altered access card. Natsuki was very capable of hacking, the skill which she'd learned from her university's underground hacker group. All she needed to do was camouflaging her cards with a certain algorithm that tricked the card reader into accepting her unauthorised card.
Entering one of the suspected Director's offices, Natsuki swiftly made an image of his hard drive. 'The dirt lies in the hard drive, always.' She thought. The duplication process took quite some time to carry on so Natsuki was fully alert of her surroundings. One hand grasped her tranquiliser, readied to fire in any moment and the others hovered above her gun. Once she finished with the task, she erased the card reader's memory. The victim would not aware that his information was stolen, or more accurately, copied.
Mission Accomplice.
Lately, Natsuki had been distracted from her mission, and she knew damn well the reason for it. No, it was not because of the brunette's constant presence in her mind, not at all. Wait, yes, it was! The thought of Shizuru always angered Natsuki, so much that she had strayed away from her revenge. Only anger, nothing else.
'Now, let's deal with Shizuru.'
They always said that getting in an investment bank was a victory. The job was so glory that it paid more than the medical profession. Natsuki wasn't bitching about investment banking, she simply made an observation. Contrary to the common beliefs, investment bankers worked hard for their earnings. They worked from 9.00 a.m. to 3 a.m. in the morning in busy periods. Pulling an all-nighters was something as common as buying a morning coffee. Investment banking was in fact, a man's world.
There were lazy idiots who sat at home, watched TV and complaining how investment banks ruined the economy. They ignored the fact that without these banks, there was no way Japanese notable brands could raise money to invest in valuable project, to expand, and to develop new 'cool' products. Sure, some U.S investment banks were one of the causes of the damnable recession. There was a subprime mortgage crisis in 2007, the year of Shizuru's graduation. While the U.S economy was in trouble, Goldman Sach controversially earned enormous profit from the crisis by short selling. Then again, let's go back to the root of the problem: if people weren't too greedy and overly confident, if they didn't blindly belief that house prices would go up forever, global financial crisis would never happen. So, was investment bank inheritably evil? Yes and no.
'It is never the nature of a profession, it's the nature of the practitioners.'
Natsuki was rational. She preferred chemical engineering of course, but she respected every professions. Just because investment bankers earned much more money than the average Joe, they weren't necessary evil. Though she'd got to admit, there were many traits that never ceased to irritate her. Investment bankers walked the same, talked the same, dress the same, god, they even wore the same brand of perfume. 'Geez, talk about bromance, manufactured monkey!' They had that same confidence and larger than life look as they interact with 'commoners'.
The bottom line was, investment banking was glorious. Then why, why did this happen to Natsuki?
"Here you go, Genmaicha, just like usual." Unhappy Natsuki handed Shizuru the first cup of brown rice tea of the day. It was 9.00 a.m. She was still tired from last night's mission. And now, she had to deal with her infuriating boss.
"With one sugar?"
"Yes."
"Palm sugar?"
"Yes, and yes there's a hint of honey, enough for you to taste it but not enough to overpower the distinct sweetness of the palm sugar. No I did not add milk and yes it was two bags of tea per cup." The ice princess deadpanned. "Is that all?" she scowled.
Had Natsuki ever mentioned that getting daily teas and picking up her boss' dry cleanings was part of her job? It was not written in the job description however, but it was a common knowledge for new comers like her to do such things. Apart from that, she had to do the dirty works too. She had to perform several offered price valuations that slowly killed her brain cells.
What did Shizuru have to do? The lazy Associate liked to play solitaire in her laptop. She found it greatly enjoyable to criticise the works of a particular, poor poor Analyst despite its brilliance. Occasionally, she had meeting with clients which involving a certain tawny haired drinking tea who smiled charmingly to get whatever she wanted.
"There's one more thing, my printer is broken. Fortunately, I heard that Kuga-san graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering, I would appreciate if you could fix it. I need to print out some important documents."
"I was majoring in Chemical Engineering." She emphasised. She wanted her warm and comfy bed and her fluffy pillows, not this, not again. Besides, the brunette could just use the Analysts' printer outside her office if she wasn't this lazy. It'd never stopped to amaze her that the very, very lazy red-eyed devil managed to keep in shape, very fit, indeed.
"I am very aware of that. But I'm afraid I cannot see Kuga-san's point." The brunette nonchalantly sipped her drink. Nonetheless, Natsuki could still spot a hint of contentment. She liked the drink, of course.
"Ah, uh, Chemical Engineering, as in dealing with chemical and stuff. I was not majoring in Mechanical Engineering so you'd better call a professional to fix your damn printer." Natsuki found her face heated up a little as the older woman licked her delicious rosy lips, savouring the tea.
'Delicious? I mean, um, distasteful! God I need sleep!'
"So what Kuga-san was saying is that she does not have the capability to fix my printer, wasn't it?"
"…"
"Then I'll ask Takeda-san, may be he'd-"
"Fine, I'll do it!" And Natsuki regretted it immediately.
"Ara, you don't have to, but that'd be lovely. Arigatou, Kuga-san." Shizuru smirked and shifted her attention to her laptop's screen.
Natsuki mumbled R-18 languages as she realised what the red eyed devil had done. The queen of manipulation had her again. The younger woman could predict that if she didn't agree to fix the printer, the brunette would have called Takeda and asked him to be Natsuki's knight in shining armour. And that, that would be very embarrassing, she wouldn't give Takeda the satisfaction that he'd helped her.
The poor Analyst bent down and opened the lower compartment of the printer. She though roughly checked every single part, making sure they were working properly. With her back facing Shizuru's desk, Natsuki asked the brunette without turning around:
"It's a simple paper jams problem really, can you try printing again?"
"…"
Getting no reply from the Associate, Natsuki curiously looked over her shoulder. Her breath hitched as inquisitive emerald eyes met piercing crimson gaze. Time stopped, the Analyst stood still, breathless as if she was afraid to break the tranquillity of the moment. The lingering sweet aroma of the brown rice tea mixing with Shizuru's scent, lavender, had never been more intense. Natsuki's beautiful boss had shifted her attention away from the laptop for quite some time, presumably checking the bluenette's behind.
'Or maybe she was just making sure I didn't destroy her printer.'
As Shizuru had woken from her trance, she swiftly looked back at her screen. Her face returned to the usual serene expression. However, there were several things Natsuki had noticed when their eyes met. Shizuru looked heartbroken, crimson eyes bored overwhelming unreadable emotions. The sight was suffocating to the younger woman. Her heart beat a little faster and it was starting to ache, yet she didn't know why. But that moment, affections once again beamed in those mysterious penetrating eyes. For a second, the emerald eyed woman was able to see the old Shizuru, the Shizuru that she had…loved. Platonic love, of course. And it was Shizuru who spoke first, clearing the consuming silence.
"I will call for a professional help, Kuga-san can leave." Shizuru calmingly said, obviously missing Natsuki's previous question.
"There's no need, I've just fixed it, I think. Can you try printing again?" Natsuki replied in a soft voice, it had been awhile since she had talked to the brunette without malice.
"It worked, thank you, Natsuki." The Associate smiled at Natsuki's tenderness as she collected the perfectly printed papers. The smile however, went unnoticed. Realising her wrong choice of words, Shizuru smile faltered but she quickly regained her composure.
"Kuga-san can leave now, thank you for your help."
'Natsuki.'
No one had ever called her name like Shizuru had. Her hypnotic voice filled with warmth that never ceased to touch Natsuki's soul. Siren, hauntingly beautiful and undeniably dangerous. Natsuki nodded as she stepped out of the Associate's office. She felt happy, a little, that somehow she had managed to find her old friend today. However, for the rest of the week, Shizuru went back to her usual self. She still pestered Natsuki about little things that she had and had not done. Their relationship was back to square one, disappointed, Natsuki decided that enough was enough.
'Enemy. Yes, that's all we are to each other.'
In the Monday of the following week, Shizuru called an 8.15 a.m emergency team meeting. The meeting was serious, Natsuki deducted, seeing the presence of the Hime's Vice Presidents and several serious-looking strangers. Artai Corp, one of Hime's largest clients was very unhappy with the team's offered price. The corporation had asked Hime to organise a private placement to raise quick money for their new investment projects. The initial offered price, valued by Shizuru's team, was determined as too low, thus leaving money on the table.
On Monday, after the Artai Corp's private placement, their stock price immediately increased by an unbelievable amount of 50%. You might think that an increase in stock price equalled to good news. Au contraire, Artai had initially issue (sell) their stocks with much lower price than today's price. They could have raised a lot more capitals if Hime had value their stocks higher. Witnessing such dramatic price changes, the Artai key directors, those serious-looking strangers, immediately drove straight to Hime's Tokyo headquarter, demanded an explanation.
Now, Hime, or specifically, Shizuru's team was facing a very, very angry client. Artai Corp threatened to seek service from another investment bank. Losing a major client in the current time wasn't favourable. No, it was a disaster.
The problem adversely affected the Vice Presidents as they deal directly with Artai Corp's financial advisors. It was Shizuru team's responsibility to enlighten Hime's Vice Presidents and the disgruntled clients where their valuations came from, and why they offered such ridiculously low price.
'The stake is on you, Shizuru.'