CLACKETY-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
On Friday night, in the sparsely lit offices of Bread Dog Insurance Limited, Irys and Bae found themselves still glued to the creaky swivel chairs of their open-concept cubicles across from each other. Their eyes were glued to the screens of their desktop computers and their fingertips danced on their keyboards. The rest of the office was empty - with two notable exceptions.
One cubicle away from the rat-girl and Nephilim who were totally-just-colleagues, Bae saw the first exception: the dutiful office manager Kaela Kovalskia who had commandeered one of the desktops of the Sales Executives and was typing away too. Her smartphone, no longer logged into Minecraft, was cradled between her jaw and her shoulder on a phone call.
"Yes. Of course. Things like this happen - especially in that industry." Kaela spoke like a bona fide Sales Executive without missing a beat of her typing, "We understand. We're not leaving the office till' we power through the new package for ZoneCord Manufacturing. And the Zoner Group of Companies, of course." She paused and nodded, listening to her client speak, "You want to talk with our CEO? Oh. She's not in the office anymore."
Another pause followed, causing Bae to glance towards Kaela again.
"Who's in charge here?" Kaela repeated her client's query, "I'll call her for you." Kaela covered the mouthpiece of her smartphone and called out, "Mumei! The client wants to talk with you!"
With that, the second exception appeared - emerging from her executive office across the hall.
"Coming…!" Mumei answered. The owl-girl hurried out from her office, took the phone from Kaela and greeted their client, "Oh hi~! Mumei Nanashi speaking. I was on the phone with Boss Sana just now. She told me about your situation. Don't worry - you'll be in good hands!" The owl-girl spun around and faced the small cadre of Bread Dog staff typing away on their computers, "Isn't that right, friends?"
"Wharf, wharf!" Kaela cheered, repeating the tagline of their company mascot.
Irys and Bae, meanwhile, hesitated. Mumei saw this, leaned over the low cubicle walls and cast her shadow over the two and wore a threateningly sweet smile for the two of them.
"Would you kindly do the Bread Dog cheer, friends?" Mumei asked, her brown eyes burning with flames, "Unless you want me to study a different kind of anatomy."
Irys and Bae looked at each other and, with bashfully red faces, followed suit.
"W-wharf, wharf!"
Mumei snorted.
"See?" Mumei insisted to the client, "They're bright as berries. So please sit tight and we'll have everything in order."
With that, Mumei took Kaela's phone with her back to her own office and closed the door behind her. That left Bae, Irys and Kaela to continue their work.
Once Mumei was well out of earshot, Bae slumped into her seat and groaned audibly.
"This was not how I wanted to spend my Friday night." Bae lamented. She winced from the brightness of her screen but her hands continued alternating between the keyboard and her mouse. Her eyes wandered to the executive office down the hall and she frowned, "To be stuck with that madwoman of all people…"
"Ungh…" Irys groaned from across the low cubicle wall, sympathizing with Bae wholeheartedly. The Nephilim's frown was so deep that Bae swore that her devil half had convinced her angel half to abandon hope and despair.
…
"Welcome to your first ever all-nighter, you two." Kaela spoke, pausing her immaculate, goddess-like multitasking to smile at the two Junior Sales Executives before she got right back to work, "Don't worry. You'll be earning overtime for this. Folks are actually discouraged from doing overtime for the work-life-balance thing." Kaela's bright, albeit tired red eyes shone and she gave a thumbs up, "But that hasn't stopped me."
Bae's own tired eyes narrowed. She didn't expect any less from the omnipresent office manager who was last to leave and first to arrive.
"We're only mere mortals here, Kaela." Bae sighed.
"I guess that's true." Kaela hummed nonchalantly.
"You're supposed to deny that." Bae furrowed her brow.
Kaela laughed a silent laugh. Bae lowered her head in defeat.
"Anyways." Kaela changed the topic, "The two of you were on a client call with Gura earlier, right?"
"Yeah." Bae answered, getting back to typing while she spoke, "Mic Mac Mall and the Halifax Shopping Centre."
Irys briefly raised up her tired head to croak, "The Lebanese food we had for lunch was pretty good." Then, she slumped back and buried herself in her work.
"What brought you guys back here to HQ?" Kaela asked.
"Gura dropped me and Irys off here after we finished our meetings." Bae explained, "Irys' Vespa is parked here - and I just need to take the Dartmouth ferry to get home."
"I can see that." Kaela nodded her head, "But why did the two of you go back into the office - and not Gura?"
"Ah, that?" Bae rubbed her chin, "The moment Gura dropped us off, Ina from Tako Eats was already waiting for her. They already had plans, it seemed."
Kaela silent-laughed again.
"I'm not surprised." Kaela smiled. She chuckled and turned towards Irys and Bae, "It's not like the two of you had plans after this anyways."
Bae shuddered.
"I totally wasn't gonna make up an excuse to hang out with Irys downtown…" Bae thought and grumbled, "If only I didn't leave my wallet here in the office, we could be on Argyle Street or the Waterfront right now getting drinks - and maybe try some of the weird-ass poutine stuff on Pizza Corner. Man." She glanced over her cubicle divider towards Irys, "But I can't blow my cover on that now. No choice but to see this through to the end."
…
While Bae stewed in her own misfortune, Mumei marched out of her office, returned Kaela's phone to her and lamented out loud.
"You guys aren't the only ones suffering here." Mumei hopped into one of the empty cubicles and booted up a desktop computer, "I'm supposed to have a date in two hours ago and I had to end up canceling at this rate, so we're all in the trenches here."
"A date…?" Bae and Kaela piped up. Even the deflated Irys perked up a little, sitting upright in her seat.
Mumei paused. Then, she hid her face behind her computer screen.
"I'm not telling you guys any more than that! Hmph!" Mumei fumed, "Now get back to work! I'm doing you guys a favor and lending a hand!"
Kaela, Bae and Irys watched the flustered Mumei typing furiously on the keyboard. The three of them turned to each other and shared the same thought.
'So the psychopath does have a cute side.'
Now assured that their Human Resources Executive had at least a sliver of humanity, the three of them joined Mumei and worked on the rush-job insurance package for the Zoners Group of Companies and their many subsidiaries.
Aside from the clear frustration in Mumei's voice, her occasional bouts of venting out with owl-noises and whispers about how Civilization was a mistake, Mumei led the overtime team well. She shared the notes that Sana gave her over the phone and worked with her colleagues through the finer points of the insurance package line by line. Also, any time that the anxious client called, Mumei answered the phone and spoke with her disarmingly cheerful demeanor.
'If only the client could see the kind of face Mumei was making right now, they'd be horrified.' Bae thought, watching the stressed owl-girl under the dim lights of the mostly-vacant sales floor, 'Maybe that's why she's not client-facing.'
While Bae was thinking this, the sales floor lights flickered ominously. Mumei covered the mouthpiece of the phone, craned her head towards her and gave her a death-stare.
"Something on your mind, Baelz Hakos?" Mumei asked, her sweet words contrasting her frightening face, "You know the natural order about owls and rats, right?"
Bae shuddered.
'Irys, save me…!'
Unfortunately for her, her half-angel savior was too busy melting into a puddle of liquefied hope on her workstation to notice Bae's silent panic, or the grotesque Picasso painting that Mumei's face had become.
Kaela, meanwhile, didn't react in the slightest - almost like she had seen that face a million times before. Alone in her fear, Bae started to sweat.
"N-nothing at all!" Bae lied.
A moment's silence ensued. Then, Mumei's face mellowed and became less of an abstract cosmic horror.
The work of the four ladies then continued.
…
An hour and a half later, thanks to their combined efforts, they finalized the digital copy of their insurance package. The four of them read over it one more time before Mumei sent it off with an emphatic double-click.
"Don-don~!" Mumei declared.
She sent the email and sank into her swivel chair. Irys, Bae and Kaela followed suit and basked in the cold, glow of their open computer monitors. All four of them got emails at the same time from the client. Two simple words, it read.
"Thank you!"
Mumei covered her face and sighed. She glanced at her tired companions and made her proposal, "Well, since our nights have all been ruined by this rush job, why don't we enjoy our ruined night together?"
Bae snorted and shrugged, "I don't mind at this point. I just wanna get out of this office for now."
"Same here." Irys added, stretching in her chair "I don't wanna read another email till next week."
Kaela nodded while her phone started to boot up Minecraft again.
"It's settled then." Mumei clapped her hands and the two owl feathers in her brown hair stood in attention, "We're going to the Stubborn Goat Pub at the Waterfront." Her right eye twitched, "If I don't get some Raspberry Cordial in me in the next half hour, I'll don-don and don-don and don-don and..."
Irys and Bae's faces went pale, but Kaela simply stood up and marched Mumei out of the office towards the elevators.
"C'mon now, you two." Kaela urged the two juniors, "Let's get some drinks before Mumei commits a warcrime."
With that, the four victorious, albeit tired office ladies, closed up the office and crammed into the elevator. Irys and Bae stood side by side in the elevator and neither of them said a word. However, the two of them had small smiles on their lips as the two of them stole glances of each other shared the same thought.
'So tonight wasn't a complete waste, huh?'
…
Nowhere With You
Friday Night Filing
…
To Be Continued