Chapter 2 / The Differentiation Formula, Part 3
Rumors had circulated through the main building of the Phoenix Conglomerate.
Now, having Murasame come in on a rest day wasn't strange. Murasame had a habit of working a little too hard for the company, but the topic had been about the strange boy that had been accompanying him. Murasame didn't bother introducing the boy yet, as he wanted to get a scope of the situation.
"This entire office space is yours? It's almost the entire floor!"
"It essentially is. Know this place well because you'll need to be familiar with it."
Murasame worked on one of the upper floors. Most of this space had been dedicated to whatever he needed. There was his typical workspace, a conference room, a library, and a personal break room. He didn't think much of it since his father had a floor above for himself, if not more exquisite and spacious. Ikaruga didn't have one yet, but the idea was that she would simply share the space with Murasame once she graduated. Murasame always thought that this was far too much space for him to use by himself, but he didn't think he would be sharing this space so soon.
"I'll mainly be in my main office if I'm not in a meeting. For now, your job will be to either grab whatever I need or put back whatever I took. It should be simple enough."
"I think even someone like me can do something like that!"
"Yeah. That's the point."
From now, it would be for the best if Murasame eases Isayuki into the other roles that an assistant does rather than to drop everything on his lap and call it a day. Any failures done on Isayuki's part will have some failures shared with Murasame and he couldn't accept that, so he was taking this seriously.
"Let's start something easy, kid. This is one of the more important things you'll need to know how to do because I'll be asking you to do this a lot."
"What is it?"
"Making a cup of coffee."
Since Murasame worked long hours, coffee helped him get through the day. When things get rather busy, he would drink upwards to ten or fifteen cups easily. He wasn't kidding when he believed it was one of the cornerstones of how he was able to function at work. If he was able to have an assistant make his coffee, he would be able to significantly cut down on the time that he would have to make it himself and focus more on work.
Murasame brought Isayuki to the break room where the coffee machine rested.
"You've never seen something like this before, have you?"
"Nope! This is my first time seeing it!"
"Before using it, this is where everything is."
Murasame showed Isayuki that the cups were in the cabinet right above the machine and the cream had been in the fridge nearby. More importantly, the coffee pods were seated to the left of the coffee machine with extra boxes tucked away in the cabinet underneath. Murasame wondered if Isayuki would remember all of this, but his gaze was brandishing a determined zeal. If Isayuki had his own notepad, he would have been confident that the boy would have been writing everything down.
"Pay attention. I'll show you how I like my coffee once and only once."
Murasame grabbed everything he needed. He poured the cream into his cup first before placing it in the coffee machine. After checking that the water was full, he pressed a few buttons to turn it on and get it running. Isayuki kept his head on the counter with his face near the flowing stream of coffee, widening his eyes as if the machine was magic.
"It smells really strong."
"It's supposed to keep people awake. Granted, I've probably drank so much coffee that my body is used to it, so I need more than the normal amount."
When the coffee machine was finished, Murasame grabbed his cup and started drinking from it slowly. It was a taste he was far too familiar with; it might be worth saying that it was his favorite type of beverage, even if he doesn't show it. The brown vibrance swirled as Murasame placed his cup back down onto the counter before turning to Isayuki.
"Show me if you remembered anything. Make a cup of coffee."
"Right! I got it!"
While his enthusiasm was overdone for a mere drink, Isayuki's effort was even more strained than that. Everything was already brought out for him, so Isayuki was meticulously bringing it together. He was even muttering under his breath all of the instructions.
"Cream first… Then place it here… Press these buttons…"
"The pod. Don't forget to replace the coffee pod."
Although slowly done, Murasame wasn't seeing anything wildly incorrect so far. Isayuki watched the coffee flowing out of the machine and once it was done, he presented it to Murasame to try it out.
"Not bad for a first attempt," Murasame said after sipping it. "Not too bad at all."
"Thank you, Mister Murasame!"
It was in fact almost identical to the one he made just now. The process was basically automated though, so Murasame wasn't entirely surprised, but he noticed that Isayuki was staring at the coffee.
"Want to try some?"
"Could I? All of this coffee is supposed to be yours, right?"
"I don't see my name on any of this. Coffee belongs to whoever wants to drink it."
Murasame handed the cup back over to Isayuki. With a dazzling glow in his eyes, Isayuki leaned forwards to place his lips on the edge. as Murasame was about to warn him that the coffee is still hot since it was freshly made, the boy immediately leaned the cup back and drained a mouthful into his system.
"Aurgh! That's hot!"
"Couldn't you tell by holding it!?"
Fortunately, he didn't spill anything on the floor, but Murasame was just as concerned when he ingested the hot coffee. His mouth was not thanking him for the stupid action and Murasame was shuddering to himself, imagining the scalded tongue.
Murasame opened the freezer of the refrigerator and gave Isayuki an ice cube to suck on.
"If you want to drink it that quickly, you have to throw in a few ice cubes first. The hot water helps bring out the flavor of the ground coffee, so having the drink start out hot is indisputable." He dropped a few more ice cubes for Isayuki. "Try it now."
"Th-Thank you, Mister Murasame."
Isayuki made his second attempt to drink coffee. His face contorted.
"It's… bitter."
"It's coffee, not candy. The cream is supposed to give it a lighter profile though."
"It's the thing that Mister Murasame drinks, so it has to be good."
Isayuki grimaced as he took a bigger sip.
"You don't have to drink it my way," Murasame sighed. "Give it here."
Murasame grabbed the cup and pulled out more cream and some sugar. He never had a reason to pull out the sugar, but its indefinite shelf life made its value here. He mixed them together with the half-empty coffee and returned it to Isayuki. One single sip made his eyes sparkle again.
"Waah! It tastes so good now! You're incredible, Mister Murasame!"
"It's only to be expected from me," Murasame scoffed.
After making sure Isayuki knew how to change the bitterness of coffee for himself whenever he wanted some, Murasame showed all of the others things in the break room that Isayuki might want to know about. There were a few snacks and extra supplies out of sight, so he made sure Isayuki was made aware of those if he ever wanted to find them.
Next up, Murasame brought Isayuki to the library.
It hadn't been a library in a traditional sense, but it was more like a storage room for any documents, reports or research material that Murasame might need to reference. There was always the option of having them in a digital format, but Murasame always found it to be easier to organize everything and make notes if he had the physical copy in his hands.
While Murasame wasn't expecting Isayuki to know where everything was, he wanted to make sure that Isayuki was aware of its existence. Even Murasame couldn't memorize where everything was, merely knowing the general area as to where things were. If Isayuki could sit down on study about half of what Murasame knew of the library's layout, it would be still be efficient.
"I don't know how to read, Mister Murasame."
Murasame soon discovered that his wishful thinking was sheer optimism.
"What the hell? You don't know how to read?"
"It all looks like lines to me." Isayuki glanced at some of the books that were laid out on a table that Murasame forgot to put back the other day. "I can't tell what all of this means, but it must be important if you need this much of it. They all look the same to me though."
"I think this goes past the point of your amnesia, kid."
He should have considered this when giving the job to Isayuki, but in his defense, reading comprehension should have been an expected thing from a person of Isayuki's age. Amnesia affects the memory, not the capabilities of a person. At this point, Murasame should have been thankful that Isayuki was still able to understand conversational Japanese.
It wasn't as if Murasame could back off at this point, but if he had paid a tutor to teach Isayuki how to read, it would look bad on him if he declared him as his assistant publicly.
"I'll see what I can do about it. If you want to be my assistant, you need to know how to read."
"It's not going to be too difficult, right?"
"That depends on you," Murasame sighed.
Murasame knew he wasn't much of a teacher, so he'd have to figure something out. He would have liked to ask Ikaruga to lend a hand since she was extremely studious, but he didn't want to add more to her schoolwork. If worse came to worse, he might have needed to find a language app that can do the work for him and download it onto a tablet.
"For now, if I give you any paperwork and I ask you to bring it here, just place it down on the table and put the paperweight onto it. That should do for now."
From the entry-level jobs that even a simpleton could do, those were the only ones he could think of. Everything else required a higher-level of understanding as to how the system worked or required a lot of communication between the two. There were always the trivial tasks like photocopying documents, organizing reports and stapling things together, but Murasame wasn't sure if Isayuki could do that.
"This is my main office. I do most of my work here."
Most of Murasame's desk was cluttered with books and paper, but given the windowed backdrop of the city below and the skies above, it provided a beautiful silhouette to cast towards them. He had a few couches on the side for visitors and a few shelves with more essential books for easy access. Other than that, the area was somewhat empty. Murasame didn't think he needed much here.
Isayuki ran up to the window, pressing his face against it.
"Whoa… It's like you can see the entire world from up here."
"I guess it's a nice sight."
Murasame wasn't a scenic person, so he never thought twice about it.
"You can see a lot of people going about their normal lives from up here," Murasame continued. "Bustling cars, wayward walkers, and anything in between. This is the position of Murasame Houou placed into a physical form as someone who towers above others."
"I wonder if anyone down there knows me."
"Are you wondering about those in your previous life?"
It was a valid concern to have that went overlooked. It was one thing to have amnesia, but if he had forgotten his memories, that didn't magically make them disappear. He must have had parents who didn't know where he was, friends who were worried, and acquaintances that might be confused. The easiest thing to confirm this concern would have been to investigate all reported missing persons, but that was already something that the detective did. He couldn't have done a biometric scan of their system for obvious reasons, but there was no one that matched Isayuki's description among the files regardless.
If Isayuki did have people that knew him, there was the chance that they didn't care, but Murasame had to think back to what the masked man said about Isayuki. He was someone who belonged to that organization. What kind of past would that be? Was the masked man really telling the truth?
"If someone down there did know you, would you leave your position as my assistant?"
"No way! I wouldn't leave until I made sure my debt is repaid and even then, I really do want to help you out regardless of my debt, Mister Murasame!"
"Good answer," he scoffed. "My assistant must be someone with conviction. I will never accept any half-assed responses, so keep looking down. This is where we belong."
Rumors were being shut down through the main building of the Phoenix Conglomerate.
They said that Murasame had brought in a strange boy, but the announcement that the boy was his new assistant came as a shock to everyone. No one really thought Isayuki was up to the task and was significantly underqualified for the position. They questioned Murasame's decision, but he stood firm with his choice. It wasn't as if they had any leverage to make their point. If the most influential businessman of their company made a questionable decision in their eyes, they must have been missing something important, so they merely left it at that and welcomed Isayuki into the company.
Besides, the employees of the Phoenix Conglomerate didn't want to part with their jobs.
"I wonder why they're scared of me," Murasame mumbled to himself. It was obvious to him that they were withholding their thoughts for that reason. "I don't have the jurisdiction to fire anyone here…"