Here is the next collaboration project by myself and Geishaaa!
Just like our 'Mind of an Ice Prince / Princess' story this will be the same story told from two characters perspectives, this time the pairing is Rangiku and Toshiro. Same as before if you guys want to read the full story then make sure you go over and check out her chapter. We recommend reading them both together to get the bigger picture.
This fic has been rated based on future events including some trigger warnings of past rape, mostly from Geishaaa's chapter but I wanted to put the warning into my story as well.
This will be updated once a week whenever we are both free and both chapters will be updated around the same time / day. Thanks for reading! Please enjoy!
The usual sign of Toshiro's hard work was currently sat to the left of his mouse; a half-finished grande white chocolate mocha. Yes he was often teased relentlessly by his peers, that is to say his two best friends Yukio and Rukia for his Starbucks orders. Sometimes he liked incredibly strong coffee but most of the time he had a sweet tooth that could rival any five year olds. Lifting the sweet drink to his lips he casually took a sip, relishing in how it had managed to retain the heat despite the cool Russian air flowing in from the open window of the St Petersburg hotel.
Toshiro was the billionaire owner of the most popular computer console company that made the Z – Box. The company had started as a sort of bet between himself and Yukio. His best friend was one of the best known gamers on the earth and though he could happily live out of Toshiro's pocket he still made a living for himself taking part in contests and running a Youtube gaming channel on the side dedicated to helping others overcome the hardest levels.
Toshiro had started out trying to create or invent a game that his friend could never beat. It was a race they were still running to this day and though Toshiro had made several games, there had not been one to this day that Yukio hadn't managed to beat. The friendly rival was what created the console and the rising company of the Z – Box. Now you're probably thinking; why not create a game that was impossible. One that literally could never be won? Toshiro had tried that as well, Yukio had broken into the coding of the game and reprogrammed it so it could still be beaten. It was part of the reason Toshiro tried to create his own console to stop his friend from doing that however no matter how hard he tried Yukio still had a knack of figuring everything out and manipulating it.
Thus the amazing company with impossible RPG, first player shooter and horror games were born. There didn't even seem to be a single game that could scare Yukio enough into not playing it and now Toshiro paid other employees to create the content for him. Yukio gave a lot of valuable input into the game making process but their trio was incomplete until Rukia had been employed.
Toshiro didn't handle any of the public side of relations, given his appearance thus when Rukia had her interview it was by Captain Ukitake (everyone of important status in the company was called 'Captain' really the idea had been Yukio's.) Ukitake had loved Rukia and when Yukio met her he did too. Rukia eventually managed to wriggle her way into the business and it was only when Toshiro realised he recognised her from a gamming youth club his Gran took him too that he invited her to personally dine with him.
Toshiro was elusive, no one knew that he was the company owner except for a handful of trusted associates, Captain Ukitake, Yukio, Rukia and one or two of the heads of departments including Isshin Shiba who had helped Toshiro design games back in school. Toshiro had plucked Captain Shiba away from his duties at the community High School and whisked him away into a gaming developer world of his dreams, even his son Ichigo now worked with the company as well and the entire corporation was becoming a family.
Since Toshiro wanted his appearance to be kept secret he travelled from country to country to work, mostly staying in hotels and never really settling down. Though he made no public appearances as himself he often would meet other business men to promote his product in their country as a 'representative' of the firm rather than the owner. He figured a few of the business men would have kept their comments more discrete if they knew he was the actual owner, either that or laugh in his face. He was more than a little self-conscious of his appearance.
Toshiro sighed and hugged his cup of liquid chocolate to his chest, glancing up at the hotel window which was still open, icy draft cooling the temperature of the room down to below mild. Toshiro loved the cold, even if the Russian cold was quite excessive he preferred to sleep in a cold bedroom and the heating in the hotel wasn't compliant with his preferences. Thus the combination resulted in a steamy looking window dewing with condensation.
His hotel bedroom door banged open and his obnoxious best friend entered the room. Yukio had a pair of tight white slacks on, coupled with a black button down shirt and white bow tie. Really it was a look only he could pull off. His hair was pushed back from his right eye obscuring the left entirely from view as he hissed at the temperature of the room.
'Are the dead crossing over in here or something?' Yukio gasped and ran his own hands up and down his arms. It was another one of those on-going debates they had. Sometimes Yukio would crash on Toshiro's bed and complain when he woke up with a cold or flu and demanded time off work, to which Toshiro would remind him that he didn't technically work for Toshiro.
'Yes they are, your dead parents say hi by the way,' Toshiro said without missing a beat as he turned back to his laptop.
'That's cold Toshiro,' Yukio said but there was no bite at all to his words, in fact he almost laughed. 'Are your parents having fun with them?' he asked and Toshiro smiled. They'd both lost their parents when they were too young to really remember them. It was something they'd bonded over when they met, but like a good best friend Yukio didn't mention Toshiro's Gran at all. There wasn't a single day went by where he didn't miss her.
Yukio flopped down on Toshiro's bed and Toshiro swirled his chair around to look at his friend. Yukio had charged in with purpose and now that Toshiro looked at him he could clearly see Yukio's business phone in one hand and a head piece in the same ear. He was starting work early today, normally the blond boy didn't start work until at least 10am.
'Captain Uke wants to know if you're able to do an interview today over Skype?' he asked glancing up at Toshiro from his phone. Sometimes Toshiro would be jealous of his friend, Yukio was young looking for his age but he was unfairly attractive and he knew it. He could get almost any girl he wanted and often would take advantage of his looks and slip into a bit of a playboy role. Toshiro didn't have the confidence to yet embrace how small and different he looked, so he'd not really found anyone he'd wanted to spend his time with.
'Earth to Shiro?' Yukio tossed a bit of scrunched up paper from his pocket over at him and it narrowly missed Toshiro's drink. Glaring at his friend and covering the mouth of his liquid gold to protect it he responded.
'Who am I interviewing exactly?'
'New marketing director, since Lieutenant Momo left the position really needs to be filled,' Yukio didn't spare any sympathetic glance in Toshiro's direction at the name. Momo was Toshiro's cousin but they'd never seen eye to eye. Toshiro had let her work for the company because he felt bad for her but to be honest she was useless at her job. Toshiro and Rukia often had to pick up her slack and it was neither of their jobs to do. Instead she'd run off to help her boyfriend Aizen at their largest competitive company that made the GS4 range of computing consoles. Despite her change in loyalty she made a promise on her own life never to reveal who he was to anyone and Toshiro knew that despite everything she'd never go back on that promise. Besides even if she did she only knew him to be a director not the company owner.
It was all about playing your cards right after all.
'Who am I interviewing this time?' Toshiro asked, only moderately curious, the last two he'd interviewed had been worse than Momo and that was saying something.
'Hmm, Captain Shiba recommended her, said he knows her personally she's a hard worker. She actually did a lot of work for Gin and GS4.'
That sparked his curiosity, a competitor coming over from the other side? Perhaps it was to try and sabotage them? Though Toshiro knew and trusted Isshin, if he recommended this girl then it was worth at least giving her an interview.
'I know,' Yukio said when he glanced up and caught his friend staring, 'I thought it was fishy too but the Captain really recommends her so…' he trailed off and Toshiro nodded.
'Alright then, schedule her in what time is it over there just now?'
'It's about 15:02pm,' Yukio said checking his google watch and world clock app.
'Alright,' Toshiro glanced at his computer it was 09:02am, 'tell him to set up the interview for 16:00pm.' Toshiro turned back towards his desk as he brought up his own schedule, slotting the interview in his calendar for 10:00am.
'Yes sir,' Yukio stood up but before he left the room he walked over and closed the window just to fuck with him, as he left Toshiro tossed the bit of paper that nearly assaulted his drink earlier to catch his friend in the back of his head.
One wouldn't think these two boys were billionaire business owners.
The hour flew by, punctured only by the occasional useless email and Skype call where Toshiro only ever used his voice. Most of the people in his company were completely competent but every now and again there would be one…
Said one was Shunsui, who dealt with communications between major game developers. Though their own company created a lot of games as well as the platform to play them on they also worked with big name companies to bring the major games to their platforms in a format that created profit while still being reputable. However Shunsui had forgotten another meeting with EA and now they were threatening to pull their line of football related games from their platform. Toshiro only kept him around because he was married to Ukitake and Toshiro liked Ukitake.
Toshiro barely had time to get back from the bathroom before he was hitting the call button for a standard training ID they used on the system for testing and for interviews.
When the call connected Toshiro glanced up at the voice.
'Hello?' it asked, sounding almost a little unsure. The voice was high, feminine and was the kind of voice Toshiro was sure most men would pay good money to hear on the other end of a phone call.
'Hello,' he said, knowing his own voice often confused people for how deep it sounded yet did not at all match the picture he actually presented, 'this is Mr Hyorinmaru, may I start by taking your name?' he asked, giving her his companies alibi name.
'Y-yes Sir, my name is Matsumoto, Rangiku Matsumoto.' Her name rolled off her tongue beautifully and though Toshiro wanted to relish in the way it sounded it was incredibly obvious this girl was completely out of his league. Thus he spent absolutely no time in even entertaining the thoughts of trying to picture what she looked like based on her voice alone. It was a pointless exercise anyway and it was already late in the afternoon and he had several more calls to make after this one.
'Alright Matsumoto,' he said, trying to stop his voice sounding too harsh and tired, 'why did you choose to work for us?' Normally it was question that came a little later in the interview but given the position that she had originally come from he wanted to ascertain the exact reasoning behind her wishing to join the company.
'Oh, well I have experience in this field, it's something I know that I'm good at and I enjoy, did you…' she trailed off a little, 'did you get my CV?'
'Hm,' Toshiro leaned back on his desk chair glancing at the word document he brought up on screen. It was incredibly well written despite the feminine boarder around the outside of the document. 'Yes I did,' his eyes made quick work glancing over it just now. The truth was he'd not had a chance to properly read it but it did detail what her job was at Game Station. She'd been involved in the major marketing campaigns for the GS4, some of those marketing campaigns caused the Z – Box to dip terribly in sales over Christmas the same year they released their eagerly awaited Z- Box One. Even Toshiro had to admit that having Matsumoto would be an incredible asset to their business.
'It's very impressive,' he said after a few moments and he meant it. It was but he was still not quite sure of her motives. Perhaps it was money? That was one thing that often scunnered loyalty.
'Why did you choose to leave Game Station?'
'Oh,' she was thoughtful for a few moments which gave Toshiro a little more time to scan over her CV. She had impressive scores from one of the top Universities as well… suddenly an image of a smaller girl (a bit like Rukia) with large glasses sprung to mind and he smiled fondly.
'I choose to leave because the CEO and I did not see eye to eye,' she eventually said. However her tone was different, her tone was off. This sentence was almost spoken with an undertone of malice that Toshiro had not heard at all in the rest of the call. It sparked his curiosity and he leaned forward, aware she couldn't see him. He clasped his fingers on the desk and rested his chin against them as he contemplated that response.
'I see,' he finally said, 'why don't you tell me a little bit about your day to day roles?' he decided to take the conversation in a different way, not directly addressing what had happened with the CEO. He'd come back to that later once he'd had a chance to more closely analyse her speech pattern.
As she spoke about her previous job it was clear her enthusiasm was sincere. She was bubbly, upbeat and cheerful, overall a pleasure to listen too. More than once Toshiro found himself smirking a little at her tales of how she lead the marketing campaign and how changing a simple colour in a final advertisement had secured them their high end winter sales.
'Oh believe me,' he chuckled a note of teasing now in his voice, 'I know all about those sales. That was a bad winter for us.'
'Sorry,' she quickly said and he could tell this too was a sincere apology.
'Don't be, it was impressive. Forgive me for asking but it is my job,' he knew enough of her voice now to try and circle back to the question about Gin, the CEO of Game Station. 'What exactly did not see eye to eye with Gin about?' For a brief moment Toshiro wasn't sure if the call had disconnected or not because she did not respond for a while. He was almost going to take the question back or ask if she was alright when she finally did choose to answer.
'We were dating,' she said.
Oh. Oh. That explained a lot. Still she continued anyway.
'We broke up and the breakup was… difficult. I want nothing more than to be far away from him.'
There was something in her voice that caused Toshiro to frown. He'd been raised by his Gran to be an old fashioned gentleman, in the world today there weren't many of them left but there was a touch of helplessness in her tone… an edge of desperation that instantly alerted Toshiro's inner protective side.
'Well,' he said finally, trying to shove that side of himself down. Really… he could be making assumptions about nothing here. 'That shouldn't be an issue anymore, from today onwards you will be working directly under myself as director of marketing,' he said. He tried not to think about the potential sexual innuendo that slipped out and what Yukio would tease him about if he'd heard it. Just because he made an innocent mistake like that did not mean his friend would tease the shit out of him for it.
'Oh thank you!' she squeaked and suddenly her whole persona seemed to have transformed. Taken aback Toshiro blinked dumbly at his screen for a moment, listening to her eventually clear her throat and try to compose herself.
'You're welcome, for the time being most of your work will come from Ukitake but I'll check in from time to time and may chat with you myself.'
'Of course,' she responded, her happiness and relief still evident in her voice.
'For just now though I must go, I have another call starting.' He glanced at the clock and bit his lip to stop him from sighing. 'I hope you have a good evening, welcome to Zeltrix,' Toshiro said as he clicked the hang up button turning his attention to the new Skype invite that had popped up in his calendar. He was already five minutes late for the meeting but he wasn't leading it anyway, he was only expected to listen. He slipped into the call where his employee was sharing his screen showing off a graph which Toshiro could already tell he'd put far too much work into. With a sigh, Toshiro leaned back on his chair and debated opening the cabinet to reach for a bottle of whisky, surely it wasn't too early in the morning to start drinking? He didn't think so… not when he looked at his schedule for the day.
Their next stop was Moscow, it made sense to do the two stops while they were in Russia. This one wasn't for Toshiro's benefit though it did make sense to keep moving around, this one was for Yukio's. He'd been invited to one of the giant gaming conventions where everyone was cosplaying as different characters. He was expected to speak on a panel and do a live let's play stream at the same time as allowing others to play along.
Toshiro and Rukia wanted to go for moral support but of course Toshiro stuck out like a sore thumb. They thankfully had a way around this. Toshiro put his cosplay on, dressing up as Archer from Fate Stay Night since he too had white hair. Though Toshiro had much paler complexion he usually often got complimented on his cosplay regardless and he could throw the hood up when he was done dealing with the world.
Rukia was going as Mikasa from Attack on Titan purely because her hair was nearly the same length and together they blended into the background of other cosplayers. Yukio didn't dress up at all, soaking up the attention as they made their way through the event.
For the most part Toshiro ended up outside on the phone. It was a good thing he was fluent in eight different languages, he was quickly speaking in rapid Japanese to one of the game directors for Final Fantasy. They needed to secure a good enough deal and Toshiro was hard at work trying to build a relationship with them while not jeopardising their own profits.
Eventually Toshiro agreed to call later on that evening when everyone else would be asleep. He'd have to set an alarm for stupid o'clock in the morning but that was just part of his job. He turned and made his way back inside, finding Rukia exactly where he'd left her at the coffee spot.
'Yukio's panel will be starting soon,' she muttered sipping on her drink, 'did you want to go?'
'I suppose we should,' he huffed but they both rose obediently again and made their way through to the convention area. Rukia was fluent in a couple of languages too but none of them were Russian and Yukio couldn't bother himself to learn anything other than the swear words and cheesiest one liners for dating. Though he had at least been taught English in school as was often standard in most Japanese schools. Plus as he'd put it… "English chicks were hot."
Everyone around them babbled away in Russian dressed as either comic book characters, gaming characters, anime or TV characters. It was in places like this that Toshiro actually felt normal and that feeling was hard for him to come by. It resounded deeply inside, like a warm feeling he assumed one may get being held by a parent. Not that he'd know of course.
'Sit up there?' Rukia asked pointing to a row of seats to the back where they'd be able to see fine and not be disturbed. Toshiro followed her lead and they both slotted into seats. He reached into his outfit and pulled out his work phone and his burner phone switching them both to silent.
Thankfully the person hosting the panel could translate into English as Yukio was called out onto the stage. Toshiro tried not to roll his eyes with a fond smile, Yukio was genuinely up himself. He looked good on the stage dressed in a tight dark green shirt that highlighted his eyes and tight black jeans.
'Let's get this party started then,' he laughed and the man hosting translated for everyone. The panel lasted over an hour, questions being delivered in Russian or sometimes broken English and translated for Yukio to answer and back again. Yukio was charismatic, flirting openly with gay men just as much as the women and as they watched Toshiro could hear Rukia scoffing beside him.
Toshiro wasn't an idiot. In fact he was sort of a genius. He didn't have much experience with women it was true but even he could see the way Rukia would look at Yukio.
'He's such a git,' she huffed under her breath folding her arms, 'he's acting like he's the one man show for this company.'
'Well it's a good smokescreen,' Toshiro said, only making her huff further in return. He'd never really known what to say or do when someone who was very obviously interested in someone was in denial. Like how do you even have that conversation? How do you broach it at all? So he decided he'd just stay silent…
'Does he have to keep pushing his hair back from his right eye, he could push it back from the left for once.'
'You know he thinks it looks cool,' Toshiro sighed and glanced down at his phone. His Skype had a couple of notifications beside it, most of it just useless patter from people trying to get his attention despite having other people they were meant to report too but one was a quick message from Matsumoto.
Matsumoto 13:22pm
I've sent something to your assistant to get approval but I think it's maybe her day off. It's a brief for a new marketing strategy we've been working on.
Toshiro glanced to Rukia and smiled a little at the way she glared at Yukio. Yeah it was kind of a day off, they were technically working and though Rukia wasn't exactly his assistant it was sort of adopted as part of her role. Toshiro didn't like having an assistant he liked doing things himself.
Toshiro 13:24pm
I will have a look when I next get to my laptop.
He paused on the verge of wanting to say more when his eyes skimmed the time. It would be nearly 7:30pm back in Tokyo… what was she doing still working at this time? She was meant to work 8:30am – 5pm even though it wasn't uncommon for some employees to stay until 6pm finishing up. She'd obviously been working hard on this strategy which meant the first steps of it must be rolling out soon. He quickly swapped out the app and put a calendar reminder in to check it out later. He swapped back into Skype to see his message had been read.
Mr Hyorinmaru 13:27pm
I appreciate the long working hours, make sure you don't stay in the office too long though. If I'm due you overtime or TOIL let me know.
Matsumoto 13:28pm
I appreciate that Sir, I just lost track of time. Totally my fault but I hope you'll appreciate the end result :)
Did she just put a smiley face to her boss? Toshiro stared down at the tiny handset, no one really sent him smiley faces except Rukia and Yukio and sometimes Ichigo if he was feeling particularly friendly. He squinted his eyes at it, not quite sure what to make of it.
'What are you smiling at?'
He started, his hand gripping his phone in a tiny death grip and looked up at Rukia who was watching him.
'What?'
'You, you're smiling,' she smiled gently back at him, 'don't get me wrong I don't want you to stop just wanted to know the joke.'
'Oh,' he hadn't realised he'd actually been smiling but now that he cast his mind back perhaps his face had decided to assign that particular look as he read the message. 'Nothing important. New marketing strategies.'
'Dear god you need a girlfriend,' she sighed and turned back to watch as Yukio gave his final bows. Toshiro resisted the urge to make a sly comment about Yukio but kept his mouth shut. His grandmother hadn't raised him to be disrespectful towards women including teasing them for their choice of love interest. He turned back to his phone instead.
Mr Hyorinmaru 13:32pm
I am sure I will.
He resisted the urge to post a smiling face back, because really that would destroy the cold and distant display he put across to the rest of the business even if he had typed it and then deleted it. He turned his attention to their surroundings as people began shuffling about and out the hall. Naturally they waited back as Yukio would be lead to the signing area where he could sign posters and games.
'You missed the giveaway and everything,' Rukia commented, 'who were you texting anyway.'
'Just the marketing team, it was Skype nothing to read into.' He rolled his eyes and stretched out hearing his bones groan uncomfortably under his skin at being huddled down in an uncomfortable seat for so long. They made their way out into the main lobby, taking a moment to really experience just how many people, stalls, entertainment and companies were all here as part of a world they helped create. Everywhere they turned there were people dressed as their gaming characters, stalls dedicated to T-shirts and other merchandise of their gaming series and even boxes of mystery gifts for people to buy.
The next few hours were spent scooping out some of the sly marketing of the stalls of their competitors and they stopped to speak to an artist who prided herself exclusively on drawing for them. Apparently Rukia was following her on twitter.
Toshiro didn't get a chance to take another work call until they were heading out to a restaurant for dinner. They'd eat and then head straight back to the hotel. The entire room was packed full of colourful people in costumes as well as a couple of normal working families looking on with interest.
Toshiro took a call from Ukitake at the dinner table, knowing it was probably impolite but also aware if he left the order up to Yukio he'd end up with something he didn't like. He jabbered away in Japanese while the staff gave him funny looks, pointing at the menu for what he wanted to order.
'Are you really sure you're okay to take a call with Mintendo at 3am?' he huffed down the line. Toshiro smiled to himself, knowing that Ukitake had sort of taken him under his wing, like an uncle and he hid his smile behind his glass.
'Yes, I'm not a child,' he tried to make it sound authoritative but it came out far too fond. Ukitake hummed down the line but it sounded a little like he wanted to disagree.
'Are you sleeping and eating enough?'
'Yes Uncle,' he huffed and he heard the older man chuckle, 'speaking of which you're interrupting dinner so I better go. It's late there anyway and you should be in bed too.' Toshiro heard Shunsui calling him back to bed in the background confirming his point.
'Alright, just take care.'
Once they said their goodbyes Toshiro did his best to focus on the meal at hand. Yukio was a dominant ray of sunshine as always, flirting with male and female waitresses alike much to the chagrin of Rukia.
'Would you quit it? You're not even gay,' she hissed under her breath. Toshiro looked up in time to see an affronted look cross Yukio's face.
'I could be if I wanted to,' he shot back, 'some of the guys here are pretty attractive.
'No you couldn't,' she scowled, 'you have to be born that way.'
'Nothing wrong with a little experimentation,' he flicked at pea at her and she looked like she wanted to strangle him.
'Ignore him he always gets a big head when we attend these events you know that.' Toshiro said to her, she deflated after that. The silence was tense that followed, Toshiro loved them both dearly but lately things had been getting worse between them. Rukia was getting more and more easily riled up by the little things Yukio did that never used to bother her before. At the same time Yukio knew fine well she was getting annoyed with him and seemed to be doing everything within his power to annoy her further.
Once the meals arrived the conversation had taken a more positive turn, Toshiro lead it of course, discussing where they currently stood with their deal to secure old school NES and Sega games through Mintendo to play on their device. Yukio was more curious about this than Rukia, he'd been raised on the same old school games as Toshiro.
'So you're calling them at 3am?'
'Yes,' Toshiro instantly scowled at the look that crossed her face. He already had Ukitake fathering him, he didn't want Rukia to mother him.
'Alright,' she said after a moment of obvious conflict crossing her features. 'Then make sure you get a long lie, we don't need to be at the airport until later on in the day anyway.'
'Alright,' Toshiro finished off his meal as Yukio continued to chatter about the Sega games he knew would do well and the possibility of an alliance to remake the old bomber man series in a new digital age.
Both Rukia and Yukio got on better during the walk back to the hotel. They decided to spend a bit of time in the hotel lobby having a couple of drinks. On the TV they'd been watching an Ice Hockey match between two of Russia's leading teams when a girl with long red hair dressed in a Black Widow cosplay approached the table.
'Are you Yukio Hans?' she asked, her accent clearly northern from somewhere in Ireland. Yukio turned to look at her and Toshiro watched, ready to see the master in action.
'Yeah I am,' Yukio's entire demeanour changed, he became completely aloof, relaxed. She smiled, almost smirking at him where he sat in the stool, it was clear she was almost a good head taller than him but where he was sitting they were eye level.
'I really enjoyed your play through of the new UnderWatch,' she said it while leaning into his space, 'I can't believe you raised so much money for charity. My friend and I,' she nodded her head back behind her where there was a girl cosplaying as Scarlet Witch, 'loved watching that stream.'
'Oh,' Yukio glanced at the other red head and back again with an innocent smile on his face, 'well I needed to sleep for like a week after playing for 32 hours straight.' He laughed and she laughed with him, her entire body posture changing and moulding into his space.
'Well we wondered if you'd maybe want to come and play some games with us tonight?' she asked and Yukio's face lit up.
'Epic Games just released Fortnite, I heard it's meant to be brutal,' he smiled up at her the perfect picture of pure innocence.
'That sounds fun,' she smirked at him.
'Toshiro I'll catch up with you and Rukia tomorrow I'm going to play Fortnite with Black Widow and Scarlet Witch.' He slipped off his stool laying down some cash for his drinks and babbled about the Fortnite character setup all the way towards the elevator where the two women followed him.
Toshiro was a little jealous, he made it look so easy.
No Fortnite would be played that night of course.
With a sigh Toshiro turned back to see Rukia glaring down at her glass and he rubbed his face. He couldn't be bothered dealing with this conversation right now, did that make him a bad friend?
'I'm going to bed,' Rukia said after a few seconds of awkward silence. Toshiro resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief, he glanced at the clock and noticed it was only just after 7pm but decided not to argue. He knew there were emails gathering up in his inbox and he would rather take care of them right now.
'Alright have a good night, I'll speak to you tomorrow,' there was a promise there that if she wanted to open up he'd listen. She was his friend after all. When Rukia took her leave Toshiro put his cash down, tipping well and left for his own hotel suite. He spent the dwindling hours answering emails and confirming plans for upcoming content releases with Ichigo and his father.
It ended with Toshiro collapsing in bed, his cosplay discarded across the useless hotel chair that sat in the corner next to the open window.
No sooner had he closed his eyes than his alarm had sounded, forcing him to wake up with a huff. Maybe a 3am call had not been a good idea. He silenced the alarm quickly not wishing to disturb any possible neighbours and made his way over to the desk where his laptop sat asleep and mostly ready for him to use. Wishing he had a coffee he put his earpiece in and started the call.
Hardly the most riveting he did manage to make a joke around the timezones with the final fantasy creator. He was very good at playing the game, building up the right amount of empathy that soon lead to a deal. Overall the call had been worth getting up for and as Toshiro rubbed his eyes he glanced at the twitching icon of his Skype suggesting that someone else was messaging him.
Matsumoto!
He'd forgotten to look over the documents she'd sent in. He glared down at his phone even though he knew he'd forgotten to turn on the alarm in his haste to avoid a difficult conversation with Rukia.
Matsumoto 4:10am
Did you get a chance to look over the marketing proposal? :)
Shit, he quickly scampered to bring it up and he hastily cast his eyes over it. The more he studied the proposal the more he was blown away, it was clear that the marketing team were getting with the times entering into a new digital era and going for the jugular of their competitors with quirky marketing slogans that would have fans howling on social media. It was modern, it was clever and holy fuck was he glad he had hired her.
Mr Hyorinmaru 4:23am
Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, I've been busy. Just looked at it now, it looks really good.
I see the angle you're taking and with social media the way it is just now I trust it will work.
He would trust her of course, she worked closely with some of his own personal favourite employees including Ichigo and that lanky strawberry was always on social media.
Matsumoto 4:25am
Thank you! :)
We've been working on a timeline for release and strategy as well as risks associated. Do you have time to look over this too?
Mr Hyorinmaru 4:25am
At the moment I don't I actually am about to go back to bed, however send them on I will look them over in the morning.
Matsumoto 4:26am
Bed? D:
How long were you up last night?
Toshiro forgot that she didn't realise he wasn't in Japan. He smiled fondly at the screen and deliberated for a moment… he almost never told anyone in his company where he was or what he was doing but… perhaps it was those childish smiley faces she kept sending? He decided it couldn't hurt.
Mr Hyorinmaru 4:29am
I'm in Moscow, it's almost half four in the morning here.
Matsumoto 4:30am
Oh wow, Sir you should really get to sleep, I'll stop chattering on. I'll send you those documents and then you can just send on your thoughts when you can.
Toshiro tried not to feel a little disappointed… he'd almost wanted her to keep chattering on. Perhaps it was just a deep set loneliness speaking, maybe it was the fact he could still hear her voice warm like camomile tea in his head every time she typed something. He reached out, ready to punch the characters of farewell when she responded back.
Matsumoto 4:32am
I've never been to Moscow before.
He grinned before he could stop himself, his fingers happily clicking along the keyboard for this reply while he resisted the urge to look her up in the company phonebook. Her display picture had still not been added to the system and normally the efficiency of such a task by IT wouldn't bother him but now it was starting too. How long did it take to do anyway? Matsumoto had been working for the company for a number of weeks now.
Mr Hyorinmaru 4:32am
It's a beautiful city, a little conservative like Japan compared to the rest of the world though.
Matsumoto 4:33am
:o Where else in the world have you been?
Toshiro smiled at that, he could just tell her this was a once off kind of trip. He'd come to Moscow for something and would be flying back to Japan soon. He could end the conversation as he naturally would have done with any of his other colleagues, after all if someone knew where you were, where you were travelling too it would be much easier to find out who you were.
He wasn't sure what compelled him to tell her the truth.
Mr Hyorinmaru 4:36am
I've been almost everywhere; France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Thailand, Russia, Israel, Japan, Morocco, Africa, Greenland, America, Canada, Britain, Ireland… in fact I think it would be easier to give you a list of countries I haven't been haha.
He almost hit his head, had he really just typed 'haha' at the end of that message? He felt really stupid, big massive company CEO persona was slowly crumbling in favour of the person he was with Rukia and Yukio and it was dangerous. He'd never met this woman, only heard her voice over the other end of a phone.
He could feel his heart thumping in his chest as he watched the notification telling him that she was responding. This was so stupid, how could someone's voice alone cause such a reaction from him? Toshiro brought a hand up to his hair tugging at the roots and wrinkled his nose at the mess he was in. Looking across at the darkened windows that reflected his image in the dimly lit room he could see his hair a little matted from the day of being in a giant sweaty cosplaying hall, his shirt was unbuttoned and hanging open and he'd managed to throw on a pair of black plaid trousers to sleep in. Though he looked like a physical mess it was more the emotional aspect that was giving him palpitations. He shouldn't be revealing so much about himself to someone, even if they did have an incredibly attractive voice.
Matsumoto 4:38am
That's so impressive! I've only ever been out of Japan a handful of times. Gin never thought I was important enough to send travelling but funnily enough he'd send a lot of the male members of the marketing time.
Toshiro could practically hear the distain in her voice as she typed it and he flinched a little. He'd never treat a woman differently just because of their gender, except he was perhaps a little more likely to be patient with a woman than with a man because of how he was raised. He found it very difficult to get pissed off by a woman, normally it was always men who rubbed him up the wrong way… perhaps that was sexist? He wasn't even sure.
Mr Hyorinmaru 4:41am
That won't be an issue with me. I'll have you attend any event I see fit regardless of the country assuming you're okay to travel there.
He left out the implications of the statement, he knew there were some countries where women were treated poorly as he'd had the conversation with Rukia when she refused to travel with them to certain parts of India. He understood completely and instead they'd arranged to do more calls to keep her updated. He'd never force someone to do anything they were uncomfortable with, especially a woman.
Maybe he was sexist?
Matsumoto 4:42am
I appreciate that Sir :D
Weren't you going to go to bed? I'm sorry if I've kept you up…
Toshiro glanced at the time and realised it was quickly approaching 5am, at this rate he'd be awake the rest of the morning talking away to Matsumoto. When he thought about it, he realised he'd actually enjoyed the little chat they'd had backwards and forwards so far. He could feel the slight bruising feeling around his mouth from where he'd been smiling which was something quite foreign to him. Normally it only came about when Yukio and Rukia were around but even that was growing rare these days.
Toshiro glanced across towards the window that reflected his image again and ground his teeth, an old habit. Was this silly, what he was doing? He didn't exactly have anyone he could speak to about it, Yukio would wind him up something rotten, Rukia had her own personal issues to cope with and everyone else worked for him. He frowned at the mirror image of himself… he hadn't really realised how few people he'd let into his personal circle… well okay of course he did but he hadn't realised the affect it would have. There were so few people in his life he could open up to, did he want to grant himself this? Was it a good idea? It could all backfire and for what? For a pretty voice on the other end of a phone.
Toshiro shuddered, she could rip him apart piece by piece. If she really was being manipulated by Gin did he want to take that chance? He cast his mind back to the first interview and recalled the distain in her voice the way she'd spoken about Gin and he shook himself. He was very good at reading people even just their voices, he had to trust himself enough to accept that she didn't mean any harm to him or his business.
So what was a little indulgence? Yukio granted it himself just like he had done the night before… why couldn't Toshiro indulge a little?
His fingers hovered over his keyboard, frozen in mid-air as he contemplated.
Mr Hyorinmaru 4:50am
You didn't keep me up don't worry. I will look at the timeline and risks in the morning and get back to you, good night Matsumoto.
He re-read the message several times before finally clicking 'send.' He figured it sounded okay, it gave a promise of speaking soon so he still had an excuse to get back in touch with her at a later time. In the meantime he'd sleep and get onto IT to find out why her picture hadn't been added to Skype or email yet.
He kicked back his chair and rose up pulling his shirt all the way off he made his way back to bed. It had been a long and exhausting day and certainly with everything else it had been a bit of an emotional one too. He crawled under the covers and tried to analyse the conversation with Rukia in his head as a distraction, he'd need to broach the topic of Yukio with her at some point after all. Maybe Matsumoto could actually offer him some advice on it? He fell asleep with a soft smile on his face at the thought.