8 Chapter 8: Fired

The conference room was filled with workers they all had their lab coat on and everyone had one question on their mind—why did Narumi get them together like this? It made absolutely no sense to them.

"Greetings everyone." Narumi spoke loud enough for the entire room to hear her as she entered through the door, "It's a lovely afternoon."

Daiki followed closely behind his boss. He was still trying to find out what she had in mind.

"I know that most of you are trying to figure out why I called you guys together like this today, but I'm happy to say that we are about to solve the mystery." Narumi continued to speak, "Our fragrance is complete and you all have been working really hard on it. I deeply appreciate it."

Everyone was quiet. It was pretty weird, but they weren't complaining.

"I would love to test the fragrance in front of you right now." She said. Her eyes were locked onto Goro, who instantly felt a cold sweat run down his spine.

"Daiki, collect the samples from Goro and bring it here." Narumi ordered. He immediately complied and came back with a tray, then placed it on the table.

"Thank you." Narumi reached for it and took a bottle. She picked up a scent blotter and placed it on the surface of the tray. "Let us begin testing this out."

She carried out the test and took note of her observation. Then she sprayed the scent on her wrist and sniffed it.

"I knew it." She thought to herself.

"Mr. Goro, please step forward."

He quickly did so and waited patiently for her to speak.

"What's the yearly amount of money that is sent to you for the factory?" She asked.

"About ten to twenty million yen…" he replied after taking some time to think about it. He had no idea where she was going with this.

"At the beginning of the year you wrote a letter to me asking for an increase because the resources to make the new perfume was costly, right?" Narumi asked.

He simply nodded.

"I increased it to thirty million yen right?" Narumi asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then why in the world did you use cheap products to produce this perfume?" Narumi questioned.

"What?" Goro looked taken aback.

"Answer me!" She demanded. The tone of her voice increased to become a commanding tone.

"That's not true.....ma'am...." he muttered.

"Then why does the fragrance only last for a few minutes and also why did my wrist turn red after I used?" Narumi asked.

"Well..…I guess...." he trailed off, not sure how to answer her questions.

"My patience is wearing thin, Mr. Goro." Narumi told him. Her eyes were sharp as she glared at him.

"Ma'am..." He looked down at his shoes. "I was greedy, so I bought cheap and fake resources, then pocketed the rest of the money." His voice cracked as he explained. Tears welled up in his eyes.

His words hung in the air for a moment as everyone absorbed his revelation.

"Wow." Narumi finally said, "So you bought fake resources and used it to my perfume. After that, you want me to launch a product that could destroy my hard work?" Her voice was getting louder with each word. Her anger growing stronger with each passing sentence.

"No, ma'am...no...no…." He stuttered under his breath. He wanted to explain himself, but he couldn't get anything more coherent out than "sorry". Tears continued falling from his face.

"You are fired." Her tone turned icy as she said those three words.

"No ... please don't fire me.." Goro pleaded, his tears streaming down his cheeks.

"I can't tolerate anyone who tries to ruin my company." She said.

"Please.... don't do this… I'm sorry…." He said between choked sobs. "What about my family?"

"You should have thought about them before doing this. Take your things and leave." She instructed. "Or I will have you dragged out of here by security guards. Be thankful that I'm not getting you arrested." She added.

Goro slowly stood up and headed towards the exit. Everyone else watched as he walked away while crying. Some people were looking pityingly at him, but they all knew that he was wrong.

"Listen, all of you, I want this perfume to be worked on perfectly by the end of this week." Narumi announced. Silence followed after the announcement. Nobody dared ask her any other questions. They all silently nodded in agreement because they all knew that when she spoke in this tone, there was no turning back.

"Get back to work." With that, she dismissed the group, and they left the room.

"Are you alright ma'am? I mean your wrist…" Daiki asked, concerned.

"I'm alright." She replied. "Let's go home."

"Alright." He muttered. They left the conference room and started heading to the exit. Although as Narumi was walking, she tripped on something in the hallway, luckily Daiki was present to break her fall.

A few seconds passed before he set her upright. "Sorry about that." He apologized. "I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't hurt yourself." He smiled at her sweetly.

'I'm worried about you.' He thought to himself.

Narumi stared at him blankly. "Thank you." She responded without much expression or feeling.

The car that they used was parked close by and the driver was waiting for them. They got into their seats, but Daiki didn't feel good about Narumi being upset, so he tried to cheer her up.

"Are you hungry?" He asked. "We could grab something to eat if you want?"

Narumi remained silent for a few minutes before speaking. "Maybe a little," she said.

"Alright, where should we go to?" he asked.

"Tomato, they serve amazing kare raisu there." She suggested.

"Sounds good to me." Daiki agreed. "It's still 2:30 pm, so there's still time before the designers come."

"Yes, that's true."

They ended up going to Tomato Restaurant and had kare raisu together. Daiki couldn't help but notice how beautiful Narumi was when she ate. It was obvious that kare raisu was her favorite food.

"I'm starting to like her a lot," Daiki confessed to himself.