Katase

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The news had hit Naomi Katase like a ream of printer paper upside her head. For more than ten years, she had been in the employ of Yoshitaka Mine. At first, as a go-fer. Fetch me a towel. The mini-fridge is out of Gatorade again. Please locate a mounting ring for my punching bag. Gradually, Mine began to trust her with more and more things around the office. When Mine's business associates came knocking, she prepared and poured the tea. She set out the good table-settings, the ones made from the finest traditional cloth and bamboo. The table-settings were more glamorous than the job itself was, but every time she considered quitting, her boss seemed to already know, and had come prepared with news of another raise.

It was only three years ago that Mine finally began to listen to Katase - with her four-year business school degree and internship at Toto Bank - in regards to matters of money. It was the entire reason she'd jumped at the job in the first place. She wasn't in it for the rote schedule-keeping and the mannerisms of the elite. She definitely wasn't interested in whatever awful things Mine's "biggest business partner" had in mind for her - things never spoken, but absolutely implied, by the way the bald-headed man was looking at her. She didn't even care about the biweekly paycheck - as respectable as it was, at almost half a million yen biweekly, not even counting stock commissions - when the real draw of the job was getting to the top of the trading market.

Ever since receiving her degree from Keio University, Katase had dreamed of making it big. Not just on her own; she could probably do that with day-trading, like that one hotshot at Toto - what was his name again? Akimoto? Akanishi? - but she wanted the thrill of lifting somebody else up with her. To pull somebody else up by their bootstraps and not just her own. Yoshitaka Mine would have been exactly her ticket.

So it confused her to find that Mine was in no way interested in making money from trading. She couldn't quite figure out what his ambitions truly were. Every time she'd come to the office with news of a huge client requesting the services of his firm, Mine would be in the middle of a meeting or phone call with his business associates. Or at least, that was what he called them; they were obviously yakuza, especially the bald guy. It didn't catch her by surprise very much when he told her that "a call from headquarters takes priority." She'd had so much good news for him about an impending buyout that she had leveraged; he blew it off like it didn't matter at all, and left before she could even say her piece about it.

Now, even, Katase was sitting at Yoshitaka Mine's desk, in his office, having just been on the phone with him only a few hours ago. She had heard that her buyout project was finally about to move, and she only needed the man's approval to go ahead with it. While she'd gotten through to his personal cell - normally something for emergencies only - Mine had simply stopped talking on the other end. And to return to that matter of the news...Tokyo Metropolitan Police confirmed to her the identities of the two men who had jumped off of the hospital building. Andre Richardson - a name vaguely familiar to her as another one of Mine's "business partners" - and Yoshitaka Mine.

A lone tear finally emerged from Katase's eye. Ten years at this job. Three of them actually doing what she'd trained her whole life to do. All of it under a boss that, damn it all, she'd started to like. Maybe even a bit more than that. She wanted nothing more than his approval, in all respects, and in the very last hour of his life, he chose to deny her that satisfaction. This wasn't just a slap in the face. This was the gravest insult possible, to her. She'd kept her hands clean of the darker side of her boss's business for this long. She knew where to dot the I's and cross the T's. She was nothing but the best personal assistant a man could possibly ask for. And now, that man had left her hanging, and threw his life away, rather than give her those two words she'd dreamt of hearing from him for ten years.

"Go ahead."

Katase looked up from her now-silent cellular phone on her boss's desk, to find that a man in a tattered rain coat was standing there in front of her. She didn't recognize him, but he had the look of a policeman. "I'm sorry... what did you say?"

The cop-like man said it again: "Go ahead. You can let it out now."

"Let what out?" Her voice did not break. The single tear aside, she was the image of composure right now. Or at least, she very much believed that she was. "Who are you, and why did you come here?"

"Oh, my apologies, miss. My name's Makoto Date."

"Are you with the police?"

"Uh, no, miss, but I can see why you'd think that. I'm a reporter these days."

"I'm not, at present, prepared to make any statements, Mr. Date," said Katase flatly, attempting to blow the man off.

Date ran his fingers through his hair a bit. "Contrary to what you might think, I'm not here to ask you questions. I'm here as a personal favor from some folks who were very close to your boss. I have some news for you."

"How close?" she asked, with the smallest hint of doubt in her voice.

"This comes as a request by Daigo Dojima. I've been asked to give you a message about Yoshitaka Mine, up to the very last moments of his life. Mr. Dojima said it was very important that you hear it." Date took an envelope out of one of his trench coat's extra-deep pockets.

Daigo Dojima...Katase rotated the name in her mind. She never fully knew the man's significance in his organization, but she certainly grasped how important he was to her boss. Perhaps the one thing he cared about the most - more than he seemed to care about her. "Alright, Mr. Date. Let's hear it."

Date unfolded the contents of the envelope and cleared his throat.

Naomi Katase,

My name is Daigo Dojima. I am the sixth chairman of the Tojo Clan, an organization of which I'm sure you're passively aware. We may have even met, in passing, sometime over the past couple of years. But I am of no importance to you. The man you are more interested in is Yoshitaka Mine. We are both well acquainted with him, for different reasons.

You have likely already heard the news of his passing. I trust that the police have already told you the details most pertinent to you. Mine's last will and testament entrusted his estate to just two people. Me, and you.

While Mine did not have the time to say as much, himself, owing to the circumstances...as his nearest confidant, I would like to apologize on his behalf. Things will be complicated from here on. The decisions he made in the heat of the moment may make things difficult. You may be asked some very uncomfortable questions. Your very life may be scrutinized in association with his. To that end, I have included a letter of introduction for a legal firm on the northwest end of Kamurocho, that specializes in cases associated with organized crime. Please do get acquainted with them; they will be of immense help in the months to come.

I knew Mine to be a careful man, who liked to keep his affairs separate. This is how one must do business in my line of work. It is my understanding that he wished you to inherit his more legitimate business affairs; you will assume control of not only his stock portfolio, but the building and the employees under it. In short, you are the new chairman of his business. Your own association with Mine will not get in the way of your own success, and I wish you the greatest of luck in your further business.

Yours sincerely, Daigo Dojima

P.S.: If you do end up needing legal advice, you may want to bring a gift. I recommend a box of something sweet.

Katase closed her mouth, that had been hanging open since halfway through the letter, and took off her glasses to clean off the tear stains and fog. Her composure was shaken, but not broken.

"It shouldn't be too long before you start to hear from the district prosecutors about all this," warned Date. "I'm familiar with the law firm he talked about in the letter. They're good people. And, uh, he isn't kidding about the sweets."

He cared. The ten years she spent wondering if Yoshitaka Mine ever had her best interests in mind, were not in vain. The whole company. She'd been climbing the ladder all along and had barely even noticed until now.