No Prep Time

Staring blankly out into the room and then down at herself, she quickly put some of the pieces together. ‘Nerine got what she wished. This is the modern era this time, but why? What sort of personality am I going to find in here?’

The more that Yumi thought internally about what was going on, the tension in the room increased. It only took about a minute for one of the men in the room to speak up. “Miss Mizuno? Are you going to finish?”

Snapping her head up, she remembered that she was the center of attention. ‘Why in the world would you drop me into the middle of a presentation that I haven’t a clue what it is about?! This isn’t even a trial, it’s just being spiteful.’ Looking around at the table, she couldn’t find a computer or laptop that might have been hers for the presentation. The only thing in front of her was some posters with images that looked like advertisements for bottled tea.

‘Damnit…’ She gave one last look around for any sort of clue to what she might have been doing to try to salvage this cruel situation that they dropped her. It really felt like Aya or maybe the one in charge of this world just wanted a laugh at her. ‘No choice then…’

Yumi took a staggered step forward bracing herself against the table with one hand while touching her forehead. She increased her breathing and moved her hand around her face as though trying to check her physical state. “Something’s...not right...I don’t feel…” Before she could finish her act, she collapsed her legs dropping to the floor in a careful means not to hurt too much while looking convincing enough that she had fainted. ‘This’ll at least buy me time until I figure out what the hell’s going on now…’

Chapter 554 - No Prep Time

About thirty minutes passed since she played her little act and thankfully, her fellow employees were supportive, canceling the meeting. One of them, Akira Shigeki, a sweet seeming young man brought her another glass of water while she sat in her chair recovering. “Thanks, Mr. Shigeki.”

He smiled with relief to see that she looked better. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now. I regret cutting my breakfast short today. It’s rather embarrassing fainting in the middle of a presentation.” She glanced around the office trying to get a better read on the situation. They had dumped her hard into the middle of something. It reminded her a little of the sci-fi room with Sumiko, but even that didn’t have this sort of weird stress. And she wouldn’t have the benefit of a time loop to learn everything. ‘It’s hard to tell with certainty, but I’m guessing Shigeki here is a co-worker on the same team given his familiarity with me. Though what is this place? I can’t exactly fake amnesia as helpful as that would be.’

The floor that she was on had cubicles and partitions dividing up the space. It made it a little difficult to get a full read of the floor. They were in the corner of the building, which looked roughly between the fourth and eighth floor judging from looking out the window. She might have been in Tokyo given the view, but just as well could have been Osaka, Narita or another city. There were no landmarks from her view to make that clear.

Inside the building, the floorplan as she had seen so far had eight desks around her and a partition that divided that in half. She couldn’t tell if they were all on a team grouped together or just in the same department. There was little chatter that she heard to give her any clues to that. ‘Best guess right now advertising or maybe we were looking over a marketing plan that a company provided us? I’m not even sure how relevant it will be, but since they put me in this life I’m going to have to actually do the job. Which I’ve never done before, so I don’t even know if I’m any good at what I do.’

Trying to adapt to the new situation actually started to make her head hurt a little. She rubbed her forehead still possessing all the information. ‘I need my computer...it should have something.’ Fortunately, she was at her desk, but with Shigeki still hanging around, it was going to make it difficult. “When did they reschedule the meeting to?”

He looked away trying to recall it before snapping back. “10am tomorrow.”

‘Damn...that’s not a lot of time...this wasn’t the sort of difficulty I was expecting.’ Yumi tried to formulate a plan together for how she was going to organize the rest of her day. The computer lock screen told her it was ten to noon now, giving her most of a day to prepare. ‘I need to find the last personality too...suddenly I miss being a child in Aya’s world and not having responsibilities. I’m technically not even an adult in the real world…’ Thinking of technicalities just made the growing headache worse.

She finished the water and handed it back to the young man. “Thank you. I think I need a little time to rest and get my thoughts in order.”

“Oh yes! Of course, I’m so sorry. Please don’t let me interrupt you, Miss Mizuno.”

Nodding to him, she politely smiled as he returned to his desk, which was around the other side of their eight desks. It looked more likely that he was indeed part of the same team, whatever that happened to be. ‘Mizuno…’

She looked around for a purse and found it in a file cabinet on her left and dug around its contents. In about ten minutes, she put together a pretty solid picture of things for her own life. She was an adult version of herself, which she had already lived with before so that had some comfort. She was twenty-four years old and working for Minabuchi.

An internet search on her phone revealed that it was a fictional company that had their hands in a few different things with branches around Japan. They were in publishing, music, marketing and even toys. As a diverse company, they had a lot of clients that they dealt with on a daily basis. It wasn’t a massive corporation, but they were successful and working for them paid well and provided a good look on resumes. Yumi wasn’t sure what she did to be able to work for such a company, if she was herself, but clearly she was an alternative version.

Even though she was indeed the same person physically, that didn’t mean that their history was shared. She knew nothing about her time before the company or even arriving at the company for that matter. So she couldn’t even be sure that she was from the same high school and knew Yuki and the others. Given that she had the same name and face, that meant finding them would be easier than before. But she had no pictures of them, given her cause to believe that they were all strangers by this world’s view.

At a later point, she would have to try to search for them on the internet and hope that they could be found. But she didn’t hold out for that to be the case. They probably made it intentionally difficult for her to locate her friends. In Masa’s world they were scattered pretty far apart, but being a modern Japan distance was less of an issue. So they could put them even further away if they wanted. Hopefully, still in Japan she prayed.

Yumi looked around seeing everyone starting to get up. ‘Lunch time, probably a good time to get some information. One thing first though…’ She spammed a bunch of failed passwords into her computer to get it locked out. Then she opened her phone and sent an email to the IT department asking for them to reset her password. ‘Now I can use my PC when I get back…’

She stood up and looked over the cubicle to Shigeki. “Mr. Shigeki, you taking a lunch?”

“Miss Mizuno?! You’re asking me?”

“That’s right. That strange?”

“N-no, not at all.”

“Anyone else going? I’m hoping some fresh air will improve my head.” Yumi hoped it would be a good chance to meet more of her co-workers and get a little better sense of what she could expect. There were still too many blanks and she had so little time to put together a plan.

The man looked a little nervous about what Yumi suggested. ‘Wish I had Aya’s talent to instinctively read people. Would have known he was a bad pick for that. But now I know…’ She walked around the desks and picked up his hand. “It’s fine, it’s just lunch. I’ll handle it.” Turning around, she looked in the general direction of those nearby that were still lingering. “Anyone want to join us for lunch?”

He reached out reflexively to Yumi, still shaking in his hand. “W-what are you doing?”

“I think that was pretty clear. Nothing to be scared about, we all work together.”

“...y-yes…”

She got a few to accept her invitation and they all went out to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. On her right immediately sat Masao Fuse and on the end to him Shigeki, clearly uncomfortable in the group. To her left was Nana Kimura and Satoru Makuda. It was a simple lunch, but as she had learned from her time with Aya, meals were a great time to learn about people and get information.

In the first half of the lunch, she was able to figure out that none of them other than Shigeki was part of her team. She seemed to be part of a four person team, though not necessarily all working on the same thing. And as she had guessed, they were in the marketing department. Each of them had different clients and sections that they worked for. Nana and Satoru worked together on the music division for a small label within the company that supports more indie bands and stars. While Masao was on another team as well working social media providing strategies to companies.

Little could be gained from what she did, since that required her to be part of the conversation, but hints seemed to indicate that they were sort of a wild card. They got different jobs filling for things that came in hot and needed fast turn arounds, a team of problem solvers for crises. Which explained the fast rescheduling of the meeting. And only made it more difficult for her because she was supposed to excel. ‘I guess I did earn the title Hero of Miracles...though I had a whole childhood and time to develop those talents. I’ve got to be a problem solver overnight. Hopefully I left notes for myself, since this first matter was already solved.’

Fitting into the group went well, though she saw that Shigeki still sat quietly on the end just picking sushi off the belt and not adding to the conversation. Yumi stood up and walked around to sit next to him. “Hey, you’re being pretty quiet.”

“Miss Mizuno!”

“You see me everyday, no need to be so nervous.” He had a lot of trouble looking at her directly no matter what she tried. If she had been Aya, she could have captured him immediately, though Aya’s methods didn’t really set well with her. They certainly produced results, she couldn’t deny that and it made her envious, but it also felt like she was preying on the weakness and exposing the shallowness of people. It gave a bad taste in her mouth. Aya’s world or not, she hadn’t hardened her heart so much that she felt nothing taking such actions.

Watching him nervously shift in his seat felt a little oddly nostalgic. ‘That used to be me…’ She hid her smile as he wouldn’t understand. Though it troubled her that an adult would be getting so nervous. ‘I guess anyone can be, but how’d someone like this get a job doing what he’s doing? I get a feeling he’s not the one that presents. Maybe he’s the brains of the team?’ It certainly takes all types. He was hired for a reason and on the team, too. She was curious, though digging into him could also not be a good route to follow on day one.

It was then that Masao interjected a little boisterously, having seen Yumi trying to work on Shigeki. “Oh don’t worry about him. He’s always been like that since I’ve known him.”

“I’d like everyone to feel comfortable.”

“That’s where you’re going to run into a problem, Mizuno.”

Now Masao had her curiosity as he clearly knew more about the young man. Even a little light murmur and chuckle from the other confirmed that they all knew something that she didn’t. And it was hard to know if she knew it as well before she stepped into these shoes. “What are you trying to say?”

“It’s obvious. We all know.”

She crossed her arms, not likely the tone that she started to get from him. “Clearly…”

“You’re a woman.”

“That obvious?” she replied sarcastically to him. It was more annoying the way he said it that she even said anything rather than staying quiet. But Yumi looked back at Shigeki and knew what Masao was trying to say. ‘That’s going to be a problem...I can’t have him being uneasy around me if we need to work together. How did I make it work before?’

Yumi sat back down next to Shigeki needing to think about how to solve the new problem that she had. “It’s not staying that way. We’ve worked together. But I’ll do what I can to make you feel more at ease with me.”

“Good luck! Rumors say it was Miki Tomori that turned him into that. And if that’s true, you’re going to need all the help you can get fixing that problem.”

‘Miki Tomori? Who’s that?’ The tone Masao delivered it in and the way the others reacted, they all knew her and seemed to have some sort of fear or unsettled feeling about them. Yumi had a hard time sorting out what she was picking up from them. They had some sort of odd respect or reverence, but also disdain. It was a very complicated set of emotions that she picked up. But she could see the sweat growing on Shigeki. ‘The way they’re all acting seems like this Miki Tomori’s in charge or holds something over them. There’s an importance to the way they talk about her. I haven’t found my fourth personality already have I? I need to investigate soon…’