4 years ago.Nathan, 20 years old.
The Falsus Network, Latif City, Muwin.
"s.h.i.t! s.h.i.t! s.h.i.t!"
Nathan was running on a hallway of an office building.
This was his first day as an intern for his college credit and was supposed to be at the office before 9:00 am.
Unfortunately, although he woke up earlier than usual when he goes to school, he wasn"t expecting the way in going to this office building would be so traffic.
Right now he was on his way to the room where all the new interns gather.
He checked his watch.
9:11 am.
"Dammit."
Kacha!
Bam!
"Ahh!"
While he was looking at his watch, a man suddenly exited a room while rubbing his nose and violently sniffling.
Thud!
The man Nathan b.u.mped into was a very skinny man, about 5"8" tall, in his late 20s, and was wearing a business suit.
Due to Nathan"s height and size, when he b.u.mped him, the man was sent flying and landed a few feet away.
Nathan immediately went over to the man to apologize and help him get up.
"I"m very sorry, sir. I didn"t mean it. I mean, I didn"t notice you stan–"
The skinny man slapped Nathan"s hand away in annoyance.
"YOU LITTLE PUNK! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF ME!"
Nathan immediately backed away and apologized once more.
"I"m very sorry, sir, but I have to go. I have an appointment and I"m very late. Again, I"m very sorry for b.u.mping into you."
Nathan left the skinny man and headed to the room where the new interns are gathered.
"This is not looking good. Please G.o.d, don"t give me any more problems."
When he finally found the room, he let out a deep sigh of relief.
The door was opened and there were about 11 people inside who looked like close his age and were all in business attire just like him.
But most importantly, it looked like they haven"t started yet because some were just casually chatting with each other, while others were on their phones.
Nathan looked for a seat.
When he sat down, he pulled out his phone and saw a text from his girlfriend, Karen.
[Good luck on your first day, sweetie! xoxo]
He replied.
[Thanks, sweetie. I"ll see you later. xoxo]
He also checked the other messages. One was from Vincent.
[Don"t forget about the party this Sat.u.r.day at 7:00 pm! It"s a VERY important day so be sure to be there! Reply ASAP once you read this text. Also, good luck on your first day as an intern!]
Nathan rolled his eyes.
"Not another party."
It"s been 4 years now since Vincent and Nikki dated.
Ever since Vincent went to college, he got obsessed with throwing parties which basically just ends in two ways: drinking till you drop or hooking up with a girl, gone was the well-mannered Vincent he used to know before college.
But despite Vincent"s drinking and promiscuous nature (Nikki as well), they still stayed together. How and why? Nathan doesn"t have a clue. But every week or so, they always get into a heated argument and sometimes it could get violent.
Nathan and Karen also had their arguments, but it wasn"t as grand compared to Vincent and Nikki"s.
There was another text as well. It was from his mother.
[Your father and I are wishing you the best. Good luck on your first day.]
Reading the text, Nathan squinted his eyes.
"Gather around, people! I"m not in a good mood today!"
A man said as he entered the room.
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Nathan quickly put his phone inside his pocket and looked at the man, only to be surprised that it was the man he b.u.mped into earlier.
The man immediately saw Nathan and noticed the surprised expression on his face.
The man sneered before pulling away his gaze.
"My name is Donny Falsus. Yup, you heard me. My last name is Falsus. I"m the grandson of the CEO of this company."
Donny was one of the grandchildren of the CEO. But what makes him very special among the other grandchildren was that he was the black sheep of the family. In the office, he was known to be a creep and likes to bully the employees, especially the interns.
Looking at the skinny man named Donny who just revealed that he was the grandson of the CEO and was grinning ear-to-ear as he swept his gaze on the new interns, Nathan"s expression darkened.
Occasionally, Donny"s eyes would pause between the women"s legs and chests and lick his lips, making everyone in the room skin crawl.
"f.u.c.k!" Nathan could only curse inside his heart and a series of thoughts started running inside his head.
Finally, Donny was done ogling the women.
"Group yourselves into 3 groups. I will be a.s.signing you your tasks."
"Hey man. Wanna group?"
Nathan who was still in deep thought was shaken back to reality by a male voice.
He turned towards the direction where the voice was coming from.
"What?"
It was a man with an average body and face with pimple scars and brown skin.
"Wanna group?"
"Oh… Yeah, sure. Nathan."
Nathan offered his hand.
"Xander."
Xander reached out and shook Nathan"s hand.
"You guys looking for groupmates?"
This time, it was a female voice.
Nathan and Xander looked at the female.
It was a slim and beautiful woman with short black hair and gla.s.ses. She had white skin, light makeup with red lips and was wearing a white blouse that slightly reveals her cleavage, a black pencil skirt, and heels.
Beside her was a chubby white-skinned and average-looking woman with heavy makeup.
"Yeah, wanna group up?" Xander asked.
"Yeah, I"m Stacy and this is Mary. Pleased to meet you."
"h.e.l.lo," said Mary.
"I"m Xander. This is Nathan. Pleased to meet you as well."
"Hi," said Nathan.
Stacy approached Nathan.
"You look very familiar. Have we met before?" asked Stacy.
Nathan"s brows knitted together, trying to remember if he knew this woman.
"I"m sorry, but I don"t think so."
"I work out at the gym on Slick St. The one on the second floor."
"Oh… Yeah, yeah. I work out there as well."
"We"re gym buddies."
Stacy lightly touched his arm and smiled sweetly.
"Yeah," Nathan replied with a flat tone. Clearly he wasn"t moved by her touch.
In terms of looks, this Stacy was indeed beautiful than his girlfriend. But that didn"t mean anything to him for he had no emotional attachment to her.
There was a reason why Stacy was befriending Nathan. She was one of the women that Donny ogled. As a beautiful woman herself, she experienced many stares similar to that in her life.
Seeing Nathan who had the best physique in this room, she was hoping that he would white knight for her in case Donny will attempt to do something creepy to her.
"Okay, follow me. I will be a.s.signing you to your stations," said Donny and went out of the room.
Everyone followed suit.
***
Nathan and his group were a.s.signed to the station that covers technology topics.
The main editor"s a.s.sistant at the technology section immediately a.s.signed them tasks.
Nathan was in charge of writing the body, Xander for related sources, Mary for pictures that can be used, and Stacy to do the final checking before printing and submitting it to the a.s.sistant of the editor.
Nathan was finally done writing the body.
"Stacy, I sent the file to the email."
"Okay. Checking now."
A few minutes later.
"Everything looks good. Great job, Nathan. I"m going to print it now and submit it."
"Thanks. But it"s all thanks to our combined efforts."
"Mr. Humble, eh~" Xander teased on the side.
Nathan chuckled and shook his head. "It"s a group effort."
"I"m going to submit it now."
Stacy was done printing the piece and went to the a.s.sistant"s editor to submit.
"I feel nervous~" Mary said on the side as she rubbed her hands together.
"Don"t be. But this is really weird, man. They had us 4 work on one article. I was expecting for the each of us to write our own articles. Last night, I stayed up late reading a bunch of the latest news about tech, sports, politics and entertainment just to prepare," Xander said helplessly.
Hearing Xander, Nathan thought about what he did last night as well.
"Last night I was reading light novels before going to bed…"
Stacy came back with her head down and clasping her hands. Beside her was the editor who was a fat man with disheveled hair in his early 40s.
On the editor"s hands was the piece of paper that Stacy printed earlier.
"Who"s the idiot that wrote this piece of c.r.a.p?" the editor growled.
Nathan, Xander and Mary looked at the editor.
"Are you guys also deaf?! I asked, WHO WAS THE IDIOT THAT WROTE THIS PIECE OF c.r.a.p?!"
"Sir, I wrote the body," Nathan said and raised his hand.
"We all wrote the paper, sir," Xander said.
The editor looked at Nathan.
"SO YOU"RE THE IDIOT WHO WROTE THIS PIECE OF c.r.a.p!"
Nathan frowned for a quick moment and immediately loosen his facial muscles.
All of a sudden, Donny entered the technology section office.
"I was just pa.s.sing by and I heard someone shouting. What"s going on here?"
"Sir Donny, we meet again. I was just asking these new interns who wrote this piece. It looks like we got another idiot that got hired," said the editor.
"Let me take a look at that paper."
The editor pa.s.sed the paper to Donny.
Donny just glanced at the article for a moment and immediately shook his head before looking at Nathan with contempt.
"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Are you really a graduating student? A kindergarten can write better than this. What college are you from? No, don"t answer that. I"m sure you"re just from one of those cheap nameless colleges that let anyone pa.s.s so there"s no point in answering."
Nathan clenched his fists and quickly unclenched them.
"I"m sorry, sir," said Nathan with an apologetic face.
Donny shook his head again pa.s.sed the paper to the editor.
"I"m very sorry that you have to deal with people like this. I will be sure to file a complaint at the management to make sure that the company will be stricter in choosing who to allow to intern in our company. If we keep allowing people like him to intern here, the quality of work here in our company would drop."
"Thank you very much, sir. That really means a lot to us," the editor said to Donny with a very grateful and dramatic expression.
While Nathan was looking at these two clowns in front of him and still holding an apologetic expression, he was imagining how easy it was for him to brutally beat the s.h.i.t out of them.
On his head, he was breaking their knees and elbows one by one, taking his sweet time and smiling as they begged for mercy. After that, he would gouge their eyes out and rip off their tongues and ears as they squealed like pigs and begged him to kill them. However, he won"t kill them because that would be an act of mercy.
But of course, this scene inside his head will only remain as a fantasy and nothing more.
As a person, despite being a self-proclaimed lone wolf, by the end of the day, he still had to remain "civil" if he wants to be part of society and enjoy its benefits. He had no desire to go to jail and spend the rest of his life there or face the death penalty.
"Okay, that will be all. I will be going now. I still have other matters to attend to," said Donny.
"Certainly, sir. Sorry for bothering you. Please keep up the good work and have a good day, sir."
Before Donny left, he looked at Nathan one last time and sneered.
When Donny finally left, the editor looked at Nathan and threw the paper to him.
"Rewrite this piece of c.r.a.p right away! We can"t publish this kind of c.r.a.p in our company!"
"Yes, sir. I"m very sorry, sir."
Nathan"s emotions were still running wild inside but he still kept an apologetic expression.
Regardless of whether the article he wrote was of poor quality or not, this kind of treatment was just too much.
As for that lousy performance that Donny and the editor did, only a fool would believe that this wasn"t a setup.
Everyone in the technology section office was looking at Nathan.
Some felt bad for him, some indifferent, while the others were sneering.
As for his groupmates, only Xander and Mary felt sorry for him.
Stacy, on the other hand, was looking at him as someone she regretted grouping up with.
"So this is real-world office politics…" Nathan thought inside his heart.
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