Commerce and Trade

Nobu Tano walked into the Tension offices feeling both confused and apathetic at the same time. Was that even possible? Maybe a better question would be, why the hell was Nobu of all people paying a visit to the offices? With his t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, he didn’t exactly fit in even at a glance.

Well, the answer had come that morning in the form of a strange email he’d received. There were a lot of weird terms and jargon in there that went right over his head. But the general gist was: “Problematic situation with your contract, come to the office asap to resolve.” So here he was. Nobu had no clue what this “problematic situation” was, but he was cautiously optimistic. It wasn’t like he’d done anything wrong... Not as far as he knew, anyway.

Marching up to the reception desk with a friendly smile, he extended a hand to the secretary. “Hi there! I’m Nobu Tano. I believe I have an appointment with...someone?”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Tano,” the response came with a smile sent right back his way. “I believe you--AAGHHHH!!!” she suddenly shrieked out and jolted back right after she shook Nobu’s hand, only to be shocked by a buzzer deviously hidden in his palm. Her friendly demeanor quickly turned into a menacing scowl, while Nobu was just laughing his ass off on the other side of the desk.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Oh, man you should’ve seen the look on your face!”

Clearly she wasn’t amused, but Nobu didn’t even seem to care. The agitated secretary waited a few moments for his laughter to die down, glaring a hole through his head the entire time, before finally speaking again. Through grit teeth. As if she was strongly fighting the urge to say something very unprofessional.

“Please take a seat. I’ll let you know when she’s ready to see you.”

“When who’s ready?” Nobu asked, but no response was given. The secretary went back to looking at her computer and furiously typing away at the keyboard, now completely ignoring him. He could tell he wasn’t going to get anything more out of her, so he just walked over to a chair off to the side, sat down, then got his phone out, deciding to kill some time with a few games while he waited.

Chloe Antoinette Hollister was gunning for her big promotion but it wasn't coming along quick enough and so she remained Head of Financial Advisory for the foreign AFW contractors that seemed to love their flimsy employment. Chloe felt confidence in her job security but for this cute boy named Nobu Tano, she couldn't really say his situation was going to be exactly any good.

She arranged the meeting but made sure to give herself an extra fifteen minutes so she could finish a Yaoi match she had playing on the AFW Network, something that got her quite hot and bothered, but she made sure to behave all the same, especially while she was at work. Not that it had ever stopped her before.

She was having a hard time enjoying her me time though with all the racket going on outside. She paused her video and scrunched up her nose as she heard yelling and laughing.

"Auh! I can't enjoy my match if they're gonna be loud!" Chloe complained as she begrungdily picked up the phone and called for Nobu, might as well since she couldn't get into her match. There was a lack of buttfucking anyway.

"Kirino, send him in!" She said before gathering his file and setting on her desk, waiting for this young gun to enter her office.

Spoiler:

Fortunately for Nobu, his somewhat awkward wait in the lobby didn’t last very long. He’d sat down and started to play Angry Birds on his phone. The game itself almost felt ancient, but it still entertained him, though he’d only just managed to clear this particular level when a voice called out from within the office and grabbed his attention.

“You can go in. She’s ready to see you now,” Kirino said, as if she suspected Nobu was incapable of understanding it the first time. Probably still mad about the little prank he’d pulled...which reminded him. Probably best to not do anything else like that with...whoever he was about to see. Getting a good laugh at a secretary’s expense was one thing, but he didn’t quite feel like getting himself fired today.

So he put away his hand buzzer, turned off his game, then stood up and went to the office door and pushed it open. “Uuuhh, hello?” he said, peaking his head in through the door for a moment before entering the room completely and closing the door behind him. Quickly he noticed the woman who’d called for him today. And as he approached and got a closer look, he couldn’t help but notice she was kinda cute.

“Hey, uh.... How’s it going?” he asked with the friendliest looking smile he could put on. Still unaware who he exactly was dealing with or what it was even about, Nobu still didn’t really know what to expect or how to go about any of this. Hopefully the red haired cutie would shed some light on everything soon enough.

Now she could get behind this! Chloe had a very subtle way of checking out boys (When she wanted to be subtle) and this Nobu was a hottie. Tight bod obviously, clean blue hair and tall enough. She licked her lips just faintly before extending out her hand to the boy only to feel a tick go off in her head about his greeting.

Did he always greet pretty girls like they were just one of his friends? Shameful.

"Mr. Tano!" She said. "It's good to finally meet you, Im glad you were on time for our meeting, please have a seat." She said before looming over her table, the glare in her glasses hiding her eyes.

"I won't beat around the bush, Mr. Tano. I called you here because, like, well... You recently lost your last match against who isn't even officially a competitor for Tension." Chloe said very seriously before pulling down her glasses a bit to look Nobu in the eye.

"In other words.... Your contract is under re-negotiation."

Nobu took a seat in a chair in front of Chloe’s desk. This chick seemed friendly enough, and nothing about her tone suggested there was anything to worry about. But still, something seemed....off.

Sure enough, Chloe got right to business and laid it all out, and Nobu burst right out of his chair.

“Whoa whoa whoa! Timeout! Re-negotiation?! Come on, you can’t be serious, right?!” he said in clear dismay and disbelief.

Patty, that little witch... Embarrassing as that defeat had been, Nobu thought he’d endured the worst of it. Surely people would forget about it soon, if they hadn’t already. And if they didn’t, a few excuses and white lies would-- Wait, maybe that’s what he needed to try here! Seemed worth a shot, at least.

“Look, look,” he said, forcing himself to calm down and smile, hoping the change in tone would make Chloe buy the act. “Obviously I let her win, that’s all. It was all just a bit of fun to give the fans something different! And did you see how high the match was trending on social media?” he said, then sat back down. Nothing but confidence on the outside, 100% nervous on the inside.

“Re-negotiation seems a bit much for all that, don’t you think?”

Chloe was about to lift her notes when Nobu started freaking about. She gave him a dry look and lowered her head to stare at him over her glasses to show him that she was Dead serious before scrunching her nose and pushing up her glasses.

Chloe was already prepared for a freakout so she casually took a sip of her Starbucks before setting it down, looking at Nobu before turning her computer monitor 180 degrees to show him a graph chart with one line saying 'Popularity' going in a very positive direction while 'Value' took a very bad dip.

"Mr. Tano. While it is VERY true the match was trending on social media, the only one who really got a boost was Ms. O'Mally for beating a trained athlete." She smiled and leaned back in her chair.

"You're certainty very popular now but your value to investors has... Dipped.... Here, let me explain!" Chloe was a bit nervous at first about breaking this to him before she remembered her planning and decided to dig into her desk before pulling out a Killer King action figure!

"This is Killer King... Say hello, Mr. Tano." She said with a bright smile as she tilted her head while making the toy King flex.

Shit, shit shit! Nobu thought to himself as Chloe shot down his argument.

The chart looked legit, and there wasn’t any fault in her logic he could find and twist in his favor. Second by second the confident front he’d put up was being chipped away. More and more his nervousness was becoming apparent in his face and eyes.

Ok, so people who help fund the company are not so stoked on him. That’s pretty bad news. Horrible, in fact. The re-negotiation of his contract Chloe mentioned could mean anything from a significant pay cut to him outright being released, neither of which were remotely appealing.

When Chloe went into her desk to get something to help her explain the situation, he was expecting another graph, chart or some other kind of document. Needless to say he was surprised and a little confused when when Chloe instead showed him a Killer King action figure....the fact that they even made action figures for this guy was baffling in and of itself.

“Uh...hi?” he said to the toy. It felt a little silly, but in his position it seemed staying on Chloe’s good side was the smartest thing he could do. Better to just cooperate.

As soon as Nobu said 'Hi'. Chloe suddenly made the beast flex while she began to talk in a very cartoon, deep voice.

"Raaarh! Quiet! I eat you! I fuck you! Rrrrhh!!" She suddenly cried out as she made the arms of the toy flex while shaking it forward and back to mimic his 'speech' before Chloe realized what she doing and laughed.

"Ohh sorry! Got a little carried away with my inner thoughts! Anyway... Killer King here is very marketable. Even though he's a bad guy his merchandise does quite well. Although his opponent's are often jobbers, his constant success rate allows our investors to happily get on board with our company knowing we have wrestlers that we can constantly push and are going to thrive in the company whether they win or lose. Although, winning certainly helps.... Chloe said before realizing her information might have gone over the boy's head... So just in case...

"We market jobbers. Our business is sex and competition and being a jobber is certainly..." She took another look at Nobu and grinned deviously. "Lewd, But you're gonna need more now. You gotta have a fire in you! OR else!" She warned as she suddenly reached over the table and grasped the boy's collar.

"You could take.... The dreaded... P-Paycut!"

Nobu’s confusion only heightened as he watched Chloe play with the Killer King action figure, but once she got back on track and started to explain her point, things started making sense. Err, sort of. He didn’t know much about the business side of things, especially the part about investors and such. But then one magic word, one dreaded word, put everything into perspective as Chloe reached across the table and grabbed onto his collar.

“Paycut.”

Immediately Nobu’s eyes shot open as if he’d seen a ghost. He burst out of his chair and in the blink of an eye the boy had dashed around the table and dropped to his knees in front of Chloe with his hands clasped together in front of him.

“NONONONONO!!!! PLEASE, DON’T DOCK MY PAY! I’ll fight anyone! I’ll do anything! ANYTHING!” he begged frantically. Fortunately he hadn’t seen any cameras in the room when he came in. So as far as he knew, no one else was seeing this pathetic display.

Seeing Nobu suddenly run over to her and drop to his knees, pleading with his hands clasped, Chloe was quite surprised, blinking repeatedly before she raised a hand to her mouth to cover up her wide grin and flush red cheeks as she tilted her her back and crossed her stocking covered legs, a glare appearing on her glasses as her eyes were soon hidden.

"Annyyyything~?" The woman asked with a catty purr in her voice.