Arriving early at the office, she prepared for the board meeting. Shuffling through documents, she had prepared her report in both English and Japanese. This was a good year for the company. Profits rose 14%. Despite the good news she has for the company board members, she can’t force herself to smile. She’s going to see that man again. Even if she’ll be seeing him through a video monitor, she can’t stand to see that man’s face, she hates seeing him. That man, her father. She hates him.
“Yoshiko?”
Her thoughts were interrupted by a friendly voice.
“Oh, Ayaka. Good morning.”
“Good morning. You’re here early”
“Yeah. I need to prepare for the meeting” she lied.
“Well, you seem pretty anxious… considering the fact that you have 4 more hours before the meeting starts and you’ll be delivering good news to the board”
“I just didn’t get enough sleep last night… and I want to make sure everything’s ready” She returned to her work, hoping to end this conversation.
Getting her cue, Ayaka started preparing the conference room and the satellite connection for the video conference. They have board members all over the world Tokyo, New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Strangely, her father moved the main office to Makati, Philippines just before passing the title Officer-in-Charge to her.
After the move and her promotion, the company grew incredibly well. The cost of living was unbelievably cheap here and the bureaucracy isn’t as tight as in other, bigger cities. It was not a bad choice, just a strange one. Was it to separate Hitomi from her younger brothers? Seems so.
She reviewed the projected sales for the coming quarter. The world economy’s having bad times again but the Philippines-based board is optimistic that the company will pull through the next quarter.
She also noticed some irregularities in the Hong Kong office. She wrote a note to remind her to bring it up later. There are plans for a merger between Yoshizawa Aviation Corp. (Y. Avicor) and Matsuura Motors. The cost of building planes is ballooning and competition is tough. Rolls Royce plc increased their prices of aircraft engines and it’s getting hard to deal with them from here. This merger is crucial to the development of Avicor so irregularities are a no-no. Y Records, Yoshizawa Publishing Company(PubCom), Y Fashion are all doing great. The plagiarism lawsuit against Y Records and libel suit against PubCom were dismissed and Y Fashion released a new collection for the season.
*Ring*
“Yoshiko, the almost all important board members are here, be ready in five minutes.” Mai said through the intercom.
“Hai. Thank you, Mai”
Hitomi made her way to the conference hall. Hmm... almost all...
Ayaka was at the door, waiting for her. She hesitantly opened the door “Yoshiko… good luck”
Opening the doors to the room revealed a big surprise.