A Fine Line (Chapter 1)
Title: A Fine Line
Pairing: Sakumiya
Word count: 3710 words
Rating: PG
Length: Chaptered Series
Disclaimer: So far I only own two photosets of Sho and a set of Arashi playing cards. I wish I'd own Arashi, but no. I don't. ._.
Summary: Sakurai Sho and Ninomiya Kazunari are rivals as neighbours and as work colleagues. As time wears on, the line between love and hate grows thinner and thinner...
Author Notes: I AM BACK, GUYS~ I FINISHED MY EXAMS~ *tosses flowers* I have missed writing fanfics so much! TT^TT Okay, I still have ONE paper (because the University of London did not provide us Statistical Tables the first time, I'm re-sitting a Statistics paper. Grrr.) But until then, here's a new Sakumiya fic from me~
Chapter 1: Polar Opposites
Presently, Sho frowned as he looked at the man sitting beside him, unable to believe his bad luck.
"Of every single job that HE could go for," he thought as he looked away and glanced back at an equally-annoyed Ninomiya Kazunari, "why did he end up going for the same one as me?!"
Nino rolled his eyes and looked at him. "It's not like I wanted to be in the same assessment centre as you."
"That should be my line!" Sho argued, "why the hell are you here anyway?"
"For the same reason as you. To get a fricking job."
"You know what I mean!"
"I do not! Leave me alone!"
"Excuse me, gentlemen," a cold female voice interrupted them. The two men turned to see a strict-looking woman with a clipboard in hand.
"Ninomiya Kazunari.. and Sakurai Sho?" she asked as she checked them on her clipboard, "follow me."
The two men followed her, stopping in front of the door to the assessment centre, turning to face each other.
"Well. Best of luck," Sho said coldly, holding out his hand.
Nino smirked and took his hand, shaking it. "You might need it instead."
The doors swing open.
**Two weeks ago**
In a small central city near the central business district of Tokyo, the sun shone brightly on a peaceful morning as Sakurai Sho carried up more of his boxes and set it down beside an towering pile of magazines and newspapers. Standing up, he looked around his new apartment.
Well... his somewhat new apartment.
...
Make it a not-so-new apartment.
"This is what happens when you go on a strict budget after graduation and you skimp on security deposits," Sho mumbled as he cast a disdainful look at a greyish patches in one corner of his bedroom. Making a mental note to have that checked by the landlord, he returned to the moving truck, thanking the movers as he carried the last box up. Just then, the peace of the morning was broken when the door beside his apartment burst open and a man hurried out, his shoes half-on and tie half-done.
"Out of my way!" the man yelled as he sprinted out, bumping into Sho and knocking him and the box to the ground. Sho glared at the neighbour furiously.
"Hey, what the hell?! Those are fragile, you know that?!" he argued.
The man, of a smaller built and with a small mole on the side of his right chin, glared stubbornly back.
"I warned you to get out of the way! You were too slow!" he rebutted.
"You could have been more polite, you know!"
"And you are blaming me for your ow- oh forget it. NO TIME!" he grumbled aloud in frustration as he fixed his uniform and dashed down.
"OI!" Sho yelled after the running man, "IF ANYTHING OF MINE IS BROKEN, YOU ARE PAYING ME! YOU HEAR?!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Just my luck," Ninomiya Kazunari muttered as he rushed to work, "first I'm late for work and then I made a new neighbour mad at me. Damn it!" into a small office in the neighbourhood. He looked to see his boss giving him the evil eye.
"Late AGAIN, Ninomiya?" his boss sneered. Nino sighed.
"I'm sorry," Nino apologised, "I won't be late again."
"Says someone who has been late for more than three times," the boss said sternly, "this isn't like your college days when you can be late and get away with it, young man. Take some responsibility for your work, will you?!"
Nino made no reply.
"I know that you produce good work yourself. And it is such a pity that I have to fire you. But consistent late-coming is indeed serious, and you have to understand that. I'm sorry." the boss said.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
After polishing off microwaved convenience food, Sho opened the box and looked at his computer, laptop and essential oil burner. "Thank God," he mumbled, "if any of these were broken, I'd throttle that idiot." He gave himself a small pat on the shoulder for wrapping everything in at least 10 sheets of newspapers and started unravelling them.
Just then he heard some jerking on the doorknob of his home. He took a deep breath and wielded himself with a broomstick. He opened the door, only to see a drunk man stumble in and fall onto his door step.
"Oi! Who are you?! Are you okay?!" Sho asked as he shook the man who lay face-down on the entranceway of his home. He managed to flip the man over, and his eyes widened in shock.
"You!" he yelled, "you are the idiot who bumped into me and my things just now!"
The drunken man seemed to understand him because he gave a drunken grin and held out his hand.
"Ninomiya Kazunari~ I'm living next doooor~" he sang as he stood up and staggered, "next door to a reaaaally reaally clumsy and slow neighbour~"
Sho could feel a nerve twitch in his head.
"And his cheeks look sooooo fat~"
Sho inhaled deeply, trying not to feel like punching the drunk neighbour's head to make him sober up. He forcefully grabbed the man's arm and dragged him out, bringing him to the landlady, who was a friendly woman in her fifties.
"Mrs. Takamoto! I have problem with this neighbour- he just stumbled in on my house, drunk!" Sho complained.
"Oh! Oh dear dear dear, Ninomiya-san! I'll bring the keys to his apartment immediately," she said, hurrying to the keys cabinet inside her house.
"Thank you, Takamoto-san~" Nino slurred beside Sho, "you look younger and younger everyday~" he then turned to look at Sho, who gave him a warning glare.
"Takamoto-san~" Nino continued, pleading with feigned fear, "hurry before this scary scary man glares me to death!"
"Oh, enough, Ninomiya-san!" the landlady dismissed with a reddening face as she guided the two men up to Nino's apartment. The second she opened the door, Nino stumbled into his apartment.
Sho had no idea whether he should call it an apartment or a rubbish bin.
"Oh my! What is this?" the landlady exclaimed in surprise as they helped him to his bed in his messy bedroom. Sho winced as he looked around. Manga and porn magazines lay scattered over the floor with some bottles of beer and some empty noodle cups.
"This guy doesn't like to clean, huh?" Sho mumbled.
"I think he should be fine. He knows that I have aspirin if he needs it." she replied, "let's leave him to rest for the night."
When they left Nino's apartment, Sho looked at the landlady. "Is he always like this?"
"No, not all the time. But every once in a while he goes all out," the landlady says with a smile, "but he can be helpful when he wants to be."
"Not the way I see it," Sho thought as he pursed his lips and nodded.
"I'm sorry you had to see that on the very day you moved in. Please rest for tonight. There's plenty of time to meet the others. I think you might like the rest of the neighbours here."
Sho smiled politely and nodded, thanking the landlady before entering his new home.
That night, Sho laid on his bed, giving a deep sigh. Meeting a rude neighbour on the first day he moved in was the least of his expectations.
"And he got drunk the same day too," Sho huffed, grumbling silently to no one as he tossed over in his bed and slept, trying to regain as much energy as he could to unpack and clean the next day.
** One week ago **
Sho smiled confidently to himself as he made himself some instant coffee and emailed his resumes out to different companies. Being an Economics graduate from Keio University has its perks, he thought as he surfed through the job search engines. Just then, an email came for him.
"Matsumoto Corporations... Hmm I applied for this one before I moved. How was it?" he mumbled as he clicked on the message.
"Hello, Sakurai Sho,
Thanks for your application to Matsumoto Corporations. We were impressed by your background and resume and would like to invite you to interview at our office to tell you a little more about the position and get to know you better.
Please let me know which of the following times work for you, and I can send over a confirmation and details..."
"Phew! I'm almost clear!" Sho thought as he started to read up on interview tips and possible interview questions.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Just next door to him, Nino looked online at the job search sites, hoping that his degree in accounting and his job experience might help. Well... it would if he could find a way to wake up early consistently. While he had indeed produced good work for his previous jobs, his habit of sleeping late (undoubtedly because of his gaming) often gets him in trouble with his bosses, making his jobs last for no more than one year. He laid back down on his bed and looked at the Nintendo Wii console that stayed running for the past 24 hours.
"Not that I have anyone else to blame anyway," Nino thought as he nonchalantly picked up the Wii remote readying himself for another gaming marathon, "but for now.. let's go, Mario."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
That night, Sho tossed and turned in his bedroom for the umpteenth time that week. For a long while he had always thought that noisy neighbours are common and could be put up with, but gaming until the wee hours of 3am in the morning?! Sho plucked up his courage and marched out of the apartment, heading for the neighbour's house. He gave a knock on the door.
No answer.
He knocked a little harder this time.
No answer again.
He fisted his hand and banged it against the door. He heard a loud swear, some stumbling around on the floor and then the door clicked open, swinging aside to reveal Nino who looked very VERY annoyed.
"What may be the reason that you had to interrupt me in the middle of my game?"
"The reason," Sho reasoned calmly, "is that it is 3 in the morning and people are trying to sleep."
"I don't see the rest of the neighbours complaining," Nino answered.
"Because that was before I moved in! And now that I'm next door, I would appreciate it very much if you could just turn the volume down!"
"Well when you did not say anything for the past week, I took it that you did not mind."
"Well I do mind after all, so will you please turn it down?"
Nino gave a thoughtful look and nodded.
"Goodnight, I'll see what I can do," he said and closed the door. Sho heaved a sigh of relief as he returned to his home.
"Ahh... I guess he ain't that bad after all if he could listen..." Sho thought as he snuggled down under the covers.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, loud gaming noises jolted him awake, and soon enough, a victory jingle blasted loud enough through the wall right by his ears.
"Yosh!" he could hear Nino's loud victory cheer next door and knew that he was doing it on purpose to annoy the hell out of him.
"I take that back. He's an inconsiderate buffoon," he thought angrily as he searched in the dark for ear plugs and wore them to sleep, making a mental note to destroy that Ninomiya's game console if he should get the chance.
"It's okay. Once I start work, I will be away from this idiot for half the time. And I might even move out again after I have enough." He thought as he tried his best to sleep amidst the bleeps and bloops.
**At present**
Ninomiya Kazunari and Sakurai Sho entered the assessment centre, only to be greeted by several other people who were in the same group as them. They joined six other people surrounding a huge rectangular table.
The strict woman from before pushed up her spectacles and looked up, commanding the attention of every candidate in the room.
"Good afternoon. I'm Shinohara Mizuki, and I will be overseeing today's assessment. Everyone of you here has passed the first round of selection, it being the selection of your resume. Today, instead of an interview, you will all be given a task to perform and will be left in this room for an hour to complete it."
Everyone nodded, and she continued, "there will be two short rounds of tasks, and I hope all of you can work together to complete it. The first being..." she then took out something from under the table and set it in front of everyone before leaving the room.
"... A Jigsaw puzzle?" Sho looked on in surprise. He had not expected that the interview questions that he had studied so hard before would be rendered useless. He took a few short breaths as he took the box cover off and studied the picture, calming himself down from the unexpected change in events.
Nino stood beside him, looking at the jigsaw puzzle pieces and feeling his stomach turn in anxiety. He was never too good at jigsaw puzzles- he had neither the patience nor the will to complete one at all. He looked at Sho, who calmly looked at the picture while everyone else started pouring out the pieces.
"Let's start by sorting out the edges," someone suggested.
"I thought we should be grouping the like colours first?" another asked.
"No no no, we should-"
"I suggest," Sho announced as he looked up, "that we sort out the edges first and then we work out different parts of the puzzle separately."
"What do you mean?" One of the women asked. Sho then laid the box cover on the table so everyone could see the image.
"It might appear very complicated at first, but if we break it up into sections and work on it little by little, it will be more efficient. There are eight of us here, so it's easy to divide it up," Sho said.
"But Sakurai-san," Nino called, and Sho looked at him in surprise, "not all of us are good at jigsaw puzzles. We might not finish it in time when some are slower than the others, right Akizuki-san?" A slightly nervous woman beside him nodded slowly.
"I'll admit that I'm not very good in jigsaw puzzles," she spoke up softly.
"So... he's trying to gain an edge on me by appearing inclusive.. I see," Sho thought with a grin as he looked around and said, "then we will have to partner each other and to complete the various sections. Whoever is better at this will help those who are weaker at it. If possible, let's hurry and shuffle ourselves. Who is better at these?" Sho and three other people raised their hands.
"Aizawa-san, could you switch places with Shinomoto-san? Please aid Akizuki-san with this section, alright?" Sho said with a charming smile.
"This idiot! I'll show him I'm better," Nino thought and grinned maliciously at Sho, "then, Sakurai-san... may I ask that you assist me? I would love to be of help to our team."
Sho could feel his blood run cold in horror. He knew that Nino had placed him in a difficult spot, coercing him to agree. Much as he detested him, saying no would absolutely ruin his role as a teamplayer and leader. He gave him a smile.
"Of course, Ninomiya-san. I'll be very happy to help," he said with a chilling smile and clenched teeth as he sorted out the pieces beside him.
Time flew quickly and Shinohara returned just as the last piece clicked in place.
"Very good, everyone." she praised, "Now, who is going to explain to me how you guys accomplished this task?"
Everyone looked at Sho, who stood up with a polite bow and spoke about how he had delegated different tasks to different people and how he decided that partnering was the best way to go about the task. She nodded as she took some notes.
"Very good, Sakurai-san. Please be seated. Now, for your second task..." Shinohara instructed, "you will find tablet computers in the drawers on the side of the table. Take them out and look through the documents presented to you. You are to identify any problems that this particular company might be facing and what could be done about it. Draft out a group report in the next half hour."
With those instructions, she left.
Sho smirked as he looked through the documents, which contained financial statements and sales figures of a fictitious company.
"I think that the sales figures for the newest product is too low," he said, "and there has evidently been liquidity troubles during the last two years."
"That can't really be helped now, can it? It's usually the case with new products," another agreed. Sho was about to elaborate when Nino beside him spoke up.
"But if you look at the value of assets in page 2, it shows that the company is way too reliant on their inventory in the first place. Of course it would be difficult to have enough cash for other operations. I suggest that the company either markets their products better or acquire more assets apart from inventory. That way, liquidity of funds are less reliant on sales proceeds."
"Wow, Ninomiya-san! You are really observant. I didn't see it that way."
"I agree!"
Sho looked at him in shock and looked back at the data, trying to find a way to debate that point, but could not. He was right. It was a fine point that he himself did not observe. He pursed his lips as he took down some notes of discussion in his tablet computer. After 25 minutes of serious discussion, the door opened.
"I hope everyone had a fruitful discussion," Shinohara said, "now, who will present the report?" Everyone looked at Nino, who stood up slowly. Nino looked down at his own notes, but soon started to freeze up.
"Darn, I can't get nervous now!" Nino thought as he tried to calm down and remember everything that was discussed earlier.
"? Ninomiya-san?" Shinohara prodded. Sho saw this, took a deep breath and stood up with him.
"Ninomiya-san," Sho spoke loudly, jolting Nino in surprise, "can you tell us about what you pointed out earlier on about liquidity problems?"
"Ah yes!" Nino said, finally comprehending his notes in the midst of his nervousness and explained what their discussion had been about. Shinohara nodded slowly and wrote some notes before turning to the eight candidates.
"Thank you all for coming. There are refreshments over at the office pantry. Please, help yourself." she said before opening a door near a black glass window that faced the entire discussion table. Three men walked out of the observation room, following Shinohara out.
"So... they were observing us, huh..." Sho thought as he strode out.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Sakurai-san!"
Sho turned to see Ninomiya standing in front of him.
"Erm," Nino said, "... thank you. For just now. If you hadn't reminded me about-"
Sho snorted. "Don't read into it. I just don't need you to mess up the assessment when there were blokes watching us next door."
Nino's face showed confusion and irritation. "What did you mean? Did you only do that so that you can give the impression that you are better suited for the job?"
Sho huffed. "Maybe I did, and maybe I did not. Nevertheless, clamming up in front of everyone at a presentation is horrible. Don't you know that being a management consultant will require lots of public speaking skills from time to time? You are clearly not up to the task."
"And what about you, Mr. Bossy?" Nino challenged, "you could not even spot a simple detail in those financial statements to give an accurate picture of the company. Now how are you more qualified than me?"
"I have a degree in Economics. I daresay I am well-qualified when it comes to the allocation of resources."
"Oh really? I have a degree in Accounting. I think I am MORE qualified for this job."
Inside the pantry, Akizuki Mari heard the bickering men and sighed. "Those two aren't going to stop, are they?"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Metres away, Shinohara entered another room with the three men who observed the candidates.
"So far, I think Sakurai Sho-san would be very, very suited for the job. He is impeccable in public speaking and demonstrates leadership skills," one of the men said.
"I think Ninomiya Kazunari-san has potential as a leader too. And he is very observant in his work, and that is a characteristic important in a management consultant," another man said.
"Ahh... this is hard. These two men are equally matched in qualifications, but have completely opposite skill sets, even though they are all important for the job."
Shinohara smiled as she had an idea.
**Two weeks later**
Sho walked towards the bus stop with a spring in his step. He looked at his watch and smiled at being on time. It was his first day at work as a management consultant in the Matsumoto Corporations and he had hoped to give a good impression by being early. Just a week ago, he had received a letter saying that he was accepted for the job and was so happy that he could not care less if his neighbour got the job or not.
"See? I knew that I'm more than qualified for this job. That idiot Ninomiya has clearly nothing on me," Sho thought as he hopped on the bus which took him straight to work. Just as he boarded the bus, Nino burst out of his home, in his office wear, running out of the apartment building and hailing a taxi.
"Matsumoto Corporations," he said breathlessly, adjusting his tie and shirt.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Sho strode smoothly towards an office in the management wing, setting down his belongings on his desk before looking around.
He knew something was wrong when he saw two chairs, two tables and two sets of office equipment.
"Wait a minute... I think I'm in the wrong office. Why am I in an office for two people?" Sho wondered and was about to pick up his things when he heard a quick pattering of feet and looked to the entrance.
His jaw dropped in horror as he saw Nino pant breathlessly in the office entryway.
"Safe..." Nino breathed as he looked up and froze.
"YOU!"
"YOU!"
Both exclaimed angrily at the same time, pointing an accusing finger at each other.