Chapter 43 Chapter 43 – The Company Meeting
By the time they arrived in the first-floor lobby, the meeting was already in full magazine-cover mode.
The massive conference hall looked like it had been staged by a PR team with a vendetta against normal people.
Chrome accents. LED screens glowing in synchronized motion. A full barista station with espresso so pretentious it might file a complaint if stirred incorrectly.
Every department sat in immaculate rows—polished hair, designer blazers, soulless smiles that screamed “I rehearse my nodding in the mirror.”
Then there was the third floor.
Lotus, Joy, and Paul walked in looking like actual human beings who did actual work:
– Lotus’s blouse had sprint-wrinkles.
– Joy’s curls framed her face in fierce, unapologetic defiance.
– Paul’s tie… well, it was a black Star Wars tie definitely not something that screamed “professional.”
Heads turned. Conversations paused. Whispers flitted like gnats.
“Are those the third-floor people?”
“Why do they look… tired?”
“Did someone forget to tell them there’s a dress code?”
Lotus and Joy ignored the noise and slid into seats at the very back
Up front, President Aalam Takeda stood in sleek authority, laser pointer in hand.
“Our audit results came back perfect,” he said. “Zero deficiencies. A tremendous win. We are preparing for global expansion, with record-breaking positioning in all security sectors.”
Polite applause rippled through the crowd like a choreographed wave.
Next came Vice President Cadeyrn Takeda—precision incarnate.
Black suit. Perfect posture. Aura of don’t breathe wrong near me.
His tone was cold enough to refrigerate the coffee bar.
“With our SecureTech line,” he said, “we will redefine the global market. Biometric systems, adaptive drones, and the newly patented home defense technology.”
Slides flashed behind him—sleek prototypes, glowing schematics, features that looked half sci-fi, half military flex.
That’s when the doors opened.
Lotus and Joy walked in.
Late.
Unapologetically late.
And the moment they appeared, two things happened simultaneously:
Cadeyrn’s jaw tightened
and
Aalam’s eye twitched.
Aalam didn’t break posture not even a hair.
His suit stayed crisp.
His voice remained steady.
His hand never faltered on the laser pointer.
But inwardly?
Unacceptable.
They arrive late? To this?
Who on earth do they think they are? Charity hires do not get entrance privileges.
This is a global expansion briefing, not a free community workshop. At least pretend you respect the standard.
He kept his expression smooth, practiced, unreadable
but his glance toward the newcomers was sharp, silent, clinical.
Aalam cataloged everything instantly:
Joy’s bright energy too loud.
Lotus’s wrinkled shirt disgraceful.
Both of them walking in with the confidence of people who didn’t know they were out of their tax bracket.
He didn’t show his irritation.
He was too well-trained.
Instead, he simply continued his presentation with corporate perfection…
…but his brief glance said everything:
You’re here, but you are not of here.
A charity stain in a curated room.
Don’t embarrass my brand.
Meanwhile
Joy leaned back just slightly to get a better look at Cadeyrn on stage.
Cadeyrn scanned the room with military accuracy.
He moved like a symphony of order until his gaze hit her.
Joy.
A human glitch in his carefully curated matrix.
Bright-eyed. Free-spirited. Zero symmetry.
Zero restraint.
Zero conformity to anything he considered “standard.”
Psychologically, she was everything his OCD-coded brain flagged as a problem.
Emotionally? She was the exact kind of chaos he had nightmares about.
Visually? He considered her and Lotus wrinkled shirt and all nothing short of moving violations.
Disruptions.
Eye pollution.
Disturbances to the natural order.
Did he show any of that?
Of course not.
He had trained since childhood to display the emotional range of a titanium keypad.
But internally?
Internally, alarms were going off like a breached vault.
Why is she smiling? Why is she existing like that? Why is Lotus’s entire shirt disrespecting the iron? Has pride died?
He kept his jaw locked, his expression neutral, his focus straight—
Until Joy did the unthinkable.
She didn’t speak.
Didn’t posture.
Didn’t even blink too hard.
She just smiled…
…and winked.
A slow, deliberate, disrespectfully charismatic wink.
Cadeyrn’s reaction was microscopic—but catastrophic by his standards:
A half-millimeter pause in his slide click.
A forced throat clear.
A jaw-clench so tight it could juice a lemon.
A blink that lasted .02 seconds too long.
A single molecule of embarrassment.
Perfect. Perturbed. Cracking ever so slightly.
Joy smirked.
Lotus silently fist-bumped the air.
Cadeyrn, still glaring daggers at both of them, readjusted his laser pointer like it personally betrayed him.
To him, they were visual pollution.
To Aalam, they were an uninvited blemish on his brand optics.
And to both cousins…
the realization hit: these two were more annoying in person than they’d expected. As well in a sense
laughable, really, to think they held positions that mattered,
which was exactly why they’d been tucked away on the deserted third floor..