The Formidable Stranger (Trilogy)

New Beginnings

"Casper honey, remember you should be going to the office today with your father, he's gonna see about setting you up with a job, you know a man of your age should already be settled in a career. Be there by 7:00, please!" explained Katherine Lee to her son while rushing through the door. Katherine was a short Caucasian woman about 5 feet 5 inches tall with short curly hair and a beautiful smile, she was thirty eight years old and married to one of the most successful business men in all of New York City, Sakamoto Lee. "Sure Ma" replied Casper as he laid in bed hugging his pillow still, he was a tall and handsome, medium built African American twenty seven year old that has had for the most part a hard knock life. He was abandoned by his real parents at the age of three, nobody knew the real story behind what happened, just that he was left at the doorsteps of the Saint Peter's Home for Children with a note that read "take care of my son, Casper". After thirteen years he was adopted by Sakamoto and Katherine Lee, a very iconic couple well known for their extremely lucrative company Sakamoto Distributors Ltd.

"Oh crap! I'm late!" he shouted running through the door much like his mother an hour and a half ago. Quickly, he jumped on his sleek black motorcycle and sped out the driveway and into the big city. The Lee's lived in Forest Hills; however after about fifteen minutes of zipping through morning traffic Casper pulled up in front of the twenty-storied building in the heart of Manhattan with all glass windows seeming like it would touch the sky, with the word "Sakamoto" right at the top in a billboard-like fashion and written in bright red. "Enough admiration" said Casper as he ran through the big glass doors at the main entrance.

CRASH!.. The sound of two people colliding and the sight of papers flying everywhere, on the ground laid Penelope Shanae; a beautiful twenty six year old woman who worked in the accounting department, she had long straight black hair which matched her eyes, a nice slim figure and even wore glasses. Everyone except Penelope knew that Casper has had a huge crush on her ever since he was adopted into the Lee family, they lived two houses down from each other and their families always lived neighborly which is a part of how she got an amazing job working for Sakamoto Distributors.

"I'm sorry Penelope, running late!" said Casper grinning like he had just won the lottery.

"Oh your running alright, you know it's your first day Cas, early would have been ideal" as she stretched out her hand for him to help her off the floor. He then helped her get her papers together as they laughed about what had just happened. "Well I'll see you around Penny, wish me luck" and before she could say good luck he was off again running towards the elevator, she shook her head smiling and walked off. After a few minutes he arrived at the 13th floor where the conference room was located, his adopted father Sakamoto Lee sat at the head of the table of executives as he entered the room, he seemed to be in the middle of a very important meeting. Casper looked at his dad, continued to look at the other members of the room, and then he looked at the empty chair that was meant for him and finally, he said "good morning everyone".

"Nice of you to join us, son" remarked Sakamoto in a condescending tone. "Sorry pop, uhm.. Traffic" replied Casper, Sakamoto looked at him with great displeasure and uttered "Just take your seat". After about fifteen more minutes the meeting ended and everyone left the room, save the father and son.

"I go out of my way to find a place for you in the company and you can't even be on time, don't even think about blaming traffic again because I've seen the way you ride that motorcycle of yours, plus your mother told me you were still in bed when she left" said Sakamoto going off at his son, Casper looked at his father knowing they could never see eye to eye and said "look dad I'm sorry, it won't happen again".

The stern CEO called for Steven, a file clerk from the registry department to escort Casper to his new office where he would fill the position of head of registry. As they were walking down the long narrow hallway on the 5th floor they approached a black door with a wooden sign on it that read Casper Lee, Head of Registry and Cas thought to himself that this might not be so bad. Along with Steven were two other clerks in the back end of the office that dealt with most of the filing work, there was another brown door and a glass window with a slot separating them from Casper's desk and computer. He then took a seat in his black leather office chair and looked at the time on his computer "8:30, this is going to be a long day" he said grudgingly, he spent most of the day sending emails and answering calls to handle payments, Steven and the other clerks would locate forms in the computer databases and deliver invoices to other departments among other clerical duties. At about 4pm the registry office closed and Cas packed up his desk and left the building, his father would normally work pretty late and got home around 11pm.

Upon leaving work Casper saw someone leaning on his motorcycle while smoking a cigarette, a Caucasian guy in his mid-twenties, slim build with short blonde hair; it was his best friend Drew. Drew's back was turned and as Casper approached him he said, "Oh look! A skinny white boy ingesting cancer on my motorcycle" Drew was startled and they both laughed.

"Don't you have a bike of your own?" Casper asked,

"I do! However, my self-righteous friend, it is in the shop getting tuned up, what'd you say, gimmie a lift to the raft?" replied Drew with a smirk.

Cas chuckled and said "Sure buddy lets go", Drew hopped on to the back of Casper's motorcycle and as they rode off making their way to The Raft; a section on the beach located almost out of town where they would hang out most evenings. Some people would go rafting as the name of the venue implied, Cas and drew would go for the occasional surf but mainly for the music and drinks. Casper especially enjoyed being at The Raft since Penelope worked a second job there at nights. After about thirty minutes they arrived, Casper rode along the board walk right under the shack beside the bar where Penelope was; Drew chuckled and said under his breath "here we go, real whipped I tell ya"

"I heard that, it's just a good spot to park Drew" replied Casper in a defensive tone as they hopped off the two wheel vehicle. Seconds after, they were staring right in the face of the beautiful bartender.

"How was your first day speedy?" she asked smiling at the two patrons and mocking her good friend Casper.

"It was pretty cool, though I thought I'd be seeing you more around the office" He answered,

"Oh, well my job in accounting actually ends a half hour before you, that's when I make my way here, the job I should get back to" she said smiling, "I'll see you around Cas" he chuckled and said okay.

Casper then went to rejoin Drew who had disappeared to find a few of the regulars on the sand, they spent the rest of the evening drinking beer and laughing amongst their pals and Drew without a doubt making jokes about Casper's undying love for Penelope Shanae. Time passed and as the majority of the folks there slowly disappeared they knew it was drawing near to closing time. Drew went to the bar to pay the bill for all the beer they had that night when he accidentally tripped over a bottle sticking out of the sand, he fell forward knocking over a man who was speaking to the lovely bartender. He was tall, wearing an expensive suit and Japanese by the looks of it; he got very angry, very quickly, and grabbed Drew by his shirt making a fist to punch him and yelled in his face "stupid drunk!".

Drew shouted "I'm not drunk you idiot, I tripped!" as the strange Japanese man was about to punch Drew in the face, Casper heard all the noise and ran towards them and pushed them both in an effort to break up the fight before it escalated. Casper stood in front his best friend as he yelled in rage to the stranger "what's your problem dude!?", the man stood up again, fixed his suit and tie and approached Cas, in the midst of all the madness Penelope came between them and said "Jasper! Stop it! These are my friends" she then looked at her friends and told them to calm down, Casper looked at her then he looked at the man, for a minute there he swear she had called the guy Casper so he was a bit confused. The stranger burst out laughing and said "wait, aren't you Mr. Sakamoto Lee's son, saw you at the office today, excellent first day by the way" jeering at him.

Casper looked at him with astonishment and asked "who are you?" and he responded "My name is Jasper Wong, and I'm the new Distribution Manager at the company, I take care of everything we produce and ship out locally and overseas, pleasure to meet you" Casper didn't like this guy as to what he could tell of him so far, maybe it was the heat of the moment he thought to himself but something about him just felt strange.

"Anyways, Mr. Lee, we must be going, I'll be seeing you soon" as he turned to Penelope and said "you ready to go?" Penelope said yes, she hugged Casper and told him they would talk later and said bye to Drew as she left with Jasper Wong, they went into his shiny black BMW and sped off. The Raft was now closed for the night.

"Well then! That just happened, so this Jasper guy not only almost got his ass whooped but he's got your girl" Drew said to Cas, who replied "we don't know that, they could just be friends, anyway, I don't like that guy" something they both agreed to, they then hopped back onto Casper's bike and rode off. Cas brought Drew home who lived a few blocks out from him and then he went home to prepare for his second day at the job.

"Definitely gonnahave to make up for today" he said to himself as he drifted off to sleep.