Nowhere Haven

Back To Being Friends

"A very good morning, Mrs. Barnes. As far as we are concerned, you terminated your contract a few weeks ago. We are very sorry to hear of that. Instead-" Oliver barely spoke his obligatory introduction phrase as a familiar sound echoed through his ears; the customer already hung up before he could finish talking.

Oliver sighed and crossed out another client. He wanted to be upset about it but knew very well that he would act the exact same way. Even so, it wasn't very motivational to not have had a single client to be playing along so far. The blond couldn't tell why that was. His voice didn't sound more irritated than usually but there must have been something lacking. He never did too well at his job, but at least average; now he was the one to bring in the least amount of clients.

It would have been quite depressing if Oliver cared about his job, however, that was not the only concern about this issue. Soon, the blond had to be confronted with consequences he hadn't thought about as his boss suddenly walked up to him, asking him to follow him to his office.

Oliver's heart sank once the stern voice reached his ears. He didn't hesitate much and quickly followed his boss, unsure of what was expecting him. It was not hard to figure out the reason, however, Oliver had never been called out for issues by the boss personally and thus didn't know what was awaiting him. He tried to keep his stoic expression and waited for his boss to take a seat on his desk chair while he was sitting on a decorative stool right across the desk. Watching his boss's fingers flipping through printed out stats unsettled Oliver even more, knowing that he was lacking vehemently the past weeks particularly.

"Mister Lynch, you know that I'm a very straightforward man," His boss looked up from the papers, continuously wearing an intense stare, "and I'm especially straightforward with my employees."

With a quick hand movement, the papers were turned around for Oliver to look at them. His eyes barely focused on the countless numbers. Nervousness boiling up inside of him hindered him from keeping a cool head in the slightest. His eyes instead slowly shifted back to his boss but he couldn't find a hint of what was going through the man's head. Oliver held his breath.

"Time's are rough for everyone at some point. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

Oliver frowned for a moment but quickly composed himself again. Albeit not getting a good feeling about where this conversation was going, he knew he couldn't afford to be emotional. After working in the same workplace for several years, he had a few of his boss's pet peeves figured out quite well despite barely getting to see the head of the company.

"The quota in your field particularly looks horrible. It hasn't been so low since 2009. If you've kept up with the news in your teens at all, you should be aware of what that meant to companies like ours."

"Hire and fire." Oliver didn't hesitate a second but bit his tongue right after. The mere thought of losing another job tore his body into tiny pieces. Finding himself back in the streets was an image he had successfully suppressed until now but the façade quickly started to break down. Oliver's stomach turned. Especially with Fukase on his side, he could never do such thing again.

"You're smarter than you look. I like that about you." His boss gave a short chuckle and sat down on his chair, scanning Oliver with his eyes. The blond merely stared back, unsure of how to react to that blunt statement. He usually liked dry humor like his boss's, however, with his job on the line, he couldn't bring himself to laugh very much.

His boss inspected a page of the stash of papers one more time until he ripped it off and handed it to Oliver.

"With that being said, don't force me to fire you, Mr. Lynch."