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 Kiku Honda had always believed himself to have very good English. Of course, until now he’d never gotten a chance to visit an English-speaking country. He had spoken to Americans, yes, but he had never been there. To busy with his job and all, to go around traveling. And he would have missed home to much. His sisters and brothers than he visited a few times a week, at least, would have had to be taken along if he went traveling as well. He wasn’t as selfish as to have fun on his own when others could enjoy it with him. So, he had not had the income to bring his whole family with him on a trip out of country. He had gone to places like China and Taiwan on business, sure, but those were for business, not pleasure. And usually he was able to take his family with him. Not that any of them actually lived with him, they were all to old for that, and all had separate lives. But, yes, he had been sure his English was fine. Until he had started his new job in England. The slang there was incredible, and it confused the poor Japanese to no end.
How he had come to work in England was rather simple. He had been one of the best in his company, it was a very big chain., and the workers in England weren’t working up to par. So they sent him to work there. He would get paid more… he had still tried to decline, but in the end it was his only choice. Not even a choice, really. Move to England or get fired. The latter was not an option. Of course he had been beyond heartbroken that he had to pack up and leave his family, because as previously mentioned, he rarely went anywhere without them. So to have to move to a completely different country was worse than anything. He told himself it would only be for a year or so-that’s what he had been told-or maybe shorter depending on how fast he could pick up the office. It was one of those times where have good work ethic really screwed him over.
The goodbye to his family had been awkward an hard. He tried not to remember most of it, choosing to focus on the positives of this situation instead of all the negatives that would drag him down farther through out the day. It was hard enough understanding what ‘bloody wanker’ meant. Bloody, he had no idea that could be used as some sort of insult. And he just had no idea what a wanker was, nor did he really want to know after looking at the huge guy who had called some girl it. He tried hard to block it all out, really, but with how many people were on the subway it was hard. Nowhere near how many people used the subway back in Japan, oh no, but these people were taller and relatively bigger, as he had seen. He’d been in England two days – he’d been given time to settle into his flat – and he still couldn’t get use to the way people talked, or the way they looked. Quite frankly, Kiku was intimidated beyond rational belief.
The subway came to a stop, and he quickly followed the many people out of it and set out on a brisk five minute walk to the office. He had no idea yet where he was supposed to report too, and so he just hurried to the front desk once he had finally made it inside. His walk had taken him ten minutes, instead of five, due to getting lost reading a street sign. Kiku pulled on the blue tie he had on, his suit being a little to big for him still. He’d been told he would grow into it… but the sleeves still touched his knuckles. He hated how unprofessional it looked, but his other suits were either at the dry cleaners he had seen on the first day he had gotten to England, or still packed up in boxes inside of his flat.
“… excuse me…” He began one he had reached the front desk. He was ignored. “… excuse me… “ Kiku repeated, a little louder this time, so that the woman finally snapped her head up, she held up a finger, muttered something into her phone and then turned her attention onto him. “I’m Kiku Honda… the new product manager. But I’m not sure where I’m supposed to be going… it is my first day.” The woman let out an exasperated sigh and clicked something on her computer, then she pressed a button on the phone and said, “Arthur Kirkland, your newbie is here.” Kiku wrinkled his nose at the terminology. He was new at this firm, yes, but he had been working for the business for years. And he was one of the highest positions you could get. So, yes, it hurt his pride to be considered something at low as that at the moment. Deciding not to return her rudeness he just bit his tongue and waited for the man to come direct him.
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