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It was morning at the Tokyo headquarters of Dai Tech, a large commercial company that dealt with foreign imports.
For every salaried worker, Monday morning brought a twinge of unhappiness. Gulf Kanawut, whose time with Dai Tech would soon stretch into three-years, was spending part of that time in an underground reference room buried under an enormous mountain of papers.
"Where are the rest of those papers from 1960?" he muttered. Here in the second basement level, there was no one to hear Gulf complain about his meaningless job. Condisering how much he hated this job, it would probably make sense to just quit. But doing so would be like admitting that he had made a mistake, and that was hard for Gulf to swallow.
After graduating from college, Gulf had decided to take a job at Dai Tech because he had studied abroad and knew a little bit about linguistics. Dealing with foreign countries had sounded interesting, but after his orientation, he had been assigned not to the Sales Division, but to the Secretarial Division in the General Affairs Department.
Even though he had started out as the lowest man on the totem pole, one of the section presidents had taken notice of Gulf. He had ended up spending busy days in the highest echelons of the company, taking in the magnificent view from center stage. Most new employees had to spend a period of time doing menial work, but Gulf had shot to the top relatively quickly.
The reason he had fallen so low now was his illicit affair with AA Pattarabut, who had transferred from Dai Tech's branch office in Hongkong last year and became the president of the Secretarial Division.
"Everyone in Hongkong loved talking to you on the phone," AA had said. "Not just because you're fluent, but because your voice is so sexy. Seeing you in person makes me think that there will be some benefits to being transferred here."
Looking back now, Gulf could clearly see how conceited that pick-up line really was.
In some ways, Gulf still behaved like a naivre college student. He got along with people well, did his work efficientlty, and he was clever. The 30-year-old AA Pattarabut, who longed to reach the very top, had seemed glamorous and attractive to him. He had probably fallen for AA's tricks because he had been fresh from university and hadn't known much about the world. Or maybe it was just because Gulf, like an idiot, always managed to pick losers.
While doing overtime in the office one night. Gulf had given to AA's blatant invitations. For a whole year, they had concealed the homosexual relationship between the boss and his employee from the rest of the department, which had been no small feat. Gulf had been devoted to both AA, his boss, and to AA, his lover. Their hidden realtionship had filled his days with poignant happiness.
That is, he had been happy until the day a month ago when AA had dropped the bomb on him.
'What a jerk,' Gulf thought as the painful memories choked him up anew.
TBC