The Stagiaire Struggle (Portraits of 119)
Summary: In which the struggle is real for young Ibusaki.
If Ibusaki Sosuke had learned one thing in the past few days, it was that there was no sleep like that oh-my-fuck-I’ve-never-worked-this-hard-in-my-life stagiaire sleep.
For this reason, when his phone started ringing at 5:05 in the goddamn morning, he was less than pleased to say the least. After glaring at his phone and willing it to disintegrate to no avail, he sighed, accepted the call, and pressed the device to his ear.
“Rise and grind, pretty boy,” came the low, teasing voice of Isabella Mito-Aldini. She sounded like she’d been up for a while, and was probably going to town on a stationary bike somewhere, psychopath that she was.
“Fuck do you want, babe?” Sosuke pressed the heel of his hand between his brows, already fighting off the headache.
“Just reminding you to check your email,” she said.
“Of course. You’re working for Yukihira Souma, for fuck’s sake. He has like eight restaurants. If you don’t stay on top of your shit you’re going to end up on the wrong continent one of these days.”
Sosuke sighed. “You’re right—”
After fumbling in the dark for a minute, Sosuke grabbed his iPad off the nightstand and saw a single unread email, sent at 2:47 in the morning—subject line: Flight
We’re going to be working out of the Paris restaurant for the next few days. Flight info below.
Souma
-sent from my iphone
He read the message aloud to Bella and sighed. “Guess I’m heading to Paris this afternoon. Good night.”
“Afternoon?” Bella repeated incredulously before he could hang up.
Wordlessly, Sosuke opened up the attachment and found that he’d be flying out of Tokyo International at 7:50 that morning. For the first time, a jolt of real anxiety ran through him. He shot out of bed and immediately started looking for his duffel bag. “I’m already late, aren’t I?”
“You should probably be at the airport already, but it’s salvageable,” she told him. “Pack and get dressed, and I’ll have a car in front of your place in fifteen minutes.”
“You’re the best, Bella.”
“Obviously, pretty boy. But there’s no time for all of that now, you’ve got a plane to catch.”
She hung up on him then, but the car was outside of his house, as promised, when he bolted downstairs. He could tell already that it was going to be a very long day.