@~Xx~AngryPrince~xX~: I'm putting this for you...oh yeah, but not as much as purplepaws. She surpasses me...
Summary: Ikeda Corp. wanted to buy these fabrics. With lower prices. Whatever Miki Ind.'s representatives do wouldn't change their minds at all. Right? AU, KenshinKaoru, implied SanosukeMegumi
Disclaimer: The Rurouni Kenshin manga is the property of its creator, Nobuhiro Watsuki. The Rurouni Kenshin anime is the property of their authorised owners. This short story is created by the author. All original settings, characters, etc. remain the property of the author.
Marketing Techniques
A Rurouni Kenshin fanfic
by Galliechan
© Copyright 2008
It was seven in the morning, an early hour to start the day even for the top managers of the Ikeda Corp. The enormous building was silent as this hour, save for some hard-working fellows who came to work early and the security that have to stay in the building 24 hours.
Though, top managers of the Ikeda Corp. were hard-working, ambitious and loyal to their companies, accordingly they were all ready at the meeting room at this time of the day. Of course, their high level of desire to sign this contract with Miki Ind. was also a factor.
Hiko Seijuro looked around from his place, the middle point of the U-shaped table. His sales manager, marketing department head, purchasing director, operations and production chief, human resources manager and some designers were all sitting at one side of the table; some were quietly chatting with each other while remaining ones were sipping from their morning coffee. All of them, except one, looked like they had won the fight against sleep; as for the one who was still fighting, he knew him enough to know that Sagara would be ready the moment the other company’s representatives entered the room.
Yes, Hiko was confident about this meeting. He knew most of the people in this room personally and trusted them for this important meeting.
And, then, there was his left hand man, his finance and accounting manager, next to him. He was a cool, calm and direct to the point man, especially in money issues. His general principle was ‘the best with the minimal money’. If the deal didn’t suited it, he would make it suit. One of Hiko’s most trusted man he was, albeit a bit scary for the others.
However, his left hand man’s the reputation was nowhere near his right hand man’s one; his trusted, loyal, authoritarian and ruthless chief executive officer. Hiko looked to his right and smirked; his CEO’s eyes were cold, face serious and determination was in place. The paparazzi that took his photos outside a night club yesterday wouldn’t be able to recognise him right now.
All and all, they were ready to face the representatives of Miki Ind. and sign a contract with reduced prices for their highest quality fabrics.
Not more that five minutes later, four people entered the meeting room, lead by none other that his secretary and sat to their respectful places at one side of the table. All of them were young, Hiko observed while some pleasantries were exchanged, and determined, but easy prey for his CEO except for that tall and expressionless man. Other three girls looked nervous and inexperienced with smiling slightly and exchanging glances to each other.
Of course, while observing the newcomers, Hiko didn’t notice that all colour few away from his trusted right hand man and newly awakened Sagara’s faces.
After taking a sip from her glass of water, one of the girls, the one with the ponytail, stood up and walked in front of the room; by this time, other two girls gave all of them samples from their fabrics.
Yes, these were the high quality fabrics that they wanted to use for their clothing line’s next season.
Hiko was surprised when there weren’t any tables or charts about the quality of their fabrics, how they used the best dyes or imported valuable threads for these fabrics. Instead, the girl just looked to them with a sly smile and started talking.
The presentation took half an hour and Hiko could say that she was an average speaker, and even worse at marketing department for she didn’t know that a monotone voice and an expression that shouts her apparent boredom were not included in the list of good marketing techniques to sell a product. He would be angry for Miki Ind. that they didn’t take them as serious customers enough to send some decent marketing person if they haven’t already decided to buy from them.
She finished her presentation and was now waiting for some questions with the same bored expression on her face. Actually, the same expression was on all of her co-workers’ faces and he wondered if they were waiting for some excitement.
They are more inexperienced than I thought, Hiko mused, all the better for him though, they would easily accept their offer.
After a few moments of silence, he slowly glanced to his right; what was he waiting to ask the question? He noticed, with slight shock, that his CEO was pale and his face was full of anticipation. He looked to the group of three and the girl in the middle of the room again, was there something he didn’t notice?
“Your products, as you said, are high quality;” started Saito, “however we found their price high.”
“The prices are appropriate for their respective quality level.” answered the tall man, calmly.
“With the current level of prices, we wouldn’t prefer to buy from your company.” Saito said.
Instead of a reply, the dark haired man turned to the girl in front of them and nodded. Afterwards, she locked eyes with her female co-workers and smiled. The message was understood and whatever she waited was this. When she started talking this time, there was no trace from her monotone and bored voice.
“Today, all the clothes I’m wearing are made from fabrics of Midi.” She turned around to show all of her clothes; dark skirt, same colour jacket and white shirt, “Now, let me show you why you should prefer our fabrics over others.”
Everybody in the room was looking at her with curiosity, waiting to see what she and her two friends would do. Obviously, the first presentation was just for formality, the real one has just started.
Two of her friends came and stood at each side of her. They stood in front of the room and examined all the faces in the room, dark eyes staying a bit longer on the CEO; the three women were, obviously, having so much fun.
“Firstly, the strength of our fabrics is over any other ones in the market;” the girl in the middle started, “let us try it.”
The long haired one untied the ribbon from the other’s hair, resulting in the graceful fall of luxurious dark strands of hair and she smiled when they framed her face beautifully.
“This fabric’s code is TF 53, it is one of the samples in your hands.” The braided haired girl said, holding from one end of the ribbon.
Two girls looked at each other, nodded and pulled from each side of the ribbon. As they applied more force, the one in the middle started talking,
“As you can see, minor pulls not even mentioned, our fabrics can stand large forces applied on them. With our special weaving technique, it’s not easy to tear our fabrics! No exceptions, as long as you don’t have a sharp object with you.” She laughed. “Now let’s try this test with a fabric from one of our rivals.”
This time their target was the shawl that the long haired girl had on her shoulders. Again two girls pulled it and surprisingly, after a few seconds, it began to tear slowly with disturbing noises.
“First round, Miki won!” She made a small dance with her shorter friend, “I guess we saw one of the reasons for their cheap prices. Now, in the second round, we’ll compare the firmness of threads!”
Many people looked around to see a bag full of threads but there were none; instead the braided haired girl took out a scissors from her pocket. Hiko watched the show with interest, his opinion for these girls changing fast and dramatically; they were actually really good, especially the one in the middle – the one that had a ponytail before – he assumed she was the main marketing person in this group. He threw a glance to his marketing department head and got a nod as his reply; yes, he was watching intently their different and interesting marketing show.
In a few minutes, the long haired girl had two long threads in her hands; the marketing girl’s and her own knee length skirts induced to miniskirts. Without the slightest trace of embarrassment to her revealing clothing, she tied one end of the thread to her male co-worker’s hand while the other to his operations and production manager’s hand.
“Now, would you try all your strength to break off this thread?” The main marketing girl said.
Hiko quickly glanced around, were the representatives’ names written anywhere? He would prefer to refer to them by their names rather than ‘marketing girl’ or ‘braided haired girl’. Anyway...
After a few minutes, even with the combined strength of Sagara and the tall man, the thread was still intact.
On the other hand, the next thread, the one from their rival, didn’t stand a chance. Hiko already expected the result, what got his attention was that Sagara looked to the long haired girl far longer than necessary and was the girl caressing his hand while tying the thread?
“The winner of the second round is Miki, again!” She smiled at his right hand man, making Hiko raise an eyebrow, “The third round is about the dyes we use. As you can see, both me and Takani-san,” she smiled to her long haired co-worker, “are wearing black jackets. Now, we’ll try to see if their dyes would stain our hands.”
While many of the people in the room were still thinking how they would show it this time, the braided haired girl emptied a bottle of water on each of their jackets. Again, instead of doing the experiment themselves, they made one of the designers do it.
Hiko looked to his right to see whether his CEO liked the show or not. He saw him frowning, looking intently to the main marketing girl. Hiko scowled as the red haired man eyed the girl up and down, taking her short skirt, wet jacket and untied hair; he was about to warn him to be professional but he noticed that the selected designer was having so much fun, much more that he should have, touching the girls’ wet jackets and what was underneath them.
The next second, he saw the pleading eyes of another one of the designers and his attention moved to his operations and production chief, Sagara, who spread murderous waves aimed to the all-too-happily-ignorant designer. He elbowed his right hand man discreetly to warn him; one strict look was enough to calm the other down - at least, now, he would wait until the meeting was over to punch the designer - then the violet eyes turned back to their staring to the black haired woman.
“As you can see, there is no stain on his hand that touched Miki’s fabric; but look and see his other hand.” she raised his hand and it was indeed dyed to a greyish colour. “The winner is Miki!!”
There were some applause and the girls bowed to them before continuing their show. Even Hiko cracked a small smile, this show was fun; but, for a reason he couldn’t understand, his CEO was frowning and had a weird expression on his face, looking to the main marketing girl without even blinking.
“And our last experiment” the main girl said happily as Takani moved a little to the side and the braid haired girl went outside to get something. “is to see the behaviour of out fabrics in the most dangerous yet common situation they can find themselves in.” she made a dramatic pause, “It is none other than being wet!”
Before any of their minds processed what was being said and how they would accomplish it, the braided haired girl came running with a bucket full of water and emptied it on her friend.
A chorus of gasp was the only indicator of the people’s surprise and not minding any of it, the next moment, her two co-workers started rubbing, pulling, and twisting and doing everything imaginable to tear her clothes. In a few minutes, the winner of this round was Miki, again.
Two of the girls sat to their places and the wet one stayed in front of them, water dripping from her clothes. Her dark eyes were locked to his CEO’s violet ones that were, Hiko noticed, turning slowly to yellow. He elbowed Saito, they should finish this quickly or they might have to hold him physically to prevent him from jumping on to the wet girl.
“Think about your girlfriend,” he whispered, “no need to ruin your relationship with her because of this...” he looked to the girl to find some suitable words; hot? Sexy with wet clothes clinging to her skin? Nope...definitely not. “because of this girl.” In any case, the underneath message was clear; this was neither the time nor the place for your playboy behaviours, reserve them for night clubs and parties.
When the red haired man looked to Hiko, his yellow eyes had an unreadable light in them. He nodded slowly, almost mechanically, and then turned his eyes back to the girl again.
“We clearly understood the high quality of your fabrics. 1.30 is your price, I say, 1.10.” Saito said calmly.
“1.28” was the equally calm reply. The girl unbuttoned one of the buttons of her jacket. The rest of the eyes except Saito’s turned to her, wondering what she was thinking.
“1.12”
“1.26” Another button.
“1.14”
“1.25” Another button. Her jacket had just three buttons.
“1.16”
“I can go no lower that 1.25”
“1.20”
“No lower.”
“1.22”
“1.25 it is then!!” shouted the wet girl and startled many of the people in the room. The attention shifted from the bargaining duo to the girl again as she made a small dance. Hiko felt the man in his right tense as she continued and heard his gasp as she threw her jacket away.
Every eye in the room focused on her and their minds were induced to one thought.
She didn’t wear bra.
She wore a wet white shirt without a bra.
As all the eyes followed her, she walked slowly to the CEO, bend down to his eye level, faces nearly touching. She smiled, hearing that he was panting and noticing his tense muscles, “1.25, it is then, hm?” she whispered.
“Yes!” came the strangled answer as the red haired CEO backed as far as he could get in his chair.
“Word came out of your mouth,” she said, one of her hands slowly touching his lips, “it is agreed.”
Hiko looked to the red haired man with a calculating eye; his body was tense, his breathing was uneven, there were small beads of sweat on his forehead and his hands held the sides of the chair enough to leave marks. Of course, not to mention his pale face along with yellow eyes that always meant some kind of trouble. He had to give it to the girl, to be able to turn his CEO into this nervous wreck; she deserved some kind of an award. He would need a small talk with his CEO after this meeting, like the old days when he was still under training, but this time about imaginative marketing techniques such as sexy woman trying to sell their products and methods to resist them.
As for the award of the marketing girl, he elbowed Saito and gave him a small nod.
“Agreed.” Saito confirmed also, all the while glaring to the red haired man.
It was as Saito and the tall representative prepared the contact, the girls went outside to help their friend change into some dry clothes and Hiko looked sharply at his right hand man that Kenshin exploded.
“KAORU!!!”
It was when he heard the laughter from the other side of the door that Hiko understood what his CEO’s problem was.
As the head of board of directors of Ikeda Corp, Hiko liked and trusted his CEO. This was the only time in the company’s history that he weren’t able to get what he wanted, at least costwise; but he had to agree with Sagara that he did his best after learning that the wet girl was none other that Kenshin’s girlfriend. The only one that was able to keep a hold on him more that a few months. And it looks like, he smirked, she wouldn’t let him go anytime soon.
