“Miss, you are home early. Is everything alright?”, Ema asked Hina, looking a little concerned and a little suspicious.

“No problem, Ema. I wanted some change of pace and also work with Poos on something”, Hina responded with a light smile.

“Poos, is everything alright?”, Ema still looked a bit concerned.

“I suppose so. It was the Ma’am’s idea to come back”, I could only shrug.

“Alright, Miss. I will get the meeting room ready, or would you like to work in the study?”

“No need. We will be in my room”

“Excuse me?”, both eyebrows raised by Ema showed more surprise than disapproval.

“Er... Ma’am. What work are we exactly gonna do?”

“You’ll find out. Follow me”, Hina winked and led the way.

Sigh. What is she up to?

However, as soon as I entered Hina’s room I forgot for a moment that we were wasting very expensive time during a workday - her room was pretty much a man cave I would have built if I had unlimited resources.

Just as she said earlier in the day, there was a huge beanbag in the middle of her room, and a 77-inch state-of-the-art OLED screen mounted on the ceiling. From the wireless controller laying on the beanbag, I recalled that she said she lay there playing games. Around the room pro-audio studio-grade monitor speakers were situated, all of them probably expertly calibrated to offer a perfect surround sound experience. In the corner of the room sat a vintage drum kit, and a collection of extremely expensive classic synths and electric guitars.

“Oh my god… is that a real CS-80?”

“Huh? You know about synths?”

“It’s the first time I see this in real life, Jesus… you make music?”

“Well, it’s a little hobby of mine. I’m not that good with it though. You want to give it a go?”

“No no, I don’t dare to touch it. My one hand only playing skill would be a disgrace to use on a real CS-80”

“Hey! It’s the same for me! You are saying it’s a disgrace for me to play them? Hmpf!”

Ah shit, but I wasn’t wrong so I just ignored her protest.

“Er... Anyways, you play drums too?”

“Very basic level. I’ve started learning it only recently”

That’s right. When you are this rich you start learning drums on vintage Gretsch.

“Guitars?”

“I can play rhythm guitar parts okay”, Hina shrugged.

“Poos, you seem to have an interest in music?”

“Well... A long long time ago I played in a band”

“Oh cool! What did you play?”

“Drums”

“Wicked! You can have a go then!”

I hesitated a little. It’s been at least ten years since I last held the drum sticks and I probably embarrass myself if I tried to play now and… hang on, what am I even thinking. This is not why we are here -

“Ma’am, I thought we were here for work”

“Hey, you are the one that looked like a kid in a candy store?”, Hina giggled. She was damn right though.

“Ahem, nevertheless - what would you like to work on now then. I could continue going over some essential concepts in our work again”

“Let’s play some games”

“Ma’am -”

“No more ‘Ma’am’’ please - I’m at home”

“But -”

“No buts either. Look, here is what I think, Poos. We are going to work together from now on. You have been telling me a lot of things all day today and this will continue for days I can imagine - if not weeks. But I also understand that a company is not a school. I can’t just sit like a student and listen to you lecture. We have to be doing something - something productive”

“Er… how does that even relate to us coming home and playing games in the middle of the day?”

“As you know, I am not ‘ready for work’. So we can’t be doing productive work. But we are aiming to work together in the future. We can build teamwork by doing something together that we can both contribute equally. Working on our teamwork will increase our productivity in the future - so yes, by playing games together we are being productive!”

It sounded like a high schooler’s rant to justify why he’s playing games while procrastinating studying for an exam, but I decided not to point that out for now. I thought I will let her take the initiative and see.

“Okay, Ma’am. So what are we gonna play then”

“What games do you play these days? Multi-player games of course, so we can play together”

Gees. What games would be appropriate to say here? This is not a challenge I’ve expected on the first day of my work with Hina. I should probably say something that’s mainstream and popular enough these days.

“I play Tenshin quite a bit”

“Oh, nice! What’s your Adventurer Level?”

Well, it’s a bit embarrassing to say, because it will show that I do indeed play quite a lot despite claiming to be busy with work all the time, but if we are going to play together there is no avoiding it.

“AL 56”

“Woooh, you must have been playing since the early days. Let’s get to it then”

“How shall we play together?”

“I want you to try playing on the bean bag. You were having a go at me before for buying a bean bag for the office. I hope you see the error of your ways”

That made me chuckle, and yes, I would love to play on that OLED screen on the ceiling.

“Right, and you?”

“I only have one console and screen so I’ll play on my PC then”

I bet her PC is uber specced too.

“Sure thing, let’s get to it”

So we loaded up the game, each logged into our account, and exchanged the User ID. She invited me to her realm and I joined without complaint.

“Oh nice, you have Chloe! I wish I got her too :sigh:”, Hina exclaimed as soon as she saw my Chloe in-game, the little loli in red embarrassingly jumping up and down in-game in front of Hina’s Jeanne. What the heck am I even doing…

“You don’t have Chloe? I thought you would”

“No luck for me. I started Tenshin after the first banner already passed and didn’t get her in the second banner. I was too far away from the pity”

Wait. What?

“Er… I thought you’d have no problem buying Stars for gacha?”

“I’m strictly free-to-play. Do you pay to gacha?”

“Yes”

“What’s your Chloe’s Star Level?”

“I… I have her at level six…”

“WHOA, WE GOT A REAL WHALE HERE!”

Why am I getting called a whale by a billionaire girl?

“Anyways, let’s stick to Jeanne and Chloe, for role play’s sake”

“Su.. sure thing”, Come on Poos, there is nothing to be embarrassed about spending money you earn through your hard work on things you enjoy. I told myself to gain back some composure from this sudden development.

After that, we just mucked about in Deybat. I learned that Hina’s at AL 44 and strictly F2P. Tenshin is a rather casual game and there is no big need for high skill level teamwork just to go around in the open world, especially with my Star Level 6 Chloe bombing down everything. It didn’t matter her Jeanne was at Star Level 1 and ran with modest gears, and we did have a rather enjoyable time. It was not exactly teamwork-building as Hina claimed we would be doing, but seeing her room and playing together did give me some new perspective on this girl.

It would have been grossly unfair for me to have assumed that she is a stereotypical young girl just into fashion and idols and Alfredo-Toblerone. In fact, no young girls - and boys too - are that simple in their nature and personalities. Everybody has their quirks that deviate them from the caricatures of simplified characters portrayed in media. I also automatically assumed Hina would be a mega whale because she is rich, but it turned out she sticks with the principle of being free-to-play to give herself a challenge.

By not considering these things, I realised that Hina was right to call me a boomer earlier in the day. It was me who was shallow to make my assumptions on her while spending most of the day talking about what I thought she needed to hear. I have indeed become a boomer in this girl’s eyes and in a way that was my professional failure, to wrongly assume the nature of my new boss, not giving enough effort to find out more about her. As a company man, our clients are the buyers, but as a working man, my client is the one who hires me and pays my wages. Here I failed the basics of caring for the customer’s wants and needs. Yes, she is just a kid, but it does not mean that she is shallow or more limited than the adults, it’s just different.

“Hey Poos”

“Sorry, yes?” I was a bit lost in my thoughts when Hina called me.

“Can we go to your realm now?”

“Er, okay. But why?”

“I want to go around mining”

Oh, this brat…