Ayesha's new manager

Ayesha couldn't hear the concern on the phone, so she just happily said, "Thanks! Where do I come?"

For some reason, a new wave of hope was coming into her. Suddenly, she felt like...she had a direction now. Now she knew where to go, what to do!

Or something.

In the back of her mind Lily was already anticipating the conversation with Anne that was about to happen, it would inevitably come down to "you owe me one" and the only difference was if that cost was paid now or later.

"I'll text you the address. It's a big old building just outside of the city, used to be a hotel." The old hotel had never opened and a small section of it was never completed, but they just avoided going over there. From the front it looked like an Edo period estate, except that it had been poorly maintained since its construction.

Ayesha said happily, "I'll be there ASAP! Bye!"

She cut the call, and waited the text message eagerly. She wasn't sure why, but she felt like dancing.

So she instead jumped, tried to click her heels, failed, and fell, splaying forwards.

Her phone fell out of her hands and cracked hard on the pavement.

Her blood curdled in a second.

OHHHHJ NONONONONONO-

She crawled to her phone, and quickly checked it. The iconic cracked screen of digital vomit was on her phone screen. She tapped it desperately but no dice.

"FFFFFFFUCKFUCOFUCOFCUKFUCKFUUUUUUCK!" she screamed in Arabic, scaring several nearby passing Japanese folks. She started spinning wildly, hyperventilating.

"What do I do what do what do I do-"

Less than a block away, Lily was blissfully unaware of Ayesha's mishap and with a few quick keystrokes sent the hotel's address off to the newbie and went forward to call Anne. As predicted the blonde was surly and whined like a petulant child who'd been told to clean her room. And so the bargaining began, where first Anne tried to offer up anyone else for the task, but Lily wasn't having it. Then she groaned about being "prostituted out to a fan". Finally, it came to guilting Anne to stepping up and just being a little welcoming. This, of course, came at a cost: a yet unnamed favor to be specified at a time of her choosing.

Ayesha was panicking hard, as she stopped and calmed herself.

"Ok, ok, panicking won't get me anywhere. I have to....wait, a TAXI! Ok, so I just gotta.. remember, what ...what...did Lily say she was...where was she again?"

Racking.her brain she remembered.....
Old building...
Side of city...
Used to be a hotel?

That's what she was sure she remembered. Keeping a mental note, and her bag check (yes she was wearing a bag this whole time, why wouldn't she?), she quickly walked up to the side of streetwalk and looked around. Spotting an approaching taxi, she raised a hand to signal it.

Ayesha could've sworn it was her hallucinating, but the taxi suddenly picked up speed to absurd levels and came with a massive screeching halt in front of her.

She craned her head down and looked at the taxi driver. A Japanese....no, Chinese? He didn't look...quite either. He did have a very impressive curly moustache, though, and a red shirt with floral patterns on it.

"Um...." Ayesha tried talking in Japanese.

"Macho no... hashish... made.... tsure....turtte....tarantino?"

The taxi driver raised a dangerous eyebrow at her.

"Can't speak Japanese, orenji?" he said in perfect English, though in an accent Ayesha couldn't quite recognize. She decided now wasn't the time to wonder where the dude was from, and quickly clambered in.

"Sorry, man. Listen, can you take me to the edge of the city? There's a building that's a, old and used to be a hotel."

The man gave her a look. "You mean, the one outside the city? There's no such building like that on the fringes."

Ayesha quickly corrected herself "Y-yes, yes! Please hurry, a friend wants to meet me there!"

The man said, "Then saddle up, madam!"

The guy rammed his foot on the gas, as the taxi, for some reason, suddenly made a horse neighing noise (probably the horn) and skidded off. Ayesha was thrown back onto her seat, clutching for dear life. This taxi, for how unassuming it looked, was absurdly fast. She seriously hoped the police wouldn't come after em.

A VERY UNCOMFORTABLE RIDE LATER

The car came to a screeching halt, throwing Ayeshas face into the seat that was in front of her. Her teeth connected with the metal bit holding the head cushion.

"Here we are!" The guy happily claimed.

"YYYYYYEEEEEAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!" Ayesha screamed, then covered her mouth.

Clambering out, she took a moment to skip around, the pain in her teeth vibrating all over her body. She pulled her hands off, and realized she was bleeding from the teeth.

"OH YOU FUCKIN-" she swore in French (what? Algerians learn French in school) before calming down...then swearing in Arabic.

She walked up to the driver after calming down again and handed him his taxi fare. The man gave her a salute, saying, "Goodbye, and watch out for Yakuza around here." Before the taxi seemed to leap forward and go at fast speed off down the road.

Ayesha stared as it went off.

"....Yakuza?" She said, gulping. Realizing she was still bleeding, she pulled a tissue from her bag and put it to her mouth. Looking around, she now noticed the building Lily must've been talking.

Phew! What a sight. It was quite big, weathered, and definitely looked old. The front had a very Edo period look (or as Ayesha called it, generic Japanese) as she carefully walked forward.

So Lily must be inside....along with... The softy?

Taking a breather, she walked forward....right as a newspaper flew into her face. She stumbled at this sudden change of events, and then stepped on something that caused her foot to root. She jolted to a standstill, then fell and almost sprained her knee. Sitting up in annoyance, she looked at her foot. It was practically stuck to something on the concrete. Pulling hard, she managed to pull it enough to see that it was-
"WHAT KIND OF GUM IS THIS?!" she exclaimed, standing up and pulling harder. Either Japan made some high quality gum or Ayesha was kind of a weakling.

"Oh for gawds sake, not-" her foot finally freed itself from the gum, as Ayesha stumbled, skipping on one foot, and right into the trashcans.
"NOOOOW!"

CRASH-BADUNG

After a moment, anyone passing by would wonder why there was someone walking around with a trash can covering half their body and cussing in foreign words.

Lily Belle... was still at "the office", it was easier to get paperwork done without the absolute chaos of the hotel carrying on around her. Her girls were enough of a disaster without their benefactors poking their nose into things. If they wanted to bother her she was at least going to make them travel across town to do it. She was reasonably confident that Anne would take care of their prospect, or at least that if she didn't one of the other girls would step in. At least she hoped so, she had too much work to do!

Meanwhile, at the hotel...

Anne heard the familiar sound of someone cursing in Arabic, she had learned a few phrases from Lamya over their years together. The blonde stepped out of the front door, barefoot and dressed in an oversized Guitarwolf tee shirt that covered her bicycle shorts creating the illusion it was all she wore. What she saw was a trashcan with legs, the source of the profanity. "You kiss your mother with that mouth? Here, habib, let me get that..." Calling the trashcan "lover" in heavily accented Arabic, she would take the can in both hands and try to lift it off of the poor thing.

With a SHWOAP the trash can came off, and what Anne would see was a very dirty, covered in trash, foreign clothing wearing person....with a waste bucket stuck on their head.

"H-help! I can't see!" her muffled voice screamed from inside the basket, as she felt around and grabbed Anne's arms.

With the first layer of trashcan removed it became obvious to Anne that this was in fact not "habib", but instead someone else. She waited a moment, staring skeptically at the trash covered woman, could this disaster be Lily's prospect? She knew her manager had a penchant for taking in every stray cat she could find, but this was literally scraping the bottom of the barrel. Rolling her eyes she reached out a hand to grab one of the woman's filthy arms, using the other to roughly snatch the basket off of her head. "Are... you Ayesha?" She could hardly suppress the urge to laugh, a few giggles floating beneath her words.

The waste basket popped off her head, and Ayesha had to quickly wipe some filth off her eyes and face.

She was greeted with a...rather pretty looking blonde American. She was curious if she was the one from whom that Arabic had come from. Nevertheless.....

"Oh, you...know me?" Ayesha looked in confusion, looking her up and down. "Are you...Lily's secretary or an associate?"

Lily must have some very casual people working for her, in Ayeshas eyes it seemed.

The first words out of the girl's mouth was to ask Anne if she was Lily's secretary, which made her mouth twist up in annoyance. She looked at the basket in her hand and strongly considered putting it back on Ayesha's head and going back inside. Fortunately for the newbie, that would violate the terms of her agreement with Lily and she loved nothing more than having her buxom manager owe her one. And wow was it ever going to be a big one for this train wreck. "As if we could afford a secretary." She snapped, tossing the waste basket back into the bin. "I'm Anne Archy, Lily said you're here to see the hotel and that you requested a little ring time with me specifically."

It was only now that through all of the filth she noticed the blood on the girl's lip, "Is that blood? Fuck, how hard did you trip?!"