Canary Wharf, London. The AC at Pubclays is still blasting hard enough to preserve a corpse.
Julian was sunk into the ergonomic leather swivel chair that once belonged to Greg, a box of Vietnamese stir-fry glistening with cheap grease sitting in front of him. He swirled a clump of noodles with a plastic fork, shoving it mindlessly into his mouth while propping his feet—totally unbothered—on the mahogany desk that used to represent absolute authority.
Since Greg's downfall, this entire floor had become a physical "no-man's land." Compliance investigators hovered in the distance like ghosts, but no one dared come within three meters of Julian. To them, the man who had personally terminated a top-tier MD's career carried some kind of lethal logical virus.
"Emma, Tomasz, over here," Julian barked mid-chew, eyes fixed on his monitor.
Two minutes later, the entire office stopped what they were doing. Faces went pale as a high-priority administrative notice popped up on the intranet:
[Administrative Notice]
Subject: Flexible Working (Flextime) Policy & Home Office Optimization
Per approval from the Desk Head, to enhance logical processing efficiency during remote work, all 32-inch 4K high-refresh monitors and associated tableware assigned to this team are to be released into the personal custody of employees, effective immediately.
"Is this... is this even compliant?" a passing Associate stammered.
"I am the procedure," Julian said, hitting the final period on his resignation letter without looking up. "If the firm wants to push Flextime, we might as well be thorough. These screens will just collect dust here; better they go somewhere with actual value."
And so, the absurdity unfolded. Under Julian's direction, Emma and Tomasz acted like a professional demolition crew, expertly snipping the power cables of six top-of-the-line monitors. They marched through the lobby, lugging the expensive hardware as if they owned the place. Even the notoriously strict security guard at the exit held the door for them, offering a sincere "Have a nice time working from home."
[Private Group Chat]
Julian: Offer signed. 3M base, plus an expense account large enough to buy half of Nihonbashi.
Tomasz: Congrats. What's the word from Noruma? When do we start?
Julian: You and Emma can start tomorrow. Don't rush. The HQ insists I fly back to Tokyo for three months of "purification"—officially called Leadership & Compliance Training. I'm guessing it's just practicing how to hand out business cards at a perfect 30-degree angle. Fine by me, I'll treat it as a vacation.
Tomasz: Three months? You serious? Who's running your new desk at Noruma then?
Julian: You guys are. I've cleared it with HQ. You report to the office in The City tomorrow. While I'm away, just consider yourselves "house-sitting" for me. Do whatever you want. As for the money, just stack up the expense receipts. I'll sign them off when I'm back from playing puppet for the elders in Tokyo.
Emma: You sure you can handle the Keigo (honorifics)? That stuff is harder than HFT logic.
Julian: I'll manage. I've known that shit since the womb (actually, I just learned it for the bag).
Julian closed the chat, shut down the confirmation for his £3M offer, and picked up the battered paper cup bearing the Pubclays logo. The resignation was sent. All that remained was the awkward ritual of "Leaving Drinks."
In the breakroom, the atmosphere was thick enough to choke on. A few plates of dry scones and some cheap supermarket champagne sat on the table. Colleagues huddled in a circle, nobody daring to genuinely wish him well for fear of being flagged as "Julian's accomplice" by Compliance.
Julian held his teacup, smiling radiantly. He walked over to the window where a wilting Money Tree—supposedly bought for Greg's Feng Shui—sat in the corner.
"Thanks for the memories, everyone," Julian said, patting a shriveled branch with mock affection. "This plant has been my closest confidant here. Now that I'm leaving, I can't exactly leave it here to suffer."
To everyone's stunned disbelief, Julian uprooted the heavy Money Tree. Combined with the clinking set of branded tableware he'd "liberated" from the breakroom and stuffed into his bag, he walked toward the exit without looking back.
"Goodbye, Pubclays."
Thanks, Greg, he thought. You've been a real saint. Without you, I'd never have landed this MD gig. Off to Tokyo for some taxpayer-funded hot springs... and to learn how to keep a 30-degree bow while I'm gutting the competition.
Noruma Headquarters, Tokyo.
In the early morning light of the training room, Julian sat in a sharply tailored, charcoal grey Zegna suit. It wasn't just a suit; it was a Savile Row limited edition, cut from century-old British wool—a piece of sartorial armor that screamed "elite." In this room full of cheap plastic chairs and white acoustic panels, the suit looked alien. Too sharp, too detached.
He sat on a cramped folding chair, knees together, back straight, surrounded by a herd of 22-year-old Shinsotsu (fresh grads) in their boxy, off-the-rack suits. His eyes were hollow, his soul clearly ten thousand miles away. On the podium, Sato-san—a balding HR instructor with bug-eyes—held up a business card, his voice shrill.
"Watanabe-san!" Sato-san barked, zeroing in on Julian with calculated severity. "The thumbs! Keep them flat! Don't squeeze! You must present the card as if you are cradling your own soul! It represents the dignity of the firm!"
Julian extended his hands stiffly, thumbs carefully avoiding the red Noruma logo. He knew he was being targeted, but his face remained a mask of numb compliance. The hands that once shifted hundreds of millions of pounds were now being trained like a primary schooler's. The cuffs of his Zegna suit brushed silently against the grime of the cheap plastic table with every reluctant movement.
The moment Sato-san turned to the whiteboard, Julian's phone buzzed. An encrypted message from Tomasz: a photo of Tomasz's cat sitting in front of those four "liberated" 4K monitors, now rigged up in Tomasz's living room. A total hacker den.
Tomasz: The base layer protocol for the new desk is stuck. Server priority issues. With you gone, nobody wants to bypass the HQ firewall.
Julian: (Typing deadpan) Stop whining and run the test code on the side. Get the High-Frequency Arbitrage logic flowing using Order Book Depth simulations. Max out the Cross-Asset Correlation and keep the Bid-Ask spread at a minimum. I'm busy learning how not to crush a business card while bowing. My survival at Noruma depends on it.
Emma:How's it going? Found your Asian roots yet? (lol)
Julian tucked the phone away, refocusing on Sato-san's rambling. This "Etiquette Training" was a marathon, not a sprint. He just needed to play the "obedient idiot" perfectly to defeat this rigid system.
Evening, Otemachi. A pitch-black Toyota Century pulled up to the Noruma entrance, as discreet as a mobile coffin.
Julian slumped into the vast rear seat and yanked loose his Marinella tie. After a day of absurd drills, he was vibrating with a mix of exhaustion and spiteful adrenaline. He snapped a photo of an 800,000-yen receipt from a Ginza sushi spot where he'd just treated a few "Seniors." He hadn't eaten much himself; he'd spent the whole time watching the old men perform the art of graceful chewing.
He logged into the Noruma expense system and typed the reason for the claim:
"Market research on the impact of global supply chain fluctuations on the Japanese service industry."
Submit. One second later: Approved.
Despite being a "new hire" on paper, his special MD status gave him the expense account of an imperial envoy. It was a bizarre thrill—the system knew he was full of it, but to maintain the facade of "politeness," it had no choice but to pay up.
The Tokyo skyline blurred past. Two hours later, the Century stopped at a secluded private ryokan in Hakone.
In the steaming waters of the private hot spring, Julian closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cold rock. There were no pills here, no Aria, just the crushing heat of the water and the sick, sweet satisfaction of "playing the system."
He pulled out the card that read Managing Director, his thumb tracing the embossed lettering.
"If Noruma wants to pay MD wages for a delivery boy, I'll be the most polite delivery boy they've ever seen."
He let out a cold laugh into the rising steam.
"When I take this 'Yamato Spirit' back to London, I'm not just taking the three million quid. I'm going to strip the entire market bare."