In her room

"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 Sin on something", Hina responded with a light smile.

"Sin, is everything alright?", Ema still looked a bit concerned.

"I suppose so. It was the Miss' 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... Miss. What work are we exactly gonna do?", I had to ask too. 

"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 lying 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-"

I turned my head to ask Hina and saw that she was taking her clothes off. She had her back turned to me and her shirt was coming down, exposing her pale back and shoulder blades.

"Miss! What are you doing?!"

I quickly turned the other way. What is she even thinking?

"Huh? I'm getting changed. Don't you get changed when you get home?"

"That's not-"

"Ah, Sin, sorry I didn't offer you. I will get Ema to bring in some loungewear"

"Absolutely not, Miss. You can't just take your clothes off like that!"

I kept my back turned on her to avoid seeing anything unnecessary. 

"…and the reason is…?"

"That is just not ladylike"

"You are using gender stereotypes again"

"Nevermind, Miss… Are you done now?"

"Yeah"

I let out a sigh and turned back to face Hina again. She was wearing very pink cutesy frilly pajamas.

And just now you were reprimanding me about using gender stereotypes…

"Is this better now?"

:Sigh:

"Let's just move on"

"What were you going to ask before? You were going all OMG and stuff"

"Oh… never mind. It's not work-related"

"Come on, Sin. We came here so we can get to know each other better, right?"

"Right… it… I just saw that over there"

I pointed at an imposing-looking synthesizer keyboard on one side of the room. 

"You know what it is?"

"Is that a real CS-80?"

I'm in Chan's family mansion. Nothing here would be fake but I was just too gob-smacked to see it. This was an extremely rare and legendary synthesizer keyboard. Only about 500 of them remain and you'd almost never see them come up for sale, and if it ever did, my both kidneys wouldn't even make the starting bid. To put that in perspective, there are about 650 Stradivarius violins in the world now. Yes. This was that rare. 

"Woot, you recognize it?"

"It's the first time I see this in real life, Jesus… you make music?"

"Well, it's a little hobby of mine. Still learning. 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!"

Yes, Miss. It is a disgrace. But we will change the topic now. 

"Er... Anyways, you play drums too?"

I asked pointing at what clearly seemed to be an original Gretsch drum kit, maybe from the 60s, sitting on a slightly elevated platform.

"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 pointing at a 1950s Telecaster on a guitar stand. 

This also has to be an original, not a re-issue. There goes another 40~150,000 dollars instrument. Obviously, all of this is not even pocket money for a child of the Chans, and they had artworks around the mansion that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. I never really got impressed by them much though (except for a few paintings of my favorite artists that I really admired). But all those things were stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Seeing these instruments though, made me slightly envious as these were the things that I would have loved to have, but could not afford.

"Sin, you seem to have an interest in music?"

"Well... A long long time ago I played in a band"

Why did I even say that just now…? Unnecessary detail. 

"Oh cool! What did you play?"

"Drums"

And I'm still answering her…

"Wicked! You can have a go then!"

I hesitated a little. It's been at least six or seven years since I last held the drumsticks 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 -

"Miss, 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"

"Miss -"

"No more 'Miss'' please - I'm at home"

"But -"

"No buts either. Look, here is what I think, Sin. 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 your 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 so 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 she's playing games while procrastinating studying for an exam, but I decided not to point that out for now. 

Just go with the flow, Sin. Do not correct her all the time.

"Okay, Miss. 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 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 a little 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"

"Wow, 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 Sin, 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, Tenshin's in-game world. 

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 are that simple in their nature and personalities. Everybody has their quirks that deviate from the caricatures of simplified teenage 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 realized that Hina was right to call me a boomer earlier in the day. It was me who was shallow to make my assumptions about 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, our clients are the buyers, but as a working woman, 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. 

Also, maybe it was really just about me having a lapse of composure and a moment of immaturity, but Hina got me to reveal and share my hobbies that I never tell others in work settings. Everyone just knew me as Sin, the ever-present assistant of Chairman Chan, hence sometimes called "Sin the Shadow". Yet, here she was, already learning more about me in one day than many other people at the company who've known me for years did. 

"Hey, Sin"

"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…