Chapter Text
Two minutes past ten on the third Tuesday in August, twenty-six-year-old Sakura Haruno found herself someplace she had never expected to be: Perched on an oversized swivel chair in a glass-walled conference room on the sixteenth floor of a skyscraper in the heart of the Financial District, the city of Boston stretched out below her. Her shoulder-length strawberry-blonde locks were tucked more-or-less neatly behind her ears. Her long lashes were coated with a flick of mascara she’d for once managed not to smudge. And the navy suit she’d borrowed from Moegi, while a bit loose in places and rather wrinkled from her hour-long journey by bus and T, was relatively presentable, if not exactly comfortable. Suigetsu had been right about one thing. If she crashed and burned today, she’d be doing it in style.
“Good morning! You must be Sakura Haruno.”
A tall, slender young woman stood in the doorway, ice-blue eyes bright and inquisitive and long, blonde hair tied back in a neat ponytail. In her form-fitting, plum V-neck sheath dress; matching three-plus-inch heels; and winged eyeliner, Ino Yamanaka, Senior Editorial Coordinator in Cardiology at Konoha Medical Publications, was, on first glance, pretty and polished, albeit a bit too showy to be professional.
With a quick glance down to her lap, Sakura smoothed out the worst of the wrinkles in her pencil skirt. Then, not wanting to keep her interviewer waiting, she forced herself up out of her seat, mustered her best poster board presentation smile, and held out her right hand, noting with distaste how short and plain her nails looked in contrast to the blonde’s professionally lacquered talons. She really should have bothered with some neutral polish at least. Talk about not dressing the part.
“Thanks for having me in, Ms. Yamanaka. I’m excited to be here.”
If Ino was put off by their contrasting appearances, she didn’t give a hint of it. Her smile widened, and she released an airy tinkle of laughter. “Just Ino is totally fine! I’m sure things were probably different at Harvard, but, around here, we tend to keep things pretty caszh.”
Got it. Just Ino, then.
Ino took the seat opposite to where she’d been sitting, and Sakura followed her lead. Reaching down to the well-worn leather bookbag she’d been using since her undergraduate days, she pulled out the manila folder containing her resume and passed the blonde a copy. Deep breaths. Everything would be fine. She’d checked the document over at least twenty times in the past 48 hours. She’d even made Juugo and Suigetsu give it a read through… twice each. There was no way Ino would find a typo.
“So, like I was saying, this is going to be pretty relaxed,” the blonde began, giving a cursory glance at the oh-so-important document in front of her. “I’ll ask you a few questions, just, you know, about your experiences and why you’re interested in joining KMP. Then, I can say a bit about what your role would be like and answer any questions you might have.”
“Okay, great.”
“And I do mean that this is going to be relaxed. Like, I’m really not into those weird ‘gotcha!’ questions about what sort of flower you’d be. Daisies have their time and place, but I prefer to stick with relevant shit.”
“Right.” Despite her nerves, Sakura found her companion growing on her. Her looks might be reminiscent of one of those dippy sorority girls who signed up for Introduction to Psychology each semester because ‘Professor Yakushi is supposed to be nerdy hot … and young,’ but there was seemingly more going on with Ino Yamanaka than looks suggested.
“So, first question. Which isn’t really a question, I guess, but… tell me about Sakura Haruno.”
Sakura felt her lips tilt downwards ever-so-slightly. She’d said no gotcha questions! In fairness, Ino’s query shouldn’t have been difficult to answer. It wouldn’t have been, late last year, back when she’d still been “Sakura Haruno, fourth-year Harvard University Psych PhD candidate and advisee of Dr. Kabuto Yakushi, with a focus on pediatric psychosis and the development of schizophrenia in children and adolescents.” But now… who was she without all that? It was something she’d been grappling with for months, the question that had stumped her without fail in each practice session Juugo had patiently run through with her.
‘Just tell the truth,’ he’d said. ‘Tell the truth, but not too much.’ She could do that, right? If she wanted this job - God knew she needed the money - she had to.
“Well, I’m originally from Michigan. The Ann Arbor area. I moved to Cambridge for Harvard undergrad, majored in psychology, and, for the past three-and-a-half years, have been in grad school.”
Ino nodded, gaze flicking down to Sakura’s resume. “That’s right. You’d indicated that you completed a Master’s and had been working on a PhD until the start of this year. In Psychiatry, I believe?”
“Psychology.” Should she say more about her research? Probably. But that brought up bad memories and demons she’d rather avoid. Besides, would Ino even care? She was applying for an assistant position, after all, not an editor-level role. The job description hadn’t indicated which medical area had an opening, so whether or not she had any expertise in a particular discipline theoretically shouldn’t matter. Or so she’d assumed.
“So, what brings you to us, then? We don’t often have Harvard grad students waltzing through our doors!”
Great. Just great. Another straightforward, highly expected question that she really didn’t want to answer. All of a sudden, Sakura found herself wishing that Ino was a fan of flora. Then again, on the bright side, she and Juugo had come up with a reasonable answer for this question too. It was even the truth, more or less.
“At the start of the year, right at the beginning of the semester, I experienced some… health challenges,” she began, doing her best not to sound too over-rehearsed. “They led me to reevaluate what I was doing with my life. I came to realize that where I was headed wasn’t really for me. The stress, the competition, the personalities… the world of academia can be a lot.”
Sakura paused. Had she said enough? Made herself out to be a flake? A quitter? Juugo and Suigetsu had both assured her that such a line of attack was reasonable. Did Ino agree?
Glancing up from her tightly clasped hands, Sakura was pleased to discover that the blonde was nodding in seeming comprehension. “You know, we’ve got a philosophy almost-PhD working with our Emergency Med team now, and he’s said almost literally the same thing. KMP definitely has its moments, but I think you’ll find it’s much less of a high-pressure environment overall. Shika certainly seems to think so, at least!”
From there, the interview shifted into more comfortable waters: Sakura’s experiences as a TA and mentor for younger students, her two-year tenure as editor-in-chief of Harvard’s graduate studies newsletter, and the tutoring she’d done on the side as a member of the Harvard Writers’ Initiative. To think, everyone had thought her an idiot for continuing with her extracurriculars while also working on her PhD! Ino’s approach to interviewing turned out to blessedly open ended, allowing Sakura to pick and choose what stories to tell. And, if the blonde noticed gaps, she didn’t give any indication.
“It’s great to hear you’ve got such a solid editing background,” Ino commented warmly as she jotted down a note with a deep purple pen. “Usually, our coordinators tend to be English majors because of how key grammar is to the role, but it sounds like you’ve got that covered! Anywho, as I’m sure you gathered from the job description, our EC team does mostly proofreading and project management, not so much writing. We leave that to our Physician Editors… the in-house doctors who work with our chapter authors to write our content.”
Sakura nodded, recalling this detail from the job description. Initially, the fact that she wouldn’t be doing any writing had been a bit of a turnoff, but given how sad the market was for a PhD dropout with an increasingly long gap between vocations, it had seemed better to be overqualified than jobless. Suigetsu and Juugo had been exceedingly understanding about covering her third of the rent, but their PT and vet tech salaries only went so far, and she was very tired of lying in her bed each night feeling like the world’s most gigantic grifter. There was just one potential remaining issue, and Ino had provided the perfect segue.
“By the way, what’s the usual dynamic between the Editorial Coordinators and Physician Editors?” If it was anything like working for Kabuto…
Ino smiled. “It varies. My Editor, Asuma, and I are basically besties - our weekly check-ins are a party! We gossip, joke around, have fun, tease each other... he’s like my much older brother at this point. Others tend to keep things more… formal, I guess. When it comes to their job, coordinators play a support role and help keep their editors on track. They’re personal assistants, proofreaders, and project managers. And they spend a ton of time together, particularly early in the development of their medical section.”
A lot of one-on-one time with a much more senior editor. That was not the sort of scenario Sakura had been looking for. “Would I get to meet my editor ahead of time?”
“Sooo… usually we do give new ECs the chance to interview with their prospective Editors,” Ino replied. “Personalities meshing is an important piece of the KMP puzzle. Unfortunately, in this case, we’re still working on hiring the person you’d be working with, so that’s not really an option. I don’t want to get too into politics, but we have a trio of Editor-in-Chiefs who make all of our editorial hiring decisions, and they disagree… a lot. All I can tell you at this point is that your editor would be a Psychiatrist. Psych and Derm are the next two medical sections we’ll be adding.”
Sakura felt her heart leap into her throat. A psychiatrist. She’d get to keep working in Psych! But she wouldn’t get to meet her editor ahead of time.
Ino seemed to sense her hesitancy. “I should add that the management trees for coordinators and editors are kept separate. So, in the extremely unlikely event that your editor turned out to totally suck, they wouldn’t really be able to impact your standing within the company in a truly meaningful way. They don’t manage you - they work with you. Also, our EC director, Shizune Kato, is super supportive and very used to dealing with PEs behaving badly. I’m sorry you can’t interview with her today either - she’s out on PTO this week - but believe me when I say you’d be in extremely supportive hands.”
Sakura felt the knot that had tightened in her chest beginning to unfurl. Perhaps it was all hot air and glitz, but she found herself tempted to take Ino at her word. Not to mention that it would be really nice to be able to supplement her beans, rice, and instant ramen diet with some fresh produce every now and then. “Ms. Kato would be my manager, then?”
“That’s right! At least to start. Oh, and you’d have a mentor too, which would be yours truly. Our mentors show new hires the ropes and serve as sounding boards for any questions or issues that come up early on. Coming out of grad school, I realize that that might sound like a lot of supervision, but we’re really not into letting people fall through the cracks.”
It did sound like a lot. Back when she was twenty-two and bristling with confidence, Sakura would have absolutely loathed such an arrangement. But now? After seven semesters of dealing with a man whom she wouldn’t be surprised to discover was the devil himself, a hands-on manager and a buddy system was music to her ears. “That’s appreciated. So, not to be too forward, but where do we go from here?”
The blonde smiled broadly. “If you don’t have any more questions for me, the next step in the process is an editing test, which you’ll probably find in your inbox by the time you get home. You’ll have a week to turn that around, but the sooner you get back to us the better. After that, our hiring team will review the results, and we’ll follow up with you with a decision shortly after. Sound good?”
She had no idea. “Great. Thank you so much for your time today, Ms. Yama… I mean Ino.”
Blue eyes twinkled with amusement. “Don’t mention it. Also, I’m not really supposed to be telling you this, but everyone on the EC staff was absolutely floored by your application. I’m pretty sure you’re the most freaking awesome candidate we’ve ever had.”