78 Unexpected (1/2)

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Ono left the room quite startled at what he just heard. He wondered if he just sided with the wrong people since the tables were immediately turned against him. He just remembered that on the day this kid transferred, he proclaimed himself a genius who would have attained a higher level of education if he hadn't chosen to follow his mother's instructions and go through school normally.

This blunder made him hold a grudge as he strode out of the room. He almost crashed into the two girls he was looking for because he was too embarrassed to remain and had to think about what he should say to be forgiven. He was looking forward to a promotion that his uncle has been setting up for him and this might have just ruined his chances.

”What was that about?” Maron asked one of the members of class.

”Ono-sensei was looking for both of you and tried to ask Kouzuki-san about it. He wanted to make trouble for Kouzuki-san because he didn't tell him anything but Kouzuki-kun refused to budge”

”Huh really? Why was he looking for us?”

”I don't know. He never really got the chance to say it but knowing Ono-sensei… he probably wants to convince you two to go to his class. He tried asking Aoki-san a few times when he found out that a person from S class was attending here”

The two of girls were a bit surprised. It didn't make sense that Kazuya would give up a chance to get rid of them. He acted like he didn't want anything to do with them so why did he give up such a chance?

”(Is Ka-kun… 'that'?)” Maron began to think of something she learned when she came to this country. It was a type of person that she never thought existed nor was there any concept of it in her home.

Kurumi on the other hand had another thing on her mind. She wrote down her thoughts on her notebook and ate the bread she bought with Maron as they both kept their attention towards Kazuya who was now thinking of ways to handle the situation.

-

Kouzuki Headquarters; CEO's office.

Kyouko has been looking at Mei who was busy working for almost 10 minutes now. She was waiting for her assistant to realize that it was already time for lunch but it seems that her busy assistant hasn't realized it nor gave any signs of noticing any time soon.

”Mei!” She finally lost her patience and decided to call her out after waiting for another minute.

”Hmm? Did you need me for something boss?” Mei glanced over to her boss who wasn't doing any work and her eyebrows twitched.

”What are you looking at me like that for? You're usually the first one to notice but you're starting to act weird again” Kyouko commented.

This wasn't the first time that she called her assistant out for this kind of behavior. They weren't especially busy with anything but there were times that her assistant would appear to be busy like this. She had suspicions that Mei was planning on doing something with her son again since their relationship has been especially weird lately.

They would sometimes go out and Mei would successfully use the excuse that she had already done her work in advance so Kyouko couldn't stop them. She didn't know what they were up to and her son would just tell her that they went out to have fun. This worked for the past two years since the two were successful in hosting Kyouko's surprise birthday party in a small restaurant that she had never been to before where the owner treated them like regulars.

”Oh right. I didn't pay attention to the time” Mei inwardly sighed. She had been too focused because Kazuno Tech was in a very critical time and they couldn't afford to mess up now. Kazuya already warned her about making Kyouko suspicious and she knew it herself but work had always been the perfect place where she could focus.

”You're not planning on taking Kazuya away again are you? You're always like this when you're planning to take him out for a day and don't tell me what you're doing or where you're going” Kyouko looked at her assistant suspiciously. She always looked forward to spending time with Kazuya on weekends but ever since Mei moved in, they would fight over spending time with him whenever the boy wasn't busy with his increasing number of activities.

”Hmm… maybe. I don't think I've done enough work to afford slacking off yet” Mei smiled mischievously. She was relieved to find out that hers and Kazuya's distractions over the years have been working.

”Hmm… I should give you more work then” Kyouko crossed her arms to start thinking. ”We haven't really been making progress with our current plans of expansion so I think we should put that on hold and focus on attracting more partners” she seriously considered this which totally startled Mei who had bluffed.

”Do you really want to abandon our plans for entering the technological scene? We've put quite the amount of work in it” Mei wanted to convince her otherwise because with the way things were now, her getting more work would split her attention too much.

”I don't think we'll be making much progress now that Ringo Corp and Kurogane Conglomerate have announced their open collaboration and familial connections in the future. The Kuroganes haven't been showing it but they are still quite bitter about us getting the support of Stockton International” Kyouko sighed. She really couldn't believe that they were the ones feeling bitter about the incident two years ago. Her son was the one who almost died after all.

Kyouko had mentioned this before but Mei didn't think that she would be the one triggering her decision. She needed to think of something and she needed an idea fast.

”Oh right, I was thinking about something you said to me recently boss. You said that I piled up quite a lot of vacation days right? I'm thinking about taking it before I lose the chance of ever taking my piled-up vacation days” this was the best she could think of at the moment.

”WHAT!?” Kyouko was quite surprised at the sudden declaration. Mei was known to have never taken even a sick leave so this made Kyouko look at her suspiciously. ”What are you up to? What do you mean by 'before you lose the chance'?”

”Well…” she cursed herself for saying something so careless. ”I just thought that since you said that we haven't been really busy lately, I want to let Yumi-chan take the reigns without having me for support. This is going to test her capabilities since she won't have me to clean up her mistakes” both of them glanced towards Yumi who also didn't seem to have noticed the time.

The two have delegated some work to her so that she could get used to the amount of workload Mei had to deal with. Both of them wanted to test this talented girl who wanted to follow the same steps as her parents and work for the company.

”Is that really it? Why does it seem like you only thought of it now?” Kyouko still hadn't dropped her suspicions because this really was something that Mei wouldn't just say or do out of the blue.