"Hello there! My little lovebirds!"
Iori heard the president say loudly as soon as Jun opened the door to their apartment. She heard the door slam back down and there was some knocking instantly.
Here we go again...
"Jun! let him in before he informs the neighbors and anyone who cares to know who we are..." Iori said and Jun sent her an offended glare. Then mumbled something under his breath making his pleasure more than apparent.
Honestly... She felt like she spent most of her time around these two mothering them like some brothers who didn't get along.
Jun opened the door and the fifty-something years old man burst inside as if he wasn't his age.
He ignored Jun at the side of the door and flew toward Iori taking both of her
A few days passed since the incident and Jun was beginning to go out more often. The security detail still followed him wherever he went but, it was better than being confined to the house the whole time. Iori on the other hand never left home. It was as if she was growing comfortable inside and any mention of stepping outside disturbed her. Jun knew that the depth of her fear ran deeper than he would ever imagine. But, he was worried about her... "Hello, handsome..." Said a female voice from beside him snapping him out of his thought. He turned around to find a woman he vaguely recognized but still couldn't place her name. "Hi," Jun said awkwardly as he gripped his coffee mug and stole a glance at his laptop where he had been trying to write the next scene in their book. He changed the page quickly and looked up at the woman who come up to sit in front of him leaning her elbows against the table and pushing her cleavage out for him. Jun wanted to gro
"Our family's history goes back so far that most of us had given up on studying it in depth. In fact, Iori was the only one interested enough to dig deeper into the family's history," Haruki said, "We used to be a family of warriors and Priestesses protecting the Satou mountain. Some even say that our family stayed recluse from the outside world to protect the national secrets and treasures of the sacred arts. I'm not sure how accurate is that though..." "His family's influence grew and that's when our great great grandfather made his entrance into the business world as a way to keep up the Main house's presence and influence. he had a sister and they both decided to divide the sacred part of the clan and the business side. This sister stayed in the mountain and maintained the household's heritage, while her brother went into the world and made sure that the family stayed strong enough and prominent enough. It's a tradition that the firstborn da
"Don't tell me that you were dating her without knowing who she is," Shou said putting down the mug he was drying and threw the towel over his shoulder leaning forward."I don't know what you're talking about. Do you know Iori from somewhere?" Jun asked trying to follow up with his friend's reasoning."let's jog up your memory a little bit..." His friend said, " Do you remember certain lazy evenings at the school's library, especially in the spring, there was a sakura tree near the library windows and the light breeze always brought petals into the room whenever the windows are open... One day, as you headed toward the corner where you usually sit, you saw a beautiful raven-haired girl standing there and holding a book in her hands...""Which one of us was the writer? Because I'm beginning to wonder if our careers got switched for a moment," Jun
" "Did you bring your car?" Haruki asked as they were leaving the coffee shop. "No, I walked here. It's been a while since I took a walk in the city," Jun responded "Then let me give you a ride. I was going to take Iori home anyway," Jun nodded and they all headed toward Hariki's car. He was still thinking about the fact that Iori could be his first love. It had been years since then and Jun wouldn't say that it was faith to meet the love of his life after all this time and that it was meant to be. He wasn't that much of a romantic... But, the thought that he and Iori had had a moment is in the past, and the fact that she was the person who represented the fleeting moment like the sakura petals that filled the library back then, gentle, beautiful, but fleeting like an illusion. That fact made him smile. Back then they had bonded over their mutual love of books and literature. They talked about that and other things for hours to no end. H
Iori motioned to Jun who was answering his phone and headed down the hallway toward their apartment.Two bodyguards who were different from the ones assigned to her were waiting by the door. They both turned toward her and bowed and she realized that she knew the older one. “Genta,” she said and the old man nodded his neutral look never wavering. “Miss Iori, it has been a long time,” he said “Yes, it has,” Iori said smiling at the man who had been present through many of her childhood memories, “how have you been?” She asked “Thanks to your kindness I have been doing well.It’s good to see you well and in good health,” he said and his eyes crinkled in the corner in the closest semblance of a smile. “It’s good to
"No," Iori said "What in the world are you..." Her father began "I said no, Father. I am not going back to the main house. I made this clear a long time ago. I am not living in that house again. You were the one who chased me away from it, to begin with," Iori responded wondering how this would go. This was the first time she talked to her father directly about this and she didn't know how this would go. If her brother's suspicions were true. Maybe they could clear up any possible misunderstanding. "I never chased you away from the main house. Why would I do that?!" Her father exclaimed, "I knew that you wanted to be away from the pressure of the succession and the problems with the mountain clan, but our agreement had always been that you would come back to the family eventually..." "How about the time you said that you never wanted to see my face again and that I was as dead to you as Mother?" "I never said anything of the sort. What
“We’re screwed…” Jun said looking at the calendar in front of him on their new dining table. “We are screwed,” Iori said from the other side of the table staring at that very calendar with the bright red circle with the word deadline written underneath it. “How did it get to be like this?” Jun asked trying to ignore the voice in his head that kept saying ‘you know-how, you slacker!’ “This usually happens when no one sticks to the word counts and skips plot meetings…” Iori said with a distant voice as if she was trying to convince herself that she was in no danger if she talked about the problem like it didn’t concern her. Yeah… good try… “I can’t believe that we’re this behind on our schedule. We barely finished half of the required material …” “The manuscript isn’t even halfway through, and the deadline is in two days. Kimiko and Kajima are going to do a quadruple suicide taking us with them if we tell them this…” A shiver ran
Iori stopped running as soon as the lights went out. She stood there in the middle of silence and darkness in what felt like ages. Every cell in her body went still and she felt the cold air seeping through her clothes as if the frost was eating out the air around her in slow deliberate agony.She thought she heard footsteps and something else in the background but she wasn’t sure if those noises were inside her head or actually from the real world. That’s when she felt it, the warm humid breath against her neck and the acid words as they whispered into her ear.“I’m here to get you…” The all too familiar voice said, “you won’t get away from me this time, Suzuna-sensei…”Fear gripped Iori’s heart and nausea flipped her stomach. This has become the case whenever someone called her by that name. Iori wanted to run, she wanted to scream but she couldn’t.Her body didn’t belong to