Iori's hysterical laughter drew the customer's attention, but to his credit, Kazuma remained silently neutral as he patiently waited for her to finish. As Iori's laughter died down she still couldn't wipe the smile from her face.
"Kazuma, you're saying the funniest things. You could pass for a comedy skit any time by that sense of humor of yours." She said her last words hardening and sounding harsh.
"I do not understand where you're coming from Iori-sama," He said watching her with his unwavering neutral look. If it was any other person, he would've been successful in fooling them. But Iori knew the man too well. She grew up with him...
"Kazuma, you were there when I left the main house. And you were there when my father openly cut me out of the family at the time in my life when I needed his support the most. So, It has been an understanding that I have no business with the main house and they don't have any business with me. So why do you think that you or Fa
if someone was to drop a pin in that conference room, Jun doubted that it would reach the floor. The room was flooded with reporters and cameramen to the brim. They were all squirming in their seats waiting for the big event to happen. Jun still wondered what they were waiting for. What could they be expecting? Were they all there to hear him and Iori say, yes we're dating, or no we're not dating? Was all this fuss over whether or not they were in a relationship. The notion of that was so ridiculous because even jun himself wouldn't have been as curious to know as them, even if it was about himself... To this moment he was still wondering how the old man managed to pull it off. It's been a week since their so-called scandal made the news. He would've understood why that caught the media's attention, Although they would never be on the same level as people from showbiz. They could still make a fuss over their affair if there was no other newsworthy scandal that day.
There was one thing that Iori hates about the media, and that's everything!They gather around news like sharks smelling blood from their prey. Then they keep ruthlessly tearing that prey apart until there's nothing left of it except for shreds of uneaten flesh and bones.That's how cruel media can be, and Iori had had a first-hand experience with that years ago. She had already been torn apart with what happened to her and then they came along and ripped apart every shred of dignity and self-respect she had left after the incident leaving her with nothing. That experience had destroyed her faith in the world and in their society and she still had yet to recover that lost faith...Seeing the reporters gather around in the spacious conference room like flies was a repulsing sigh. Some would say that after what had happened to her she would be afraid. Some even might judge that she was traumatized by them because of how she reacted at the restaurant.
When she went back to the room, Jun was watching the feed from the conference room transfixed. He turned around to see her walk-in then went back to his meditation-like state.Iori took a deep breath trying to calm the anger swirling in her, and went to sit beside him on the couch.Her conversation with her father was still playing in her mind. He was giving her that order as if he was confident that she would listen to it. As if the most obvious thing was to obey whenever he opened his mouth to give an order. That's what happened when someone had too much power and entitlement for too long...luckily, the president was here and he could deal with her father's messenger in case they came. Some would have taken her father's words as an empty threat and that would be a mistake. He was perfectly capable of forcing her to go back to the main house and getting away with it. That's why they had to stop his men before they got anywhere near her.The president ha
"Thank you very much. The two of you were fantastic. We'll be able to milk this for a long time before we run out of free publicity," Said the representative who happened to be a member of the marketing team responsible for their book's publicity. The young man bowed to them once again before he excused himself, Jun's editor following him to see him off. The president had disappeared as soon as they wrapped up the conference. They couldn't find him anywhere and they gave up looking for him right away knowing how volatile the man can be. "Shall we head back up?" Jun asked, "we could change and go out to eat something and celebrate," "Celebrate what?" "Hmm, good question... It cou
"You're never letting that one go, aren't you?" Iori told Jun with an exasperated sigh, "Nope," He responded grinning from ear to ear, " And forego all the fun? No way!" He was having way too much fun teasing her, who knew Iori would be capable of doing something like that in a moment of panic. That was hilarious. And the moment when she realized what she had done... Lord, her reactions gave him a kick better than any comedy skit he ever watched. "I was an Idiot. This is what I get for asking for your help..." Iori muttered into her cup averting her gaze from his. "How rude! After all the trouble I went through to get you away from those guys. I even broke the law," "Oh, so you know. Good to know that you realize what you did," Iori grumbled picking up her cup of water and sipping from it again as if it was some finely brewed tea or a glass of wine. But, it was still water. A poor substitute and not very convincing when som
Iori opened the door to their new apartment and stepped aside to let Jun come in beside her. The two of them stood at the threshold side by side watching the wide space in the darkness. It was a spacious place with floor-to-ceiling windows, the living room and the kitchen were open spaces with a breakfast bar separating them, a huge dining table in the middle, and a sofa with its entertainment center on the other side. The view was a stunning typical night light view that any apartment in the middle of the city in a building high enough to make the cars look like little toys passing the streets beneath them. Closing the door behind them, Jun turned the lights on to reveal that the walls were painted in an understated light grey with white highlights here and there. There were three doors, all of which were well-equipped bedrooms. Two of them had the same view as the living room which clearly belonged to the two of them. "It seems like this one i
"Do you have to bring all those school notebooks with you?" Her brother asked for the third time that day as he closed the box and taped it. "For the last time Haruki, those are references from when I need some information while I work. If you're not going to stop complaining about how heavy my belongings are, you should just sit down and watch while I pack by myself." Haruki grumbled something about uncute little sisters as he carried the box and put it on top of the growing pile of boxes. More than half of those were her books and they didn't even go through half of her collection. Perhaps she needed to tune things down a little bit. Even though the third room in the new apartment was filled with shelves, there was a limit to how many books she could take with her since she was going to share them with Jun. "So, how did the first night go?" Haruki said standing up and looking at her waiting for her answer with undivided attention. This
Jun knew Iori was avoiding him as soon as he woke up the next morning. What made him realize that? Well... That would have been the note she left him before she disappeared at the crack of dawn. If he hadn't predicted that it would happen when she locked herself in her room last night... Jun knew that it was a gamble to talk to her about it directly. But, it felt like the right time to tell her. And he just wanted to put her at ease. But, it seems like the only thing he did was make her more tense around him. if the way she acted this morning was any indication. Deciding that she needed her space, Jun went to his own apartment and packed his belongings. It took him about thirty minutes to decide what to take from his wardrobe, while he spent the rest of the morning organizing his shelves and making sure to label the references he was going to need before he neatly put them into boxes. When Jun first started writing, he learned one hard lesson after another wh