Chapter 25: B
The morning light in their shared suite felt accusatory. It illuminated the elegant business card Yuna had placed on the low kotatsu like a piece of damning evidence. Ren stared at it over his half-eaten breakfast, his appetite gone.
“It’s simple,” Yuna said, her voice bright with a forced cheer that set Ren’s teeth on edge. She sipped her matcha latte, perfectly poised in a sleek kimono-style dressing gown. “You call him. You thank him again for his kindness. You accept his implied invitation. You go for a walk. You listen. The man is a vault of information, and he wants to open himself for you.”
“It’s a date,” Ren muttered, pushing a piece of tamagoyaki around his plate. “You’re pimping me out on a date.”
Hikaru, lounging on a floor cushion and scrolling through her phone, didn’t look up. “Think of it as a side quest. With a romance subplot you’re required to fail.” Her tone was light, but the line of her shoulders was tight.
“It’s espionage,” Yuna corrected, waving a dismissive hand. “The fate of a friend versus your temporary discomfort. Is it even a choice?” Her eyes hardened, the stylist’s gleam replaced by the colder focus of a strategist. “Suki is in a walled compound because of a family like his. We need leverage, insight, anything. You got us the location. Now get us the key.”
Ren’s pride, a brittle, prickly thing, warred with a genuine thread of concern for Suki. He saw her face in his mind—not the idol’s smile, but the anxious look she’d had before she vanished. He swallowed, the food turning to clay in his mouth. “Fine. Whatever.”
The preparations were humiliatingly thorough. Yuna produced a tiny, high-end voice recorder no bigger than a button. “Inside the ribbon on your blouse,” she instructed, her fingers deft as she secured it. The wire was cool against his skin. A nearly invisible flesh-toned earpiece followed. “We’ll be in the van a block away. I’ll feed you lines if you freeze.”
“I don’t need lines,” Ren grumbled, but the protest was weak.
“You absolutely need lines,” Hikaru said, finally looking at him. Her pink eyes were unreadable. “Your default small talk revolves around combo multipliers and gacha pull rates. Not exactly captivating for a romantic scion of Kyoto.”
Mina, ever the cheerful void, clapped her hands. “It’s like a spy movie! But cuter! Don’t worry, Rena-chan, you’ll be great! Just be your adorable self!”
That was the entire problem.
An hour later, Ren stood by a serene koi pond in a quiet corner of the resort, the phone trembling slightly in his hand. He took a breath that did nothing to steady him, dialed the number on the card, and lifted the phone to his ear.
It rang once. “Amiya.”
The voice was formal, guarded. It was his office voice.
“Um. H-hello. It’s… Rena. From last night.” Ren pitched his voice high, soft, lacing it with a nervous flutter Yuna would be proud of.
A beat of silence. Then, the tone transformed, warming by several degrees. “Rena. I’m glad you called. Is everything alright?”
“Yes! Yes, fine. The, uh, nose is all better. Thank you again. I… I was wondering if your offer to see more of Kyoto was… still open?” He cringed, hearing the scriptedness in his own words.
“It is.” The warmth was now genuine, almost eager. “Are you free now? I could meet you at the same restaurant in twenty minutes.”
The trap was sprung. “That sounds lovely.”
The walk to the restaurant was a blur of elevated heartbeats. The earpiece hissed softly with empty static. He felt the weight of the recorder, the absurdity of the ribbon on his cheap, deliberately ‘cute’ blouse. Akiji was waiting outside, Kirishima a silent, looming shadow several respectful paces behind. Akiji smiled, and it reached his eyes this time, softening the weary lines.
“You look well,” he said.
“Thanks,” Ren said, then remembering to add, “You too.”
They didn’t go inside. Instead, Akiji led the way on a stroll through the less-touristy backstreets of Gion. The morning was cool, the scent of damp earth and incense lingering in the air. For a few minutes, they walked in a silence that wasn’t entirely uncomfortable.
Ask him about his family, Yuna’s voice whispered, tinny and direct in his ear.
Ren jumped slightly. “So! Your, um, family. They’ve been here a long time?”
Akiji nodded, hands in the pockets of his tailored trousers. “Centuries. It’s a history that weighs a ton. Every decision is measured against the ancestors.” He spoke calmly, but the frustration was a low current beneath the words. “Sometimes I envy people like you. The freedom to simply be in a place, without being of it.”
Good. Now pivot to marriage. Gently.
Ren’s mouth felt dry. “You mentioned… an arrangement. Yesterday. That must be… hard to think about.”
Akiji stopped walking, looking not at Ren but at the moss growing between the stones of an old wall. “It’s all I think about. Yamato Suki is a perfectly suitable match. I’ve known her since we were children. She is… pleasant.”
The name was a jolt. Suki. He said it so casually.
Pleasant? Ask what that means.
“Pleasant?” Ren echoed, the question slipping out. “What’s she like?”
Akiji sighed, a soft, defeated sound. “Obedient. Quiet. Trained, like a prized bird, to sing the right songs and sit on the right perch. There’s no… fire. No surprise.” He turned his head, looking directly at Rena. “Not like the surprise of meeting a stranger who asks honest questions.”
The intensity of his gaze was overwhelming. Ren felt heat rush to his cheeks, a genuine, flustered reaction. He looked away, scrambling for the next prompt.
Yuna was silent. The earpiece offered only a vacant hum.
“Are you… looking for fire?” Ren asked, the words feeling stupid and clumsy.
“I’m looking for a person,” Akiji said simply. “Not a pedigree. Not a merger.” He began walking again, slower now. “They’ve moved her, you know. To a family property in the eastern hills. To ‘prepare.’ As if one needs preparation to be sold.”
The information was delivered with such casual bitterness it took Ren a second to process. The eastern hills. The red torii. It was confirmation. This was the key Yuna wanted.
Get details. Which property? Security?
But Ren’s mind blanked. The man’s raw, personal despair was a muddy pit, and he was floundering in it. This wasn’t extracting intel from a target; it was witnessing a wound.
“That’s… awful,” Ren said, and for a sliver of a moment, he meant it. It was awful.
“I’m sorry,” Akiji said, suddenly apologetic. He offered a pained smile. “I promised myself I wouldn’t burden you with this. It’s just… you listen. You don’t judge. You have a quiet strength, Rena. It’s very calming.”
The compliment, so earnest, so misplaced, was the final straw. Ren’s entire facade shuddered. A burst of involuntary, nervous laughter escaped him, too loud, too sharp. It was pure Ren—a snort of embarrassed disbelief.
He clamped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. “Sorry! I’m—that’s just—nobody’s ever said that to me before.” He tried to force Rena’s shy giggle, but it came out strangled.
Akiji, however, didn’t look put off. He looked charmed. He mistook the panic for adorable fluster. A soft, understanding smile touched his lips. “It’s true,” he insisted gently.
The earpiece crackled back to life. Say “You’re too kind” and ask about the property’s layout, Yuna demanded, her whisper urgent.
But Ren was drowning. The scripts were gone. He just mumbled, “Thanks,” and stared fixedly at the ground, his face burning.
Akiji watched the rosy flush spread from Rena’s cheeks down her neck. His expression softened further, into something unbearably tender. He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a confidential, gentle murmur.
“Forgive me for asking,” he said, “but… is this perhaps your first time? On a date, I mean.”
The world narrowed to the pounding in Ren’s ears. The street, the moss, the distant guard, Yuna’s static—all of it faded into a muffled roar. He was locked in place, caught in the spotlight of that quietly amused, infinitely patient question.
His mouth opened. Nothing came out. A full system crash. He stood there, Rena’s beautiful face frozen in a mask of perfect, utter, soul-consuming horror.