Chapter 14


TL: Akabane


***


Momo-chan - or Yamamoto, who said she needs time to think. The deadline is one week. For our part, the exhibition is in three months, so we can't afford to take too long. If negotiations with her fail, we will have to do a 180-degree turnaround.


Yamazaki and her team are working to prepare for such a situation. In terms of risk management, I really want to increase the number of people in the sales promotion department.


So, today is the day of the reply. I thought I could just wait it out, but it seems that's not the case with the people around me. That's not so bad either.


I hadn't heard from them in the morning, and lunchtime had arrived. Just as I was thinking about making a request, my phone rang. The number I hadn't registered was still on the screen. Since I was going to take a cigarette break, I went into the smoking room and pressed the call button.


"Hello, this is Araki."


The tone of the call was almost business-like. No, it was work, but it seemed funny to her, and she giggled.


"Thank you for your time."


||  "Oh, no problem ......"


I don't know. I had an embarrassment I didn't understand. I had met her last week in full-on work mode. Was it the fact that we were alone?


||  "Are you alone now?"


"Yes. I'm in the smoking room at work."


||  "I see."


I guess it is my imagination that she seems somewhat happy.


Well, I'd like to get right to the point, but she was the first to open her mouth.


||  "So you're usually in that kind of mood?"


"Well, I'm an old man over ......30."


||  "I think you're very nice."


I was shocked. I felt like I had been stabbed with a needle in the heart. It was on a different level from what she had said to me at the handshake session. I didn't make her say it.


It's not that she has feelings for me. I can say that with certainty. I am sure that she has not gotten out of the habit of shaking hands with me. Let's not get our hopes up. I cleared my throat and tried to cover it up.


"--So, about the poster. Have you decided?"


I asked, and for some reason she mused.


||  "Are you in work mode, sir?"


Her voice sounded sweet, like she had sugar directly in her mouth. I'm not sure what she's talking about. Of course it's work.


"Yes, it is. ......"


||  "Isn't it your lunch break?"


--I had a bad feeling. Somehow.


I stopped the hand that was about to light a cigarette and listened.


......Yes. She's drinking. She's doing it. I can even hear her reaction like a commercial. She's not even trying to hide it.


"Yamamoto-san. You're drinking, aren't you?


||  "Sorry. ...... It's nothing. ......"


"Oh dear. ......"


I think she's blogged before about how she like to drink even though she was not much of a drinker. She's only mentioned it once or so, so it's been lost in my memory.


I don't think I'd get drunk and leave my work unanswered. That's the kind of attitude that could get a business deal canceled if you're a member of society.


"......Why are you drinking?"


||  "Well, I just wanted to drink ......."


"Why don't we call first?　Do you understand?"


||  "I don't know."


It's useless. I can't talk to her. She doesn't even know that today is the due date of the appointment. But the fact that she called me, does she understand?　I'm going crazy.


Anyway, I had to let out a huge sigh. It's impossible to ask her to make a sane decision now. We are the ones who will be in trouble if she says "yes" or "no" in a drunken stupor.


"Please call me when you sober up."


||  "You're going to hang up?"


"I'm hanging up."


||  "Heh. "No spirit."


"Why ......?"


She is my important business partner. I called her in work mode and she answered the phone while drunk. I wanted to hang up at that point, but I want to commend her for being so patient with me.


But ...... yeah. If I'm being honest, she's insanely cute when she's drunk. Cute. She's the epitome of cuteness. I'm not sure why I get so excited when I feel like I'm the only one seeing her face.


At this point, I finally lit a cigarette. She was drinking alcohol. I thought it would be okay, so I decided to open myself up to it. It was convenient that no one was coming in, even though it was the smoking room during lunch break.


"Yamamoto-san, have you decided on your answer?"


I asked again in disgust, but she kept goofing off and not talking.


||  "I don't know .........."


"Huh. ...... what?"


||  "My heart. I don't understand when I'm drink."


She is cute when drunk, but seems to be the troublesome type.


I guess that's true, even if she says she doesn't understand her heart. I don't know what's in her heart either, which is drowning in alcohol during the daytime on a weekday.


I can hear her hiccuping as she exhales her cigarette smoke. I feel like it's unnecessary to tell her that she's weak and drinks too much.


||  "Hey. Why me?"


"What?"


||  "There are lots of other cute girls out there."


She was like a spoiled child.


She looks distressed, but she isn't. In her heart, he already knows the answer. And yet, she wants me to tell her. She is a cunning woman, but for some reason, I even find her terribly endearing.


"Because I might be there"


||  "Mou."


"Just kidding. No, I'm not."


When I made fun of her, she reacted in a way that was easy to understand. It was funny. I couldn't help but giggle back.


If she was not available, the idea would have been scrapped in the first place. That's why they wouldn't use any celebrity other than her. In that sense, there was no lie in my words.


The smoke from my cigarette, exhaled and extinguished, appears to be empty.


||  "I know what Araki-san is up to!　I don't want to get hurt anymore."


That's right. Not only her, but there is no one who is not afraid of getting hurt. Although the vectors are different, I understand that feeling. Just being offended is enough to make my heart ache. The blade of words can kill a person.


But those words were a reflection of her heart. Her naked heart.


"You want to try, don't you?"


||  "---"


When I said that, Yamamoto seemed to be searching for words. Desperately trying to think of words to deny with her drunken mind.


"It's hard to lie to yourself."


||  "Umm, I'm not lying ."


"Haa. I see."


||  "Ah!　I just made fun of you!


"Hahaha. You failed."


She is still cute, even though she regresses into a toddler when she gets drunk. I should be angry at her, but my mouth just relaxes. I felt like I looked terribly uncomfortable right now. Thanks God, there's no mirror.


I press down my cigarette. Lunch break is still long. I could leave like this. But there was a small part of me that didn't want our private conversation to be interrupted.


"I won't ask you to make a decision when you're drunk."


||  "Would you laugh if I said ......... I'm scared?"


"No, I wouldn't laugh."


||  "Why not?"


"It's easy....."


I am sure that you have been traumatized by the trauma you have suffered. I can't get rid of it, but I can push them back. No, I can only do that.


I've been watching her cry because of the alcohol. I have been cheering her on.


".....Because I'm your fan."


So there's no way I'm going to laugh. I think it took a lot of courage for her to make the decision to quit being an idol because she is so good with her fans. Even stigmatizing herself.


It would bring her back to that stage again. I know that. The only thing I can say is that I am sure she will have regrets. If she continues to blend in with the general public, I'm sure. I had a feeling that something bad would happen.


||  "--Baka. Araki-san's baka."


"That's quite a way to put it."


||  "I'm afraid of getting hurt. But--"


She said that, but I told her I would call her back first thing in the morning, because a drunk person can't make normal decisions.


The next day, I called her and she apologized with great force. She said she couldn't even remember what she had said, but she laughed and said her head felt somewhat clear.


After some twists and turns, the decision was made to use Aimi Momoka for the poster. I had a hunch that she would cause a tremendous storm, and my hunch was usually right.



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