CH 30

[POV: Third Person]

Kaori Tojoin is a young lady that is acknowledged by herself and others. 

She lives in a mansion that is unthinkable for a normal person, and is surrounded and taken care of by maids and butlers every day.

She was beautiful, had a good head on her shoulder and was very athletic.

A person who was blessed with almost everything by god. That’s who Kaori Tojoin was. 

But… For the price of everything she received, God took away her mother.

Her mother died right when she was born, and so she grew up without ever seeing her mother’s face in the flesh.

Of course, there were still photos and videos of her, but since she had died before Kaori’s memories even began, she couldn’t remember a single thing about her mother.

She doesn’t remember feeling that lonely without her mother though, the butlers and maids were very kind to her and took the place of her mother instead.

She didn’t know the feelings of a mothers kindness and free-love.

The butlers and maids were kind to her, but they were only maids hired by the Tojoin family, and not her true family.

She has never experienced a field day in elementary school where she ate a handmade lunch by her mother, with her mother.

While everyone around her was eating with their families, Kaori was on a large seat, eating a sumptuous bento prepared by her maid while being watched over by an old butler of the family.

At such times, the only person that would ever eat with her would be Yuuichi Shigemoto.

“Wow! That looks so good! Can I have some?!”

“Ye-Yeah, of course it’s okay. Please help yourself.”

“Thank you! Itadakimasu” [TLN: For the rare case that you don’t know, Itadakimasu is expressing gratitude for the meal.]

That’s what she loved about him.

Yuuichi would say that there was nothing special about it, but to her, it felt very much like love.

She was proud to say that she was blessed.

Except for a mother, she’s had everything in her life going for her in the right direction.   

The fact that her relationship with her father was not going too well is what was troubling her the most right now.

It’s not like they don’t get along well.

No… Rather, I’d prefer it if we didn’t get along at all.

She has the opportunity to eat with her father about once a month.

She and her father, the president of the Tojoin Group, have dinner alone at a fancy restaurant.

For her, there was never a more nerve-wracking time than having that dinner with her father.

She would only be able to chat with him then… He has never really done anything fatherly for her ever before.

Indifferent, that’s all she can say are her feelings for her father.

The opposite of like is not dislike, but indifference.

She is neither liked nor disliked by her father.

That was a complex that was sewed deep inside my heart 

aaaaa

That day, Kaori went to the place where her favorite person, Yuuichi Shigemoto, was on a date.

Even though it was a date, it wasn’t me who was going on a date with Yuichi.

That is where Yuuichi went on his date with his girlfriend, Shiho Fujise.

[POV : Kaori]

At first I went to Yuuichi’s friend, Tsukasa Hisamura’s house on Saturday. I was planning to hang out with them on Sunday as well.

But something didn’t feel right when I had met them at his place, so I decided to track them down the next day, and there I saw it. Yuichi wasn’t going out with Hisamura, no, he was going out with Shiho Fujise instead.

Immediately, I thought about interfering with their date.

But since Yuuichi seemed to be the one who had asked her out, I started by silently watching their date unfold.

Yuuichi is very cool.

In both elementary and junior high school, he was the object of the girls’ adoration.

However, he himself thinks that he isn’t popular with girls since Kaori was the one shielding him from meek women who wanted to be with him.

But this time around, it wasn’t the girl that liked him but rather, it was Yuuichi himself liking the girl.

It was a pattern that I had never seen happen before which was extremely unnerving to me.

I have always been operating under the impression that “The only person who’s worthy of Yuuichi’s affection is me.”

To keep other women away from him, I started a rumor that me and Yuuichi had been friends since elementary school, were already dating, and were even Fiancees.

I almost died of the amount of embarrassment that I had felt while spreading them, but I still did it.

But no matter what I did in the past, Yuuichi still decided to go on a date with Shiho Fujise.

If it were the same me as yesterday, I would still be thinking “I definitely love Yuuichi more than you!” and would have interfered with his date as soon as I could.

But… I suddenly recalled what Yuuichi had told me yesterday

“Your parents will be worried if you’re home late!”

Those words, the words that Yuuichi had directed at me.

The thing is… I don’t have such parents in my life…

I didn’t have a father nor a mother, all I had was a big and lonely mansion.

My father was always busy and never actually home, and even if he was home, he was always working in the office we had instead.

We only meet each other at home once a year after all.

I wondered if I, who hadn’t received much love, really loved Yuuichi.

Then what exactly is the love that I have for Yuuichi?

Having grown up without truly knowing love at all, I was unsure of what my feelings for Yuuichi actually were.

Yuuichi and Shiho Fujise were on a date, and they seemed to be having fun the entire time.

I wonder if I could make Yuichi give out such a cute and pure smile like she did.

I couldn’t figure it out, and I couldn’t get it out of the way.

At this rate, Yuuichi and Fujise will end up together after this date.

But still…

“Maybe it’s alright…”

I muttered this to myself as I looked into the distance.

I asked my gramps to drive me here, and I’ve been keeping him around as company ever since noon.

Even now, I had him go see where those two were going to be at the end of the day, and I was just waiting at a place where I could eat and relax with no issues.

It’s a little dark outside, but it’s not pitch black due to the lights and illumination surrounding the area.

As that was happening, I was waiting for gramps to return.

I heard footsteps behind me, so I hurriedly turned around.

“Gramps, You’re late… Oh, Hisamura-kun.”

“Good day, Tojoin-san.”

I expected that gramps would be the one to return to me, but I didn’t expect to find Tsukasa Hisamura here instead.

Of course, I was already aware that Tsukasa Hisamura and Sei Shimada had come to this amusement park.

Perhaps the plan was that he was supposed to stop me if I tried to interfere with their date.

There was no other reason for those two to come to this amusement park after all.

“Good day to you. So, why did you and gramps come together to see me? Oh, if you were trying to stop me, you’re safe now. I’m not going to bother them anymore.”

“Why aren’t you getting in the way? Didn’t you like Yuuichi?”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure about that anymore.”

I certainly liked him.

But I don’t know if I really liked him.

I wondered if I, who hadn’t even received my father’s love properly, would be able to properly show my love for Yuuichi.

“Why are you giving up? Haven’t you loved him since you were a kid?”

“Yes, I did. I liked him, I guess. But I was thinking about it a lot, and I realized that maybe I didn’t really like him after all.”

“I see, so you were afraid.”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Why did you get afraid? Weren’t you the one who was saying that you liked Yuuichi so much?”

“I just got cold feet, that’s all. Yuuichi fell for another woman even though there was a woman like me beside him all this while.”

“Oh? So you’re admitting that you lost to her in the charm department then?”

“What do you know about how I feel?”

Kaori had been looking in a different direction for a while now, but she finally decided to look at Hisamura’s face properly for the first time.

Hisamura’s face was serious.

“How would I ever know about how you feel? We were both born and raised differently, and Tojoin is the daughter of a major corporation. I have no idea how being someone like that would actually feel.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“But you also don’t know how I feel.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“You won’t know how someone feels about you if you don’t go and say it. That’s why I keep telling Sei-chan that I like her, as well as telling Rinke that she’s cute.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about right now.”

“Hah, I didn’t mean to talk so much.”

Hisamura looked down and sighed.

“That’s why you don’t even know how your father truly feels.”

“What?! What do you know about…?”

I had never told anyone about the relationship between me and my father.

I never mentioned this to Yuuichi. Not even once.

“That’s not important right now. It’s just that the Tojoin-san right now wouldn’t even know how your own father feels about you.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Even if he doesn’t put it into words, I could tell by his attitude. He neither likes nor hates me.”

“That’s why you were afraid, right? You have never received love, so you don’t know if the love you are showing Yuuichi is real love.”

“What the hell are you…!”

“That’s enough. Let’s see for ourselves how much your father loves you.”

“Hah?”

You want me to find out if my father loves me?

I’ve had the answer to that question for over a decade now.

And how can I be sure, you say…?

“You have a phone. So call him up and ask if he loves you or not.”

“What in the world are you saying?”

“Just do it. That way you’ll know if you’re really getting enough love from him.”

“Hah… Even if I called right now, my father wouldn’t answer. It’s not a matter of love or anything, it’s just that he can’t. My father is a very busy man and his job requires him to work every minute, even the few tens of seconds from the time he wakes up and goes to bed, count for his job.”

He is the president of the Tojoin Group, one of the largest corporations in the entire world.

Kaori’s father, the president of the company, was very busy and would never be able to take a phone call that just suddenly came out of nowhere.

Just a few minutes of unscheduled phone calls can delay and break up a business deal worth hundreds of millions of yen.

“Just try it. If it doesn’t go through, just use the excuse ‘You’re always busy at work.’. It’s perfect for the Tojoin-san who used the excuse that Yuuichi has no taste just because she lost to Fujise in terms of charm.”

“Fine… I’ll go along with your charade.”

If I refuse now, the name Kaori Tojoin will be tarnished.

I pulled out my phone and tapped on the place labeled father on the smartphone.

Tap again to call.

But is this really okay?

If he’s in the middle of an important business meeting, even the slightest sound can be very annoying to him.

And it was really this sudden, there was no way I was going to get out of this scot-free.

“What’s the matter, Could it be that Kaori Tojoin’s getting impertous.”

“I’m going to make you regret this even if it goes through or not.”

As she said this, Kaori tapped the screen again.

The phone’s electronic tone rang and echoed.

Beep~ Beep~ Connected~

“Eh?”

I thought I’d heard Kaori wrong, but she was actually muttering to herself quietly. [ED: This line is from Hisamura’s POV…]

“Hello. What’s wrong, Kaori?”

She heard her father’s voice echoing from the other side of the cell.