“Fuyumi-nee! You look great!” a girl around the age of nineteen-twenty years complimented Fuyumi. She had black hair tied in a ponytail and wore a violet bodycon dress.
“You too! And how have you two been?” asked Fuyumi.
“I am great and big brother is doing great too…” said the girl and then her eyes fell on Shido who was standing beside Fuyumi.
“By the way… who is he?” said the girl as she pointed her finger at Shido.
“Oh… I forgot to introduce you two. Shido, this is Akemi Nagamine. She is the sister of Isao, one of my school friends. And Akemi, this is Shido Kanzaki… my boyfriend.” Fuyumi introduced the two, and Shido just looked at the girl with a neutral face. This earned him an awkward smile from Akemi.
“Nice to meet you… I am Akemi...” said Akemi with an awkward smile on her face.
“Hmm…”
The reason Shido was ‘not so friendly’ towards Akemi was the slight rejection he faced a few minutes ago.
As Isao entered through the entrance, he got swarmed by people, some being fangirls and some of them were friends. He walked through the crowd and Shido’s eyes met with his for a moment. Shido got a suspicious feeling from the man but he didn’t take much notice of that. He just made a mental note to be careful of the guy.
Shido then went back to Fuyumi who finished catching up with her friends.
When he turned around to look at the guy, he saw Isao and the girl walking beside him were walking towards them.
‘Didn’t even greet anyone and directly coming for my girl… How desperate you can be?’ thought Shido with a small smile on his face, as he felt he knew every move that this guy will pull off.
In this party full of strangers, Shido had not much to do. So he decided to spoil Isao’s advances for his enjoyment. This was him being lenient.
As Shido waited and watched Isao’s every step towards him, his head was grinding hard to make proper roasts and comebacks for Isao when he starts to make his advances. Shido corrected his tie a bit and straightened his coat, eagerly waiting to see the desperate rich kid making advances on Fuyumi.
And the moment arrived, Isao was right in front of him. The sarcastic introduction was right on his tongue, ready to come out the moment Isao turns to him. The smile on Shido’s face was widening with each passing moment.
Shido slowly stretched his hand forward for a handshake with the sarcastic introduction ready. But when the hand was fully stretched out, there was no one to receive it. Yes, Isao didn’t stop in front of him. Instead, he walked right in front of Shido and went somewhere else.
*Cricket Sound Effect*
(Sound of Crickets could be heard because a waiter who had a big platter of live crickets for a guest, just passed by Shido)
Now Shido was standing alone with his hand stretched out like a dumbass.
He couldn’t register what just happened. The guy didn’t even stop to bat an eye on him or Fuyumi. He just walked straight. All the thinking that he put into making a sarcastic introduction and other roasts… all the preparations were now down the drain.
If looked from an outside perspective, Actually Isao roasted Shido by not even noticing his presence.
As Shido was mentally coping with the damage that was done to him, the girl who was walking beside Isao recognized Fuyumi and stopped in her tracks. She immediately rushed for a hug to Fuyumi while Shido stood like a scarecrow beside them.
After that, we come to the present situation.
“Umm… Why is he not talking?” asked Akemi as she pointed at Shido.
Fuyumi too was taken by surprise as she watched Shido act differently. She hastily shook Shido, calling his name a few times and this finally made him come out of his daze. He looked around a bit and saw Akemi still is standing in front of him.
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“Uh-Yeah… I am Shido Kanzaki. Fuyumi’s boyfriend.”
After giving an awkward introduction, he moved a bit closer to Akemi and leaned forward towards her, as if he wanted to say something only to her, “Your brother… he--”
But before Shido could complete what he wanted to say, Akemi got an idea where Shido was going.
“Yeah… You mean to ask why he didn’t stop, right? He is the one organizing the reunion so he just went to make sure everything is okay, that’s all.”
“Oh-Oh…Good. Well, I guess he is a responsible man,” Shido replied with an awkward laugh at the end.
“Handling a corporation worth billions of dollars teaches good lessons. Taking responsibility is one of them.”
Shido turned around when he heard someone speaking behind him and found the man of the hour, Isao Nagamine, the new CEO of Nagamine Enterprises. Now that Shido saw him from this up close, he found that the guy was quite handsome. Nice black suit, perfectly swept-back hair, a nice smile on his face… No wonder girls were all over him.
There was one more thing that Shido noticed about Isao, it was his plaster-covered hand hidden behind his coat. But all these peculiar features were out of Shido’s mind right now.
‘Did this guy really just flex on me when I genuinely complimented him?’ Shido thought. From the comment, it seemed Isao was something of a typical rich kid. Arrogant, Snarky, and Narcissistic.
Even if he was going to go after Fuyumi, Shido’s agenda was to make a good first impression on Fuyumi’s friends so, despite the bad observable features, Shido extended his hand forward with good faith.
“I am Shido, Fuyumi’s Boyfriend,” Shido introduced himself with a kind and confident demeanor.
When Isao heard what Shido said, the proud demeanor on Isao’s face drained away and a distraught expression was all left there.
‘I just mentioned I am Fuyumi’s boyfriend, and this guy looks devastated… Huh, didn’t even need that sarcastic line I thought of.’
“--And you are Isao Nagamine if I am not wrong. Your sister just telling us about you,” continued Shido but this time Isao was only looking at him and his expression was… not so friendly. But Shido continued the conversation despite the stare from Isao.
“I couldn’t help but notice… that plaster on your hand. Is it okay?” Shido asked as he pointed at Isao’s broken arm.
Akemi stepped up to reply in place of her brother, “Oh his arm is broken. Last week he was in Los Angeles… and you know what happened there, right? His arm was completely shattered but thanks to the doctors at Nagamine Hospitals… we recovered his hand.”
The sudden mention of Los Angeles caught Shido off guard but he didn’t let his demeanor fall. He slightly moved his vision towards Isao and saw that he was still looking at him intently… very intently.
“Really?! Was he at Downtown, LA that day?” Shido asked as he turned towards Akemi.
“Uh? No. He was in LA but his hotel was far away from the Downtown area...” replied Akemi.
“Oh, Thank Goodness! But I’ve to say what happened last week there was a tragedy--” As Shido was putting up his façade of an unknowing stranger, “—Where were you last week?” Isao interrupted Shido.
Shido slowly turned around and faced Isao but this time the usual friendly smile was not on his face anymore.
“I think I didn’t hear your question properly… Care to repeat?”
“Where were you last week? Were you by any chance in LA?”