The moment she saw Takashi's grinning face, Sayuri was furious.
She coldly asked, "What are you doing here?"
"Well… what if I said I'm working here part-time—would you believe me?"
After thinking hard, that was the only half-baked excuse Takashi could come up with.
"Hah~"
Sayuri gave a cold laugh.
"Sayuri, who are you talking to?" Mrs. Yukinoshita still had no idea who Sayuri had spotted under the table.
She gently tugged her kimono to prevent it from riding up and squatted down beside her.
"Huh?"
Squatting down, she too saw Takashi hiding beneath the table.
After a moment of surprise, she smiled warmly.
"Kitahara-kun, what are you doing here?"
"I'm working part-time!"
"Hehe…"
She covered her mouth and giggled lightly, clearly not buying it either.
Her laugh carried no malice, but Takashi still wanted to teleport to another planet out of sheer embarrassment.
"So what kind of job do you do here?" she asked.
"P-polishing shoes."
Takashi quickly grabbed someone's foot and placed it on his leg.
He huffed a breath onto the already mirror-shiny shoe and started wiping it with the hand that had a bandage wrapped around it.
"Hehehe…"
For some reason, Mrs. Yukinoshita laughed even more cheerfully.
Takashi had no idea why—until he suddenly felt a kick to the chin.
Then a cold voice came from above. "What are you doing?"
Takashi looked up and saw Yukino pressing her right hand tightly over her skirt, staring down at him with a freezing expression.
"Sorry, wrong foot."
He awkwardly let go of her foot—only to feel a sudden kick land on his backside.
Turning around, he saw that the foot had come from Kotonoha.
When he looked at her, all he saw was her long, flowing hair swaying as she turned away, refusing to even glance in his direction.
Yep. She was probably mad.
Don't mess with me right now! Takashi was screaming in his heart. His head was spinning.
"You all sure know how to have fun~"
Mrs. Yukinoshita teased with a smirk, her voice laced with sarcasm as she looked at her second daughter with a gaze that clearly said: Don't try to tell me you're not in that kind of relationship.
Yukino couldn't even be bothered to explain anymore.
She silently picked up a cup of oolong tea and took a slow sip.
That damn scumbag.
Watching Takashi and Yukino flirt right in front of her, Sayuri was absolutely fuming.
Eriri was still crying her eyes out every day because of this bastard, not eating or drinking, still unable to recover from the emotional wounds he left behind—and yet here he was, all happy and cozy with some other girl?
And the worst part? This other girl he's flirting with is the daughter of her best friend! Takashi, you've really outdone yourself!
Are you seriously targeting all the daughters of women in my circle?
Utaha was one. Now Yukino too?
The elegant and well-mannered Sayuri, known for her grace and composure, finally couldn't hold it in anymore.
She reached out and grabbed Takashi by the ear.
"Get out here right now!"
"Sayuri?"
Mrs. Yukinoshita looked on in shock at her longtime best friend from high school, clearly unable to believe the crude words and rough action had come from Sayuri of all people.
Sayuri didn't care what Mrs. Yukinoshita thought.
She knew that if something like this had happened to her own daughter, Mrs. Yukinoshita wouldn't have reacted any better.
"M-Mom, that hurts! I was wrong!"
"I'll come out, I'll come out—just stop pulling! My ear's about to come off!"
Knowing full well he was in the wrong, Takashi let himself be dragged out from under the table by the ear.
Thanks to his antics, people at the other tables started to look over.
"Hey, isn't that Takashi?"
A female office worker at the next table was the first to recognize him. She excitedly turned to her colleagues.
They hadn't recognized him before because he'd been surrounded by girls, and they'd been busy drinking and not paying attention.
A man with a beer belly, who seemed to be their manager, narrowed his eyes.
"That's him, alright. Look at that arm in the sling."
"Did you guys catch the last game?"
"If you like baseball, there's no way you missed it. That match got over 24.13 million viewers—it's already shattered the pro league's all-time viewership record."
"Let's try to get a photo or an autograph from him later."
Ever since baseball was imported from the U.S., it had become the national sport of Japan.
In Japan, whether you like it or not, are happy or not, willing or not, you have to know at least a bit about baseball.
Baseball terms pop up everywhere in life—even in business settings.
For example: "Zenin Yakyū" originally meant that the whole baseball team works together. It was later adopted as a business term, meaning everyone—not just those directly involved—should pitch in to help a project succeed.
It's still widely used in the corporate world. Not knowing it could even lead to communication problems at work.
If you don't understand baseball at all, you'll be totally lost when colleagues start talking about it at post-work dinners.
Sure, some people will say things like "I'm not that into it," but that creates awkward silences—which Japanese people hate.
Many professionals believe that even if you don't like baseball, you should at least follow some sports news.
Especially when your boss is a baseball fan—knowing the game can help you bond with them, making your work life much easier.
This isn't a joke. Bosses being baseball fans is incredibly common.
Unless they were born into a rich family, most people had to claw their way up. Even if they didn't like baseball before, they had to learn to like it to survive in the system.
Not just at work, either. Japanese people even use baseball terms to talk about relationships and life experiences.
That's because politics and religion are taboo in the workplace.
Talking about personal matters is also off-limits unless you're extremely close. Asking about someone's income?
Absolute no-no, after all asking about income in Japan is considered extremely rude.
So when you can't talk about kids or money, besides food and weather, what else is there?
Sports. And nothing opens up conversation like baseball.
Whether you're a student or a working adult, if you live in Japan, you have to know baseball.
"Mom, everyone's staring! Can you please give me a little dignity?"
Takashi was starting to panic now that he'd been recognized.
After all, his public image was that of a cocky rebel—a tough, cold-blooded man.
If people saw him getting his ear pulled by a woman, it would completely destroy that image.
He'd go from Iron-Blooded Lone Wolf to Mr. Whipped. That would be a total PR disaster.
Takashi wasn't ready to give up his reputation like that.
Sayuri glanced at the group now approaching them, sighed, and finally let go of Takashi's ear.
If it were just her, Mrs. Yukinoshita, and a few high school girls, she wouldn't have cared.
"Kitahara-kun, hello. I'm Daishi Sakatsuki, Deputy Branch Manager of the Imperial Silver Bank, Nishinomiya branch. Pleased to meet you."
The beer-bellied middle-aged man gave a friendly smile and respectfully bowed as he handed Takashi his business card.
Technically, Takashi was just a student, and as a bank manager, Sakatsuki didn't need to be so deferential.
But Takashi was different.
His popularity was at an all-time high, and most of his fans were what you'd call radicals—to put it nicely. To put it bluntly, they were unstable fanatics.
Fans who still liked Takashi despite knowing he was a scumbag—and even defended him—were not exactly the most reasonable people.
Because of this extreme fanbase, they were capable of doing anything.
Writing complaints was the least of it. Some might even go as far as violence.
Hoshino Ai's fans in the future would know best.
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