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"Do you know the Togawa family?"
In the Service Club activity room, the girl's eyes fixed on Asakura as she asked softly.
"A little."
Asakura nodded.
Actually, he wasn't interested in the zaibatsu of this country. The only reason he knew about this kind of information was purely because he encountered the Insider Girl last time and only then did he slightly understand the relevant information after her guidance.
However, it was only a superficial understanding. After all, when you don't have the ability to manipulate the market yourself, finance is essentially no different from gambling in a casino opened by others.
It's fine to play a little and earn some living expenses, but it's meaningless to get too addicted.
"To what extent?"
The girl continued to ask.
"Roughly to the extent of knowing that what's inside a fertilized egg isn't chicken soup, but urine."
"…"
Yukinoshita Yukino thought seriously for half a second, realized that with her knowledge and understanding, she couldn't determine what this guy's words meant, so she decided to pretend not to hear it, only staring at him with sharp, deadly eyes.
"Alright, I vaguely heard that they seemed to have lost a huge sum of money due to a failed investment some time ago."
When the girl's gaze began to approach contempt infinitely, Asakura spread his hands and replied, "But it can only be considered a rumor."
"It is indeed just a rumor—" Yukinoshita Yukino nodded and said, "It wasn't an investment failure, but rather the high-level management at the time was defrauded, and their partners swindled away tens of billions in liquid assets."
"So, that Togawa is working night shifts and odd jobs to pay back the money?"
Asakura showed an expression of 'Yukino, are you awake?': "Setting aside the fact that tens of billions of Yen are completely insignificant to a conglomerate of that level and wouldn't cause the conglomerate's young lady to work—in fact, I suspect that a loss of this magnitude for the Togawa family's young lady would at most change from 'pack everything in this store for me' to 'don't pack this and this, pack everything else'—just relying on odd jobs to pay back tens of billions in debt, is that Togawa… or rather, are you serious, Yukino?"
The girl glanced at him, showing no displeasure at Asakura's skepticism.
Because she had thought the same thing at first.
Given the scale of the Togawa conglomerate, even if they truly filed for bankruptcy due to all their funds being swindled away, the Togawa family, as the backbone, would not fall into destitution.
So, even though she knew from Hiratsuka Shizuka that the student working night shifts was named Togawa, Yukinoshita Yukino had never considered this possibility, only assuming it was a coincidence.
It wasn't until she had been rebuffed twice by the other party and then sarcastically provoked by Asakura that she finally shed her arrogant, condescending attitude and began to try to learn about Togawa Sakiko through various channels, eventually discovering her secret.
Well, Yukino didn't know if it truly counted as a secret. After all, although the other party never mentioned her situation at school, she also didn't deliberately hide it. It was easy to obtain relevant information from many sources if one investigated.
The afternoon sun streamed through the window, casting a gentle Tyndall effect into the room.
Having avoided the harshest midday sun, the light was now soft, gently caressing the girl's face and falling onto the paper in front of her.
It wasn't the various paperback classics the girl usually read, but rather some kind of document printed on A4 paper.
Her slender, pale fingertips gently traced the paper.
"To begin with, that Togawa is indeed a child of the Togawa family—" Yukinoshita Yukino said, "At least before transferring, she attended Shuchoin Academy, a prestigious school exclusively for the children of high-ranking officials and nobles."
"Yukino-sensei, I have a question~"
Asakura raised his hand.
"What is your question, Asakura?"
Yukinoshita Yukino asked, surprisingly cooperative.
"With your family background, Yukino-sensei, you should also be able to go to Shuchoin Academy, right?"
"I have no interest in such a place."
Yukinoshita Yukino showed a look of disgust, as if remembering something, then whispered in a barely audible voice, as if talking to herself: "Besides, Soubu High School is where she goes to school…"
"Oh? So Yukino-sensei chose Soubu High School because she wanted to attend her older sister's alma mater?"
"Why is it only at times like these that Asakura's hearing becomes especially good?"
"My hearing has always been good, but sometimes being too serious makes life very tiring."
Asakura replied with a smile, "So, after actually attending, what's your impression of Soubu High School?"
"…I don't think that's the point right now."
Yukinoshita Yukino forcefully changed the subject.
But seeing Asakura's expression, which seemed to say 'she loves it,' the girl couldn't help but feel her teeth itch.
"Please don't ramble too much about irrelevant things—" Yukinoshita Yukino said righteously, "If it were a novel, readers would only feel that the author's words are wasting their lives."
"Exactly, just like the sentence above probably wasted 60 words of life."
Asakura nodded in agreement.
No, I'm criticizing you! Have a little more self-awareness! The girl grumbled in her heart.
However, she felt that if she said it out loud, this guy would just continue to joke around, so she tried to calm her thoughts.
"In short, that Togawa is the daughter of the high-ranking executive of the conglomerate who was defrauded of tens of billions. And that high-ranking executive, according to the information I found, resigned due to the loss of such a large sum of money. There's no definite information on whether he incurred debts, but I don't think there would have been any severance pay."
Yukinoshita Yukino went straight to the point: "Although I didn't continue to investigate more specific information due to privacy concerns, I can roughly guess her reason for going to work. The reason she reacted so strongly after I advised her can also be understood."
At this point, her expression looked a bit downcast, probably remembering the two times she had been rebuffed by the other party to the point of being speechless.
"So, are you still going to continue with this request?"
Asakura asked, "Honestly, at this point, even if you just pass the buck to Hiratsuka-sensei, with this information, she shouldn't have much to say."
"I haven't decided what to do yet… but giving up halfway is absolutely not an option."
The girl said seriously, "At least… I have to apologize to her for offending her earlier."
Asakura raised his eyebrows, looking at Yukino, whose sleep quality also didn't seem very good.
Could it be that after realizing the heavy reality Togawa Sakiko was facing, and how lightly and arrogantly she had offended her, Yukinoshita Yukino would even wake up in the middle of the night feeling guilty enough to slap herself…
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