That afternoon, Ichin stayed busy at the company until three o'clock, finishing all the work on his hands before preparing to leave early and pick Yukino up from Tokyo University.
Today, Utaha had gone to the publishing house, and Sonoko Machida would drive her back later in the evening. She would also be coming over for dinner tonight.
Because they needed to buy groceries, Ichin had driven both Utaha and Yukino there in the morning. Then in the afternoon, he would go grocery shopping together with Yukino before heading home to cook dinner.
After speaking with Hajime and the others to confirm tomorrow's airport meeting time, Ichin left the company.
Listening to music, he drove to Tokyo University, parked in the lot, and sent Yukino a message before waiting.
About three minutes later, he saw Yukino walking into the parking area with her little backpack on. She opened the passenger door and sat down beside him.
Looking at her expression after she got in, Ichin asked in surprise:
"What's wrong? Who upset my Yukino?"
Yukino shook her head.
"I'm not angry. Just annoyed."
Then she explained what had happened earlier.
It actually was not a big deal. Yukino had simply been confessed to again.
This sort of thing had already happened many times throughout her first to third years at university, but Ichin had not expected it to happen again now that she was in graduate school.
And this time, the one confessing was a second-year graduate student, two years above her.
After listening, Ichin asked:
"He's under the same advisor as you?"
"Not really."
Yukino shook her head.
"Our advisor is a woman, and she doesn't supervise male students. All the graduate students under her are girls. That senior belongs to another advisor."
"That's good then. Otherwise things would get really annoying during classes and research later."
Ichin smiled and lightly pinched Yukino's cheek.
"Alright, don't stay upset over something like this. As long as he stops bothering you after being rejected, it's fine. If he keeps harassing you, go to your advisor. And if that still doesn't solve it, call me. I'll have the university leadership handle it."
Yukino nodded before fastening her seatbelt.
As the car drove out of the parking lot, the graduate student who had confessed to Yukino earlier, along with several of his classmates, also saw the departing vehicle.
"Oh! That should be his car, right? Ichin from the computer science department. Same generation as us. Owner of a game company. At this point, who even knows how many billions he's worth anymore?"
"I heard his wife's from our university too. She's also a super popular light novel author and even wrote TV drama scripts. Seriously impressive."
"Complete winner in life. Yukinoshita is basically his little sister, and she's also the second daughter of a major Chiba family. Kimura, I don't think you ever had a chance."
The boy named Kimura stared at the car disappearing through the university gates, his eyes filled with disappointment.
"Did I really have no chance at all?"
"Why are you being so stubborn? You can't seriously think you had hope, right?" one of the boys with glasses said speechlessly. "Sure, your family's pretty rich too, but compared to theirs, it's not even close. And with her family background, she doesn't need to care whether a guy has money or not. No interest means no interest. She barely even looked at you today. Face reality already."
"This guy is right, you know? Besides, didn't we already hear about this before? Yukinoshita barely interacts with other guys at university. She doesn't even know you, so a sudden confession was obviously never going to work. Honestly, the fact she didn't get angry was already her being polite."
Each sentence from his friends dealt further emotional damage to Kimura until he nearly looked ready to cry.
Of course, neither Ichin nor Yukino knew anything about the boys' conversation.
After leaving the university, Ichin drove Yukino to the supermarket. The two leisurely pushed a shopping cart around while buying groceries before finally heading home.
The moment Yukino entered the house and saw the cats, her mood immediately improved. She walked over, picked up little Sesame lying on the sofa, and kissed it once.
After playing with the cats for a while, Yukino looked toward Ichin as he walked out of the kitchen.
"For the next few days while we're away, Umiko-san will be taking care of the cats, right?"
Ichin nodded.
"Yeah, same as last time. Umiko and Nene will come over, and they'll handle things while we're gone. Originally I wanted to ask Aunt Sayuri instead since she lives nearby, but when I asked Eriri, I found out that because Eriri is also coming with us this time, Aunt Sayuri decided to go on a trip with Mr. Spencer too. They're leaving tomorrow morning as well."
"That's good then."
After finishing petting Sesame, Yukino put the cat down and instead picked up Peppa, who had followed Ichin out of the kitchen just to look at his owner.
"Peppa, we're going out tomorrow, so you all need to behave while staying home, okay?"
Ichin laughed as he sat beside Yukino.
"With Peppa's personality, if it could really understand your words, it would probably get so excited it'd fly into the sky."
Whenever he had free time at work, Ichin often pulled up the living room security cameras to see what the cats were doing at home.
And the scene he saw most often was Peppa sprawled across the sofa in all sorts of seductive poses.
For Peppa, its favorite place was definitely not the cat bed or cat tower. It was the sofa. As long as there was even a little empty space, unless it was eating or using the litter box, it would immediately occupy the couch without hesitation.
Hearing that, Yukino smiled and narrowed her eyes slightly.
"I feel like Peppa definitely sensed something already. It saw us packing luggage last night, so it's probably already thinking about how wildly it can play around these next few days."
As for Umiko and Nene coming over, Yukino absolutely did not believe those two could control Peppa. This little troublemaker only really listened to Ichin.
Scratching Peppa gently under the chin, Ichin said:
"Alright, I should start making dinner. Sonoko-san is coming over to eat tonight too."
"Mhm. Then I'll go upstairs and change clothes first. I'll come help you afterward."
Yukino put Peppa down before heading upstairs with light, cheerful steps to change clothes.
At six o'clock that evening, Utaha and Sonoko Machida returned home. Ten minutes later, Haruno also got off work and came back right on schedule, perfectly in time for dinner.
Since it was rare for Sonoko to come over for a free meal, she simply decided to stay the night and accompany everyone to the airport tomorrow morning.
Haruno was also happy to see Sonoko again after such a long time, so she cheerfully opened a bottle of red wine.
After pouring a glass for herself and Sonoko, Haruno looked toward Ichin.
"Ichin~~ Come drink with us too?"
Thinking about how he did not have any work planned for tonight, Ichin nodded.
"Alright, I'll drink a little."
He grabbed a wine glass and let Haruno pour him a serving as well.
As for Utaha and Yukino, neither of them planned to drink tonight.
While sipping wine together, the group naturally began discussing their plans for returning to China tomorrow.
....
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