The Shady Merchant

Present Day

The various bottles of liquors, wines and sakes clinked as the truck came to a gentle stop in front of the Yamano residence. Michiko sat in the driver's seat for a moment as she gazed uncomfortably at the house. I hadn't been back here since... She couldn't finish that very thought before realizing that her hands had begun to shake. She turned towards Mitsuha who also had her own brief silent pause before opening the car door. This past year must have been so hard on her... "So... you run your events catering business entirely out of your family house?"

"Ah... yeah..." Mitsuha said as she pulled the first box out and carried it inside. Living alone, the house was for the most part immaculate, though as Michiko followed her in with the next box, she couldn't help but notice several pallets of 2-in-1 shampoo and other 100-yen sundries stacked against the wall.

"Eh... are you also running an MLM as well?" Michiko asked?

Eep...! I forgot those were still there. She had meant to world jump those to her capital city store, but figured she'd do it along with the booze when she got back. Even after moving to her province, 2-in-1 shampoo was still one of her best sellers. Buying in bulk meant a lower unit cost leading to more profits, something she never passed up. Of course, she wasn't expecting to bring guests back to her house these days so... "Um... yeah... something like that. Actually, some of the same people who are at these parties were interested in trying these products as well..." Which was totally true... she thought with satisfaction.

Michiko frowned a little... seems strange that a bunch of high-roller, movers-and-shakers would be all that interested in budget 2-in-1 shampoo and body wash products that anyone could just pick up at the local corner store. Wouldn't people like that have professional stylists? Oh well... She set that thought aside for the moment. "Oh, before I forget," she handed Mitsuha a bill of invoice. "If you could fill out your credit or wire information here, I can arrange payment for all this."

"Oh, don't worry about that!" Mitsuha waved gaily and pulled out three neatly stacked and bundled bills of Yen. "That should be enough, right?"

Michiko blinked hard and took the bills. Are you serious? Who carries around this kind of cash? She flipped through the stacks to confirm the denominations and did a quick check for the bills' authenticities, then gave Mitsuha an incredulous look.

Mitsuha read Michiko's reaction in her face. Uh oh... that might have been a little too much... It was one thing when I was only buying sixty bottles from Michiko's dad a few months back. Like before, this was money that had been freshly laundered from gold coins by Wolf Fang, but maybe I should have had Captain-san set up a wire-transfer account for me this time instead. But that would have been way too easy to trace, damn it...! "Um... yeah, I'm still working off my inheritance money for now. Once things get serious though, I'll have a proper line of credit set up."

There was a brief pause before Michiko conceded. "Well...I guess it can't be helped..." Michiko took the money, did a quick count and handed Mitsuha back a small amount. "I'll square it with Otoosan this time. But please, for your own sake, get your proprietorship set up properly next time. It'll help you out a great deal if this is going to be your profession going forward. Right now, with you spending large amounts of cash for boxes of mysterious goods and booze, you look like some kind of shady Yakuza merchant. If Tsuyoshi-sempai were here to see you, he'd probably would have given you a cool villain nickname like 'Lady Lightning'."

"Ahaha..." Mitsuha laughed nervously... Seriously...?! I can't escape that cringy nickname even here...?!

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As they were halfway through the unloading job, Michiko asked "Say, I'm not doing anything for the next couple days. It's been so long, and I've love to see what a foreign dignitary party's like. Maybe you could sneak me in as a guest? I won't be any trouble, I promise!" she pleaded.

Ahh... Mitsuha had feared this might come up ever since she first met Michiko on this trip. There was virtually no chance Michiko's dad would want to "hang out" with her of course, so she was covered as far as he was concerned but Michiko herself was another matter entirely. The two had been virtually inseparable throughout their childhood and high school years. Like Michiko, Mitsuha would have liked nothing more than to rekindle those happy times, if only for a little while. Showing up at Marquis Kardebolt's ballroom celebration for his son, the Count Audist von Kolbmane's recent promotion though would probably have opened more questions both sides were not prepared to answer. How to get out of this.. . "Well, unfortunately...the party is kind of... overseas..."

Michiko blinked again and paused before answering. "Overseas... really...?"

Something about her tone and the look in her eyes set off warning bells in Mitsuha's mind. Oh shoot... did I just mess up...? "Err... I mean... the guests are from overseas... the venues are all here, of course. I'm still scouting for sites ... so..." she trailed off.

Michiko nodded knowingly. "Oh, that's good... I was worried that you might have just bought several million Yen in liquor, wine and sake, then was planning on shipping them for an overseas party, which would have been ridiculously more expensive, not to mention illegal without an import/export license rather than just buying it locally closer to the venue."

"D-don't be silly... of course I wouldn't do that...!" Mitsuha looked at Michiko carefully. Was she buying it? Mitsuha had resorted to...creative interpretations of the truth when explaining how she's pulled off several things this past year to various parties throughout her travels. But pulling the wool over the eyes of people she just met was one thing; trying to do it to someone who's known her all her life was proving a bit more challenging.

After several trips back and forth, the two girls finally managed to finish unloading the truck. The physical effort was strenuous; neither girl was a physical paragon, and crates of liquor weren't exactly light. Too bad I couldn't just world jump them , Mitsuha thought as she pulled out a pair of barley teas from the refrigerators for the two of them.

Michiko took the offered beverage and smiled at her friend. However, she began to feel uncomfortable as the presence of the shrines of her family couldn't be ignored. She headed towards the door. "Anyway... I'll let you know when the rest of your order is ready for pick up." She made her way to leave, but then stopped at the exit. "Listen... I don't know what you're going through but... if there's something else going on... you know you can always come to me, right?" she implored. She turned back and looked Mitsuha in the eye; she didn't outright state it, but the implication was clear.

She's worried that I'm involved in something shady, Mitsuha realized. How do tell her that everything's alright without revealing my secret...?