Changing Winds

It lasted for a few moments before she released him and looked over at the time on her phone. “Ah damn, I need to hurry.” She started to inhale the food to make up for the time she lost sleeping longer. It was worth it though as she felt like she was back to full charge.

“Hey hey, swallow!”

“I am! Every other bite.”

“Oh that’s good then.” He started to work on his breakfast. Yumi began earlier in the morning than him for work, which worked out well since he would have to take the train to get back to the bookstore in time. There still remained the case of figuring out how he was going to break his lease. But lesser problems for now, he figured.

Their meal finished quickly, though he took a little longer and Yumi rushed around her apartment to get her things. Watching her have that confidence back and certainty in her step gave him comfort. A troubled road still laid ahead of her he guessed, but for now she could concentrate. ‘I hope this is less delaying and more giving her time to reflect…’

She rushed out of the apartment waving to him. “There’s a spare key on the kitchen counter. Use that to lock up!” The door closed with a puff of air and she disappeared.

Yuki sat on the stool looking at the door, smiling a little. “It’s so natural to her. It’s like we’re a married couple.” Seeing Yumi back to normal was more important. Other matters could be left to wait until later.

He looked around her apartment really feeling the size of it. “This really is a lot of room. I guess this’ll work out.” Taking his time with things, he eventually departed for the train station.

The walk through Tokyo had a different feel to it today. There was an absentminded little bounce in his step that went unnoticed by him. He kind of wanted to stick around longer, being that it was rare previously to visit. Though he then realized the situation. ‘I guess I’ll be here now if I’m staying with Yumi. We can see the city when she’s not killing herself for her work. And figuring out if Miki is the one or not. And realizing the truth of this trial. So maybe not so much time…’

Still there was a long time ahead left in the world. The position that Yumi was at made that clear. Though he didn’t know how quickly that would change for her. ‘Aside from the bump she had, she seemed to be enjoying herself more here. It’s also very distracting. I’m not sure how well she’s going to be able to focus on her trial.’ The Miki situation rang at the top of the list knowing how Yumi felt. He sort of wanted to meet the woman since he only got her side of the story

It was unlikely that he would ever meet her, he figured.

Chapter 570 - Changing Winds

Yumi returned to the office with a strong glow about her and fully prepared for work. Which came as an odd thing considering that none of it was real and she simply worked to buy time until she solved the riddle of the world. But that part of her story sat at the back of her mind right now.

Full of energy and a smile, she sat down and immediately went to work. Though it wasn’t too long before someone noticed her atmosphere. They were used to her being a force of nature that took charge and ran with full energy, this was something completely different for everyone.

Leaning around the partition, Kasuse watched for a moment. There was a little bounce and a little bap in the way she sat. It was rather cute to watch, something that he hadn’t really associated with her, at least recently since she changed. But he knew he couldn’t keep creepily watching her, especially since it appeared she picked up more than a little attention for the rest of those observant. All that she missed at this point as a happy little tone humming from her lips and everyone would know.

He slid over to make it more obvious to her. A tilt of her head and he nearly got smacked in the face with how different the expression she carried was. This wasn’t the same sort of woman he remembered. While he paused, she spoke instead.

“Oh Kasuse, were you needing something?”

A cough or two helped to clear out his throat and thoughts, at least for the moment. “N-no. How are you feeling?”

“Great! Completely refreshed.”

“You look it. I’m sort of shocked, you were looking pretty rough yesterday.”

“Yeah, I was dealing with some stuff.”

“Family things, you said.”

“Yeah, but I had someone to talk it out and I feel so much better now.”

“Sounds like they should be a psychiatrist with what they did for you.”

Yumi giggled a little thinking about Yuki. Her emotions surfaced more than she realized. “Yeah, he’s the best…”

“He?” Kasuse said softly not really intended it as a question to her, but failed to think it. Watching her facial reactions and the glow about her, there were enough context clues for him to come to his own conclusion quickly. A small drop within him sank him ever so slightly, but it didn’t distract him too much. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”

“Same! It was miserable. But just seeing him and talking it out, everything just melted away. Feels like I got out of a nice warm bath all refreshed. Know what I’m saying?” She wasn’t sure if she was being too vague for him, since she didn’t really want to include Yuki unnecessarily. Though they might end up meeting him in time.

“Sounds like quite the experience.”

“Hm?”

“Nothing, I got things together for the meeting today.”

“Thanks! Sorry for leaving so much on you.”

“It’s fine. You do a lot these days, it’s only fair.”

“I’ll start making up for lost time.”

Days steadily started to pass again for Yumi. Work progressed how it had been and normalcy returned. Fortunately, she didn’t have to deal with further trouble from Miki for the time being. That woman remained an ever present risk to any day that she walked around the office. Though she witnessed more events where she was the center rather than anything directly from her. More of the patterns with Miki showed.

Yumi already wrote the woman off as a candidate, every piece that she saw just further confirmed her certainty. Which meant that she had to figure out where the real personality hid. The company that she worked for had the benefit of a wide network, so she kept hoping that someone that could be a candidate would appear.

No luck came from that route.

As the time passed, she completely forgot about the ‘bet’ until Kasuse reminded her of it again when the month ended and at the top of the next the rankings came out. He came rushing down the aisle of desks for Yumi, something that she couldn’t miss even with her attention on her screen. “What’s the matter? You look out of breath.”

“We just got the book numbers for the month of June! It’s crazy, he completely swept through with no one even close.” The paper came down in front of her as he talked with Soseki’s book highlighted at the top for extra emphasis.

“Three times the sales of the second placed book. He did far better than our original projections. Though it’s about where I thought he would hit after I ran the new numbers we got.”

“You really did new calculations?”

“I couldn’t help myself.”

“You’re really something else, Mizuno. Numbers like this he’s certain to get a full contract and we might even see a bonus from this.”

She nodded to him having heard him talk about it a few times. That had always been a chance, but it wasn’t really something that concerned her thoughts. Personal finances remained in a good spot, so she had no need for the extra money, but that wasn’t something he would want to hear from her. “Hopefully, the team did great work.”

After the initial excitement and delivery wore off, he went back to his desk. A bit of a song hummed through his partition made it to her. She laughed internally, pleased to see him in such good spirits. ‘Hopefully they do give them a bonus for their work.’

Work came back into focus for her leaving the thoughts behind, but not for long. A shadow ran over her desk suddenly in the middle of the day while she stared at numbers on a spreadsheet. Normally if it was one of her team members, they would say something, but this person was remaining silent.

It only took a few more moments once she focused on the situation to know who it was. “Miss Tomori,” she said, turning around in her chair. Confirmed just a safe distance from her, the attractive super model-like figure of Miki stared in silence. ‘Here to pay the bet? Even though we didn’t actually bet anything.’

More than a minute of silence thickened the air before she spoke. “Are you free?”

Her eyebrow raised a little curious to what Miki wanted. Painted across her face was tension and conflict. It made her even more curious that the previous spiteful pettiness that attacked her before was missing. It was that fact that confused Yumi more. She really didn’t know where this was going, at least with anything she could say with certainty.

She had ideas, plenty of them.

“Yes, I can take a break from this.” Yumi hit the save shortcut on the keyboard and stood up as Miki already started to walk around. She looked around at the other teams seeing that nearly all of the eyes of the floor focused on them. They didn’t seem to know anything, but the ‘bet’ between them apparently had spread around. So the onlookers wanted to see the outcome of a likely hotly discussed topic that everyone had privately.

Everyone had the desperate look of wanting to follow, but knowing that they couldn’t. ‘I think I’m supposed to be nervous, but I’m just curious. She going to get mad at me?’ Running the different paths helped move the time along as she followed Miki through the hall and into the elevator. It was then that she realized that they weren’t going back to her office. That narrowed down some of the options.

They arrived at the office of the head of the entire division. She had only seen him in passing and never spoke. Whatever he had to say, this was important. As Miki closed the door behind her, he began, “I’ve called you here to discuss your position in the company.”