Merchandising Awakening

I woke up quite disoriented and looked around the room. The curtains were pink and there were piles of clothes everywhere. It took me a moment to remember that I was in Aki's apartment. She was still sleeping behind me. Most of her body was covered under the blanket, yet I could see her shoulders and a portion of her bare back beneath her tank top.

We really slept together. We even kissed and almost…

Struggling to believe what had happened, I realized there was too much sunlight coming through the window. I grabbed my glasses from the nightstand and put them on.

Eleven fifty?!

I tossed the blanket away and jumped out of bed. I grabbed my pants and my jacket from a chair and hurriedly put them on.

"Kaito? What's wrong?" Aki asked in a raspy voice.

"It's ten to twelve. We are going to arrive very late."

"Oh no, we forgot to set an alarm…"

She got out of bed and her entire body became visible. Apart from the tank top, she was wearing shorts. I glanced at her and quickly turned away so as not to get distracted. I finished putting my clothes on and rushed to the door.

"See you at the studio," I said.

"Wait! Are you going directly to the studio?"

"Of course not; I'm going to take a shower at my place first."

"You'll lose more time. Shower here. We bought clothes for you yesterday, so you have something to wear."

"Are you sure? You'll have less time to shower."

"Well, there's one way to solve that…"

"No!"

She snickered. "I was kidding. Kind of."

"Kind of?!"

"Just shower already," she laughed.

I sighed and grabbed the bag with my clothes. I stepped into the bathroom and quickly undressed to start showering.

Good thing I bought boxers. I can't believe I'm taking a shower at her apartment…

Only a couple of minutes later, I closed the shower and put on one of the outfits Aki had chosen for me. About to step out of the bathroom, I realized I still needed to go back to my apartment to leave my used clothes. I didn't want to lose more time, so I decided to leave them at Aki's.

The only way of preventing her from seeing my underwear was to put them in the bag together with the new clothes.

I'll need to wash all of them later…

I stepped out of the bathroom and saw Aki sitting on her bed, waiting with her clothes already in her hands.

"Aki, I'll leave my clothes here. I'll come back for them after work."

"No problem."

She stood up and headed to the bathroom.

"Aki," I called before she stepped inside. "I'll wait for you to go together."

Her eyes widened. She then chuckled. "That's very sweet. But you should go without me. It would be a very bad example for the employees if the boss arrives late."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded.

"See you at the studio, then. I-It was nice spending the night with you."

She chuckled. "Likewise."

After exchanging smiles, she stepped into the bathroom and I walked out of the apartment.

I ran to the studio and arrived only two minutes late. Everyone was already there, sitting or warming up. I greeted them and told them we were going to wait for Aki to arrive before reviewing the performance.

She arrived ten minutes later. The first thing she did was to approach me and bow.

"I'm very sorry for being late."

Confused, I realized she was trying to make me look good in front of the girls because it would've been weird if I didn't say something to her for being late.

Trying my best to act, I scolded her. "It's fine. Just make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Understood."

She straightened up and walked past me into the room. The rest of the girls stared at me suspiciously.

They didn't buy it at all.

"Now that we are all here, let's review the performance from yesterday. Did anyone watch the video I sent?"

They all nodded.

"Great. First of all, I want to congratulate all of you; the performance was amazing."

The girls smiled.

"There were a few minor details that can easily be fixed. However, I need to bring up Astra's incident."

Instantly, Astra started bowing repeatedly. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry!"

Sanae patted her back. "It's okay, Astra. Everyone makes mistakes."

"Yes, but it shouldn't have happened. And I'm also sorry for apologizing. I tried so hard not to do it yesterday since you told me I shouldn't apologize for everything. I'm sorry if I made you think I didn't care about it."

I approached her. "Astra, Sanae's right. The fact that you didn't get enough time to practice the song didn't help. Yes, it was your fault, but that doesn't mean you'll get punished for it. Everyone knows you were trying your best."

The girls nodded and smiled at her.

"Let's make sure it doesn't happen again by getting enough practice time."

"Yes!" she beamed.

"Also, don't take what I said literally. You should apologize, but not always. Understood?"

"Kind of," she giggled.

With that out of the way, we started watching the recording of the performance. We didn't pause at all and shared ideas and opinions once it ended.

One of the topics was about my work as a live audio mixer. Even though I had done a good job, it wasn't my forté. The best option was to hire someone, but I couldn't afford it. I preferred to hire Tomokazu to start earning money and look for a PR to increase our popularity. Still, getting a live audio mixer was one of the priorities.

Two hours later, Tomokazu arrived at the studio. The girls continued practicing as I talked with him. I was supposed to have the contract ready, but I didn't have the time to make it. Instead, I made it as we chatted, which turned out better since I didn't have much idea about the merchandising manager job. He explained it to me and I worked with that information, along with some quick research.

Only one hour passed and Tomokazu was hired. However, he couldn't start working officially until one week later since the law demanded a one-week time frame to make the transfer between school and work. Still, he wanted to start working right away. He stayed in the studio for another two hours, sharing ideas with me and asking the girls questions to get even more ideas. I told the girls to push him away if he was being too annoying.

He left and I continued working with the girls. Umi asked for permission to go to the recording studio to work on the fifth song. We had decided to only make one song per week to avoid what happened to Astra and so that Umi didn't have to work out of schedule.

As the girls practiced, I posted a job offer for a PR. I knew their average salary was quite high, but I couldn't afford it. I had to lower it quite a lot, so I didn't expect any replies for a while.

The workday finished a few hours later in the evening. I walked with Aki to her apartment to pick up my clothes. She offered to wash them for me, but I politely refused.

I returned to my apartment to drop off my clothes and headed to the Business Administration lecture. Everything was going great as usual, until the end of the class.

"Students, I have an announcement to make," Professor Fuku said. "The administrators of the university have made the difficult decision to terminate the Business Administration degree."

Eh?

"Fortunately, this is going to take effect after the year ends in three months, meaning that you will be able to finish your degree properly."

What?!

Mutters of confusion and disbelief started floating around.

"Professor," a guy raised his hand. "What's going to happen to the students of previous years?"

"They'll still be able to get their degree. However, the assignments they are going to get will be automated. Since they won't have much work, the university is going to offer them the opportunity of starting another degree, meaning they can get two degrees at once."

At least it doesn't too bad. But still…

"So, no one's going to be able to choose this degree anymore?" a girl wondered.

"Exactly. In three years, when there are no remaining students, the degree will disappear completely."

That's sad. And it means that Professor Fuku will lose her job in three months…

Many more questions surged in the last five minutes of the lecture and Professor Fuku kindly answered them. Once it ended, I waited for everyone to leave to talk with her. She stood still beside the desk.

"Professor Fuku. Are you okay?"

She didn't look at me. Instead, she slowly sat down on the chair and let out a long breath, looking down at the desk. After a moment in silence, she finally looked at me.

"It was a hard pill to swallow, to be honest. I have been working hard to keep this degree going for years, after all. But it's true that no one's interested in it anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"The numbers speak for themselves. There are ten students in the fourth year, eleven in the third, eight in the second, and only five in the first. People don't find this degree useful anymore since business managers are chosen through connections instead of being recognized for their education."

She's right.

I remained silent. "I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything. Just being at my side is enough," she smiled. "Let's go."

We walked out of the building and through the gardens. I wanted to ask her what her plans were after the degree was closed, but it was too soon. We simply talked about happy things. I told her about the performance and she seemed to genuinely get in a good mood.

We arrived at the building of her apartment. Instead of stepping inside, as usual, she stopped at the door.

"I think it's best for us to stop walking together all the way to my apartment's door. It's already enough that you skip your apartment's building, which is closer."

"Sure."

"And thanks for walking with me, it was quite relieving."

"No problem. I enjoy it too."

She smiled. "By the way, are you up to having dinner with Aki and me next weekend?"

"Eh?" I uttered in surprise.

"Was it too sudden?" she snickered.

"Yes, a bit," I giggled. "But sure, let's have dinner together."