The Arrangement
Chapter 1: Guess What.
Takashi Morinozuka was in the library of his family's estate reading on a Wednesday morning, while he would never tell anyone Takashi was addicted to romance novels. You know the ones with the hopelessly in love heroines and strong princely young men. He himself wasn't exactly the princely type, that position was filled by Tamaki in the host club, but he always believed that some girl would fall in love with his silent nature.
Takashi sat on a large reading couch imagining him with the girl on his dreams, his book momentarily forgotten in his lap when his mother walked in.
"Takashi dear, we're having some important guests for dinner tonight." Glancing up at his mother he nodded his understanding.
"Hn." Instead of his mother leaving she began to fidget nervously.
"Dear, your father wants to see you in his study; he wants to talk about one of the guests in particular." The boy stared curiously at his mother for a moment before nodding once more. Takashi marked his page and slowly stood up and made his way to his father's study.
Takashi stood in front of the study door for a brief second before knocking.
"Enter." was the gruff reply from his father. "Take a seat son." After he seated himself in the seat opposite his father's the man began to speak. "Well Takashi do you know why I wanted to speak to you about our guests tonight?" Takashi shook his head. With a sigh the older man rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Son, as you know we are part of an elite family, and as such there are certain…" at this he paused searching for the right word. "expectations of us." He nodded to show he was listening.
"Sometimes we must do things that others don't, to keep up with these expectations. Like how our family served the Haninozuka family for all those years, something I know you can relate to what with you and Mitsukuni." Again another nod. "So what I am trying to say is that right now there is something that is expected of you."
"What is it, father?" his curiosity finally got him to speak. His father let out another sigh.
"As I'm sure you are aware arranged marriages are not all that uncommon for people of our social standing. " Takashi hadn't heard the second part of the sentence due to the fact that the words arranged marriage were repeating over and over in his head.
"Arranged marriage?"
On the outside he didn't show any signs of emotion beyond widening his eyes and raising his eyebrows, the inside was a different story. He felt as if his world was crumbling before his very eyes, like every dream he'd ever had was a glass bubble that were being smash one by one, right in front of his eyes. Taking a deep breath to calm himself down he asked the one question the seemed most important.
"To whom?" cringing slightly at the quaver and desperation of which he had spoken in.
"The daughter of Ichirou and Kyoko Nakamura, her name is Toushi. She's quite a lovely young women, I met her at a function last year. I think you and her would get along wonderfully." His father stopped to let the information sink in.
"Toushi Nakamura?" she wouldn't be an obnoxious brat if his father like her.
"How long have you been planning this?" Takashi was careful to not make it sound accusing; as he calmed down more after the initial shock his curiosity took control once more.
"Well Ichirou first suggested the idea about six months ago but no serious planning took place until a month ago." Nodding slowly to himself he began to see his father's reasoning the Nakamura family was a prominent company in hotel industry which would provide many business opportunities for them, as they mainly dealt in cleaning services and the like. And marriages were generally a foolproof way to merge companies.
"Now Takashi, nobody is going to force the two of you into this, but all of us; myself, your mother and the Nakamura's would like for you give it a try. Tonight's dinner will be an opportunity to see if you two like each other." A chain that had wrapped its way around Takashi's heart loosened, he had a choice.
After all he didn't know anything about her; she could be just the person he would want to spend the rest of his life with.
"Yes." He thought, it couldn't hurt to meet this Toushi Nakamura.
Toushi Nakamura was sitting in her bedroom on the last Wednesday afternoon before school started listening to her stereo; the song playing was just an auto tune beat with some guy singing. She wasn't really listening too much to the lyrics but the beat was good and she was shaking her foot to it as she flipped through a magazine. Toushi wasn't exactly what people thought of when they heard 'rich heiress', well at least in private. In public she was polite and charming, not that she wasn't like that all the time but when there was no one to impress she was just a nice normal girl. She didn't flaunt her wealth nor did she shy away from it or denounce it completely as those were the three main reactions with the rich teens she knew.
A soft knock on her door announced the housekeeper's presence.
"Come in Yori." The door opened to reveal a young woman with soft brown hair and eyes wearing a maids dress.
"Miss Toushi, your parents wish to see you in the sitting room." With a groan the girl sat up and switched off the music.
"Thanks Yori." With a smile and a nod Yori left Toushi to herself. As she made her way to the sitting room she wasn't too concerned with what her parents wanted, as they often called to see her. When she reached her parents she grinned and sat down on the chair across from the couch they occupied. "Hello mom, dad what is it?" with a small smile her mother answered.
"We wanted to talk to you about tonight." Toushi was confused.
"What about tonight? Are we doing something?" this time it was her father.
"Yes, we will be having an important dinner with the Morinozuka family this evening." Nodding she tried to recall the name Morinozuka, ah yes that was it she had met Hisoka Morinozuka-san at a party last year and if she remember correctly Kazumi Morinozuka-san was her mother's good friend.
"Okay, do you want Arisu-san to dress me or can I do it myself?" Hoping her mother would let her pick out her own clothes instead of the family stylist.
"I want Arisu to do it, but there's something else we wanted to tell you about tonight." Disappointed by her mother's answer she nodded for them to continue.
"You see Toushi, myself and Hisoka-san have been discussing the futures of our companies as well as our families." Her father was sound unusually serious about something so she sat up straighter and listened. "And we have decided it would be in everybody's best interest if we were to arrange a marriage between you and their son Takashi."
At that moment Toushi's heart froze. Tonight she would be meeting her fiancé at dinner, her fiancé, the man she would marry, the man she would marry. Oh. My. God.
"Now sweetheart, just because we've arranged this doesn't mean that you and Takashi have to get married. We just want for you two to meet tonight and if you really don't like him we'll call the whole thing off. Okay?" Her mother's words were of some comfort. She didn't have to marry this Takashi guy if she didn't want to; she just had to meet him. It was kind of like a blind date; yeah that's it a blind date. Besides from what she knew about arranged marriages, the engagement would last quite a few years, even after she was out of high school.
Yeah she had over reacted this was a piece of cake . But she was a little curious about a few things.
"What does he think about this?" her parents seemed little surprised that that was what she wanted to know about him. Her father answered
" Well he was only told this morning but he has agreed to meet you at dinner tonight." Toushi nodded she guessed that the two of them were on the same page; meet each other tonight and see what happens. Well she was fine with that.
"Okay, I'll go tonight, but does Arisu really have to pick out what I'm wearing?" Her mother chuckled,
"Yes, now go see her, dinner is in a few hours." Groaning the girl walked off thinking,
"It can't hurt to meet this Takashi Morinozuka."