Irie Noriko listlessly looked at the calendar. What day was it? What did it matter? Kotoko was not here. Life no longer held any meaning. She felt so defeated as she trudged a now-familiar path through the living room.

She opened the wine cabinet. My! Someone has certainly been overindulging. I wonder… She clutched the door and leaned on it heavily. What had happened to her strength of will? How could she so easily be demoralized by such a little thing as a grasping businessman and his insipid granddaughter?

Engagements could be broken—not easily, but it was possible. She hadn't whetted her mind with schemes for the past few years for nothing. Her brain might be a little sluggish from her brief chemical escape from reality, but the gears were slowly turning. She just had to make it appear as if she had come to grips with the situation, because something definitely had to be done.


Yuuki wrote neatly but rapidly, eyes scanning from the page of the nursing textbook to his outline. Why hadn't the baka learned how to do this in elementary school, as he had? Well, once he got rid of Boring-chan, Naoki had better appreciate that his "perfect wife" was partly courtesy of his brother!


Irie Naoki's eyelid was twitching. He hadn't recalled it doing that since...she had left the house. But she was not responsible for this particular physical reaction now.

No, it was his father, of all people. His father, who should be at the house in a recliner, taking his medications and recuperating gradually. His father, for whom he had sacrificed his future. Instead, his father was spending three hours a day in the office and generally obstructing everything that he had been trying to accomplish.

"You think to expand into the Indian market at this time? Not a wise move, Naoki. Let's shelve this idea."

"Why are we trying to woo back former employees? If they were so disloyal as to jump ship when we were in trouble, let's take the opportunity to streamline the organizational chart. We will have a leaner, meaner company at the end of this."

"Really, son? I've run this company for over twenty years. Hell, I founded it. I was considered a business genius back in the day, and I don't think my brain is quite senile yet. My decision stands."

The money from Oizumi's investment still sat in the escrow account. None of the plans to recoup the recent losses Pandai had suffered were making it past the chairman's desk, which his father reclaimed for those few yet majorly disruptive hours each day. Of course, it was nice that he appeared to be enjoying himself, and he did look healthier, but really? This was the man who had begged him to take over as heir?

And tonight he had to go to the damned ballet with Sahoko, which meant a quick trip home for formal wear. He wished that he had kept his apartment, because he could hardly stand to go in the door of that house which now echoed with silence. Knowing that she would not be calling out in her loud voice, "Welcome home!"

He almost wanted to get on an airplane to anywhere and disappear.