I swear I will try to be more consist with my 'weekly' updates. I realized I forgot I forgot to post a new chapter on Thursday last week...
There was something surreal about Mika standing in his apartment with his two suitcases full of his things. It wasn't like he was going on vacation and packing away some of his things. He was kicked out of his house and took everything he could in those two suitcases.
"You can stay in this room. My room is next door over here and the bathroom is down the hall," Yuu explained, "And you've seen the living room and kitchen on the way here."
"Thank you. I promise I'll move out as soon as I get a job and-"
"How do you expect to live on your own when your parents took all the money you earned all these years?" Yuu asked and Mika only sat there quietly. Yuu sighed, "If you want to look for a job, we'll have to open a bank account for yourself. Do you even have any money at all right now?"
"Just the money in my wallet."
"So not much," Yuu muttered to himself as he thought to himself.
"I'll promise to move out and pay you back when I get the money!" Mika said and Yuu hummed in consideration.
"How about you find a job first? But it's probably not hard for a model like you," Yuu said and Mika nodded in agreement. Yuu didn't think he could back to modelling but there would still be other opportunities for Mika. "Money is not a concern. If you want to earn some money for yourself, go ahead. But if you intend on paying me back, do so after high school."
"Um, thank you," Mika said. "You… you don't have to help me so much. Or if you find me a bother, you can tell me to move out at any time!"
"If I thought you were a bother, I wouldn't have answered the phone," Yuu said, but regretted it when he saw how bright Mika smiled hearing that. "It's getting late, did you have dinner yet?"
"No."
"Me neither, let's go eat something. My treat since you're poor now."
"I have some money."
"Save it for train fare. You still need to go to school."
"Thank you, Yuuichirou."
"If you want dinner, just follow me without another word," Yuu said.
Everything about the situation was so weird. But Yuu couldn't just leave Mika alone on the streets with his things. Who knows what would have happened. Even though part of him is starting to regret his decision, because now he will have to deal with Mika all day, Yuu can't get over himself if something happened to Mika because he ignored him in a time of need.
~ Look at Me and Smile ~
"We're really sorry!"
"It's okay. It wasn't your fault," Mika said in panic with 5 of his classmates bowing to him even before he could step into the classroom.
On Tuesday, Mika missed class to attend a press conference about the early termination of his contract. Due to a breach of contract agreements, the company had to carry through with their policy and terminate their contract with Mika.
"It was because of my suggestion that our customers could take a picture with you after the purchase something."
"No, it was my fault for using Shindo-san as our selling point."
"No, I was the one who was wrong," the class president said, "I was the one who was in charge and I allowed for this to happen. Please accept my apology."
"It's not anyone's fault but mine. I should have been clear to everyone to not post the pictures. It was only because of certain captions that implied there was some sort of monetary exchange," Mika explained, "I should have been more clear with everyone before letting them post the pictures."
"Our café was so small to accommodate everyone, so it's not really anyone's fault if that's the situation…"
"Excuse me," Yuu stated from behind Mika, "You're blocking the way."
They parted to the two sides and Yuu walked through to his desk. Mika took the opportunity to do the same, but only after reassuring them that it was not their fault in any way.
Yuu was still pissed off from hearing the reason behind Mika's termination. Just because a few people wrote on their posts that if you eat at their café, Mika would take a picture with them. It was only because they were so busy that Mika only had time to attend to patrons that attended to their pop-up café.
But luckily the 'retirement news', as many media outlet called it, didn't affect Mika's popularity.
If anything, it gave it an additional boost and he was more popular than ever. However, Yuu wasn't able to predict the effectiveness of sales for the upcoming few projects that Mika was contracted with.
There were many jobs that Mika had to turn down because of the termination, but there were a few that he was signed onto before the misconduct. The company had to make compensation if they took Mika off the project so he will officially be released after his current workload. Luckily, Mika had his own bank account now so the money from these few projects will go to him instead of his parents.
Yuu didn't understand why Mika was fine with the fact that his hard earned money went to his parents. It made sense when he was younger, but Mika was 16 already. He didn't have any more money than the cash he carried on his person.
Yuu realized that he missed half the lesson thinking about Mika and his problems. He never had an issue like this for a long time now.
He decided to push away these thoughts for another time.
Mika was capable of taking care of himself and Yuu was just giving him a place to stay while he was sorting out his life.
Although they were only living for two days now, Yuu found that Mika was very quiet company and it was almost like he wasn't there half the time. But there were a few times that he forgot Mika was at his apartment and nearly gave him a heart attack. He never mentioned or said anything to him about it.
It was a good thing that Akane never goes home with him anymore. The last thing Yuu wanted to do was explain to her that Mika was living with him for the time being and soon he'll find three girls in his apartment trying to get close to Mika.
