Chapter 35: The Fragrance Weaving a Small Smile

"Thanks for the hard work!" I say to the staff that I worked with at the studio today. Sigh, another load off of my schedule. I feel like going out for a breather today. Should ask manager if I'm free to go out somewhere?

Walking down the hallway, I see a familiar lady reading a book as she walks.

"Uh, excuse me but you're Kaori right? Mikaze Kaori? Ai's wife?"

The woman looks up at me. "Ah! Koemi-chan! You're Ranmaru's girlfriend, right?"

"That's right. Fancy seeing you here. You have a recording too?"

"Yeah! I just finished. You?"

"I just finished too."

"Since you're done, would you like to eat lunch with me?"

"I want to! I'll just tell my manager that I'm going out to eat with you. Hold on a sec."

" your time."

I take out my cellphone from my pocket and call my manager. "Yo manager, I bumped into Mikaze Kaori and she invited me to eat lunch with her so I'm going. See ya."

"Eh?! Nakahara-san?! Wait—"

*beep* I hanged up.

"It's settled!" I say happily.

Kaori chuckles. "You didn't even give your manager a chance to talk back haha."

"It'll be a pain in the butt if I gave him time to talk back."

"Oh I know what you mean! I can relate to that in a lot of levels hehe."

"So where are we going to eat?"

"Hmm, do you have anything or anywhere in mind?"

"Not really. I'm good with anything."

"Let's see…There's a café that has good pasta; it's a bit of a walk from here but it's worth it! I swear that the food is good."

"Okay! Lead the way, your highness."

The café wasn't as far as I thought and we ordered our food right away. The place was cozy and had a relaxing air to it; I like it here.

"So how's work been going, Emi?"

"Heavy load as always, urgh, but everything I've been creating has been hitting the charts and have been doing well so I'm glad that my hard work is paying off."

"You are indeed everywhere these days! You're really awesome, I tell you. I have your CDs at home and I love every song! I'm happy for your success, Emi-chan."

"…Thank you." I take a sip of my tea and as I put the cup back down on the table, I stare at the tea for a moment.

Kaori smiles wryly. "Hey, are you alright?"

"Hm? What?"

"Emi, I don't mean to pry but are you still happy at work?"

"I—" I sadly pause for a moment. "I wanna say that I am but…I'm tired. I'm just so tired that music is becoming a chore to me; that's not how it's supposed to be. I love making and working with music a hell lot but the down side of being commercial is that I gotta make music for numbers aside from making it for passion. It becomes hard and heavy and as much as I wanna take a break, it's not easy to do."

I become silent for a moment and it pushes Kaori to speak up.

"Emi…You can talk about anything with me, you know? I don't mind hearing you out either if you have anything heavy in your heart. I'm right here as your friend."

I sigh. "Sometimes, a thought enters my mind. I would wish that I could leave Raging Entertainent and join another agency but I can't go back to Shining Agency and I'm worried that I won't be handled well by other agencies; the worst case scenario would be me ending up in an agency that would just exploit me again ahaha. I considered going free lance but that would mean that I'll have to handle literally everything and with the way I am now, I don't think I'll be able to handle it all. I'm stuck in a slump and a dump."

Kaori puts her hand on Emi's clenched fist on the table. "Don't worry. I'm absolutely sure that you'll find an agency that you can turn to and that they'll take good care of you. I'm very very sure. Hmm, you don't have to quit Raging Entertainment just yet; I think you should let things play out for a little longer."

I chuckle a little upon seeing her determined eyes. "How can you be so sure of what you're saying?"

"I just have a good feeling about it. Who knows? Maybe you won't even have to look for another agency? Maybe they'll come find you instead or approach you."

I smile wryly at her positivism. "I wish."

"Don't lose hope. Wishes come true when you hold on to them hard enough."

I laugh. "You're starting to sound like a fairy godmother character."

"Really?" she laughs.

"Yeah. If Ai was with you and you both wore a fairy costume, you two would look like two really cute fairies."

"Hmm I should do that for Halloween then. I should ask Ringo-sensei to make fairy costumes for me and Ai!"

"Ai will definitely be reluctant to wear it."

"I'll just throw a puppy face at him and he'll return a blank stare at me and agree to do it in the end anyway." Kaori says in a really confident cheerful tone.

"Hahaha he's definitely not gonna win against you."

"As long as I play my cards correctly, yes! But he's a formidable foe; he's got a lot of tricks in that innocent face of his…"

"I can understand that. Even Ranmaru can be a formidable foe too."

"Really?"

"Yup, that man may be rough on the outside but he's a softie in the inside to the point he can seem so innocent or childlike and it irritates me when he starts looking cute. Urgh."

"My, my, I have an angel that turns into a demon and you've got a demon that turns into an angel. Interesting!" Kaori chuckles. "We're all just bound together by our love. Prisoners of love, ne?"

"Whoa that sounds like a cool name to give to a song. Can I use it if ever?"

"Sure, no problem at all! I wouldn't mind." Kaori thinks for a moment. "It would be great if we could collaborate on a song! Maybe if you'll make a song with that kind of title, we could work on it together?"

"That sounds like a great idea! I would totally go for it!"

"Contact me any time then when the opportunity arrives! Ah, now I feel excited haha."

"Hey, um, thanks for inviting me out for lunch. After I finished recording earlier, I was feeling like going out for a breather. I'm glad I'm able to unwind like this in between my schedule."

"If you ever want to go out for lunch again, just tell me when you're free. It doesn't even need to be for lunch! If you want to go shopping or hang out or anything or even nothing at all, just contact me. Here, you can take down my number so that we can keep in touch directly; you can also add my social media."

"Oh! Sure! I'll put my number in your phone too and here are my social media accounts too."

"Emi-chan, feel free to message any time but if I'm not replying then I might be doing work but I do reply as soon as I can."

"Same here."

The food arrives and I'm surprised by amount of food that Kaori ordered.

"Dude, can you finish all that?! You ordered a hell lot of food!"

"Don't worry, Emi-chan. I can surely finish them all hehe."

"S-Seriously?!"

"Yes, I have times when I eat so little and times when I can eat lots and lots. Itadakimasu!" She says happily with a smile as she's about to start eating.

As we eat, I observe her. I'm getting the feeling that something is up.

"Damn, I didn't know you could eat this much. You don't look like the type to eat this much."

"Hihihi Food is great after work. I sometimes get really hungry after work these days; I've been having a hard time gaining weight because I keep losing the weight that I gain because of work huhu. I even lose weight when I do nothing!"

"Eat up then. Man, you'd be a good buffet buddy during your big appetite moments."

"Wanna go to a buffet next time?"

"I'm game." I say happily.

We bump our fists together for a moment before continuing to eat.

Four days pass and a delivery man knocks on the doorstep of the Mikaze residence.

Ai answers the door and accepts the package. He brings it to the center table and thinks about the box.

"A delivery? From who?" Kaori asks him.

"It says that it's from Tsukimiya Ringo. I don't remember him mentioning a package for us before."

"Oh! From Ringo-sensei?!" Kaori excitedly goes over to the box and starts opening it. "I asked a favor from him. This must be it."

"What is it?" Ai waits patiently.

"Ta-dah!" Kaori shows him a fairy costume. "Isn't it well made and cute?"

"It is cute indeed. What is the costume for?"

"It's for Halloween."

"Eh? But that's still months away from now."

"I just felt like preparing early. I was hit with inspiration." Kaori then takes out another fairy costume from the box and shows it to Ai.

"You asked him to make you two of them?"

"Yes but this one isn't my size."

"Oh. Why would he give you a costume that's not your size? Did he make a mistake or so?"

"This one is yours!" Kaori says with a big shining smile.

"…What?"

"We'll wear matching fairy costumes for Halloween!" her smile is radiating with excitement.

At that moment, Ai did not know how to react or what to say to her. All he knew was that he couldn't say no to his wife and that Halloween was going to be hard on him.

"I'll be taking lots of pictures for this year's Halloween!"

Ai just sighs as Kaori looks at him fitting the costume.

"Can I take a picture?" Kaori asks as she takes out her phone.

"…No."

"Pretty please?"

"…..No."

Kaori continues to stare at him with anticipation. Seconds later, she uses one of her effective weapons—puppy eyes.

"…Okay. Just one picture. One."

Kaori smiles brightly as she prepares her phone's camera. "Yay! Thank you, Ai-Ai! Love you!" She then sets the camera to take multiple shots in one long push of a button.