To Cesar848: You think so?
To Lyger 0: I mean, as long as they knock…
The next morning, Kagami was so nervous for their follow-up meeting with Takagi that she could barely eat breakfast. After pushing her rice and fried egg around the plate for a few minutes, she finally settled for drinking the broth from her soup and sipping at her tea in a vain attempt to settle the butterflies in her stomach. She could feel Longg shifting in her purse as he nibbled on some of the rice that she had slipped off her plate for him. Across from her, Luka calmly ate his own meal; she could feel him looking up at her surreptitiously every few minutes, examining her face.
Just before 7:45, the driver dropped Kagami and Luka off at the ChowaKyoku Bunpu offices for their second meeting, along with Ojisan. As they entered the building, Ojisan turned to Kagami and nodded hesitantly. "I am sure you will do well today, Mei," he began. "I know you will honor your company and your family."
"Thank you, Ojisan." She paused. "I hope you are right."
Standing motionless in the elevator, Luka next to her breathing slowly, Kagami's mouth took on a hard set as she steeled herself for the meeting. She was already scheduled to meet with a revolving door of Japanese clients at the Tsurugi Group offices starting at 9; hopefully this meeting would be short, allowing her to get back to her own office and prepare for that. Her mouth set in a firm line in frustration. Why didn't she arrange it so she could accompany Luka yesterday? She should have been there – and not just because she loved Luka and wanted to see Kitty Section succeed. If this deal fell through because of Luka's small breach of etiquette, it would also reflect poorly on the Tsurugi Group, as well as on herself. Her stomach clenched. Next to her, Luka hadn't said a word since they left her Ojisan's house. She felt his eyes on her as they stepped off the elevator together. His hand brushed against hers, but she refused to take it – she couldn't appear as weak or anything less than professional – not now. If she was going to salvage this deal, she could not allow anything to prevent this meeting from going perfectly.
Softly Luka began humming a tune under his breath.
Standing in the hallway outside the ChowaKyoku Bunpu offices, Kagami clenched her teeth, inhaled, and slowly breathed out through her mouth, trying to let his song invade her tense nerves and relax her. She clutched a poster tube in one hand, careful not to crush it in her nervousness. Schooling her features into calm professionalism, she led the way into the office.
"Welcome," the receptionist greeted them, looking up.
"Good morning," Kagami replied. "I am Tsurugi Kagami. We have a meeting with Takagi-san – I had called to arrange it yesterday?"
"Of course, Tsurugi-sama," she answered, rising from the desk and leading them down the hallway to the conference room.
Kagami entered, followed by Luka, to find Takagi-san waiting for them. Kagami bowed in greeting, matching Takagi-san precisely. Next to her, Luka copied the motion. "I thank you for agreeing to this meeting," she told him, keeping her face as impassive as she could. Carefully she presented her business card to him. "I apologize that I could not accompany my client yesterday; I had another meeting at the same time."
"That is understandable, Tsurugi-sama," Takagi-san told her, giving her his business card at the same time before taking a quick look at her card. "'Tsurugi'? Not related to Tsurugi Tomoe?"
"She is my mother," Kagami confirmed, placing his card in her business card holder on the table in front of her. "She has been working to integrate me closer into the company – I am in the city this week to meet with some of our corporate clients in the Asia market."
"Then I hope I will have further opportunities to discuss the clients that we share," Takagi-san replied, nodding. "Sanzen'on and Ito Keiko are both your clients, are they not?"
"They are indeed," Kagami replied, nodding. "Ito-san's next album will be out in two months, and she was very pleased with your distribution for the last one."
Takagi-san hummed contemplatively. "If you arrange with my assistant, I am certain I will have time to discuss that matter later in the week."
"I will be sure to do so," agreed Kagami. "For now, I hope we will be able to add Kitty Section to our list of shared clients today."
"We shall see. I have listened to their demo and given it some thought."
"Kitty Section's music speaks for itself," Kagami noted, popping the end off her poster tube. "But I think this can show some of their potential for the Japan market." She extracted the poster from the tube and laid it on the table between them: the members of Kitty Section reimagined as a quintet of chibi cats, all holding their correct musical instruments, set against a background of one-half Tokyo and the other half Paris, with the Eiffel Tower and Tokyo Tower as the unifying point. "This is only a rough first example, but Luka had the idea to commission a poster from a local artist as a way to bring Kitty Section into Japan. My cousin, Nihonto Kimiko, came up with this in a single night as a 'proof of concept,' if you will. She is already working to fine-tune the design, but we wish for you to have this original."
Takagi-san took the poster impassively, examining it carefully. Kagami watched his eyes closely, holding her breath. Finally he nodded slowly. "As I said, I listened to your demo again yesterday, and I do think we could find a way to distribute Kitty Section's music and other merchandise in Japan," he explained. "Do I understand that the Tsurugi Group intends to handle the promotion?"
"Of course," Kagami replied with a nod, letting out a relieved breath, though she managed to retain the same calm expression. "And if we have an agreement, I have already worked out terms for my uncle's company to bring the first shipment in January. In the meantime, this afternoon I will arrange for our Japanese office to begin producing some of the promotional materials for you to distribute, including a limited run of these posters once my cousin finishes revising it."
"Send them over when they are ready, and we will begin sending them out through our distribution network," Takagi-san told her. "Thank you both for coming in."
As they left the building, Kagami was almost floating on air in relief. In spite of everything, the meeting had been a success. She found Luka's hand with her own and gave it a quick squeeze. He lifted her hand to his lips and smiled. "I'm glad the meeting went better," he commented. "It… did go better, right?"
"Well, we have a deal, so I'd say it did," she assured him, smirking. Her stomach growled, and she frowned. Suddenly her lack of breakfast was catching up to her. She glanced down at her watch and nodded. "Up for a quick snack on the way?"
He chuckled. "With you, I'd be up for anything!"
At the end of the block was a small convenience store, empty apart from a couple of customers browsing the shelves, and Kagami pulled him inside. The cashier glanced up as they entered. "What can I do for you?" she asked, smiling.
Kagami hummed. "I don't have much time… what's quick?"
"The oden is fresh," the cashier suggested, gesturing toward the machine on the counter.
Kagami raised an eyebrow at Luka, who shrugged. "Two cups, please." Luka started to pull out his wallet, but Kagami squeezed his hand and shook her head, slapping her own card on the counter. Taking her two cups of soup and handing one to Luka she thanked the cashier and let Luka lead the way back onto the busy sidewalk.
While they walked, Kagami fished a couple pieces of fishcake out of her cup for the Kwamis and slurped down the warm broth. As they approached the looming tower which housed the Tsurugi Group's Asian headquarters, despite herself Kagami stared up at the imposing edifice. Her company leased two floors near the middle of the tower, with offices and a conference room on one floor and other employees on the floor below. Her mother still maintained an office at the headquarters despite only returning to Japan a couple times a year since they had moved to Paris, which Kagami would be using for her meetings.
And in a few years, this entire company would be her responsibility.
While Kagami met with a revolving door of clients in the conference room down the hall, Luka sat on the couch in one corner of her office, continuing to work away on his tablet. Between meetings she returned to the office to find Luka sitting with the same expression of deep concentration, headphones firmly clamped over his ears, tablet held in one hand. Looking closely she could see both Sass and Longg sitting on the couch next to him and watching, an open can with a steadily-diminishing supply of sardines between them. Around noon, she returned to the office to find two to-go boxes of tonkatsu and a couple rolls of sushi waiting on the coffee table. Luka didn't look up from his composition when she handed him one of the boxes as the two Kwamis attacked the sushi. Dropping onto the couch next to him, she separated her chopsticks and ate while watching Luka revise his latest song. Kagami smiled in contentment as she savored the meat and rice – a moment of calm in the middle of a hectic day.
Unfortunately, it couldn't last. Fifteen minutes later she returned to the conference room for her next meeting.
It was only after the final meeting that Kagami finally shut the office door, dropped into the seat next to Luka, slipped her feet out of her shoes, and pulled them up on the couch next to her, leaning into Luka's side. She rested her head on his shoulder, sighing heavily in exhaustion, looking out the floor-length glass windows at the Tokyo Tower in the distance, and the harbor beyond.
Luka glanced up at her and followed her gaze out the window. "I take it you are not interested in climbing to the top of that tonight?" he observed wryly, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
"Not tonight," she agreed, frowning. "Sorry."
"Don't be." He smiled, though with strain in the corners of his mouth, sliding his headphones off his ears. "How did the meetings go?" he asked, his lips curving down in worry.
She shrugged. "As far as I can tell, we didn't lose any clients today, so there's that."
He grimaced, averting his eyes from her. "I am sorry about yesterday," he apologized. "I tried, I really did."
She looked at him, eyes wide in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"I could tell you weren't happy about having to fix my mistake this morning."
She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "It all worked out in the end." He hummed pensively and set his tablet aside before pulling her feet onto his lap, rubbing her soles gently with his thumbs. Kagami lay back along the length of the couch, closing her eyes as he worked his way along her feet and up to her calves. When he finally finished she opened her eyes to find him gazing softly at her face. "If I could just keep you in my office as a personal masseur, that would be amazing," she teased, raising an eyebrow.
He hummed in amusement. "Should I get you one of those foot massagers, then?" he asked.
"Only if you come attached to it! Thank you," she told him.
He smiled as she sat up, pulling her into his lap and wrapping his arms around her, nuzzling her neck. "I should be thanking you," he whispered.
She snuggled into his chest and sighed in contentment. "I'm glad you're here with me," she murmured.
After dinner that evening, Kagami brushed her hair and smiled in anticipation as she slipped into her bed. Three nights they had been in Japan now, and she had yet to actually use her bed, rather than sneak over to Luka's for the night and then blow back across the house to her own bed in the morning. Once the lights in the rest of the house were out, she quietly whispered her transformation phrase and shifted to her wind form before slipping under the bedroom door and out into the hallway. However, as she was floating past, she heard Shiro's door creak open and him sneak out. Wind-Ryoku watched curiously as he tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to make any undue noise.
Her curiosity getting the better of her, Wind-Ryoku drifted down the stairs after him. Shiro paused in the entrance hallway in front of the family katana. The saya scraped dully against the wall as he carefully removed it from the mounting hooks. Then, looking in both directions, Shiro slowly opened the front door and slipped out into the darkness.
With a thought, Wind-Ryoku seeped through the space between the door and the weather stripping to follow, and watched Shiro get in the back of a waiting car. What was he doing? And why bring the katana? She paused in contemplation until the car had shifted into drive before slipping back inside the house and drifting back up the stairs to Luka's room.
Ryoku materialized just inside the door to find Luka waiting for her on the bed. "I was starting to wonder if you weren't coming tonight," he observed. He cocked his head, brows furrowing in confusion. "What's wrong?"
"I just watched Shiro leave," she told him, frowning. "Something about it felt… off."
"What do you mean?"
She folded her arms. "I'm… not really sure," she admitted. "It was just a… feeling. He took the family sword. Something about it made my skin crawl."
Luka sat up, eyes narrowing seriously. "What do you want to do about it?"
Her stomach clenched in a tight knot, she sighed. "I want to know what's going on."