Chương 175: 66.Flustered 2

The moment we pushed through the door, I caught the smell—not cheap air freshener, but new metal, leather, polished floors, and climate control, the combined scent of this place costs money and knows how to spend it. The showroom was large, glass walls running all the way to the port-facing side, distant crane arms and logistics lines visible through the panels. Lights fell across each vehicle like they'd been arranged for advertising.

Clean, cold, expensive—even the air had a if you're just here to browse, please respect the space quality. Beside me, Maki stood in understated, composed clothes, wearing the expression of someone who had simply accompanied a friend to look at an ordinary used bike. Until the reception staff looked up.

That professionally calibrated smile shifted in the instant they registered her—not the practiced warmth for a returning customer, but something deeper, a reflexive deference that came from somewhere more fundamental.

"Welcome, Miss Kushima." I nearly lost my footing at that. Not because I'd forgotten her name. Because there was nothing casual in that greeting—it was the tone of someone who knew exactly what kind of authority they were addressing. Not a student looking at bikes. Something more like a system-level credential that couldn't be treated lightly. I turned to look at Maki. She gave a small nod, completely composed.

"We'll look around on our own. We'll let you know if we need anything."

"Of course." The staff member stepped back half a pace.

"The manager has been informed you're here—if you need anything—""Don't notify him yet," Maki said, tone even.

"Today isn't about me." That sentence was light. The weight of it was not. Today isn't about me. Meaning: she was here, her presence was here, but she was pressing the whole thing back into this is Hoshino's business. Standing beside her listening to it, I felt something about that sentence that was deeply, inconveniently warm. The staff member clearly understood. Their gaze shifted to me, smile recalibrating to standard service mode.

"Of course. Please feel free to look around. If you'd like vehicle history, maintenance records, or pricing details at any time, just let us know." Both of you. Right. That sounded more accurate. I told myself firmly not to start reading into a pronoun, while immediately stealing a glance at Maki's profile with my peripheral vision. She'd already moved on, heading toward the interior of the display area like the exchange hadn't registered.

"Used and demo units first," she said.

"We see what's actually suitable before anything else."

"Right." I fell into step beside her, lowering my voice.

"Do you come here often?"

"No."

"Then why do they look at you like you're about to acquire the building?" Maki didn't slow down.

"Probably because the land is Kushima Land Holdings, the financial settlement runs through Kushima-Rengo, and the port logistics connect to Kushima Trading. When the names stack up like that, pretending not to recognize someone becomes difficult." Two seconds of silence.

"... Your family is genuinely exhausting."

"I agree." That was the alarming thing about Maki. She could deliver a complete breakdown of how land, capital, freight, and port operations were all interconnected in the same tone she'd use to read a timetable, and then acknowledge the whole thing was tiresome. My previous understanding of the Kushima family is significant had probably stopped at: wealthy, powerful, influential. Today I understood it wasn't large—it was complete.

Complete enough that walking into a showroom meant the floor, the payment terminal, the maintenance system, and the logistics vehicles outside might all trace back to those two characters. The feeling was deeply uncomfortable. Not the self-consciousness of someone with less money looking at someone with more—closer to the nausea of discovering the air itself had shareholders. But Maki stood beside me, seeming to know what I was thinking, or seeming not to.

She didn't explain, didn't offer any diplomatic framing for the family network, just redirected her attention to the vehicles in front of us.

"This one, out." She stopped at a dark grey two-wheeler, crouched down to examine the tire edge, pressed her fingertip along a body seam.

"Why?"

"Previous owner modified the suspension—not poorly done, but non-factory." She looked up at me.

"That's a bonus for an experienced rider. For you it isn't. Right now you need predictability, not character." She said it the way you'd mention weather. The problem was that Maki was currently crouched beside the bike, one hand on the front wheel housing, one hand on the data panel, hair falling from her shoulder, expression focused in a way that was genuinely difficult to look away from. In slightly better lighting, I'd have suspected this wasn't a vehicle inspection but a high-end commercial shoot.

I pulled my attention back.

"So I don't need character."

"You have enough of your own. The bike doesn't need to supplement it."

"... Is that an attack?"

"A fact." Right. She was dismantling the bike and me simultaneously. We moved on to two more. Maki's approach to looking at vehicles was unsettling. Not the civilian once-around with seems decent—she actually knew what she was looking at. Tire wear distribution, micro-repairs on the frame, whether service intervals in the maintenance records made sense, battery health and output curves, whether suspension rebound was excessive.

She could read a previous owner's riding habits from the wear pattern on the handlebar grips with reasonable accuracy. I stood beside her listening, and gradually became aware of something dangerous. This had stopped resembling a vehicle inspection some time ago. A normal inspection didn't involve her calculating my budget, explaining risks, filtering out problem units, and quietly noting that one isn't right for you when I got distracted by a profile.

This felt more like—someone carefully selecting something that would stay with you for a long time. And selecting it more carefully than you would have yourself. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Once that thought surfaced, I started to be in trouble. Because once you'd mapped looking at bikes onto something else, every detail in the room became increasingly suspicious. Like how she remembered which front-end lines I'd responded to.

Like how she knew I didn't actually want to make a statement—I just didn't want to ride something with no dignity. Like how her budget calculations had included future maintenance pressure. Like how she normally said very little, but today was explaining everything in detail, as if afraid I'd regret it later. I followed her, half-present, toward the interior of the display area.

A black-blue bike stood there, lines cleaner than the used section, with the quality of something that had been legally neutered but hadn't fully accepted its commuter fate. I was moving toward it when a thin maintenance cable lay across the walkway. My attention split between the bike and Maki, I nearly stepped wrong. Maki saw it before I did. She didn't say anything. Just stepped forward slightly and reached over, taking my hand. Not grabbing my wrist, not pulling hard.

Just naturally, as though afraid I'd miss my footing, she folded my hand into her palm and guided me over the cable. The whole movement was so smooth it barely seemed deliberate. I suspected even she hadn't realized, in the moment she finished, that this time she'd taken my hand, not my wrist.... Second time. The first had been outside in the crowd—she'd said careful, I'd grabbed back. I could still pretend that had been a momentary lapse in judgment. This was different. This time she went first.

And she did it so naturally, like she'd always had the right to. My mind went blank for half a beat. Maki's probably did too. Because after she guided me over the cable, she didn't let go immediately. A second later, like she'd also registered what was happening, her fingertips shifted slightly—but didn't actually release. Those few seconds stretched unreasonably long.

Long enough that I became acutely aware of the warmth of her palm, the pressure where her fingers met mine, even the fact that she'd gone quieter than usual. Finally she said, with complete composure: "The floor's messy here."

"... Right."

"Don't just look at the bikes when you walk."

"... Okay." Perfect. Semantically, that was entirely reasonable. The problem was that reasonable didn't mean nothing had happened. After she let go, I entered a thoroughly unhelpful state: my eyes were still on the vehicles, but half my brain was stuck in that moment and couldn't get out. The result was that the next ten minutes were barely functional. She was explaining battery cycles and demo unit markdowns; all I retained was whether her fingers had touched mine first or closed directly around my palm.

I was standing beside her looking at price sheets, but my gaze kept drifting toward her hands, then snapping back to wheel rims whenever she glanced over. Maki wasn't doing much better. She got a model year wrong once and took an unusual half-second to correct herself. From her, that kind of basic error was about as rare as reading a tactical map upside down. In short: neither of us could concentrate on buying a motorcycle. Embarrassing. Also undeniably real. What rescued us was the manager.

Not emotionally—procedurally. The one who'd supposedly wait to be called had apparently received word and approached personally with complete documentation, wearing a smile so precisely calibrated it made my scalp itch.

"Miss Kushima, if you're interested in this unit, we can offer special arrangements." I tensed at special arrangements. Maki's expression also shed its earlier imbalance, returning to something professionally composed.

"Terms first." The manager opened his data board. What he presented wasn't from the used section—it was a nearly new black-blue bike. Not the latest generation, but well above what someone like me was supposed to encounter. The model aligned with our target: stable frame, restrained profile, clean configuration. And the price had been compressed to a point where I genuinely wondered if a digit was missing.

"This unit falls under inventory adjustment," the manager said smoothly.

"If it's for Miss Kush—""It's not for me." Maki cut him off. He pivoted seamlessly.

"If it's for Miss Hoshino, we can discuss further terms." I understood completely. This wasn't standard discounting. This was proximity pricing. The kind that made you wonder about legality. Before I could speak, he went further: "If Miss Kushima approves, processing this as a personal gift would be no problem at all." I nearly choked on my own breath. A gift. This wasn't a discount—this was pouring me directly into a concrete block of personal obligation. Before I could react, Maki answered.

Fast, like she'd navigated this exact situation countless times.

"No." The manager paused. Maki stood half a step in front of me, voice level, every word clear.

"If it were for me, taking it would be fine. But today I'm here for Hoshino. This doesn't get counted against Kushima favors." Something hit me in the chest. She hadn't said that's inconvenient or that's inappropriate. She'd framed it around me. Because for her, this kind of casual resource allocation from the family system was routine. For me, she knew exactly what it would be—not a gift, but a weight that would stick for a long time. So she blocked it. Cleanly, precisely, leaving no room for it's really fine.

The manager lowered his head immediately.

"Understood. My oversight."

"Reasonable discounts are acceptable," Maki said.

"Free is not. No favors attached. She buys normally, pays normally, takes delivery normally."

"Understood." In the end, I still got the bike. But Maki had forced the terms back into something a person could accept—not free, not charity, not absorption into the Kushima network as an appendage, but at a price so aggressively favorable I still wanted to complain, while technically qualifying as a legitimate transaction. I benefited from proximity. Significantly. But at least the benefit wasn't too hot to hold.

By the time paperwork was signed and details confirmed—while I was still triple-checking the price—Maki had already handled insurance, delivery timeline, and registration details. I watched her talk to the manager and thought: this was too familiar. Too much like something only two people would recognize, both still pretending it was nothing. Other people browsed shops for clothes; we looked at bikes by the port. Other people held hands to dessert shops; we held hands over maintenance cables.

Other people discussed dinner plans; we discussed pricing, insurance, and whether to let the Kushima family give me a motorcycle. Absurd. But absurd in exactly our style. The moment we stepped outside, reality grabbed me by the collar. The door opened to more than one vehicle waiting. Corporate vehicles. Port district vehicles. The kind of lineup that announced someone important is inside, time to materialize and demonstrate relevance. Even more people stood outside.

Suits, business attire, ID lanyards, smiles calibrated too wide, postures too straight, faces showing the particular strain of exhaustion performing as enthusiasm. I caught fragments of names. Kushima Land Holdings. Kushima Trading. Kushima-Rengo Bank. Some port authority liaison. The moment they saw Maki, expressions shifted upward in near-unison. Not happiness—reflex. The automatic face-switching that happened when power was detected: please let me exist within your field of vision.

People stepped forward to greet her. Cards were offered. Smiles sharpened predatorily. Someone was already suggesting port transfers and evening dinner arrangements. I stood beside Maki watching the entire formation, and my stomach turned. Not because they had money or influence. Because the expressions were too uniform. So uniform I couldn't tell whether these people were responding to Maki as a person or bowing to the enormous Kushima network behind her.

For the first time I saw it directly: the name Kushima alone could make an entire corporate chain materialize and queue up. Excessive. And deeply ugly to watch. I frowned without thinking. Maki must have sensed it—she glanced sideways at me, then stepped forward half a pace, putting herself between me and the full weight of those gazes.

"That's all for today." Her voice was flat.

"This isn't official business and it isn't an inspection. The vehicle matter is concluded. No follow-up required." The group quieted. Someone tried to add something. Maki gave them no space for pleasantries.

"Make way." Two words. More weight than everything discussed inside. The crowd actually parted. I stood there understanding clearly: she'd grown up in this web and knew exactly how to use it. But she also knew what I would hate, what would make me sick—so when I was present, she kept those things at a distance. That recognition landed harder than her earlier today isn't about me had. Maki turned to me.

"Ready to go?" I held her gaze for two seconds before pushing down whatever was lodged in my throat.

"... Yeah."

"The outer berth area should still be visible from the port side." Said evenly, like she was simply connecting the next part of our itinerary. But I could hear what it actually was—her pushing the entire disgusting scene, the over-complete Kushima corporate lattice, all that nauseating deference back a step. Pulling today back to our rhythm. So I followed. The delivery paperwork was still in my hand.

But something more troublesome was stuck in my chest—the question of whether her taking my hand earlier had been purely reflexive, or whether she'd already started treating today as something neither of us was ready to name. An annoying question. And I knew it was going to keep being annoying for a while.