Chương 174: 66.Flustered 1

After Harvey dropped his parting shot—"just don't expect me to fix your wrecked bike"—he disappeared back into the basement with the expression of someone who had fulfilled every moral obligation and was now washing his hands of whatever came next. I sat at the dining table, still holding the candidate list, my brain split between the KGI-MC 417B—that legitimized predator of a civilian bike—and Maki's earlier phrase: elevated vantage point supplementary confirmation route.

Translated into human language: look at the bike, look at the port, take the mountain road home. Very reasonable. So reasonable I almost wanted to applaud her. Then I checked the time. Evening already. The group that had gone to the port district should be getting back soon. Before I could connect that thought to the word dinner, Harvey—that bastard—stuck his head back around the basement stairs like his conscience had finally fallen through a ceiling crack and said: "Oh, right. Hoshino.

You're on dinner duty tonight. Feeling relaxed, are you?" I went completely rigid. Not ordinary rigid—the kind where your soul leaves your body for three seconds before slowly drifting back with the realization: oh. I'm the one who's going to die today.

"... What?" Harvey's expression was serene.

"Duty rotation. Set yesterday."

"Nobody told me."

"I'm telling you now."

"This is a deathbed notification." He shrugged, perfectly embodying I knew all along but chose silence because watching you panic has educational value, and vanished back into the basement. I turned to Maki. She was already looking at me, closing her eyes briefly before exhaling—not disappointment, but the kind of sigh that meant: I knew it would come to this, I knew I'd be pulling this person out of the wreckage. She stood up and grabbed my wrist.

"Up."

"Where are we going?"

"Kitchen."

"Wait, I'm not mentally prepared—""If you don't come now, everyone's eating your regret for dinner." She dragged me all the way to the kitchen. As I was being pulled along, I caught Harvey at the top of the basement stairs giving me an extremely punchable good luck gesture. In retrospect, Maki pulling me into the kitchen was the right call.

Left to my own devices, I would have turned the onions into a declaration of war by minute three, the pan into an off-campus safety education case study by minute five, and subjected everyone to a lesson in collective starvation by minute ten. Maki wasn't there to cook for me—that was the alarming part. She was there to supervise.

"Blanch the noodles first. Don't cook them to mush."

"I know."

"Don't pour all the oil in at once."

"I know."

"That's not salt. That's sugar."

"... I was just confirming it looked like salt."

"Hoshino."

"Fine, I was wrong." She stood half a step behind me the entire time, sleeves rolled to her elbows, occasionally adjusting the heat, rescuing cabbage I'd nearly reduced to a crime scene, or reaching in to catch a plate before I could knock it off the counter. That proximity was deeply inconvenient.

Close enough that a slight turn of my head brought her profile and tied-back hair into view, close enough to catch the faint laundry-detergent scent from her clothes and feel the temperature of her fingers when they occasionally brushed the back of my hand—a temperature that made it very difficult to concentrate on being properly annoyed at the pan. Terrible conditions for kitchen operations. The result, somehow, was acceptable.

What ended up on the table was a large plate of stir-fried noodles that weren't visually perfect but were recognizably food, not experimental residue requiring subsequent apologies to the fire department. When the others came home and saw the noodles, then saw my expression—which clearly communicated eat it or don't, I genuinely don't care—their collective reaction was remarkably consistent. Everyone paused for two seconds, then shook their heads and sighed. I found that deeply offensive.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Jess tossed her jacket over a chair, leaned over to check the remaining portion, and—in a rare display of restraint—didn't immediately fire off a remark. She just gave me a slightly odd look and said: "Oh. It's actually the edible kind."

"That sentence is worse than saying nothing." Ash looked at the table, then at Maki, who was still finishing up at the counter, with the expression of someone who understood something and was choosing not to say it. Very annoying. Roy was more restrained: "At least it looks warm." Lan actually nodded.

"Portion size is adequate." The least complicated reaction was, predictably, D. D lived simply: food existed, acceptable; food was edible, better; food was hot, practically divine. He said nothing, pulled out a chair, sat down, picked up his chopsticks, and started eating. After two bites: "Not bad." Not bad from D was worth more than a five-star review from most people. My mood immediately improved by half. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Once the table was cleared and everyone had scattered—to shower, to their rooms, or toward the basement's gravitational pull—the first floor finally went quiet. I was leaning back in my chair, feeling thoroughly depleted mentally, technically, and noodle-wise, when the chair beside me was pulled out softly. Maki sat down, closer than usual, in the natural way of someone not making a point of it. I turned to look at her.

"What?" She set down her glass of water before asking quietly: "Are you free tomorrow?"

"Mm?"

"Want to go look at bikes?" I blinked. The sentence itself was nothing. The issue was the timing, the proximity, and the way she'd dropped her voice slightly while keeping her face neutral—which made the whole thing sound remarkably like something disguising itself as official business. So I answered honestly: "Sure. Hey, Maki—is this you asking me on a—""Forget it," she cut me off almost immediately, the tips of her ears visibly flushing.

"Don't come if you don't want to." She actually pouted slightly as she said it. Very brief, brief enough to be deniable. But I saw it. I nearly laughed out loud. Maki Kushima—who normally operated with the emotional temperature of personified HR regulations—when poked at exactly the point she knew was complicated, produced this nearly childish flustered indignation. Dangerously endearing. I surrendered immediately.

"I'll go," I said, pressing down the laughter.

"What time?" She gave me a time, then added: "OO Station. Leave separately." I looked at her.

"Are you training for intelligence work?"

"Precaution."

"Against what?"

"Jess."

"... That's actually very persuasive." Maki calmly took a sip of water, as though that explained everything. I leaned back and looked at her profile, couldn't resist one more dig: "So what exactly are we conducting tomorrow? Classified vehicle reconnaissance? Port district logistics confirmation? Preliminary elevated vantage point supplementary observation?" She glanced at me sideways.

"Say that again tomorrow in that tone and I'm going alone."

"Okay, okay. I'll shut up." She made a quiet sound and stood up. After two steps, she stopped with her back to me.

"Also."

"Mm?"

"Don't be late." Then she went upstairs, leaving me staring at the empty glass on the table, arriving belatedly at a realization:... Damn. This really did feel like a date. The next morning I deliberately left a few minutes late to avoid looking too eager. When I reached the station exit, Maki was already there. She stood near the exit—not leaning against anything, not looking at her terminal, no deliberate I'm waiting for someone posture. Just standing quietly.

Off-white turtleneck, khaki trousers, dark jacket folded over her arm, the whole look clean and precise in the way of someone who had dressed the concept just here to run an errand. The problem was her face. No matter how understated her clothes, the surroundings automatically receded half a step. I stopped for two seconds. Maki saw me, gave me a brief assessment—confirming I'd at least made myself presentable—then said: "You're not late."

"That doesn't sound like a compliment."

"It isn't." She turned and started walking. I fell into step beside her. After a few paces: "First stop?"

"Vehicle source."

"That formal?"

"What else?"

"I thought we'd at least get coffee first, pretend today doesn't look so much like a—" She didn't turn around.

"Hoshino."

"Present."

"Walk and be quiet." Fine. But I saw her ears go pink again. So I wasn't counting this as a loss. I'd assumed vehicle source meant some kind of service shop, showroom, or private dealer near the port. The first place Maki took me didn't look like an ordinary dealership. It was a grey building with studied understatement—no flashy signage, just a simple metal plate: East Port Motorized Vehicle Maintenance & Display Center. I nodded.

"Boring name. Safe." Maki made a sound of agreement.

"Which is why I chose it." As we got closer, the first thing I noticed wasn't the vehicles. It was a development information board beside the building, ownership details printed clearly: Land management: Kushima Land Holdings Co., Ltd. My steps stopped.

"... Hold on." Maki had clearly anticipated exactly where I'd stall, her tone calm to the point of being merciless.

"Yes. The land is theirs."

"This building too?"

"Lease and management both." My mouth twitched.

"Fine. Just the land. Surely the people aren't also—" Before I finished, the reception terminal by the entrance lit up, text scrolling across the bottom: Settlement and financial services: Kushima-Rengo Bank system support Silence. From both of us. She wasn't embarrassed—she was waiting for me to process it. I stared at that line, then slowly turned toward her.

"... Has the Kushima family redefined low-profile to mean 'anything short of planting a literal flag counts as inconspicuous'?" Maki was brutally honest.

"More or less." I looked further inside. Through the large glass panels at the back, I could see the port district, distant outlines of logistics lines and cargo cranes. On the wall, a transport partnership directory included another familiar name: Kushima Trading Co., Ltd. Right. The land was theirs. The financial system was theirs. The transport infrastructure and trade flow were theirs too. I took a breath.

"Let me guess—the demo stock is 'independent retail,' but if I trace the serials, they'll all have passed through some branch of your family tree." Maki didn't deny it.

"This is the most reliable place to find properly maintained units. That part isn't negotiable." I stared at the door for another moment, then stepped forward.

"Fine. We stick to the plan. Civilian spec, cash payment, no bank programs. And I reserve the right to mock your definition of low-profile for the rest of my life."

"Reasonable," she said, and walked in first. That was when I finally understood why Harvey had been so blunt yesterday about not touching the Kushima-Rengo Bank student credit line. Because once you stepped in here, you weren't just using one bank—you were stepping into a system where every tire track you left was visible to someone with the Kushima name. I took a breath.

"So if I buy a bike here today—" Maki finished the sentence for me.

"The land company knows where you looked. The bank knows how you paid. The trading company knows how it gets delivered. The port system knows where its maintenance and transit records might connect."

"... This isn't a corporation. It's an ecosystem."

"I think so too." For the first time, I felt it concretely—the Kushima family we casually referenced in conversation wasn't a company, wasn't a wealthy surname, wasn't some rich-family template for background lore. It was a web. One you couldn't see until you'd stepped into it, and then realized the ground you were standing on, the terminal you'd swiped, the signs you'd read, even the conveniences you'd taken for granted—all of it already had a name. That name was Kushima. I glanced at Maki.

"You grew up inside this?" She looked ahead, expression unchanged.

"Yes."

"Impressive you didn't suffocate." She laughed, very briefly. Just once. Then said: "Which is why I wanted to find something that was at least your own choice." That hit harder than any demonstration of conglomerate scale could have. Because it took that entire terrifying web of capital and compressed it into something small, private, and entirely sincere. She wasn't trying to bring me into the Kushima slipstream.

She was looking for a position, inside that all-encompassing network, where I could still make my own decision. I didn't respond immediately. At that moment, a wind came off the port district, carrying salt and metal, funneling around the corner of the sidewalk. A group of people spilling out from the transit terminal crowded toward us and I was knocked sideways. Maki's hand came out naturally and closed around my wrist.

"Careful." Not forceful—just steady, drawing me back toward her. I found my footing. But she didn't let go. I looked down at her hand on my wrist, and my mind went unusually quiet. One second. Two seconds. Then she seemed to realize the hold had lasted slightly too long. Her fingers shifted, beginning to release— And I turned my hand over and held hers. Lightly. But without question. Maki went completely still.

She looked up at me, and for a moment her expression went blank—like the part of her that operated on careful logic and eight-page documentation had just encountered something outside its parameters and stalled. My heartbeat was annoyingly fast. My voice stayed level.

"... Lots of people." Maki looked at me for two seconds. Then the tips of her ears slowly went red. She didn't pull her hand away. Just said, in a voice that was barely there: "Right." So. This had definitely stopped being a simple vehicle inspection. I looked at the display center ahead—the one bearing traces of Kushima Land Holdings, Kushima-Rengo Bank, Kushima Trading—and found I couldn't care less about the entire Kushima network anymore.

Because what I was holding right now wasn't a system, wasn't capital, wasn't the port district, and wasn't anyone's extension of power.