Red Strings ¦¦ Chishiya Shuntarou x OC

Thirty-Sixth String

"Hey Chishiya, your girl's on TV."

Chishiya was on his break when his co-worker popped into the break room, and turned the TV on. As soon as they did, Kurenai's face appeared on the screen. She was dressed immaculately as usual, but she looked a little different today: much more authoritative.

By now, almost half the ward was gathered in the break room, all curious.

Just this morning, news broke that Chuya Atsushi was stepping down as the director of Chuya Group, and that his own daughter was taking over the company. Although the public had yet to know the truth, it was speculated that Kurenai planned a coup against her own father.

Cameras were flashing in the crowd of reporters as Kurenai took her seat at the table, sitting in front of dozens of microphones and recording devices.

As soon as she sat down, hands were shooting up in the air and individuals were calling out to her as they each have a million questions for her.

-

"Miss Chuya! Is it true that you planned to usurp your own father?"

"Usurp? Gosh, that's such a harsh word to use," Kurenai sighed. "I wouldn't say I usurped his position. More like...I took over. Yeah, let's go with that."

-

"Now that your father is no longer connected with the company, do you think the Chuya Group stocks will tank? What will you do when that happens?"

"I will do absolutely nothing because that will never happen," Kurenai smiled. "And I'm sure if you did a little more homework before coming here, in the short span of me as director, Chuya Group stocks actually went up."

-

"Is it true that you are dating a doctor?"

"My my, so nosy. But yes, I am dating a doctor."

-

"What will happen between Chuya Group and Morita Corporations now that you have publicly rejected marriage with Morita Ichiro?"

"I wish for the business relationship to be maintained between our two companies. Whether or not I marry Morita Ichiro should not affect our business standings. We're in the twenty-first century for goodness sake. Let's stop this whole unite through marriage bullshit, shall we?"

-

"Do you think you'll do a better job than your father at heading the company? You have never worked a single day in your life, after all. Or are you just too privileged and delusional to think that you'd be able to manage basically an empire?"

"Again, if you did your homework, you'd know that I graduated with an MBA at Kyoto University. So to an-"

"Almost everyone has a college degree, it doesn't mean they have the ability or experience to head an entire corporation."

"I don't have to prove anything to you. You'd just have to see the result of my work further down the road. Someone get this person out of here please."

-

"Miss Chuya, why did you take over from your father? What pushed you to this?"

"Very good question. To put it simply, I do not think my father is fit to lead Chuya Group. Not only is his thinking too traditional for a modern world, but he has been lying and deceiving the public for years. For as long as I can remember, my father has been praised by the public as a loving husband and caring father because that is the image he put forth. Unfortunately, that is far from the truth.

"My father is abusive. He has anger issues and would often take his anger out on his wife and own children. He manipulated the public to think that we are the picture perfect family when behind closed doors, he would beat both my brother and me. He would verbally abuse his employees too. He drove my mother to suicide and had you all thinking that he was a grieving husband who tragically lost his wife to an illness.

"I called for this press conference partly to explain the slight change in leadership within the company, but mainly to expose my father. That will be all for today's questions. I know there's a million more you have in mind, especially after this revelation. Later today, I will be posting evidence of my father's abuse. Please look forward to it."

--

All day long, since the beginning of the press conference, the entire nation went into a frenzy. Every news station was reporting on the sudden change in director for Chuya Group. #AtsushiTheAbuser was trending on several media platforms as everyone was deep in discussion on whether or not Kurenai was telling the truth.

As promised, later that day, Kurenai released a video compilation of Atsushi's abuse.

To protect himself and his asset, Atsushi had cameras installed in his office. Never did he think it would come back to bite him in the bottom. His secretary had apparently been working with Kurenai, sending her the video files of when he would hit Aoi and Kurenai, or when he would be seen yelling profanity at employees.

That video went viral within the first hour.

Following up, Kurenai even released her mother's autopsy results. While her father was crying in front of the cameras for the loss of his wife, the medical examiner had determined her death to be of suicide and even noted the injuries and bruises on her body consistent with domestic abuse. Though, those results were quickly buried only to be uncovered today.

After the day she had, Chishiya was expecting Kurenai to be exhausted. She had been pulling all-nighters for the past ten days, perhaps she would be fast asleep when he got home. That was when his phone rang.

It was from Kurenai, but when he answered the call, it was not Kurenai on the other end.

"Hey, are you um...My King?"

Hearing what Kurenai saved him as on her contacts, he could not help but smile. Fate and soulmates were always bullshit stories to sell romantic dramas and films. Or so Chishiya thought. It was a little hard to hold on to that belief when coincidences like this would happen.

Just as he was 'My King' on her phone, she was 'My Queen' on his.

"I'm Kurenai's boyfriend, yes. Who is this?"

"Oh, I'm her friend, Kuina Hikari. I'm calling because um...well, she's drunk."

"Drunk?"

"Yeah, drunk. She said she wanted to celebrate something and dragged me to this fancy ass bar. She practically drank two bottles of wine by herself. Can you um...come and pick her up?"

It seemed very out of character for Kurenai to get drunk, though Chishiya could only imagine the stress she had been going through for the past ten days. Perhaps this was her way of letting go after everything went just as she planned.

Kuina sent him the address for the bar and he arrived there as quickly as he could. They were sat in a corner table, and as he was approaching them, he could see Kuina trying to feed water to a red-faced Kurenai.

"Hey, you must be the boyfriend, right?" Kuina asked. "I saw your picture as her background."

"Thanks for taking care of her."

Getting Kurenai home was a breeze as she slept the whole way, although Chishiya did have to carry her when they arrived at the apartment building because she was completely knocked out. As he was putting her in bed, however, she opened her eyes.

"No..." she mumbled, frowning as she was pushing Chishiya away. "I cannot sleep with you. I have a boyfriend."

"I am your boyfriend."

"Hm? When did I get such a good looking guy?"