always | gojou satoru [rewriting]

chapter 13 - is that dami?

You decided to hang out with Nobara after work since you missed her so damn much. As you bid goodbye to Kento and a few of your coworkers, you drove to this one ramen shop where Nobara, Yuji, Megumi and you usually went to during high school. It brings back memories and they have the best ramen.

"Hello, Ms Secretary." Nobara sent a cheeky smile as you approached her. As expected, she would arrive there first.

"Don't call me that. It's embarassing." you shushed her, taking a seat at the table. You could hear your stomach growling already. A waiter came by and took orders, "I'll have the smoked duck ramen, katsu curry rice and cold peach tea, please."

"Teriyaki chicken ramen and cold green tea," Nobara said, and after the waiter left, she looked at you, "You eat a lot but never gain weight. I hate you."

"Who says I don't gain weight?" you chuckled and when you were about to say something, Nobara instantly jumped right in to talk.

"Oh, I need to tell you this!" she suddenly seemed excited as she pulled out her phone from her handbag, scrolling through her chat with someone, "This! This!"

She showed you a picture of a girl, looking at a scenery painting from behind. That girl wore a denim jacket ㅡ wait a damn minute.

"Bitch, that's me!" you gasped in shock, looking at Nobara. "How did youㅡ"

"Dami sent this to me. She saw it from Suguru's instagram." she explained and eyed you with a smirk, "Looks like he secretly took pictures of you and posted it."

"Does she knows that this person is me?" you didn't know why you were getting worried.

"Good for you, she has no clue at all."

"Oh." you nodded at her explanation, feeling a bit relieved. "Suguru didn't tell me anything about posting it on social media and I had no idea he was taking pictures of me!"

"You should make an instagram, Y/n. I honestly don't know how you live without having instagram." she said, while trying to read something on her phone.

"Having Twitter and LINE is more than enough for me." you said and let out a loud sigh, "Gosh, I can't believe he posted a picture of me. We're not even a couple?"

"His caption: Not sure whether the painting or the person looking at the painting is more beautiful. That literally explains everything, Y/n," Nobara squinted her eyes at you as if she suspected you were lying about your relationship with Suguru.

"I promise you, we're not dating. We just.. got closer. That's all." you said, "I'm not ready to be in a relationship, you know. Not yet."

"Okay, okay. I trust you."

While enjoying your food, Nobara started to open up about something that wasn't really interesting at first to listen to but as she kept going, you began to focus.

"I went to that dessert cafe you talked about during my lunch break today with a coworker of mine. There was a 20% off for all desserts." she said, slurping her ramen before continuing, "But, if I'm not mistaken, there was a guy with white hair came too."

"Really?" you asked. Honestly, you really wanted to ask more but you felt like there was no need to.

"Yeah. I think that guy was that old friend of yours."

"I see. So, he goes to that cafe too, huh." you stared at your ramen, and closed your eyes for a few seconds to remember that day again, where he was being such an asshole to you. "Whenever I think about him, I feel like kicking his balls."

"Make him learn his lesson!"

You chuckled at her words, "Not now. I have other more things to think about. By the way, my mom has been ignoring me ever since that day. She just left me on read." you changed the subject immediately to distract yourself from thinking about Satoru.

"That's just weird." she said. "I don't know about that, Y/n. Maybe you should go see her."

"Nah. If she wants to ignore me, then just do it until she feels satisfied." you answered. "She already did this before so it's actually nothing. Oh, by the way, Kento's officially going to become the CEO this Friday. I don't know why but him being the CEO is kinda hot."

"I was about to say the same thing." she grinned.

"His father is currently ill so he decided to retire earlier than expected." you clarified and continued, "I really am grateful for getting this secretary role. He told me there was someone who suggested me to him. Been wondering who that is.."

"Maybe that person you're close to, Maki?" Nobara guessed.

"I don't know but it could be though."

Later around 10pm, both of you had finished everything and were about to go home. As you got into your car, you remembered Suguru gave you his home address just in case you wanted to hang out at his place. As you checked, it was not far from where you were so you decided to take a look.

You drove to the address he gave you and there were a few houses there. You stopped the car at the side of the road and looked around through the window to find his house. "It says here... Number 30." you looked at your phone and back at the houses until you finally found it. "Oh, there it isㅡ"

"Waitㅡ"

You witnessed a woman walking out of his house, followed by Suguru from behind. It was clearly Suguru. You immediately turned off the car engine. They were talking and the woman was resting his hand on his shoulder. You felt this huge lump in your throat as you saw them both.

Maybe it was his sister? Or his female cousin?

They kept talking for almost 20 minutes until you finally caught a glimpse of the woman which made your jaw dropped. You were confident it was her.

Dami.