always | gojou satoru [rewriting]

chapter 17 - don't act dumb

The next day came pretty quick, you headed to office as usual and still couldn't forget how Kento simply left you in his apartment without a word. It must've been an emergency you thought, also judging by his shocked reaction. After he left last night, you washed all the dirty plates and made sure everything was clean and tidy before leaving.

As you entered the building, you could sense something was wrong but you shrugged it off at first. Then, it became too obvious ㅡ the building, everyone was strangely quiet. Even in the lift, everyone was shutting their mouths. It was undeniably strange which made you feel extremely anxious. After you walked out of the lift, you immediately searched for Maki. She was at her desk, writing something on a notepad. "Maki." you called her.

Maki looked up at you, "Hm?"

You lowered yourself and got close to her, "Is it just me or everyone is being so quiet right now? Anything happened?"

Maki furrowed her eyebrows. "Seriously? You don't know?" she sighed right after you shook your head. "The former CEO died last night. I heard that he hung himself."

You covered your mouth, eyes widened. You were utterly speechless.

"I was shocked to hear that too." Maki said, then instantly pulled you to an empty meeting room nearby and closed the door. "Inumaki told me something earlier this morning." she continued, lowering her voice just to be safe, worried if anyone could hear her outside of the room. "Apparently, he hung himself right after he arrived home from eating dinner with a woman. Inumaki drove the car so he knew."

"He cheated on his wife?" was your first assumption, but you felt bad for having negative thoughts on a dead old man. "Okay, probably not."

"I don't know. As we all know, he really loves his wife. I don't think he cheated on her. And, Inumaki said after the dinner, he had this terrified look on his face."

"I was having dinner with Kenㅡ Nanami last night at his place." you opened up. "He received a call from his mother around 9pm and I saw his face changed. He was pretty shocked. He ran out of the apartment just like that without saying anything." you let out a sigh.

"Why would he hung himself?" Maki muttered and looked at you, "There must be something."

"Did Inumaki saw who the woman was?" you asked.

"He didn't tell me anything about that. Guess he didn't see it."

Both of you went silent for a moment. You couldn't imagine how sad Kento felt. He seemed really close to his father so this surely impacted him deeply.

After all the talk with Maki, before heading to your desk, you managed to peek into Kento's office and of course, he wasn't there. You sat on your office chair and stared at the blank computer screen, and it seemed like you couldn't get your mind off of the woman Kento's father ate dinner with. You knew you had nothing to do with it but something was fishy, just like Mrs. Gojou.

You sent a text to Kento:

Y/n
i'm sorry for your loss, kento. i hope you're okay and please be strong. be strong for your mother as well. don't worry about work. i'll try to settle everything i can for you. please get enough rest, eat well and don't force yourself to come to office.

Kento
don't worry, i'm fine. thank you so much, Y/n

Unexpectedly, he replied quite fast. You felt a bit relieved when you read his reply so now you could do your work calmly without worrying too much about him.

Later in the afternoon, while you were focused on your work, the ringing sound coming from your phone distracted you. Sighing, you looked at the caller ID and it was your mom. Quickly, you picked up.

"Hello, mom. It's rare for you to call me while I'm working." you said, and the next thing you heard was your mom sobbing through the phone.

(Y/n, p-please come here. I-I don't know what to do)

"Mom? What's wrong? Hello? Mom?"

(I don't know who did this! The house is ruined!)

"The house is ruined? I don't understand. Hold on, I'm coming." you informed before hanging up the call.

You didn't think twice to storm out the office and drove to your mom's place. What did she meant by her house was ruined? You had so many questions.

As soon as you arrived in front of your mom's house, you were speechless to see what was going on. There were a few neighbours surrounding the house and you saw your mom crying while being comforted by a few women.

"Mom!" you called out to her, which she immediately responded by running towards you to give a hug.

"Y/n, I seriously don't know what happened." she said, "I went out to buy groceries and as I came back, this happened."

All the windows were crashed, the garden was destroyed, rubbish was scattered everywhere and what made you extremely mad was there were a few words being written on the door using spray paint ㅡ whore, bitch, asshole, old woman.

"Who the fuck did all this?" you almost screamed in anger and there was one person you had in mind which was Mrs. Gojou. You didn't hesitate to dial her number a few times until she finally picked up.

(What a surprise, Y/n. Is there anything you wanㅡ)

"Who the hell do you think you are?" you spat out immediately.

(Huh? What are you talking about?)

"Don't act dumb, woman. What the fuck did you do to my mom's house? Do you think it's funny?"

(Y/n, you shouldn't assume things. I know nothing about it)

"Judging by how sarcastic your voice is right now, I know damn well that you know what you're doing."

(My, my. Why are you so rude to me?)

"Shut the hell up. There'll be no second time. I'm warning you." you said in anger, veins popping out from your neck.

(Sure, sweetie. I'm looking forward to everything, Y/n)

With that, she ended the call.