Ride on Time

Chapter 83

Shruti opened the door and to her surprise, it was Shree, playing with the curls that framed her face.
"Shree?" Shruti called as soon as she saw her. "What are you doing here?"
"Nika?" Mitsuo gasped and turned in his seat to look at her, meeting her gaze.
"What are you doing here?" Shree asked, sounding confused with a hint of annoyance.
"Come in," Shruti stepped aside to let her in. Shree nodded and waited as she closed the door. "Come, sit."
"Were you guys plotting something behind my back?" Shree asked as she went towards Mitsuo. "What brings you here, Mitsu?"
Mitsuo looked at her in surprise, frowning. "Don't call me that..."
"Why not?" Shree asked, smirking slightly.
"Because that's what my parents call me."
"Well, you claimed copyright for my nickname, so it's about time I stole yours," Shree smirked and went over to the chair beside him. "Anyway, Auntie, I wanted to ask about the Thaipusam dance."
Shruti smiled, nodding as she came over to her desk. "Ah. Okay. You want water?"
Shree shrugged. "Can?"
Shruti grabbed a bottle and handed it to her before sitting too. "Alright. So what dance should we do? Must need new choreographer since she took holiday already. Then umm... do you have suggestions? Must be Thaipusam related lah, the dance."
Shree frowned thoughtfully. "Thaipusam related, I don't know, but I know a dance that's Murugan related."
"I think should be okay lah," Shruti nodded. "But the choreographer only now problem..."
"Why can't Nika be the choreographer instead?" Mitsuo suggested. "I mean, she's a great dancer herself, and a good instructor too. You should see her back in the gym. She's really graceful."
"Zumba is graceful?" Shree asked in surprise.
"Come on, every dance is graceful," Shruti chuckled.
Shree knew this. And she herself had seen how graceful she could look when dancing. But she simply decided to be modest and act oblivious to this fact.
"Maybe Mitsuo's right," Shruti nodded thoughtfully. "I think you can be the choreographer."
'Do I get paid extra?' Shree wanted to ask but quickly refrained from doing so.
"Will there be an additional payment for Nika?" Mitsuo asked instead.
"Oh yes," Shruti nodded, smiling. "Of course. I'd rather pay Shree instead of some demanding choreographer. Shree, we'll call a meeting tomorrow and we can discuss the roles in this dance. And be gentle with Mahatri, she's still new."
"That's a really pretty name," Mitsuo added. "Mahatri. Hey, can I use this name for one of my characters? It's really hard coming up with names, especially Indian and Japanese names."
"Why?" Shruti chuckled. "My brother didn't seem to have any difficulty when coming up with the Japanese characters' names. Indian name, yeah lah. He always complain it's hard."
"That's because he didn't know any jerks who were Japanese," Mitsuo rolled his eyes at the reminder of the difficulty. "Whenever I look up Japanese names online, most of them are names of people who used to go to school with me, or names of actors or video game and Anime characters."
"True..." Shruti nodded. "And I think I remember Shri complaining about making out Indian names for that Two Worlds book. In the end, he decided to just use our grandfather's name instead. I think he also used some of his best friends' names and other family members."
"Is your grandfather's name Krishna?" Mitsuo asked.
"That's the one," Shruti chuckled proudly. "He used the name for the character representing himself. Masako is Misao."
"Wait, so all of those things actually happened in real life?" Mitsuo gasped. Shruti nodded, her smile fading slightly. "All of it?"
"Everything until the part Masako celebrated Christmas and Krishna went to visit her family for Shogatsu," Shruti sighed. "Shri and Misao never even made it to Christmas."
"Gosh, I'm so sorry for that..." Mitsuo bowed apologetically. "When did all of this happen?"
Shruti smiled slightly. "The year you two were born. Misao passed away two days before Christmas while Shri... the following day."
"Eve of Christmas and the Eve of that?" Shree said in surprise. "And this is the Christmas where we're both born on?!"
"Big coincidence, am I right?" Shruti chuckled. "Anyway, you better prepare for the performance, Shree. Being the choreographer isn't easy."
"Ah," Shree nodded. "I will." Then she turned to Mitsuo. "You still haven't told me what you're doing here, ya know..."
"I just came in to say hi," Mitsuo smiled sheepishly. "And to ask about the book."
"The Two Worlds one?" Shree asked.
"Yeah," Mitsuo nodded. "So I decided to come here myself."
Shree just nodded and turned back to Shruti. "So when shall we have the meeting, auntie?"
"Tomorrow can ah?" Shruti asked.
"Can," Shree shrugged. "But evening can, right?"
"Can can," Shruti smiled, nodding.
"Can I come to this meeting of yours?" Mitsuo suddenly chimed in.
"For what?" Shree asked, surprised. "You wanna come and do what?"
Mitsuo shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe just come for fun?"
"Just let him come lah," Shruti chuckled. "He your friend only, what."
"A friend that came out of nowhere," Shree muttered.
"I came out of Japan and that's not nowhere," Mitsuo pointed out, raising a finger. "It's somewhere distinguished."
"You're from Kyoto, right?" Shruti asked, earning a nod from Mitsuo. "Does the Yumemite Apartment Suites still exist?"
Mitsuo frowned thoughtfully. "Where is this? Which part of Kyoto?"
"Near Gion," Shruti said. "There's an apartment there? Then there are shops in front of it? Very near to Gion."
"Oh!" Mitsuo gasped. "Is it the very tall one?"
"Quite tall, yes," Shruti nodded. "Is it still there?"
Mitsuo nodded. "Yep! Still is. I always pass that place when going to Gion. Did you guys go for the Gion Matsuri at Yasaka Jinja? It's amazing!"
"We wanted to go, but we were unfortunately a month too late, or maybe just a few days," Shruti shrugged. "It ends in July, right? We went there early August."
"Oh, that's a shame," Mitsuo sighed. "It's amazing! We go there every year without fail."
Shree played with her hair, bored with the conversation that didn't even concern her. She decided that it was best she just excuse herself and leave but to her dismay, Shruti asked her to wait since she had something to tell her about the dance performance.
Finally, the two of them stopped talking and Mitsuo got up to leave. Shree quickly asked Shruti what she wanted to tell her about the dance.
"Oh... I forgot," Shruti said, much to her dismay. "Never mind lah, I'll just tell you tomorrow."
Shree groaned and thanked her, deciding to leave the office with Mitsuo.
"Yooo... you worse than her lah," Shree groaned when they exited the office. "How lah you can talk nonstop like that?"
Mitsuo shrugged. "I dunno. She's just really friendly."
"Yeah but, still?" Shree gestured her hands.
"Says the one that met her at her brother's parent-teacher meeting and became besties," Mitsuo countered with a grin. "Vasu is still confused that you two are friends, you know that?"
Shree sighed and made her way to the lift. She pressed the button and waited as the middle lift ascended to their floor and opened.
To their surprise, Sherry's husband stepped out.
"Isn't that...?" Mitsuo asked in surprise.
Shree nodded. "Yep. Sherry's husband. What's he doing here? Let's follow him."
So the two of them followed the Chinese man and saw him entering Shruti's office.
"Should we enter and see what's up?" Mitsuo asked. "But wouldn't that be rude?"
"Let's just say we dropped something and pretend to search for it," Shree smirked, balling her hand into a fist to knock on Shruti's door.
"Yes?" Shruti's voice came.
The two immediately entered and saw the Chinese man standing there, showing her some paperwork. He gasped when his gaze met theirs.
"What is it?" Shruti asked as soon as she noticed it was them. "You left something behind?"
"Uh, yeah," Shree smiled, making her way towards the table. "We... left our water behind."
She grabbed the plastic bottles that they absentmindedly left on the table and grinned. She turned to Sherry's husband, her grin not faltering the slightest. "Uncle! You work here? I thought you retired?"
"Retired ah?" The man chuckled. "Who said? I still working lah!"
"You did when we came to your house for Chinese New Year?" Shree shrugged. "Oh, and remember Mitsuo? He came with us too."
The older man was dumbstruck, doomed even.
"Mr. Wang, is this true?" Shruti turned to the Chinese man.
"No, Shruti, Sherry only told them something, not me," Wang shrugged.
"But Uncle..." Shree tilted her head in seeming confusion.
"Can... can talk outside ah?" Wang finally said.
Shree nodded and the two of them followed him that.

And now you know why he didn't have a name in his last appearance, because he already has one. Wang Xiao Sheng is Sherry's husband. Did he seem familiar? And this is why none of his children's surnames were revealed as well.