Playing Games With The Billionaire (KageHina)

17 - The Missing Ones

Tobio sighed.

He was done with the entire day and he still had the damn Red Rose Ceremony to go to. If he was honest, he was done with the entire show already at this point.

It was restricting, and he had to deal with people politely even though all he wanted to do was tell them to fuck off.

It was Sugawara's way of punishing him for working too much and not taking his dating attempts seriously but he was at the end of his tether.

All he wanted to do was take a certain cute little orange haired boy and spend the last few weeks of the show holed up in his penthouse partaking in far more pleasurable activities.

Instead, he was stuck here.

At least he would be rewarded with Shoyo's cute blush as he gets called up for a rose. That is one expression he would never tire of. He would also never tire of hearing those delicious moans he pulled from the ginger head the other day in the shower.

What an excellent opportunity that had turned out to be.

The contestants of the show filed into the room and were ushered to stand at the other end from Tobio and Koshi.

Tobio schooled his face into his usual impassive mask but internally sighed at the hopeful looks people gave him. At least he could weed out most of the people he didn't want there.

'Most' being the key word.

He refused to look at Akuma at all, choosing instead to watch everyone else.

After a few minutes, everyone stood in an orderly fashion at the other end of the room but the only one Tobio was looking for wasn't present. Doing a quick head count, he realized that there were two people missing. He glanced over to Koshi who was already wearing a frown.

The time hit the hour and silence overtook the room. People shuffled and looked around, curious as to what was happening.

He caught Lev's eye, but the man gave a slight shake of the head. He hadn't seen Shoyo as well.

Had the young man left?

Right from the start, Shoyo had obviously not seemed to be particularly interested in being there. He had even admitted that it was his sister who had signed him up for the show.

But he had seemed interested in Tobio himself, even if not under the pretense of the show, and coupled with his endearing honesty, he was sure the male would have said something if he wanted to leave.

Koshi stepped forward and the shuffling and whispers stopped.

"We appear to be short two, has anyone seen Ms. Yui or Mr. Hinata?"

No one spoke up.

Tobio peered at everyone's faces but no one seemed to be hiding anything. Akuma seemed a bit too smug about Shoyo being missing but not the kind of triumphant smugness that would be shown if he was the one behind it. So it didn't appear as though anyone had sabotaged either of them.

He had been trying to limit his time with Shoyo to make him less of a target but he refused to not see him at all, lest he give the young man the wrong impression.

Koshi pulled out his own phone and spoke down the line, "I'm missing two, what channel can we see them on?"

There was a pause then the man hung up with a quick thanks. He turned to face one of the show staff.

"Channel 14, please."

The assistant nodded and fiddled with the large flat screen TV behind them.

Tobio moved a few steps to the side feeling a small dose of anxiousness rise up.