Mitsui sipped on his canned tea as he walked towards his office building, when something caught his eyes as he passed by a half-busy restaurant. Turning back, he peered through the restaurant window and saw what was glaring at him at a distance. A patron was reading the latest issue of the Newsweek magazine and on the front cover was Sakuragi Hanamichi.

Mitsui scowled.


****

When Mitsui arrived at his office, the place was still empty. It wasn't odd for him to be arriving early when others were still not there but for the past few weeks he has gotten used to seeing a certain welcome soul in the lonely office that seeing Koshino's empty cubicle was far more evident than the absence of the whole staff.

Mitsui walked dejectedly into his private office but fifteen minutes later he stuck his head out. Koshino's cubicle was still unoccupied. The second time he checked up on Koshino was half an hour later and still the young man was not there. An hour later the office was already busy with staff getting ready for a day's work, but Koshino's table was still empty. Stepping out of his office, Mitsui looked around trying to see if Koshino was walking somewhere doing some work. Finally, he spotted the young man when he turned to look towards the corridor that lead from the building elevators, Koshino just arriving with a few other workers. Instantly, Mitsui approached him before the young man could even sit.

"Why are you late?" Mitsui demanded cooly.

"I'm not," Koshino told him after checking out his wrist watch, "It's not nine yet."

"Oh. Right, it's not..." Mitsui said, suddenly feeling foolish but he still couldn't dissipate that nagging feeling that he ought to blame someone for the troubled feelings that he was feeling at the moment.

"Come with me," Mitsui then ordered before striding towards his office like a displeased boss without looking to see if Koshino was behind him.

Mimi, who was standing behind her desk and saw the short but seemingly meaningful interaction between Mitsui and Koshino, thought to herself, "What now?"

Once the two young men were inside the office, Mitsui shut the door and sat on his chair looking at Koshino who was standing in front of him with a curious expression on his face.

"Are you wearing the same clothes from last night?" the scarred-face man suddenly asked.

Koshino blinked, "What? No."

"What do you mean 'no'? You didn't go home last night, did you," Mitsui stiffly stated instead of asking like he meant to.

Koshino looked down at his black office suit before turning his puzzled eyes back to his superior, "Iie. This is a different suit. And my shirt was blue last night."

"It was?" Mitsui ran his eyes over Koshino's attire. Oh yeah.

"Aa," Koshino nodded.

There was a moment of silence before Mitsui spoke again, "So... how was the guy?"

"The guy? Oh, you mean Sakuragi-kun?" Koshino smiled. Mitsui immedietly felt his jealousy resurface.

"Yeah, him," he answered gruffly, getting up from his seat to walk towards the young man with his hands in his pockets.

"He's great!" grinned Koshino, "He's got these awesome bikes and he's really fun! He took me out the whole night!"

Koshino was too busy gushing about the redhead to notice the imperceptible frown on Mitsui's face.

"Too bad he's a slacker," sighed Koshino finally.

"Nani?" Mitsui blinked.

"He is," Koshino told him, "He hasn't even finished Harvard yet."

Mitsui sat at the edge of his table and regarded Koshino curiously, "Do you know what he does?"

"Yeah. He said he does web-sites. 'Tensai' or something like that..." Koshino waved his hands lazily, "I think it's a waste of time."

The scarred-face man took a few seconds to understand what Koshino was thinking before he innocently asked, "Let's say, hypothetically.... that he has a great career and is very wealthy. Then what would you think about him?"

Koshino thought for a moment before he answered confidently, "Then he'll make one helluva boyfriend."

As soon as Mitsui was out of the office, he bought every Newsweek magazine that he could find and dumped them in the garbage bins without a second thought.

****

Later in the day Akagi called for an emergency meeting for his two teams in the conference room. When everyone was seated, the tall man took out two identical pieces of an electronic system hardware and brought it up so that everyone could see, "Can anyone spot the difference?"

When no one was able to answer him, Akagi brought the one in his right hand higher and said, "This is the Super CPU. Our Tokyo head office took 5 years, hundreds of researchers and millions of dollars to design this."

And then bringing up the other piece in his other hand, Akagi told them, "This was found in a factory in Jiang Men."

"It took the pirates only a few thousand dollars to produce that knock-off," Kishimoto informed them.

Everyone gaped at the similiarity in the pieces.

Akagi threw a file on the table in front of Mitsui and said angrily, "You handled that deal in Jiang Men, Mitsui. We've lost money because of one small order! If you don't straighten this mess up as soon as possible, I don't think I can help you if the higher management wants you out. Meeting dismissed."

Akagi got up and left the office with his staff, the tension of the situation palpable. Mitsui only sat on his chair immobile while others trailed out of the room, including his team members, the scarred-face man failing to see Kishimoto looking smugly at his direction. After a few minutes of trying to absorb the weight of the trouble he was in, Mitsui finally stood up but turning around he saw that he was not alone. There at the farthest corner of the conference room sat Koshino giving him a hesitant but an encouraging smile. That, for Mitsui, was enough to keep him going.