Chapter 75: A Well-Earned Meal

As noon on the 13th arrived, more and more details about the air disaster were being reported.

The first, of course, was the airline to which the passenger plane belonged—Japan Airlines.

Japan Airlines’ stock price completely collapsed as shareholders panicked and fled the market.

By the time the market closed for lunch, it had fallen to 2,250 yen, a plunge of eleven percent in half a day.

However, this was clearly not the end. No one doubted that the avalanche would continue when the market reopened in the afternoon.

At noon, Seiko and Saori planned to drop Miyazaki off at her home on their way to the film set.

But Mika insisted on inviting Seiko, Saori, and Sakura to stay for lunch.

Seiko felt that having Sakura, Aoi, and Tsubaki with her at the same time was a bit inconvenient, so she suggested that the three girls take shifts.

Saori agreed, as she felt that Aoi and Tsubaki’s training was not yet sufficient, and following them around was a waste of time.

So, today, only Sakura was with Seiko.

The dining table in Miyazaki’s living room was covered with draft pages of Usagi Drop.

Seiko helped tidy up the table and, upon picking up the drafts, clearly noticed two different styles of handwriting.

“Mika-sensei, are you also drawing Usagi Drop?” Seiko asked casually.

“The workload is a bit much for Yu to handle alone, and she often has to stay up late,” Mika replied. “I don’t have much to do at home anyway, so I’m helping her with some of the work.”

Usagi Drop had already been updated to the eleventh chapter, with the story progressing to the point where the male protagonist, Daikichi, finally decides to adopt his grandfather’s daughter, Rin, only to be rejected by her.

This plot point served as an initial setup for the story’s “father-daughter marriage” ending.

Up until now, the updates for Usagi Drop had been relatively stable.

However, Miyazaki was basically pushing the deadline every week. This was mainly because it was her first time serializing a manga in a magazine, and she didn’t know what it meant to “muddle through appropriately” or avoid perfectionism.

Perhaps she was taking it too seriously and wanted everything to be perfect, so she drew very slowly.

Mika couldn’t bear to see her daughter working alone to support her, so she became her daughter’s manga assistant.

Mika’s artistic skill was higher than Miyazaki’s, and her drawing was more mature, but this was her daughter’s work.

As a mother, she would naturally not steal her daughter’s glory.

Seiko looked at Mika’s slender, fair neck and suddenly asked with a smile, “Mika-sensei, why aren’t you wearing the necklace I bought for you?”

“Oh, right, that necklace…” Mika seemed to have just remembered. She quickly went back to her bedroom, and Seiko followed her curiously.

Mika took out a small red velvet box from a hidden drawer under the bed and came back to hand it to Seiko. “You should take this gift back…”

Seiko took the small box, completely ignoring Mika’s words.

She opened the box and took out a string of pink pearls. Before Mika could react, Seiko had already reached around the back of Mika’s neck and helped her put on the necklace.

The pink pearls rested on Mika’s fair collarbone.

Seiko admired it for a moment, then praised with a smile, “It’s so beautiful.”

“This is too valuable. I can’t accept it,” Mika said helplessly, her fingers pressing on the pearl necklace.

“It’s just pearls, not that valuable,” Seiko shook her head, then tilted her head and gave a playful wink, smiling as she said, “It’s just a gift from your girlfriend. Why can’t you accept it?”

Mika was slightly taken aback, then said with a smile, “What girlfriend? Don’t talk nonsense.”

But Seiko opened her arms, took a step forward, leaned into Mika’s embrace, and hugged her waist. “Didn’t Mika-sensei say it before? If I still liked you when I grew up, you would marry me? Now I’ve grown up, and I still like you, but you haven’t married me yet. So, shouldn’t you be my girlfriend right now?”

“That, that was just something we said for fun when you were a child…”

“That’s not right, Sensei. You told me yourself that you never lie to children.”

Seiko buried her head in Mika’s neck as if sniffing her scent.

Feeling Seiko’s warm breath, Mika’s cheeks gradually began to heat up and turn red. “I, I…”

“Mom, where did you two go? It’s time to eat!”

Miyazaki came out of the kitchen with the prepared dishes, but found that her mother and Seiko were both gone, so she called out.

“Time to eat…”

Mika finally came to her senses and quickly broke free from Seiko’s embrace.

The next moment, Miyazaki saw her blushing mother and Seiko, with her hands behind her back, skipping out of the bedroom.

“You villain!”

During the meal, Miyazaki deliberately sat next to Seiko and, in retaliation, lifted Seiko’s skirt under the table and kneaded Seiko’s smooth thigh forcefully.

Seiko didn’t mind. She picked up a piece of hamburg steak with her chopsticks, brought it to Miyazaki’s lips, and mouthed with a smile: “I love you.”

For the love-addled Miyazaki, these three words had a critical hit rate.

She puffed out her cheeks, trying to show that she was very angry, but when she finally ate the hamburg steak Seiko fed her, she couldn’t suppress the corners of her mouth from turning up.

“Villain…”

Miyazaki also placed a piece of eel, Seiko’s favorite, into her bowl.

After lunch, Miyazaki and Mika continued to rush their drafts, and Saori and Seiko joined in to help with some assistant work.

However, Sachi Ken’ichi contacted Seiko again through her pager.

Seiko had to call him back.

The moment the call connected, Sachi Ken’ichi’s excited voice came through. “2,120 points! JAL has already dropped to 2,120 points! Another five percent drop after the market opens this afternoon!”

“Not bad…”

Seiko’s tone was also light, but far from as excited as Sachi Ken’ichi’s.

Sachi Ken’ichi found this a bit strange, so he specifically explained to Seiko, “We entered the market at around 2,500 points. Now, for every one percent drop, it’s equivalent to an income of twenty million yen for you.”

“Mhm, I know.”

Seiko was still overly calm.

“Aren’t you… excited?”

“I am, but I’ve already been excited.”

“Already been excited?”

“Yes, didn’t Ms. Onoue already say it? Japan Airlines’ stock price will fall.”

“Onoue…”

Thinking of that “spirit medium” Onoue Nui, Sachi Ken’ichi instantly lost all emotion, leaving only a heart full of confusion.

‘Could it be that psychic powers really exist in this world?’

‘Could Onoue Nui really be a medium?’

If it were true, Sachi Ken’ichi’s worldview would be shattered.

If it weren’t true, then how could the crash of JAL Flight 123 be explained?

How could the current avalanche of JAL’s stock price be explained?

Sachi Ken’ichi was silent for a long time before he managed to compose himself and ask again, “How low do you think JAL’s stock price will fall?”

This was him asking when Seiko planned to close her position.

Seiko thought for a moment and decided, “Let’s close the position when it reaches around 2,000 yen.”

“Close at 2,000 yen?” Sachi Ken’ichi was a bit surprised because JAL’s stock price was crashing so hard that he subconsciously thought they could earn more.

“That’s right, 2,000 yen is about right,” Seiko decided.

“Alright, you’re the boss,” Sachi Ken’ichi still deferred to his employer’s decision.

After hanging up, Miyazaki asked curiously, “What were you talking about on the phone?”

Seiko smiled and said, “I was finding some money to shoot Usagi Drop.”

“Eh? Are we going to start filming Usagi Drop?” Miyazaki’s attention was successfully diverted. “A TV series or a movie?”

“I think a movie would be better, what do you think?”

“I don’t know, both sound good…”

August 13th, night.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange closed. Japan Airlines’ stock price closed at 2,040 points, a single-day plunge of twenty percent.