Chapter 99: The Green Country Club

Although Momoko was obedient and did whatever she was told, Seiko still felt more at ease with Saori.

When she played with Momoko, Seiko always had the feeling that she was bullying Momoko one-sidedly. Not that one-sided bullying wasn’t addictive in its own way.

When she was intimate with Saori, Saori was much more proactive. Saori knew Seiko’s rhythm and her sweet spots, and she would tease Seiko when Seiko wanted it. The two of them could produce an effect far greater than one plus one.

When Seiko got up the next day, she even felt refreshed instead of drained from overdoing it.

That morning, Seiko sat in front of the dressing table and let Saori braid her hair.

“By the way, how are those children Nitta Hiroshi brought back?”

Seiko played with Saori’s skincare products and asked casually.

“What children?” Saori replied without thinking.

Seiko looked up and shot her a glare. “I told Nitta Hiroshi to send the children back to headquarters first so they could be settled. Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

Saori laughed, not embarrassed at being caught. “Those twenty boys, according to your arrangement, I picked some of the more responsible older people at headquarters and had them adopt the boys.”

“And the twenty girls?” By the time Seiko asked, she had already guessed the answer.

Sure enough, Saori said, “I took them to stay with Sakura, Aoi, and the others.”

Seiko puffed out her cheeks. “I’ll go see them later…”

That morning, Seiko went with Saori to the Hanno Green Country Club.

The Hanno Green Country Club was now open to the public.

The annual membership fee was 300,000 yen. Every time a member played, they also had to pay a green fee, which could be understood as a course fee, of 10,000 yen, a caddie fee of 5,000 yen, 2,000 yen for cart, locker, and other miscellaneous charges, plus a mandatory lunch fee of 5,000 yen. Those were only the basic expenses.

In other words, after paying 300,000 yen for a year, a member still had to pay at least 22,000 yen every time they played. That was not even the worst part. The worst part was that members could not simply pay one year’s membership fee. The Hanno Green Country Club required members to buy a lifetime membership in one lump sum, at a price of ten million yen. If they did not buy the lifetime membership, they could only renew every six months for 250,000 yen.

The club’s rule was a ten-million-yen deposit, then the money was slowly deducted.

This was not Saori’s invention. Any decent golf club around Tokyo did the same. They treated Tokyoites like fat sheep. And the fat sheep still flocked to them.

Less than two months after the official opening, Saori had sold more than two hundred memberships, bringing in over two billion yen in prepayments.

What?

You ask when a ten-million-yen deposit would ever be spent?

Don’t be naive. In this bubble economy, it would be spent quickly.

A single round at 22,000 yen was only the base cost. Playing at a high-end golf club like this was mostly business socializing. No one could spend only that much. It would look too stingy.

First, although the caddie fee was only 5,000 yen, these days any businessman who cared about face would tip the caddie extra, at least 10,000 yen to start.

Business socializing meant giving partners gifts. The club shop sold high-end golf clubs, limited signed clubs, even gold-plated clubs. A casual purchase could run from hundreds of thousands to over a million yen.

After the round, there was always a business dinner. The club offered a minimum 5,000 yen single meal, but what boss would actually treat a partner to the cheapest option? In a private room at the club hotel, opening a couple bottles and ordering some lobster and wagyu easily ran into hundreds of thousands of yen.

Green Country Club also had its own specialty services.

Maybe because the opening had invited a group of female golfers to play a match and signed an endorsement with a female golfer like Hattori Michiko, the club attracted many young female members, almost half the ratio of male members. Most clubs had at most twenty or thirty percent.

So Saori rolled out beauty, skincare, spa, hot spring therapy, and other women’s services. Office ladies and wealthy wives could easily spend hundreds of thousands of yen on a single set.

In short, whether you could spend down the money on your membership card was not something a consumer needed to worry about. It was something the club needed to worry about.

Sakura, Aoi, Tsubaki, Sumire, Hagi, and Ran lived at the course and worked as caddies.

At least the first few times Seiko visited them, they really were working as caddies. The pay was good. Wages plus tips for one round came to at least ten thousand yen. The girls did not want frequent contact with the outside world, so a golf club with few people coming and going was very suitable for them to live and work.

Seiko also thought the arrangement was good.

In the western corner of the golf course was a valley. A golf course would naturally have some elevation changes, but slopes that were too steep were still unsuitable for golf. So at first, the valley had not been included in the Green Country Club purchase. But after Saori saw the valley, almost completely hidden by the mountains and forest, she paid extra to buy it as well.

Then she built a small cluster of brand-new buildings there.

Seiko had been to these buildings before, because this was Sakura and Aoi’s dormitory. The girls had invited Seiko to visit their dorm.

This time, the little girls from the old orphanage that Seiko had sent back were also settled here by Saori.

When Seiko and Saori arrived, the oldest, Hagi and Ran, were taking care of the little girls like kindergarten teachers, teaching them to look at picture books. The little girls sat in a circle on the floor, gathered around them.

“Seiko-chan!”

Ran ran over excitedly as soon as she saw Seiko and hugged one of Seiko’s arms. Hagi was steadier. She held a picture book and stood prettily in place.

“You’ve worked hard, taking care of so many little sisters.” Seiko reached out and rubbed Hagi’s head. Hagi could not help but show a happy smile from the heart.

The little girls sent from the old orphanage looked at Seiko with curiosity, excitement, awe… Seiko also sat down and chatted with them for a while.

At first, the little girls were a little distant with Seiko, but who was Seiko? She was best at getting close to strangers. Within minutes, she had the little girls chattering away with her.

From the conversation, Seiko felt that the girls were much better mentally. Compared with their first meeting, the dull, timid state was improved by more than a little. Physically, they still looked malnourished, but that would take time to fix. There was no rushing it.

Also, the youngest baby girl really did need surgery. Saori had already arranged for her to be hospitalized.

“Where are Sakura, Aoi, Tsubaki, and Sumire?”

Seiko had not seen the four girls after chatting for a while, so she asked curiously.

“They’re in the basement.” Ran blurted out without any hesitation. She clearly had not planned to hide it from Seiko.

“Mm.” Saori nodded and asked with a smile, “Do you want to go see them, Seiko?”

Seiko suddenly had a bad feeling, but…

Damn it. If you ask like that, how could her curiosity possibly hold out?

As soon as Seiko reached the basement, she opened her mouth in surprise.

The dormitory building looked unremarkable above ground, but its basement was especially spacious and bright, like an underground parking garage. It was actually a shooting range as large as one.

Bang, bang, bang…

Gunshots echoed nonstop through the basement.

Four girls, Sakura, Aoi, Tsubaki, and Sumire, were training at the range. Two female instructors, obviously Russian at a glance, were coaching them.

Along the wall of the range was a row of gun racks, filled with Soviet-style weapons: Makarov pistols, AK-74s, AKMs, even old Mosin-Nagants. There were probably dozens of them.

“Where did you get so many guns?” Seiko pressed a hand to her forehead and turned to lock onto the culprit: Saori.

“From the Soviet Union. Taken apart and smuggled back on fishing boats.”

“Those two instructors?”

“Legal work permits.”

Saori answered as lightly as if she were talking about how girls did their makeup.

The gunshots stopped. The four girls in training took off their earmuffs and finally heard the conversation. They turned, saw Seiko, and immediately came over happily to greet her.

“Sakura and Aoi are already excellent at shooting. Let them stay by your side from now on.” Saori pointed at the twins and smiled.

“Mm-hm, we’re really good…” Sakura and Aoi nodded at once, looking at Seiko expectantly.

Tsubaki and Sumire also looked envious.

Seiko still wanted to say something, but Saori caught her hand. “Seiko, don’t forget. If you kill others, others will kill you. There are many ways to kill. Bullets and poison are just two of them. This is necessary protection for you.”

Seiko puffed out her cheeks, unable to argue. She reached out and pinched Saori’s, Sakura’s, and Aoi’s cheeks, then said helplessly, “Fine.”

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Underdog Connection

ChaebolContemporaryObsessiveLove

Read Now →
Not interested