Seated right in the middle of this mess was Mr. Kamitani. His usually neat hair was a wild, tangled disaster from where his fingers had repeatedly dragged through it all night.
He was bent backwards against the frame of his chair, his tall body completely stretching out in pure exhaustion.
Both of his large hands were raised, firmly covering his tired eyes to block out the bright glare of the computer screen. He looked completely drained, still wearing his white button-up shirt and sharp black suit pants from a long day at the Court.
Yuna gently adjusted her spectacles and glanced back over her shoulder at him.
Watching his dramatic, stretched-out posture, she couldn't help but let out a quiet huff in her mind. 'Hah— what is his problem anyway?' she thought to herself, a tiny, playful wave of annoyance bubbling up.
'If he is really that dead tired, he should just climb into bed and go to sleep. Why does he always have to act as if the entire world's heaviest burdens are resting right on his shoulders?'
With a small, silent smirk, she reached out and quietly opened a small sweet chocolate wrapper, popping the piece into her mouth.
As the rich flavor melted on her tongue, she crossed her arms tightly over her chest and turned her eyes back to her own screen.
'I am absolutely not saying a single word to him.' she determined silently with a small tilt of her chin.
'I am definitely not going to walk over there and tell him to go and rest. Not after the way he just screamed my name during breakfast in the kitchen!'
Mrs. Kamitani turned her eyes back to the bright light of her screen, completely absorbing herself in reviewing the long corporate contract once again.
One of her hands rested gently under her chin, her fingers tapping a slow rhythm against her skin while her other hand lazily scrolled down the laptop page, highlighting long lines of legal text.
Every few minutes, she occasionally took a small sip of her black coffee, never once taking her eyes off the glowing documents.
Suddenly, a very familiar part of an iconic song began playing through her white wired earphones.
A wave of pure, happy energy rushed through her chest, and without even realizing what she was doing, she began singing a tiny bit of the English lyrics right under her breath.
"If you wanna see some action... gotta be the center of attraction..." she murmured in a low, happy tone.
Beneath the dark wooden desk, her bare foot lightly Tapped against the floor rug to the upbeat rhythm of the music.
She absentmindedly twirled her signature pen between her fingers, flipping it over her knuckles while her eyes scanned a terrifying, complex corporate liability clause.
She quickly typed out a neat legal note on the side of the page, completely unbothered by the dense work as the music kept her spirit high.
"Come out from the shadows, it's your time..." she hummed another random line, her voice barely rising above a quiet whisper in the dark room.
She didn't sing continuously at all, only picking out her favorite phrases here and there whenever the best parts of the song popped into her ears.
She took another slow sip of her hot coffee, using her free index finger to aggressively push her reading spectacles up the bridge of her nose like a proud commander preparing for a massive courtroom battle.
After finally scrolling to the very end of the final paragraph, she leaned back proudly against her chair, letting out a deep breath as though she had just successfully won a massive multi-million dollar court case.
A tiny, intensely satisfied smile broke out across her face, and she rejoiced quietly to herself.
"Finally... the entire merger framework is fully complete for the day." she whispered happily, feeling a massive wave of sweet relief wash over her shoulders.
She reached into the small plastic wrapper on her desk, popping another piece of sweet chocolate into her mouth to celebrate the small victory.
She hummed one last little bit of the track absentmindedly, completely overjoyed by finishing her massive pile of work.
And only then... she casually glanced across the vast room.
She fully expected to see Mr. Kamitani still sitting in his usual serious posture, but instead, she found him dramatically dying backward in his office chair like a tragic Victorian Widow who had just lost every single piece of her family inheritance in a single day.
Her playful annoyance returned in a single fraction of a second.
"Hah..." she scoffed quietly to herself, reaching up to take another small sip of her coffee while badmouthing his dramatic attitude in her mind.
'Look at him...' she thought with a small roll of her green eyes. 'He is just trying to gain sympathy at this point. I am completely ignoring him.'
She reached up and casually pulled the white wired earphones right out of her ears, intending to quietly pack up her things in total silence.
But she had completely forgotten one critical thing—her laptop's internal volume was turned up to the absolute Maximum!
The moment the earphone slid out, a massive, booming voice of Ichigo Kurosaki suddenly broke out from the laptop speakers, echoing loudly through the dead silence of the master bedroom.
"BAN-KAI!!!"
Mrs. Kamitani instantly jumped straight out of her skin, her heart hammering violently against her ribs at the incredibly loud, sudden shout.
"Eek?!" she let out a panicked gasp, her fingers scrambling across the mouse pad in a wild, frantic hurry to close the browser window before the voice could finish.
"Oh my god, close, close, close!" she cursed herself furiously under her breath, her face flushing a deep, bright red as she finally managed to mute the audio.
She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing a hand over her heaving chest while whispering frantically to her own mind.
'I am completely doomed,' she thought in pure, terrified panic. 'If that Stubborn Man ever finds out I was secretly listening to Shounen anime songs at Four O'clock in the morning, I will never hear the end of it. He'll tease me about this until we're both Eighty!'
Once the room was completely quiet again, she let out a long, trembling sigh of relief.
Mrs. Kamitani slowly opened one green eye, then the other, cautiously looking across the dark space to see if her sudden gasp had finally woken up the terrifying creature known as her HUSBAND.
The bedroom remained perfectly still. Mrs. Kamitani froze right where she stood. Mr. Kamitani's long body didn't move a single inch.
Not a finger.
Not a twitch.
Absolutely nothing.
She stared suspiciously at his stretched-out form for several long seconds, narrowing her eyes under her reading glasses.
'No reaction?' she thought, her mind racing. 'Hm. That is completely impossible. This is the exact same man who once woke up from a deep sleep just because I sneezed three rooms away.'
Her green eyes narrowed even further into a tight .
'Wait a minute,' she noted internally, her pride bubbling up. 'Did he actually hear my little voice and simply choose to ignore my total embarrassment?'
She paused, considering the thought for a tiny second before shaking her head.
'No, no, that is completely out of the question. If he had heard it, he would have absolutely made fun of me right away. That man has the fast survival instincts of a mosquito whenever a good teasing opportunity is around.'
She kept her eyes locked on his chest, watching it rise and fall.
Slow.
Heavy.
Peaceful.
There was still absolutely no reaction from the sleeping Mr. Kamitani.
Mrs. Kamitani slowly let out the heavy breath she had been holding in her throat.
"Of course he didn't hear it." she proudly told herself, lifting her chin with a small, confident huff. "He is practically a total corpse right now from all that work."
She folded her arms tightly over her cotton pajamas, a smug little smile crawling onto her lips.
'And honestly, even if his ears did catch it, what could he even do about it? He has absolutely no solid proof against me.'
After throwing another highly suspicious glance in his direction, she cautiously raised her hand and threw a tiny, secret air punch toward the unconscious Shield of the Court.
"Hmph." she rejoiced silently. "A total, complete victory for me!"
Then, after a brief pause, she stopped moving and stared at his face all over again.
'Though... why on earth am I acting like a sneaky criminal escaping a bad crime scene?' she questioned herself, her inner lawyer instincts kicking back in.
She let out another stubborn scoff, turning her heels around. 'Still. It is much better to be safe than to be teased by him for the next fifty years.'
"Hmph." Mrs. Kamitani muttered softly, turning away from him and starting to pack her notebooks and legal pens back into her desk drawer. "It's not like I care anyway."
----
🖋️ AUTHOR'S NOTE 🌙
After everything our poor family has been through lately...
I think they deserved one peaceful chapter.
...Well.
As peaceful as it can be when a certain Corporate Lawyer secretly holds a one-person anime concert at four in the morning.
I would also like to officially announce that Mrs. Kamitani has successfully defeated every legal contract known to mankind...
But was almost defeated by a single earphone.
Thank you for reading!
I'll see you in the next chapter.
(≧▽≦)🌙
----
✦ 🔮 A GLIMPSE INTO THE NEXT CHAPTER 🔮 ✦
"What awaits beyond this page...?" 🌙
(灬･◡･灬)♡
"For years, I kept wondering how on earth Kento managed to develop such terribly messy habits in his room. I kept scolding him for it."
"You are daydreaming. I will not believe this... Now drop it."
----
🌙 PAGES FROM FORGOTTEN RECORDS 📖
Some secrets are carefully hidden from the world.
Others...
are hidden because your husband will tease you about them forever.
(￣▽￣;)
----
🌙 The stars may fade, and memories may sleep...
But the Spiral continues to turn.
Until we meet again beneath the same forgotten sky.
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧
— SakuraShinomiya