Ring Ring Goes the Phone
It had been a few years since Makoto died. SEES was disbanded, and most of the team had gone on to do their own life. But for two of the members, their memories never truly faded. They were supposed to have, but they just never did. Fuuka Yamagishi had become a CEO of an up and coming tech company, and things were really looking up for her. All their products were doing exceedingly well, every quarter their earnings almost doubled. On top of that, they were currently the biggest startup in the world, and quickly rising to the top.
As you could assume, this brought in a lot of attention. Many accused her of bribing higher-ups in other, more established tech titans to get her earnings, whereas others said that the company was running a glorified sweatshop to get all of their products out. But, as the company grew, Fuuka ensured this wasn't true. She took tours of their facilities, ensuring that every single employee was working in, at minimum, decent conditions. Every time the quarterly earnings increased by a large margin, Fuuka tried to push for at least a $2 raise for all employees. Of course, none of this was public information.
But back to the main point. This company was growing in size, and that meant offers to buy it from tons of bigger companies. But on this day, something special was going to happen.
Fuuka was having another long day. Call after call from the front desk, all about “bla bla company is here with an offer”, and every time Fuuka just said “Please… tell them no.” The phone on her desk buzzed again. She picked up.
“Yes, secretary..? Who is it this time?”
“Uh… it's someone from the Kirijo Group. Would you like me to send them up?”
Fuuka froze. The… Kirijo group?
“I-I’m sorry, secretary… d-did you- did you say the Kirijo group..?”
A short silence.
“Yes.”
“Send them up, please.”
“Right away.”
Fuuka put down the phone, slightly nervous. Was Mitsuru really here? Or was it just a representative coming. She hoped it was the former. It had been years since she and Mitsuru last talked. They were still friends, sure, but friends who never talked and never saw each other. But when Fuuka saw the doors at the end of the room open, she recognised the face immediately. Mitsuru looked slightly different, her red hair lightly faded, and wearing a fur overcoat and a black suit. When she and Mitsuru met eyes, there was a small spark. Fuuka smiled, breaking the silence.
“Mitsuru! It’s been a while. Please, have a seat.”
She walked up to Fuuka’s desk, sitting down in the chair that was there. It was quite comfortable.
“Yes, it’s been a long time, Fuuka. I like what you’ve done with yourself. You’ve made a name for yourself in this business, which is something that’s very hard to achieve.”
“Yeah! It took a long time to end up actually getting here, our own office building, a nice workforce.. It’s no underground bunker in a fake island, that’s for sure.”
Fuuka waited for a reaction from Mitsuru, but when she saw nothing, she got a little worried. Maybe not the best idea to make jokes about what happened back on _____ island. But, in the small moment of silence, Mitsuru let a small, hardly noticeable smirk slide onto her face.
“So, Fuuka. You can probably guess why I’m here.”
“Yes, I can. You want to buy the company, right? Just.. grab up the whole thing?”
Mitsuru shook her head.
“No, actually. I’ve been… silently touring your facilities; And the way you run everything is.. Astonishing. From the inside, it seems like you heavily care for your employees, and aren’t just running labor shops. And I don’t want to ruin that. I would like to simply buy a large share of the company.”
Fuuka sat there, a little stunned. It was the first offer that she’d received that seemed genuinely reasonable. But she also realised that of course Mitsuru would have the most reasonable offer.
“So how big of a share are we talking about, Mitsuru? 30, 40%?”
“I was hoping for 50-60 percent.”
Fuuka crossed her fingers, thinking. Mitsuru was a trustworthy person, and respected Fuuka as well. If anyone was to take this share, it would be her. But now came the more difficult part, money. Fuuka looked in the filing cabinet behind her desk and pulled out the quarterly reports from the last year. It was all a straight up line, each quarter almost doubling, sometimes tripling, the last.
“So, Mitsuru, I’ve got the graphs here. From what we project, next quarter we’ll earn almost 800 million dollars. And a 50% share on that… roughly 400 million. Are you sure you want to do this..?”
Mitsuru looked at the charts and reports, studying them intensely.
“Fuuka.. This.. based on what I’m projecting right now, you’ve got even more money than 800 million… let me contact my agent. I need to make sure that the Group has enough to spare.”
Fuuka sat there, excited. The company could get a huge boost not only in popularity, but also in interest overall. With connections to the Kirijo Group, more people would be talking about her company, and that was good.
“Please, take as long as you need.”
Mitsuru looked at the clock behind Fuuka, then stood up quickly, looking a little panicked.
“F-Fuuka, I’m so sorry. I’ve completely forgotten about a meeting in about an hour. Here’s my number, we could talk more over dinner.”
Mitsuru quickly scribbled down her phone number on the corner of a paper, before rushing out. Once she left, Fuuka looked down at the phone number. Even in her haste, Mitsuru’s handwriting was flawless. Fuuka looked over the number again and again, remembering Mitsuru’s offer. “Over dinner”... it had been so long since someone offered her something over dinner. Especially nobody like Mitsuru… Fuuka lightly scolded herself. No, no. This is a business discussion over business. Not! A date..
But as the day went on, and she declined more and more calls, all Fuuka could think about was how Mitsuru looked, her posture, the authority in her voice every time she spoke… It was like a siren call, aimed specifically at her. And that deal, remember that deal! Stop thinking like this.. Fuuka just couldn’t. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get the other girl out of her mind. It was just like back with Makoto, how he made her feel. The things he did, the way he helped her… Fuuka just looked over the number again, deciding to call later. She took the paper and left the building, going back to her house.
Mitsuru was in the middle of an important meeting. Her and the other co-owners were doing another monthly report, but she just couldn’t focus on it at all. She just kept thinking back to Fuuka. Her hair was different, it was in a braid that cascaded down her shoulder like a waterfa- no! No. Mitsuru tried to distract herself again, but found herself unable. Her grey eyes like the tallest skyscraper, shining in the light of the sun… oh, no. Mitsuru hadn’t felt this way about someone since… him. Makoto… She even had blue hair. Oh, it was over, Mitsuru thought to herself.
She’d never been this… obsessed wasn’t the right word. Mesmerised. She’d never been this mesmerised in the 10 years since Makoto had sacrificed himself.. It felt a little wrong. To betray him, his love that was given to her all that time ago, and just discard it. To act like he was just an… ex felt like underplaying his efforts and what he’d done for her. But… maybe she wasn’t just discarding what he did. After all, without him, none of this would have even happened. She looked up at the blue butterfly on the wall, the more recent logo of the Kirijo Group. As she looked, she realized. It was okay. He’d live on forever in this way, and in everyone’s hearts.