As always, the lecture room was empty when I stepped in. Only Professor Fuku sat at her desk in front of the whiteboard. She stared down at the hologram projecting out of the desk, yet her eyes stayed still.

I stood next to her and called her, "Professor Fuku?"

She jumped on her chair. "Miyahara! You shouldn't do that, you could've given me a heart attack."

It had been a while since I had seen her eyes open that wide. "I'm sorry," I smiled.

"Don't worry," she chuckled and stared at me. "You seem happier than usual."

"Well, it's finally presentation day after almost four years."

"Yeah…," she sighed and looked down at the desk, yet her smile remained.

"You look somewhat off."

"Because it's the last day both for you as a student and for me as a professor in this institution."

"Right. Do you have a new job in mind?"

"Not yet. My contract is going to expire at the end of the year; I'll be doing background stuff until then. I might get lucky and be able to substitute for another professor if something happens. Ah, I shouldn't be wishing things like these," she laughed nervously.

I stared at her in silence. Her repeated pauses and sighs only showed how conflicted she was, even though she didn't want to show it.

"Don't tell anyone," she continued, "but this class was my favorite in my ten years of teaching here. Since it was very small, I got to know all of you pretty well. And you definitely are the most peculiar student I've had," she giggled.

She looked down at the desk again and suddenly brushed her eyes with her arm. Is she crying?

"I'm sorry," she apologized while still sweeping her tears away, but her voice still sounded normal. "I promised myself not to cry until the ceremony. I'll be a fountain that day," she laughed nervously.

I didn't know what to do, save to smile back at her.

Another of the students entered the room and greeted Professor Fuku. Luckily, she had already composed herself and asked the student to approach us. She did the same for the remaining eight students and we all gathered around her to chat until the start of the last Business Administration lecture.

It was harder to concentrate than usual, yet Professor Fuku still gave a fun and instructive lecture. We had learned practically everything there was to learn in the books, so she made a summary of the most important topics based on the struggles our businesses were going through.

The bell chimed. It was time to head to the auditorium to present our business in front of Professor Fuku, the university's chancellor, other professors, and industry representatives looking for partners or for their businesses to absorb.

However, no words would come out from Professor Fuku. She stood still in front of us until her lips arched up. She swept her tears again when, suddenly, someone started clapping. The rest of us did the same a couple of seconds later.

The claps continued until Professor Fuku was able to talk.

"Thank you. It was a pleasure teaching you all these years. We should get going or we'll be late."

Amidst the bittersweet moment, everyone stood up and walked out of the room with a smile. I waited to be alone with Professor Fuku but decided to give her space and left.

People were still arriving at the auditorium when I arrived. I recognized a few of them but not the majority. Meanwhile, the nine students of Business Administration and I sat in chairs on the front row which had our names on them.

Knowing that all of the people in the room were a big deal was nerve-wracking, to say the least, and the size of the auditorium only increased the nerves, but I was honest with myself; the only person I was presenting for was Professor Fuku.

It was time to begin. Professor Fuku stood at the front of the auditorium and everyone clapped. She waited for them to stop before speaking.

"Good evening. Thank you for making space in your busy schedules to come and see the proposals of the Business Administration students for the future of the industry. You might find inspiration, ideas, or even a new partner today. There is a lot of diversity in the businesses you're about to see, and I'm sure you won't be disappointed. I don't want to take more of your time, so let's begin."

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She nodded at the student in the first seat of the row before walking off stage. The student hastily stood up and climbed onto the raised platform to present her business.

Every time I blinked, another student had finished presenting. Just like the last time I saw their presentations, their projects were settled. All of them were based in lines of business that were known to work and it showed. What I didn't expect was that they also struggled with money, yet they were nowhere close to GIMA's situation.

Finally, it was my turn. Seeing the presenter walking off stage made me nervous, but it was nothing I couldn't manage. I stood and walked to the front of the auditorium then approached the giant whiteboard. I connected to it and a small hologram projected outward displaying my name as I synchronized my Cloud data using InsTransfer. Chiharu had probably already infected the university's network, so I didn't worry about it.

I opened the document and said, "Good evening. My name is Kaito Miyahara and I'll tell you about my business: Galactical Idols Management Agency or GIMA for short."

A lot of people already had frowns on their faces. With such a peculiar name, it was to be expected I had already caught their attention.

I changed to the next slide using my glasses. "Just as the name implies, my business is a company that serves as an agency for idols wishing to reach galactical recognition."

The audience still seemed confused. Some of them even smirked, maybe making fun of what I was saying, but I couldn't know for sure and I didn't care.

"Idols existed a thousand years ago in Japan. They were young girls, usually between sixteen and twenty-five. Their attraction resided in them being cute and talented in many skills like acting, dancing, singing, modeling, and more."

At least, the majority of people seemed attentive.

"They were soon replaced by Humas, which you might think is obvious since they allow you to have a more intricate relationship instead of a solely parasocial one, but we disagree. We will bring back idols not to replace Humas but to join them."

The smirks of the people that didn't seem interested suddenly disappeared. They now stared at me.

"Anyway. I should get started with the business side of things."

I spent the next ten minutes talking about the boring part of owning a company: registration, divisions, departments, staff, goals, plans, and other things. All of that was relatively easy until the money section began. A list of transactions and graphs appeared on the whiteboard.

"I made the initial investment with a part of my own savings. There wasn't much to pay for during the first weeks, so things progressed fairly quickly until the ex-president leaks happened. I'm sure everyone knows about it, so I won't get into details. However, that gave us an unexpected boost in popularity. To take advantage of it, I invested even more of my savings."

I decided not to tell them that the ex-president gave me the money. It wouldn't have been a problem, but I wanted to avoid unnecessary explanations.

"The company made good progress until we ran into another bump. Despite all of that, we started to earn money, but there have been no profits yet. I'm sure you've already done the math and know that there's not much money left, but that will be solved soon."

Whether that be that I can fix it or the company goes bankrupt.

The smirks in the audience returned and a lot of the frowns became even more prominent. I barely heard anything, but many people whispered at each other.

Not to leave on a bad note, I gave a summary of the goals and plans of the company. Although everyone clapped when I finished, I knew most of them were skeptical about my entire presentation, especially the industry representatives. There was nothing I could do about it, so I focused on the thoughts of the people I cared about.

Nothing much happened the following days. I signed dozens of forms and took pictures for the certificates. Then, the graduation ceremony took place. Everyone's families were present. In my case, both Mom and Dad came to celebrate.

Just as Professor Fuku had said, she was a fountain of tears during the whole event. Luckily, Aki was there with me and she comforted her.

The entire class took a picture together in the lecture room along with Professor Fuku and the university's chancellor. Then, it was time to chat, eat, and drink. A few of the families left, but the majority stayed. It was the first time I had seen Professor Fuku acting loose, yet Aki was sure that she wasn't drunk.

Before the event ended, Professor Fuku asked us to call her by her first name since she wasn't our professor anymore: Haru.

Aki accompanied Haru to her apartment, while I walked with my parents to the monorail station nearby to see them off. It was incredibly crowded since other graduates were also celebrating.

I ran into Jun on the way back to my apartment. We sat on a bench to talk about life and our current situation. I told him I wanted to hire him but the company couldn't afford it. I also couldn't ask him to wait until there was a chance, yet he was eager to work with us. He was going to look for a job as he waited.

It was almost midnight when I arrived at my apartment. I was ready to drop dead on my bed when my glasses rang with a call. Who could it be at this time? Don't tell me it's another hacker.

However, there was a name on the screen this time. Archilands Records?

"Hello?" I answered.

"Good evening, Mr. Miyahara," a man replied. "I'm very sorry for bothering you at this time, but we didn't want someone else to beat us to this opportunity. I'm a representative of Archilands Records and we'd love to form a partnership with Galactical Idols Management Agency."