"Al, Kazuma was following you?" Mieko turned her head towards Alfred, one hand shielding her eyes from the beaming sun while another was still wrapped tightly around Yuko's arm. The two ladies stood on the calm street, almost completely absent of any passersby save for a group of children frolicking about with a ball and stick. It was a rather slow scene outside the Hampton's home, especially for such a sunny weekend afternoon.

"Yeah, but he forgot his papers or something so he went back in to find them." Leaning next to the door with a hand in his trousers, Alfred glanced across the street before resting his eyes on Yuko.

God, she was beautiful – she was picturesque, her hair shining in the sun, the way the light danced across the creases and seams of her dress, her. She was the closest thing to an angel on earth, and she didn't even have the slightest clue.

"Hey, your face is red!" Just as he let out a dreamy sigh, Mieko's voice pulled him out of his lovesick trance.

"What?"

「Gosh, just a few minutes in the sun and he's already red! This always happens with Lucy too. He should really get a hat or umbrella or something!」

She glanced back at Yuko, expecting her to laugh and agree, but she looked as if she hadn't even heard Mieko at all. Her attention was completely preoccupied with Alfred.

She appeared to be...a little miffed, and Mieko didn't have a clue why. But that didn't matter to Yuko–as she locked her sights on Alfred lounging around the front of their home, she felt her lip twitch and her shoulders strain.

Had he really just said his, as in Mister Kamoi's, papers? The same papers responsible for the quality of their lives moving forward? The papers tying their lives to this mystery man by some fraying threads of desperation and shameless urgency? Those papers?

She had half a mind to tell Alfred to quit gawking at her and go and get the papers himself. Yuko nudged a stone with the tip of her shoe, her tiny frown forced into her usual smile with a light nod of her head.

「Mieko, again, thank you for your help. I can't believe just a few days ago we were so worried about what we were going to do!」 She swung her neck back towards Mieko, offering the younger girl a light squeeze on her hand in thanks.

Yuko would call what she had said a half-truth. Of course she was thankful for Mieko's assistance and concern. That was true without a shadow of a doubt. Implying that her worries about the future and their finances were now gone without a trace – that was where the lie was born, and that was where it would continue to fester so long as that blasted contract hung over their heads.

「It was no problem at all!」 Mieko found herself matching Yuko's tiny nods and bows–the older woman was almost mechanical in how she tossed her head up and down, throwing Mieko back into her mind's pit of unrest and second-guessing.

Yuko wasn't being genuine–she was withholding something.

「No problem at all.」 Her bouncing eyes lingered on Yuko for another moment before her sights settled on the pebbled ground below.

Had this been a mistake? Did they actually not want to go to lunch? Were they just being polite? Lucy wasn't even coming at all–

She folded her hands on the front of her kimono, cursing both the sizzling heat and her nerves for the sweat seeping from her palms.

Forget lunch, did they not want to go through with Kazuma's deal?

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

「Sorry for the wait.」 A rather frazzled, gruff voice sounded from the entrance, and as everyone turned their heads towards the door, they were surprised and somewhat perturbed that the voice belonged to Kazuma.

Mieko jolted a couple of steps forward as Kazuma stumbled over the tiny bump separating the entryway to the patio.

"Woah woah there, easy." Alfred felt an intense wave of heat emanating off of Kazuma's form as he caught his arm with his hand. He was going to plant knees and face-first onto the steaming pavement below, and for a moment Alfred thought that might have been a better option–Kazuma looked livid, and there were no papers to be seen.

"Hey, you get the–"

「Kazu, Kazu!」 Just as Kazuma's bitten tongue was on the cusp of telling Alfred off before he could even finish his questioning, Mieko's familiar voice grew closer and louder as she tottered up towards the two men.「You okay? I told you years ago those shoes are too big on you, and look! You were this close to–"

「Mieko.」 Straightening his stance and yanking his now-throbbing arm from Alfred's death grip, Kazuma hoped that his strained smile and tightened shoulders would be enough for her to lay off the interrogations. 「Allow me the pleasure of collecting myself in peace, hm?」

「Well, sorry for caring, Mister Kamoi.」 Mieko huffed as she rolled her eyes. If anything angered him more than her calling him Kazu in public, it was her referring to him as Mister Kamoi.

Across the street Yuko remained in place with her arms resting above her breast. For whatever reason, Mister Kamoi was shooting daggers at Mieko as he hastily swiped away some imaginary dirt from his coat. With every second spent in this man's company, Yuko's suspicions continued to grow.

「Mister Kamoi.」 Yuko summoned as much feminine charm as she could for a man she couldn't stand. With how sweet she had to make her voice sound all afternoon, she wanted to gag. 「You know the way, isn’t that right?」

Ever since she greeted him and took his coat upon entering their home, Kazuma knew from her winning smile to her exceptional manners that Alfred's fiance was a fine woman – a woman for whom most men would kill to have on their arm, and all the more reason why Kazuma was baffled she was with Alfred to begin with.

「Of course.」 He gave her a nod as he continued past her, eyes squinting under the shade of his hat while waving for Alfred to join him in front. "Alfred, I think it would be in our best interests to speak a little more in detail about our agreement, yes?"

Alfred, now standing in between Mieko and Yuko with a heavy arm above his head, couldn't fathom what more Kazuma could want to talk about regarding their agreement. Was Kazuma expecting him to bounce off some business ideas? That was a fat chance if there ever was one, an hour hadn't even passed!

"Sure, sure." Alfred took a breath. There it was again – as soon as Alfred was at Kazuma's side, his stomach was doing flips, even more so than whenever Yuko shot him "the look."

Kazuma continued to walk down the street, now committing every tree, every building to memory. He never bothered to take a look back at the tumbledown home or at Yuko and Mieko.

"You left the papers inside, yeah?" Alfred questioned as he caught up to Kazuma, Mieko and Yuko not far behind. "I’ll go and-"

"No, there's no need." Kazuma felt a strain of longing and frustration slither up his spine. He tried to toss away his immoral thoughts of the enraging young woman still in the house, her doe eyes still focused on the contract she was too uneducated to read and her beautiful face hopefully still flush with embarrassment and cautious regard for him alone.

He restrained himself from gesturing for Alfred to follow him when he sped up once more, for he knew that those footsteps beside him would never leave so long as there was the promise of money.

To Kazuma, if this lot of misfits could serve as a source of long-term amusement and diversion from the bleak reality of the Takahara's, of his mother, of his past flings haunting his days and nights, his past and his present, then he was more than happy to throw as much money and time into Mieko’s newest charade as was necessary. "After all, I think we both remember what was agreed upon, don’t we? We can worry about the fine print another day.”

Alfred’s grin faltered, his head swerving behind him to catch one last glance at Yuko’s solemn frown and crossed arms. “Yeah." He chuckled, gripping at his collar as Kazuma’s eyes bore straight ahead. “I don’t think I’ll be forgetting anytime soon.”