Chapter 39: Volume 1, - 39: The Bakery Asked for a Price
At one in the afternoon, Nanami Shindo arrived at Suite 302 for her Wednesday shift, set her leather bag beside the secondary desk, and hung her coat on the wall rack.
"Five hours today, Kisaragi-san," Nanami said, checking her wristwatch. "If you want the bakery quotation reviewed before you take it over, let’s start there."
"It’s almost ready," Ren said, turning his laptop screen slightly so she could view the open spreadsheet. "I’m applying a fifty percent courtesy discount to the initial workflow review."
Nanami pulled out her office chair and sat down, her dark eyes scanning the printed draft on the desk. "Why?"
"I’ve been treated kindly whenever I’ve visited the bakery," Ren explained, leaning back in his chair. "Akiyama-san hasn’t even met me formally yet, and I don’t want him thinking I’m trying to take advantage of a simple order mix-up to squeeze them for money."
"I see," Nanami said flatly. She pulled the paper draft toward her side of the desk. "Would you offer this exact discount to Okada Stationery or Wada Delivery if they were in the same position?"
Ren stiffened slightly, defensive heat rising behind his neck. "That’s different. This isn’t a cold commercial client. I genuinely want to help them fix their order system so yesterday’s White Day panic doesn’t happen again."
"It isn’t about whether you want to help," Nanami said, her voice remaining calm and operational. "It’s about whether the invoice reflects reality. You’ve estimated ten hours of work at your standard small-business rate of four thousand yen an hour, but you are charging them twenty thousand yen total."
"That’s a standard administrative review," Ren said.
"And what are you explicitly excluding?" Nanami asked.
"Recipes, retail product pricing, staffing authority, production decisions, supplier selection, oven schedules, and menu authority," Ren replied immediately. "I made sure those boundaries were complete. I’m not touching their baking or their operational choices."
"Good," Nanami said. "Now look at the numbers. You budgeted ten hours of direct observation and document drafting. But at this discounted rate, you are effectively charging for five hours of administrative support. Who pays for the remaining five hours of your labour?"
"I own the company, Shindo-san," Ren said, rubbing his temple. "My time is flexible. I can absorb the difference."
Nanami stared at him quietly for a moment. "You are treating your own labour as free."
The words hung in the quiet office.
Ren opened his mouth to explain further, but the sentence died in his throat. A cold, sharp realisation settled over him. For years at QuickMart, under the grinding pressure of his consumer debt. Other people had treated his extra hours as if they were free resources owed to them. He had hated every second of being expected to absorb extra shifts and hidden costs without recognition.
Now, running his own firm, he was doing the exact same thing to himself. And he was doing it simply because he wanted Suzune and her family to like him.
’I’m trying to buy goodwill with unpaid labour,’ he thought, tracing the edge of his desk. ’That isn’t professional kindness. It’s just bad business.’
He let out a quiet breath and clicked on the spreadsheet cell, removing the discount line. "Calculate it at forty thousand yen. Ten hours total scope, tightly defined."
"Understood," Nanami said, her pen moving smoothly across her notes. "I’ll print the formal quote now so you can take it over while I handle the ledger updates."
Across town at Akiyama Bakery, the afternoon lull had quieted the front counter. Behind the glass display, Suzune wiped down the stainless-steel tray rails while Keiko sorted paper receipts near the cash register.
"Kisaragi-san said he would drop off the written quote around two," Keiko mentioned, placing a stamp on an invoice.
Suzune stopped wiping and turned to her mother, her expression firm. "Mum, please don’t let him give us a special discount just because of me."
Keiko looked up, an eyebrow raised in mild amusement. "We haven’t even seen the price yet, Suzune."
"I mean it," Suzune said softly, resting her cloth on the counter. "I don’t want him giving us free work just because we are friends. If we’re hiring his business, it needs to be a real business transaction. Money between friends or anything else gets messy fast if boundaries aren’t clear."
Keiko smiled warmly, reaching over to touch Suzune’s hand. "You’re very sensible, Suzune-chan. Don’t worry. Your father and I have run this shop for twenty years. We have no intention of taking advantage of a young man who is trying to build his career."
At twenty past two, Ren entered the bakery, carrying a clean manila envelope. Hiroshi stepped out from the back kitchen, wiping flour from his forearms with a hand towel.
"Akiyama-san," Ren said, bowing politely. "I’m Ren Kisaragi from Kisaragi Business Support, pleasure to formally meet you."
Hiroshi gave a firm, measuring nod, assessing the young man in the crisp suit before offering a short bow. "Kisaragi-san. Keiko told me about yesterday’s mix-up."
They sat at the small side table near the window. Ren laid out the proposal, walking through the scope clearly.
Hiroshi scrutinised the document, his heavy brow furrowing as his thumb traced the bottom line. "Forty thousand yen is a bit higher than I anticipated for a small bakery, Kisaragi-san. And this item here. A daily shift-handover logbook seems unnecessary. We’re a family business, not a corporate office. Staff aren’t going to fill out complex forms every evening."
Keiko leaned in slightly. "What will we physically have in our hands at the end of this engagement, Kisaragi-san?"
Ren did not try to push back or sell harder. Instead, he took out his pen.
"That is a fair critique, Akiyama-san," Ren said calmly. "If the handover logbook isn’t practical for your daily routine, we will remove it entirely. What you will physically receive is a two-page order-intake form, a single pickup-status sheet, and a one-page change log for last-minute customer amendments."
He drew a clean line through the logbook item on the draft and recalculated the total on his phone screen. "Removing that reduces the total hours by three, bringing the fee down to twenty-eight thousand yen."
Hiroshi looked at the adjusted paper, then up at Ren. The tension in the older man’s shoulders relaxed slightly. "Clear boundaries and no fluff. I appreciate that." He looked at Keiko, who nodded in agreement. "Alright, Kisaragi-san. Prepare the finalised agreement for twenty-eight thousand yen. We’ll proceed on those terms."
Later that afternoon, Ren returned to Suite 302. Nanami logged the accepted proposal into the office administration binder.
"Proposal accepted in principle at twenty-eight thousand yen," Nanami reported, entering the item carefully into the tracking file. "Seven hours of future scope. No earned revenue recorded."
Ren sat at his desk, staring down at his phone. The proposal was clean, precise, and completely transparent. He had spent the entire afternoon ensuring Hiroshi and Keiko understood every single detail of what they were paying for.
Yet, as he looked at the quiet display, a heavy contradiction hit him.
He had insisted on total honesty with Suzune’s parents regarding scope, hours, and money. But Suzune herself still didn’t know the full reality of his life. She didn’t know the exact extent of his remaining consumer debt, how the estate arrangement had changed his finances so quickly, or why he had left university.
He was being meticulous with business truth while managing and withholding the truth in his personal life.
’Honesty in business means nothing if I keep hiding behind neat generalities with her,’ Ren thought, his pulse quickening slightly.
He unlocked his phone, opened LINE, and typed out a text to Suzune.
Ren: Your parents accepted the bakery quote in principle today. If you are free tomorrow evening after your shift, would you be open to sitting down for tea? There are some things about my situation I would like to explain to you directly.
He pressed send. The LINE message showed as delivered. Ren set the phone face-down beside the quotation file, then looked at it again less than ten seconds later.
He had finally decided what he needed to tell her.