Chapter 13: Volume 1, - 13: The Friend Who Saw Him Leave
The LINE notification arrived at 8:14 AM on Saturday, 18 February 2023, while Ren was boiling water for green tea.
Natsumi Hayasaka:
Daichi says you’re alive, in Kawaguchi, and dealing with an estate lawyer.
Lumine Omiya. Second floor café. 11:30 AM.
Don’t ignore this, Kisaragi.
Ren set his teacup down carefully on the low wooden table. He stared at the screen for a long minute, watching the blinking cursor. He had not spoken to Natsumi since his second year at university. Not since the week he emptied his student room, withdrew from the registry, and disappeared into whatever shifts he could find.
He did not reply immediately, but by eleven o’clock, he was on the Keihin-Tohoku Line heading north toward Omiya.
Lumine Omiya was bustling with weekend shoppers when Ren arrived. He stood near the entrance of the second-floor café, his navy BlockTech coat buttoned against the draft from the train station concourse.
At precisely 11:30, Natsumi Hayasaka walked into the café.
At twenty-three, Natsumi moved with an effortless, self-possessed confidence that drew quiet glances from surrounding tables. Her long, dark-brown hair fell in loose, polished waves past her shoulders, framing hazel-brown eyes that were sharp, attentive, and unyielding. She wore a fitted cream knit dress that subtly accentuated her curves, paired with a tailored dark coat slung over her shoulders and deliberate, understated gold jewellery. A subtle scent of white floral perfume accompanied her movement.
Ren’s chest tightened as she approached. Her physical presentation was striking, but what truly disturbed him was the sudden, overwhelming reality of being remembered. Sitting alone in his small apartment, managing debt ledgers and System prompts, he had turned his past into an abstract memory. Natsumi’s presence made that past real, heavy, and inescapable.
"You actually showed up," Natsumi said, stopping at the edge of his table. Her voice was cool, measured, and laced with quiet steel.
"Hello, Natsumi," Ren said, rising carefully from his chair.
She slid into the opposite seat without waiting, resting her structured leather handbag on the spare chair beside her. Her hazel eyes locked onto his, taking in his navy coat, his pale complexion, and the faint tiredness around his eyes.
A waitress arrived, and Ren gestured for Natsumi to order first. She asked for an iced café latte, while Ren requested a black drip coffee.
As soon as the waitress walked away, Natsumi leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on the dark wood table.
"Where did you go, Ren?" she asked plainly. No greeting, no polite pleasantries. "You didn’t drop out after a semester of deliberation. You vanished in three days. You blocked six group chats, ignored forty messages, and left Daichi standing outside your empty student residence asking the landlord if you were dead."
Ren kept his gaze steady, though his palms felt cold inside his pockets. "I couldn’t stay."
"That explains leaving the university," Natsumi said, her voice dropping an octave, sharp with suppressed anger. "It doesn’t explain cutting off the three people who actually knew you. Do you have any idea what people said after you left? The assumptions that took root?"
"I can guess," Ren murmured.
"No, you can’t," she snapped, her hazel eyes flashing. "Because you were comfortable letting everyone invent their own story so long as you didn’t have to face us. People said you got expelled for academic fraud. Others said you got arrested over a nightclub debt. A few insisted your family was involved in some massive financial scandal and you ran away to avoid the shame. And because you never gave a single person an answer, the scandal story stuck."
Her anger wasn’t about his poverty or his sudden loss of status. It was about exclusion. The deliberate, brutal act of locking out the people who had considered him a friend.
Ren swallowed against the dry knot in his throat. He owed her more than silence, even if he couldn’t offer the whole truth.
"My father made leveraged investments using family assets," Ren said quietly, keeping his voice low so it didn’t carry to the adjacent tables. "They collapsed. We lost my tuition fund and the family home, and he disappeared when the creditors closed in."
Natsumi’s rigid posture faltered slightly. Her eyelids flickered, the anger momentarily giving way to surprise.
"I couldn’t pay tuition or keep my room," Ren continued, meeting her eyes. "My mother was injured, my sister was still studying, and someone had to cover the immediate costs. So I left university and took whatever work I could find to keep us afloat."
Natsumi sat in silence as the waitress set their drinks on the table. She stared into her iced café latte, watching the milk swirl into the espresso.
"You should have told us," she said softly, though the edge in her tone remained. "Daichi would have helped you move. I would have helped you organise your paperwork. You treated us like spectators who would judge you for having a broken family."
"I was ashamed, Natsumi," Ren admitted simply. "I didn’t want you looking at me like a tragic case."
Natsumi let out a harsh, dry breath and took a sip of her latte. "That was arrogant of you, Kisaragi. Deciding for us how we’d react."
She set her glass down with a deliberate tap. The tension between them didn’t dissolve into instant forgiveness. The silent months sat between them like a physical barrier, but the raw hostility had shifted into a quiet, tentative truce.
A pale blue Interface block flickered subtly at the edge of Ren’s peripheral vision, visible to him alone:
[Connection Notes updated: Natsumi Hayasaka.]
[Current intent: unresolved.]
[No Social Task generated.]
Ren acknowledged the system notice mentally, letting it fade without reaction.
"So what are you doing now?" Natsumi asked, crossing her arms. "Daichi said you met with an estate lawyer."
"My grandfather left behind a small, complicated estate structure," Ren explained carefully. "It’s mostly record review and physical inventory. Nothing that generates immediate revenue, but it’s legitimate."
Natsumi studied his navy coat, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully as she inspected the cut and fabric. "You look more put together than Daichi made you sound, but your wardrobe is still painfully cautious."
"I buy what is practical," Ren said.
"Clearly," she replied, a faint, familiar smirk touching her lips before disappearing. "I’m working toward event production and luxury hospitality coordination now. Styling, atmosphere, spatial presentation, that’s my actual focus." She paused, pointing a manicured finger across the table. "If you ever reach a point where you need proper visual presentation for a real business meeting, don’t buy suits off the rack by yourself. Ask me. But understand one thing, Ren."
"What’s that?"
"It won’t be a friendly favour," Natsumi said firmly, her hazel eyes locking onto his. "If I help, you pay my rate and treat it as real work. I’ll give you professional recommendations, not become your unpaid shopping assistant."
"Fair enough," Ren said, nodding slowly. "I wouldn’t expect anything less."
They spent another twenty minutes talking. Mostly about Natsumi’s event work and Daichi’s life at the family garage, before Natsumi checked her watch and announced she had a meeting with a boutique vendor in Lumine 1.
When the bill arrived, Ren reached for it immediately. "Let me get these," he said. "You came because I disappeared without an explanation."
Natsumi didn’t fight him on it. "That doesn’t settle the debt, but I’ll allow the coffee," she remarked, watching as he paid for both drinks at the counter.
After saying goodbye to Natsumi outside the café, Ren walked down to the lower ground floor of Lumine Omiya. Passing the Godiva shop, he paused. The meeting had reminded him how easily people became distant when he kept postponing ordinary contact. Using his personal funds, he bought a modest four-piece Godiva chocolate box for Emiko and Mei.
As the train rattled south back toward Kawaguchi, Ren looked out the window at the passing suburban rooftops, his mind echoing with Natsumi’s words. Right before they had parted, while she was adjusting her coat, she had paused and looked at him with a strange, puzzled expression.
"You know," she had said casually, "looking at you today reminded me of that strange design project you pulled out during our first-year seminar. That silver-white geometric symbol you kept sketching in the margins of your notebook. You called it a corporate logo."
Ren had frowned. "I don’t remember drawing any logo."
"You did," she had insisted. "A central starburst inside diamond lines. You drew it on three separate lecture handouts, then shoved them in your bag and pretended you hadn’t."
The memory sent a subtle chill through his spine as he stepped off the train at Kawaguchi Station. A central starburst inside diamond lines. The exact white-silver crest mounted beneath the oak desk in Suite 302. The crest of the Origin Office. Yet he had no recollection of ever drawing it during his first year of university.
Arriving back at his apartment, Ren placed the sealed Godiva box beside his bag so he would remember to take it on his next visit to Emiko and Mei. Then, sitting down at his low wooden desk, he pulled out his Muji notebook and spread open two sets of papers side by side.
On the left was a certified photocopy provided by Aoi Tachibana. A formal notice from a creditor file tied to one of his father Masato’s failed investment vehicles.
On the right was an extract from an older estate ledger connected to Genichiro.
The same name appeared in both:
Vanguard Crest Partners
Ren stared at the two matching entries. Masato’s failed investments and Genichiro’s estate records were linked by the same name. Whether they referred to the same legal entity, an older predecessor, or something else entirely remained unproven.
But the overlap was no longer something he could dismiss.