Just as Takumi had predicted, he got a phone call from none other than his mother when he was on his way home from work. His mother was furious over the phone, as she got to know of her son's tantrums and asked to meet without further delay. Being the good son that he is, Takumi promised his mother to meet on the weekend before hanging up the call.
Meanwhile, Haruki got to know everything that had happened, from his informant, Luna. Knowing his mother's temper quite well, he didn't want to be there when it all blew up. To avoid such an occurrence, he asked to spend the night at his brother's house which they agreed to without arguments.
The weekend finally arrived and as Takumi and Luna were having breakfast at the diner table, she asked her father the following question. " Daddy, are you going to be alright?"
???
" I don't understand, Luna. Why are you asking that out of the blue?"
Retorting, Luna said, " You're going to meet Grandpa and Grandma today. Aren't you going to be chewed out if you go alone?"
" Chewed out?" " That's some strong language you employed there?"
Takumi got pensive for no more than a second. The moment he spoke after that second had passed, he said, " I'm just meeting my parents to discuss some important business. What could go wrong?"
When Luna mentioned the failed blind date as the primary reason for things going haywire, Takumi retorted, " My mother may sound harsh and all, but I'm sure that when I tell her what truly happened that day, she'll show her understanding, and won't blame me for the way I handled things on my end."
This was what Takumi honestly thought would happen until a few moments later when he met with his parents at their house to settle things.
" What was that I heard?" " How could you blow up this blind date opportunity I got for you?"
' I guess Luna wasn't all that wrong to be worried after all. Mother is furious. How exactly do I calm her down?'
Glancing toward his father for some help, the latter turned his gaze away. With that action, the son understood he was all alone in the battle that was about to ensue.
" Answer me, Takumi!" " Why did you do that?"
' I guess my honesty will have to do the trick here.'
" I thought you already knew everything that had happened at the restaurant, but with the look of things, it would look like they left out some facts from you, am I wrong?" Takumi answered the question hypothetically which rendered his mother even more unpleasant.
" Why are you answering my question with another question?"
" That's not what I'm doing." He uttered, " I am being quite honest here and answering your question to boost."
" You asked me to attend a blind date and I did. I obeyed you and attended the blind date, but how is it any of my fault that things turned out the way they did?"
" How is it your fault, you say?" " Are you seriously asking that right now?"
Retorting confidently, Takumi uttered, " Yes, Mom, I'm asking you." " On my end, I did things perfectly, so I don't understand why anyone would blame me for the failure."
Calming down temporarily to match her son's confidence, Takumi's mother uttered to the latter, " Let me tell you what exactly you did wrong!"
—
" Before calling you here, the Matrimony Agency contacted me and told me something that I couldn't believe."
—
" According to them, you're married with a child and you lied about being single. Your father and I appeared as deceivers and liars." Stating calmly yet again, she continued, " Now, tell me, my honorable son, do you think this is a small matter?"
—
" I don't know how you were informed, but I never told anyone I was married, let alone Ms. Sainz. As for the fact that I have a daughter, it's not as if that's wrong. I do have a daughter, don't I?"
—
" Before you ask me anything, Luna was with me on the blind date. As for the reason why I brought her along, that was because I wanted to be honest with my date. I didn't want her to later tell me that I was being dishonest by hiding things about my life from her."
" Unfortunately, Ms. Sainz didn't appreciate my honesty and dedication. She couldn't understand my noble terms, so we had to end things on a bad note." At this point, Takumi was fake crying and as he continued, he said, " Believe me when I say that I tried everything humanly possible to make her understand that being a single dad wasn't a crime, but she lashed out at me."
After explaining his side of the story, the mother uttered, " Takumi, my dear son, if I didn't know you better, I'd think that you deliberately plotted this, but I'm wrong in my assumption, aren't I?"
Takumi, who was sweating a bit at this time, uttered in response, " Of course you're wrong, Mother! How could I have planned this?"
" Of course, you didn't plan any of this!" " I truly must be wrong, right?"
" Right!"
At Takumi's house, Luna and Haruki were in Takumi's room and they were both wondering how things were going at the family house.
" Dad hasn't called yet, I'm worried." Luna expressed her worry for her father which Haruki found touching.
" My brother will be just fine, don't worry! I bet by now he's about done and will be returning home soon."
While Luna was conversing with her uncle, she couldn't help but notice that the latter was rummaging through things in his brother's chamber and thought of questioning him about it.
" What are you doing, Uncle Haruki?"
" I'm searching for something." He retorted as he kept on searching without stopping.
Landing on the thing he was looking for, he opened a box, and inside was a stack of notebooks. Stating proudly before his niece, he uttered, " I found what I was looking for."
Taking out the notebooks from inside the box, he brought them to the bed. Glancing at the notebooks on the bed, Luna couldn't help but ask, " Why are there so many notebooks? Do the notebooks belong to my father?"
" Yes, they indeed belong to your father." He nodded as he answered his niece's question.
His niece's second question was, " Why were you looking for these notebooks?"
Instead of answering this second question, Haruki stated hypothetically to his niece, " Why don't you open one of those notebooks and see for yourself?"
Glancing at the pile of notebooks on the bed once more, Luna grabbed one of them and opened it. The moment she opened the notebook, she landed upon short stories one after the other.
While reading the short stories written inside the notebook she was now holding in her hands, she couldn't help but smile as she was enjoying herself while discovering a side of her father she didn't know.
" All these piles of notebooks have stories written inside by my big brother." Haruki stated to Luna, ending up with her asking the following question to him, " Does that mean my daddy writes stories? Is he a writer?"
Nodding to express his response, Haruki responded, " Unfortunately not!" The stories collected inside those notebooks have never left their domain. In other words, they have never been published anywhere."
" As to why that never occurred, you'd want to ask my brother that question yourself."
—
Not saying any more than necessary, Luna returned to the short story of her father she was reading and thought as she had reached the end of the first book, ' Why didn't daddy publish these stories? They are so good, so why? What could be the reason?"
Takumi, who was done with his parents, was heading home. While driving, he passed by his school and stopped the car.
He didn't head inside and simply admired the view from the outside. At that time, one of his teachers stumbled upon him as he was about to return to his car and drive away from the school.
Reflexively, the teacher called out Takumi's name. " Takumi Hasegawa, is that you?"
Hearing the voice, Takumi recognized whom the voice he heard belonged to. As he turned around, his gaze met Ms. Sakurai Sakuragi, his homeroom teacher at the time.
" Professor Sakuragi?"
" So, it is you, Takumi." The homeroom teacher uttered while chuckling at the same time. " It has been so long. How have you been, Takumi?"
Responding, Takumi said, " I've been well, Professor. What about you, Professor? How have you been faring?"
" I've been faring well too, thanks for asking."
Sakurai Sakuragi couldn't help but notice that her former student was tense and asked the latter, " If you have nothing on right now, why don't we head inside so we can talk?"
" Sorry, Professor, but I can't today, maybe some other time."
As he gripped his car door, the homeroom teacher uttered along the lines, " This won't take long, I promise, so won't you accompany me?"
As she was insisting so much, Takumi didn't see how to decline her and gave in to her insistence.
Following his former professor inside the school he once attended during his school days, memories started resurfacing as he ventured deep inside.