47 Finding a CEO (1/2)

Kazuya spent the next few days until his launch in blissful happiness.

He followed his usual routine of gym, college, MMA, and hunting for a suitable person to manage the company's intricacies.

The one thing that changed was that he didn't let Chizuru free from his clutches for a single night after that Sunday when she slept at her place.

After he was done CEO hunting, he'd go over to Chizuru's place, make dinner with her and then kidnap her to his place, ignoring her protests.

They'd then spent the next few hours in bliss before sleeping.

Although neither of them was getting more sleep than usual, both of them were glowing.

Especially Chizuru, who seemed to be getting some compliments even in her nerdy getup.

Something that Kazuya was immensely proud of was that she didn't seem to be actively hiding the hickeys that he gave her.

If someone asked she'd say that it was a rash, but it was clear to anyone that they were hickeys.

He was sure that he noticed her smiling more than she used to.

He'd finally decided to talk to his grandma and told her that he'd be meeting her this Saturday and bringing Chizuru. He thought that he might as well make them happy and tell them that he was with her.

It was Thursday.

Kazuya woke up with his arms wrapped around Chizuru's lovely frame, as usual.

'This is the life…'

When she stirred awake, Kazuya turned her around and got on top of her.

"Morning, babe."

"No, more… I'm tired and sore. Use your hand or something, please." Even in her sleep, she could tell that he was about to have their usual morning sex.

She'd been tired out more than usual the previous night since Kazuya was a bit more rough than usual.

"Well, there is something else that you could do…" Kazuya kissed her on her lips and she opened her eyes and asked him inquisitively.

"What?"

"It's better that I show you." Kazuya sat up and leaned on the back of the bed. There was no headboard so he leaned on the wall.

…

Kazuya spent about thirty minutes with her where she gave him an amazing blowjob after which he pampered her as usual for the rest of the morning before they'd leave for college.

Today was the day that his alpha build training and testing part of the algorithm would be finished.

He wasn't going to college today so Chizuru had to go there herself.

Kazuya did his usual gym before going to the company to conclude the project and pay them the rest of the money.

By 2 in the afternoon he was done. He'd tested the usage of the AI and although still not perfect, it was enough to release it for the beta build. He was going to launch the beta build on Sunday and had to find his CEO

before that since he'd get way too busy with everything if the beta launched before finding someone else to manage things.

'I've already shortlisted a few candidates. Hopefully, the ones that I'm meeting today would be enough.'

He'd scheduled meetings with three people today.

The first was Yukino Haruno. She was someone who was supposed to inherit her family's business but refused and cut off her ties for some reason. That's what he could find out about her from his research. She had a solid resume with enough training to manage a large company and enough personality to manage a large number of people, at least according to her, Kazuya would be the judge of that. Her only problem was that she was too young, 22 years to be precise. This was the main reason that she was unemployed. She was very suitable for Kazuya since his age was going to be an issue for him too. No older and more experienced CEO would be willing to bet on him.

The second person was someone that he was especially interested in. Kaguya Shinomiya. She used to be the heir to one of Japan's most influential families but a few years ago, her family got into a major dispute with another ancient family for some unknown reason. The war behind the scenes lasted for almost 3 years and ended in catastrophic mutual destruction. Kazuya had found a large number of news articles about small and large disputes between the companies.

The conflict had brought the entire underground network of Japan into turmoil. Soon spilling into the political landscape. The Fujiwara clan, which had deep political roots was also uprooted and on its last legs after the conflict. The aftermath of the conflict had destabilized the entire economy of the country for years and it had still not recovered completely. It was two years ago that it was finally concluded. This was one of the biggest reasons that Kazuya was more inclined to start a business here.

No matter how hungry the rest of the vultures were for the leftovers of those destroyed behemoths, they weren't able to take it all under them, leaving an economic vacuum that Kazuya was planning to take advantage of to establish himself in Japan as an influential businessman without any family background.

Kaguya's situation wasn't very clear during the time of the conflict and it was speculated that she dropped out of school in her final year and went abroad to study further. When she came back after graduating from college, most of her family's higher up's were either dead or in hiding. Her being the last public living heir of the family.

'Damn, this sounds like something right out of some movie. The mighty fallen heroine makes her big comeback. Poor girl probably went through so much hardship…'

She's someone that most people won't touch with a ten-foot pole. Afraid of having to face some kind of late revenge against her by the remnants of the Shijo family even though it was destroyed. Her resume though was phenomenal. She'd had extensive leadership training as the daughter of the previous leader of the family. Even though she was fourth in line for the inheritance, she was trained to perfection from an early age. Her qualifications were also top-notch. She'd graduated early from Harward Business School with distinction at the age of 21 and come back to the country only a few months ago.

'Honestly, if she hadn't come back to the country… I'm sure she could've already set her life up as someone huge. I'm curious about her reasons for not starting her own thing. I understand that Japanese investors wouldn't be helping her but she's got to have some sort of capital. The Shinomiyas had an empire built on trillions of yen… Her situation seems to be very intriguing.'

The last candidate was a redheaded foreigner called Kallen Stadtfeld. She was the one with the most normal qualifications. She'd started from the bottom of the ladder. Climbing her way up to the executive position but was fired due to some internal politics within her company as far as he could find out. Her resume was solid with good qualifications.

'I have a feeling that these interviews are going to be a huge pain in the ass.'

His feeling was correct. All three interviews lasted far longer than they should've and were a bit of a pain to go through. There was too much stuff that had to be worked through.

…

The first interview was with Yukino Haruna. He was already there at the cafe waiting for her to come.

'She's 2 minutes late…' It was a tiny thing but this kind of thing could make or break an interview.

A busty lady walked into the cafe wearing professional clothes with a confident gait.

'I don't think she's going to work…' Kazuya was instantly able to judge whether she would work for him and whether it would be the right decision or not. He'd worked with a huge number of people in his previous life and while he wasn't that experienced, he was a good judge of people's professional characters.

Although that was his initial thought, he didn't let it get in the way of the interview. He was all for her surprising him and allowing him to not have to deal with the two other interviews.

"Hello, Kinoshita-san." She greeted him professionally and Kazuya got up from the chair to shake her hand.

"How are you miss Yukino? Please take a seat."

…

The interview lasted an hour with her asking him more questions than him. Normally he wouldn't have minded but she didn't seem professional enough for his taste.

Nor did she seem particularly invested in his product or the company. He'd be dammed if he handed his company to someone who didn't even have any motivation to bring it to the top.

His next interview was with Kallen Stadtfeld. It went similarly to the first but had far different implications.

She was too ambitious and not in a good way. Her first demand was a stake in the company shares. And while he was planning to give a stake to the CEO, he wasn't planning to give as much as she asked.

The fact that she'd asked for a stake upfront was the dealbreaker for him. It was clear that she was almost perfect for the job but her final action made him change his mind.

'Hahh….' After two tiring interviews with genius people, he was tired.

'God, geniuses think that they're at the center of the world. It's a pain to deal with. Then again, I'm no different… Deflecting both of those girls' sensitive questions about my personal information and the information about the application's back end was another annoying thing to deal with. I doubt the next one will pan out either. I'll have to do the hiring round on Saturday after this…' Kazuya was a little exhausted after two exhausting interviews back to back.

After about 30 minutes it was time for him to meet his third and final candidate for the day— Shinomiya Kaguya.

(A/N: There are a whole lot of conflicted feelings involved here for me. Kaguya-sama was a story that hit me very hard, especially its end. I don't think that I'll be doing any justice to the original by revamping her story, but I'm going to try anyway.

I hope that I can write her character well enough to do some sort of justice to the original. I've already revamped the backstory pretty majorly. Where's Miyuki? What happened that caused her to leave Japan? These questions will be answered as the story goes on. Try not to be too impatient. I've decided to do some world-building for the power sphere of the country so let's see how that works.

Your suggestions are welcome.)

***

Do I deserve stones? Maybe... That's for you to decide.