An Unexpected Visit

"What do you mean you're resigning?" Said the man wearing a dark brown vest with a black polo and had long dark hair slicked back.

"Oh, you've heard already?" Professor Kira casually said as he arranged his possessions inside a black box.

"I just don't understand. What brought this about? Is it about money? Are the students being difficult? I can make arrangements with their parents, they're indebted to us so just say the word."

"Ozwell, I've worked here for almost 10 years now. I've seen friends come and go, talented students break out of their shells then continue to flourish in the community. I think it's time for me to move on as well." He said as he walked towards the door.

"Kira… So be it, there doesn't seem to be anything I can say to convince you to stay." Department head Ozwell frustratingly said.

"Thank you for understanding, old friend."

"Oh, one thing. I hope our business within campus stays confidential. We don't want any 'unnecessary' attention drawn to us, can I trust you with that, old friend?"

The professor stopped midway through the door. Fazed by the directness of Ozwell, sweat began to roll down his forehead.

"Of course." He glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

An uncomfortable silence set upon the room.

"That's good! Just what I hoped from a professional like yourself. I'll probably have a hard time getting a replacement on such short notice but I'll figure it out. Just remember, what you're holding there is a double-edged sword."

Kira exited the building and entered the parking lot just outside. He opened the trunk of his car and placed the box inside. As he closed the trunk he spotted Ozwell looking down at him from the window of his office. They both waved at each other as the former professor entered his car and drove away.

"I want to trust you old friend, but I just want to make sure."

Ozwell swiped through his long list of contacts and rang up a number from them.

"Yes, Charles. I need you to look into Professor Kira a short bit. Just what he's been doing and where he's been for the past few days. People he talked to, that sort of information." He said with a hint of frustration in his voice.

He walked beside a table and spotted a campus newspaper on top. He looked in the drawers and found more newspapers, all having headlines about scandals and other similar information he knew about before they were made public.

"The paper club seems like a good place to start."

~~~

Street sweepers were working right outside Mei's house. Mei was woken up by their ruckus outside and wanted to shout at them for seeming like they haven't cleaned anything before in their entire life. But decided against it as her messy hair and clothes at the time may make her seem like the grumpy old witch of the neighborhood. She gathered her house clothes from a drawer and proceeded to her shower in the hallway.

"No hot water? That's strange."

She took her clothes off and entered the shower. Mei thought of her schedule for the day. She planned to visit Ms. Aikawa first then head to the paper club building and talk to Sydney and Rikki about finalizing her story.

Before finishing, she heard footsteps from the hallway outside. She wrapped herself in a towel, took a can of bug repellant from her mirror cabinet, and approached her door slowly. The sound of the shower clouded her movements. She positioned herself beside the door and listened closely to the footsteps until they stopped on the other side. When she felt them reach for the doorknob, she rushed out of the door and slammed them into the wall opposite the bathroom.

"Don't even think about moving, pervert!" She shouted as she pointed the bug spray at the man on the floor.

"Wait, what's that smell?" Mei sniffed the air around her.

"It smells like breakfast. Wait a minute…" She looked back at the man who had covered his face to avoid the bug spray.

"ISAAC?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" She shouted as he got back up his feet.

"I was just… Making breakfast then I heard footsteps from up here and well…" He looked around and gestured at their situation.

Mei realized that she had nothing but a towel on. Her face grew bright red as she zoomed back into the bathroom. She then accidentally dropped the bug spray can on Isaac's head who had just started to regain his bearings.

Half an hour later, Mei came down to the kitchen and found Isaac setting up the table. He had a pink apron on with the clothes he wore yesterday. Mei spots the table filled with delicious colorful food that couldn't have come from her refrigerator.

"Did you steal all these from the neighbors?"

"There's a convenience store around the corner, I'm surprised you never knew about—"

Isaac turned to see Mei who had all her hair down. Some covered portions of her face and she wore an oversized maroon shirt with jean shorts. Isaac looked away in fear of being called a pervert again.

"So when did you learn to cook?" Mei sat down on the table and filled her plate with one of every dish.

"I've been living alone for a while and instant noodles were getting kind of old. Youtube tutorials also help a lot."

"Yoo shood becoom a chef!" Mei said with her mouth still full of food.

Isaac handed her a cup of coffee. He hung the apron over the oven holder and sat down to eat with Mei.

"Sooooooo about last night. Did we…" Mei trailed off.

"Hm? Did we what?"

"Oh! Ah! Nothing!" Mei went back to eating her food. A few seconds later Isaac realized what she was about to ask.

"Oh! No! We didn't do anything! Nothing at all!"

They fumbled to come up with another topic to divert from the awkward situation. Both receded to their meals.

"Hey Mei, did you catch anything I said last night? About Aaron?"

"Oh, yes I did. But I understand if you don't want to talk about it." Mei said, almost jumping from her seat.

"No, it's okay. It happened a long time ago. You knew him so it's only right that you'd know too." Isaac said.

Isaac began to tell Mei everything about his brother while leaving out the details of his illness. He started playing with the rice grains on his plate as he told Mei the story, his eyes fixated on the plate.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know how much you've been through. I even got angry at you the other night. Geez, I'm such a loser.."

"Hey, that's not true! I've read every single one of your stories and each one seemed like it was written by a masterclass journalist! And it doesn't matter how angry at me you get, you'll always be special to me."

His face changed as he realized what he said. He looked up with Mei and prepared himself to be laughed at.

"Is that so? You promise, right?" Mei asked.

"Y-Yeah," Isaac said, stunned by Mei's cuteness.

"Oh, I just remembered! I need to get home and… And… CONCEPTUALIZE!"

"O-Okay, what about your food?"

Isaac started to consume the food on his platter and clean every dirty dish before Mei could get another word in. He fixed the table and both walked into the living room.

*RING* *RING*

"Are you expecting anybody?" Isaac asked.

"It must be Sydney. I asked her if she could drive me to the hospital so we could go to campus together."

Mei walked towards the door. She fixed herself using the mirror hung beside the entrance and opened it.

"Hey Syd, you're kind of early—"

She stopped mid-sentence. Who she thought was Sydney was actually a middle-aged man wearing a brown cotton sweater. Mei eyed the man from top to bottom, her eyes twitching from the sudden burst of anxiety.

"D-Dad?"

"Hi, honey. How have you been?"