Satsuki arrived at an austere conference room.
Just after the phone call, a car had been sent to her home to pick her up and take her to the Queen Rose office in Shibuya, the progenitor of all information on fashion. With her fine posture and stately bearing, Satsuki fit in perfectly in this designer building. Anyone would assume she was one of the many models who frequented the location.
The receptionist led her to the conference room, where she was shortly granted an audience with this magnificent edifice’s mistress.
The door opened with a clack and a “Thank you for coming.” There she stood: Oduka Mai’s birth mother. Oduka Renée. As ever, she resembled a scientist so enthralled in her research that she cared little for her own personal appearance. A girl who looked to be an assistant trailed in her wake.
“I regret that it has been so long since we last met, Obasama,” Satsuki said.
“As do I. Come, come, find a seat.”
Satsuki took a seat diagonally across from Oduka Renée’s place of honor. The girl stood against the wall, piquing Satsuki’s interest. “Who is she?” Satsuki asked.
The girl was quiet, young, and couldn’t have been out of high school yet. However, she was clearly no model. She lacked the height for it, and, most importantly, no mere model would dare to stand before the empress Renée fighting back a yawn of boredom.
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” the girl said.
Satsuki gave her a sharp glance and then merely shrugged. Something about this smelled fishy to her.
Renée threw a piece of paper down on the desk. “This is related to the matter for which I’ve brought you here today.”
Satsuki said nothing. She could make a pretty good guess what this was all about. Periodically, Oduka Renée would claim to want to talent scout Satsuki as a model, but she’d always digress and demand to hear about Mai. Given that this was the first time she’d been summoned before Renée since she started high school, Satsuki assumed this was more of the same. This was in spite of the fact that Renée should have heard all about her daughter’s personal life from reports courtesy of Hanatori. According to Renée, this was because she couldn’t afford to be boycotted again, which, to Satsuki—who’d been part of the old incident—felt like a painful old wound in the shin acting up. If Mai were to find out that Satsuki was having secret meetings to gossip about her behind her back, Satsuki was in no position to deny it. But Mai likewise also probably saw her mother at times when Satsuki wasn’t there, so Satsuki forced herself to consider them equal and feel satisfied with the deal.
However, the photograph on the paper in front of her showed the last person Satsuki expected to see: Amaori Renako.
“Who is this?” Satsuki asked.
“One of your classmates,” Renée said. “Correct?”
“Yes, she is.”
What on earth was Oduka Renée, Mai’s mother, doing with a photo of Amaori Renako? Granted, Renako certainly wasn’t the sort of person who could be said to have no relation to Mai. If anything, she was horribly involved in Mai’s business.
An unpleasant feeling that something terrible was brewing swelled up in Satsuki like a hot air balloon.
“I met her just the once at a show,” Renée said, “and she claimed to be a friend of my daughter. However, were she any ordinary friend, Hanatori would not have hired a detective to run an investigation on her.”
“Hanatori-san hired a detective?”
“Exactly.”
Wow. That couldn’t end well. Satsuki looked away. At any rate, Satsuki considered Amaori Renako a friend (and had once said as much), and it would certainly make a lot of people cry were she to be submerged in the Tokyo Bay. So Satsuki really would have liked to smooth things over somehow, but…
As if showing off the specs of a new product, Renée laid out the facts in an utterly disinterested fashion. “The detective’s report was relayed to me. I collected it before Hanatori could lay eyes on it. Therefore, she doesn’t know any of the things I’m about to tell you.”
“All right,” Satsuki said. “What is it?”
Just then, the girl who’d melted into the background interrupted. “Um, hey—I don’t really think this is a good idea. But, like, they picked me out ’cause we go to the same school, and what choice do I have when I’m an apprentice detective and the president of Queen Rose is threatening me? Anyway, those’re the results.”
So this girl was a private detective, Satsuki realized. Awfully young for a detective. Now that she mentioned it, though, Satsuki did have to admit that she seemed to have the same kind of worldliness as the ladies at her mother’s workplace.
Naturally, Hanatori must have ordered a background check on Amaori Renako because she had suspicions about Renako’s relation to her mistress. That Hanatori didn’t find out about the duplicity of their relationship was the silver lining in this whole debacle, but, as a result, Renako was put into an even worse predicament: of all people, Mai’s mother had found out.
“Did you know?” Renée asked.
Apart from Amaori Renako, the photograph also contained Oduka Mai and Sena Ajisai. The evidence was conclusive at this point.
Satsuki debated over whether or not to put herself in a great deal of danger for Amaori Renako. At last, half spurred on by a sense of duty, she said, “Excuse me, Obasama. I’m afraid she would never—”