In A Lifetime ( KBTBB : Eisuke Ichinomiya )

Chapter 18

Wooooo, we're nearing the end of the main story (season 1) now, guise c:

Enjoy!

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The next morning, Grace enters the hospital while checking the news on her phone. Nikaido Holdings' bankruptcy and fraudulent business practices is the top story everywhere. Mr Nikaido had really cooked the books to inflate his profits and now he was being thoroughly investigated for violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law. Grace had little meaning for those words but it sounded fairly serious.

However, the Ichinomiya Group wasn't mentioned anywhere, at all. She guessed that Mr Kishi had used his police connections to keep Eisuke's name away from the press. Whatever the case, it seemed like the incident was being treated as corrupt business practice.

"What's wrong?" asked a familiar sounding voice. When Grace looked in it's direction, she saw Aya leaning over the reception desk, staring at her with concern. "You look so serious. Did you get some bad news or something?"

"No, everything's fine, Aya. I was just looking at the news."

The receptionist nods reluctantly and Grace turns away from her when Aya calls out to her once again. "Grace, wait! ... Are you really alright?"

Grace immediately knows that she's talking about what happened between her and Eisuke the other day. Touched by her thoughtfulness, Grace smiles and nods. "It's really nice of you to be worrying about me, but I promise you; I'm fine. So please don't worry any longer."

However, she hadn't seen Eisuke just yet since, yesterday, when she'd arrived to the penthouse with the rest of the guys, he hadn't been there ... She'd just have to go to the hotel after work and talk to him. Keeping that thought in mind, she heads towards the intern on-call room to accept her rotation.

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Grace only knew too well how different her and Eisuke's realities' were. She had caught glimpse of his dazzling world when she'd been pretending to be his girlfriend and as much of a nightmare it had been back then, it had also felt like a dream. Even so, she still loved the man ...

"Good morning, Grace." greets Ichiro, appearing out of one of the private rooms.

"Oh, good morning, Ichiro." she smiles, despite feeling terrible around having to reject him. Before she told Eisuke how she felt, she also needed to give Ichiro an answer; she'd been keeping him hanging for too long as it already was. "Ichiro, do you think we could talk after work today?"

"Sure. How about outside of the boardwalk?"

"Sound good. I'm really sorry about disturbing you. I know you must be busy."

"Don't be ridiculous. I always have time for you, Grace."

Part of the sane Grace couldn't believe she was saying no to such a sweet guy when she compared that to how mean Eisuke was to her. She very much doubted that it would change even if they were dating, but for some reason, she didn't even care.

You shouldn't be so nice to someone who was going to say no to you, Ichiro ...

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She was nervous. Standing at the boardwalk later that night while waiting for Ichiro to turn up was far more daunting than she had ever thought it would be. The sun had already set but hardly any of the stars could be seen due to the thousands of city lights which effectively blocked out their light. Grace looked down at the water below her, reflecting the night skyline. It did calm her to a certain extent but not enough to reduce any of the abuse she was absentmindedly inflicting on the piece of paper in her hands.