“Pardon my intrusion.” It was a girl’s voice, clear as a bell. “You all must be absolutely exhausted from such a long meeting. One of our regulars brought us a gift, so how about taking a short break and helping yourself to one?”
A high school–age girl walked in, her long, shiny black tresses cascading down her back. She was wearing a school uniform and held a tray of food in her delicate hands.
“Naomi!” Tanizaki lifted his head in surprise. “I thought you already went home.”
“I was waiting for you so we could go home together.”
Naomi gently smiled. Underneath one of her eyes was a beauty mark that gave her an alluring appeal beyond her years. Naomi Tanizaki, Junichiro Tanizaki’s younger sister, worked at the agency’s office when she wasn’t at school. With a practiced hand, she placed a cup of green tea and a meat bun on the conference desk for each person there. Steam rose from the buns along with a delicious aroma; they must have been fresh out of the oven. She walked by her brother and leaned in so closely that he could feel her breath.
“My dearest brother,” she said, a touch of heat in her long exhale, “you’re looking ever so handsome, as usual.”
Naomi stroked the back of his neck with her fingertips. Everyone in the room pretended not to notice. Apparently, these two were blood-related siblings; Tanizaki had admitted as much before, and Naomi had made it no secret, either. Nevertheless, they looked nothing alike. Compared with Tanizaki, who had timid yet honest eyes and a smile always lacking self-confidence, Naomi had a certain sexiness that defied her young age. She had voluptuous lips and lashes so long you might expect
to hear them when she blinked. Her eyes were large, like bottomless pits that would absorb any young man naive enough to peer into them, trapping them in a world of fantasy as all the blood rushed to a certain part of his body.
To make matters worse, she always tried to have some sort of physical contact with her brother, regardless of location or who was around. She would touch his ear during conversation, rub his thigh during work, and blow into his ear whenever he wasn’t paying attention. Tanizaki would start acting self-conscious every time, and his eyes would wander, but Naomi even seemed to enjoy her brother’s reactions.
“Oh, Big Brother, you have a piece of lint on your chest. Let me get that for you.”
Naomi softly traced Tanizaki’s collarbone with her fingernail. Of course, there wasn’t a speck of lint on his body. Tanizaki turned red and blinked uncomfortably. Everyone awkwardly looked away.
“Are you two actually related, though? How can two siblings live alone together and act like this?”
That was the question not a single person in the agency was brave enough to ask. Everyone firmly believed something was up, but they could never pry for fear that their hunch was right.
“Hey, Big Brother… I brought what you asked. It’s in my bag. Tonight, we could use it to—”
“Huh? O-oh yeah. Thanks.”
And that was exactly why no one could ask them what they were talking about, despite wondering about the meaning behind Naomi’s suggestive whispers and the fact that Tanizaki was looking at everything but her.
“These meat buns are amazing!”
Kenji, who was seated at the foot of the table, was the only one munching happily away at the meat buns Naomi brought. Appetite outweighed sex appeal as far as he was concerned.
“Hey, Naomi, how about helping us out a little while you’re here?” Dazai suggested brightly. “We’re brainstorming ideas for the rookie’s entrance exam.”
“Oh, that sounds wonderful!” She placed the tray under her arm, then beamed rapturously. “Although I wonder if I could even come up with anything useful…”
“We’re still in the early stages. Spitballing. Anything will do,” Dazai assured her. “It can be something you’re good at or familiar with, if you want.”
“…!”
Kunikida shot Dazai a look pleading with him to shut up.
“Hmm… Let me think…”
Naomi tilted her head to the side while she pondered. A few moments went by before she blushed and offered three proposals.
Unfortunately, none of what she said could be written here.
The room was silent as everyone ate their meat buns. At this rate, the trial meeting was never going to end. Everyone started to come to the faint realization that conferences and debates just weren’t their strong suits. They needed to find some common ground.
Written in black on the conference room whiteboard were eight ideas: “Handle a case,” “Solve an in-house issue,” “Hideyoshi Toyotomi,” “Tear off eight fingers,” “Hazing,” “Crush Dazai,” “****ing,” and “These meat buns are delicious.”
Tanizaki’s internal battery was starting to die. While somewhat obvious that this would prove to be a tricky meeting, no one was expecting that agreeing on a single idea would be such a great challenge, nor did they anticipate the process of finding common ground to be so mundane. Building a sandcastle would have been a more constructive use of their time.
Tanizaki and Kunikida exchanged looks. They predicted this would happen. Their meeting earlier at the café was actually to plan for a situation like this. A meeting-response meeting. They considered what to do when meetings like this were going nowhere, and they specifically made sure to keep it a secret from Dazai. Kunikida seized this opportunity to speak up just as he’d planned earlier at the café.