CHAPTER 433: CHAPTER 332: BETTER A SHORT PAIN THAN A LONG ONE

Minamoto Tamako had made up her mind, and Fushimi Roku couldn’t stop her. He could only retreat to his room, smoking next to the air purifier—he even had to cough loudly when lighting a cigarette to avoid being heard by Minamoto Tamako.

Taira Sakurako had a two-day weekend, and since guests were over at her house earlier, she hid in a cardboard box to read manga. Once the guests left, she returned to the living room to continue gaming.

Minamoto Tamako leaned over the coffee table, focused on writing a reward advertisement, and even though the game’s noise was loud, she wasn’t distracted one bit. In no time, she had finished writing the ad copy.

She slipped the letter paper into an envelope, stuck out her little tongue to lick the envelope’s edge, sealed it, affixed a stamp, placed it aside, and continued writing the invitation letter.

Minamoto Tamako planned to handwrite each letter to every detective as a gesture of sincerity. Naturally, different detectives would have different invitation phrases, similar to writing a primary school essay, writing a letter to a friend from afar—staying on topic, observing etiquette, catering to their preferences... In short, it was very troublesome.

But then Minamoto Tamako worried that different content in the invitation letters might create misunderstandings. For instance, if one famous detective felt someone else’s invitation seemed more sincere, they might think they’ve been slighted and refuse to help solve the Heavenly Punishment case. That would be a total failure.

Thinking it over, Minamoto Tamako decided to call her mom for advice from someone experienced. Her mom had previously hosted similar gatherings, inviting elites from all circles for meetings, definitely having sent invitations.

Minamoto Tamako took out a pink flip phone, used a cushion for support on the couch base, and dialed Kujo Yua.

Instead of directly saying she planned to write invitation letters herself, she said, ’I have a friend,’ who plans to invite all of Japan’s famous detectives to hold a reasoning and puzzle-solving event... Kujo Yua listened quietly before suggesting her ’friend’ should use a unified print format, and for a particularly formal event, hire a professional font designer for typesetting and printing the invitations.

Minamoto Tamako received the standard answer, thanked her, and was about to hang up when Kujo Yua suddenly changed the topic, asking about her recent situation: "How’s everything lately?"

Minamoto Tamako twirled a pen in her hand, replying instinctively: "Pretty good, life’s quite fulfilling every day..."

Kujo Yua got straight to the point: "How are things with Fushimi Roku?"

Her dad had been applying pressure on her every day recently, the reason being no more than her rash decision that undermined the arranged marriage between the Kujo and Fujiwara families. Although Director Fujiwara claimed not to mind, Kujo Mutsumi felt this matter damaged the Kujo family’s reputation and made it harder for his granddaughter to marry.

Thus, he took this opportunity to call his daughter daily, opening and closing discussions about marriage. Kujo Yua, troubled by this, intended to pass the pressure along, making Minamoto Tamako face the pressure to hurry into marriage too.

"Ah, uh, just, just like that..."

Minamoto Tamako thought as long as she didn’t clarify, they’d always be seen as a couple in the eyes of others.

"Did you kiss in front of Director Fujiwara?" Kujo Yua continued to ask.

Minamoto Tamako was shocked and quickly asked who mentioned this. Kujo Yua, in a neutral tone, claimed she accidentally learned about it while chatting with Director Fujiwara. Minamoto Tamako felt the pressure; the Kujo family’s upbringing was strict. She could only tell the truth: "Just, just a cheek kiss."

"Just?" Kujo Yua caught onto the key point.

"Uh, well, mom, you know..."

Minamoto Tamako nervously explained the whole pretending-to-be-a-couple situation; it was Kujo Yua’s suggestion initially, and they just went along with it—but once they’d played along, no one mentioned it again, afraid of tearing through the thin veil holding the act together.

"Oh! How did it feel to kiss?" Kujo Yua asked.

After all, between a mother and a daughter, discussing such topics is quite normal. Usually, only father-daughter or mother-son pairs experience barriers discussing relationship matters.

Minamoto Tamako truthfully shared that she felt a bit nervous at first, her heart pounding, but the excitement quickly passed, and it felt ordinary, like a cheek kiss couldn’t really convey much.

—It wasn’t as exciting as a foot massage.

Of course, Minamoto Tamako didn’t share that with Kujo Yua.

Overall, since the ’public’ pretending to be a couple, their relationship had actually stagnated.

While publicly pretending, only Director Fujiwara knew about it. As the highest officer in the Police Department, he couldn’t be a big mouth like Watanabe Shun and spread rumors. Because of this, it took Kujo Yua more than two months to find out. Director Fujiwara wasn’t intentional; it was just mentioned casually during work when discussing children’s marriage issues.

Currently, only two and a half people knew they were a couple, with Kujo Mutsumi counting as half since he had never met Fushimi Roku and didn’t fully acknowledge it verbally.

This shows how much of a failure their pretending-to-be-a-couple plan had been.

"What are your plans for the future?" Kujo Yua asked, concerned about her daughter’s future.

"I... there’s no rush..." Minamoto Tamako thought that since the Fujiwara family’s marriage was called off, why hurry into marriage?

"I’m not talking about marriage," Kujo Yua asked. "I mean about you and Fushimi Roku."

Holding the phone between her shoulder and head, Minamoto Tamako picked at her fingernails, muttering softly: "These things can’t be forced, what can I do..."

"Do you still like him?" Kujo Yua asked.

Minamoto Tamako made a vague sound that seemed like both an answer and a strange denial.

"He isn’t taking the initiative?" Kujo Yua asked.

"Mm." This time, Minamoto Tamako answered clearly.

"He hasn’t refused either?" Kujo Yua’s tone gradually sharpened.

"Yes." Minamoto Tamako nodded firmly.

Kujo Yua vaguely knew what was going on; she asked Minamoto Tamako to hand the phone to Fushimi Roku, and Minamoto Tamako complied.

Fushimi Roku was happily smoking in his room. When he heard the knock on the door, he quickly stubbed out the cigarette, fanned the air around him, and gargled with mouthwash. After about a minute, confident he was odor-free, Fushimi Roku opened the door and asked, "What’s up?"

"My mom wants to talk to you." Minamoto Tamako had a ’you’re in trouble’ look on her face.

Fushimi Roku took the phone and exchanged a couple of polite words.

Kujo Yua wasn’t in the mood for niceties. She cut straight to the point, asking Fushimi Roku what he was thinking. She had already set up the opportunity for the two of them, and Fushimi Roku could have taken advantage of it, but all he did was peck her on the cheek... She demanded a clear answer from Fushimi Roku: does he like her daughter or not?

"Tamako and I are just friends..." Fushimi Roku tried to defend himself.

Kujo Yua interrupted, "Fine, then I’ll tell her you don’t like her, that you only see her as a friend. She should give up on you soon and move on to find another boyfriend."

"..."

Hearing this, Fushimi Roku’s dislike for authority figures grew even stronger.

Helplessly, he retreated back into his room, closed the door, and pretended to confess the truth to Kujo Yua. In reality, he was making excuses for not wanting to confess: "Well, actually, I have a terminal illness, and I don’t have long to live... If it were any other way, I’d definitely take responsibility."

"That’s great news," Kujo Yua genuinely remarked.

"What?" Fushimi Roku was stunned.

"What terminal illness do you have? Is it contagious?" Kujo Yua continued.

"No..."

"Wonderful," Kujo Yua said, "Please make sure to date Tamako."

Fushimi Roku, after considering it briefly, managed to keep up with Kujo Yua’s thought process.

As his mother-in-law, Kujo Yua obviously did not favor him as a son-in-law. However, since Minamoto Tamako genuinely liked him, Kujo Yua, as her mother, couldn’t say much.

She wasn’t truly wishing for them to be together but rather planning to let her daughter ’settle for someone’ for now... If Fushimi Roku died, it would be even better—her daughter would gain experience, and it wouldn’t disrupt her daughter’s marital prospects, truly killing two birds with one stone.

"If I die, Tamako will be very heartbroken." Fushimi Roku shamelessly said.

"It’s fine; she’s had plenty of people die around her, one more won’t make a difference." Kujo Yua was optimistic, confident her daughter would pull through: "Since your time is limited, you should make sure to enjoy life while you can. Procrastinating would only waste your life."

She paused, reconfirming: "Are you really terminally ill? What disease?"

Fushimi Roku casually mentioned ALS, joking his way through it.

Actually, he had been thinking along these lines for the past couple of months, trying all sorts of ways to get Minamoto Tamako to confess her feelings, but the results were nonexistent—not even close. Minamoto Tamako didn’t even get the ’deep meaning’ behind the lipstick he gave her.

"Then have Tamako confess," Fushimi Roku shamelessly continued, "I’ll accept her."

Kujo Yua was silent; she truly didn’t expect Fushimi Roku to have the audacity to say such things. She now almost believed that this guy wasn’t lying—only someone who was about to die would dare do something like this in front of her.

"Isn’t confessing something the guy should do?" Kujo Yua replied.

"Isn’t that gender discrimination? Who says it always has to be the guy who confesses in a relationship? Can’t girls have the right to confess? It’s just too narrow-minded, too old-fashioned, too conservative..."

Fushimi Roku didn’t even finish his argument before contemptuous laughter came through the receiver.

His argumentative words halted abruptly, and he asked with a frown, "What are you laughing about?"

"Nothing, just thinking of something happy," Kujo Yua replied.

"..."

After a pause, Fushimi Roku asked, "What happy thing?"

Kujo Yua couldn’t be bothered to explain and threw out a killer move: "I recorded everything you just said. This weekend... no, it’s already Saturday today, I’ll give you a week. If you haven’t confessed to her by next Saturday, I’ll let her listen to the recording."

"You’re threatening me?" Fushimi Roku was angry.

"Mm-hmm," Kujo Yua hung up the phone.

Fushimi Roku listened to the busy tone, dazed for a moment. He realized that Kujo Yua had pushed him to the edge of a cliff, and there was no way back.

If that’s the case, better a short-term pain than a long-term one.

He had considered the possibility of being forced to confess and had already prepared a backup plan.

Fushimi Roku casually tossed the phone onto the bed, opened the door, walked into the living room, and stood in front of Minamoto Tamako. He took a deep breath and solemnly declared:

"Listen up, I have something very important to announce..."