Noguchi Minako 2

Laughing softly at her question, I answered, "You know why I'm home mother. I just wanted to discuss it with you and Father when he gets back."

She shrugged her shoulder as if she didn't know what I was talking about.

"Let's wait for him to come home then. Discuss this mysterious thing you're talking about over a warm dinner. How does that sound?" she asked, pleading with her eyes for me to stay the night.

"Sure Mother. I was planning on staying here a few days anyway," I informed her.

Her eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah. I was feeling slightly homesick," I lied. 

The truth was that I wanted to get away from the city I'd been living in a little bit.

I didn't want to admit it because it felt like my chest would tighten up to the point of suffocation if I were to admit it but subconsciously — the guilt about what had acquired earlier was eating at me.

The past victims didn't matter to me whatsoever for some reason but that's probably because it was the original Yasuo who had been the mastermind behind the crime.

But this time, it was partially his influence but it was mainly me.

I had promised myself not to be like him and yet, that promise was broken so easily as my body had moved off of instinct rather than rationality.

"That's great," Mother responded as she grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the living room. She sat down on the couch and patted the seat beside her.

I joined her and the two of us began talking.

It wasn't anything serious. We were just discussing how life has been for us (excluding the "secrets" that obviously weren't meant to be uttered out loud) such as what food we'd eaten, any good memories, or any new shows we had been watching.

It was meaningless talk but it felt nice reconnecting with my mother.

I felt slightly bad for her because I wondered that if I never took over this body, how long would this "poor" lady have to wait before her only son visited her?

While I was her son, I also wasn't.

Her son was forever gone. Or was he? I don't know the answer to that.

* * *

When Father returned home, he had a stoic face and looked like he didn't care that I was home but I could tell by the way that his moustache was twitching that he was ecstatic to see me home.

We caught up a little bit as the maids began setting up the dinner table.

Once they were done, the three of us got seated and for a few minutes, we continued to meaningless chatter before finally getting to the topic at hand.

"So, I'm assuming you're here to discuss your decision to drop out of college?" my father asked me bluntly, not hiding the fact that he already knew.

I nodded.

"Is something wrong? Are you in danger perhaps?" Mother asked.

I shook my head and once I did that, any worry that was on their faces vanished and I could tell they no longer cared what the reason I dropped out was. Whatever the reason was, they were going to accept it.

"What's the reason then? Got bored?" Father asked.

"That's not the entire reason but yeah. I guess you could say that's one of the reasons why I decided to drop out."

The real reason stemmed from the fact that I had studied my ass off my past life and didn't want to do it again in this new life where I was the heir to a conglomerate and didn't need the degree to live a life of leisure.

My parents nodded as if they understood. They even looked like they were pleasantly surprised at how long it took for me to quit.

"Then what's your plans now? Not that you need to do anything. You could just laze around and watch television with your mother all day," my mother said while laughing.

"Do you want to start preparing to take over the company?" my father asked. "I'm still pretty healthy but if you feel like you want to begin then we can start tomorrow in teaching you the ins and outs of everything you need to know."

Doting. Far too doting.

I shook my head at both of their suggestions.