On the same day as her meeting with Zaboru, Sayuri Yamaguchi returned home slightly earlier than usual.
It was already around 20:00 when she left ZAGE Tower. For most workers, that would still be considered late, but for Sayuri, it was almost early. Normally, she stayed until around 21:00 or even later, especially when Zaboru began throwing around ideas that could shake an entire industry before dinner. Her apartment was located quite close to ZAGE Tower, only around fifteen minutes away by taxi, though sometimes she preferred to drive herself.
Before returning home, Sayuri stopped by ZAGE Tavern, the popular restaurant beside ZAGE Tower that had become almost legendary among employees. It was technically open to the public, but everyone knew it had a special relationship with ZAGE. The menu was filled with strange, nostalgic, and heavily branded food that somehow became hits anyway.
Today, Sayuri bought several boxes of the infamous Z-Donuts and Mario Fried Chicken for her children.
Mario Fried Chicken was usually sold out by lunchtime because employees, students, and tourists fought for it almost every day. However, for executives like Sayuri, ZAGE Tavern always made sure to keep some stock aside. Sayuri did not abuse that privilege often, but today she felt her children deserved something nice.
When she arrived home, the familiar sound of game music greeted her before her children did.
In the living room, her son Shinjiro and daughter Sakura Yamaguchi were sitting in front of the television. Shinjiro was holding a ZEPS 3 controller, his face completely focused, while Sakura sat beside him, watching intensely and occasionally yelling advice even though she was not the one playing.
Both of them were already in middle school.
Both of them were also hopeless ZAGE fans.
Sayuri took off her shoes and smiled warmly.
"Jiro, Sakura," she called. "Have you two eaten yet? I brought Z-Donuts and Mario Fried Chicken."
The reaction was immediate.
Shinjiro paused his game so fast that it almost looked like a reflex trained by hunger itself.
"Seriously!?"
Sakura turned around with shining eyes. "Mom, you got Mario Fried Chicken? But isn't it always sold out?"
Sayuri lifted the bags slightly. "Your mother has connections."
Shinjiro grinned. "That's so unfair, but I love it."
Sakura ran toward her and took one of the bags carefully. "Thank you, Mom!"
Sayuri chuckled as she entered the living room. For a moment, the heavy calculations from the office disappeared. The spreadsheets, acquisition risks, investment debates, and Zaboru's outrageous ideas all faded into the background. Here, she was not the woman who controlled and protected ZAGE's financial discipline. She was simply a mother watching her children fight over which piece of chicken looked bigger.
Shinjiro opened one box and immediately inhaled the smell.
After making sure her children had eaten properly, Sayuri spent some time with them. She asked about school, checked their homework, listened to Sakura complain about one of her teachers, and watched Shinjiro proudly explain the boss fight he had almost cleared before she came home. She smiled, nodded, and responded as best as she could, though part of her mind was still trapped inside ZAGE Tower.
Her husband had not returned yet.
Shinsuke Yamaguchi was in Kyoto for ZAGE business today. According to his message, he would come home late, possibly close to midnight. That was normal for them. Both of them were high-ranking people inside ZAGE, and their marriage had long since adapted to strange schedules, sudden trips, and conversations that could switch from children's lunchboxes to billion-yen business decisions in less than a minute.
By the time the children went to their rooms, the apartment became quiet.
Sayuri washed her hands, changed into more comfortable clothes, and sat at the dining table. She opened her laptop almost automatically, but for several minutes, she did not type anything.
She only stared at the screen.
The folder title was simple.
NBA Acquisition Consideration.
Sayuri exhaled slowly.
"Boss…" she muttered, rubbing her temple. "You really never let me rest."
At around 23:30, the front door finally opened.
Shinsuke Yamaguchi entered the apartment carrying his work bag, his tie loosened slightly, his expression tired but still composed. He was a man used to pressure, but unlike Zaboru's explosive genius or Sayuri's cold precision, Shinsuke had a warmer presence. He was sharp, experienced, and trusted deeply within ZAGE, but he carried himself with a human softness that made people around him relax.
Sayuri stood up and walked toward him.
"Welcome home, Shin-chan."
"I'm home," Shinsuke said with a tired smile.
Sayuri took his bag from him naturally. "Kyoto?"
"Productive," he said. "Annoying, but productive."
"That means normal."
"Unfortunately."
Sayuri smiled faintly and helped him put his things away. She noticed the fatigue in his shoulders, the slight stiffness in his movements, and the way he rolled his neck after taking off his jacket. He noticed her face too.
Husband and wife did not need long explanations for certain things.
Shinsuke looked at her, then at the open laptop on the dining table.
He chuckled softly.
"That is the sigh of a problem."
Sayuri glanced at him. "I haven't sighed yet."
"You sighed with your whole face."
Sayuri stared at him for a second, then let out the sigh she had been holding.
Shinsuke laughed quietly. "There it is."
Sayuri sat back down at the table, and Shinsuke sat across from her. The apartment lights were dim now. The children were already in their rooms. Outside the window, Tokyo's night glowed with distant traffic and office lights, including the unmistakable silhouette of ZAGE Tower in the distance.
Shinsuke looked at her laptop again.
"Let me guess," he said. "Our boss made another ridiculous investment plan."
Sayuri closed her eyes briefly. "Yes."
"Game studio?"
"No."
"Movie company?"
"No."
"Car manufacturer?"
"Not today."
"Space?"
Sayuri opened her eyes and gave him a flat look.
Shinsuke raised both hands. "I'm only checking the scale."
Sayuri sighed again. "NBA team."
Shinsuke blinked.
Then he slowly leaned back.
"Ah."
Sayuri nodded. "Yes. Ah."
For a moment, Shinsuke said nothing.
Then he asked, "Why?"
"Because he met a talented Japanese high school basketball player today."
Shinsuke stared at her.
Sayuri continued calmly, "Apparently, the boy is around 188 centimeters, extremely athletic, raw, loud, terrible at fundamentals, but gifted enough to make Boss start thinking about Japan's basketball future, international development routes, scouting systems, training camps, and eventually NBA access."
Shinsuke slowly covered his mouth with one hand.
Sayuri narrowed her eyes. "Do not laugh."
"I'm not laughing."
"You are absolutely laughing."
"I am admiring the speed of his thought process."
"You are laughing."
Shinsuke finally chuckled. "A little."
Sayuri leaned back and rubbed her forehead.
"He wanted to buy the Chicago Bulls."
Shinsuke's smile became wider. "Of course he did."
Sayuri stared at him. "You are not surprised?"
"Sayuri-chan," Shinsuke said gently, "if Zaboru sees one basketball genius and immediately wants to buy an NBA team, his heart will naturally jump to the most romantic option. And right now, in his mind, that means Michael Jordan and the Bulls."
Sayuri sighed. "I hate that you understand him so well."
"We have known him for too long."
"That is exactly why I am tired."
Shinsuke smiled and leaned his elbow on the table. "So what did you do?"
"I told him no."
"Immediately?"
"Immediately."
Shinsuke laughed softly. "Brave woman."
"He needed to hear it before his imagination built a full ten-year dynasty."
Shinsuke's expression became more thoughtful. "How did he react?"
Sayuri looked down at the laptop.
"He insisted."
The atmosphere changed slightly.
Shinsuke's smile faded.
"Insisted?" he asked quietly. "In what way?"
Sayuri understood the meaning behind his question immediately.
Both of them had been with Zaboru since they were young. They had watched him rise from an impossible teenager into one of the most powerful men in Japan's entertainment and technology world. They respected him deeply. They loved him in their own way. They owed him much. But because they knew him well, they also feared something.
Power changed people.
Even good people.
Especially good people who believed they were doing something for the future.
Shinsuke's voice became lower. "Did he pressure you?"
Sayuri shook her head. "No. Not like that."
"Did he pull rank?"
"No."
"Did he make it sound like your opinion did not matter?"
"No," Sayuri said firmly. "He listened. He argued, but he listened."
Shinsuke relaxed slightly, though not completely.
Sayuri continued, "He gave reasons. Emotional reasons, yes, but not foolish ones. He believes Japan may have more basketball talents hidden across the country. He wants to create a path for them. He wants ZAGE Foundation to expand Pro sports development. He wants a bridge between Japan and the NBA."
Shinsuke was quiet.
Sayuri looked at him seriously. "Honestly, Shin-chan, if anyone else said it, I would call it fantasy."
"But because it is Zaboru…"
"It becomes dangerous," Sayuri said.
Shinsuke nodded slowly. "Because his fantasies keep becoming infrastructure."
Sayuri's eyes softened slightly.
That was exactly the problem.
Zaboru's ideas were ridiculous until they worked. ZEPS itself had sounded ridiculous. ZAGE Stores had sounded too ambitious. ZAGE Forum had sounded unnecessary to many executives. Inter Milan had sounded like a waste of money to Sayuri at first. Even Zaboru's insistence on connecting games, anime, music, merchandise, sports, and community into one ecosystem had sounded too broad, too arrogant, too much.
And yet…
It worked.
Sayuri looked toward the window.
"When he bought Inter Milan, I thought it was reckless," she admitted. "A Japanese game company buying a football club in Italy? It sounded like vanity. I thought it would drain attention and capital. I thought the returns would be slow, maybe nonexistent."
Shinsuke nodded. "Most of us thought that."
"But now look at it," Sayuri continued. "Inter is stronger. Merchandise is selling. ZAGE football games benefit from the connection. European brand recognition improved. Cross-promotion works. The club itself is becoming an asset, not a burden."
She let out a quiet laugh, almost bitter.
"Even when Boss is reckless, sometimes reality bends in his favor."
Shinsuke smiled faintly. "That is not entirely luck."
"I know."
Sayuri looked down at the folder again.
"That is what scares me."
Shinsuke's expression became calm.
Sayuri continued, "If he were simply foolish, my job would be easy. I could stop him. If he were greedy, I could warn him. If he were arrogant, I could confront him. But Boss is not simple. He sees patterns. He sees markets before they mature. He understands culture before other people even realize culture can be monetized."
She paused.
"And because he is right so often, saying no to him becomes harder every year."
Shinsuke did not answer immediately.
He understood.
That was the burden of working under someone like Zaboru. Trusting him too little could make ZAGE miss history. Trusting him too much could let him drag the company into danger.
Shinsuke folded his hands on the table.
"So you redirected him."
Sayuri nodded. "I told him not to buy the Bulls."
"And?"
"I suggested the Los Angeles Clippers."
Shinsuke's eyebrows rose.
Then he smiled slowly.
"That is very you."
Sayuri glanced at him. "What does that mean?"
"You took his dream, removed the nostalgia, cut the price, improved the location, reduced the public pressure, and turned it into a strategic asset."
Sayuri shrugged. "That is my job."
"That is your art."
Sayuri looked at him, slightly embarrassed.
Shinsuke continued, "The Bulls are a crown. Beautiful, heavy, expensive, and impossible to touch quietly. The Clippers are empty land. Low prestige, lower cost, lower expectation, and located exactly where ZAGE already has entertainment leverage."
Sayuri's eyes sharpened slightly. "That is almost exactly what I told him."
"Then I married the right woman."
Sayuri's expression remained calm, but the corner of her mouth lifted faintly.
"Flattery will not reduce your workload."
"I was not trying to reduce it."
"Good. Because I need you to go to America."
Shinsuke froze.
Sayuri smiled politely.
Shinsuke stared at her.
"Sayuri-chan."
"Yes?"
"I just returned from Kyoto."
"I know."
"I have China and Brazil work coming."
"I know."
"And now you want me to investigate the Clippers?"
"Discreetly."
Shinsuke leaned back and laughed quietly. "You are frightening."
Sayuri opened another document on her laptop. "We cannot move through official channels yet. If news leaks that ZAGE is interested in buying an NBA team, the price will rise before we even begin. Worse, the media may connect it to Boss personally and turn it into another Zaboru spectacle."
Shinsuke nodded, becoming serious again.
"Who do you want involved?"
"Small circle only," Sayuri said. "You, me, perhaps Ryan Miller or James Yoel from Emerald Wings if we need American sports-business context. But not too many people. Not yet."
Shinsuke rubbed his chin. "Ryan is useful. James knows Los Angeles better. But if we involve them, we need a cover reason."
"Entertainment partnership research," Sayuri said immediately. "Sports content, basketball-themed game licensing, youth camp sponsorship. All reasonable for ZAGE's American expansion."
Shinsuke smiled faintly. "You already prepared the cover."
"Of course."
"You decided this before asking me."
Then his expression softened.
"You are worried."
Sayuri's fingers stopped moving on the keyboard.
For a few seconds, she said nothing.
Then she closed the laptop halfway.
"Yes," she admitted.
Shinsuke waited.
Sayuri looked toward the hallway where their children's rooms were.
"I am worried about ZAGE," she said quietly. "More than I show at work."
Shinsuke's face became gentle.
Sayuri continued, "To employees, I am supposed to be calm. To department heads, I am supposed to be rational. To Boss, I am supposed to be the person who can say no when everyone else is too excited or too afraid."
She looked back at Shinsuke.
"But sometimes, Shin-chan, I wonder how long that can continue."
Shinsuke did not interrupt.
Sayuri's voice remained controlled, but there was a tired honesty inside it now.
"ZAGE is growing too fast. Every year, the scale changes. Games, consoles, anime, publishing, sports, hardware, internet services, overseas stores, music, films, now maybe basketball. Boss can mentally carry that scale because his mind is abnormal. But organizations are not built only from his mind. They are built from people, systems, money, time, and attention."
She paused.
"If he keeps expanding, one day the structure may not catch up."
Shinsuke looked down.
That fear was not unfounded.
ZAGE was powerful, but power created complexity. The more ZAGE expanded, the more it depended on executives like them to prevent chaos from hiding beneath success. A company could look invincible from the outside while rotting internally from overextension.
Shinsuke spoke softly. "You think he may go too far."
"I think he is already always near the edge," Sayuri said. "The difference is that until now, he keeps landing safely."
Shinsuke gave a small, sad smile. "That sounds like him."
Sayuri's expression became heavier.
"What I fear most is not failure," she said. "Failure can be repaired. Money can be recovered. Projects can be cancelled. What I fear is the day Boss starts believing that because he has survived every impossible jump, he can no longer fall."
Shinsuke became silent.
That sentence remained between them.
Both of them could picture it.
Zaboru, still smiling, still brilliant, still loved, still generous—but slowly beginning to trust only his own instinct. Slowly believing opposition was fear. Slowly turning every warning into something to overcome instead of something to respect.
Sayuri whispered, "I do not want him to become that kind of man."
Shinsuke reached across the table and gently placed his hand over hers.
"He has not become that."
"I know."
"And the fact that he came to you instead of secretly buying the Bulls means he still respects the brakes."
Sayuri looked at him.
Shinsuke smiled softly. "You are one of those brakes."
Sayuri lowered her eyes. "That is an exhausting job."
"I know."
"You are another one."
"I know."
Shinsuke squeezed her hand gently.
"That is why we have to stay," he said. "Not because Zaboru is dangerous now, but because someone like him needs people who remember who he was before the world started calling him a genius."
Sayuri listened quietly.
Shinsuke continued, "People outside ZAGE see the billionaire, the founder, the miracle boy, the man who changed games and entertainment. But we remember the teenager who worked until his eyes turned red because he wanted employees to believe the company would survive. We remember the boy who looked nervous when payroll became tight. We remember the young boss who thanked people too much because he was afraid they would leave."
Sayuri's expression softened painfully.
Shinsuke's voice became warmer.
"That boy is still inside him."
Sayuri nodded slowly. "I know."
"But so is the man who can buy football clubs, shake industries, and terrify big comanies," Shinsuke added. "Both are real. Our job is not to deny either side. Our job is to keep them balanced."
Sayuri let out a quiet breath.
"Balanced…"
"Yes," Shinsuke said. "If he becomes too cautious, ZAGE loses what makes it ZAGE. If he becomes too reckless, ZAGE loses the foundation that lets it dream. We need both. His madness and your calculation."
Sayuri looked at him with a faint smile. "And your diplomacy?"
Shinsuke chuckled. "Someone has to translate both of you into language normal executives can survive."
Sayuri finally laughed softly.
The heaviness in the room lightened, but it did not disappear completely. It simply became something shared between them.
After a moment, Sayuri reopened the laptop.
Sayuri explained the preliminary plan. Shinsuke would not immediately make an official purchase offer. First, he would gather information: ownership willingness, internal franchise health, debt structure, arena situation, legal obstacles, NBA approval process, estimated valuation, public relations risk, and possible local partners in Los Angeles. Ryan Miller or James Yoel could be used for market intelligence, but only under a broad entertainment-sports partnership cover.
The two continued discussing until the night grew deeper. It was no longer only a husband and wife conversation. It was two of ZAGE's highest-ranking minds quietly protecting the company while the rest of the city slept. There was no dramatic boardroom, no applause, no stage, no cameras. Only documents, tired eyes, and the quiet burden of loyalty.
Finally, Shinsuke closed the folder and leaned back.
"I will see if I can adjust my schedule," he said. "Not this week. I still have China matters, and Brazil may need my attention. But after that, I can go to the United States under the sports-content partnership cover."
Sayuri nodded. "Thank you."
Shinsuke smiled. "For ZAGE?"
Sayuri looked at him.
"For ZAGE," she said.
Then, after a small pause, she added, "And for Boss."
Shinsuke's expression softened again.
"Yes," he said. "For Boss too."
Sayuri closed her laptop at last.
For tonight, that was enough.
The acquisition was not decided. The risk was not gone. Zaboru's ambition was still growing somewhere beyond their control. But at least, for now, the dream had been redirected into something more stable. Something that might become dangerous, but not destructive.
As they prepared to rest, Sayuri glanced once more toward the distant glow of ZAGE Tower outside the window.
The tower looked beautiful at night.
Almost untouchable.
But Sayuri knew better than anyone that even the strongest towers needed people quietly checking the foundation.
Meanwhile, Zaboru was still working late inside that same tower, preparing for the upcoming AKAI new phone showcase.
To be continued.
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