Adam was already sitting inside the cafe when the usual time arrived.
His face was still hidden under the old-man disguise.
At first, he had considered meeting Kenji in his real appearance. That thought had lasted only a short while.
'If I go to him as my real self, my chances of convincing him drop too much.' Adam thought.
A young expelled student with no visible backing would not look like an opportunity. He would look like noise.
So Adam kept the older face.
Later, if Kenji truly joined him, he would reveal who he was.
Not everything.
Never everything.
But enough.
Adam adjusted one paper edge with his thumb and checked the message written at the end again.
That final note was his fallback.
If this conversation failed, the document still had to speak for him.
The cafe door opened.
Kenji entered at the same time as before, took his usual seat, and opened a book like the rest of the room did not matter.
Adam watched him for one second, drew a slow breath, picked up the file, and stood.
Then he walked over and sat in the chair across from Kenji.
Kenji did not even raise his eyes.
In a low voice, still reading, he said, "I'm not interested. Sell your goods somewhere else."
Adam went still.
That was not the opening he had expected.
The moment stretched just long enough to become awkward.
Then Adam coughed once into his fist.
Kenji's eyes finally lifted.
He blinked, and a clear trace of surprise crossed his face when he saw an old man in expensive clothes sitting across from him.
He closed the book at once.
"I'm sorry," Kenji said, his tone turning polite but cautious. "Do you need something from me?"
Adam exhaled and pushed the file forward.
"Kenji Yutamora," he said, "I have watched your skills and your capability very closely. I need talent like yours for my-"
Kenji lifted a hand immediately.
His eyebrows pulled together.
"I'm sorry," he said again, more confused now, "but I don't recognize you. Have we met before? Do you know me?"
Adam had prepared many possible lines, but not this exact resistance.
Still, he kept his voice thin and steady.
"You may not know me," Adam said, "but I know you. Though we have never met."
The effect was instant.
Kenji's face tightened.
Adam could almost see the conclusion forming in his head.
A rich stranger.
Detailed knowledge.
No prior meeting.
Of course Kenji would suspect that someone had investigated him without permission.
For a man who had survived by guarding his dignity through hard years, that kind of intrusion would feel insulting.
A second later, Kenji stood up from his chair.
Disappointment and irritation were both clear in his eyes.
"That is not a good thing, mister," Kenji said. "Having people investigated, digging into their private details like that, I don't like it."
Then he turned to leave.
Adam's chest tightened.
This was the worst outcome.
If Kenji walked out now, forcing more words on him would only make things worse.
So Adam used the one line he had saved for a failure like this.
"Kenji," he said, raising his voice just enough to stop him, "I once read that the difference between a successful person and a lazy person is only one thin line."
Kenji halted.
Slowly, he looked back.
Adam rose from his seat, placed the file on the table, and slid it toward him.
"Both dream," Adam said. "But a lazy person only keeps looking at that dream and does nothing for it. A successful person burns day and night to reach it. I brought you that opportunity. If my way offended you, then forgive me."
He did not wait for a reply.
He turned and walked out of the cafe.
'If I say more now, he may reject me completely.' Adam thought.
That quote had not been random.
In Kenji's autobiography, those words had appeared around the time he received his first real opportunity from a steel company owner, after almost refusing it.
Adam had borrowed that memory on purpose.
Now he could only hope it had reached the right place.
Inside the cafe, Kenji remained standing for a moment after Adam left.
Then he looked down at the file.
After a short pause, he picked it up and sat again.
'What he said was... heavy.' Kenji thought.
He opened the first page.
Then the second.
Then the third.
At first, his eyes moved with ordinary caution.
Soon, that caution changed into focus.
Then focus changed into shock.
The more he read, the wider his eyes became.
This was not some shallow rich man's fantasy.
The structure was strange, ambitious, and almost impossible, but the logic inside it was disturbingly solid.
His fingers tightened around the file as each page made one thing clearer. This was a chance.
Kenji turned another page faster than before.
Then another.
All at once, he stood up, grabbed the file, and rushed out of the cafe.
He looked left.
Then right.
He searched the sidewalk, the passing crowd, the street edge, but the old man was gone.
Kenji clicked his tongue under his breath.
"I need to find him."
He opened the file again while standing there and flipped through the pages in a hurry.
At the very end, he found a handwritten message.
If you like this plan, come to this same cafe at this same time tomorrow. If you don't, then don't come. I will understand your answer.
Kenji stared at that line.
Then he let out a long breath and looked in the direction the old man had disappeared.
'Has my time finally come? Are my days of struggle about to end?' Kenji thought.
A smile slowly formed on his face.
"He brought me something almost impossible," Kenji murmured, remembering that stern old face, "but reading it... I'm excited."
For the first time in a long while, a business idea had made his blood move.