"What exactly do you mean by that?"
Hidemura's voice was steady. He set down his knife and fork, picked up the glass filled with fragrant wine, and swirled it lightly.
"It is only hearsay, but I believe it may be useful to you, Mr. Kurosaki."
Satoru did not reach for his own glass. He only smiled.
"A businessman does not believe in windfalls."
"A friend of mine would like to observe the servers, but to do that, she needs a certain amount of equipment and preparation. Once that is in place, she can investigate ALO's true nature."
"So you are not completely certain yet?"
"Yes. At present, it is only speculation. Of course, if we make a mistake, then we will bear the consequences ourselves."
Satoru laughed and brushed it aside.
Hidemura looked at him, then at Saki, whose face was still full of confusion, and sighed inwardly.
"As it happens, this is precisely my field. I can help."
Satoru finally seemed to relax. He nodded and said, quite sincerely, "Thank you."
Hidemura smiled and raised his glass toward him.
Satoru picked up his own glass in response.
The two glasses touched softly.
It was as if a deal had been reached.
"Suzuki-kun, eat a little more."
"Of course."
The dinner that followed was unexpectedly peaceful.
They moved on to other topics. Hidemura and Satoru spoke back and forth with a rhythm that felt far more natural than it had at the beginning.
In Saki's eyes, the two of them now looked like a lead actor and his supporting partner, both understanding each other's cues and both intent on bringing the meal to a smooth close.
She wanted to ask. One of them was her father, and the other was someone she had known for a long time. She should have been able to ask.
Yet each time she tried, the two seemed to sense her mood in advance and cut her off with another question, leaving her no room to speak.
The dinner ended more than an hour later, with Hidemura and Satoru laughing together.
At the entryway, Hidemura even reminded him, "Be careful on your way back. You had some wine."
His tone was warm and familiar, almost like a relative seeing someone off.
Only after the door closed did the smile on Hidemura's face gradually disappear.
He returned to the dining table in thought, opened another bottle of wine, and poured himself a glass.
Saki sat across from him. Her appetite was completely gone.
"Do you not understand what just happened?"
"Mm."
Saki nodded honestly.
"I am a businessman. I thought I had finally escaped negotiations for the day, only to find myself negotiating another deal at home."
"A deal?"
Saki was even more confused.
"That young man made it very clear from the beginning. He knows that VRMMOs have compressed the market for traditional console hardware. In other words, he knows where my interests lie."
"So he brought me a piece of news. ALO may become the second SAO. He also claimed that he could provide proof. At the same time, he asked for my help."
"He laid out both the result and the process plainly. In some ways, he was far more direct than the people in finance who come asking for money with a thick stack of data."
Saki was a little flustered by the explanation.
"And he did not stop there. He added two ingredients to the dish."
Hidemura lifted one finger.
"First, he framed this as his own unilateral attempt. If something goes wrong, he will not expose me or drag me into it. I only need to sit back and reap the benefits. If ALO's negative news is confirmed, then I can strike at the right moment. If nothing comes of it, then I will merely have lent him some equipment."
He lifted a second finger.
"Second, you."
"Me?"
"Business includes relationship-building. You are an SAO survivor, and so is he. The incident itself began with certain SAO players failing to wake. In this matter, you are naturally connected to him."
"At first, I could see that he intended to use old memories, then let you persuade me. But halfway through, he stopped. Perhaps he felt guilty."
Hidemura looked at the closed door and shook his head with a smile.
"So that kid came all this way only for this. I was nervous for an entire day for nothing."
Saki lowered her gaze, her mood sinking.
Hidemura looked at her.
"Are you upset? Do you feel as if he treated you like a stepping stone?"
"No."
Saki immediately denied it, but after a pause, she added in a low voice, "I just feel a little annoyed."
"Then should we refuse him?"
Saki froze.
Hidemura took a sip of wine and said casually, "He is only a lone kid with no backing. No matter how well organized his words sounded, they may still be empty talk. It is also possible that his true goal is only to trick some equipment out of me."
"No way."
Saki instinctively refuted him, her voice very soft.
"Even if he had sunk that low, he would not be that bored. What idiot scams people just for equipment? When he was playing around with graft two years ago, his methods were much more sophisticated than this."
"Ah..."
Hidemura sighed, his face full of knowing sadness.
"My daughter is already siding with outsiders. I finally understand how your grandfather saw me back then. His manners were excellent. At least he did not grab the kitchen knife."
"What are you talking about?"
The young girl was about to bristle.
"Agreeing to this is fine. In the end, I lose nothing. If he succeeds, I gain something."
Hidemura's tone turned more serious.
"What I dislike is that he tried to use you to reach me. But at the very end, he chose to handle it as a business matter instead of dragging you in and making you plead for him. In that sense, he still has a sense of responsibility."
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Even so, this is still unfair to you. From what you said, your relationship with him should be fairly good. But now, in order to achieve his goal, he is ready to give you up."
"Since he knows what I do, the smartest choice would have been to use you properly. After all, I said I would thank him for taking care of you. If he had been clever, he could have kept being your friend, called me uncle, and built the relationship slowly. He seems to be having a difficult time now."
"Before today, I wondered if he would be humble, polite, nervous, or cautious. I wondered whether, because life had become difficult, he might ask me for help."
"But he chose to play this card instead."
"It was clever, yes. But did he never consider that I might be angry because he used you, ignore his request entirely, and even force you to cut ties with him?"
"Since he could openly say that my business is in trouble, that means he now has a 'business' of his own. His drive and courage are not bad. He is not incapable of thinking through the risks either."
"In other words, even if he loses you, this young lady friend of his, he still wants my help for the sake of his goal."
Hidemura rubbed his forehead.
"That kid is ruthless. He can ignore my cute, lively, clever daughter just like that."
"Of course, he may simply be too rash. In everything he does, he thinks of the worst outcome first. He is still too young."
Saki's hands were clasped together. The expression on her face was complicated.
"No..."
"He is very good at finding bargains."
"There must be something worth risking everything for."
...
Satoru did not take the subway. He walked home instead.
Seven or eight in the evening was not too late. The streets were full of young people who had finished dinner and were probably heading to their next round of entertainment.
He silently held a cigarette between his lips and walked through the lively crowd, surrounded by dazzling neon and bright streetlights.
The moment he received Argo's call, once the scattered pieces of information he had seen before began to connect, this idea had burst into his mind.
He had no other way to obtain the equipment and tools Rinko needed.
Strictly speaking, he was the one losing out in this deal.
A pile of machines was nothing to Mr. Kurosaki. If first-hand intelligence on ALO fell into his hands, then as the leader of a major corporation, he would be able to draw out the greatest possible value from it.
Of course, if there were no benefits at all, a businessman like him would never seriously consider the ramblings of a nobody like Satoru.
Thanks to Argo, however, he would have to think about it.
Satoru exhaled a mouthful of smoke. He looked at the hazy, brilliantly lit street in silence for a while, then walked on.
...
"Seriously. In the end, he got drunk all by himself."
Saki complained as she used all her strength to drag her already-unconscious father into her bedroom.
She threw him onto the bed and left him sprawled there like a twisted octopus, his sleeping posture ugly beyond belief, his snores rising one after another.
Saki ignored the drunken nonsense he kept mumbling, such as "Daughter, come sleep with Daddy for the first time in ages," and returned to the dining room to clean the table and floor.
The cleaning company came once a week, but daily tidying still had to be done.
While she was using a flat mop on the smooth floor, she suddenly noticed a small black thread clinging to it.
"Hair...?"
Saki bent down and picked it up with her fingertips.
It looked a little like a strand of hair, but its texture and rough surface were clearly different. It was closer to a piece of low-quality black cotton thread.
After staring at it for a few seconds, Saki tossed the black strand into the trash can.
Then she no longer paid any attention to how it drifted lightly through the air.
So she also did not notice it.
The dry, crumpled strand, after slowly "falling" into the trash can, quietly snapped into several brittle pieces.