"Aki-san, we need to talk about this," the first man said, putting down the new edition of The Vellé magazine. Aki just stared at it with his arms crossed his chest.

"What's with this?" he said, absolutely with no tone in his voice.

"Do you know, that because of your wife's plagiarism issue, we had lost our clients?! It had affected our company negatively! The stocks are decreasing too!"

"Sorry," Aki spoke; annoyance could be heard in his voice.

"A sorry won't settle all this, will it? Aki-san, there's only a way," the second man sitting next to the first spoke. "Divorce her."

Aki looked up at the second, with no expression at all. "Divorce her!" the third one continued. "We need to eliminate the harmful elements that would affect Shiki negatively!"

Aki looked down at the magazine again and deeply sighed. "That's not a bad idea though," he spoke, nonchalantly.

Without him knowing, Harumi was placing her ear against the closed door of the Fuyu Room. And she had heard everything, clearly. "Aki-nii?" she whispered against the door, trying to not let Aki noticed her eavesdropping.

"Okay," Aki suddenly said as he cleared his throat. Not knowing what was going on in that room, Harumi made her way back to her room, unknowingly feeling disappointed.

She slammed the door behind her, right before her phone rang. Having a bad feeling as she saw the name on the screen, she hesitantly answered the call. "Hello Julie. What? R-Resigning? Oh, okay."

The call ended abruptly as Harumi threw her phone on her bed. She sat down next to where her phone was and leaned back against the headboard, just before someone opened her door. "Aki-nii?"

She slid her legs down the bedside as Aki walked towards her. "Yeah, I'm ready to leave the mansion-"

"No, you're not," Aki instantly cut her mumbling off. She looked up at him, and saw his confused face. "No one is going to leave. Were you eavesdropping?"

Instantly, she looked down at the marble floor, clasping her hands together. "I-I'm sorry..."

"Until which?"

"When you said 'okay' after they suggest..."

"Next time, if you want to eavesdrop, make it to the end," Aki sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. He sat down on her sofa as he continued. "I had chose you over them. Like I want to let you go in a year, you fool."

"Oh... right," Harumi replied as she remembered something. "The will..."

"Not just that. I don't want to let go of your talent."

Harumi swiftly looked up from the floor to meet Aki's serious face. "What?!"

"Your talent... can doubles my company's stocks."

"So what? I'm the duck that lays golden eggs?"

"It's hen. Hen that lays golden eggs."

"Whatever," she finally said, before slumping herself down at her bed. "Now, please leave me alone. I need to think of any ways to solve my own problem."

"Like I've told you before, I'll help you too-"

"It's my problem, not yours," Harumi quickly cut him off as she pulled her blanket over herself. From under the cover, she could hear Aki sighed and mumbled something, before she realized that the elder had left the room after switching off the light.

~~~~~

"Harumi-san!" One of the workers called Harumi as she made her way towards her room. Her breath quickened as she tried to get to her room as fast as she could. "Three clients had cancelled their last month's booked orders!"

"What?!" she startled as she snatched the file from her worker's hand and started to tremble as she read them.

"Harumi-san!" Another few resignation letters were handed to Harumi by Miyuki as she reached her door.

"No..." Harumi looked down at the letters in her hands, and she could feel her head became heavier.

"It's from the fabrication department. They said that they didn't want to let their hands to touch your fake designs anymore-"

"No! I won't accept this!!!" Harumi finally shrieked, tears began to leave her eyes as she entered her room and slammed the door behind her.

"Harumi-san!" Miyuki called out repeatedly. Harumi slid down against her door, sobbing heavily. She closed her teary eyes, trying to calm herself down, when she realized everything around her had went pitch black.

~~~~~

"Uh..."

"Harumi-chan." A familiar call to her name had woken her up. Slowly opening her eyes a bit, she saw someone was sitting on the edge of the bed beside her.

"Mamoru-kun?" she softly called out as her vision getting clearer. And as it did, her arms automatically flew around the butler's neck. "Mamoru-kun! You're here!"

"Yes, I'm here by your side," Mamoru whispered against her head, kissing it lightly. They had stayed like that for a while, until Harumi had got herself together.

"Why am I home?" she began to ask as she pulled away from him. Letting out a sigh, Mamoru caressed her hair softly as he spoke.

"You've fainted."

"I've what? Fainted?"

"Yeah. You've fainted in your office. That's why I came."

"But... you were at your hometown-"

"I've seen it," Mamoru said, trying to lessen her worry. "I've seen the news. That's why I'm home. To give you support."

Harumi suddenly bowed her head down, apologizing to him. "Oh, I'm so sorry for making you came-"

"It's okay. You're never a burden to me, remember that?" Mamoru said, smiling at her as he pushed back her hair behind her ear. "How are you feeling now?"

"I... don't know. It's..."

"Harumi," suddenly a stern voice interrupted her. Both of them turned to the direction of the voice, and saw Aki walking towards them.

"Aki-nii?" Harumi was puzzled with his sudden action, but then she felt fear had overwhelmed her as she met Aki's cold gaze.

"It was your own fault, don't you think?"