Checking Out at 5:15 PM Chapter 37: The Devil's Business Advice (Patreon)

“.....................”

I didn’t say anything to answer her demanding, pouty question, and neither did Aoi have time to press me. The waitress arrived at our table, setting down our beverage order.

“One Dolce white wine, one limoncello, and one Calpis soda.”

“Thank you.”

I gave a polite, gentle smile to the waitress. She instantly mirrored my smile, her eyes lingering on mine just a fraction of a second too long. But before she could say anything else, Aoi violently leaned forward, her sharp bob cutting off the waitress's line of sight entirely.

“Thank you~!” Aoi said, her tone aggressively cheerful but her eyes utterly freezing.

“A-Ah, yes, excuse me.”

The waitress quickly bowed her head and practically scurried away to the kitchen.

“The same as ever, huh?”

I met Aoi’s stern, judging glare calmly. I picked up my tall glass of Calpis soda and took a slow sip. I hadn't just ordered the strong Italian limoncello; I had also ordered this mocktail. The crisp, bubbly combination of tangy Calpis and sharp ginger ale instantly washed over my tongue, the sugar and carbonation acting like a quick sprint of energy to sharpen my tired brain.

I set the glass down. “You’re just as popular. Look at those guys two tables over who keep glancing at you.”

“Right?”

Hearing my words, Aoi’s stern expression instantly vanished, replaced by an incredibly smug grin. She reached up with the back of her manicured hand, using a fluid, sweeping motion to toss her hair away from her face. It was a sassy, wildly confident, flirtatious gesture straight out of a Hollywood movie.

Yeah. She really is beautiful.

There was absolutely no doubt about it. I just sighed at how effortlessly confident she was. Then again, watching her toss her hair made me realize the devastating charm of her new bob haircut all over again. It was chic and modern, but more importantly, it exposed the elegant, pale curve of her swan-like nape. If she ever tied that short hair into a messy half-ponytail, it would have an absolutely calamitous effect on my heart.

Honestly, Aoi wasn’t genuinely angry about the waitress anyway. She knew exactly how popular her ex-boyfriend was; it wasn't the first time she had witnessed women throwing themselves at me. What she hated was the fact that she could no longer aggressively stake her claim. Because we had broken up, she had no legal or romantic right to pull me close and loudly declare that I was hers. She was forced to just sit there and glare.

“Let me take a sip of that.”

Without waiting for my permission, Aoi reached across the table, took my tall glass, and took a massive sip of my Calpis and ginger ale.

I watched her in silence. The casual intimacy of the action woke me up from the nostalgic, unrealistic expectations bubbling in my mind. Just like my desire for a peaceful, slow life completely clashed with her desperate wish for the glamorous Tokyo elite, we were like fire and water.

Could they ever coexist? No. Either the fire violently boils the water away, or the water suffocates and erases the fire.

Pushing the melancholic thought down, I reached for my short glass of limoncello. As the intensely sweet, tangy, ice-cold Italian lemon liqueur hit my tongue, the sharp bite of alcohol instantly made my body feel light and relaxed.

“Yeah, that’s delicious,” I murmured.

“Is it? Let me take a sip of that one, too.”

“What about the Calpis?”

“It’s good, but I want to taste yours.”

I didn’t argue. I simply handed her the small glass. I watched closely as her tender, glossed pink lips pressed precisely against the rim where I had just drunk. The tip of her small pink tongue peeked out, lightly tasting the heavy liqueur.

Her delicate eyebrows furrowed instantly. The intense, acidic sourness of the lemon was a bit too sharp for her at first. But as the sweet sugar kicked in, her face relaxed into a happy, satisfied smile, and she took a much larger gulp.

“If you finish mine, I’m ordering another one,” I warned dryly.

“Go right ahead! Order whatever you want. It’s entirely my treat!”

Aoi waved her hand generously. We were sitting in a Saizeriya—a notoriously cheap, Italian-style family restaurant chain. Even if her civil-servant ex-boyfriend actively tried to bankrupt her by ordering everything on the menu, it was impossible. Unless I asked her to casually buy corporate shares in the restaurant franchise, her wallet was perfectly safe.

“I’ll take your wine, then,” I said, reaching across the table.

“Wait! Let me drink it first!”

Aoi quickly snatched up her stemmed glass of Dolce white wine. She swirled the pale liquid lightly, closed her eyes, and took a deep, theatrical sniff of the bouquet like an elegant, high-society noble lady before finally taking a delicate sip.

“Yup, absolutely delish~!”

It was a fruity, bubbly, and light wine—a perfect, unpretentious companion for a cheap dinner.

“...................”

There were so many things I wanted to point out. If we were sitting in a high-end, Michelin-starred French restaurant in Ginza, her dramatic wine-tasting act would have fit perfectly. But we were currently sitting in a noisy family diner surrounded by screaming toddlers eating cheap pizza. Her aristocratic act was incredibly bizarre. Yet, because she was so breathtakingly gorgeous, the ridiculous contrast somehow just worked.

Still, as I watched the elegant, smooth line of her throat move as she swallowed the wine, that heavy, complicated throb of desire hit my chest again.

“Here, try it.”

“Thanks.”

I took the stemmed glass from her hand. Mimicking her exact, theatrical movements just to mock her, I swirled the wine, sniffed it deeply, and took a sip. My exaggerated performance, combined with my sharp, professional attire, instantly drew the lingering, curious gazes of several young mothers and exhausted office ladies trying to enjoy their cheap wine in peace.

“Ahem!”

Aoi aggressively leaned across the table, physically blocking their line of sight again. She quickly shifted the conversation back to business before she lost her temper.

“So, what do you think?” she asked, pulling out a small notepad. “Where are the institutions in this city that have the largest discretionary budgets to spend on bulk book orders?”

“...................”

I set the wine glass down. “Are you sure you want to target Kamakura? If you focus on Tokyo, you’ll have access to infinitely more clients and massive corporate budgets. Even Yokohama is closer and wealthier.”

“Tokyo and Yokohama are fine, but I have a million ruthless competitors in those cities,” Aoi explained, her eyes sharpening into a predatory, corporate glare. “This place is completely different. Kamakura is a sleepy, traditional town where everyone just happily accepts the status quo. If I target this area, I can easily become a massive shark swimming among small fishes!”

Aoi clenched her manicured hand into a tight fist, physically demonstrating exactly how she planned to brutally crush her local sales competitors.

She was smart. Tokyo was an ocean filled with corporate leviathans. But Kamakura? It was her ex-boyfriend’s quiet territory. Aoi knew that instead of fighting for scraps in the ocean, it was more profitable to be the undisputed apex predator in a small pond.

I just stared at her in silence. I knew this fierce, cutthroat ambition was exactly why she thrived in the brutal Tokyo publishing industry. It was also the reason I had always known, deep down, that she would be perfectly fine without me. When we broke up, I had genuinely believed she would just conquer her industry and forget about me entirely.

Yet, here we are, sitting in a Saizeriya together. I wondered exactly what kind of sick joke God was playing by throwing us back together.

Still, I didn't deny her logic. “If I’m being honest, you’ve probably already built a target list before you even got on the train, right?”

Aoi was meticulous. She would never take a train all the way down here without a fully formulated battle plan to make the trip profitable.

“I do have a list,” Aoi admitted, tapping her pen. “But I want your insider opinion.”

“Just in case, who have you already targeted?”

“The elite private schools, the aesthetic book-cafes near the shrines, the independent bookstores, and a few local museums.”

“Hmm...”

It was a highly orthodox, solid strategy. The private schools were a goldmine. Prestigious academies demanded high tuition, but at their core, they were still ruthless businesses. The easiest way for a school to generate massive, recurring revenue was by forcing incoming students to buy heavily marked-up, mandatory reading materials and textbooks every single year.

“What about the Hometown Tax market?” I asked casually.

“The Hometown Tax?”

Aoi looked completely dumbfounded. She clearly hadn't considered it.

I leaned forward slightly, resting my elbows on the table. “Furusato Nozei. The Hometown Tax. It’s essentially a fully legalized tax hack. Instead of paying all your resident taxes to your local city hall—like Tokyo—you 'donate' that money to smaller, rural municipalities across Japan. It costs a flat, non-deductible fee of 2,000 yen to participate.”

“Right, the gift program,” Aoi nodded, catching on.

“Exactly. The towns send you premium local goods as a thank-you, legally capped at 30% of your donation value. The following year, the government gives you a massive tax write-off. People usually donate to receive high-grade Wagyu beef, fresh Hokkaido crab, premium rice, or craft sake. But... there is absolutely no law saying the 'thank-you gift' can't be a premium, limited-edition book collection, right?”

I offered Aoi a slow, knowing smile.

Her eyes widened drastically as the sheer, untapped profit potential of my suggestion hit her brain. If she could successfully negotiate a deal to supply premium book bundles to the Kamakura municipality to use as Hometown Tax gifts, the volume of sales would be astronomical. It was essentially guaranteed government money.

“And,” I leaned even closer, dropping my voice into a conspiratorial whisper directly over the table, “if you start working closely with those municipal offices, you’ll inevitably get close to the local politicians. That opens up a very lucrative, completely legal gray area.”

Aoi visibly shuddered, leaning in to listen.

“Politicians frequently write and publish books to launder their campaign funds,” I whispered smoothly. “Their political supporters buy the books in massive, bulk orders to fund the politician without it legally counting as a direct campaign donation or corruption. If you become the preferred PR rep and publisher handling those deals... the money will flow into your hands like an unstoppable waterfall.”

“Stop! Stop! Stop whispering to me, you absolute devil!”

Aoi violently slapped her hands over her ears, her face flushing bright red at the terrifying, intoxicating business strategy I had just casually handed her.

I just let out a soft sigh, picked up her glass of Dolce wine, and took a long sip, thinking that even when she had become a ruthless shark PR in the cutthroat industry of publishing, the way she was terrified by municipal tax fraud was still undeniably adorable.