Chapter 2.1: "The Futagawa family and the second encounter"

"Eh? Honki desu ka? That’s so epic Mii-chan!" My best friend’s rowdy-ish laughter saturated across the entire room for a couple of seconds right after I told her about what took place yesterday — when I accidentally stumbled upon a complex encounter with an extremely violent guy who seems to have a hatred against rich kids like me.

"Believe me Sheena, even I did not see that storm coming. It was definitely and unexpectedly humiliating, not gonna lie," I confessed as I shook my head. "But you know what, even if I still couldn't take the fact of being publicly ridiculed by that rascal, I will admit that it was my fault for playing against fire. I should have just engaged him through a normal conversation instead of childishly clashing with him which fueled up the situation in its worst scenario. It’s my mistake in the very first place so I couldn’t blame him either for getting all ballistic at me yesterday."

She sighed and gave me a forced smile. "Nande yasashii no, Mii-chan? If I were on your shoes right now, I would have certainly drag our family’s yakuza there at your school just to quickly teach that guy a lesson. I mean, he shouldn’t have done that you know. Admit it or not, he is just a mere peasant compare to you who is an elite — a highly-esteemed person from the middleclass society. Somebody must have to educate him how to respect people beyond his level," she commented while making such abstract faces. "Demo saa, is it really true that he looks like a Greek god?"

"Uh, well..." I scratched my right cheek.

"Well?" she repeated, barely squealing.

I faked a cough and gaze back at her, tittering. "Well yes, I’m a bit afraid he is. He had this foreign-ish appearance — more like a combination of British-Japanese beauty — despite of you know, being a local. At first glance, you might thought he's a famous mixed-Asian model or probably a k-pop idol because of his mezmerizing features. You won't even imagine he's a son of a commoner, especially when you see him up-close."

"Hontooo? Ah! I wanna meet him too! He must be the Ouji-sama I've been waiting for my whole life!" I rolled mine when I saw her eyes formed into a heart shape sparkling on the screen. Up until now, I still couldn’t believe how she swiftly changes her mood in just a split-second every time we disclose a topic similar to this one — for as long as the conversation is about boys with prince-like faces. "Oh, by the way Mii-chan I have good and bad news for you."

"Go on. Spill it."

"The good news is, after years of begging to my over-protective chichioya, he finally agreed to let me study there in the Philippines! Hurray!"

"Wait, your father did? Really?" She nodded while smiling widely. "That’s cool Sheena! Finally, we’ll be seeing each other more often!" I gladly commented as we both giggled in excitement. "Until when are you coming here? The first week of classes just started last week so you should catch up right away before its too late, the sooner you get here the better."

"About that..." Her smile faded. "It's the bad news unfortunately."

"What do you mean?"

She pouted like an antique doll before she draws back and rests her head to her hand on the desk. "Oto-san said he will ONLY allow me to study there once I finally graduated high school in flying colors."

"But that's still two years from now!"

"I know right? And what’s even worse is that..." her words trailed off as if she's about to say something worse.

"What? Is something wrong?"

"Onii-san," she mentioned in a dull expression. "He will be joining me there, too."

"Huh? Even A-Archer?" I stuttered and gulped, hopefully thinking that I didn't clearly heard what she just said. But then she nodded while still seriously frowning so I guess she was telling the truth. We went silent for a while after that revelation.

"Huhuhu, gomennasai Mii-chan! I know you and Onii-san are still not in good terms but Oto-san has his conditions. Anyways don’t you worry, if in case this really happened I swear to you that I won’t let him get near you again especially when we're together. Rest assured that he will not bother you anymore."

"Oh no Sheena, no need." I shook my head and wave both of my hands in front of the screen, telling her not to. "I'm alright now, so you don't have to do anything about it."

"Are you sure?" she asked before eyeing me.

"... Yes." I said in an almost inaudible voice.

I find relief after she withdraws her scrutinizing eyes upon my sweaty face. "Well, if that's what you say so. But still, that won't stop me from threatening my brother of course, just in case."

"You can freely say that after you graduate and when Sir Aster really did what you asked from him."

"Oh, I guarantee you that he will. Two years is not that long you know, and I'll always remind him about it. I'd definitely break his legs if he ever broke his promise," she assertively retorted. I smiled and face-palmed myself because of her confidence and persistence. Then, as if the tables have been turned, she began confabulating about all the recent events happening in her life detail by detail.

Needless to say but to be honest, I rarely make friends and Sheena Izumi Futagawa is the only true friend I ever have since my childhood. She's a mixed-blood — particularly German, Japanese and Filipino — and they mainly live in Hokkaido, Japan. She is a multilingual apparently, but she barely speaks in Tagalog because her accent seems to be conyo, a local term used when you both combine two or more different languages every time you speak which sometimes doesn't sound right. And even though she has this sadistic tendency with a bit of boyishness and immodesty, she is very reliable and gentle as a friend, and I always run to her in all my darkest and weakest times. She is currently studying high school in Germany with... his older brother.

We’ve met way back 12 years ago in Japan, the very first time my parents brought me there to meet the Futagawa family, one of the richest and well-known clan of upper-class elites in the entire Asian continent and is still on the row. Sheena's grandfather is Chairman Eijiro Futagawa so obviously, they are more abundant and powerful compared to us Cortez. If we are known as nobles here, then they should be classified as freaking royalties. We're barely even standing at the fingertips of their overflowing wealth and possessions.

My father works as one of the exclusive lawyers under Chairman Futagawa, who currently manages 75% of their companies in the field of global industries — which is known as the FGC International Empire. FGC is an abbreviation that stands for Futagawa Group of Companies. It is like a huge, web-like network of varied businesses ran solely by their clan way back decades ago with dozens of branches all throughout the entire planet.

Apart from fancy Japanese-themed hotels and restaurants as well as airlines, some examples of their business are the FGC statistics agency (Where my mom works as a statistician), FGC Electronics (Where Kuya Matt is one of the leading engineers), FGC Manufacturing Company (Having Kuya Terrence as the CEO of the Philippine branch), and even the well-known ARIANA Apparel in Europe (And one of their famous designers is my Ate Monice).

Sheena used to believe that when we first met, we’re already meant to be best friends not because it was ought to be but also because of our family tradition. What she was referring to was the long-running relationship between our clans — Futagawa and Cortez. In fact, the real reason behind the success of our clan is because of them. Historically, if it wasn’t because of the Futagawa family’s financial support when our clan went nearly broke during world war II, we would have never foster and become this successful in life.

Both of our clans have strong and tight bond with each other, despite of our race differences as well as the range of our power in the economy. Their level are way higher than us, and so we work under their names as a pledge of our undying gratitude towards them. Even my aunts and uncles as well as our ancestors before also work for them not only my parents or my siblings alone.

On the other hand, our ancestral bloodline from Spain (Particularly from our mother’s side, the Sorianos) don’t obey them and rather, they have been antagonizing them. This explains why some of our critics are bombarding us with their accusations that we are allegedly pulling a subtle scheme to bring down the Futagawa Empire all along, when in fact we and Sheena’s family knows it very well. Betraying them would be the last thing on Earth a Cortez would ever do, especially my family whose always been intimately loyal to them.

Many people say that what we are doing now is like an act of inferiority as a middleclass elite but for us it was a symbol of dignified honor and loyalty as a noblefolk. Every member of our family (from our dad's side) really dreamt of serving for them. My grand father even told me once that when I grew up and finished school, I will also have to work under the Futagawa clan for the continuity of our loyal service to them, and I will solely serve the next heir of the Chairman who is in his early 80s already. That is why as much as possible I am always doing my best and keep surpassing that limit as I progress so I could live up to that aspiration.

As far as I know, the Chairman only has two children and they are all male. I am referring to Sir Ariston Futagawa and Sir Aleister Futagawa. They are half-German because the chairman's late wife is a pure German descent — which actually makes sense because they had foreign names and they also have mixed-Caucasian looks. The two already married and had families on their own, and their wives also happened to be Filipinas coincidentally. The two of them are almost the same age as Papa so my siblings and I don't really have that long gap apart from their children's ages.

The eldest is Sir Ariston Futagawa, who runs the 15% of the FGC Empire international and most probably the person everyone recognizes as the perfect heir to follow the current chairman's footsteps. When based on excellency during work and even in the field of intelligence and strategies, sir Ariston always has better performance than his younger brother so it is not a question anymore why he's the most trusted one and is admired by nearly everybody. Some people even predicted that he can actually surpass Chairman Futagawa if he wanted to because he is very great at handling businesses. However, I only know a few things about him since I barely meet him, and that was only during important gatherings I guess. He also doesn't look friendly in my perspective but I think I can understand that. Half of his family are already deceased, one is his wife and the other one is his only daughter Emerald. And although he still has a son, William Futagawa has unfortunately debuted as full-fledged singer in Australia two years ago and apparently grew a cold and distant relationship with his father.

And somehow, I can really relate to how he's feeling now because my life seems to be the like that too, in every single time I am without my family. Because no matter how much money you have, that still cannot buy you anything especially love and attention from the people you value the most. That sucks, but it’s the cruel reality of being rich and alone.

Meanwhile on the flip side, Sir Aleister Futagawa is Sir Aris' exact polar opposite — as if they were that two different sides of a coin. In terms of personality, sir Aster has a warmer and more approachable behavior in contrast against Sir Aris' ice-cold attitude. He is a jokester (although his jokes are sometimes corny and green), loves to make fun of people (but has a temper tantrum whenever he's the one being targeted), extremely reckless (when he is not with his wife and father of course), and yes he is a strict father when it comes to his own children but he is very friendly and kind especially to us. Unfortunately, only a few people are rooting for him to be the heir because they can sense that the Futagawa's reputation will certainly collapse if he becomes the next chairman. After all, he is known as a ‘black sheep’ like what Papa used to tell us since when they were still studying together. He even said that if Sir Aster hadn't met his wife now, he'd probably still had no intention of taking life seriously. Him and papa are also best pals even when they were kids, and perhaps this is one of the best reasons why he is so attached to their family.

At the meantime, he had three children and they were none other than Shanaiah, Archer, and Sheena. Shanaiah or Shane nee-chan used to be one of my Kuya Matt's avid admirers whom he always drives away out of no reason at all. Sheena, obviously, is my twinny and my only friend just as what I mentioned earlier and as for Archer...

Well let’s just say that he is the second eldest among their siblings and basically Sir Aster's one and only son. Nothing more, nothing less.

Going back to the main stream, although Sir Aris and Sir Aster are the only candidates eligible to be the next Chairman in the near future, a slave in their mansion once told me about an eerie, and annoyingly disturbing urban legend regarding the real history of the current chairman's secret. I was just a child when I was told that the Chairman is suppose to have another child — a daughter in particular — besides his two sons which the world knows about. And according to the one who spread that news, the outsiders did not know about this mystery because this rumored 'daughter' were allegedly locked inside their mansion like a prisoner for the reason that she is the only female child and the chairman does not want to reveal her existence publicly, probably out of fear that she might disappear and die just like his wife who passed away in an unplanned time. However, the chairman's nightmare came true regardless of his restrictions after the said woman ran away when she found an opportunity to get out, but she also died immediately because one of the staff of their clan members is ordered to killed her, having the thought that the lady is committing a sin of betrayal. It is said that if only she did not run away and remain compliant, that woman should have been the next in line to the throne and the one to solely manage all the properties of the Futagawa family.

But of course I don't believe in those fabrications. Just like what I said earlier, it was nothing but just a hyperbolic urban legend, which no one can prove to be true. Perhaps that ‘gossip’ was only made with the intention of staining their name which is not even effective at some point.

I also thought maybe that speculation is also fabricated just to scare me because I was a bit of a cowardly pickle when I was young, and thinking that someone died with an almost realistic idea that her soul might be trapped in their mansion is truly nerve-racking and scary. To whoever that servant is, I hope she always had a good sleep at night despite of almost traumatizing the past version of myself. Glad that I wasn't able to report her after taunting me with ghost stories, 'cause tales like that shouldn’t even be told to young and innocent kids like me. Little did she knew that almost ruined my childhood and caused me a week of sleep-deprivation during my stay in Japan before.

Anyway, if any of the two candidates will be the next Chairman, I’d still be honored to serve either of them with loyalty and commitment in the future. Besides, I am meant to do that after all. That is my unspoken destiny.

I just hope that whoever is the heir of the throne deserves it more compare to the other one who will not get the opportunity to be chosen. I also hope that we can get along as well as how Papa and the current chairman does.

I blinked when I just realized that I had been gawking for a series of minutes already after Sheena and I just had ended talking on Skype. I decided to shut down my laptop and put it on the side table on my left.

And just as the moment I placed the laptop to where it is ought to be, I accidentally noticed a pink envelope that I had not yet removed out of the table. I picked it up and stared at it with an apathetic expression painted on my face before I put it in a box hidden under my queen-sized bed.

Using both of my palms, I slap my cheeks in three, consecutive times just to force myself not to remember a shameful memory I had long buried in the void of my heart. I was planning to shut my eyes to sleep and drift away to the oblivion when out of the instant, a sudden knock on my door ringed to my ears.

"Who is it? The door is open," I said I made a grimace.

The door pushed open and a long face of a maid holding a telephone appeared before me. The small drops of sweat patently dripping from her face manifests weariness and frustration.

"Y-Young miss, sir Matthew just called. He said he wanted to talk to you," she reported, panting. Wait, why? What is happening?