Commencing: PLAN A!

“I like to think that the Moon is there, even if I am not looking at it.”

–Albert Einstein

…

Saturday.

The last day of the week.

And the only day of the week where Professor Akihiro Zen can stop obsessing over his work for the mean time and actually do some chores inside his apartment.

Obviously, Saturday is his least favorite day… Hiro could sit down and do paperwork for hours on end, he could go through five to eight classes in an entire day discussing about normally headache-inducing math equations but housework? Hiro was so sure he could die of boredom.

Has anyone ever died of boredom?

…because he might be the first.

And so it happens, he woke up late (hey, it’s Saturday!) around 9:30ish and went about his morning routine without a hitch: fix his bed, wash his face, eat breakfast, drink coffee, etc. etc.

While he was in the middle of checking his accounts on social media, Hiro was relieved to not see any posts or any incriminating photos of himself attached to some sort of scandalous story with Lunamor, especially considering the creepy photographer from last night–because once Hiro had shaken off his shock rather quickly, he had even gotten out of his car and yelled at the man but the photographer just turned tail and ran so yeah, he wasn’t able to give that moron a piece of his mind about privacy...

That is, until Hiro noticed an unread message from Lunamor on Mugbook.

Strangely enough, it was sent around 3:20 am...

Hiro briefly wondered if that girl even bothered to get some sleep as he took a sip of his coffee in amusement (no wonder she looked like a panda sometimes) and considered blocking her there and then because he had made it perfectly clear on the first day of class that he doesn’t entertain private messages with his students, especially from girls.

But in the end, his curiosity won.

He clicked on the message.

And very nearly spat out his coffee.

“They found you”

Though those deceptively simple three words could pertain to a lot of things, but it doesn’t really take a genius what that meant, considering what they had been talking about last night… although this time, Hiro was hoping that whatever he was assuming wasn’t what was actually implied in such a vague, three-worded message.

Gulping at such an ominous implication, Hiro slowly lowered his coffee as he got out of his seat. Then, he slightly pushed aside the thick curtains covering his window…

And looked down.

He blanched.

…crap.

Hiro’s apartment was situated on the fourth floor, so he usually kept all of his windows closed and covered by curtains or something, he had his air condition on most of the time anyway and he didn’t care much about the scenery since he was too busy to appreciate it these days… but not today: he had to keep himself from actually gawking at what he was seeing.

Even without his eyeglasses on, Hiro can still make out the large group of people surrounding the front building, being held up by some guards. Some of them were holding up cameras while the rest had their phones out on the ready.

Freaked out, Hiro quickly made a tactical retreat to his bedroom and immediately opened his laptop, nervously typing his name on the internet and mentally cursing himself because stupid… my social media accounts are all in private, I personally made sure of that, of course they can’t find me there easily!

Hiro’s jaw dropped.

There are already more than ten articles about him in just one freaking night. And all of them are linked with his and Lunamor’s name!

He resisted the sudden urge to face-palm and reluctantly forced himself to click on the very first article that had popped up on the screen… and sure enough, they had a photo of him in his car with his name highlighted in it.

Hiro immediately let out a long string of curses–it was the same picture that the creep of a photographer from last night took…! Obviously, the picture was a bit of blurry and the surroundings are kind of dark, but it was obviously him, and much to Hiro’s further embarrassment, he looked clearly caught off-guard in the picture… like a deer stuck in a headlight highlighted with the large, bold words: Luna Enterprises’ VP: Secret Love Affair?

The Belle of Luna Enterprises’ Beau

Forbidden Romance in AST Discovered?

Hiro found himself cringing at the titles as he hurriedly scanned the articles, all which featured some cringe-inducing theories about his ‘love affair’ with his too-rich student, all covering his stupid stolen picture and some of it even had Lunamor’s picture in some big-time party somewhere in Las Vegas, obviously a recent picture since she was wearing the same sexy red dress she had on last night.

Not good, this is not good, they already know where he’s working even his full name–and holy shit they even had a general background?!

He didn’t know if he should be annoyed that at least Lunamor had a decent picture (although it looks like she was mentally threatening the camera) compared to him and whoever wrote these damn articles, Hiro wanted to throttle them.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that there were reporters outside his building, and they were most likely going to continue to hound him for a long time, probably even doing a much more thorough background check on him while he stayed still like a sitting duck… briefly, Hiro wondered if he should send word to the hospital where his sister was staying in but then again, considering her nurses were more active in social media than he ever was, they probably know by now.

Then, he also remembered that he still had to do some grocery shopping in the local market since he’s out of food… and coffee. Darn it.

Whelp, time for plan ‘A’ then.

Which stands for:

‘A stupid idea but it was his only plan’.

Not to mention, it might work.

And if it didn’t well… being chased by a bunch of reporters wasn’t exactly on his to-do list. At least he has some confidence on his running skills even if he might be admittedly a little rusty.

(He wasn’t in the track field club in junior high for nothing.)

Hiro sighed as he stood up and rummaged on the upper part of his drawer before retrieving and reluctantly opening a small box.

It was a gift from his younger sister (it was actually a lame attempt, a very obvious last-ditch effort to get him to do cosplay for some event in her school back when they were still in senior high), and he had never thought that he’d lived to see the day that he was actually going to use hair dye. He was perfectly okay with his black hair, thank you very much.

He uncapped the lid, grimacing.

…Aw, screw it.