"I'm fine... what are you hiding?"

"Oh, you know. But entirely unrelatedly, wanna guess who I ran into yesterday?"

"...with you I have no idea. The... emperor."

"Long may he live or whatever it is that people say, but no, no, not him." He walks over to Tarō so that he can lean against the desk and then place that little slip of paper on it.

"...you could've written that yourself."

"I could've, it's true. Want me to get a picture with her next time?"

"There's no way, how did you just run into Junko-chan?"

"Oh, you know," he repeats, grinning. "I have my ways."

"Your ways! Give me that." He takes the paper and gazes at it intently.

Hee hee. "So what do we say when our friend brings us gifts?"

"Thank you Yutaka-kun," he says grudgingly, having apparently decided it does look like Junko-chan's handwriting.

Hehehehe.

He pushes himself off the desk. "I'll see if I can't get her to agree to meet you sometime."

"- you're on getting her to meet people terms??"

"What did I just tell you about having my ways?"

"Teach me your ways, Yutaka-sensei."

"Unfortunately these particular ways are not shareable. At least as of yet."

"What if I ask very nicely?"

"I don't mean they're not shareable because I don't want to share them, I just can't."

"Why?"

"'Cause they're me-specific?" he says, with a shrug. He ought to quit while he's ahead so he's gonna be on his way, now. "I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you."

"No prob! It's what friends are for."

There's this fancy garden party on Saturday he is required to attend, to celebrate the fact that it's starting to warm up. Or, well, you know, he could just skip it, and in fact Iwasaki-san would kind of like him to, it's been less than a month since his scandal and a lot of people from his old school (and their parents) will be at this party.

If you've ever met Yutaka, though, you know that he finds this great motivation to attend, of course, and his father can't very well stop him from doing that; it wouldn't look good if Yutaka complained on social media about how much he wanted to go to this party and see his old friends but his wicked old man wouldn't let him because he was more worried about saving face than letting his son see his friends. Plus, when Saturday arrives, the weather isn't warming up, and in fact it is looking sufficiently inclement that they decide to host this party indoors, which means that people will be extra grumpy that their insipid little gathering had to be downgraded.

All in all, great fun for Yutaka personally.

(And no, he hasn't come up with a wish yet, but thank you for asking.)

(Anytime!)

It wouldn't do for Yutaka and his father to arrive at the party separately, so Iwasaki Iemasa has his driver go to Yutaka's place to pick him up. They're in Iemasa's fanciest limo, the one he only rides in when he wants to make sure the people at whatever event he's going to are aware that he is richer, more important, and more powerful than them. After his son's indiscretions of the past few weeks, they could do with being reminded that this does not make Yutaka any less an Iwasaki than he was before. For a similar reason, Iemasa is wearing one of his fanciest suits (but not the fanciest suit, that one's reserved for when he wants to make sure the party's host knows he respects them and wishes them well), and looking really damn good in it. He had Yutaka when he was nineteen, so he's under forty right now and therefore going to be one of the youngest of the adults at this party, which is also a reminder in itself, that despite his age he is still better than all of them.

"Yutaka," Iemasa greets his son neutrally when he gets in the limousine.