Upside Down

"Chinatsu, let"s take some pictures of us and send them to Ryu and Ryo."

She looks at me with a surprised expression. "Really? I know your not all that comfortable wearing outfits like this. Are you sure?"

"Of course. I told you already, I don"t mind dressing this way for you and Ryu."

She smiles at me and goes over to her desk to pick up her phone. "Okay, how s.e.xy do you want these to be?"

"I"d prefer more cute than s.e.xy, but I suppose them being a little s.e.xy wouldn"t be bad either."

I won"t go into all the details of our little photography session, but she somehow talks me into several what I consider to be rather embarra.s.sing poses. I"ll admit, I look good and they are definitely "stimulating." Even if Chinatsu never becomes a doctor, she might very well have a future as a photographer. She takes fifteen photos of me. My favorite amongst them was one where she had me turn my back to her and turn back to look at her over my shoulder while looking slightly down. The combination of demure and s.e.xy astounded me. This one is definitely being sent to Ryu.

Chinatsu made up her own poses and I simply took the photos of her. My favorite of the is one where she leans her back against the wall, slightly drew up her left leg slightly, hands clasped across her abdomen, and she looks to her left at the floor. Again, demure and, yet, somehow really s.e.xy. How I managed to get such a beautiful and s.e.xy girl to love me is beyond me, but I"m so happy she does.

We pick out several of the photos apiece and send them to our boyfriends. I think they"ll be rather surprised and happy.

That done, we head over to Sofi"s room to see if she"s ready. After Chinatsu knocks on the door, she tells us, "come in," we go inside and, honestly, I"m stunned with the girl in front of me. She"s wear a light smokey eye shadow, blush, and a medium reddish-pink lipstick. In the short time we were taking pictures, she"s transformed herself from the adorable Sofi we know to simply gorgeous. She easily gives Mama or Mayumi a run for their money. It"ll be interesting to see the boys reaction when we go back to school.

"Wow Sofi! You"re gorgeous!"

"No kidding Sora. Wow is right."

She smiles sunnily and tells us, "Thank you."

Chinatsu and I will definitely be taking our time to pick out the right outfits for her when we take her shopping for her new wardrobe. With her looks and figure, taking our time to do it right will definitely benefit her.

"I take it you"re ready?"

"Of course."

"Good, because we need to leave soon or I"ll be late for my appointment."

"Then we should be going," she tells us as she steps between us to take both of our hands and leads the way down stairs. When we walk into the dining room, Chiaki stands and asks, "Are we ready to go?"

"You"re going with us?" I ask.

"Of course, Honoka can"t go with you, so I"ll be filling in. No offense to Sofi, but she isn"t enough to watch over you two."

"None taken and I"m glad you"re coming with us." Sofi tells her.

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[NTI Medical Center, 10:00]

You might have already realized it, or maybe not, but my PTSD is now gone. Sornii took it away along with my fear and anxiety from all of that. Honestly, I"m a little conflicted about it. I know he did it to save me from a breakdown, but I wanted to get through this on my own. I need to be stronger, not only for myself, but for the people that love me.

Regretting what"s done is meaningless. I suppose I"ll just have to find other ways to do so. We shall see how it all works out. Although, maybe I should talk to Dad about it, he might have a few ways for me to work on it.

Anyway, sitting in the waiting room in Airi"s office, we are waiting for Airi to finish up with her patient. Chinatsu is sitting next to me holding my hand while we talk with Sofi about shopping for her. This girl really must like shopping since her eyes are almost glittering in excitement. Not that I don"t empathize, since I love to shop myself. I"ll say this she"ll be wearing a lot of mini skirts and such to show off those long legs of hers. Of course, we"ll also need to buy some party dresses for her as well.

At this point, Airi comes out behind her patient. She waves to us and we wave back. She follows the patient to the receptionist desk and comes over to us a few minutes later.

"Morning everyone, I see some new faces here."

"Morning Airi. Yes, this is Chiaki," I say as I gesture to her, "and this is Sofi." I gesture to Sofi. "She"s a cousin of ours that Mama and Dad adopted."

"Nice to meet you two. Well, now that introductions are out of our way. Why don"t you two come on in."

I nod as Chinatsu and I stand up to follow Airi back into her office.

Once we are all seated Airi asks me, "Sora, how are you today?"

"I fine today. Yesterday was a different story."

Airi"s eyes open a little wider as she asks, "What happened?"

"Some people tried to kidnap me. It was stopped, but I still had a meltdown. I was able to keep it mostly together until we got home, but then I basically cried until I fell asleep. When I woke up, Sornii told me I almost had a breakdown, so he took the fear and anxiety from the incident that caused my PTSD."

"So, you"re calling him Sornii now? I can see that. How do you feel about him taking it away?"

I shrug. "I"m a little conflicted to be honest. I wanted to get through that on my own, as you know, but then again, having a breakdown due to all of that won"t help me either."

"You"re right, it wouldn"t have. Sora, look, I know you want to become stronger so you don"t worry those you love, but, honestly, I think you"re pushing too hard. You"re creating a lot of stress for yourself by doing so and that"s not good for you or the people who love you."

"What am I supposed to do then?"

"How about relaxing a little. You have a lot of people protecting you. Let them do their job and you do yours. Yours is being a thirteen year old girl. Try simply being that. I know you have responsibilities at TGR, but you also have people there to help you with that. Let them do their jobs and take some of the burden. Sora, I don"t know if you see it or not, but you always try to shoulder everything alone. That"s something you need to stop doing. No one can go through life alone. Yes, you have Chinatsu, but you still need to rely on others as well. Start with the rest of your family, I think you"ll be surprised at how much they are willing to support you."

"I already let my family to help me."

"Helping and supporting are two different things."

This carries on for the next half hour and then she uses the last of our time to teach me how to meditate as a method of relaxing and reducing stress. I don"t know if it will help, but I"m willing to give it a shot.

◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇ ◆ ◇

[TGR, 1:10]

We ate lunch at Florilège, a French restaurant, before coming to my company. Yes, it"s expensive, but the food is simply heavenly. They serve a six course meal for lunch and eleven for dinner. I love the food here and I wasn"t in the mood for the standard fare. Thankfully, everyone went along with me on this. So we had a leisurely, absolutely delicious lunch.

Now, onto something I"m not even sure I want to know. True, I should want to know, but I"m seriously considering simply sending the information to Dad and letting him deal with it. Saying I"m nervous, anxious, and more than a little apprehensive is an understatement. Chinatsu sees it too, because since we got out of the car she"s has herself glued to me.

On the way through my outer office I greet Akari, Mai, and Sanae, "Good afternoon everyone. How are you today?"

Akari, as usual, takes the lead in replying, "Good afternoon Sora. We are doing just fine. Thank you."

"Glad to hear it and I"m doing fine, thank you. See you all later."

Entering my office, I find Mirai and Hiro sitting beside each other talking and looking at a print out.

"Good afternoon."

They reply, "Good afternoon." Mirai continues, "We"re going over the list of the people your parents" solution was sold to. Hestia said the other file is personal, so we left it alone."

"Ah. Thank you for that. I"ll probably let you see it before long when I get the okay from my Dad, but for now, that is best. Hestia?"

"Yes Sora?"

"Please send all the information in the drive with this encryption key to the following location." I enter both of them into my computer.

"Of course Sora."

"Thank you Hestia."

I look back to Hiro and Mirai. "So, what have you come up with?"

"Unfortunately, not a whole lot. There are slightly over eleven hundred people this was sold to from fifty-eight countries. Many of those countries have no reciprocity agreements with j.a.pan when it comes to law. We do with several countries and a large part of the people that bought this are from those countries. That means we can go after them for receiving illegal goods and have a gag order slapped on them."

"Hmm… Frankly, I don"t want to put them in jail since I doubt Akiyama told them it was illegal. I do want them to not spread word about this at the moment. Maybe we could use a carrot and stick approach here. You know, have them sign an agreement to never talk about this until it"s made public and then we get to use them as an example of what the nanites can do when it"s made public. Possibly extract a bond of ¥20 million to be held until it"s made public. If they aren"t willing, then we tell them we"ll prosecute them. How does that sound?"

"If that"s what you want to do, but some of them may not have that kind of money anymore. They paid Akiyama ¥40 million for the treatment. By the way, I thought it was a one time thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are a few dozen listings in here where they took the treatment several times until I suppose it worked. The limit seems to be three times though, since no one listed has more than that."

"Are you sure about that?" They both nod at me.

"My parents research notes said nothing about that. Maybe they never tested it beyond one attempt. Excuse me for a second."

I press the intercom and when Akari answers, "Akari, please have Kotomi Matsuoka come to my office immediately."

She replies, "Certainly."

"Thank you." I turn back to them. "Well now, it seems these may be much more valuable than we thought."

They nod and Mirai asks, "Why did you ask Kotomi to come up?"

"I think it would be best if this were tested out to make sure it"s not a blind alley. As I said, my parents research notes said nothing about it. I don"t know if that means Akiyama was scamming people or if my parents never checked. That doesn"t really fit with how my parents were, but I"m hoping for the latter."

Hiro shakes his head. "Sora, even knowing how smart you are, you still amaze me. I can"t wait to see what you"re capable of as you grow older and learn more."

Mirai laughs. "Hiro, you almost sound like a proud parent."

"I do?" He chuckles. "Hmm, well, I do wish my daughter were more like Sora. Miyuki is so shy, doesn"t have any friends, and is barely pa.s.sing her courses at school."

I think for a few minutes. "Hiro, I run a weekly study group at my house. It"s our friends and our boyfriends. Right now, there"s no more room at the house to add another person, but Dad finally found some land to build our new house. Once it"s completed, she"s more than welcome to come join it. It"ll expose her to more people, hopefully help with her school work, and maybe even gain her some friends. One more person for me to tutor isn"t going to make that much difference and I could always use another friend."

He smiles at me. "Sora, I"d love that. She"s not doing well at school and she needs to a.s.sociate with people her age. Her teacher"s say she never talks to anyone in her cla.s.s."

"Have you asked her if she"s being bullied?" I ask with a concerned expression.

He has a surprised expression. "You think she might be?"

"It"s very possible. She has the signs of someone that is being bullied. Okay, once our new house is built then you can bring her over." I look at Chinatsu, who seems to know what I"m asking, nods at me. "Chinatsu and I will do our best to become friends with her. Our friends might as well, but one thing I can do when I go back to school is keep an eye out for her. Until then, I can ask my boyfriend to keep an eye out for her and stop any bullying."

"Thank you. That"s far more than I could have hoped for."

"Hiro, I detest bullies, we"ll do our best to protect her, if that is what is happ..."

The intercom interrupts as Akari announces, "Sora, Ms. Matsuoka is here."

Pressing the intercom b.u.t.ton, I reply, "Please send her in."

She knocks on the door and I say, "Come in."

As she comes over to us I tell her, "Hi Kotomi. Nice to see you again. Have a seat."

As she sits down she says, "Hi Sora, you as well."

"Kotomi, I need you or another researcher to drop what they are doing. I have a high priority project I need worked on immediately. You remember the nanites I had you build for me?" She nods in reply. "Good, we came across something that may indicate that they can be used multiple times on the same person. I need you to find out if that is the case. If so, how many times it can be used and if there might be any side effects. The usual things."

"Of course Sora. I have a researcher that is more or less free since his project fell through. Or would you rather me do it personally?"

I shake my head. "I know you have a project you"re working on. Stay with it and have to other person start on it. Hestia?"

"Yes Sora?"

"Please, transfer the research notes and programming information on them to Kotomi"s computer."

"Certainly Sora."

"Thank you Kotomi. You can go back to work, unless you have something you need to talk about with me."

She shakes her head. "Nothing at the moment. I"ll get him started on this immediately and to keep this to himself, not that I should have to do that."

"Thanks Koromi. Have a good day and thanks again."

"You"re welcome Sora. Bye." She stands and leaves the office.

I look back to Hiro and Mirai. "On that note. I"m going to go home, unless there is anything else."

"Nothing at the moment that really needs your attention."

"Okay. You two have a good day and call me if you need me. I"ll probably see you Friday."

"You too Sora." They both tell me.

Taking Chinatsu"s hand, I head out of the office to go home.

If you can"t tell, I made my decision. I don"t want to see the other file for the moment. I"m sure Dad will tell me if there is anything in it I should know.

Airi"s right, I have too many things going on and I am stressed out. I think it might be best to go home and try meditating for a while. Shopping for Sofi can wait a day. It"s not as if my clothes don"t fit her. She also needs new underwear. Hers is a bit worn and definitely needs to be replaced. Regardless, I need some time to decompress and relax.

I d.a.m.n sure need to work on allowing people to help and support me more, or I"ll most probably burn myself out before I even turn eighteen.