Upside Down

I pa.s.s Chiaki as I"m heading upstairs and we exchange "Good mornings."

After making the rounds waking everyone up for breakfast, we all head back downstairs. Thankfully, Honoka and Mayumi are back to normal this morning. Their temperature is normal and their achiness is gone.

I stopped them from changing into clothes since we will be bathing after breakfast, so there"s little point in doing so as it"s only us girls here anyway.

Once we eat and clean up, the five of us head to the bathroom to bathe. After we shower, we all climb into the bath. I push Chinatsu against Honoka, who pulls her back against her, while I sit down to lean back against Mayumi and she slips her arms around my waist. Closing my eyes and sighing, I wiggle into a better position and rest my head against Mayumi.

Mayumi whispers in my ear, "Thank you for snuggling with me."

I smile and whisper back, "I wanted to since it"s been a while since we were able to bathe together." Opening my eyes, I speak up to where everyone can hear me. "Ladies, after I see the court clerk today, we have shopping to do."

"Court clerk?" Honoka asks with a confused expression.

"Mhmm. Dad told me last night I have an appointment at 9:00 with them to choose from a list of Akiyama"s a.s.sets I want."

Honoka nods, then asks, "Alright, what are we shopping for then?"

"We have a business party to attend Sunday, so Honoka, Sofi and Mayumi need party dresses for Sunday."

"Why me as well?" Mayumi asks.

I turn my head to look at her. "Because you"re family and you"re staying with us, so you are coming as well. It wouldn"t be right to leave you here alone, now would it? I do hope know how to dance. Who knows, you might actually have fun. I know I did at the last one."

"Okay. I can dance well enough, so that isn"t a problem. The problem is I don"t have the money to buy that kind of dress." Mayumi says.

"I"ll be paying for all of your dresses, so don"t worry about it and don"t say anything else because I want to do it. Now, Sofi, we have a lot of clothing to buy for you. You can continue to wear my clothes for the moment, or, if you are up for it, we can go ahead and shop for your wardrobe at the same time, but buying the party dresses for you three takes priority."

Sofi"s eyes glitter as she replies, "I have no problem with doing both today. I love the dresses you loan me, but I think it would be better if I have my own."

Nodding because I already a.s.sumed that is what she would want to do, I ask, "Does anyone have an objection to us doing both today? Mayumi, Honoka, I know you feel better, but tell me if you don"t feel up to a long shopping trip."

Honoka shakes her head and pulls Chinatsu against her a bit tighter. "Im fine and I"m happy to be able to spend time with my sisters."

I look over my shoulder at Mayumi, who smiles and shakes her head. "You know me, I"m happy to spend more time with you."

Which brings back up my thought of setting her and Dad down for a talk later.

"Alright then, extended shopping session it is. Honoka do you feel up to protecting us or should I ask Mama to allow Chiaki to come with us again?"

"I"m perfectly fine Sora. I think Sofi and I can handle things." Sofi nods her agreement.

I nod. That"s what I thought she would say and honestly, I feel better having Honoka with us than Chiaki. Nothing against Chiaki overall, it"s simply how I feel about it. Settling back against her, I close my eyes again and simply enjoy being held by my "second Mom."

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Just in case you didn"t notice, none of us chose our outfits before all this. We simply grabbed some underwear and headed down here to bathe. Mine and Chinatsu"s idea since we wanted to get into the bath soon. I suppose we are too used to taking a bath immediately after waking up and we both felt a little gross. The other three just went along with us. Not that it really matters how we will be dressed as we make our way upstairs. As long as Daddy isn"t here I don"t think it really matters all that much, and I know Mama doesn"t care. I believe I"ve said before I"m totally comfortable being nude around my family, so running around in underwear presents no issue.

Once all of us dry off, brush, and blow dry our hair, we head upstairs.

Sofi follows Chinatsu and me into our room, so we can pick out an outfit for her. I was thinking about it as Mayumi brushed and dried my hair. A little while back Mama bought me a hot little black halter top, one-piece with a pleated skirt. I think with Sofi"s blonde hair and fair skin it would look absolutely fabulous on her. Pair it with my red belt, some black ultra sheer striped stockings, and my red Mary Janes with 7.5cm heels would set the whole thing off nicely. Pulling everything out to lay it on the bed, I look at Chinatsu.

Sofi"s eyes widen a bit when I ask Chinatsu, "What do you think of this for Sofi?"

"I think she"ll be having a lot of guys stare at her since she"ll be gorgeous in it. Do you like it Sofi?"

"I love it! Thank you for lending me something like this."

I wave my hand at her. "Nothing to thank me for, I"m happy to do it. You do realize that we"ll be buying you a lot of outfits that are similar, not to mention some that are a bit more on the s.e.xy side?"

"If this is any indication of both of your taste in outfits, you can pick out whatever you want for me!" She says with a radiant smile.

"You"ll be helping us choose them too." Chinatsu tells her and I nod. "Now, why don"t you go change?"

"Sure, see you soon." She says, picks up her outfit and leaves.

As soon as she does, Chinatsu wraps her arms around me while looking at me expectantly. It"s not as if I don"t know what she wants, so I slip my arms around her and lean in to kiss her. After the third time I have to remove her hand from my breast, I reach down and slap her b.u.t.t fairly hard.

"No! Bad girl! We have somewhere to be soon and we can"t be late. We will be if you keep that up."

She giggles happily. Yes, I"m using her puppy reference here. I lean back in and give her a quick kiss and move over to my closet to choose something to wear as Chinatsu comes up behind me to kiss my neck and tell me, "Sora, I love you so very much."

"I love you too, but if you don"t get a move on I"m going to leave you here."

"Okay, no need to be a grump."

I give her a dirty look. "I"m not being grumpy! We have a lot to do today, it"s getting late, and you"re dragging your a.s.s!"

"Alright. You win."

"d.a.m.n right I do, if you want to come with me that is." I tell her as I pull my royal blue, short sleeve one-piece out of the closet, along with a white belt. I also grab some ultra sheer nude lily patterned stockings, and my white knee high boots.

"Sora, you"ve become a lot more self-confident after you started at TGR." She tells me after she pulls out a white, sleeveless, one piece, a red belt, ultra sheer nude, ivy patterned stockings, and her red cross strap open-toe sandals.

"You think so? Or, maybe I just don"t let you always get your way anymore." I tell her as I"m dressing.

"There"s no maybe to it, more often than not you get your way."

"Chinatsu, I give in to what you want all the time. I did it yesterday when you wanted me to dress that way. Didn"t I?"

"You did, but what I said still holds true. You"ve become a lot like Mom, when you decide something is going to be a certain way, it will. I"m not saying it"s a bad thing either. In fact, I think you being confident and a.s.sertive is s.e.xy as h.e.l.l and I"m happy to see you stand up for what you want."

"Chinatsu, you heard me in a session with Airi. I meant it when I said, "I"ll never allow anyone to walk all over me again. They may beat me up, they may even kill me, but I"ll never just lay down and let it happen again." Although, I hope you understand that I never took allowing you to have your way as walking all over me. I know what I want and I don"t have a problem telling you or anyone else what it is. The main thing I always wanted I have, actually twice over, since I have both you and Ryu. I have both the girl and the boy I love. I"ll never let either of you go without one h.e.l.l of a fight."

"I"m happy to hear that. I never want you to let me go, because I won"t let you go either. You"re mine, now and always Sora. You"re my soulmate, I"ve known that forever. I"ll turn around what I told you the other day on myself. I may fall in love with Ryo, I may even marry him and have his children, but he"ll never be able to take my heart away from you."

"Do you, Chinatsu?"

"Do I what?"

"Love him?"

"I"m not sure. I like him a lot, but love? I don"t think so. I don"t feel the same way about him as I do you."

"I was just curious. It"ll happen or it won"t, same as it did with me and Ryu." I glance at my watch. "Come on slowpoke! We need to go!"

I pick up my phone and call the driver to find out he"s already waiting for us at the gate since Dad already told him last night. "Thank you Daddy!" I think. We quickly collect everyone and head out to my appointment at the courthouse.

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[Tokyo District Court House, 10:57]

At the information desk, I say, "h.e.l.lo. I"m looking for Mrs. Furukawa"s office."

She doesn"t even look away from her computer as she replies, "3rd floor, room 355," and goes right back to whatever she was doing. I think, "What a rude person. You should at least look at the person when you are speaking to them."

Walking at almost a trot the short distance to the elevator bank, we take the elevator up to the 3rd floor and follow the signs to room 355. I tap on the door and hear, "Come in."

"h.e.l.lo. I"m Sora Kobayashi. I"m looking for Mrs. Furukawa."

"Hi Ms. Kobayashi, you found her. Have a seat everyone." She reaches to a fairly thick file folder on the side of her desk and places it in front of me. "Before you begin looking through the a.s.set list there is one thing I need to tell you." I nod. "Alright. Originally, the money that Mr. Akiyama made with the stolen research data wasn"t going to be included in your monetary award until Judge Hattori heard about it. So, your monetary award jumped from ¥79.2 billion to ¥103.8 billion. Ms. Kobayashi you are probably the richest teenager in j.a.pan, if not the world."

I chuckle lightly. "Mrs. Furukawa, I hate to say this, but I probably already was even before today."

Her eyes widen a little at my statement, she clears her throat, and continues, "I see. Well, that"s all I needed to tell you on that front. The folder in front of you is his a.s.set list. How you talked Judge Hattori into letting you pick what you want from it is beyond me."

"Mrs. Furukawa, I knew nothing about this until last night, I resent your implication that I influenced him in anyway. If anyone influenced his opinion in this matter it was probably Akiyama."

"I didn"t mean it that way."

I stand up and angrily state, "Like h.e.l.l you didn"t. I may be thirteen, but I"m no ones fool and I won"t be treated that way." When Chinatsu and Honoka grab my shaking hands, I take a deep breath to calm down.

She blanches. "I apologize Ms. Kobayashi. It"s just that a judge doing this has never happened in all of my time here."

I sit back down while still holding tightly onto their hands. "Mrs. Furukawa, how many times do you hear of someone murdering someone"s parents and then almost killing their pregnant adoptive Mother while trying to kidnap them so they can perform experiments on them? Right. Never. This is j.a.pan, so things like this happen so rarely that you could say it doesn"t. Now, before you go saying such things again, you might makes sure you know the story."

"I truly am sorry Ms. Kobayashi."

I blow out my breath. "Don"t worry about it. I"ve been rather stressed out lately and I overreacted. What do you say we forget about this and move on?"

She nods. "Alright, as I said the folder in front of you is his a.s.set list. This comprises his non-liquid a.s.sets and they total ¥349.5 billion. You get to choose whatever you want out of that list up to a total of ¥174.75 billion. So try to keep a running total of whatever you choose. There is a meeting room across the hall if you want to discuss this amongst yourselves."

"Thank you, we"ll take you up on that offer. We"ll be back as soon as we can."

"There"s no hurry, so take all the time you need." I nod, stand and pick up the folder.

We enter the room across the hall to find enough chairs for all of us and a conference table.

Mayumi sits in the middle seat and pulls me into her lap. "Hey!" I cry out.

"I need a snuggle recharge." She tells me, which makes me giggle as I relax in her arms. Honoka and Chinatsu sit on either side of us with Sofi sitting on the other side of Chinatsu closest to the door.

"Okay then, let"s see what we have here." I say as I lean forward to open the folder and spread out the pages.

Glancing through the first page I hit upon one item that catches my eye and I point it out to Chinatsu. Do you remember me telling you that finding Daddy a present was going to be hard because all he wears is a watch and his wedding ring? Okay, I think I might have found the solution to that particular problem.

An antique Louis Moinet Meteoris watch that is listed as being worth ¥630 million. According to the listing there are only four of these in existance and they have moon rock embedded in the face.

I look at Chinatsu, whose mouth is hanging open. I reach over and close it for her. "Do you think Dad would like it?"

"Seriously Sora? What man wouldn"t like something like this?"

I take out a pen and a pad from my purse and circle the entry number, then write the amount on the pad.

Scanning through some more, we pick out several pieces of jewelry that total ¥225 million. On the fifth page I"m astounded when I run across an entry for an island that he owned over by Okinawa named Yakushima. It"s not huge, nor is it populated anymore. In fact, the one city that was there the j.a.panese government demolished several years back. The only things left intact are the highways and two hydroelectric facilities. The price is listed as ¥68 billion and my overactive little mind is in overdrive thinking about this. If I bought this, I could form a PMC (Private Military Company) there and move most, if not all, of TGR research there. It would be much more secure. True, I would have to move a lot of my employees there as well and build all kinds of housing for them to buy, but I think it would be so worth it. My hand shakes in excitement as I move to circle the entry.

"Sora?"

"Hmm?" I say as I look over to Chinatsu.

"Why do you want an island?" She asks with a confused expression.

"Think about it. If I form a PMC, have them stationed around the island. Have Dad build a reliable police force maybe offer Mitty the position as Police Commandant. Rebuild the city, move TGR and our employees there, how hard would it be for unknowns to show their faces there to try anything? I know it would be expensive, but I think we all would be safer."

"I"ve said it before, but you amaze me." Chinatsu tells me with a stunned expression. "If you think it"s a good idea, I"m all for it, but you know that with our plans us moving there will have to be put off until after we graduate from the university."

I nod, "I know. I even know we"ll have to talk to the government about setting up a National Academy there as well or we"ll never be able to get employees to move there. We"ll have to rebuild the airport and the shipping port as well. There"s so much to be done there, but so much we can do as well."

If you can"t tell I"m a little excited by the prospect of all of this, but for now, I just need the island since this will take years. Reaching up, I circle the entry. Alright then, only ¥106 billion left to select.

Continuing to scan through the list we select several other items, until I hit on another entry that captures my attention. A house on Miyagi Island in Okinawa, which is 300 meters from the beach. 16 rooms, each with their own private baths and balcony, a large communal bath on the lower floor as well. A swimming pool, 500 meters of private beach area, a large covered patio with BBQ that all overlook the ocean. I so want this for us to be able to use this summer! ¥98 million for it? h.e.l.l yes!

On the next page I hit the one thing I was hoping to see. The 23.85% of prime stock in TGR he had. Listed as ¥72.797 billion. Yep, not even a single thought needed here. I reach up and circle the entry. That leaves around ¥33 billion in a.s.sets to select.

"Would you four help me pick out some of this my eyes are starting to cross." I say as I lean back against Mayumi and close my eyes.

In the end, some of what we picked out is an armored American SUV (gives us more room and makes us safer when traveling of course), a construction company, and believe it or not, Dad"s law firm that he works for was owned by Akiyama, now by us. There are several other items that just aren"t worth going into the detail about, but the listed turns out to be rather extensive. I knew ¥174 billion was a huge sum of money, but using that amount to choose amongst the a.s.sets we wanted was quite a bit of work.

Honestly, I"m glad it"s over with and I"m d.a.m.n sure looking forward to lunch. After that is shopping. I may very well just cheat and ask Mama and Dad to meet us somewhere for dinner. Where doesn"t really matter since we girls are dressed well enough for around 95% of the restaurants in Tokyo.