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“Ahh, I feel so much better! I’m drinking tonight! Ibuki, you’re joining me!”
“What’s going on?”

It was only 6:30 PM — earlier than I usually got home. Still in my suit, I spread out the drinks I’d stocked up on at the convenience store across the table.

“I quit my job!”
“Wait, really? I mean, I’m kinda happy about that, but what happened?”

With a sharp pop, I cracked open a can and took a long swig straight from it, not even bothering with a glass. It had been a while since I felt this frustrated, and at times like this, drinking felt like the only way to unwind.

“You should drink too, Ibuki! Come on, come on!”
“Alright, alright. So, why’d you quit?”

Unlike me, Ibuki could drink like a fish and still act totally normal. She preferred sake over sweet drinks, so I’d grabbed a few random bottles of sake from the store. Meanwhile, I stuck to what I could handle — bitter drinks like beer just weren’t my thing. I honestly couldn’t understand what people liked about it.

“Let’s see… First of all, my boss is a total pain in the a̲s̲s̲!”
“Oh yeah, you mentioned that. You said the new boss was kinda abusive, right?”
“Yup. He’s always barking orders at me but never lifts a finger himself. And on top of that, he stares at me in this gross way, ‘accidentally’ tries to touch me — he’s the worst!”

I thought about reporting him, but dealing with that whole mess would’ve been exhausting. I ended up just chewing him out on my way out the door, but honestly, thinking about the poor person who’d replace me made me wonder if I should’ve done more to take that bald creep down.

“But you wouldn’t quit over just that, right? Did something else happen?”

Ibuki knew me too well — we’d been friends for ages, after all. She was right. I wasn’t the type to quit just because someone was harassing me. I’d grumble and complain, sure, but I would’ve stuck it out. But what happened today? That crossed a line I just couldn’t tolerate.

“So first, the company president asked me if I wanted to go on a marriage meeting with his son.”
“…What?”

The second I said that, Ibuki’s voice dropped to an icy, chilling tone.

“What the hell?”
“Our president’s gotta be in his late 60s by now, right? So his son’s probably over 30. Trying to pawn off one of his employees as a bride for him is just… insane.”

I’d seen the president’s only son a few times since he technically worked at the same company. If my memory served me right, he was already losing a battle with his hairline, and his body was… well, let’s just say he was “storing a lot of nutrients.” He couldn’t even wear a suit properly because of it.

The president had probably gotten fed up with his son staying single and figured if he dangled the title of “future president’s wife” in front of someone, he could reel her in without a problem. What a joke.

“When I turned him down immediately, the president got all pissed and reassigned me to the Kansai branch. They told me when I joined that there wouldn’t be any transfers, but I guess if you make someone important mad, they’ll just throw you wherever they want. It made me so angry I just quit on the spot.”
“Yeah, sounds like you made the right call. If you hadn’t, someone probably would’ve died.”
“What, were you planning to assassinate the president or something?”
“No, I mean I’d starve to death if I couldn’t eat your cooking.”

There were plenty of reasons I quit, but the biggest one was that I just couldn’t stand the idea of being apart from Ibuki. Sure, I worried about leaving her on her own, but the truth was… I just wanted to be with her.

“If I can’t stay with you, there’s no point in anything else. Work, being the president’s wife — none of that matters to me. If staying in some company means being separated from the person I like, I’d rather quit a hundred times over.”
“…You’re already drunk, aren’t you?”
“Hmm, maybe a little? I feel kinda floaty, but I’m not that far gone.”
“…You can’t just drop lines like that out of nowhere. It’s not fair.”
“Hm?”

Ibuki’s face had turned a little pink. She hadn’t drunk that much, but maybe her tolerance had dropped since she hadn’t had alcohol in a while.

“Do you want some water? Your face is red.”
“I’m good for now. But I think you should drink some.”
“Really?”

I was a little worried, but if she said she was fine, I decided to trust her. I grabbed some water from the fridge, filled a glass for myself, and sat back down next to Ibuki.

“I don’t regret quitting, but job hunting sounds like such a pain… I didn’t even last two years at that company, so it’s probably gonna be hard to find something new.”

Would job hunting be rough as a second-year hire? Honestly, I didn’t want to do it at all, but I had to try — I needed a job to survive, after all.

“You don’t have to work.”
“I can’t just do that. The world isn’t kind enough to let freeloaders live for free, you know?”
“That’s not what I mean… I-I was thinking… you could just be my full-time housewife.”
“Again with that… I mean, I’d love to, but…”

I’d thought she’d stopped bringing up marriage because she wasn’t thinking about it anymore. But when she tugged on my sleeve, blushing as she nervously made the suggestion, I couldn’t help but feel like she was more serious about it than ever before — serious enough to make my heart skip a beat.

“I know. You want me to say it properly, not just blurt it out like this, right?”
“Yeah… I did say that, huh?”
“I-I’m working on it, okay? So you don’t have to look for a job.”
“…Huh?”

I’d never seen Ibuki’s face so flushed, her eyes cast down in embarrassment. Her voice was so soft it was hard to hear, but her words hit me like a freight train, making it nearly impossible not to misunderstand her intentions.

“Your birthday’s coming up, right? Keep that day open. Let’s spend the whole day together — just us, on a date.”
“U-Understood.”

The way she looked at me — her gaze serious, her cheeks still burning — felt almost like a proposal. It made me so flustered I accidentally answered her formally.

“Oh, and… I’m sure you wouldn’t, but don’t even think about going to a marriage meeting, okay? You’re marrying me.”
“Y-Yes.”

Maybe Ibuki really was drunk after all. Because if she weren’t, there was no way she’d be saying all this so seriously, right?

And it turned out I wasn’t drunk at all. Because if I had been, I probably wouldn’t have been able to resist — I definitely would’ve pinned her down, right then and there.

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