Tokyo: Starting with the Gear-Conscious Male Gods!

"Uncle, Hoshina..."

"We'll talk later. First, put this bowl of noodles on table number three. They've been here for ages, and it's only just been made."

"Uh, okay."

After that, Shirakawa Yuta basically had no chance to speak, and just wandered around the entire noodle shop.

He was responsible for taking orders, serving food, entertaining guests, cleaning tables, and so on. In the end, after Chiba Daio was exhausted, he even went up and made noodles for a while.

The two of them worked until 10 p.m., finally stopping only after using up all the risen dough.

Yuta Shirakawa rubbed his slightly sore arms, looking at Daio Chiba slumped in another chair, and said with a mixture of admiration and helplessness:

"Uncle Chiba, why are you suddenly giving things away for free? And it's one thing that Auntie is back home, but Hoshina isn't here either. If I had come back any later, wouldn't you have been exhausted?"

Chiba Daio waved his hand dismissively: "Hey, people have been so good to me all this time, I should at least express my gratitude now that I'm leaving."

Yuta Shirakawa's lips twitched. So you're thanking them and then asking me for help, huh?

"Moreover," Chiba Daio paused, then added with the shrewdness characteristic of a street vendor, "Tokyo is a major source of tourists for Izu Oshima, so using three days of free noodles to play a game is worthwhile. It tells the surrounding diners that Chiba Ramen has moved to Izu Oshima, and it also shows the hospitality of Chiba Ramen."

"Once it's advertised online, it becomes a living advertisement, the kind that money can't buy."

Chiba Daio's words made Shirakawa Yuta secretly click his tongue in amazement. Wow, you can play like this?

He then asked curiously, "So who will promote it online? We can't just rely on word-of-mouth recommendations from tourists, can we?"

Chiba Daio didn't say anything, he just quietly looked at him.

Yuta Shirakawa blinked, somewhat confused, before pointing incredulously at himself and saying, "Me?"

Chiba Daio nodded naturally and said, "There are only the two of us here now, so we can't let an old man like me do all the work."

Yuta Shirakawa clicked his tongue, thinking that what the other person said made a lot of sense. Considering that he had been staying at the other person's house for so long, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and accept it.

He took out his phone and started editing the text, asking as he wrote, "Where's Hoshina? I haven't seen her at all. It would be best to leave this to Hoshina. I remember she got a very high score in Japanese when she took the entrance exam."

Chiba Daio pointed helplessly upstairs: "This afternoon I told Hoshina about going back, and she's upstairs angry because she doesn't want to go back to school."

"Don't you want to go back?" Shirakawa Yuta asked, puzzled. "If you don't want to go back, then don't. Didn't you say before that it was her choice? What, have you changed your mind now?"

Chiba Daio nodded: "I discussed it with Hoshina's mother again last night, and we've decided to take Hoshina back with us. She's a girl, and not even a minor yet, and we're definitely worried about her being alone in this city."

"Besides, she's still involved in Tokyo's underground idol scene, right? She thinks we don't know, but actually, Omi follows her around every time she performs, just in case something happens to her. We can't rest easy leaving her here alone to go to school and be an underground idol."

Yuta Shirakawa opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something.

But thinking about it from another perspective, if he were Chiba Daio or Chiba Omi, he wouldn't leave his daughter alone in Tokyo either. In the end, he could only say with some helplessness, "We should respect Hoshina's opinion."

Chiba Daio nodded but didn't say anything more, and it was unclear whether he had listened or not. Shirakawa Yuta could only assume that the other party had heard him, since it was the other party's family matter and he couldn't interfere. At most, he could try to persuade Chiba Daio on Hoshina's behalf, but it was uncertain whether it would be effective in the end.

After a moment, Shirakawa Yuta's finger stopped on his phone, pointing to an overly long title, and said with a hint of pride, "Done!"

Chiba Daio leaned closer, glanced at it, and said with some doubt, "Will this work?"

Yuta Shirakawa shrugged and said nonchalantly, "How will you know if you don't try?"

Chiba Daio thought about it and felt that it made some sense. Anyway, he was just going to try his luck, no matter what.

"Go ahead and send it."

……

That evening, an article titled "Shocking! A group of customers dine and dash at a ramen restaurant in Hachioji City. Is this a sign of distorted humanity or moral decay...?" began circulating on Mixi, but because it was so late, it did not cause much of a stir.

The article did not gain widespread circulation until after noon the following day.

"My God, is this author even human? Hahaha, how could they come up with a title like this?"

"That's right, I was prepared to refute those customers, but I didn't expect such a touching scene."

"However, the owner of this shop is really kind-hearted. He actually treated his customers to noodles just to thank them when he was about to close."

"This ramen looks delicious! The new shop has moved to Izu Oshima, right? If I have the chance to go to the island sometime, I definitely have to try it."

"Later? It's free now, why wait until later?"

"Huh? Right, let's go, Hachioji City!"

It was only 3 p.m., and a long queue had already formed in front of Chiba Noodle Restaurant.

Yuta Shirakawa, who was the instigator of everything, was on the phone at the moment and naturally had no idea what was happening at the entrance of Chiba Ramen Restaurant.

The person on the other end of the phone was Chinatsu Imai. He called her last night, but she was drinking and didn't answer. This morning, when she called again, he was in class and couldn't answer either.

This one phone call has dragged on from last night until now.

After recounting the first part of his phone conversation with Sakae Kudo from the previous day, Shirakawa Yuta asked in a low voice, "You've really been suspended?"

"No... sort of."

On the other end of the phone, Imai Chinatsu remembered the sudden notice she received this morning about taking a vacation and getting her bonus doubled this month, and she agreed anyway.

She initially thought this was Kudo's compensation to her, but she didn't expect that it turned out that Kudo Sakae had lied to Shirakawa Yuta and that letting her take leave was just to cover up the lie.

"Feel sorry……"

"This is none of your business; it's just normal workplace politics."

Chinatsu Imai interrupted Yuta Shirakawa, saying there was nothing to blame her for; if anyone was to blame, it was her for lending the manuscript to her colleague in the first place.

"I'm fine. So, what do you want?"

Yuta Shirakawa considered his words carefully before saying, "Saya Kudo sent me a contract, and I'd like you to take a look at it."