Heir to the Tsuwabuki Concern, Ichiro Tsuwabuki. In the highest echelons of society, there was no one who didn’t know his name. He never helped with his parents’ work and spent his free time searching for unusual insects. But he was more than a dilettante living off his parents’ dollar. He paid for his house, his living fees, and his maid’s salary, all with the money he earned himself. He hadn’t received an allowance from his parents since New Year’s when he was ten years old.

After all, he was the noble prodigy, Ichiro Tsuwabuki. He had graduated from Harvard University at the age of nine, and the influence his thesis had had on the economic world would be too much to state in these brief pages. The new theory sent a shockwave through business managers worldwide, and was still being cited in places as a work of enormous authority.

Ichiro had spent his earliest years in Vienna learning the violin and piano, and he played both at a professional level. Any music event held exclusively for the upper crust could be expected to have him in attendance. The pictures he painted to amuse himself were considered cutting edge works of modern art, and they sold for high prices. Just for fun, he’d traveled around the world, and had discovered over 20 kinds of new insects in the process.

All in all, Ichiro remained quite busily employed.

When he had spare time, he would sometimes visit universities as a guest lecturer, and he sometimes served as a paid consultant on asset management as an expert in the field of economics. He had spent two brief years thrilling living rooms as an idol singer, and through skilled investments, he had doubled the money he’d earned there many times over. Even as the rest of the world suffered under the economic downturn, he had more money than he could spend.

It was his money; he had made it himself. No one had the right to tell him how to use it.

Now, in Setagaya Ward’s Sangenjaya, there was a luxury apartment complex with rents far out of the reach of the average citizen: Tsuwabuki Pavilion Sangenjaya.

The landlord was Ichiro Tsuwabuki. The architect was Ichiro Tsuwabuki. The entire top floor was his personal living space. The rent he took in from tenants was chicken feed, but it was enough to cover maintenance costs and employee salaries with change left over.

It was after breakfast. Ichiro sat on the high-priced Armonia sofa in his living room, enjoying an elegant downtime. The news played on an LCD screen large enough to prompt thoughts of “bigger isn’t always better, you know” from the average observer. A newspaper and a tablet and other reading material sat close at hand.

At just this moment, Ichiro was on the phone, making small talk with the president of a general trading company.

“I see you’re just as wicked as ever,” Ichiro said with a smile, spreading his newspaper out on the table.

“My father thinks so, too. He says you really need to be more above-board about these things. Of course, I personally don’t object...”

The young man’s flippant tone would make it hard to believe he was addressing the president of Tsunobeni Co., one of the world’s financial leaders. Ichiro often advised him, and he secretly admired the man’s skilled way around the stock market. There was nearly a 40-year distance between them, but their mutual respect had fostered a relationship almost like friendship. Of course, if you probed deeper, their interactions were mostly businesslike, concerned with the coming and going of money.

“Oh, your daughter? Back in the country, you say? She was in Paris, wasn’t she? With her new fashion line. Oh, is it going well? That’s very nice. She showed me her designs before, but... Hmm? Oh, no, that’s nonsense, of course.”

As Ichiro carried on his conversation, his servant came out of the dining room with a tray carrying a pot and a cup. Ichiro noticed and, with upraised eyebrow, began steering the conversation to an end.

“Anyway, tell her I’m not interested, and that I’m unlikely to change my mind anytime soon. Yes. That’s right. That would be best, I think. Yes, thanks. Talk to you later.”

With the casual goodbye, he hung up.

The servant gave Ichiro a respectful bow, then poured the contents of the pot into the cup. “Your coffee, Ichiro-sama.”

“Mm, thanks,” Ichiro responded, without so much as a smile.



Tsuwabuki kept a single live-in servant, who, incredibly, did her duties dressed as an old-fashioned Victorian maid. The outfit was by choice... her own, that is.

Sakurako Ogi was a live-in servant that Ichiro Tsuwabuki employed for his own amusement. He’d wanted a reasonably attractive, well-figured, well-educated girl, but she’d turned out to exceed his expectations, acting not only as a servant but as a secretary and chauffeur, as well.

The rest of her personality was... well, perhaps what you would expect from someone who wore a maid’s uniform for fun. Her room was full of stacks of manga, games, anime and tokusatsu DVDs, action figures, plamodels, and other bric-a-brac.

Ichiro once asked her what she would do if an earthquake hit, and her answer was a gravely serious, “I would die.” She had previously said that she would be happy to die surrounded by what she loved, so perhaps she really meant it.

“Was that the president of Tsunobeni?” she asked.

“Yes. He wanted to thank me for the financial advice I’d given him recently, and then we chatted for a while.”

She had come from a relatively ordinary family. The longer she worked with him, the better grasp she seemed to gain of her master’s relationships, but he could remember a time when she had expressed such astonishment at every big name he threw out, they could barely carry on a conversation.