Classroom of the Elite: Free Will

SS13: Koenji Rokusuke - The Key

FLASHBACK

NEW YORK, SIX YEARS AGO.

"Why am I here?" I asked annoyed at the situation.

"I already explained you, Rokusuke," my father said tiredly. "We're going to meet one of my investees to see my money is well spent."

"I know that," I complained. "What I mean is why am I here?"

"You're my heir, Rokusuke. You must understand the conglomerate's functioning from top to bottom."

I gave a simple nod.

This was annoying. Why do I need to go through this when I can just delegate all the work to other people?

It's always been the same. At the age kids usually enter school, my father began hiring tutors and has been making me go through a really difficult curriculum that I doubted normal kids had to follow. But then again, I wasn't a normal kid. I was the heir of the Koenji conglomerate.

If I had to pick a phrase that I have been hearing constantly ever since I could remember that would be it:

'You're the heir of the Koenji conglomerate'

All the expectations have always been on me. Take my family, the conglomerate, and the country to a new era. I carried the future and hopes of my father and my family on my shoulders.

And any normal person would have crumbled to the pressure. But I didn't, I just did as I was told because that's what was expected of me.

Still, I failed to see the use of it.

Why should I spend my time in such a manner when I already had it all? Just because the expectations my parents and their people have?

The car finally stopped and the door at my right opened.

I descended from the car and almost let out a gasp. Giant buildings were everywhere around me, dominating the place, making me feel miniscule as if I was nothing. The grandeur giving you a sense, the feeling that you were meaningless. Irrelevant.

"Let's go, Rokusuke," my father pressed me to follow him inside the building. "We're not here for tourism."

Without waiting for a reply, he walked walked inside the building and I quickly followed. We entered the elevator and went up to the nineteenth floor.

There, we immediately entered some kind of big luxurious apartment. In the living room were about twenty to twenty-five people men and women engaged in idle talk and drinking champagne. Most people were in suits or dresses but there was one that was wearing some white clothes that looked at first sight looked like a pyjama but that thanks to my studies, I recognised as a kandura and a keffiyeh, commonly worn in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East.

"That's Sam Ibrahim, Rokusuke. One of the main investors."

I gave a slight nod. I had heard of him, he directed an air-racing tournament in Singapore called Pathfinder Air Race.

"Koenji-san!" I turned as a voice called to my father.

These people would have never called me Koenji-san.

"Ah, Ayanokouji-sensei. A pleasure to see you again."

My father and the newcomer shook hands amiably and exchanged a few welcoming words.