Chapter 156: Ichijouji Naoshi’s Daily Life
Chapter 156: Ichijouji Naoshi’s Daily Life
(Reina’s Father’s (Naoshi) PoV)
As I walked through the corridor, my secretary started reciting today’s schedule to me. I already had the whole thing memorized, but there was no point in stopping her from confirming it.
I also had the bad luck of accidentally meeting up with that pest that was born out of Reiko during this morning’s walk, but I ignored her… There are important business to attend to today, and no time to waste on her… She too walked past without saying anything. As unemotional as always, for anything that is unrelated to Reiko that is.
A small while later though, I met up with my children, “Are you two ready?” I asked them.
“Father!” My daughter shouted.
“Good morning, father.” My son said.
“Oh… Good morning.” I told them as I patted their heads. Seigi seemed to be a bit embarrassed by this, probably because he isn’t a small child anymore, but it’s fine. It’s a habit I can continue with for as long as he doesn’t explicitly tell me to stop.
“Father, I’d like to talk to you about something…” Komari said. She seemed to be pretty fine with the patting, it was nice to see that she still likes this kind of thing.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“A-about sister-” She started saying.
“Yamamoto, they have a piano recital today, right?” I asked my butler.
“Yes… They do.” Yamamoto replied.
They have a piano recital, so I need to finish work early and go there to see them. I need to be there for them to help them grow up normally… They’ll definitely be normal people.
“Then, let’s have breakfast. Take a seat, everyone.” I told the two of them as we reached the dining room. With my wife seating on my right, and my two children, son and daughter, sitting on my left… Like this, another day begins.
******
Once I got to work and dealt with my usual tasks, I had to attend a meeting to discuss how to handle the continuously growing number of refugees that we were harboring. The prime minister thought that it was a good humanitarian act to take care of them, but it was also being a considerable waste of tax money to harbor people that didn’t work, so some of the people in the committee were quite annoyed at them.
After a while of discussion, I ended up suggesting that a large refugee camp should be made in an area that had a high acceptance of refugees, which would serve as a way of minimizing expenses in the long run as they’d be concentrated in a single place.
However, there was an issue that we might not have enough space to harbor all refugees in one place, so I also suggested holding a popular vote with people deciding if refugees should be accepted into the houses of the populace that live in the more accepting regions.
Should the citizens be okay with it, we’ll be spending less money caring for the refugees as the citizens will be covering their needs directly. Should they be against it, we’ll start rejecting refugees due to lack of space and money to spend on them, meaning that we’d be benefitting from this regardless of the result.
The ministers in charge of the areas at risk of receiving a large refugee count were obviously against it, but the prime minister decided to go with my idea, to their dismay. This was for the best, as actively refusing refugees due to being a waste of taxes would be bad on the eyes of the overall populace, but if it’s done after they reject housing the refugees, the citizens will be a lot more accepting of the idea.
With this discussion out of the way, I took my leave early to make sure I wouldn’t miss Komari’s and Seigi’s recital. One of the ministers reminded me to come back in time for the afternoon budget meetings, but I had not forgotten about it, so the reminder was unnecessary.
… On the way to the car though, I became painfully aware of the state of my leg. I should replace my prothesis for a new one… No, this was the prothesis that Reiko chose for me. I’ll send it for repair again, and ask Yamamoto to get me a temporary substitute while this one is being repaired.
That can wait though, for now I should focus on their recital, and then I’ll be able to see if they have improved enough to the point that their skills are fitting of the Ichijouji household.