Chapter 400: Impersonating Ms. Morikawa's Boyfriend
Riho Morikawa didn't keep Haruno Sawayama waiting too long.
Strictly speaking, it was the day after she discussed the "pretending to be her boyfriend plan" that she hurriedly took Sawayama Haruno to go back to her hometown.
The so-called hometown is not far from Tokyo. It takes less than two hours to drive there. It is near Chiba Prefecture.
Sawayama Haruno was in charge of driving. Although there was an inevitable traffic jam when leaving Tokyo, the traffic was smooth once he got on the highway. He quite enjoyed this short-distance highway and looked very interested.
However, the mature female editor sitting in the passenger seat looked worried. She glanced at her mobile phone from time to time, and then sighed.
"What's wrong? Haven't you already communicated with your family?"
Sawayama Haruno glanced at her and asked casually, "Your explanation to your family should be that you met at work, right?"
"Well, he was an author in the company, and I met him at a blind date event." Morikawa Riho seemed to be inexplicably depressed. She said listlessly, "I'll just fool him for now, but I don't know how to cover it up next."
She explained to her family that there were some older single men among the responsible authors, and after a social party was held within the company, she happened to "fall in love" with one of the authors, and this author was naturally Sawayama Haruno.
To be on the safe side, Morikawa Riho has not yet told her family about Sawayama Haruno's real identity, which is his pen name, and the books he has written.
But because of my work, my parents will inevitably ask about this topic in the end, and it will be troublesome to explain it then. After all, Sawayama Haruno's current name is too famous and it is easy to "scare" his parents.
Now that I think about it calmly, my plan of asking Sawayama Haruno to pretend to be my boyfriend is full of loopholes. He clearly asked me to "consider it" carefully yesterday, but I didn't have enough time to prepare too much.
It's a real headache
Morikawa Riho felt irritated for no reason. She said depressedly, "I can only take it one step at a time. I was thinking of going back next week, but my family called me last night and I happened to tell them about our situation. Then they forced me to go home today."
"It doesn't matter if it's a week early. The most important thing now is how to continue to fool around." Sawayama Haruno comforted her.
The red McLaren 720S continued to accelerate on the highway. The scenery passing by outside the window failed to dispel Morikawa Riho's sad mood, but instead made her even more distressed.
After hearing what Zeshan Haruno said, she rolled her eyes and said helplessly: "This is the headache now. When you go to their house later, they will definitely ask you non-stop. Even if you can fool them about work matters, what about your family relationship?"
"It won't affect my family in any way, right? Just tell me what you want to say, except for the fact that we're already married." Sawayama Haruno didn't take this matter to heart at all.
In his opinion, the plot of pretending to be a boyfriend was too easy. He had watched countless animations on this subject in his previous life. How much more difficult could it be?
What's more, he now has more than enough experience dealing with his future father-in-law and mother-in-law, so solving Morikawa Riho's commission is just a piece of cake for him.
Of course, it is difficult to fight a battle without confidence, and Sawayama Haruno will also make some considerations for the plan. The gifts of different sizes placed in the trunk are what he prepared in advance.
On the one hand, it can show his importance to Riho Morikawa, and on the other hand, it can also prove that he and Riho Morikawa are "serious". After all, the gifts are so expensive, others will definitely think they are serious.
This little money was nothing to Sawayama Haruno. He just thought of it as a gift to Morikawa Riho's parents for her sake, as she had always done her best to help him. As long as he could successfully resolve this "crisis", this small price was worth it.
“You are optimistic.”
Morikawa Riho then sighed, and after noticing that they got off the highway, she hurriedly gave directions to Sawayama Haruno.
Chiba Prefecture is a small city after all. If you are far away from the city center, it is difficult to see vehicles passing through other areas. Especially today, Sawayama Haruno specially drove a more expensive sports car out, which attracted many curious eyes of locals along the way.
Following the instructions of Morikawa Riho and the map, after driving to the corresponding town area, Sawayama Haruno began to slow down the speed of the car. It was not until the residential area appeared not far away that he completely turned on the quiet mode of the car to avoid affecting other people.
"Just drive straight to my house."
Morikawa Riho said anxiously, "There is a small garage at home that can park two cars."
In the island country, parking is a very troublesome thing, especially in residential areas. You cannot park on the road and can only park in private parking spaces. This is also something that islanders need to consider before buying a car.
Of course, the Morikawa family also has their own private parking space, which is an open-air garage that can accommodate two small cars. It is called an open-air garage, but in fact it is a renovation of the courtyard for the convenience of parking.
Riho Morikawa's father owns an old Honda sedan. Considering that his daughter might buy a car while working in Tokyo, he converted the entire courtyard into a garage so that Riho Morikawa would have a place to park when she drove back one day.
Although the mature female editor has not bought a car yet, the garage also comes in handy at this moment, as it makes it convenient for Sawayama Haruno to drive in all the time.
However, when he was about to park his car in Riho Morikawa's garage, some minor incidents occurred.
Sawayama Haruno, who had just turned the steering wheel, suddenly stopped what he was doing, causing the already nervous Morikawa Riho to suddenly turn her head and frowned, "What's wrong? You can't park the car, right?"
Her father's car was already parked inside, and the remaining space was barely enough for a small car. Although the sports car driven by Sawayama Haruno was not very big, the McLaren 720S was longer than ordinary cars, so it might be a bit troublesome to park it there.
"You underestimate my driving skills." Sawayama Haruno was speechless. He pointed out the window and whispered, "That's not the problem. There's someone staring at us over there."
"Ok?"
Morikawa Riho followed Sawayama Haruno's gaze and when she saw two little girls staring blankly at the car she and Sawayama Haruno were in, she immediately reacted.
Those two girls are her cousins. Did her father even call her uncle’s family over?
Morikawa Riho suddenly became even more uneasy. She rubbed her brows and smiled tiredly: "Those are my two sisters. They may be frightened. Please park the car first."
"Sister? There's quite a big age difference between you two."
Sawayama Haruno parked the car in the garage and couldn't help but sigh in surprise. After all, those two girls looked like elementary school students, and Morikawa Riho was already 27 years old, so the age gap was too big to call her a cousin.
Based on this relationship, how early did Morikawa Riho's parents have to get married and have children to result in such a huge age gap between their generation?
"My parents got pregnant before marriage and got married in a hurry after I was born"
Morikawa Riho complained unhappily, and without waiting for Sawayama Haruno to pack her things, she opened the door and got out of the car as soon as it stopped to greet her two cousins.
Sawayama Haruno, who was a step slower, had to take out the gifts he had prepared first. If he had known that there were other relatives of Morikawa Riho there, it might have been better for him to prepare some candies that children would also like. However, it was too late to buy them now.
Fortunately, this is an island country, so it doesn’t matter if we don’t prepare gifts for the children. What’s more, she is just a cousin, not a biological sister.
"Nao, Harumi"
Riho Morikawa had already greeted her two cousins and introduced Haruno Sawayama to them.
However, the two younger sisters showed somewhat timid expressions after seeing Sawayama Haruno, which made Sawayama Haruno feel a little "hurt" for the first time. He always thought that his popularity with women should be regardless of age.
Just as he was trying hard to force a smile and say hello to his two elementary school cousins, one of the girls who looked more childish suddenly ran into the house. Less than half an hour later, Sawayama Haruno heard the anxious conversation of the adults coming from inside.
"Are you here already?"
"No wonder we heard the sound of a car just now. It would be better if we could meet them at the door."
"Reiko, you are too nervous. It's not too late to leave now. I will help you watch the dishes in the kitchen. You go out first."
As hurried footsteps sounded, Sawayama Haruno finally saw Morikawa Riho's parents.
A mature woman who was older but still charming, and a middle-aged man who looked a little thin and short, came out to greet them as soon as they heard the movement of Haruno Sawayama and Riho Morikawa.
After seeing exactly what Sawayama Haruno looked like, their eyes obviously lit up, as if they were very satisfied with their daughter's new "boyfriend".
"mom!"
Riho Morikawa was about to step forward and say hello, but was simply ignored by her mother.
The enthusiastic mother Morikawa took Sawayama Haruno's hand and said with a smile while he looked confused, "This must be Sawayama-san, welcome. I was busy in the kitchen just now and didn't hear you. How rude of you."
"Auntie, you are so polite."
Sawayama Haruno couldn't help but glance at Morikawa Riho, wondering what this girl had said to her family yesterday. It made it seem as if he had been dating her for a long time. Wasn't this different from the plan?
In fact, it was Sawayama Haruno who misunderstood. Morikawa Riho did tell her parents that she had only been dating Haruno for a short time.
But her parents have long hoped that their daughter would find a boyfriend and get married as soon as possible, so when they saw Sawayama Haruno, they acted so familiarly, in order to leave a good impression on him as much as possible.
In addition, Morikawa Riho has already revealed some of Sawayama Haruno's work to her parents. Now the two elders already know that Sawayama Haruno and Morikawa Riho are internal partners of the company. This also shows that Morikawa Riho and Sawayama Haruno must know each other well.
In addition, the identity of a scholar is likely to bring more favorable impressions to people, and Sawayama Haruno's appearance makes it impossible to find any faults. Even his young and wealthy appearance indirectly confirms that he has enough talent in writing.
How can a person without talent make money? If he can make money, doesn't it mean he has talent? It is no exaggeration to say that Haruno Sawayama is a hot commodity in the eyes of Riho Morikawa's parents.
——He doesn't mind that his daughter is seven or eight years older than him, can write books, is very familiar with each other's work, is rich and talented, even though he may not find any problems when they meet for the first time.
But Morikawa's parents, who were anxious to get their daughter married, believed that as long as the problem was not too big, they could tolerate and correct it.
The more they thought about this, the more satisfied Morikawa Riho's parents were with Sawayama Haruno, and they began to like him more and more.
They even ignored Morikawa Riho who was trying hard to control the "right to speak" and pulled Sawayama Haruno into the house to sit down and drink tea. After seeing that Sawayama Haruno had prepared a gift for the visit, they were so surprised that they were speechless.
Doesn't such sincerity further prove the true feelings between him and Morikawa Riho?
So, it shouldn't be a problem to get married early, right?
Anyway, this is popular among young people nowadays. Feelings can be cultivated slowly after marriage. If you delay it any longer, when Morikawa Riho gets older, she may not even be able to compare with some women who take care of their husbands after remarriage.
The two elders didn't dare to let her drag it on any longer, so they decided to take advantage of this opportunity when Sawayama Haruno came to visit them to "persuade" the two of them to move their relationship forward quickly.
"Zeshan-san, sit down and just act like you're at home."
Morikawa Riho's mother pulled him into the house with a smile on her face. However, it was not until they entered that Sawayama Haruno realized that there were far more people present than just his two elementary school cousins. Several other relatives were already sitting in the living room, looking at him with curious eyes.
There was a serious flaw in the plan!
Sawayama Haruno's scalp felt tingling. Before coming, he had never heard Morikawa Riho say that there would be so many relatives coming to visit. When he saw this, he was dumbfounded.
He has a lot of experience in dealing with his father-in-law and mother-in-law, but he has no experience in dealing with a large family of relatives.
After realizing that something was wrong, Sawayama Haruno subconsciously turned his gaze towards where Morikawa Riho was, but found that the other person who walked in later also had a somewhat stiff expression.
It's over. I can't count on him anymore.
I should think about how to act more intimate with Morikawa Riho to ensure that I can deceive her family.
(End of this chapter)
