Fuyunagi Shizuku gazed at the passing night scenery with a look of complete indifference.

She was now in her father’s car.

Shizuku, having told her father beforehand that things would turn out like this, had asked him in advance to come pick her up.

After leaving the restaurant in the heat of her argument with her mother, she now sat in the car her father had come to get her in, absentmindedly staring at the night scenery.

“Did things turn out the way you wanted?”

“Yeah. After all that, even Mother will have no choice but to give up. I think the Kuzuryuu family will give up too.”

“Well, well, you certainly are bold in your actions. I’ve never heard of someone thoroughly mocking their fiancé in front of their family right at the engagement meeting.”

“But what could I do? It was Mother who refused to listen despite me saying no!”

“Ah well, Reiko must be furious with you now… in the worst case, she might even disown you, you know?”

“I’m enjoying living on my own right now, so that’s fine by me. You’ll keep covering my rent, right? Father.”

“Good grief… this daughter of mine is quite the shrewd and resourceful young woman.”

Incidentally, Reiko is Shizuku’s mother’s name.

It seems to be a custom of the Fuyunagi family to often incorporate the character for “rain” (雨) into their names.

She is the wife of Shizuku’s father, Fuyunagi Kanemasa.

“Father, you should give that woman a real piece of your mind! You know she’s looking down on you, don’t you?”

“Hahaha… you’ve got me there.”

“It’s not a laughing matter!”

“Well, even so…”

“Haa… listen, Father. That woman subconsciously seeks a strong man who will dominate her and force her to submit! Your passive attitude isn’t going to work.”

“For my own child to say something like that… it’s truly terrifying.”

“Do you understand that your weakness is exactly why your daughter is going through all this? Listen carefully, Father! Mother and I share the same fundamental tendencies… I hate to admit it, but in this area, we really are parent and child.

Both Mother and I basically look down on men… we underestimate them the same way… but deep down, we want to submit to a man. We want a man who makes us think, ‘I want this person to dominate me… to make me submit.’ We’re unconsciously waiting for someone who can fulfill that desire!!”

“…I’m speechless… she’s truly terrifying, even for my own daughter… Haa… And that person you want to submit to is that Majima Takuma-kun?”

“My situation isn’t the point right now… but it’s true that I do want Taku-chan to dominate me. Sometimes he becomes incredibly sadistic… and it makes me excited…”

“Eh… is that so…?”

“Anyway! You can’t stay weak like this, Dad! If you keep acting timid, that woman will never see you as a man!! You have to attack! Take the offensive!! Dad, you need to bring out more of your S nature and show the kind of force that can overpower Mother!!”

“Haha… I’ll try my best…”

Inside the car, the parent and child continued their rather eccentric conversation.

But despite everything, the time that passed between them felt strangely relaxing.

Shizuku preferred her parents to get along.

However, their relationship had clearly gone cold.

Honestly, Shizuku regretted that she had gone too far when she said that her mother truly did not like, and truly did not love, her father, and that her mother had only married him because she was told to by her parents—statements she had made driven purely by the heat of the moment.

She’d long suspected since childhood that her mother held little romantic feelings for Dad. As a child, this worry had always troubled her deeply.

The fact that her mother’s romantic feelings toward her father were weak was an honest concern she had held since childhood, and as a child, she had even worried about it.

However, when she was a child, there were things she started to notice about her mother.

One of those was her mother’s…sexual preferences.

Her mother looked down on men, and she mocked them.

Well, that is as expected, considering how beautiful she is.

Considering the age difference, the number of men who had approached her mother couldn’t even be compared to Shizuku’s—it must have been as countless as the stars in the sky.

However, her mother would never be swayed by those lowly men.

To her, they all probably looked the same.

Her father, however, was a little different.

For better or worse, he had managed to become her mother’s lover, eventually married her, and became the father who gave birth to Shizuku.

Without a doubt, he occupied a depth that no other man could possibly reach.

Her father’s former surname—Takano—belonged to a fairly well-known company.

It didn’t have the prestige of the Kuzuryuu family name, but they generated very large profits every year.

Her grandparents from her father’s side adored Shizuku, but they disliked her mother, and their relationship had never been good.

The fact that her father took the Fuyunagi surname was likely a factor.

Shizuku believed that her mother may have chosen her father because of the Takano name—but regardless of the reason, if her mother had chosen him herself, then as long as her father matched her mother’s preference and tendencies, things should go well. Shizuku believed that wholeheartedly.

But with the current situation being the exact opposite of a dominant husband dynamic, she could only conclude that such an outcome seemed difficult.