Chapter Text
Emmy closed the office's door with the tip of her foot, her arms full of papers and documents of all sorts. Hershel glanced over her, smiling.
"Good morning, professor !" She said cheerfully.
"Good morning, Emmy." He answered and stood up to help her. He took a few papers from her arms. "This is surely a lot of work ! I apologize for the mess, I should have helped you."
"No worries, professor ! I'm the best assistant ever, after all, it's not a pack of papers that will scare me!"
"Ha, I guess so."
She let all the documents fall on the professor's desk in a loud crash, before facing the professor and clapping her hands.
"Okay, what's up today !" She took her notebook from her purse and flipped a few pages. "Okay, we have a meeting with the other professors and the Dean at ten this morning. Since then we are practically free, so I guess we can do all this paperwork for the time being."
The professor nodded, and went to work with his assistant.
The rest of the morning went by quickly, and soon after they needed to meet the other professors for the meeting. It was actually odd that Layton hadn’t been told about this before. It wasn’t like the dean to be so late with work… But they managed to clear their paperwork in the morning, so they could at least attend this one.
When Hershel and Emmy entered the room, they immediately felt the tense atmosphere in the area. The other professors were all already seated, and discussing with serious faces. Emmy went to one of them, asking for what was wrong.
“You don’t know why we’re here ?” one of them said. If Emmy’s memory was correct, he was a maths teacher.
“Erh… No, I don’t think so.”
“The Dean made business with another university’s director.” a woman Emmy recognized as one of the physics professors said. “They want us to meet this guy.”
“Oh, we didn’t know.” Hershel said, tipping his hat to his colleagues. “From which university ?”
“We don’t know yet. We just know it’s a Japanese one.”
“Oh, that’s quite rare. It certainly can be interesting, what do you think, Emmy-”
Hershel looked up at his assistant when he heard her gasp. She suddenly looked very pale, and looked at the other professor with big eyes.
“A Japanese university, you said…?”
“Well-”
“Attention, everyone !”
Emmy jumped at the Dean’s voice. Something was wrong, Hershel thought. He’d never seen his assistant act like this before.
He knew she came from Jn and arrived in England a few years ago. She told her a little bit about her life : her father was Japanese but her mother was English, which is why she was already fluent in English when she moved to London. But she never talked a lot about her family, as if it was a touchy subject. As a gentleman, he never asked, but he couldn’t deny he was interested. But from Emmy’s reaction, something may have happened back there before she left…
The dean entered the room and greeted everyone in a cheerful way. “Thank you all for coming to this sudden meeting. Please, take a seat so we can start.”
The professor led Emmy to the two chairs left, next to the Dean. He glanced at her : she was still looking as anxious as before.
“Are you alright, my dear ?” he whispered while the others installed.
“Y-Yeah, I am.” Emmy answered, blinking a few times before looking at him.
“You don’t seem to. Do you need some water ?”
“Oh, no, thank you. I’m fine.” Her attempt to smile was the most unnatural one he’d seen, but he didn’t say anything else. The Dean was about to speak.
“Okay. So, as some of you already know, I decided that Gressenheller needed to make connections with international schools. And as if on cue, one of them recently contacted me ! What a lucky day, hu ? Hohoho…”
Emmy’s hand gripped her knee. Hershel looked at her, worried.
“So, I apologize for not telling you sooner, but after a few exchanges, we decided to link our two universities. So from now on, we’ll organize some student exchange every year with this faculty.”
“Which is ?” one of the professors said.
“Ah, yes, of course ! I haven’t told you.” He took a deep breath, smiling. “We are lucky today, because the director of the University is with us today. Now, please…” Delmona gestured to the opening door.
A tall man entered. He looked like a real academic man in his late fifties : a dark blue tuxedo, perfectly ironed, with a bright red tie. His traits were clearly asian, with dark brown eyes and thin lips. The man was actually quite awesome.
Hershel heard Emmy gasp when he approached the dean.
“Let me introduce you to Azami Nakao, director of Hokkaido’s University.”
A loud crash was heard.
Emmy was standing up, hands on the table in front of her, her chair fallen on the floor behind her. She looked at the man with bewildered eyes and Hershel noticed she was trembling.
“Emmy-”
She let out a sharp breath.
“F-Father-?!”
The door fell silent for a moment, before it began buzzing around. The professor could see some of his colleagues looking at his assistant with shocked faces and whispering to the others around them. Emmy hasn’t moved an inch. She was so, so pale.
Azami straightened his tie, glancing over Emmy.
“ お久しぶりです, レミ.”