She had just changed her shoes when Yukino, wearing an apron, came out of the kitchen.
"Utaha, welcome back."
"I'm back~~~"
Utaha walked over with a smile and gave Yukino a hug. "Why did you start preparing on your own?"
"After I finished reading, there wasn't much else to do, so I washed some vegetables first. I didn't do that much."
Utaha nodded and turned toward the bedroom. "Then wait for me a bit. I'll change clothes in the bedroom, use the bathroom, and then come help in the kitchen."
She was still on her period, after all—personal hygiene was something she needed to take care of properly.
Five minutes later, Utaha came into the kitchen, put on an apron, and started preparing dinner together with Yukino.
Picking up the thawed pork, she began slicing it while chatting. "So after you got back this afternoon, you were just reading?"
Yukino nodded. "Yeah. I didn't bring my books back to Chiba these past few days, so I was just looking over some materials at home. I'll be entering my third year soon, and there are still plenty of specialized courses ahead. I should prepare in advance—otherwise classes will be exhausting."
"Law really is tough," Utaha said.
She skillfully finished slicing the meat, put it into a bowl, added various seasonings to marinate it, and covered it with plastic wrap.
After washing her hands, Utaha lightly bumped Yukino's shoulder and teased her. "So when you got home just now, did you and Ichin—"
As expected, Yukino's face flushed red. She still couldn't speak so casually about these things like Utaha did.
She hurriedly shook her head. "Not at all. Didn't he still have work this afternoon? The game development is in its final stages—he can't afford to waste too much time."
"How much time could it really waste?" Utaha laughed. "I go to the company every day, you know—I'm well aware. Ichin just cares a lot about development progress, so he wants to keep an eye on it, deal with issues as they come up, and help guide the newer employees so they can learn more. But it's not like half a day would make a difference. Doesn't he know to spend more time with you? Hmm… in that case, Yukino, why don't you stay here tonight? I'm not very convenient these days anyway."
The more Utaha spoke, the redder Yukino's face became—she looked like she was about to steam.
Still, Utaha's suggestion did make Yukino a little tempted, though there was no way she'd say it out loud.
At 6:30 in the evening, Ichin got off work and arrived home right on time.
"I'm back~"
The moment he stepped inside, a rich, familiar aroma filled the air. Without even thinking, Ichin knew that one of the dishes for dinner was sweet-and-sour ribs.
Yukino came out of the kitchen. When she saw Ichin, obvious joy appeared in her eyes.
"Welcome back. Dinner will be ready soon."
"Mm, I can already smell it."
After going to the living room and taking off his jacket, Ichin used the bathroom and came back to see dishes being placed on the table one after another.
Sweet-and-sour ribs, stir-fried pork with green peppers, shiitake mushrooms with bamboo shoots, and a ham-and-tofu soup.
"Three dishes and a soup—pretty lavish," Ichin said.
Utaha came over carrying two bowls of rice, placing one in front of Ichin as she smiled. "There were still plenty of ingredients at home, and since you've been working hard, we discussed it and decided on today's menu."
Behind her, Yukino also came out with chopsticks and bowls. The three of them sat down and began dinner.
Haruno was still busy in Chiba today and wouldn't be back until tomorrow afternoon, so dinner was missing that lively presence.
As they ate, the three chatted about their weekend activities, then naturally moved on to discussing the villa they'd just bought. Utaha and Yukino immediately started talking about renovation ideas.
Seeing how full of ideas they were, Ichin was more than happy to leave it to them. It meant he could relax a bit and let them do as they pleased. After all, both Utaha and Yukino had excellent taste—there was nothing to worry about.
"I think you just want to be lazy," Utaha said, rolling her eyes at him.
Even so, she was happy to take on the task. She knew Ichin spent a lot of time at the company and couldn't possibly keep a constant eye on renovation matters.
Even though Haruno's renovation team was reliable, they'd still need to check in often to monitor progress and make immediate changes if anything was unsatisfactory.
After dinner and cleaning up, Utaha and Yukino curled up on the sofa with a laptop, searching up information about villa renovations.
As for Ichin, after making some tea and resting in the living room for a bit, he went back to his room and started a livestream, setting up an Apex viewer match with his audience.
Over the past six months, Apex's popularity had remained consistently high. Every major update introduced a new hero, the number of maps had increased to four, and the ranked system and tier rewards were already very well refined. Player numbers stayed at an excellent level, posing a serious threat to PUBG, which had been operating for years.
At the end of February, PUBG announced that the game would go free-to-play on March 10th. That was indeed a way to boost popularity again.
After years of operation, going free-to-play made sense—they'd already made more than enough money, and the game even had a professional competitive scene.
However, going free also meant that if anti-cheat measures weren't strong enough, cheating would become rampant, affecting ordinary players and even those at high ranks.
Although Ichin didn't play PUBG much, Umiko did. When developing Apex, Ichin had asked Umiko about cheating issues in PUBG.
From Umiko's explanation, Ichin learned that PUBG cheats had become increasingly sophisticated over the years. As long as cheaters weren't overly blatant, it was extremely hard to gather evidence against them.
Not to mention that once the game went free, given Bluehole's capabilities, the lowered cost of using cheats would almost certainly lead to an explosion in their numbers.
It was a choice full of both risk and reward for PUBG—it all depended on how they handled things afterward.
That said, none of this would have much impact on Apex. From the very beginning, Ichin had treated anti-cheat measures as one of the highest priorities. Systems for cheat detection and report analysis had been fully prepared long ago.
As a result, the Apex player community was still relatively clean.
Even if a few new cheats appeared occasionally, Ichin's team—including outsourced technical teams—could respond immediately, ban cheaters, and render the cheats unusable in a very short time.
Cheat developers were skilled? He had plenty of experts on his side as well—no need to panic.
After playing two lively matches with viewers, Ichin was just about to start a third when Umiko sent him a message.
Seeing that Ichin was livestreaming, she planned to join in herself—and even brought Nene and Aoba along as teammates.
Ichin was more than happy to let them join. He even went a step further and messaged Eriri and Ruri, his regular squadmates, inviting them to participate as well.
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