Chapter 391 - Graduation

The graduation ceremony of the senior high school students was short and sweet. It began with the entry of graduating students to the auditorium, followed by the introduction to the graduation ceremony by the teacher host. The students then sang the national anthem before they received their graduation certificate.

Unlike graduations in other countries, instead of the long ceremony of inviting each graduate up to collect their diplomas on the stage, Japanese ceremonies often only called up class representatives up to collect the diplomas on behalf of their graduating class and they would distribute them to their respective classmates later. Aside from that, another glaring difference was that not all students' families came to support. In this country, graduation ceremonies were mostly an event for friends and not for family. Well, except for Alinea.

Occupying an entire row of seats was all her family, led by her father. They sat just behind the school officials who were all stiff and nervous which was understandable. Who would manage to sit still when the Koutaishidenka of the Homura House, Homura International's Ceo Kaehaya Gin, Suzuki Raiden Group's CEO Suzuki Aki, and the newly introduced CEO of Homura International's European branch Kazehaya Sora were behind them?

None.

As soon as they entered the venue, the school officials were more than shocked. They quickly apologized for being unprepared to receive them but the Koutaishidenka ȧssured them that it was unnecessary and asked him to ignore their existence. In the end, they just made the powerful lineup sit on the second row behind them, but were not able to do anything else but cry silently in their hearts.

Even the guest they invited to give a speech, an alumnus who was deemed successful in the outside world being able to open his own business felt so nervous. For the nth time during the whole ceremony, he wondered why he ever accepted the invitation to give a speech of encouragement and congratulations to the students. With the powerful lineup attending as guests, his meager success was a total joke.

However, before he went up to the stage, Kazehaya Gin leaned forward and chatted with him.

"Are you CEO Takeda of Sugar House?" Gin asked good-naturedly shocking the guest on the fact that the esteemed CEO of Homura International knew about him and his little business. He nodded nonetheless and was even more shocked at his next words. "That's amazing. My wife loves your company's pastries," he said.

As expected the man's eyes rounded, but the dark cloud of depression and insecurity hovering over him just a while ago vanished, replaced by grateful happiness. "I didn't know that CEO Kazehaya is already married. Congratulations, and please let my humble self send some pastries to the madam as gifts."

"She'd be happy," Gin said before ending the conversation.

It was safe to say that the guest speaker went up to the stage with pride and shared his words to the graduating classes in a humorous and inspiring way just as he initially planned.

Afterwards, it was the student representative's turn to give the speech, and the people from the second row shifted in their seats to sit up straight as they anticipated it. Why? It was because the graduation speech would be given by the top student of the batch which was Suzuki Ara.

Everyone watched as the most beautiful and intelligent student stood up and walked up the stage. Not a soul made a sound as they all listened to her deliver her speech and a huge round of applause followed suit. The people of the second row couldn't have been any prouder.

Her speech was followed by another speech from the younger batch's representative, and then the school anthem. Soon, the graduation ceremony's curtain was closed.

"Araaaaaaa!" Yashiro followed by the no-boobs group quickly ran towards her with all the intension of throwing herself at her.

"Woah!" Alinea quickly caught her in her arms and the small girl hugged her tightly by the waist.  

Since that time they went to take a bath at the hot spring, the girls in her class liked to hang out with her when they had lessons. But now, there would be no more opportunities for that since they'd already graduated and most of them would be scattered all over the country to attend the respective universities they'd chosen.

"Where are you studying next, Suzuki?" some other classmates asked and soon she was surrounded by many people wanting to talk to her.

She lifted her head to look across the room to her husband who looked at her fondly. Her father and uncle stood next to him all gave her a signal to go ahead and talk to her classmates as there wouldn't be another good opportunity to do so. Also, it seemed the teachers and school officials took this opportunity to talk to the power group and had engaged everyone in conversations. Since they also looked busy, Alinea took this time to exchange small talks and farewells with her classmates. By the time she was able to extricate herself from them and joined her husband's group, she saw the principal's face brightened over something Ryuu said before he hurriedly excused himself.

"What's going on?" Alinea asked her husband, but Ryuu just smiled at her as he pointed at the principal who was now running on the stage to pick up the microphone.

The ceremony had ended, but none of the people who attended had left yet. They had all been busy chatting with each other as it would be the last time some of them would see each other for a long while.

"What's happening?" Ali asked again but Ryuu placed a finger against her lips just before the principal's voice echoed in the auditorium.

"Everyone, I have a great surprise to all of you. Parents, students, teachers, and our school officials, we have all been invited to share a banquet to celebrate this occasion at the Cedar Palace by no other than Mr. Homura Ryuu, Homura House's Koutaishidenka. This is in honor of his wife, Homura Ara who everyone knows as Suzuki Ara, our graduating students' representative…"