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Maiko grew up with only her father. Her mother had died years ago giving birth to her. But she didn’t really miss her mother, her father gave her as much love as two parents.
Maybe that’s why she was so close to her father and admired him as much as she did.
She was a common sight in city hall. Most would think that her father would pay for someone to watch her when she was too young to go to school, but no, he brought her to work every day.
As a result, Maiko grew up watching the political world practically right from birth. She knew it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, that people would lie and cheat to try to get what they wanted, even at the expense of everyone else. She knew it all, the good and the bad.
Yet her father seemed to always have the interests of the people his primary motivation. Yes, he did implement some policies that were for his own benefit, but he always tried to do what was right, not what he wanted.
That’s what made the headlines she was seeing on the news so hard to stomach.
“Late yesterday evening, the city hall networks we hacked and files were leaked online by an anonymous hacker. Various files were leaked online, but not so damning as the emails of Mayor Yashiro Yamasaki.
“Yamasaki-san in these emails accepts bribes from various parties, including some lesser members of the yakuza. He has campaigned during all his previous elections as a mayor for the common folk, one who stands up to corruption and refuses to bend at the yakuza’s will. Many see this as a betrayal of the people. We reached out to the mayor’s office but received no comment.”
“Yamasaki-senpai? Yamasaki-senpai? Do you have the papers I requested from you yesterday?” asked the student council president.
“Oh yes!” she said as she dug into her bag to hand over the papers, embarrassed that she had been caught spacing out.
“How insensitive is she? I mean her father’s a corrupt politician and she still has the guts to show up to the student council?” someone whispered in the room.
Maiko’s smile strained a bit. This was all she had been hearing around school since the news broke a few days ago. students whispering about how she must be corrupt just like her father, students that when she has to discipline them offer to pay her or even offer to perform sexual favors for her if she lets them off.
It was disgusting.
But it didn’t matter that she had been nothing but a model member of the student council all year so far or even when she was the student council president in junior high. She was the daughter of a corrupt politician and had made it known already that she wanted to work in politics and follow in her father’s footsteps. And that made her corrupt as well.
She honestly didn’t know what to do with herself now. She had wanted to be just like her father, but with the recent news and her father’s frantic apologies to her at dinner that first night, she didn’t know what to feel.
She knew though that she no longer wanted to be like her father. She thought that there could be good politicians, but she didn’t know anymore. Her father that she thought was an honest politician was just as corrupt as the rest of them.
But she had made it known what her aspirations were so she couldn’t just back down. She knew the gossip and rumors would turn harsher if she did.
So it was all she could do to pretend like she was fine, even if she was now silent and barely speaking to the man that she had adored for her entire life.