**Alexei Draagunov**

**April 12th,2015. 4.45AM**

Alexei woke up fifteen minutes before the alarm and got into his morning routine. Today being a Sunday meant that he had to pack mom's breakfast and lunch along with Elena's. He'll be heading out for the full shift while his sister filled her up on the past week at school.

It involved the daily chores along with cooking his mom's favorite Sukiyaki and Oden. He had shopped for the beef last night after coming from Shirohane flower store. He dried the clothes and woke up her sister up before he got cooking.

**7.45AM** 

After dropping Elena at the hospital he went to the Shopping district office to look for the wok for today. The  proceedings at the new site were still at least a week behind schedule, so he estimated that he won't be needed there for at least a week more. This was a good time to look into the smaller requests that they had been getting. It was no use squandering skilled labor to sit idly at the site waiting to be made relevant and thus his manager had decided to use all the handymen available to the company on the small requests. 

This meant that finally Alexei had a chance to make himself useful and invaluable to the company. Luckily, his first job had been a rather small plumbing request from a fellow store-owner in the shopping district. Apparently, the sewer connection of his water line seemed to have choked and the pipe needed replacement due to be of an older make. He wanted this done without bringing in the authorities as then a heavy fine would be imposed on him.

Thus, Alexei got the first look in with a trained handyman, Shinso Shui. He was a small and silent man, always seen with a bud on his lips but there was no denying his experience or his skill. Since the normal ETA of the project was stated to be 3-3.5 Hours and they were done in less than 2. This meant fitting in another order for the day and get a jumpstart in numbers. Alexei was glad that he got to partner up with him.

After done with the second job he went back to the office. Visiting Shirohane-dono on the way back and exchanging a greeting from beyond the glass doors. She looked as cheerful and flowery as before, he also wondered if she would have already carried out his request. He made a mental note of checking up with her when he got free at lunch.

--

Alexei was hurrying out of the office when he bumped into the girl. Strong and medium in built, he seemed to recognize her from somewhere but didn't know from where. But, rather than dwelling on the thought, he crouched down with a small apology and started picking up the spilled groceries.

"I'm really sorry miss, I wasn't looking." he said in a low tone, his Japanese fluent with a certain Saitama touch to it.