"Haaa—?!"
The chopsticks slipped from Momo's fingers before her brain caught up, clattering against the lacquered floor with a bright tak-tak-tak that seemed to echo louder than her father's declaration. Her jaw hung open, small pink lips parted around a syllable that never quite made it out. Twin pigtails, quivered on either side of her flushed cheeks. Those wide violet eyes — usually so quick to narrow into a glare — had gone round and glassy as marbles.
"Wh-what kind of dumbass thing are you saying, you old geezer?! Kazama just helped you puff up your dinky little turf a bit, and you're already talking about handing me off to him like some kinda mail-order bride?!"
Beside her, Riho let out that soft, silvery laugh that mothers used when they'd already made up their minds about something. She lifted a slender hand to her lips, the sleeve of her navy kimono sliding back to reveal a pale wrist scented faintly with white plum. "Ara, ara. I also think Kazama-kun is quite the handsome young man. He'd suit our Momo-chan splendidly, don't you think?"
"Not you too, Okaa-san?!"
Riho thought: The boy has good bones. Momo's been sulking about him for weeks — she thinks I don't notice her checking her phone at breakfast.
Momo's face went the color of the salmon roe on her rice, right up to the tips of her ears. She stole a sideways glance at Kazama Haru and caught him wearing the exact expression of a stray cat cornered in an alley — eyes wide, shoulders locked, the muscle in his jaw twitching. A cold spike of panic shot down her spine. If her ridiculous parents kept pressing, this idiot might actually get flustered enough to blurt out yes just to smooth things over —
She jabbed a finger across the table, cheeks puffed. "No way, no how! This guy might look halfway decent, but he's a total harem protagonist in disguise! Just in our class alone, he's already—"
"Oi, oi, Momo-sama, is there really a need to spill that kind of stuff in front of the parents? I'd like to leave a decent impression on Riho-san, y'know?"
A bead of cold sweat rolled down Haru's temple. He waved both hands in front of him at anime-quick speed, cutting off the little vixen before she could exhume any more of his skeletons. Then, with a smoothness he hadn't known he possessed, he pushed back from the low table and dropped into a proper seated bow, forehead nearly grazing the tatami.
"Ojisan, Obasan — I'm grateful for your kind regard. But honestly speaking, both my background and my personality are worlds apart from your daughter's. Forcing a match between us would only bring trouble to your family."
He lifted his head, keeping his tone earnest.
"And to be frank, the reason I was able to gather and pass along that information at all was because I wanted to lean on the strength of your organization to shake off the yakuza that had me marked. So really — I'm the one who should be bowing my head in thanks for getting my peaceful life back."
"Hmm. What a shame, truly."
Ryuju Yuuki exhaled through his nose, the sound heavy as a shoji door sliding shut. He was a broad-shouldered man in a charcoal three-piece suit, silver threading through his sideburns like frost through pine bark, and when he leaned forward the gold pin on his tie caught the pendant lamp's glow. He reached across the table and gave Haru's shoulder a firm, weighty squeeze — the kind of grip that said I've been sizing you up the whole meal, boy.
"But Kazama-kun, even if you hold to your own convictions, in our line of work there's an ironclad rule: when someone helps you, you repay them tenfold. A hundredfold. As I said before, our Naniwa-do cleared well over ten million yen in immediate profit from swallowing the Ryujin-kai whole — and that's before we start counting the long tail."
His thick brows knitted together, and a thought seemed to strike him mid-breath.
"Kazama-kun, with prices climbing the way they are, that stipend the government tosses at orphans can't be enough to live on. Are you working somewhere on the side?"
"That's right."
The moment the question landed, Momo perked up like a cat hearing the treat jar. The earlier shock of learning about Haru's rough past — and the sting of guilt over how bratty she'd been to him — was still fresh under her ribs. Wanting to squeeze every drop of benefit out of her father for this stupidly strong, stupidly pitiful guy, she jumped in before Haru could open his mouth.
"This one actually grinds pretty hard, y'know? Club activities alone would wipe out a normal guy, but after that he still drags his broken body to a coffee shop and slings lattes till almost nine at night before he can crawl home."
Momo thought: Why am I bragging about him. Stop talking. Stop — okay one more thing.
"As Expected."
Ryuju Yuuki nodded like a man whose theory had just been confirmed by a lab result. Then, following the script he'd already drafted in his head over the second course, he set both hands on the table.
"Since you've been standing on your own feet since childhood, why not aim for something with a higher ceiling? After absorbing the Ryujin-kai, a good number of key seats in my organization have opened up. The Yokohama Port district — the very territory those fools used to control — needs a fresh branch head."
His obsidian-dark eyes locked onto Haru's with the weight of a paperweight pressing down a contract.
"Kazama-kun, though we've only broken bread together once, I've read your temperament well enough to extend real trust. As for ability — that day you took a shinai to ten men at the school gates, and the story's already spread through every corner of the local underworld. Even if you were dropped in as branch manager tomorrow, not a single subordinate would dare mouth off."
An olive branch, huh.
Listening to Ryuju Yuuki's speech — smooth as a well-oiled iaido draw, appealing to both logic and sentiment — Haru let his face settle into something thoughtful while his mind spun in the opposite direction.
Everything the old man said was true. One glance around this mansion, with its imported cypress beams and the koi pond glimmering beyond the shoji, was enough to gauge just how monstrously bloated the Ryuju Group actually was. Probably a top-tier presence in the entire Tokyo underworld.
If he accepted this "goodwill" and slid into a hall master's chair — especially one presiding over territory that had once fed sixty-plus Ryujin-kai men and skimmed port cream on top — he'd rocket up a full social class overnight. Reservation-only kaiseki in Ginza. Silk-sheet nights in Kabukicho with the top-billing hostesses.
So — what was the price tag?
Having personally talked the Ryujin-kai into eating itself with nothing but words, Haru knew better than anyone how tissue-paper thin yakuza "brotherhood" really was, and how quickly the man in the corner office became the man in the trunk. With his system as his cheat code, all he had to do was fulfill the wishes of beautiful girls and keep the good times rolling. He had zero desire to trade sleep for the constant, low hum of is tonight the night someone slips a knife through my shoji.
Besides, his Band was two weeks from launch. The break-even point was almost in sight. There was no earthly reason to sell his neck for pocket change.
"Your high regard humbles me, Ryuju-ojisan."
Choosing each word like a stone laid across a river, Haru let a rueful smile tug his mouth. "But truthfully, I've always been the timid, careful type. That business with the shinai was just a cornered rat baring its teeth. For a position that critical, you really ought to find someone with more spine."
"Excessive humility can circle right back around to arrogance, Kazama-kun."
Ryuju Yuuki chuckled, a foxy glint kindling behind his lashes. He'd already invited the boy into his home; one way or another, even if he had to twist the screws, a connection was going to be forged tonight.
The moment that intel had proven useful, Haru had already been marked as an insider by every set of eyes that mattered. Whether he took the Ryuju invitation or not, three or four other outfits would still be inviting him out for tea soon enough.
To keep his daughter from throwing a tantrum, and because he genuinely didn't want to break a young man of such fine caliber, Ryuju Yuuki pivoted, coming at it now from the angle of safety.
"Kazama-kun, I know you probably carry some prejudice about our industry. Even Momo won't stop whining that she doesn't want anything to do with us. But there's something you might not realize."
Ryuju Yuuki's words came slow and rich, sliding into the ear like sake down a warm throat. Haru made a private mental note — this guy's Negotiation Art has to be at least Lv3, no question.
"Ever since your dust-up with Uda Koji at that school gate, it's not just the Ryujin-kai buzzing. Every gang in a five-ward radius has your name on their lips. They're all itching to get a fighter like you under their banner."
A pause. His tone chilled a notch.
"And not all of them plan to ask nicely. Some of the sewer rats have already started plotting to jump you — make a name for themselves in the underworld by taking down the guy who beat down ten men solo."
Seriously — that kind of thing?
Haru's pupils contracted. Even if half of what Ryuju Yuuki was saying was calculated to spook him, for unhinged strays like that, the probability was absolutely non-zero.
Catching the flicker of alarm in the boy's brow, Ryuju Yuuki's foxy glint sharpened, and he pressed the advantage.
"Kazama-kun, you're a sharp one. You've seen the shape of our household tonight. Unlike a one-industry outfit like the Ryujin-kai, our Ryuju Group has clean and dirty ventures threaded through Tokyo like blood vessels. the Ryuju group, the one making headlines on the Nchugi lately — that's one of our house's trump cards."
Haru's chest thudded once. So the Ryuju Group wasn't just some oversized street organization — an outfit at this scale probably had fingers in the Diet by now.
The very fact that this "friendly uncle" was laying all this on the table meant he was dead set on binding Haru to the family one way or another. Haru let his brow smooth out. Fine. He'd play along. As long as he wasn't reduced to a disposable pawn, borrowing their power for a stretch wasn't the worst hand to play.
At the same moment, a sharper, more useful angle bloomed in the back of his skull — one that would let him harness that power for his own ambitions.
Reading total capitulation in Haru's face, Ryuju Yuuki waved a hand and dropped his final, carefully pre-loaded "concession."
"Alright, Kazama-kun. If direct management doesn't sit right with you, let's start somewhere lighter."
He tilted his chin toward his daughter, who had already zoned out of the negotiation and was scrolling something on her phone with a soft tap-tap-tap of glossy pink nails.
"In our world, danger and opportunity are always two sides of the same coin. Swallowing the Ryujin-kai quietly upset the balance with several old rivals of comparable size. They may already be moving. And just like that mutiny inside the Ryujin-kai, these animals don't hold to any honor when they act. So…"
"Kazama-kun. During this delicate period, I want you to serve as Momo's personal bodyguard. Keep her safe from the fallout of any inter-organization grudges."
The head of a super-syndicate leaned forward, voice dropping into a register so raw it caught even Haru off-guard. "This is a father's most sincere request. Please — you must accept."
Ryuju Yuuki extended a broad, callused hand across the table.
"And since I'm the one insisting, I won't stiff you on compensation. Same pay grade as a branch head. How's that sound?"
Given that level of sincerity, another refusal would circle back into arrogance. Ignoring Momo's grumbled "I don't need this guy shadowing me every day like some creepy Persona," Haru rose, clasped Ryuju Yuuki's hand between both of his own, and let feeling weight his voice.
"Since Ojisan has gone this far — I can no longer refuse."
Then, without missing a beat, he changed lanes.
"But such generous pay honestly makes me uneasy, Ojisan. I've lived frugally so long that suddenly stuffing my pockets feels wrong. For me, one hundred thousand yen a month is more than enough to live on. As for the rest…"
Under Ryuju Yuuki's puzzled gaze, Haru pulled up a soft, guileless smile — the kind he'd practiced in the mirror.
"If it's possible, could I use the remainder of that generous salary to propose a longer-term, mutually beneficial deal with you?"
Yuuki thought: Ho. Not a fighter after all — a merchant in a swordsman's skin. Interesting.
"You want me to invest in you?" Ryuju Yuuki's business instincts were finely tuned as a bloodhound's nose. "Let's hear it."
Meeting his gaze without flinching, Haru spoke with neither humility nor arrogance.
"It's a little embarrassing to admit, but alongside my studies, I also manage a fledgling girls' Band. Though we're set to launch in two weeks, the sponsors we've locked in so far are… mixed in quality, to put it kindly."
With that faintly seductive cadence his Negotiation Art layered into his voice without asking permission, Haru dangled the sharpest hook of all.
"Girls' Bands — that untapped blue ocean surging in popularity with every teenager in Japan. I wonder if the Ryuju group might have any interest in expanding into it…"
Across the table, Ryuju Yuuki's fingers slowly tightened around his sake cup, and the corner of his mouth curled upward like a fox scenting fresh prey.