Chapter Text
It was no secret that Kokonoi Hajime was obedient to his Boss. He had been by Mikey’s side for ten years - since the formation of the Kantou Manji Gang, way back when he’d shifted to simply consulting and offering his services to bigger, scarier gangs for money and actually started getting involved in the deep shit itself. Now, though, he was desensitized to it all, the drugs and prostitution and weapons and assassination Bonten dealt in, although his forte was in money laundering and acquisition, serving as Mikey’s unofficial ‘advisor’, despite Akashi holding that official title. Every Bonten executive knew Koko was the brainpower behind the financial side of things, the glue that held their gang together.
And that brought him back full circle. That was why he was here now, going down a filthy set of stairs down into the basement of a building in the deep heart of Tokyo well into a Thursday evening - because Mikey had ordered him to.
“There’s been whispers of Yakuza activity. They’re meeting tonight - apparently there’s something being sold,” Mikey had said, voice as soft and deadpan as ever. “Whatever it is, Koko, acquire it.”
And that was that. Koko didn’t really go on missions, per se - he was perfectly comfortable in his office at headquarters, in his customized, plush chair behind his desk, dealing with the shit Sanzu and the Haitani brothers left behind in their wake, thank you very much. But these were Boss’s direct orders, and Koko was not stupid - he accepted, because he simply chose life.
He was prepared for things to go south, obviously, a gun tucked into the back of his pants, hidden by the length of his robe, and two knives hidden up his sleeves. While most thought gangs and yakuza were one in the same, they were definitely not, and tensions between the two were constantly high. Yakuza were blood-oriented, the mantle of head passed down from sibling to sibling or parent to child, more monarch-like. It didn’t help that authorities tended to look the other way when the yakuza was involved, as they had deep ties to the underground runnings of the city. Gangs, in comparison, were an amalgamation of thugs and street rats, people who banded together to cause havoc. And the cops absolutely did not bother to turn their cheek when gangs were involved.
There were lights in the dank staircase that Koko could see leading into a large room - similar to that of an amphitheater. The dull, yellow bulbs reflected on his silver, platinum blonde hair and the gold jewelry he was wearing in abundance. It was silent as he descended each step aside from the click-click of his heels and the steadiness of his breathing.
There was a man standing at the end of the stairs, at the entrance to the large showing room. He was large and beefy, a scar running down his face that vaguely resembled Akashi’s, and had a pipe sticking out of his mouth.
Koko cringed at the way the man blocked his path, his sudden extended arm brushing against the rich fabric of his robe.
“Private event. Leave when I’m still asking nicely, pretty boy,” the man said gruffly.
Reaching into the front of his robe, Koko pulled out a stack of bills. He shoved them in the guard’s chest, and let go immediately after, leaving the man to scramble to catch it. Koko easily glided through the now obstacle-free doorway, taking a bidding paddle on a low table as he went.
As he situated himself in a cheap folding chair several rows back from stage - wrinkling his nose in the process, because all this effort, and they couldn’t even supply good furniture? - Koko tuned into the muttered conversation among the men seated nearby.
He definitely caught the name Inamura, which he already knew of. Koko was smart enough to actually know where a mission would take him, unlike some of the idiots he worked with, recalling a point in time sometime last year where Rindou and Sanzu came back absolutely fucked from a job and needing to spend two weeks in the hospital. So yes, while Mikey was vague when telling him what needed to be done, Koko had done his own digging and gathered intel that told him where exactly this event was taking place. Not so much why, unsurprisingly, as the Inamura was one of the biggest yakuza families in Japan, and kept a relatively good lid on their private affairs.
Kokonoi very quickly realized what was taking place today, though.
The lights dimmed, chatters quieted, and two figures made their way onto the main, center stage. There was a tap on a microphone that resounded through the theater, immediately followed by a screech of feedback.
A single light shone down on the stage, revealing a man and a girl. Koko knew who the former was immediately, his own intel and years of working in Tokyo’s underground screaming the answer at him. This man was the head of the Inamura family, the leader of the third largest yakuza syndicate in the entire nation.
The girl, though, seemed far younger than the man and even Koko himself.
She was a small thing - from Koko’s line of vision, as he was some ways off - short and slim, wearing nothing but a while slip, on the verge of see-through. With skinny limbs and pale, pale skin, combined with the harsh light directly atop the two, she seemed sunken and tiny. The only color on her was her hair, a deep brown that shone reddish under the light.
That, and even from the distance he was at, a pair of the emptiest, gray eyes Koko had ever seen in his life.
“Greetings, and welcome!” the man boomed, the microphone carrying his voice far more than what was necessary. “This is a very exciting day for me - my lovely daughter here has just reached twenty years of age.” He clapped a hand down on her shoulder, and Koko almost missed the way her knees almost buckled at the impact.
There was silence in the theater, and a slow, cold feeling of realization began to settle in Koko’s stomach.
“As much as I love my sweet girl, she’s grown far too big to stay in the nest. My only child,” he said, far too happily, and moved his hand to pat her on the head. She did not move, aside from her head involuntarily lowering with the force.
The faint taste of bile rose up and lodged itself in Koko’s throat.
“Which one of you is worthy enough to take care of her for me?”
Kokonoi Hajime was not a good person.
He was never a good person, not when he’d been involved with gangsters since the age of twelve. Not when he’d destroyed the relationship he had with his closest friend, burning the bridge between them, quite literally. Not when he continued to stick by Boss’s side - the one person who actually needed him - even after he’d watched Mikey beat a man to death at the age of seventeen.
And definitely not while he sat in the midst of disgusting pigs, getting ready to thrust their offers out, trying to buy a person like she was a slab of meat.
Koko was no stranger to prostituion, the gang he worked for having sponsored and encouraged it, in fact. But the women who came to them for work were willing, knew the risks of their profession, and accepted it all.
But this girl, barely of age - a whole six years his junior - was being sold off by her father, held dangling just above the snapping jaws of hungry, drooling wolves.
Drooling they were, as Koko could hear the men surrounding him speak of how cute she was, how they wished she was a few years younger, how they’d pay to see her speak and use her mouth. Disgusting, filthy comments that made his fists clench.
Kokonoi Hajime was not a good person, more so proved by the fact that he was here, at an auction, with the single thing up for bids being a painfully young woman. Koko was good at assigning prices to things, gauging the value of weapons and drugs and even people.
But he did have a heart. He was human. And the way he could see Inamura’s daughter frozen, staring at nothing with empty eyes, as if she didn’t hear nor care what her father had just said, had him gritting his teeth.
“Five hundred thousand!”
“Cheap ass bastard - eight hundred thousand!”
They’ve started bidding , Kokonoi realized vaguely.
And then Mikey’s words sounded in Koko’s mind, his orders to get whatever the yakuza was selling. Koko would never dream of crossing Mikey or disobeying. He couldn’t.
The bidding paddle, as light as it was, felt heavy in his hand. He raised his arm only to rest it in his lab. He waited, until the bids got higher and higher, until the silence between the offers grew larger and larger.
“That’s three hundred million yen!” Inamura exclaimed. “Do we have another bidder - ah, yes, number 167!”
“One billion.”
There was utter silence after Koko’s bid. He would be able to hear a pin drop if it did.
“One - one billion!” he stuttered. “Is there anyone wanting to place a higher bid?”
Nobody dared to speak up nor raise their paddle. After a full minute of silence, Inamura spoke up once more, seemingly overcoming his earlier surprise. “Well, there we have it! Feel free to mingle. Number 167, if you could please meet me backstage to discuss logistics?”
All eyes were on Koko as he rose to his feet, his heels clicking loudly in the silence of the large theater. He passed by the edge of the stage, dipping his head to Inamura in recognition - not respect - and catching a brief glimpse of the daughter.
She hadn’t moved a single inch, still staring dead ahead, gaze empty.
There was a table - small and round, surrounded by chairs that looked far fancier than the ones outside. Several bottles of wine and whiskey sat atop it, as well as a few ledgers and sheets of paper. The girl was already sitting, back perfectly straight and eyes glued to a paper. Inamura beckoned Kokonoi over from his place near the far wall, meeting him halfway.
A moment passed, where the elder man - who looked to be about twenty years older than Koko’s age of twenty-six - eyed him up and down, stopping at the gold chains in his ears, around his neck, and the heavy rings littering his fingers. Inamura cleared his throat and offered his hand.
Koko did not take it, instead turning away to help himself to a drink, selecting a glass bottle containing deep, amber whiskey, leaning against the table after he’d poured it. He raised his glass to his lips to cover the smile that quirked his mouth, hearing the other man splutter at his rudeness.
“I’ll wire you the money in the next four hours.” Koko spoke up just as Inamura had gotten out a single word. He swirled the liquid in his glass, looking down and to the side at the girl. Up close, he could see that there was hollowness in her face - it wasn’t just the light from earlier. Her lids were heavy, eyes downcast, long lashes casting shadows along her cheek, even in the soft, low light of Inamura’s backstage office. There was a beauty mark just below the left corner of her mouth.
It didn’t escape his notice that her father had not mentioned her name once.
“There’s a bit more to it than that, boy .”
Koko’s eye twitched at the title. He averted his gaze from the girl, watching as Inamura leaned over the table to scoop up a paper.
The older man just short of shoved the document in Koko’s face, making him rear back a few inches before his eyes were able to focus on the words, first at the signature of one ‘Inamura Yui’ and then briefly to the empty space beside it. And then his eyes flickered up, to the bold kanji at the top of the paper.
Kokonoi’s blood ran cold, unable to hold his tongue.
“That’s a marriage contract.”