Chapter Text
Takemichi rubs the back of his neck with a tired sigh.
It's been a very long day, and for half of it, he's been doing very shady things with very shady people in very shady places. And he is absolutely spent.
His late parents being members of the dang yakuza of all things is a fact that still manages to baffle him sometimes, and he really hates that they roped him into their mess just before they died, but there's not much he can do about it at this point.
He's in this stuff, and he's apparently in it for life. And honestly, he's terrified.
He's barely eighteen—fresh out of high school—with two mischievous children and a hyperactive, gluttonous corgi to take care of. He can't exactly afford to frolic around with danger right now, especially since his parents definitely made numerous enemies over the years, but, again, there's nothing much he can do about it.
He's the heir of the Haitani Clan after all, so he'll just have to figure things out along the way and try not to get himself nor his family killed or something.
Sighing again, Takemichi feels the aches of the day in his young body, and he grumbles something about horrible parents and difficult people, then inserts his doorkey into its hole and turns it.
The door quietly opens, and as soon as he enters the unnecessarily large house, he pauses and sniffs the air.
'What's that smell?' he wonders, toeing off his converse. 'It smells like something's burning.'
"...Oh, no!" Takemichi drops his bag and rushes toward the kitchen where the smell is coming from.
Upon entering, he finds his two younger brothers, Ran and Rindou, frantically trying to extinguish a fire that's coming out of a pot like the breath of an angry dragon.
"What the heck?!"
Quickly, Takemichi runs over to the stove and turns off the knob before covering the pot with its lid.
He spins around to make sure that his brothers are unharmed, and once he's sure that they're okay, he slowly takes everything in.
The kitchen is an absolute mess.
"What is all this?" he demands, appalled.
The floor is covered in what looks like curry powder, badly cut vegetable pieces, and some type of dark sauce that's also dripping from the ceiling.
The corgi is in the sink—why is it in the sink?—looking like she took a roll in a bag of flour, and along the counters are used utensils of all sorts and multiple opened cans of food.
His brothers don't look any better.
Sheepishly, Ran scratches the back of his head and gives him a lopsided smile. "Umm, we were...cooking dinner?"
"He's the one cooking dinner, nii-san!" Rindou retorts, trying to save himself. Ran gives him an incredulous look. "I just got bullied into it!"
"Liar! It was your idea to make someth—"
"Hey! Just accept responsibility! I told you I didn't wanna do this!"
Ran scoffs in disbelief, and before he can further argue with his brother, Takemichi sighs exasperatedly.
"Look," he says, putting one hand on his hip and the other to massage his temple, "it doesn't matter whose idea it was. The fact remains that you guys did what you weren't supposed to and could've gotten hurt! The house could've even burned down!"
Rindou pouts like the brat that he is, but Ran looks genuinely ashamed of himself.
Takemichi stares pensively at their faces for a minute. "You're both grounded for a month. Rindou, you get an extra week for trying to put all the blame on Ran."
Rindou's violet eyes get so comically wide, Takemichi stupidly wonders if they'll fall out of their sockets and start rolling across the floor.
"Wha-?! But, nii-san!"
"But nii-san nothing!"
"But-"
"Nothing."
"..."
"..."
Ran snorts at them, and Rindou gives him the meanest stink eye.
"It's not funny."
"It is, actually."
"It's not."
"It is."
"It is not!"
Ran puts the large spoon in his hand down on the counter and fully turns to his little brother. "It is!"
"Hey, hey, hey! Stop it!" Takemichi interjects, parting them away from each other. "Fighting will just make me give you a longer punishment. And if you don't want that, I suggest you clean this mess up. Now."
Rindou, looking unimpressed, has the audacity to ask, "Aren't you going to at least help?"
Takemichi blinks. "And why would I?"
"You can't possibly expect us to finish all of this tonight, nii-san! It's too much!" Rindou turns and points at their dog. "And look at Ming Ming! She needs a bath!"
Takemichi rolls his eyes and looks at the awful state of the kitchen again. He sighs. "Fine, I'll clean up in here. You guys go wash the dog and yourselves."
"Yes!" Rindou beams, quickly running over to the corgi and scooping her up into his skinny arms. He's out of the kitchen before Takemichi can get another word in.
The little pest.
"I'll stay and help you," Ran tells him. He's been acting suspiciously mature and well-behaved these days. "It'll be faster that way."
Takemichi eyes him for a moment, having the feeling that he should probably expect to be asked a favor soon, then turns to the stove again.
They're going to be here for a while, it seems. How festive.
"Alright."
________
Post-bath Ran and Rindou are scarfing down their pizza slices like a pair of hungry wolves, while post-bath Ming Ming is on the side, boring holes into Takemichi's skull and growling at him for more dog chow, like he didn't just feed her enough for two mutts.
Ungrateful rat.
"So, nii-san," Ran muffles out through a mouthful of food, "how was work today?"
"...The DVD rental was soul-draining as usual," he says. "My boss almost fired me again."
And that's true.
Takemichi works part time at an old DVD rental, but twice a week, after his shift, he goes to the headquarters of his parent's organization to check up on things.
His brothers don't know as yet that they're apart of a yakuza family, and he'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible. He's definitely not planning to pull what his parents did on him by waiting too long to say anything, but his little brothers are barely twelve and thirteen—way too young for such worries right now.
He'll at least wait to say something in a year or so—if he can't find a way to get them all out of this mess by then, that is.
"What's new?" Rindou quips. "You're the worst employee there."
Takemichi sputters, offended. "Hey! You try working at the most boring place on earth and tell me how it goes!"
Rindou rolls his eyes. "Uh-huh."
Takemichi gives him a distasteful look. "I hope you two haven't forgotten that you're grounded."
Rindou groans, and Ran sighs.
"You already do chores around the house, so for your punishment, you can't use any of your devices past seven."
"Please, no!"
Takemichi ignores Rindou. "No friends over—"
Ran snorts. "We don't even have those—"
"—and no hanging out at the arcade or any of those places you guys like to go and pretend to be cool."
The boys, mostly Rindou, argue to defend their case with complaints of how 'it's so unfair' and 'we just wanted to make dinner for the family' and blah blah blah, but Takemichi flatly ignores them and turns his attention to his own box of pizza.
The restaurant made it exactly the way he likes, with just the right amount of cheese, deliciously barbecued meat, and, of course, the pineapples.
Because only weirdos don't eat pineapples on pizza, and Takemichi is a pretty normal guy...for the most part.
Ming Ming is still staring into his soul in her corner by the time he's on his last slice, but at least she's stopped the growling, so he assumes that he won't have to sleep with one eye open tonight.
Once eating and cleaning up their mess is finally over with, Takemichi ruffles the hairs of his grumpy troublemakers.
"Go do your homework then brush your teeth and head to bed."
There's a collective groan, but the teen remains unfazed.
"Groaning and moaning won't make that homework do itself. Come on, now! Chop, chop!"
"You suck," Rindou mutters, walking away.
Ran looks like he's about to agree with his brother, but he seems to think better of it and just leaves.
Takemichi will have to keep an eye on that one. He definitely wants something.
The teen is about to turn off the lights to head upstairs as well when his phone vibrates with a message from Yuuta, his parents most trusted advisor.
Yuuta-san: 'Boss, we need you here.'
Takemichi throws his head back to stare up miserably at the ceiling. "Ugh!"
His parents were truly the worst.