Chapter Text
A good parent should be able to show love towards their child and make them feel loved as well. A good parent should be able to provide support to their children, whenever they need it. A good parent should also know how to set limits to how much they love their children, not to be too controlling or restrictive... while also treating their children with enough respect...
It took him a very long time to realise this vital fact—him and his wife—it took them a very long time to realise what was the most important thing they should've prioritised in their lives: his precious daughter, Kurama Neon.
It's already 11 years after all. It's about time for him t̶o̶ ̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶A̶k̶a̶r̶i̶'̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶t̶h̶ to get over the trauma of almost losing his daughter Neon and properly treasure her as a person, rather than an asset.
To be honest, in the past few weeks... a month or so, he and his wife had tried their best to make up for their lack of attention and love towards their daughter. Rather than letting their past trauma continue to distort the way they should have treated their daughter, they started to try making amends to their daughter in hopes that Neon would forgive their past mistakes.
So far, their efforts have started to show results. Even though Neon had decided to leave home and live separately from her parents, recently she had started to visit them a lot more frequently. If that wasn't an improvement, he didn't know what else he should say.
Neon had also started to appear happier now. So that's another thing to be glad about.
×××
Lately, he started to notice. Neon had begun posting new content on her NeonTV channel again after a few months of unexplained inactivity. And it was no longer about her streaming her attempts to 'run away from home to search for her own happiness.' But now Neon has been making new content about things and activities that she likes and things that make her happy. Safe to say, Kousei had started to make a habit of tuning in for the NeonTV streams every time his daughter was online.
And that should be enough to make him happy.
He made the mistake of checking and reading the many comments his daughter received every time Neon went online.
Some of the comments had been pretty harmless, some could be quite mind-boggling. Some comments might be a bit stalkerish and creepy—to which Kousei hoped that Neon would consult him should anyone ever try to harass his daughter. And then... there was some other different kind of comment that puzzled him.
That said... what were these odd languages these youngsters were using? What is this... 'stan' and 'shipping'? Why are these youths talking about sending his daughter to someone on a ship?
[Hey... did anyone else notice? It seemed like Neon-chan's streams seemed to look different lately. Did she have someone else to help her do her livestreams?]
What was this? Has Neon got someone to help her in doing her livestream nowadays? Well, that explained the change of quality in how the streams had appeared in the channel compared to before. But is that really a big deal?
[I happened to be near the area when Neon-chan made her last stream! She had someone helping her out to do her streams! That's why it looked better now!]
[Was it one of those bodyguards we used to see in her streams before? It'll be really cool to know that those bodyguards were now actively supporting her rather than continuing to chase her around and take her home.]
[Ah, no! It's a TOTALLY different person! And he's really handsome though... but looked like he was a very shy person!]
[Ah... aah!! It was a GUY? Was it really a hottie? Did Neon-chan find her TRUE LOVE already?]
Kousei blinked in surprise as he kept scrolling down to read all of the old messages. What was this? His daughter had a new boyfriend now? Why did Neon never tell him ANYTHING about this? Why did NO ONE ever report to him about this?
Even though his wife had finally stopped trying to get their daughter on these blind dates to find a suitable husband candidate and marry her off to some wealthy families, Kousei couldn't help feeling wary of people who might try to get close to his one and only daughter.
Was the man a decent person? Will the man take care of his daughter and make her happy? Was the man worthy enough to claim his daughter's hand in marriage?
So many questions... yet there were no solid answers that he could find! He needed to find this mysterious man who somehow had his daughter's heart in the palm of their hands!
×××
He was browsing the community page dedicated to NeonTV, which was also a place where most NeonTV fans could interact with each other online. And somehow he ended up finding a thread where fans could share fanart that they made that they wanted to share with their fellow fans. And somehow Kousei managed to come across a fanart of Neon being together with the rumoured 'hottie' supporter. As much as the 'fanart' wasn't quite as photorealistic for a portrait picture, he had to admit that the artist at least was able to capture some resemblance to Neon in their drawing of his daughter.
So does that mean... that it was also the same case as the 'guy' in this fanart of this artist? Does that mean that as of now, this fanart was his current clue to find out the identity of the man who was hovering around his daughter?
He needs to find more information about this man!
John Constantine hadn't been assigned much work lately after his employer ended up being involved in some incident and sent to prison for a while. And despite the issue later on having been resolved and his employer's name cleared, he had not received any notices on whether or not he could return to work. Or even if his services were still needed. And while he could reason with himself that he could always go look for another employer for him to work under, he had grown quite fond of serving the Kurama family. If anything, he'd like nothing else but to go back and serve the Kurama family for the rest of his life!
He really wished that a call would come from his employer, asking him to come back to serve the family as a bodyguard. If only that were to happen right now, he wouldn't even need to think it over many times. He'd jump into it right away, nothing else could make him happier other than to be able to serve the Kurama family in any way possible.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, John's phone suddenly rang.
It was a call from Kurama Kousei.