Chapter Text
Kuga Arisa was born with the world shoved underneath her fingertips.
It was not until elementary school that she realized having bodyguards tailing her for almost every second of her life was not considered normal. Then, at some point during middle school, Arisa was able to stumble upon her father’s subordinates without flinching. She had gotten used to seeing bloodstain on shirts and jackets and tuxedos, to smelling salt and iron on her closest people. She had come to understand the meaning of a gang and the role in which her family played.
Both Arisa’s father and mother were busy people. There were always clients and partners for them to entertain, transactions to chase, people to meet, and work to do. In return, Arisa had never worried too much about not getting whatever she wanted—designer items, pre-launched gadgets, overseas trips, parties, properties and renovations, private meetings with celebrities—you name it, she’d have it. And she was perfectly okay with it.
In high school, she had finally learnt that one of her father’s products, which she had heard him mention in a passing urgent business-related phone call during their long-awaited father-and-daughter quality time in Italy, was neither simple nor legal to procure, but also both notorious and compelling among some of her peers.
“Helping people does not always come in heroic fonts, Ari,” her father had said in response to her interrogation. “Many people struggle finding happiness. Daddy simply provides them easy ways to.”
She had watched her seniors get high when they snuck into a famous club. They were nothing like she had ever seen; lidded eyes, laughs so loose and light, sighs floating in the air they must have been on cloud nine.
Truth be told, she had been itching to try some.
“Those things that you and Mother do—that our gang does—can I do them?” she had asked after a moment of contemplation. “Am I going to be able to succeed you someday?”
Her father had chuckled. “Does my little princess wish to see and learn for herself?”
That was when an obscure image that had been clouding her mind started to solidify into a much clearer vision. And, to manifest such a goal, there would be actions to take and sacrifices to make.
Arisa liked studying no more than she did getting in a little trouble for being caught in the discotics as a minor—or not being able to go at all. But screw those silly party-goer, nightlife-enthusiast, troublemaker friends of hers; she had to make sure she got into a good university. To make her parents’ little donation worth something, at the very least.
Business was what she chose to learn out of a sense of familial obligation, not because she truly wanted to. She hated going to classes and listening to hours-long lectures and taking head-drilling exams and doing assignments and projects almost as much as she deplored not being able to hit on the hot professor she had been crushing on in her fear of getting expelled.
She was no valedictorian, but she managed to graduate on her own effort.
All for a dream that even pampered princesses like her had.
“Daddy, remember your promise?”
Arisa beamed at her father, showcasing the brightest, most angelic smile she could muster. She had not been able to take her mind off this notion since weeks prior to her graduation day, and she knew a man as busy as her father needed constant reminders if she was ever going to get what she wanted.
Her father, as she suspected, had not yet developed the immunity required to resist his only daughter’s charm. He pretended to think hard for a bit. “Which one?”
“Think harder,” Arisa demanded. “It has something to do with my graduation.”
“My dear, I’m really sorry for not being able to attend—” Realization dawned upon his aging face. “Is this about your training?”
Her smile widened.
What would her father have her do first?
Arisa could not help but wonder as her expectant gaze swept across the swiftly passing objects outside the car window. Twilight had painted the sky purple and red, and somehow she found herself humming along to the song that had been blasting through the speakers.
A quick glance at the new Cartier on her wrist revealed a dangerously narrow time allowance. The excitement in her stomach turned into a churn of restlessness.
“Why are we going so slow? Pick up the speed, Mr. Ichiji. I don’t like keeping my father waiting.”
Her personal chauffeur, Mr. Ichiji, glanced briefly at her through the rearview mirror. “Yes, Miss.”
“What will you do when I become busy and have literally everywhere to be? Be more attentive from now on.”
“My apologies— I’ll keep that in mind.”
“And you two, listen closely.” She turned toward her bodyguards. “My schedule is going to be utterly packed with important events and equally important people. So keep your guards up, more than ever, train those strong bodies of yours more diligently and learn to be good assistants.”
“Understood, Miss.”
When the car pulled over and the door was opened, she took her bodyguard’s extended hand and stepped onto the bottom of the granite stoop. She smiled, scanning the building in front of her. Its familiar minimalist exterior illuminated with warm yellow lighting evoked a subtle feeling of comforting nostalgia in her.
This was one of her favorite restaurants. And tonight’s dinner was going to be the perfect first official meeting she had been dreaming of as the heir to her family’s empire.
Well. A crime ring was not exactly an empire, no matter how thriving it was, but.
She took a deep breath and went inside, her two ever loyal bodyguards tailing three paces behind. Only a few steps and a wave of anxiety already coiled in her stomach. She was suddenly hyper aware of the way in which she had dressed herself: whether her overall fit was too light toned and way too colorful, her curled hair styled too plain. Whether she was actually supposed to be intimidating—and if so, then she was failing with her barbie pink dress and tweed blazer. Perhaps she should have chosen one of her suits made of cashmere or leather, with sharper cuts and lean shoulder pads. What would her father and his business partners, whom he very possibly invited for introduction, think when a girl in such a delicate font came into the room, claiming herself as the heir to their gang?
Arisa turned around, facing her bodyguards without pausing her now backward walk. “Quick, how do I look—too soft, not enough dominance going on?”
“You look perfectly fine, Miss—behind you!”
Arisa whipped her head, but whatever reflex she had was nowhere near sufficient to prevent her and whatever tall and sturdy thing was behind her from colliding. She yelped, knocked off balance from the unforeseen impact, which was, fortunately, bearable enough she could steady her stance on the floor.
That was, until her high heel stepped on a slippery surface and she stumbled forward with another yelp.
An arm caught her mid-fall.
It came from behind, and certainly did not belong to any of her bodyguards whose extended hands did not quite reach her from where they stood with mouths agape.
Arisa controlled her shaky breath and slowly turned around, all the while collecting herself to stand back upright. She glared at the stranger whom she was now facing: the prick who had just both sent her to and grabbed her before her undignified fall from grace.
He was a man, seemingly in his late thirties. The first thing about him that struck her, aside from his hauntingly huge eyes, was the tracksuit that he was wearing.
Who the fuck in their right mind would go to a michelin star fine dining restaurant in tracksuits —and was he touching her while sweating underneath from whatever gym workout session he had done before coming here?
Gross .
“Watch it!” Arisa yanked herself away. She made a point by looking at the stranger up and down deliberately, wiping her designer clothes off aggressively as if the man’s helping touch had contaminated them with filth. “Oh my god, are you for real?”
The man stared disbelievingly at her, but before he could say anything, a phone call stole his attention. He picked it up, shooting Arisa one last side glare before walking away.
Whoever called that man just now deserved praise, because they had definitely rescued Arisa from engaging in a worthless counter that was to unfold.
In turn, Arisa stared pointedly at her bodyguards who were immediately fussing about her, checking whether her ankle was sprained and whatnot. She fumed. “Why are you both just standing there letting me be touched by some sweaty old man in tracksuits who, for all I know, could very possibly kidnap me for ransom?”
How unacceptably infuriating. She could not help but think, even for just an unavoidable split second, how this unfortunate series of inconveniences that befell her just prior to her debut meeting might be a bad omen.
But that would be the train of thoughts of a weakling; as the heir to a powerful family, she would not be compared to one.
Perhaps, Arisa should believe more in omens.
For nothing else could explain why she was now sitting at a table for three with her father and the tracksuit man in a private dining room, just the three of them and nobody else—save for her and her father’s bodyguards standing by the door. Even with appetizers on top of the table and an empty stomach, she could not find in herself any appetite.
Arisa stole a glance at her new acquaintance who was now sitting diagonally to her. He hadn’t touched anything on the table either, not even his glass of wine.
Upon longer inspection, he looked less lousy than his initial impression gave her. In fact, she had a hard time denying, internally of course, that he might even look decently fine given the occasion-wise appropriate clothing. (But, hey, it might just be the beautiful low hanging chandelier above working its magic to do people’s appearances undeserved justice!)
Higuruma Hiromi was his name; the ace card of a criminal defense attorney regularly hired by her family. Throughout the three years he had been working with his father, it was said that he’d won a fairly big majority of their legal cases. (Although, being the pompous little boss that she admittedly was, Arisa could not help but raise an eyebrow at the remaining losses). Rumors even had it that this man was the main reason why her father’s notoriously vicious second man had not been behind bars—and just the thought of it deserved him an award in itself.
But lawyers were boring. Unlike her father and his people, they played by strict rules imposed by the government instead of establishing their own. And Arisa? She had never liked being ruled over.
Mr. Higuruma, so Arisa was to call him, caught her staring.
Flustered, Arisa panicked over what to do—and decided to glare back in defiance.
He ignored her, flicking his attention back to her father. “What is this important business of yours?”
Oh, but nobody talked to her father that way.
However, to Arisa’s dismay, her father did not seem the least bit bothered by the impudence in Mr. Higuruma’s tone. Instead, Mr. Kuga had been the only one to appear totally relaxed among them, sipping red wine right next to Arisa throughout the entirety of silence that had engulfed the room for a good five minutes since their brief initial introduction.
Mr. Kuga proceeded to refill his glass in leisure. “What’s the rush? It’s not everyday I’m inviting you to a fancy dinner.”
“Make your point. I don’t have time.”
Whatever urgency Mr. Higuruma was evidently having, Arisa was thankful for it. She would very much prefer to have this irrelevant stranger out of the picture while she was supposed to enjoy a nice dinner with her father.
“Fine,” Mr. Kuga groaned, placing the wine bottle down. “I heard you’ve gotten overwhelmed with work on our cases. With the expansion projects and all.”
Arisa’s ears perked up on her father’s opening to what seemed like an important gang business topic. She was here for a meeting after all, kicking her career off as an observer. She waited patiently, preparing herself to absorb and remember every detail of the conservation so she could impress her father with her dedication.
Mr. Higuruma’s eyes narrowed slightly, his fingers crossed on top of the white tablecloth. “So? You’ve taken into consideration my advice to form a team?”
“Well, more or less.” A smirk flashed across Mr. Kuga’s face, and Arisa was a bit startled to find her father’s hand placed on top of her shoulder. “Starting now, my daughter will be assisting you.”
Once again, the room fell into silence.
Arisa, frozen in shock and not knowing what to say, exchanged glances with Mr. Higuruma who seemed to share pretty much the same sentiments.
No—this was not how it was supposed to be.
“Daddy, surely this is a joke.” Arisa jerked her head toward her father; well-trained glassy eyes begging for reconsideration. “You promised to mentor me yourself. Why do I have to work with—with an outsider instead?”
Don’t get Arisa wrong; she would even undergo brutal physical training if such a task was what her father expected her to fulfill, glossy deep red french tips be damned (figuratively speaking, of course). But everything sounded so wrong with this particular…assigned position. Starting with how she should be assisting her father and not anyone else; to the fact that she knew too little, basically nothing, about law to be deemed capable of assisting a lawyer’s work by any standard; and circling back to another fact that she was supposed to be stationed below her father and her father only.
“And I will, sweetheart. But your training starts here.” Her father turned to look her in the eyes. There was something soothing about the way he had always looked at her with the most tender gaze, and Arisa immediately found comfort in its presence. “A station such as this, where you can observe and monitor our gang’s operations without direct involvement, will serve you with the safest starting position. By tying up loose ends, you’ll learn how best to avoid mess in the first place. It’ll bring good development to our businesses.”
Arisa hated to admit it, but her father was making sense. Of course, as important as tradition was, innovations and fresh changes were what made businesses and gangs grow and last for generations. Of course, her father was right—he had always been the best role model she could learn from.
And yet, she could not shake the feeling that she was not getting exactly what she wanted.
All the while, Mr. Higuruma was more decisive with his calculations. He had switched his attention to Arisa. “Do you study law?”
Mr. Kuga responded for Arisa before she could, “She’s simply helping you out. Doesn’t matter what she studies.”
“So, not even a law student?” Mr. Higuruma raised an eyebrow at the man in front of him. “To make it clear, training your daughter whose education background is not even related to law is adding tremendous responsibility and work to my already exceeded capacity.”
“I never said to train or teach her. All you have to do is involve her in every single work related to my gang. I’m basically offering you free labor here.” Mr. Kuga scoffed. “And it won’t be for long, only a temporary solution for both our concerns. If your results are satisfactory, I’ll consider your initial proposal.”
There were a lot of things Arisa was obviously missing out on which none of the two men in the room bothered filling her in. She had a hundred questions to ask and even more protests to throw out, but they all died down in her throat as she saw her father’s solemn expression directed forward.
On the other side of the table, Mr. Higuruma was deep in thought. The room was silent yet again for a moment until the lawyer broke it. “How long?”
Mr. Kuga grinned. “Six months.”
“Done.” Mr. Higuruma got up, hands gesturing in the air across his chest as if to straighten the lapels of an invisible suit before moving back down awkwardly in realizing he was not wearing one. His eyes found Arisa’s. “I’ll contact you, Miss Kuga. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something else to do.”
Amidst her disbelief, Arisa was faintly certain of her jaw dropping. Another thing she was even more sure of was the blunt mockery she knew must be in Mr. Higuruma’s eyes as he looked down at her from where he stood.
She was to assist him . Assist him? She could laugh at the insinuation.
His lowly lackey was what she was to be, and that damned shoddy attorney who had no ounce of either manner or respect in any cell in his entire body walked out of the room with triumph while Arisa stayed frozen, in shame, in her place.
Once the door closed behind Mr. Higuruma, Arisa immediately whirled around, forcing her father’s attention upon her. “Daddy, what is the meaning of this? Are you disowning me? You might as well be—”
“Calm down, my dear, I would never do such thing—”
“—I mean, you promised to take me with you to learn and succeed our family’s business, but now you’re sending me to work under some lawyer? You can’t do this to me! If you’re dissatisfied with my college performance and results, you should’ve said so from the start. You know studying has never been my greatest virtue but I did try—”
Mr. Kuga grabbed his daughter’s hands that were gesticulating wildly in the air. “Arisa, stop talking nonsense right this instant. Take a breath and listen to your father very carefully.”
Arisa complied, letting her father’s rough hands enclose hers gently. She found the ever soft expression on his face as they looked at one another. It helped dissolve the words and questions she was struggling to swallow.
“I need you to keep that man under my watch, sweetheart,” Mr. Kuga started, stroking his only daughter’s hand in a calming motion. “Higuruma Hiromi is someone both important and dangerous for our gang. He’s clever and highly competent, but nobody really knows what he’s thinking or what he’s going to do. I need someone I completely trust to keep him in my hands. And that someone can only be you.”
Oh.
“Higuruma has been bugging me to form a dedicated legal team since his work on our cases has only been piling up this past year. He’s desperate for assistance, but from what I hear, not many people have enough guts to associate with gangsters.” A low chuckle escaped Mr. Kuga’s lips. “What I said when he was here earlier was also true. While monitoring him in my stead, you can also keep our gang under surveillance and learn things that may turn out beneficial for us.”
Her father deemed her valuable after all. Embarrassment crawled in as Arisa realized how huge a tantrum she had thrown just because she could not get a grasp of the situation, of her father’s intention and plans.
“Just six months; work with him and report to me. Do a good job, then I’ll train you directly and we’ll work together.” Mr. Kuga contemplated for a second. “And we’ll get you that penthouse that you’ve been wanting. Do you understand?”
Elation radiated brilliantly from Arisa’s previously sunken face. The twinkles were back glinting in her eyes; her dimples blossomed as she smiled. “Yes, Daddy. I’ll do my best.”
“Good. Now, eat that caesar salad of yours before it gets soggy, shall we?”