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Retsudou loved his father dearly, he really did, but he still winced and rolled his eyes every time he was called into his office. Experience had proven that nothing good ever came from being called by Katahara Metsudou, especially when he was called as his son, not as leader of the Extermination Force. That's why he didn't return Metsudou's smile when he stepped into his office this morning.
“How much dignity do you want me to sacrifice this time?”
“Is that any way to greet your father?” Metsudou asked, the smile not leaving his face.
To Retsudou it seemed like the only appropriate way to address his father these days, but he didn't stop to argue.
“You reap what you sow, father dearest,” he muttered before asking in a louder voice, “What did you call me for?”
His father seemed in good spirits, and that usually wasn't a good sign for all other people involved in whatever he had planned. Retsudou, like any other member of Katahara Metsudou's personal staff, had learned that the hard way. Even if Metsudou was smiling at him like you would at a friend over tea, he still exuded the same menacing aura that made Retsudou's hair stand on end.
“To talk a bit. Oh, don't look at me like that. You make it seem like being interested in my son's life is a crime.”
“That depends on how you define interest, doesn't it?” Retsudou noted and ignored how Metsudou rolled his eyes at him. “So?”
His father leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk and resting his chin on his folded hands.
“Me and Eriou have been talking.”
“Oh god,” Retsudou muttered, closing his eyes for a moment.
“Since the laser tag play date went so well—”
“Please explain to me which part of that horrible experience went well,” Retsudou cut in with a voice that would've made every last of his subordinates shiver in cold fear.
As expected, his father seemed completely unfazed.
“Well, at least the venue is still intact.” Metsudou shrugged and looked him straight in the eyes. “Anyway, how about babysitting them again this weekend?”
Retsudou almost choked on his own spit. “Did you just call it babysitting?”
“That's what it is, how else should I refer to it?”
Retsudou couldn't do it again. The incident at the laser tag venue had haunted him in his nightmares for weeks, and he really didn't want to have a similar experience soon—or ever, for that matter. He needed to learn how to say no to his father, but with him also being his boss, Retsudou could hardly refuse him outright.
He sighed and fought against the urge to rub his temples in annoyance.
“And what do you want them to do? Let them have a picnic at the park while they pretend to be normal people and not some feral beasts looking for blood?”
His words weren't entirely true when it came to Ouma, but that idiot wasn't the real problem anyway. Raian, however, was feral enough for both of them.
Metsudou leaned back in his seat and shot him a look that told Retsudou that he wouldn't like what his father was about to tell him. His feet were already itching to start running.
“Eriou and I thought it might be fun to have them play strip poker—Retsudou, where are you going? I'm not finished yet.” Metsudou raised his voice, but Retsudou didn't care. He had turned around and marched towards the door, purposefully ignoring the sound of his father rising from his chair. “Come back here, you ungrateful child!”
Silence filled the room after the door clicked shut, leaving only Metsudou and Takayama, and the latter didn't dare speak first. Eventually, Metsudou took a deep breath as he tried to regain his dignity.
“Say, Takayama... how would you like a day off?”
Takayama felt a cold shiver run down his spine, cleared his throat and—praying that he chose the right words—answered, “I respectfully decline.”
*
In the end, Retsudou didn't have much choice. Not because his father had forced him, but because he would feel bad for the damage caused due to his absence. With the game of strip poker taking place in the Kure village, however, there was no good reason for Retsudou to come—a fact he'd only been made aware of after the helicopter had left.
The Kure village in and of itself was a pleasant place to spend time in, with its countless shops, restaurants and interesting buildings to look at. Much to Retsudou's dismay, he hardly had the time to sightsee whenever he came here. He had thought about visiting just for the fun of it on his days off, but the animal instinct in Raian had remembered his smell; whenever Retsudou came into the vicinity of the village, Raian hunted him down to spar against him.
As he entered Eriou's residence, he didn't even bother stopping by his office to greet the old man and simply followed the muffled screams he could hear further inside the huge building. On his way, he passed a room with its door open, and while he knew deep inside that it'd be better to just keep walking, he took a look inside.
Inside were Hollis and Reiichi, his personal black-eyes nemeses. Hollis had the decency to look up at him, but Reiichi just kept staring at the TV screen, not even acknowledging his presence.
Retsudou came to a halt and thought about how offending he could be without causing his father trouble. When he finally decided that he didn't care about troubling his backstabbing begetter any longer, he asked, “Not that I'm expecting a helpful answer, but why aren't the two of you watching your menace of a relative and his favourite toy?”
Hollis shrugged. “You're better at handling them.”
“We have better things to do than babysit these idiots,” Reiichi added, still not looking at him.
“You're watching TV.”
At Retsudou's flat tone of voice, Reiichi actually turned his head, his face a mask of indignation.
“It's my favourite soap opera's season finale. Excuse me for having my priorities straight.”
“They're in the room down the hallway,” Hollis explained, probably because he felt that Retsudou was close to attacking Reiichi. “Judging by the screams a moment ago, they already started.”
With his self-control running thin, Retsudou decided it was best to just leave. He muttered a few curses before lighting a cigarette and leaving. Insulting them wouldn't do him any good, so he followed the sound of shouting (Ouma, probably) and mad cackling (definitely Raian) down the hall. (Raian's cackling sounded vaguely content, at least, which meant no one was in imminent danger.)
When Retsudou arrived in front of the room in question, he didn't even knock and opened the sliding door, hoping to get this over with as soon as possible. He was met with a sight he had both expected and couldn't quite understand at the same time.
The room was relatively large but mostly barren. Some snacks lay on the floor, next to a discarded deck of cards. There was also a piece of cloth on the floor, probably a shirt. It looked like it had been ripped off instead of taken off, and judging by the ugly pattern Retsudou concluded that it belonged to Ouma.
The two idiots—his two idiots, apparently, as Misasa had called them recently—were in the middle of the room, tangled in a deformed ball of limbs and muscles. They both stopped dead in their tracks when they sensed Retsudou staring at them with barely concealed pity in his eyes.
The scene was too bizarre for Retsudou to comment on it right away. He eventually took a long pull on his cigarette and came to the conclusion that taking the situation head-on might be the best approach.
“Raian, please just tell me one thing: why are you straddling Ouma, and why is he shirtless?” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “Wait, that's two things. Anyway.”
He looked expectantly at Raian, who didn't answer him immediately. He probably hadn't expected Retsudou to show up at all—and why would he?—and had a hard time switching from ‘Raian smash' to ‘Raian needs to have a proper conversation'.
“Are you stupid? I'm playing by the rules this time!”
Raian's words reminded Retsudou of their laser tag outing. It wasn't a pleasant memory at all, so he tried to focus on the situation at hand instead.
“And what are the rules?” he asked, disappointed but not surprised when Raian raised his eyebrows in confusion. Seeing the Kure's resident devil in a state that wasn't one hundred percent confident was strangely amusing to Retsudou, but he chose not to say that out loud.
“The one who's stripped first loses.” Raian looked at Ouma who was still lying underneath him. “Right?”
Ouma nodded. “Yeah, that's what I understood.”
The two of them had completely forgotten what position they were currently in—or, being the seasoned fighters they were, didn't care about appearances anyway.
“You're supposed to play poker first. The one who loses the game also loses a piece of clothing. You're not supposed to rip it off your opponent,” Retsudou explained and wondered why he even bothered when he could be returning to his father's estate and do something else instead.
Raian mulled over his words for a while before shrugging and saying, “Dunno how to play poker.”
“Play? So it isn't something to eat?”
Ouma's question threw him off a bit, but Retsudou regained his composure quickly enough. He saw his opportunity to end this pathetic display, and he'd be damned if he didn't take it.
“But that's how you play the game. So technically, Raian, you're disqualified again for violating the rules.”
“Fuck off, I'm winning!”
“You haven't won yet, I'm still wearing my pants!” Ouma objected loudly.
Retsudou couldn't think of a good response to that. Ouma looked so defiant while Raian seemed ready to turn this into an actual sparring match. All of a sudden, Retsudou missed the uneventful days spent patrolling the estate and talking to his colleagues. He really wanted to go home and forget that this ever happened.
“Have you ever stopped to think about what you're saying?” he sighed, closing his eyes when he realised Ouma wouldn't get him anyway.
“But I am still wearing my pants.”
“Thank god for that,” Retsudou muttered before taking another pull on his cigarette.
He was about to turn around and leave when Raian, who had been strangely quiet before, suddenly addressed him.
“Oi, you wanna fight me next after I win against him?”
Both Raian and Retsudou ignored Ouma's complaint about how he hadn't lost yet.
“Fight you? Yes. Be stripped by you?” Retsudou shook his head, chuckling to himself. “No thanks, devil brat. I'll see you around.”
He turned around for real this time and acted deaf to whatever retort Raian gave him. Retsudou was at his limit, and when he closed the door behind him, he contemplated paying Eriou a visit and talking some sense into him.
Behind the closed door, he could still hear Ouma and Raian's muffled voices.
“I told you you're doing it wrong!”
“How is it my fault when you were the one to pounce on me to rip off my shirt?!”
Never in his life had Retsudou walked away from something quicker than in this moment. Screw making Eriou take responsibility for his suffering, he needed to go home and scream into a pillow.