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I know. I apologize for being impatient.
Mine turned off his phone after sending that text, the tinted reflection of his cloudy expression looking back at him. He stared at the device—the newest model, purchased the day it was released—then shook his head, sliding the phone into the pocket of his slacks.
Before he’d put it away, Mine glimpsed the time in the corner of his screen: 5:24 pm, the sun beating its late afternoon rays down upon the Minato city ward below. He gazed out the window wordlessly as he waited, counting cars as they passed under his watchful eye.
Daigo was true to his word: he had, in fact, taken hours to get ready. Three hours and twelve minutes, from the moment Mine left Daigo to steam his suit to now, moments before his future husband would appear from the bathroom. Mine had counted every minute.
Finally, after 192 minutes of waiting, Mine heard the bathroom door open, followed by the sound of Oxford shoes on the hardwood floor. Then the sweetest sound of them all came deliciously to Mine’s ears: Daigo’s voice.
“Well?” Daigo said, a hint of embarrassment framing his deep, honeyed voice. “How do I look?”
Mine turned around, the small smile that had found its way onto his mouth dropping; not from disappointment, but from pure, unbridled awe.
There Daigo stood, a black pinstripe suit adhering perfectly to his body. His shoes were polished so thoroughly they almost appeared metallic. Mine almost let out a gasp at how beautifully the slacks hugged Daigo’s muscular thighs, and he fought back the urge to whip Daigo around to see how they complemented his backside. The jacket, double-breasted with four buttons, each embellished with the Tojo Clan insignia, fit him like a second skin, and the spotless dress shirt Daigo wore underneath—unremarkable on its own, but essential to the whole ensemble—made his gray windowpane tie pop.
“Oh, Daigo,” Mine said breathlessly, stepping towards his lover and gingerly taking the other man’s waist in his hands. “You’ve never looked better. I knew you would be breathtaking, but this…”
Daigo smiled, reaching up with one hand to brush aside the single piece of hair that Mine could never get to stay slicked back. “I’m glad you like it. I can’t believe you dress like this every day, I’m already sweating my ass off.”
“Why do you really think I keep it so cold in here?” Mine returned Daigo’s closed-mouth smile, calling back to the hard time he’d given him about Mine’s use, or lack thereof, of the thermostat.
His slight inside joke landed, and Daigo let out a chuckle, shaking his head as he planted a quick kiss on Mine’s lips. “Yeah, well. Shall we go?”
“By all means.”
Daigo could feel his cheeks get warm as he got into Mine’s sports car. He wasn’t sure exactly what kind of car it was, but he could always tell to whom it belonged because of its yellow paint job. That same paint job made Daigo feel a little silly about riding in it, since it made the already flashy car that much more impossible to ignore. Combined with the exhaust pipes in the back, the car was a force to be beheld. He figured that’s what Mine liked about it, though.
Daigo half expected the car to greet Mine by name when he got in the driver’s seat. “You’re so modest around me, and yet you drive this crazy car. Why is that?”
Mine started the car and looked over his shoulder to pull out, all in one swift motion. “I worked for what I have,” he paused, glancing at Daigo out of the corner of his eye. “Including you. I don’t hide what I’ve accomplished.”
Daigo’s face went from warm to hot.
The ride from Minato City to Tokyo proper took about 30 minutes each way, yet about halfway through the ride, the quiet jazz music Mine had playing from the car’s impressive sound system was suddenly cut off by an incoming phone call. The caller ID read “Akira Nishikiyama,” Mine’s supervisor.
“Uh oh,” Daigo quipped, turning his head to look at Mine’s side profile. “You’re in trouble.”
Mine scoffed and answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Mine,” another male voice filled the space the same way smooth saxophone music had been just a second ago. In the background, the two men could hear that Nishikiyama was in a crowded room full of other talking voices. He must already be at the venue. “Where are you? Is Daigo with you?”
“Yes, Daigo is with me. We’re about halfway there, sir,” Mine replied, a new rigidity to his voice.
“Alright, well get here as soon as you can. The Chairwoman is looking for him.”
Mine shot Daigo a look, a smirk crawling its way onto his face as if to say, I’m the one in trouble? Daigo shrugged, shaking his head.
“Yes, sir. Tell the Chairwoman we’ll be there shortly.”
As soon as the phone call ended, Mine huffed, reaching over to put his hand on Daigo’s thigh. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know.”
Daigo paused, placing his hand on top of Mine’s and rubbing the back of his hand with his thumb. “By the way, do you know why this meeting is happening in the first place?”
Mine shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Instead of the Tojo Clan HQ, this meeting was being held in a hotel ballroom: high ceilings, good acoustics, a stage, and room for food. Also unlike most meetings, every Patriarch of every family filled the elegant chairs seated around large circular tables, which made it abundantly clear just how large the Clan was in the first place. This was a far cry from the conference room at HQ, with its 11 chairs total. Whatever this was, it was for every ear that had any amount of power here. Immediately through the door, food lined one of the walls, the delicious smells of yakitori, egg rolls, teriyaki sauce, and shrimp katsu hitting the couple before anything else. Daigo hesitantly let go of Mine’s hand after one final squeeze, crossing the threshold into the sweet-smelling venue.
The first person Daigo saw was Majima, piling his plate high with takoyaki. “Well, if it ain’t the man of the hour!” boomed Majima’s Kansai-accented voice as Daigo approached.
“Majima-san,” Daigo bowed his head to his elder, who looked…uncharacteristically good. Daigo took in Majima’s dark gray suit, red dress shirt, black tie, and the silver snake embellished in the eyepatch covering the old dog’s left eye. “It’s nice to see you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Majima waved his gloved hand, setting his plate down and folding his arms over his chest. “Ya look good, kid! Ya clean up nice!”
“I said the same thing,” Mine chimed in behind Daigo, momentarily placing his hand on the small of Daigo’s back. “Roughly.”
Majima laughed as Daigo spoke, “wait…did you actually–”
“Draw it on?” Majima lowered his voice and leaned in toward his two conversation partners, his cheeky grin scrunching up his nose. “You tell me.”
Daigo lifted his hand and gently touched Majima’s chin, which, despite its appearance from afar, was smooth. Majima’s goatee was there, consisting of what Daigo assumed was a combination of black eyeshadow and individual strands drawn on with an eyeliner pen. He recalled how Majima lamented his choice to shave the day before this meeting, so drastic means called for drastic measures.
“No way,” Daigo chuckled, taking his hand back.
“Good thing the lighting in here is dim, yeah?” Majima pinched Daigo’s nose with his thumb and forefinger, and Daigo could practically feel Mine’s disapproving gaze intensify at the gesture. “Ya meet with the boss lady yet? She’s around here somewhere.”
“Not yet,” Daigo turned to face Mine, who, sure enough, was staring daggers into Majima. “I’ll meet back up with you later, okay?”
Mine blinked, releasing himself from his trance, and his gaze softened as soon as he locked eyes with the man he loved. “Of course.”
Up by the stage, Daigo finally found the only woman in the entire room, along with his lifelong mentor and friend, Kiryu. From the way they were hunched together facing away from everyone, Daigo suspected that whatever they were talking about wasn’t common knowledge.
“Um…” he said, an eyebrow raised.
Both of them looked up and turned their heads, and Kiryu nodded a curt greeting. “There you are.”
“Sorry I’m late,” Daigo said, glancing at the clock: 6:13, still plenty of time before the event’s actual start time of 7:00.
Chairwoman Yayoi answered him. “You’re not late, Daigo, but we have a question for you.”
“Hi, Mom,” Daigo took in his mother’s appearance. They looked so much alike, him practically being a carbon copy of her, as if his father’s genes hadn’t even tried. Her typical shimada hairstyle sat perfectly still, undisturbed, and her purple kimono glistened slightly in the dim light. She’d looked the same his whole life, and not a day older than 30, though she was nearly 50 by now.
“You said Ryuji went to Nagoya the same time you came here, right?”
Daigo had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. The last person he wanted to think about right now was Ryuji Goda, the nepo baby of the rival Omi Alliance, and the matter that was so pressing he had to go to Nagoya for a week.
“Yeah, that’s right. But I doubt whatever he’s doing there has anything to do with the Omi. Their headquarters are in Osaka,” Daigo inched himself a little closer to Yayoi and Kiryu, now part of their hushed conversation.
“I wouldn’t be so sure, Daigo,” Kiryu said, his hand resting on Daigo’s shoulder.
“Did he tell you what he was doing there? Anything at all?” Yayoi asked.
“I asked, but he said he couldn’t tell me. I kept trying to press him, but he said something about it being a ‘conflict of interest’ and wouldn’t elaborate beyond that.”
Daigo noticed his mother and Kiryu look at each other out of the corners of their eyes.
“What?”
“That’s why this meeting was called,” Yayoi whispered, looking up at her fully grown son. “Something is coming.”
With the cryptic message his mother dropped on him still present in his mind, Daigo found Mine sitting at a table across from Nishikiyama and Majima, an empty chair next to him.
“Hey,” Daigo said, squeezing Mine’s shoulder as he went to take the seat that was obviously reserved for him.
“You’re back,” Mine said, stashing away his phone and whatever menial task he’d been doing on it. “I can only listen to Majima-san’s voice for so long.”
“I heard that, pretty boy,” Majima sneered from across the way, and Mine rolled his eyes. Daigo smiled.
“Pretty boy is right,” Daigo mused, pressing his knee against Mine’s under the cover of the white tablecloth.
“What did your mother say?” Mine asked, all too eager to change the subject. He slowly inched his hand towards Daigo’s and the two used the hiding place they’d found to lace their fingers tightly together. Daigo opened his mouth to answer when a light went on above the stage.
All eyes in the room turned towards the front of the venue as a hush washed over the crowd, where Chairwoman Yayoi stood behind a microphone. Daigo noticed movement to his right, but didn’t have to look to guess that it was Kiryu ducking into his seat for the speech.
“When last we gathered,” Yayoi began. “It was to honor the life of the Fifth Chairman, the late Yukio Terada. Since then, I have served as interim Chairwoman as we navigate the impending threat of the Omi Alliance to the west.
“Chairman Terada’s death, unfortunately, was just the beginning. As is commonplace in our lives, the Fifth Chairman was murdered, assassinated by the Alliance to wage war on the Tojo Clan. Soon, that war will begin its next phase.
“We have reason to believe that Ryuji Goda, Patriarch of the Alliance’s Go-Ryu Clan, is spearheading this war. He has gone radio silent since Terada’s death, only now he’s in Nagoya along with many of his most trusted men. Public records show many names in our blacklist have purchased train tickets from Osaka to Nagoya for this week, meaning that something is being planned. That being said, the Tojo Clan deserves to confront this challenge with a new, more permanent leader, and thus I am stepping down as your Chairwoman, effective immediately.”
Murmurs spread through the crowd as the most important men in the clan scanned the room, each of them searching for who they now knew to be their new boss sitting among them. Daigo looked at Mine, who was already staring at him, and the two shared a look of uncertainty. No one in this room could have seen this coming.
“In my stead, your new Chairman will usher in a new era of prosperity for the Tojo Clan, starting with the task of defending our city from the Kansai people who want to trample on it. I can think of no one better for the task than my son, Daigo Dojima.”
Daigo and Mine both whipped their heads toward the stage so fast that one of their necks made a popping sound. All the air in Daigo’s lungs left him, the tips of his ribs piercing holes in his chest.
“My final act, my final gift, as Chairwoman, is to offer you my greatest source of pride. Daigo is uniquely equipped to handle this upcoming war, and I have no doubt that you will all welcome him as your Sixth Chairman.”
Yayoi turned her gaze toward Daigo and offered her hand down to him. “Come, Daigo. Address your clan.”
It was a miracle that Daigo’s legs supported his weight when he got up. The odd number of eyes in the room all fell onto him, and a bead of sweat slid down the face of the Fudo Myoo tattooed on his back. He took his mother’s hand, and another miracle presented itself in Daigo’s ability to climb onstage.
The final miracle manifested in the stage light’s blinding brightness. The only table whose occupants’ faces he could see was the one in the very front, the one all of his closest friends were sitting at. The one Mine Yoshitaka, his one true love, was sitting at, the clouds on his face parting to reveal a look of unrivaled pride. If he was going to make a speech, he was going to give it to Mine. Everyone else was an afterthought.
“I…truthfully, I never expected this day to come so soon,” Daigo started, watching Mine’s handsome face for every movement of facial muscle, every micro expression. “My father, my mother, and every Chairman before me dedicated their lives to making the Tojo Clan a better organization to be a part of. I couldn’t be more proud of my predecessors, and I swear on the ink on my back and my father’s grave that I will herald the Tojo Clan to a new dawn.
“The fight ahead is for every yakuza in Kanto. We grew up here, and some may say I have no right saying it, but I love it here. I want to give something back to the place I grew up! My hope is that, as proud members of the Tojo Clan, you’ll follow me to a brighter future.”
As recently as two days ago, Daigo would have never expected to be in this situation. He knew that, with his mother as acting Chairwoman, the torch would be passed to him eventually, but he figured he had at least a few years post-release to get his act together before then. He stared out at where he knew his compatriots were, nearsighted by the light, his head droning from the back of the room to the front until his eyes landed on the one face he’d been able to see clearly the entire time. Daigo had never seen Mine’s face so full of kindness, so full of certainty that the road ahead would be one walked side by side. The muscles in Daigo’s face relaxed, and a small, determined smile formed as he stepped away from the microphone, dipping himself down into a deep bow at the hip.