“If ya were to hurt me, ya wouldn’t get treatment now, would ya?” Mikoto’s hands were trembling slightly, but he could tell she was trying to look unbothered by his remarks.

  “Sorry, that was rude of me,” Tsuneo mumbled as he resumed unbuttoning his shirt.

  The kettle whistled, and Mikoto jumped up to handle it. He noticed she didn’t leave the scissors behind either. Maybe he’d misjudged her.

  “How did ya end up in that state anyway?” she asked while preparing the tea.

  “Workpce hazard…”

  “Wha?!” With the tea ready and on a tray, Mikoto started to turn around. “What kinda job do ya ha–”

  She froze. Tsuneo understood why—his shirt was fully off. The tattoos covering his back, shoulders, and arms were on full dispy. He’d expected that sort of reaction.

  Mikoto cleared her throat, regaining her composure and professionalism. She pced the tray beside them on the table and wordlessly got to work treating his injuries.

  Her hands trembled as she cleaned and bandaged his wounds, but she dutifully pushed through her discomfort for the sake of her patient. Tsuneo closed his eyes and kept his mouth shut. There was no reason to tease or taunt someone providing treatment for free.

  She applied the st bandage to a gash near his hairline. Tsuneo felt her breath tickle his face as she mumbled, “Yer lucky ya didn’t need stitches.”

  When he opened his eyes again, she was scooting away. Mikoto got to her feet, went to her freezer, and pulled out a gel cold pack.

  “Here. Use this on that shiner,” she said, handing it to him.

  “You’re pretty well-prepared for this,” Tsuneo remarked. He took off his gsses and pced the pack on his slightly swollen eye. “Do you provide medical treatment to random bums a lot?”

  “Ah…No way!” She ughed, her face flushed slightly. “I just couldn’t help but feel concerned about the state yer in.”

  “Hmph… Well, I’m not trying to be rude, but maybe you should mind your business in the future.”

  “That’s true. My family always said I’m pretty meddlesome…” She picked up his bloodied shirt before he could stop her.

  “Hey! What are you doing now?”

  “I’m gonna try to get the blood out,” she expined, pointing to a rge stain on the front. “I might be able to save it.”

  “Huh?!” Tsuneo dropped the cold pack and sat there sck-jawed. “How does a woman like you even know how to get blood outta things?!”

  Mikoto shrugged and turned on the kitchen sink. “I think most women do…”

  “Wha…?! Women…?” He shook his head and put the pack back up to his eye. “Actually, you know what? I don’t wanna know.”

  She scrubbed at the shirt by hand until the blood was mostly out, then hung it to dry in front of the open window. When she finished the unasked-for chore, Mikoto sat down at the table and picked up a cup of the tea she’d prepared earlier.

  “Oh no! It’s all cold now…” She pouted.

  “That’s because you did something unnecessary.” Tsuneo sighed and held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

  She tilted her head in confusion, but handed him the cup anyway. Tsuneo wrapped both his hands around it, concentrating on his magic so as not to bring the liquid to a boil. When steam was once again rising off the top, he handed it back to her.

  “Whoa! It’s warm again!” Mikoto looked between the cup and him. She bit her lip like she was holding back from saying something.

  “What is it?” He raised an eyebrow and leaned his elbow on the low table.

  “Um… Are ya…a sorcerer by chance?” A slight smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

  Tsuneo’s eyes widened. He’d expected surprise and shock from showing off his powers—maybe even a ‘how’d you do that?!’—but not this reaction.

  “How–”

  “Actually, my family is full of sorcerers!” she blurted out. “They run a shrine in my hometown. Do exorcisms, sell charms, all of that stuff,” she expined. Mikoto drummed her fingers against her cup as she spoke, shifting from side to side. “I can’t really do much—just purify stuff—and I get in the way, so that’s why I left.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked with newfound interest. Was she a sorcerer too? Maybe just a really weak one?

  “Like… I end up undoing some of their protective spells and barriers. Then they have to do it again… And I mess it up again… Stuff like that,” she expined bashfully, rubbing the back of her head.

  “Wait… Do you mean to say you’re undoing their magic?” Tsuneo had heard about people like this from his adoptive father. She was a very rare type of magic user known as a neutralizer.

  “Well, when ya put it that way… I guess I am!” She ughed.

  She told him more about herself, completely unprompted. The beautiful, yet painfully trusting, woman was twenty years old. She was born in Gifu prefecture as the youngest of four children. She’d come to Nagoya to become a nurse, feeling a need to serve a higher purpose in life.

  It was fate. Tsuneo was sure of it. The universe meant for him to meet Suwazono Mikoto.

  Eventually, his shirt was dry enough to wear, and it was time for him to leave. But Tsuneo couldn’t let this kind yet oh-so-useful woman slip through his grasp.

  “Um, so… Do you think it would be okay if I come here next time my brother beats the shit out of me?” he asked as he finished buttoning his shirt.

  “Oh! Um… Of course!” she said, handing him his suit jacket. Her brows knitted together with concern. “But, did yer brother really do all of that to ya?”

  Tsuneo shrugged. “Yep. But it’s because I let him. He’s building up a debt to me.”

  “Wha? What’s that supposed to mean, Mr. Shishiba?”

  “Call me Tsuneo,” he said, giving her the first genuine smile he’d worn in a very long time. “Can I call you Miss Mikoto?”

  She returned his smile. “Please do.”

  ***

  He only meant to get closer to Suwazono Mikoto to use her for his end goal. Loving her was never part of the pn, nor was it something Shishiba Tsuneo ever thought he was capable of. Yet over the course of the year they spent together, his attachment to her grew.

  “You’re pregnant? Are you sure?”

  Mikoto nodded solemnly, presenting a positive pregnancy test in that little one-room apartment where they’d first gotten to know each other.

  Tsuneo feigned shock and surprise as he pulled her into his arms. In truth, he’d hoped this would happen. This was necessary to keep her in his life.

  “It’s still early, but…”

  “Let’s keep it,” he whispered, holding her tightly. “I’ll support you, Micchan.”

  “I just don’t understand how this happened…” she murmured into his chest, trying to hold back her tears.

  She’d become a full-fledged nurse not long after they met, so she wasn’t dumb about this sort of thing. She was extremely careful about it, in fact. That was why he had to sabotage the contraceptives to make it happen.

  “Tsukkun! If you’re serious about this, you have to get away from your family!” she pleaded.

  His adoptive brothers had taken control of the group with his eldest brother, Ichiro, as leader and the second-eldest, Jiro, as second-in-command. They quickly quieted any dissidents within the organization that opposed their leadership. While Tsuneo had been steadily gaining support and backing within the organization since he came of age, an adopted son could not compete with blood ties.

  However, his brothers recognized Tsuneo for the threat that he was and started putting him into increasingly riskier situations as a means of subtly removing him. He’d kept more serious injuries a secret from Mikoto, opting to go to a clinic run by sorcerers for treatment, but continued to come to her for the smaller stuff. That was the only way he knew how to get closer to her.

  “It’s okay, Micchan. They don’t know about you,” he assured.

  “But it’s you I’m worried about!” She squeezed him tightly. “I’m tired of seeing ya get hurt!”

  “Then what if I stop getting hurt?”

  She pulled away, cocking her head to the side quizically.

  He clenched his fists. “I… I’ll go legit.”

  “For me?”

  He pced his hand on her stomach. “For both of you.”

  It was antithetical to what he wanted, but he was willing to give it a try if it meant keeping her. He nded a job as a bellhop in a hotel after quietly moving out of the Shishiba estate and joined Mikoto in her small apartment.

  After three months, it was time for them to announce the pregnancy to her family. They would be traveling to Gifu to do it, and Tsuneo pnned to ask her family’s permission to marry. The humble life had grown on him.

  So why was it then that the ghosts from his past had come to haunt him once more?

  The night before they were supposed to leave for Gifu, Jiro intruded on Tsuneo’s new life with Suwazono Mikoto.

  “What are you doing here?” Tsuneo growled, barely containing his rage at the sight of Mikoto being held hostage.

  He came home from work to find her seated at the low table in the middle of the room. A lithe man with an elegant face, who Tsuneo recognized as a fellow sorcerer, stood at attention behind her. Seated opposite Mikoto was a stocky man in a snakeskin jacket—his adoptive brother Jiro.

  “I should be asking you that, Tsuneo.” Jiro looked between him and Mikoto, then smiled. “Well, at any rate, I think I can figure it out.”

  He pulled out a cigar and waved it in Tsuneo’s direction. That was him begging for a light with the fmes Tsuneo could produce from his hands. He could have used a lighter, but this was a show of dominance.

  Tsuneo sighed and knelt in front of his brother, then extended his hand to produce a small fme in his palm. His brother brought the cigar to his lips and leaned toward the fme. Tsuneo considered shoving the fire right into his brother’s face right then and there, but that would put Mikoto and their baby at risk.

  “So, funny thing…” said Jiro, puffing smoke out of his mouth. The acrid smell and smoke of the cigar filled the small room. “My assistant here tried to use one of his spells on your girl, but it didn’t work…”

  Sweat beaded on the back of Tsuneo’s neck as he tried to maintain a perfect poker face.

  His brother pointed to the sorcerer standing behind Mikoto and snapped his fingers. “What did you say she was again?”

  “A neutralizer, sir,” answered the sorcerer.

  “Right. Whatever that is…” he mumbled. Jiro nodded toward the sorcerer. “This guy says they’re super useful, but I don’t know anything about that!”

  He shot Tsuneo an icy gre and ashed his cigar onto the tatami mats below. “Pops didn’t teach me about that stuff like you. I wasn’t the favorite.”

  “What do you want from me?” Tsuneo asked through gritted teeth.

  “I want the prodigal son to return home and help me out.” Jiro pulled smoke from the cigar into his mouth, then blew it in Tsuneo’s face. “I don’t like the way our dear brother runs things. Let’s get rid of him together.”

  Tsuneo disliked his eldest brother, Ichiro, immensely, but the second-eldest brother, Jiro, had been the source of many beat-downs he’d received during his youth. As much as his heart had softened living with Mikoto, he never forgot the revenge he wanted to enact on that man.

  “What’s in it for me?” he asked, not expecting much.

  A foxy grin formed on his brother’s face. “You help me become the head of the organization, and I’ll make you second-in-command.”