Dinner With The King (3)

Reiji tightened his grip on the fork, a bad premonition casting over him. The person who had entered was his father's right-hand man, basically the second-in-command, who had the most power after Daichi.

Even his stepmother had to defer to his decisions, which is why she had to be more cautious with her schemes.

Endo Satoshi was quite unassuming, especially when compared to Daichi, Baldy, and Beardy. He seemed more like a friendly old grandpa whom people usually felt comfortable around, with no noticeable muscles.

But that was his biggest asset.

"Satoshi, can't you see I'm having dinner with my son?" Daichi frowned with displeasure despite the urgency on the man's face.

"I apologize, Boss, but this is quite important."

Satoshi hurried over and tried to lean into his ear to convey the information, but Daichi stopped him by raising his hand.

"Whatever the problem is, you don't need to be secretive about it. It's about time Reiji starts getting more involved, so say it out loud."

"Um... Boss, are you sure? He's still a bit young..." he trailed off, glancing at Reiji with worry.

Aside from Baldy and Beardy, he was the one who had the most interactions with Reiji in the syndicate. OG Reiji actually considered him as his grandfather to a certain extent, and that small trace of affection was enormous considering how emotionally closed off he was.

"Gramps is right, Dad. Leave me out of this," Reiji pleaded hopefully.

Being assigned tasks every now and then was still fine, but if he got more and more involved in this 'business', it would be nearly impossible to extract himself from it.

"Doesn't matter, you need to start knowing certain things. Continue, Satoshi."

Daichi turned away from Reiji as if the decision was final, urging the conflicted old man to proceed.

'Bruh....'

Reiji clicked his tongue in disappointment.

"Well.... Hayashi is back in town and is smuggling military-grade crossbows tonight," Satoshi revealed.

'Huh? Crossbows?'

Reiji scratched his head, confused at the statement. But some of his predecessor's memories cleared the air to a certain extent.

With the rarity of guns, gangs across the world had been resorting to different types of long-range weapons, with multi-shot crossbows being the most prevalent.

Though they were less lethal than guns, nor as flexible, it wasn't by a large margin. Add on the fact that they didn't require rare or protected materials to build, and it was a reliable option.

After all, gaining the advantage in the long-range is winning more than half the battle.

But crossbows were never really seen in the game aside from the archery club at school, and even those were more sportive and couldn't inflict much damage, so Reiji was a little baffled at how such an important aspect was not explored.

'That's a little fishy..... There's no way this wouldn't be explored.'

"Hayashi? When did he reenter the country, and how did we overlook this?" Daichi asked coldly, his voice dropping into a much deeper tone that sent shivers down Reiji's spine.

"We're not sure; none of our members received any information about this until today, and the shipment has already arrived at an abandoned port in the west, so we should move urgently."

Daichi leaned back in his chair, crossing his right leg over the left as he rubbed his chin in deep contemplation.

"Hmm.... Even if the shipment is already here, it will take time to transport it to wherever he plans to do so. We control most of the smuggling routes, so for now, just inform everyone to keep an eye on them, and inform me if there is any movement," he ordered.

Then, he turned to Reiji with an eerie smile, which made him stiffen up in suspense.

"Tomorrow you will pay a visit to Hayashi with a group of my men and lead the discussion. Your job is to find out how he got into the country, who he is going to sell the weapons to, and take control of the shipment."

"....You're fucking joking, right?" Reiji hissed with a mix of disbelief and anger.

"No, this is your next assignment."

Reiji turned to Satoshi for support, who was staring wide-eyed at his Boss with a similar level of astonishment.

Daichi, on the other hand, looked calm.

"Boss, you can't do that! He's too young, not to mention just how dangerous this can be! Since he's smuggled crossbows, he might have kept some for defence. Reiji will get hurt badly if things go wrong!" he yelled, throwing aside the previous respect and formality in his demeanor.

"Then he just needs to do well. He won't get hurt if he does."

Reiji couldn't believe his ears, and he looked at Daichi as if he'd grown a second head. He was pretty sure his father cared about him, but that did not seem to be the case at this moment.

"But Bos-"

"Enough. My decision is final."

Satoshi looked at the young man helplessly, his aged face wrinkling in frustration.

"Why are we even intervening in this? Are you worried that they'd use the weapons to hurt us?" Reiji asked.

Daichi shook his head.

"Reiji, do you know why we have managed to become this successful despite our numerous illegal ventures?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Think about it. In your memory, has the police ever held us accountable for any of it, even though a lot of them are out in the open? The citizens know of our existence, our illegal businesses are not much of a secret, and we're only growing day by day. Why would the police, or the government for that matter, put in almost zero effort in taking us down?"

Reiji furrowed his brows in thought, trying to recall any such details.

'....He's right, I've never heard the law enforcement conflict with us even once. Even in the game, Riku had to gather a ton of evidence to get them to do even the bare minimum.'

"But isn't that because of our influence and the bribes we give out?" he questioned curiously.

"Of course, that plays a role. But the biggest reason is because of a certain statistic. Tell me, which country in the world has the lowest crime rate?"

"...I'm assuming it's Japan?"

"Yes, and why do you think that is?" Daichi raised an eyebrow, continuing when he didn't get a response, "It's because during our rise to power, we had to go against numerous organized gangs and yakuza that had much deeper roots than us. And yet, we prevailed. Everything you see, all our power, money, and influence, was built on the graves of these forces. And when one major syndicate controls almost all of the underworld, the crime rate goes down because we decide most of it. The punishments and restrictions the police can hand out are restricted, but that doesn't apply to us. "

Reiji felt a thunderbolt strike through his mind, and a lot of things suddenly became clearer.

"So..... They're choosing the lesser of two evils?" he asked incredulously.

Daichi smiled, seeing his son follow along with his explanation.

"Well, it's not quite that simple. That's only part of it. The Yagami Syndicate is far more complicated than you think, Reiji. When the time comes, you'll learn more and more of it as you continue your assignments. All you need to know for now is that if we go down, that would be the signal for many more gangs to rise once again, throwing the country into chaos. So it's not that the government doesn't want us gone, it's that they can't stop us," Daichi chuckled, his confidence and pride radiating from his body.

'Fuck, this is ridiculous...'

Reiji sighed as he tried to take in this new information, toying with his food on the plate with absolutely no appetite to eat it, no matter how delicious it looked.

"So this smuggling thing.... Is this Hayashi dude trying to start his own gang or something? And that's why you want to stop it?" he asked.

"That's one reason. We can't have any other organized crime besides us if we want to maintain our position. Hayashi was one of the leaders of a Yakuza gang that we destroyed in the past, though he somehow managed to flee the country before we could get to him. So this isn't just a job for him; he probably has plans for us."

"....And you want your son to go have a nice little chat with this dude even when he probably wants to stick a knife in me because of you?"

The dripping sarcasm in his words was ignored, as usual.

"Meh, he'd probably use a crossbow, if you were listening," Daichi smirked.

"Tell me you're joking?"

Reiji tried to hold onto that last shred of hope, but it was brutally ripped apart by his father.

"No, you have to go tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? No, that's not possible, I have plans!"

He thought of both Haruna and Yui, who were going to be coming over, with the latter being more important since he had to prevent her from meeting Riku again.

There was no way he could break both promises.

"Like I said, this isn't an option," Daichi said coldly.

'Motherfucker, does he not care about me at all??'

"Didn't you give me the right to turn down any request?"

"And did you not say that only applies if it crosses your moral obligation? What part of keeping weapons off the streets is immoral? Hayashi is ruthless, and if you think he won't use those crossbows against the common folk, you have to think again," his father countered.

'....Should I just turn him down?'

The worst that could happen is that they'd interfere with his plans with the two, at least that's what he was hoping.

But the mere thought of refusing the order made his heart grow cold, like it was dipped into an ice bath and stabbed with tiny needles.

A vision, or maybe a memory, flickered inside his mind.

The same one that kept popping up ever since the blackmail incident.

He forced back the yelp that threatened to come out and bit his lips.

'This is why....'

He wasn't sure why his dad seemed so indifferent about the danger of this assignment, especially since he'd be going up against a man who used to hold a similar position to Daichi in the past, but his gut feeling told him that there might be a reason.

This was only because he knew from the game that his care for Reiji was real.

Combine that with the consequences on innocent people if this Hayashi was really as bad as he was made out to be, and that annoying memory that kept flashing by, he knew he couldn't turn him down.

He didn't have much of a choice.

"Where are you going?" Daichi asked with narrowed eyes.

"I told you I'm busy tomorrow, so I'll go right now."

"....What?"

Both Satoshi and Daichi blinked with surprise as Reiji buttoned up his suit jacket and looked at them with dissatisfaction.

'This is going to be a long night....'

***

A/N

Satoshi's image has been added to my Patreon, you can see it for free.