"Yes?" answers the voice. A lot deeper than she'd been expecting, and makes it even harder to try to keep a fair even image in her head of Kokonoe being just a boy.

"Hello. This is Ōta Makino. Am I speaking to Kokonoe Tōkan?"

There's a short pause before the response. "Yes, this is him. How may I help you?"

So polite. ...no, Makino, stop projecting. Everyone is polite, this has nothing to do with anything.

"Is Yamada Inori near you? I tried to call him just now and he didn't pick up, but I'd been told he often misses calls and that I should call you if he did. Could I talk to him?" It's extremely suspicious, though.

"Yes, Ma'am. Would you rather call him again? I'll let him know he should look at his phone."

You'll let him know, huh?

...still, a lot more helpful than he could've been.

"That would be ideal, thank you. I will call him in a minute." Then she hangs up and... waits. This kind of maybe-adversarial relationship is still pretty thrilling, though, and one of the reasons she went into Law. Nothing makes her feel more alive than this.

It's not a full minute before she calls again, and Yamada (or someone pretending to be him, not extremely likely but she's been in this career for a while) answers after two rings. "Yes."

"Is this Yamada Inori? I am Ōta Makino."

"Yes."

"Would it be possible for you to go somewhere Kokonoe Tōkan isn't likely to overhear you?"

"...why would I want that?"

That's about one of the least reassuring things he could've said. "You may share the contents of this conversation with him at a later point if you judge it safe but I would prefer it if initially it were a conversation between only you and me. If you do not have a safe way to do this, please respond with 'I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I don't think you're talking to the right person'." Plausibly deniable enough unless she's being directly overheard.

There's a moment's pause which based on the tone of voice of what he says next she interprets as incredulous: "Safe...? What, you think this wimp could make me do stuff I don't want to do? Fuck off, I'll kick his ass."

She has to cover her lips to not laugh out loud. That, on the other hand, she likes a lot more.

"That is a reassuring reaction," she says, letting some of the warmth she's feeling for him leak into her voice. "I would nevertheless feel better if you had space for yourself here."

"...fine." Then he apparently pulls away from the phone but she can still hear it: "I'm gonna be in my room, don't go upstairs, I'll break your arms if you do."

She smiles to herself while she waits and eventually she hears the sound of a door closing and he says:

"I'm alone. What is it?"

"Do you know about Ōta & Ōta?"

"Tōkan said you're a lawyer. A famous one. So what?"

...hm, if Kokonoe already knew who she was then even if Yamada is out of earshot Kokonoe might still press him on details later.

"Our firm focuses on corporate law but my husband and I have a history of activism for omega rights. And when we can, we take cases where rich people—and let's be frank, here, it's mostly rich alphas—are abusing the corruption of the system to oppress omegas."

"I'm not fuckin' oppressed, I just got a shitty alpha on my case 'cause she's mad I beat her up when she was trying to rape a middle schooler."

...yes, that's what she—this kid is going to be a handful. She sighs and says, "Well, we can help with that, too."

"If you need rich person money—"

"We do not," she interrupts, being very firm abou that. "Yamada-san, we do this pro bono. My husband and I, we became lawyers because we wanted to change things and make it harder for, as you say, 'shitty alphas' to get away with all that they get away with. If this goes to trial we'll be there for you, but we want to try to make it not go to trial at all. We're going to need your help. Are you up for it?"

A slight pause, then: "Yeah. Fuck 'em."