"I'm not here to gloat, Father. I'm here to make sure you understand that that's going public if you don't get your prosecutor off my boyfriend's case before tomorrow morning."

"My prosecutor?"

"Are you saying you didn't scour heaven and earth to find her, someone who'd take your money despite the obvious hit to her career this would be?"

"Boy."

"The proof is right there. You really need to do better than that at hiding your fingers if you want to one-up Ōta Kaiyō, you know, six layers deep is not enough indirection.

"Are you going to call your prosecutor off?"

"Yes."

"Good! And now that we have this effective admission on record," he says, grabbing his phone from his pocket and showing the voice recording app he's been using, "and with the understanding that all of this is being synchronously backed up into cloud storage so you cannot actually do anything about it, let's talk about the rest of what I want.

"One, I want cousin Dai to be your heir."

"—what?"

"I don't want it. Any of it. Any of you. Give it to him, that boy deserves it, he's so much better than me, he's going to be a boon to the Kokonoe empire.

"Two: you let him go to America first, get his education. Seriously, Father, Yale and Stanford, and you wanted to keep him here? You are out of your goddamn fucking mind.

"Three: the school. It's mine. Everything else, Dai's, but the school you give to me."

"You're seventeen."

"Obviously not now, any more than you're giving Dai everything right now. But the school will go to me later, got it? That's it, that's what I want. You get your perfect heir, and Dai is perfect, and you get rid of me, which you've wanted for so long. The only real cost to you is the school, which I know you hate anyway. So really, Father, you should take this. It'll be much better than the hit to your reputation you'll take from all of this coming out.

"Does it feel nice to be condescended to like this by someone who has power over you? Bet it doesn't. But since you lack a shred of empathy in your body you will obviously not take this opportunity to reflect on the kinds of things you inflict on others and maybe become a better person. So, if you won't become a better person, at least have the decency to put a better person in your place when you leave. Maybe with Dai there this family will stop being the pit of backstabbing snakes it is and we can work towards more than just the fucking natural order of things. Like, say, the flourishing of humans.

"Any questions, Father?"

"...do not. Call me Father."

"Deal! It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Kokonoe-san."

"Yamada Inori-san."

...what. Why are they waking him up in the middle of the night, ugh.

He gets up, irritated, and looks at the person who's calling his name.

"The charges against you have been dropped," she says, opening the door to his cell and stepping out of the way.

"...took their sweet time," he says, swinging his feet around the bed and putting his mask back on. "Any idea where my pipe is?"

"...I'm sorry?"

"Never mind I'll find a new one."

"INORI-KUN!!!! 😭" cries Harutsugu before flinging himself directly at his son for a bear hug. Kuroji, Tōkan, and both Ōtas are also there, hanging back and letting the local anime dad have his moment.

"Ghh," is what Inori can say because his alpha dad is squeezing him too hard for him to properly breathe. Eventually he manages to shake himself free and say, "Haru you're being clingy again."

"😭😭😭 My darling son how are you are you okay did anyone mistreat you I will end them if they did 😡—"

"He's clearly fine, Haru, let the boy breathe," says Kuroji fondly.

"Oh, no, I'm so sorry, am I hurting you?"

"He's the strongest, no one can hurt him."