Katsuki followed her in silence, keeping a respectable distance behind the bike.
Respectable, of course, being a loose term. Because every few seconds, his eyes—traitorous, disloyal bastards—darted to her ass. Not intentionally. Just instinctively. Muscle memory, really. It was a short ride. It wasn't his fault she was wearing those shorts. Or that the late afternoon sun happened to hit her legs like a spotlight designed by Satan himself.
He scowled and snapped his gaze back to the road.
Get a grip. You're not a goddamn teenage intern.
He was a managing partner at one of the top boutique firms in the country. A graduate of Harvard Law. A man who had once drafted a merger clause so ironclad it made a CEO cry. He did not ogle his ex-secretary while tailing her through a residential neighborhood like a cartoon wolf with steam coming out of his ears.
She slowed as they reached a corner, and he—thankfully—had something new to focus on.
The house.
She dismounted in front of a wide, black-lacquered gate with a discreet, hand-carved nameplate and an old brass bell. The walls were clean stucco, low enough to glimpse the top of a massive tiled roof beyond. She slid the gate open with practiced ease, motioning for him to drive in.
Katsuki's eyes narrowed as he pulled forward.
It wasn't extravagant, not in the way Nagoya money flaunted itself—no gold trim, no Italian statues, no desperate screaming for attention. This was the kind of wealth that didn't need to be loud. The gravel was freshly raked. The gardens, minimalist but deliberate—stone lanterns nestled beside trimmed pine, the air thick with the clean scent of cedar and sun-warmed soil. The kind of place that had generations of family history steeped into the beams.
Old money. Old respect.
He could almost feel the reverence in the air. The weight of it.
The Hasegawas had more capital, sure—his mother's empire of hotels and private clubs and discreet boardroom takeovers would always win in yen—but this? This was the kind of house that said: We've been here longer than your bank account.
Interesting.
He parked under a shaded carport near the side of the house, killing the engine just as Yuna's voice popped back into his head.
"She has two brothers. They're weirdly protective. The younger one, Ren—you might be able to scare him. Might. But Rei-niisan? That man gives off shovel-in-the-trunk energy."
Katsuki cracked his neck slowly, exhaled through his nose.
He might look like he'd never lifted a finger in his life, but he'd trained MMA for three years before law school stole his soul. He still sparred once a week. There were photos of him in suits, yes—but there were also x-rays somewhere of other men's ribs, cracked from his elbow.
He was not afraid of some backwoods older brother with a gardening hobby and probably a death glare.
-----
The front door slid open with a thud. And then someone tackled Hana.
A blur of motion. Tall. Auburn curls. Barely resembling her, except for the absolute chaos in his energy.
The kid clung to her like a toddler in a growth spurt, grinning as she elbowed him off. Pierced eyebrow. Tattoos creeping out from under a loose t-shirt. Cocky. Loud. Probably a handful in every public setting.
Hana sighed. "Boss-man, Ren. Ren, boss-man."
Ren's grin widened, sharp and interested. "Aaah. The boss-man you can't stop talking about?"
"Ren," she hissed. "Shut up."
Katsuki raised an eyebrow. She what?
Ren wiped his palm on his jeans and held it out. "Ren Sukehiro. Engineering student. Hana-nee's favorite brother."
Katsuki took the hand automatically.
And instantly recalculated.
The grip was firm. Not try-hard, not insecure. Just solid. Grounded. With the kind of intent behind it that spoke less of greeting and more of testing limits.
"You here to hurt her?"
The voice was light. The implication wasn't.
Katsuki didn't flinch. "That depends. Does your sister routinely threaten her boss with violence and then scream she's being kidnapped in public?"
"Oh my god, Ren, don't be weird!" Hana dug into her pocket, shoved a few crumpled bills at him. "Go out. Wreck havoc somewhere else."
Ren didn't move at first.
He just kept eye contact with Katsuki. One second. Two.
Then he smiled. Like the last fifteen seconds hadn't just been a pissing contest in handshake form.
He took the money, grabbed Hana's bike, and walked off whistling.
Hana groaned. "He's in this phase where he thinks he can intimidate people because he just got his eyebrow pierced. Ignore him."
Katsuki watched Ren disappear down the street, shoulders loose, bike half-wheeled, half-dragged like a trophy. He made a note of the tattoos. The posture. The lack of fear.
If this is the younger one, he thought dryly, and the older brother's anything like him, I can manage.
He wasn't worried.
How bad could the older one be?
He'd dealt with boardroom brawlers and union sharks. A couple of overprotective brothers with rural charm and inherited trauma weren't going to scare him off.
Let them bring the shovel.
He had the legal expertise to bury them with it.
-----
And that were his famous last words.
Katsuki followed her around the side of the house, steps slow, deliberate, and—if he was being honest—calibrated. Not cautious. He didn't do cautious. But the gate had barely shut behind his car before his instincts had started whispering combat readiness.
Maybe it was the gravel crunching underfoot. Maybe it was the air—thick with cicadas and ancestral judgment. Or maybe it was the subtle sense that he was being led somewhere.
And then he saw him.
Rei.
Sitting on the engawa like a feudal warlord slumming it for an afternoon. Loose shirt rolled up to the elbows. Forearms cut from real labor. A cup of sake in one hand, his entire aura screaming try me in the other. Broad. Stocky. Thick-necked.
And huge.
Not just gym-rat bulk. Not Katsuki's brand of tailored strength. This man looked like he chopped wood for emotional regulation. Like he once punched a bear out of boredom and then offered it a drink.
If Hana's younger brother was a golden retriever in his criminal phase, this one was a mountain with resting murder face.
"Ani," Hana said cheerfully. "Boss-man. Boss-man, Nii-san."
Rei stood.
Katsuki—who had never once in his life known fear, who cross-examined billionaires for breakfast and verbally eviscerated CEOs for sport—felt something unfamiliar crawl down his spine.
I don't have a will, he realized. I don't even have a goddamn emergency contact.
The man was taller than him. Wider than him. He had the kind of presence that made you instinctively straighten your back. Like gravity worked harder around him out of respect.
And the stare.
It wasn't just a glare. It was a death appraisal. The look of a man who could crush your skull with one hand while sipping sake with the other. Just to see if it would make a crunching noise.
Katsuki didn't blink.
Mostly because blinking felt like weakness, and he wasn't sure this man believed in mercy.
Rei said nothing.
Just looked at him.
Slowly. Thoroughly.
Katsuki met his gaze head-on.
Fine. If this turned into a dominance display, he could play that game. He didn't spend years in litigation just to back down from a family enforcer with a sibling complex.
Then Hana, oblivious to the silent gladiator match happening behind her, piped up, "Where's Maman and Papa?"
Rei didn't look away from Katsuki. "Inside."
She turned to go.
But then—
"Hana."
She paused. Pivoted. "Yeah?"
Rei raised his sake cup, took a sip, and then—without urgency—reached out and tugged the hem of her shorts like he was inspecting damages.
"You went to town looking like that?"
Katsuki's jaw twitched.
Okay. That was—bold.
Granted, he'd thought the same thing. Multiple times. Loudly. In his head. But that was different. He wasn't her brother. He had been thinking it for less…fraternal reasons.
But Hana? She just beamed at the walking refrigerator of a man like he hadn't just publicly father-checked her and said, "I look good," before disappearing inside.
Katsuki decided, instantly, that he didn't trust anyone in this family. Especially not the one who could bench-press a horse and drank like disappointment was his baseline.
He exhaled slowly.
Shovel-in-the-trunk energy, Yuna had said.
No. This man was the shovel.
-----
They stepped inside, and the heat broke like a fever.
The air in the Sukehiro house was cool and clean, laced with the faintest trace of cedar and something floral—lavender or yuzu, maybe. The house stretched wide around him, a single floor but sprawling in every direction. Not modern. Not outdated. Just timeless. Everything about the space felt deliberate and grounded, like it had always existed here, unbothered by passing trends or the outside world.
Katsuki scanned the room automatically, cataloging. A sunken living area to the left, large enough to host at least ten people comfortably. A long, low table sat in the center, surrounded by cushions and blankets, as if sleepovers were still a normal occurrence here. Shelves lined the far wall, filled not with pristine décor, but with things—books with cracked spines, old board games, framed drawings that looked like they were done by kids but never got taken down.
The windows were wide, sliding panels thrown open to the breeze, spilling sunlight across tatami mats worn soft with use. From somewhere deeper in the house came the unmistakable scent of something cooking—soy, maybe fish, something miso-based—rich and warm and absurdly…domestic.
He wasn't used to homes like this. Not even his mother's pristine penthouse or his father's Kyoto villa had this sense of rootedness. This wasn't money trying to impress you. This was status that didn't need to speak.
And then his gaze landed on the wall to the right.
Photographs, he thought at first. Childhood snapshots. Dozens of them.
A little girl—undeniably Hana—with wild auburn curls and scuffed knees, caught mid-laugh or mid-glare in nearly every frame. Sometimes alone, often with that younger brother, Ren, both of them frozen in the kind of candid chaos that screamed real family. No stiff posing. No glossy filters. Just moments.
But as he stepped closer, something shifted.
They weren't photographs.
They were portraits. Drawn. Hyperrealistic. Meticulously rendered with a precision that made his chest go still.
Every curl of her hair. The gleam of mischief in her eyes. The folds of a skirt, the wrinkle of a laugh line—it was all captured in brushstrokes so subtle he almost didn't believe it. And in the corner of every one, a small flower. A new bloom each time. Daffodil. Camellia. Violet.
He stared, eyebrows pulling together.
"Hana."
She turned, still half-walking down the hall. "Yeah?"
He didn't take his eyes off the wall. "You made these?"
She looked back at him fully now, mouth quirking up. "I do have talents, Hasegawa. Surprise."
He didn't answer.
Didn't know how to.
Because how the hell had he not known about this? How had she sat two feet away from him for months, casually producing miracles in the margins of legal pads and whiteboards, and he'd never thought to ask?
Law prodigy. Administrative menace. Excel executioner. ADHD personified.
And now—artist.
Of course Hana Sukehiro was capable of something like this.
And goddammit, it bothered him.
Not because he thought less of her. But because it made him realize, with sharp, unwelcome clarity, that there were entire rooms inside her—entire wings of a person—he hadn't even opened yet.
And it made him think something he immediately hated himself for:
Who else knows about this?