What? You Want Me to Become a Blonde-Tanned Guy?
I called Yuukiko before preparing to head to the main family house. If she got off work and found me gone without a word, she would worry, so I needed to let her know in advance.
The soft, gentle voice of Yuukiko came through after a brief ringtone. I could hear the rapid tapping of a keyboard in the background—she was clearly typing while talking.
“Yuukiko, I’ll be having dinner at the main house tonight. Grandfather called me over.”
Her voice was thick with worry. She must have been concerned about me going alone to the Taira family’s main house. After all, Yuukiko had suffered greatly under Taira Danjo for failing to produce an heir, so she naturally dreaded anything related to the main family.
“Nothing special. I haven’t visited during my break, so maybe they just want me to stop by. Grandmother really misses me, you know.”
In truth, I suspected Taira Danjo was calling me to assign the three missions he’d mentioned when I acquired the PMC. But if I told her that, she would only worry more, so I kept it vague.
“Yes, I’ll definitely let you know.”
After ending the call with Yuukiko, I showered, put on some neat clothes, and got in the car. As I drove toward the main house with music playing, I wondered what Taira Danjo could possibly want from me. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t guess. There simply wasn’t enough information about the old man. Not to mention his personality was downright nasty.
After driving for thirty to forty minutes, I passed the guarded checkpoint at the main gate and parked in the spacious lot in front of the main house. I got out and walked slowly through the grand entrance.
That’s when I ran into Taira Ichiro, who was just about to leave.
“Oh, Ryuta. What brings you here?”
A small, thin man with sharp, nervous eyes behind glasses. That was my entire impression of Taira Ichiro. But seeing him today, I realized he seemed even more intimidating. Though he was smiling at me, his eyes carried the cold, reptilian gaze of a bloodless lizard.
“Grandmother said she wanted to see me.”
For some reason, I felt it would be bad to say that Taira Danjo had called me, so I used the excuse of my grandmother Taira Shizuku, who genuinely doted on me.
“Ah, yes… Mother must be lonely after losing Saburo. She probably called you because you resemble him. Thank you for caring for her. She’s a wonderful woman.”
His tone was kind, yet the slimy, reptilian aura around Taira Ichiro never faded.
“You don’t need to thank me, Uncle. I came because I wanted to.”
“Hahaha! Of course. No need to thank me at all. Still, since your big uncle is in a good mood, let me give you some pocket money.”
Laughing heartily, Taira Ichiro pulled out a luxurious wallet and handed me several ten-thousand-yen bills. It felt awkward to refuse, so I thanked him and accepted them.
“Well then, take care.”
He patted my shoulder twice and left the main house.
Hmm, how many are there? One, two, three… Fifteen bills. One and a half million yen as pocket money for a nephew… I’m not sure if that’s a lot or a little. I wasn’t born into a conglomerate family, after all.
But what’s this?
As I was about to put the bills into my wallet, I noticed something strange attached to one of them. Because of Taira Ichiro’s peculiar aura, I had unconsciously heightened my senses. That’s how I managed to spot it.
On one of the bills, there was a transparent film with a circuit pattern that matched the bill’s color, stuck to one side. It was so tiny and tucked into the corner that an ordinary person would never notice it. But I wasn’t ordinary.
Hmm. A listening device?
Taira Ichiro is something else…
It seemed he wanted to confirm whether I was really meeting Grandmother or actually seeing Taira Danjo, and even eavesdrop on the conversation. Giving me a bugged bill to spy on his own nephew was frightening, but what was even more chilling was that he apparently carried these devices with him all the time, even though he hadn’t planned to meet me today.
Crackle…
I lightly drew on the abyss and damaged the circuit embedded in the transparent film. That should prevent any eavesdropping. I checked each bill one more time, confirmed the rest were clean, and finally put them in my wallet.
After tucking the wallet away and walking further inside, a servant spotted me, bowed, and approached.
“Young Master, Lady Shizuku is waiting for you.”
It was still before dinner, so it seemed she wanted me to see Grandmother first. I nodded obediently and followed the servant to the reception room Taira Shizuku usually used.
“Ryuta, you’re here?”
“Yes, Grandmother. I’m glad to see you looking healthy.”
Taira Shizuku looked far too young to be called “Grandmother,” so it wasn’t really time to talk about health, but I said it out of politeness. Old ladies loved that sort of thing.
“I had some of your favorite wagashi brought out. Have some with your tea.”
I don’t really like wagashi that much… She’s just forcing a lot on me again. Still, I didn’t particularly dislike them, so I sat across from Taira Shizuku and ate the sweets with my tea.
As expected, believing I truly loved wagashi, she had brought out nearly two kilograms of them. If I ate all this, I’d probably get diabetes.
“Oh, that’s right! I watched the music video you appeared in. It was wonderful!”
Ah…! So even Grandmother saw it? I thought she wouldn’t know since my name wasn’t in it and it was released in Korea. That means Taira Danjo probably knows too. I’ll definitely get an earful later.
Taira Shizuku clapped her hands and ordered the servants to bring a large screen. She then held a music video appreciation session with me. I had already experienced how incredibly embarrassing this was once with the Seryu-tai members.
“Indeed, my grandson looks even better in real life than on screen.”
After watching the video several times and clapping excitedly, Taira Shizuku even bought the album of the singer who performed the song and made me autograph it.
“I’ll treasure this, Ryuta!”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her to stop when she hugged the album to her chest with such emotion, so I just played along until it was time for dinner. We headed to the dining hall together.
Having left the main gate and climbed into his limousine, Taira Ichiro asked the secretary sitting in the front seat.
At the secretary’s words and the rustling sound of counting bills coming from the audio, Taira Ichiro gave a faint, mocking smile.
He was nothing but an illegitimate child who had received the excessive name of Taira without any proper education. Getting so excited over a few ten-thousand-yen bills… He truly didn’t suit the Taira name at all.
“How vulgar.”
“Huh?”
The secretary let out a startled sound as soon as Taira Ichiro finished speaking. The rustling had vanished, replaced by nothing but a high-pitched static hiss.
“What happened?”
“It seems the youngest young master touched the circuit while counting the bills. We’ve lost the signal.”
“What a crude boy. I wanted to hear what he would say to Shizuku. Still, tell the development team to improve the stability. It can’t break this easily.”
The woman he had just called “Mother” was now simply referred to as “Shizuku.” And with clear disgust in his voice, no less.
Due to the chaos before the war and the secret power struggles during it, Taira Shizuku was Taira Danjo’s fourth wife. Since Taira Danjo replaced each deceased wife with a new one who could support him politically and economically, Taira Ichiro—the son of the first wife—had no reason to like the current wife, Taira Shizuku.
“The Chairman never grants real power to his wives, so there probably won’t be anything important.”
“Yes. It would be better to focus on my younger siblings rather than wasting attention here.”
Indeed, keeping an eye on his ambitious younger brothers—Taira Kokoro and Taira Jiro—would be far more worthwhile than worrying about the powerless Taira Shizuku and Taira Ryuta. After all, his siblings, except for the one who had married into the Fitzgerald family, all harbored the same ambitions as he did.
“Still, that Ryuta brat visits the main house more than any of my father’s other grandsons. It pisses me off.”
“Shall I arrange something?”
“No. Saburo already died under suspicious circumstances. If his son dies less than a year later, Father will be furious. If we get caught, we’ll be blamed for everything that came before. There’s no need for us to act right now. Once I become Chairman, dealing with a guy like Ryuta will be easy.”
Rejecting the secretary’s suggestion of “arranging something,” Taira Ichiro gestured for the car to depart. He stared at the main house growing smaller in the distance.
Right now, it looked like an impregnable fortress to anyone who saw it. But time was on his side. In just a few years, cracks would form in every corner of that fortress, and the Taira main house would become his.
Only then could he decide what to do with his father.
“First, look into what Jiro is up to. He’s been too quiet after getting scolded by Father for getting entangled with the Minamoto side.”
“Understood. I’ll look into it immediately!”
To seize the Taira main house, the first step was to eliminate his brothers who sought the same position. Taira Ichiro smiled coldly.