My roommate turns out to be the heiress of a triad!

Ryoichi Sugawara's act of turning on his phone to record reminded Mao Kujo of the time when she was still studying in that Japanese-style house.

I remember one time my father personally taught me.

When discussing the history of the Yakuza, my father said the following.

Listen carefully, Mao.

The world has now entered the information age.

When I was a child, before gatherings of yakuza bosses in Tokyo, the host would search every guest to check if they were carrying any weapons.

Whether it's a knife, a baton, a gun, or any other weapon.

If you brought them, you must put them all away.

We'll return it to them after the party.

Later, those powerful figures with ulterior motives discovered that...

Killing the enemy gang leader while there's a lot of people and chaos is completely less effective than destroying the enemy gang at its root.

Gradually, no one carried weapons anymore.

At that time, a small, ingenious device called "Golden Lips" appeared.

It can be used for eavesdropping.

Giving the overheard information to a newspaper or leaking it is more effective than killing them directly.

Therefore, to prevent the hosts from taking advantage of their home ground to place such items in advance, the gathering location was changed to a hotel, hot spring inn, or other places provided by a professional third party.

Although there is still a risk of leaks, at least there is someone to hold accountable.

Third parties wouldn't risk their livelihoods for a pittance.

Although it was just a story her father told Kujo Mao during a break to cheer her up, she took his words to heart.

Since then, whenever she goes to an occasion she considers important, Kujo Mao will bring a signal jammer.

Thanks to this caution, no accidents have occurred over the years.

This time, only.

Thinking they had the upper hand and that the other party was just a high school student, they figured there was no need to send a signal jammer.

Unexpectedly, this one moment of carelessness led to him being outmaneuvered by the boy in front of him.

This made Kujo Mao take Sugawara Ryoichi, a boy who was only sixteen years old, seriously once again.

The burly man in the suit, who had cornered Mayu Kujo against the wall, heard the recording played by Ryoichi Sugawara and stopped what he was doing.

Even Mai Kujo, who was surrounded inside, looked surprised.

She never expected that Ryoichi Sugawara would use this tactic to gain the right to sit at the poker table.

Isn't your brother amazing?

But Sugawara Ryoichi knew that the step he was taking was extremely dangerous.

The other party was Kujo Masao, the head of the once-renowned yakuza organization, the Edo Toonsha.

If the act of secretly recording her touches a nerve as a yakuza, Sugawara Ryoichi will be in danger.

However, if they don't do this, Sugawara Ryoichi and Kujo Mayu, as the weaker party, will not have the right to speak with her.

He could only watch helplessly as Kujo Mayu was forcibly taken back by her mother.

He clearly understood that he and Kujo Mayu had only this one trump card, which was like a nuclear bomb.

The purpose of this trump card was merely to intimidate and make Kujo Mao willing to sit down and communicate with them.

Unless she adopts a yakuza-style approach that threatens her own life.

Under other circumstances, Sugawara Ryoichi would never have played this card.

Kujo Mao doesn't dislike talking to intelligent people.

They might even appreciate someone who is still thinking about how to turn the tide even in dire straits.

"Didn't you want to talk?"

Kujo Mao stared at Sugawara Ryoichi, parted her lips slightly, and slowly spoke.

Upon hearing this, Sugawara Ryoichi realized that the initiative was now in his hands.

"Please come in and let's talk."

The game between Kujo Mao and the enemy has officially begun.

······

Kujo Mao originally had no intention of entering.

From going up the stairs, knocking on the door, slapping her daughter Mayu Kujo, until just now hearing the recording that documented evidence of her abusing minors.

She originally thought that taking Kujo Mayu away from here would be an easy task.

After all, he had evicted all the other tenants in the building beforehand, eliminating the biggest uncertainty during the operation.

Send people to guard important locations around the area—to prevent Kujo Mayu from escaping.

Even before being recorded, he still held the moral and legal high ground.

It's a configuration that's hard to go wrong with.

However, due to his momentary negligence, he did not use a signal jamming device.

The effectiveness of advance measures is greatly reduced.

Fortunately, this carelessness only resulted in him being humiliated by a high school student.

This served as a reminder to myself that I cannot be careless because of the other party's identity in the future.

Thinking this, Kujo Mao then entered the room, took off her wooden clogs in the entryway, and stepped onto the tatami mats of Sugawara Ryo's house with her feet clad in white tabi socks.

But once inside, she discovered that the rented room was only ten square meters in size.

In addition, those men in suits came in and grabbed Kujo Mayu, disrupting the room.

Kujo Mao looked around; there wasn't even a decent place to sit down.

Ryoichi Sugawara saw through Mao Kujo's thoughts.

He quickly placed the table that the man in the suit had kicked away back onto the carpet.

"If you don't mind, you can sit here."

This carpet was cleaned just last week, and it's been cleaned every three days with a handheld vacuum cleaner.

Ryoichi Sugawara spoke cautiously, as if he were a young boyfriend whose secret relationship had been discovered and who was being questioned by the girl's mother.

After all, they had just used a recording to blackmail this patriarch of the Yakuza family.

If he continues to act as arrogantly as before, he probably really wants to buy a large villa with tens of thousands of square meters of land at the bottom of Tokyo Bay.

Kujo Mao did not act according to Sugawara Ryoichi's plan.

She noticed that although the room was small, the owner clearly took good care of it.

She went to the wardrobe.

The interior was divided into sections, with the men's clothing section clearly on the left, and below that there was a set of bedding and pillows that showed signs of use and were rolled up.

This is the temporary bedding that Sugawara Ryoichi laid out on the tatami after Kujo Mayu arrived.

On the right are several women's loungewear pieces that look brand new; they must have been bought after Mayu Kujo arrived.

I remember I had already stopped her from using the supplementary black card, and she didn't have any money on her.

So it was this boy who bought it for her?

She glanced back at Ryoichi Sugawara.

At this moment, Kujo Mayu had already gone to his side, and the two of them stood together, gazing at him.

"..."

She didn't speak, but turned back to continue looking around.

There are many books on the bookshelf.

Kafka on the Shore

War and Peace

The Old Man and the Sea

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Night at Meitang

Each book showed obvious signs of being read, proving that they were not just for decoration.

Below the bookshelf were two neatly stacked schoolbags, along with ballpoint pens kicked away by the desk, and textbooks and exercise books filled with notes.

"..."

We arrived at the washroom.

On the shelf in front of the sink, there are two ceramic cups, one blue and one pink, each containing a toothbrush of the same color.

Four towels were neatly hung on the Velcro straps to the side.

It's exactly like the situation when a man and woman live together.

"..."

Kujo Mao remained silent throughout, which made Sugawara Ryoichi feel uneasy.

Before she could figure out the woman's intentions, she had already come to the table and knelt on the carpet with her back to the bookshelf.

Seeing that Sugawara Ryoichi and Kujo Mayu were still standing there dumbfounded without any reaction.

So he said coldly.

"Didn't we say we wanted to talk?"