Midnight Pretenders (BL)

Chapter 20

Taiga Goto's phone suddenly starts ringing up with an incoming call just this early morning as he settles himself comfortably down on his seat inside his office at the Roppongi district. The keen and assertive young man pauses for a short moment and just remains frozen in front of his desk upon seeing Yanagi's caller ID brightly flashing on his screen. It suddenly hits Taiga Goto that this occurrence would only mean something certainly urgent.

He has never really gotten a direct phone call from Kenji Yanagi unless it is something completely crucial. So far, the only one time he did receive a call from the notorious Yakuza boss was way back when he had been in the middle of a conflict with another Yakuza boss from another clan who was then chasing after Yanagi for his blood.

And as Taiga quickly clears his throat to answer the call, he is already expecting the severity of the situation even before he can hear Kenji's cold and serious greeting.

"Goto," Kenji immediately utters at the first moment the phone has successfully connected.

"Yanagi," Taiga answers back. For the next few seconds, silence fills in the static noise before Kenji finally relays his concern for the sudden call.

"I will need your backup."

It is very short. Very straightforward yet still vague as it only demands Taiga his voluntary support and reinforcement. But even if that has been the first impression, Taiga already trusts Kenji Yanagi. He does not need any further details to agree with the terms of his favor. He just has to give him his undying support. So without even thinking about it that much, Taiga quickly agrees.

"Anytime," he tells Yanagi over the phone and the man from the other end also lets out a long soft sigh. "Just tell me what to do."

"Jin Sasai is already on his way to your office," Kenji briefly informs after a beat. And upon hearing Jin's name, a smug smirk slowly draws over Taiga's mouth.

"Then I'll be more than glad to welcome him here."

And just as he already expected from Yanagi's reliable wingman, Taiga's intercom rings up with his secretary's voice from the speaker, informing him about a certain unscheduled visitor.

"He's already here," Taiga says back to Kenji from the other line right after pressing a button to tell his secretary to let the strange visitor in. He also ends the call with Kenji after sending formal greetings to each other and is already waiting for the door of his office to open up with Jin's presence coming inside.

And when the big burly Yakuza assistant finally enters the room, Taiga flashes a bright smile at Jin's direction with both of his hands resting over the desk as if to show Sasai that he has been fairly informed about his arrival.

"Mr. Goto," Jin immediately greets with a formal bow at the young Yakuza boss behind the desk and slowly raises his head to look straightly back at Taiga.

Taiga remains seated across the room as he just stares at Jin's whole profile. It has been quite long since the last time they had ever really talked to each other. It feels kind of strange for Taiga now to look at Jin in a different position now. He had only been a young fellow member when he first met the big guy and now that Taiga has become a promoted Yakuza boss, it feels rather weird to talk with his former colleague in such honorifics and formal language.

"Yanagi sent you," Goto directly brings up the urgent concern as he gestures Jin to close the door behind him. The big man quietly obliges and eventually crosses the distance between them as he stops and takes the vacant seat near Taiga's huge desk.

"It's about the conflicts arising within the clan," Jin straightly discloses as soon as he settles down and gazes deeply at Goto's direction. His serious face has always been a very prominent feature about him and as Taiga slowly absorbs what had been said back to him, he casually looks away to turn and stare towards the view of the city from the window behind him.

"Conflicts?" Taiga consciously repeats in a question, "You mean the division of alliances among the other bosses, right?"

He has also observed that lately. And even before the Oyabun's birthday celebration. Most of the executive officials inside the clan have been devising a plan to reassess the other bosses of who they all think can be trusted or not. And when Taiga already realized what is truly happening, he tried not to mix himself up with the ongoing confusion among the other members. He could already see the betrayals and manipulations that the other bosses will try to do just to gain the favor of the Oyabun for his next successor.

"Boss Yanagi wants to form an alliance with you," Jin reaffirms after a moment and Taiga takes his time to think about it superficially. It is no longer a questionable thing, he will surely agree with the alliance. However, the reason why Taiga is still taking his time to answer back to Jin is because he still wanted to reassure what will be the upcoming hurdle that they will need to face once they have formally established the partnership.

"Who are we against?" Taiga vocally inquires.

Jin Sasai hesitates for a few moments as he tries to make sure he will carefully relay the right words to Taiga. There is no room for careless mistakes anymore and unless he finally gets the young boss to agree with the alliance, he will not say anything much about Yanagi's plan.

"We are against an unknown traitor within the clan," Jin partially admits. Though he already knows the real target, he just wants to confirm Taiga's word of approval first.

"I think I already know who it is."

But much as to his utter surprise, Jin's calculative move wears away as Taiga eventually agrees to the alliance and soon provides Sasai a much more interesting intel about the true enemy behind all of this whole thing.