"I really hope you'll come over more often, father-in-law," Kaori said in a gentle voice.
She was wearing a traditional Japanese outfit that Jin remembered as a nemaki. It was a garment similar to a yukata, but more focused on indoor comfort.
"Hm… take care of my son," Wasuke snorted slightly toward Kaori before uttering those final words at the doorstep.
Jin had already called a taxi. That way, his father wouldn't be left standing stupidly on the sidewalk waiting for a ride, nor would he have to endure the hell of the Japanese subway.
"Phew… I'm exhausted," Kaori exhaled after closing the door.
"You're talking like my dad was a chore," he said without thinking too much. However, Kaori averted her eyes from him.
An action similar to that of someone embarrassed after being caught doing something wrong.
Observing this unexpected side of his wife, Jin reflexively raised his hand toward Kaori to pat her head.
A natural gesture from the former him to reassure Kaori, which he reproduced exactly the same way.
"Don't worry. Dad's grumpy, but he has a good heart," he explained with a smile.
Jin wasn't lying to Kaori.
Wasuke Itadori was a good father, according to the memories in the original Jin's mind.
He was simply wary of Kenjaku, but he had truly loved the original deceased Kaori.
The reason for his blatant hostility toward Jin's wife was as simple as the sun lighting up planet Earth.
Wasuke knew the true nature of Kaori.
'Wasuke is a good person. However, Kenjaku has desecrated the memory of his daughter-in-law and her body,' he thought while watching his wife's mood improve.
"Alright! But next time you'll deal with his mood swings! I'm tired of him always finding something to criticize about me," Kaori complained, puffing out her cheeks.
A cute gesture—if you ignored the fact that she was a centuries-old milf.
"Understood, I'll handle Dad next time. You can just go visit your friends in the meantime."
In the end, the rest of the evening passed in a relaxed atmosphere between the couple.
Did Jin eat Kenjaku again?
No.
Even though Kaori had been very persuasive due to pregnancy hormones, Jin found Yuji as an excuse to avoid that rabbit hole.
The only downside of that night was having to struggle to sleep with blue balls.
So Jin spent a long night of suffering.
…
"Are you sure? There's a lot of money on the line… sigh," Gong insisted while handing him a bottle of traditional alcohol.
Is this the famous sake? I've always wondered if it's really that good, he thought, recalling Tsunade Senju.
The woman adored that drink.
Jin glanced at his broker, Gong Shi Woo, before shaking his head to show his firm refusal.
"I'm flattered that you immediately thought of me as a new partner, but I'm booked for the next month," he explained while accepting the alcohol in a small cup called an ochoko.
Jin downed the sake in one go, tasting the sweet flavor of the alcohol for the first time.
"My wife is going to give birth in a few weeks, so I'd rather not be away," he continued while watching the liquid being poured again into his ochoko.
Indeed, Kaori's delivery was approaching.
This situation was putting a certain pressure on Jin's mind, as he worried about her fate after Yuji's birth and the boy's future.
'Am I stupid? I never chose to become a father, but I'm already worrying about his future beyond my own fate,' he thought as his hands trembled slightly.
Jin no longer really feared Kaori. However, he had begun to develop an unfamiliar worry that Claud had never known.
It boiled down to this: Would Yuji be able to endure the consequences of the Shibuya Incident without him? Did he really have to let Kenjaku play with his son like an experiment? Could he even prevent Kenjaku from using Yuji to satisfy her bottomless curiosity?
The questions flooded in heavily, but none of them were connected to Claud's original goal: survive the entire upcoming mess in his little town of Sendai and in Japan.
"Honestly, you and Toji are hilarious," Gong declared while pulling out a pack of cigarettes.
He offered one to Jin, but the latter politely refused. He had smoked in his previous life, but Jin preferred not to fall back into it.
"How so?" Jin asked, a little confused by Gong's implication.
"You both knocked up your women at almost the same time," he explained while exhaling smoke in the inn.
Hearing Gong's words, the former employee gave a slightly embarrassed smile.
However, he mentally noted the fact that Megumi had either been born or was about to be.
'Should I adopt his instead of Satoru Gojo?' he wondered before quickly dismissing the idea.
Megumi had been one of the reasons behind Gojo's stable mental state after Geto went off the rails. If Jin adopted his, he wasn't sure whether Gojo would become a tyrant or if Yaga could keep him in check with Shoko.
"Haha, sorry we couldn't keep our urges under control," Jin replied in a joking tone.
An action that slightly surprised Gong.
Usually, Jin erected a barrier around himself whenever he dealt with someone from the black market.
Yet that hadn't been the case this time.
'Does he see me as less of a threat now?' Gong thought while watching the bespectacled man devour his freshly served noodles.
"Besides our private lives, did you bring the goods?" Jin suddenly asked after finishing his entire bowl of noodles at astonishing speed.
Gong Shi Woo sketched his usual professional smile toward Jin before nodding to confirm.
"Indeed, I managed to find unclaimed bodies," he said, pausing briefly to flick his cigarette butt into the ashtray.
"They're stored not far from here in a cold room, but you should pick them up within the week—otherwise you'll have to pay extra for storage," he finished while looking into Jin's eyes.
You didn't have to be a genius to guess the reasoning behind Gong's wary look toward Jin.
After all, what would a healthy adult man do with the corpses of young women?
"Just to clarify, I'm not a necrophiliac," he said in a calm voice while taking the tea brought by a waitress.
"I was thinking some weird occult ceremony, but okay," Gong replied with a shrug.
Jin felt a bit embarrassed by his misinterpretation of Gong's assumption but decided to ignore the minor awkward incident.
'At least he didn't stick to the initial idea since it's kind of true,' he thought inwardly.
As for having another strange rumor attached to him in Japan's underworld?
Jin didn't care.
Anyway, the identity of the Vanir mask user wasn't his (Jin's).
After that slight incident, the two men discussed various small things related to the underworld until they reached an interesting topic.
"The Gojo clan kid is really messing up business," Gong complained while pouring himself more sake.
"Has he become active?" Jin asked, frowning.
At that moment, Jin understood that the era of peace and prosperity for curse users like him was coming to an end.
…
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