Page 49 of Kotori

Kaito

The morning meditation provides no peace.

I kneel before the family shrine in predawn darkness, hands folded in perfect seiza, but my mind refuses the calm that ritual usually brings.

Yesterday's breakfast scene replays like footage I can't delete.

Mizuki's cruel words about replacement, the way she weaponized her mother's memory against someone trying to love her sisters, her declaration that Akira was "dead because of this family" before running like a child instead of facing consequences.

"You don't know what she'd want! She's dead because of this family, and now you want me to just accept a replacement like she never mattered!"

Each syllable cut like a blade. Not just because of their cruelty toward Paige, but because they reveal how deeply Mizuki has misunderstood everything. Her mother's sacrifice, her own worth, the nature of love itself.

I let a eighteen-year-old girl disrupt family harmony without immediate correction. Allowed her to wound someone under my protection while my younger daughters watched, learning that respect is optional when grief provides excuse enough.

The ancestors whose spirits reside in this sacred space would be appalled.

"Forgive my failure," I murmur to the wooden tablets bearing their names. "I let paternal love override duty. It won't happen again."

As I speak the words, I understand what I face. In the yakuza world, disrespect carries swift, brutal consequences. Question my authority, face immediate correction. Threaten what's mine, discover why that was a fatal mistake. The rules are carved in blood and bone, absolute in their simplicity.

Raising a grieving daughter requires different weapons entirely.

Mizuki isn't a subordinate to be intimidated or a rival to be eliminated.

She's my child, broken by loss in her formative years, struggling with changes that terrify her precisely because they feel like betrayal.

The father in me wants to gather her close, explain that loving Paige doesn't diminish Akira's memory, make her understand that hearts expand rather than divide.

But the leader in me knows sentiment without structure breeds chaos. Love without boundaries creates weakness. I gave her one night to process, to recognize her mistake, perhaps prepare a proper apology. Time enough for teenage fury to cool and adult responsibility to emerge.

Instead, according to Hayashi's morning report, she's barricaded herself in her room, refusing breakfast, maintaining the sullen defiance that transforms my disappointment into something far more dangerous.

My daughter needs to remember exactly who she's challenging when she shows disrespect in my house.

I rise from meditation with purpose settling in my bones like steel. Twenty minutes later, I stand outside Mizuki's door with controlled patience.

"Mizuki-chan." My voice carries through expensive wood with quiet command. "We need to talk. I'm coming in."

The silence stretches before I hear someone scrambling to hide evidence of tears. When I slide the door open, the sight that greets me speaks volumes about the war being fought within my eldest daughter.

Her room exists in two distinct halves, a visual representation of the conflict between who she is and who she's expected to become.

The left side holds remnants of the teenager she's allowed to be in private: a desk cluttered with manga volumes and international law textbooks she's not supposed to have, K-pop and J-pop posters covering the wall.

BTS, TWICE, and other groups whose music offers escape from compound life.

A laptop displays what looks like university websites before she hastily closes it, dreams she's supposed to abandon glowing on the screen.

The right side tells a different story entirely.

Formal kimonos hang in perfect order, gifts from relatives who expect her to embrace tradition.

A vanity holds cosmetics for ceremonies she attends with dutiful compliance, hair ornaments that mark her status as an unmarried daughter of the family.

Everything precisely arranged, beautiful, and utterly representative of a life planned without her input.

Between these two worlds, Mizuki kneels on her bed in wrinkled pajamas, hair disheveled from a sleepless night, eyes red-rimmed from crying.

She's hastily shoved tissues under her pillow, but the evidence of her emotional state is unmistakable.

The contrast is stark. A eighteen-year-old girl caught between pop culture fantasies and yakuza reality.

Her phone buzzes softly from somewhere beneath the pillows. She glances toward the sound with what looks like anxiety, then pointedly ignores it. The device buzzes again, more insistently, but she makes no move to check it.

"Otou-san," she says, voice carefully controlled despite the tremor underneath. "I was just—"

Another buzz. This time I catch the brief flash of what might be panic across her features before she schools her expression back to neutral defiance.

"Turn it off," I say curtly. "Whatever social media drama you're obsessing over can wait until after we resolve this family matter."

She reaches quickly under the pillow, and I hear the soft click of the phone being silenced. Typical teenage priorities—even in the middle of a serious conversation, her online friendships take precedence over family responsibility.

"Getting dressed for the family outing?" I survey the chaos with paternal understanding mixed with firm authority. "Clearly."

I step fully into her sanctuary, closing the door behind me The room feels smaller with my presence, my formal authority disrupting the safe space where she's been hiding from responsibility.

"Your behavior yesterday was unacceptable," I say, settling onto the edge of her desk chair near her abandoned law books. The positioning is deliberate, placing me between her dreams and her current reality.

She opens her mouth, probably with justification or deflection, but I raise one hand and she stops immediately. Old habits of obedience run deeper than adolescent rebellion, even here in her private refuge.

Everything about her bearing screams resentment despite the fear underneath.

Dark eyes that mirror my own hold stubborn defiance, Akira's gentle features arranged in expressions of teenage rebellion that would shatter her mother's heart.

Behind her, I catch sight of a framed photo on her nightstand.

The four of us from two summers ago, Akira's arm around Mizuki's shoulders, both of them laughing at something Aya had said.

The image serves as both comfort and weapon in her private war against change.

"Paige-san offered you kindness, understanding, and the promise of maternal love you claim to miss so desperately.

Your response was calculated cruelty designed to cause maximum emotional damage.

" I lean forward slightly, letting her see the disappointment that cuts deeper than anger.

"You deliberately wounded someone who's chosen to care for you, in front of your younger sisters who needed to see family unity. "

"She's not our mother," Mizuki says quietly, but the words lack yesterday's fire.

"No. She's not." I settle back, studying her face with clinical attention.

"Akira was your mother. Beautiful, intelligent, strong enough to challenge me when necessary, wise enough to know when submission served us both.

She died protecting this family, protecting you specifically, and her memory deserves honor, not weaponization. "

Mizuki's eyes fill with tears she refuses to let fall. "Then why?"

"Because honoring the dead doesn't require rejecting the living." Steel enters my voice. "Because your mother would be ashamed to see you use her memory as a blade against someone trying to love her children."

The words hit their target. She flinches like I've struck her, understanding finally penetrating her defensive wall of grief and pride.

"Paige-san doesn't seek to replace your mother. She seeks to continue what Akira began—ensuring you grow into the extraordinary woman you're capable of becoming. Instead, you choose to wound her with the very loss you claim to protect."

"I didn't mean to."

"You meant exactly what you said. You calculated the words most likely to cause pain and delivered them.

" I begin pacing slowly around her position, letting her feel the weight of my attention, my authority, my growing displeasure.

"The question is why. Why hurt someone who wants nothing but your happiness? "

She's crying openly now, composure cracking under pressure designed to expose truth. "Because it's not fair! Because she gets to be alive and happy and perfect while Mama is dead. Because everyone loves her and forgets."

"Forgets what? That we lost someone irreplaceable?

That your mother's absence creates wounds that never fully heal?

" I stop directly behind her, hands settling on her shoulders with gentle firmness.

"Or do you think we're forbidden from finding new happiness because grief should consume us forever? "

Her sobs come harder now, shoulders shaking under my touch. The defensive walls she's built around her pain are finally crumbling, exposing the terrified child underneath the rebellious teenager.

"I miss her," she whispers brokenly. "I miss her so much, and watching Aya and Kohana love someone else makes it feel like she never mattered."

"Ah." Understanding floods through me, cold and sharp. "You think love is finite. That your sisters caring for Paige diminishes what they felt for your mother."

She nods miserably, and I move around to kneel before her, forcing eye contact with paternal authority that brooks no escape.