MAFIA DOGS. TWO.
"You were with him all night," Kishi said, "And I had to wait all night."
They were seated in a large hotel room, one of three of those owned by the Bishamon Empire International. It was grand on a minimalist scale, created from the ground up with Japanese aesthetics in mind. The building had been the first over Ishii's overseas adventures, and created from the ground up with a design pulled from her mother's own sketchbook, which was titled Nemu. After the War, Ishii had been forced to rename it something more American.
"I'm sure you were comfortable," Ishii dismissed, laying on the couch in a blue-and-white kimono. Her hand was draped over the edge of the couch, where she could reach the keyboard and sound out a strange melody.
"I was not! That place is garbage – and that yakuza dog is worse!"
"We are being polite to him until we get that hotel."
"I hate politics."
"-That is why you are a bodyguard, and I have the business empire," Ishii replied coolly. "We can share my father, though, as he was a hard sensei to the two of us." The phone rang, "-answer it."
Kishi stalked from the armchair to the corded phone on the loungeroom wall. She had discarded her jacket from last night the second they entered the room, and picked up a paper fan to cool her skin. She ran so hot she was self-regulated.
Kishi answered the phone with the usual silence, waiting for the other end of the line to speak. After a moment, she turned around and whispered, "Yakuza inu."
Ishii stopped her piano-playing. "I am unavailable."
"-She is unavailable," Kishi replied, and hung up straight after. She returned to the armchair in a heap, a huff. "Was it business in bed, or something else?" She scratched her neck as she spoke, where her birthmark sat large and snake-like.
"Business afterwards."
Kishi frowned. She didn't like that answer, and the vague nature of it. "Ishii, be careful. You know what the soulmate bond can do-,"
Her hand waved through the air, turning the words away into open space. "Let's go swimming," Ishii announced suddenly, as though they were not having a serious conversation. Ishii never had serious conversations. She never needed to. If she had something to say, she would say it, or she would do it. There would be no changing her mind about things either.
That was a lesson that saw Kishi huffing and puffing, but walking down the pool none the less. Ishii was boss, always. It was also rather hot, and the crystal-clear waters of a swimming pool called to the both of them. If there was ever a room to enjoy a moment without politics or business or handsome yakuza, it was the pool room at the Palais. It was reserved for hourly allotments, and currently under the name Kiyamoto. At one end of the pool, two children splashed about and took turns fighting to drown each other.
When the grown-ups walked in, Ishii had only to clap her hands once to put a stop to the squabbling. The two children swam a race to the shallows. "Onee-san! Boss Ishii!" they cried together, "We were being good!"
Taka and Mio were Kiyamoto devils, little twins with some of the most dangerous people in the world wrapped around their fingers. Kishi was their older sister and a Kinamon prodigy, who sought at every moment to prove it to her siblings. She was unluckily out-shone by Kinamon's daughter herself, Ishii Ishimoto. To compete with that lineage, Kishi would have needed to be an emperor.
"Are you swimming?" Mio asked, a dark-haired girl with wide, innocent eyes.
"Yes, are you swimming?" Taka added, who looked far more mischievous than his sister. He was looking at Kishi as though he already had several plans to push her in the water.
Kishi flipped the two of them off and took up residence in a pool chair. The recliner scraped against the tiles as she dragged it closer to the door, where she could easily shoot any disturber of the peace who entered. Ishii chose to indulge herself, however, and sat at the edge of the pool with her feet in the water.
Mio swam up to her and tugged on her leg. "How was that meeting with the Sergeant? Was he handsome?"
Ishii considered the question carefully. "He was…American."
"What does that mean?" Mio insisted, "Did he kiss you?"
"-He was rude," Kishi interjected from the side, to which her sister shot her a dirty look. "I hope you become interested in something other than romance, brat," Kishi retorted to that face.
"So do I," Taka agreed, "Kissing and soulmates and – erg – it's gross!"
Mio jumped at him, splashing a violent wave into his open mouth. "Not like you don't want to find your soulmate!"
"My soulmate's going to be my rival!" Taka declared, and pointed at Ishii with a bold grin, "Just like Boss Ishii!"
"Maybe I'll meet my soulmate here in America…" Mio sighed, her eyes drifting dreamily shut until her brother lunged at her. Their conversation devolved into shouting and splashing that ended with Taka being dragged under long enough to give victory to his sister.
He pulled himself to the shallows, but wasn't tall enough to lift himself onto the ledge of the pool. A grumpy pout set Ishii's heart racing. Ishii had to stop to consider what it was to have a racing heart. It was much too loud and irritating after so many years of fading emotions. If she had to look at Barnes with such feelings, she would throw up. But it being Taka and Mio, she forgave them. Forgiveness was new too, as well as the affection that tightened in her chest.
When she had finished feeling as if she might die, Ishii zoned back in to hear the question, "How much longer do we have to be in America for?"
She reached out to stroke Taka's head, full of damp, soft curls. "I am hoping to close this deal by the end of the week," she explained, "And then we can go home."
"Home…" Mio stuck her tongue out, and let the water swallow her up.
Home meant different things to them all. Ishii had considered it a house. There was a shrine on the outskirts of Osaka, where she had grown up. Large pillars framed the front entrance. There was a hundred-year old tree out the back, through which generations of swords were stuck. From her ancestors in the feudal era to the sword of her father, the heads of the Kinamon family left their legacy in that tree. Ishii was going to leave her sword through the whole world.
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