𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐅𝐄; Sanzu Haruchiyo

- 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏

       — 𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 everything around him. Haruchiyo hated the way his so-called colleagues invaded his home whenever they wanted to, regardless of the fact that he, like any normal person, needed some privacy. The situation was further complicated by Y/n's presence in the room. With Ran's defiant glare, the woman hid in the master bedroom, locking the door with the padlock Haruchiyo had attached for no particular reason.

Returning to the man's terrible perspective on the situation, Haruchiyo stood in the doorway leading to the other rooms of the penthouse, watching as the intimidatingly large men filled the air in the room with cigarette smoke, weed and a sharp smell of alcohol. The only one he couldn't complain about was Kokonoi. Normally, Haruchiyo wouldn't have pegged him as a man; he often teased him for his feminine appearance and the sweet perfume that hung on his expensive clothes. Now, the man realized that Kokonoi was by far the most manly man in the truest sense of the word possible and, since Y/n had been living with him as his future wife, Haruchiyo had been watching more and more often how Kokonoi behaved around women.

"I remember only calling Mikey here. What's the occasion you guys fill my house with ethnobotanicals?" Haruchiyo asked, opening the wide balcony doors and pulling back the curtains. All the smoke invading his nostrils made the man nauseous.

Ran brust into laughter.

"Until a while ago we were the ones stopping you from overdosing" the man pointed out, swirling the glass of whiskey and ice in his right hand.

"Leave it, brother!" Rindou interjected and for a second Haruchiyo had a feeling that at least the younger of the two brothers was going to stand up for him. "He must have switched from pills to antidepressants."

Haruchiyo rolled her eyes. It wasn't as if he hadn't expected such irony coming from Rindou, but they'd been partners for so many years anyway; he felt he had the right to at least hope for even the smallest shred of justice coming from him.

Takeomi, Haruchiyo's older brother and the man he hated to acknowledge as a brother, stubbed out his cigarette butt in the ashtray he had not long ago pulled out of a drawer.

"Haruchiyo," he began, straightening his back. "Don't forget who this woman is and why we're in this situation," he said in a serious tone.

"Takeomi is right" said Ran, dropping the immature attitude from earlier. "It's already suspicious that you've given up your vices. Not to mention that it happened out of blue."Searching for answers to his colleagues' unspoken questions was futile. He had only one explanation. He wished that the relationship between him and Y/n would at least go to the average level of mutual respect, because he was sure that there would be no concept of love between them. Haruchiyo didn't see himself as capable of love and, as time went on, he realized that he didn't love Mikey the way he thought he did either.

"Forgive me for wanting my marriage to work," he said, alluding to Takeomi's damaged marriage. "After all, it's to the organization's advantage for her to feel as safe as possible here" he pointed out and sat down on the couch next to Kokonoi. "This woman is going to get you killed, but that's strictly your problem, Sanzu." Ran said and downed the last bit of the alcohol in his glass. "But I want you to remember one thing," he continued and stood up, "When this whole beautiful dream of yours is over, I'm going to be the one to put the bullet in your head."

In the two weeks, Haruchiyo had discovered and noticed details about Y/n that made him pay more attention to the things around him. In the first week, when Haruchiyo had come home from a mostly failed execution, Y/n complained about how the cigarette smoke made her nauseous and locked herself in the bedroom, leaving Haruchiyo - who was  also high - to sleep in the living room. Haruchiyo had involuntarily kicked the habit of smoking in the house and his drug use had decreased. He had also noticed the woman small pleasures that brought a smile on her lips, forgetting the presence of a criminal in the house. Y/n adored sweets; he had noticed how, on the one occasion when they had gone shopping together, the woman had slipped not a few chocolate bars into the basket, claiming it was his money, not hers.

Haruchiyo knew it wasn't love out of the blue, and if he didn't need a wife, the man wouldn't have been getting married at all, and moreover, he would have been the one to put a gun to her head. Still, Haruchiyo knew where his change in behavior came from; he had heard enough from his sister-in-law, had seen the unhappiness of his two nephews at their father's absence, and realized that Takeomi had not only been a terrible brother, but had also become a husband and father devoid of any morals. And he had no desire to become such a man.