1/29 - Yakuza Child

Growing up amongst the yakuza is an odd occurrence and not one most people would consider a good childhood.

But compared to my prior childhood experience, being in the yakuza takes the cake.

Koku-Donno found me in the middle of a sex trafficking ring, one that specialized in something they called the ‘child experience’. I was eight at the time and Koku had been sent by his boss to shut down all of their operations because there was no way master mutu was going to allow such a filthy business on his territory.

Especially when they didn’t ask him first and weren’t planning on paying him anything in return for the favor of letting them operate on his turf.

So Koku took me in. He had two nephews, or grand-nephews really who he had adopted when they were infants and had been raising as his own, and I joined them. Though I was strictly his niece, not his daughter.

A boundary I set myself. Being in the place I had been fouled your relationships with… well with relationships.

This particular yakuza had an odd hierarchy. Mutu-Donno was the boss and Koku-Donno was his second in command. Then there were the ‘12 yokai’, the heads of separate divisions or specialists that served directly under the two of them.

Muichi and Yuichi, Koku's adopted sons, were in line to inherit his position in the yakuza and Duomo-Donno who was the second yokai (koku being the first) had his heir lined up as well.

But Master Mutu did not.

And he adored me.

He adored Muichi and Yuichi as well, I think he was just the kind of man who was supposed to become a parent because he just loves kids. He loves providing for them, taking care of them, spoiling them, helping them, and protecting them, he was practically made to be a father.

And he was practically the twins' father spending so much time with them and spoiling them beyond belief. It helped that he and Koku were not-husbands-husbands.

They weren’t married, or even officially together, but everyone knew that the two of them were involved with each other romantically.

So Mutu saw Koku as his husband and the twins as his sons, and when I was brought into their little yakuza family he saw me as the daughter he had been waiting for.

I was spoiled, he found out I liked to read fantasy and he built me my fantasy-themed library with a little tree built in a lounge bed within it.

I got closets that were bigger than my old bedroom full of designer clothes made just for me. Special editions of books, jewelry, food, stylists, and personal tutors.

He even tried to get me a dog, but Koku stopped him. He didn't, however, stop Mutu from getting me a rare lizard and a snake as pets later on.

So growing up in the yakuza hasn’t been awful for me. It’s been quite the step up from my previous life.

But I’m also known as the princess of the Yokai’s Yakuza, so that might have something to do with it.