When the time has finally come for you to see your brother, you stop your bike right outside his insanely huge mansion and walk right up to the door. You then knock, only having to wait an insanely long time for him to answer. The house is big as hell, it probably takes him ten minutes just to get to the door.

Eventually, your smartass, white and black haired older brother opens the door with an extremely shocked look on his face. You stare back at him for a moment before needing to break the awkward gesture by looking down at the floor.

You can't believe it. You've hardly seen the guy in years, and you feel so ashamed to come crawling to him for help.

"Hi," you mumble with a bit of sass.

"Y/N?" he asks almost as if he thinks his mind is playing tricks on him. "What are you doing here? It's been awhile."

"Like you care," you scoff.

"Still the little brat, I see," he sighs.

Your eyes narrow as you look back up at him. Just as your mouth is about to open in retaliation, he pulls you into his house and hugs you tightly.

"God, I missed you," he sighs.

"Hajime..." you whisper breathlessly, almost on the verge of tears.

And then, suddenly, he pulls you away from him. "So, uh, welcome to my house."

You nod appreciatively as you follow him into a huge room with two round, sunken couches in the center. Koko takes a seat in one of them and leans forward to pour two glasses from the expensive, fragile-looking pitcher on the table between the two sofas. He then holds one out to you, ushering you to come and sit.

When you accept it, he leans back and sighs. "So what is it?" he asks. "You in a pile of deep shit and need your big brother to come save you, you baby?"

Asshole, you think as you take the seat directly beside him. Of course he already knows what you're here for without you even needing to say anything, just like always. However, you're not quite ready to admit that yet.

Quietly, you look over at him and are surprised to see the small grin on his face as he looks back at you. Once more it almost makes you want to cry. The last time you honestly spoke to him was when he was going through something personal. He looked so rough, but all you did was think about yourself.

"She's dead," he whispers to you as tears stream down his face. "I couldn't save her, she's gone."

Koko places his head down on your shoulder, absolutely bawling his eyes out. Your eyes widen in confusion at the gesture. Jesus, you're way too high to be listening to whatever he was whining about.

What am I gonna do now? you ask yourself as your body begins to shake. Hajime can't give me the money I owe in this state. How the hell am I going to get it? I'm dead if I don't pay off my debt!

Useless, he's useless. It's such a pity. He was so good at getting money for us, but what the hell is he going to do now?! Cry until I wind up with a bullet in my head because my debt skyrockets? I need to find another way... I need to get away from him.

And after that, you did. You packed up and left your brother on his own. You decided you'll find a new way to get money rather than by using him to clean up whatever mess you made while gambling or doing whatever the hell else you did to constantly lose money. It's not fair. He was always good at that kind of stuff without even trying. All you did was try but it never mattered. You would continuously fail.

But luckily after that, one day you met that short, blond-haired boy who saved your life. He offered to settle your debts by beating up whoever came after you for money. He did, however, have two requests for you.

One: No more alcohol or substance abuse.

Two: You would join Toman as Treasurer.

For whatever reason, he believed in your abilities to monitor his money, probably because of the first request. He had done what he could to fix you up, give you your job, and keep you in check. That is, until you had to go and gain feelings for Toman's Number Two and quite literally fell right into Sin's hand.

I was such a horrible person, you think to yourself as you see the calm look on your brother's face. You can hardly believe he can smile while he's around you after you ditched him when he needed you the most. And now, he looks so well put together. Could it have always been like this if you stuck with him?

"You've got that annoying look in your eye," he chuckles. "Still the same broke little kid from before you met your almighty savior, Sano Manjiro, hm?"

"Don't make fun of me," you scoff. "Mikey saved me."

Koko's smile fades and a more worried look consumes his face. "You never told me what was going on that day when you left. Why didn't you?"

You look down, ashamed of the truth. "You were going through so much and I couldn't burden you with the mess I was dealing with. I thought it was the right decision to leave. I'm sor-"

When he suddenly flings his arms around you, the words you're thinking abruptly disappear. "I'll always have time for my little sister. I never wanted you to go. You'll never be a burden to me, Y/N. We're family."

Your vision begins to blur as your eyes are clouded with tears.

"I don't think I can forgive you for all that substance abuse you get yourself into but it looks like you've cleaned up since you met Mikey, huh? You like being Toman's Treasurer."

You nod silently, too much of a baby to use any words knowing that your tears will being to flood endlessly down your face. But on top of it, anger rises within you since you still can't tell him the whole truth. Who knows what could happen to him if you admit everything that's going on with Kisaki and the Otsuda gang.

"So what is it you came here for?" he asks as he slowly releases you from his arms. "Are you okay?"

"Uh, well, I kinda owe some people two million yen..."

Koko laughs at your request. "Two million? That's it? That's chump change, sis. What do you need that for?"

"It's not a joke, Hajime!" you protest. "Don't laugh at me."

His smile fades as he listens to you. "Dammit, Y/N. Who do you owe money to that you can't go telling Mikey about?"

"Look it's really not my fault! I'm just trying to make things better for my friends!"

"Doesn't really sound like it's you trying to make things better," he rolls his eyes. "Anway, you're a shitty ass liar. Tell me the truth or I won't help."

"I thought you said it was chump change," you mutter. Koko waits patiently for your answer. Eventually, you sigh and end up giving in to him. When you look over at him and see the dead-serious expression in his eyes, you decide to tell him the whole truth.

He listens and doesn't butt in to comment or lecture you at all which you're extremely grateful for.

"You better keep your mouth shut about this, Hajime!" you threaten. "Don't go telling Inupi or anyone!"

"Alright, fine, I won't. But only because you finally decided to tell me the truth and come for help instead of struggling by yourself. You do know, though, that you're going to have to come clean eventually, right?"

"I know," you sigh. "I'll tell Mikey when the time comes but I can't do that just yet... So, will you help?"

"Sure," he grins as he sticks his tongue out at you. "I wasn't really talking 'bout coming clean to Mikey but whatever, you'll figure out what I mean eventually." He then pats you gently on the head as he stands up. "Well, come on, idiot. Let's go bail you and your friends out with some good old-fashioned cheating. You still remember those card games we used to play as kids, right?"

"You mean like Pig and Old Maid and how you'd beat me every time?" you huff.

"Yeah, exactly. C'mon, let's go then."