"You said Ren Tatsumi, right?" (Y/n) panicked, " Right? Like, the Ren Tatsumi?"

The younger girl had never been really impressed by a lot of singers but Ren Tatsumi was completely different. Undeniably, his talent was through the roof. He was the best professional singer she had ever had the pleasure of hearing. His deep, smooth, and teasing voice coupled with his mature and otherworldly sex appeal made for one incredibly addictive man. He completely changed the game of being a celebrity, raising the bar on every single thing he sought out to do.

There was much to say about him. He was nearly perfect when it came to singing, dancing, and acting alone but he also made a world record for most books sold. The man knew romance. That was for sure. Both men and women couldn't help but read both his erotic and romantic novels. So many people began learning Echali just to understand his poetry, prompting Echal to solidify its position as the entertainment capital of the world.

She knew he had to be inhuman. That was the only explanation for all of it. Though, she would have never guessed he was a baku. Personality and confidence aside, she always figured he must have been a siren or something. Of course, she also never would have guessed Kota was his son, mainly because Ren Tatsumi was consistently voted the hottest man on the face of the earth and Kota...was not that.

"Mhm. That's my ayah," the pink-haired male boasted, spinning around pridefully to give her a good look at him now that she knew his bloodline, "You see the resemblance now?"

"No."

Kota snapped his eyes over to her and pouted. It wasn't like he didn't already know that but she didn't have to be so mean about it. He was well aware he looked far more like his mother. They shared their pink hair and cutesy demeanor (though, unlike Kota who had a twisted personality, Sakura was incredibly docile and sweet). She was also known worldwide for her work in the idol group "Love Design".

(Y/n) personally didn't know much about the woman but she had seen countless pictures of her. She was adorable. That was always true, and people loved her even when it came out that she snatched up Ren Tatsumi. Apparently, her greatest strength was not singing. She was still good at singing, enough so to land her position as the center in her group, but she stood out among most when it came to her skill in portraying emotions. She captured everyone's heart with just a smile.

"I was born into stardom," the pink-haired male continued to brag, holding up his phone to her, "See? I haven't even officially debuted yet or anything and people are still in love with me. Look. Over fifty million people follow me. It'll be even more when I enter the music scene. That's something you'll never be able to have. Jealous?"

"Not at all."

"Why not?! How many followers do you have?! It can't be more than me! W-Who would want to follow you?! What do you even do?! Huh? Huh?!"

"I don't have a social media account."

Kota scoffed. He almost felt bad for the fae - never able to blend into human society even when she'd lived with them her entire life. Meanwhile, he had only been in the human world on and off for maybe 2 years total and people still loved him. Maybe that was why she needed Takuya. She needed someone to love her and he was the easiest target. Ha, she was totally jealous of Kota. She was just hiding it.

"You'll need it if you want to fit into human society," he generously advised her, "If you break up with Maya, I'll be super nice and have all my followers follow you, too."

This time, (Y/n) was the one to laugh at him, earning yet another scowl from him. It was never a goal of hers to be well-known. One wonderful thing about the Miyahara family was that they were untouchable by the media. Their close ties to the royal family prevented news from circulating in Athain about them. People knew someone was engaged to the only son of the noble family but they didn't even have a clue about her name, let alone her background or what she looked like. She planned to keep it that way.

"You're such a pain in the ass," Kota rolled his eyes before he perked up with a smirk, "What if I got you ayah's autograph? You like that? Hm? I can tell you're a fan. I'll even let you meet him, if you want."

"Don't go offering things like that," Funai scolded him, yanking on his ear and almost relishing the brat's pain, "Your father is busy. Always."

"B-But, if I beg umi, she'll make him. He always listens to her!"

"After what you did, your father is going to shred you to pieces. What's your mother going to do when you suddenly disappear?"

"He wouldn't kill me! I'm umi's favorite! He doesn't have the guts!"

The ravenette yanked a bit harder on the male's ear to shut him up, the baku whimpering. It was a trick the younger girl was keen on learning. Apparently someone just needed to make Kota feel a bit of pain to make him shut up. It might not have been for long and it might not have been good in the long run but, boy, did it give her ears a much needed rest from his whining. His voice would have been precious...if he didn't use it the way he did.

"I think I'll be taking him back now," Funai sighed.

"No! No, you can't! I'm staying here! R-Right?! We made a deal!"

"Yep," (Y/n) sighed, "A deal to let you in. I never promised you protection."

It usually wasn't that easy to trick other people. In fact, she suspected it would be harder to get one over on someone else that already knew what she was. But Kota really was a whole 'nother breed of stupid. Again, he got mad at her, cursing at her in his native language, only to interrupt himself with shouts of pain when Funai started dragging him away. She couldn't help but smile, glad to walk them out.

"I really hate you!" Kota informed her, giving her the middle finger, "You see this? This is human for 'fuck you'. Fuck you!"

Amused, the younger girl whipped out her phone and took a nice picture, annoying him greatly. She teased that she would send it to Takuya and tell him all the nasty things she was saying to her. And while the pink-haired male was threatening her not to do it - that, if "Maya" started hating him, he would make sure she personally paid the price - she just laughed, working him up even more. It was not hard to press his buttons, apparently. Like a child, he complained to the ravenette.

"Do something! She's picking on your...your...manageree. Stop her!"

Funai did not care. No, he had one simple job at the moment and that was dragging the little escape artist back to his father for swift punishment. He was already dealing with all the things that Kota said on an unsupervised live stream. The ravenette was not happy with him, just starting to yank him harder like he was a disobedient dog. The (h/c) haired girl just kind of stared at the picture, an interesting idea coming to mind. She'd make tons from an unwanted pest. How nice.

"Again," the ravenette paused, giving a respectful bow to the girl and offering up his business card, "I'm deeply sorry about all the chaos he's been causing. Please do send me the list of everything he stole. It'll be coming out of his paycheck, I assure you. With interest."

"What the fuck?! You're giving her my money?! Mine?! I worked hard for that money! I need it to buy snacks!"

"You could just give everything back."

Kota got silent again, crossing his arms over his chest as he remained on the ground. Funai tugged at his collar, attempting to elicit a response, but the pink-haired male was dead set on pouting. He wasn't returning any of it. Those were things he collected from his best friend. Takuya would have understood. He didn't know why (Y/n) had to be annoying about it. It was like she thought the bunny-like boy belonged to her even though, obviously, she was bewitching him and possessing his mind.

"Well, that must be his answer," Funai sighed, "If you send me the list by 5pm today, I'll have the money for you as early as tomorrow morning. Is cash okay?"

"Cash is perfect," the girl smiled tauntingly at the disgruntled baku.

"I might be able to squeeze out an apology from him, too. Let's see what his father thinks."

"Look forward to it. Would you like the driver to take you back? It's the least I could do for someone whose whole job is putting up with that."

"I'd appreciate it."

Kota was shoved in the car soon enough, screaming at the top of his lungs when the ravenette slammed the door on him. Like a chihuahua, he began jumping around and threatening to bite everyone's ankles. He was ignored. Funai couldn't help but appreciate human inventions like "sound proofing", taking a happy seat in the front where not a sound could be heard from the pink-haired male.

They were taken to the hotel Takuya had generously paid for Kota to stay in, Funai unlocking the childproofed doors only for the younger male to bite him. Curiously, he stared at the male barring down on his wrist, only to shrug. Tugging the male along, he thanked the driver and led him up to his room, ignoring the weirded out looks from any passerbys. There wasn't much even he could do to make Kota act normal.

Kota only released his grip on his manager when they were in the hotel room, proving he was just doing it to make a fool of him. He then immediately retreated to the bathroom to clean out his mouth with soap and water. Funai tasted super gross. It was kind of like garbage that had been left out to sit, rotting away and spilling any mystery juice onto the pavement. He didn't want to know what the ravenette had been through just to find him.

The male pouted. Funai shouldn't have come looking for him so soon anyway. He was doing fine in the human world without him. Everyone still thought he was an idiot, didn't they? As he thought about that, the ravenette came into the bathroom, likely to take Kota back to the spirit world. He then waited patiently as the pink-haired male began filling up a cup with water. The young man figured he was thirsty, giving him one last respite before seeing his father.

Kota took one look at the cup of water and then to Funai, and then, without warning, threw all of the liquid all over him in one grand motion. He was drenched. Though, since the ravenette didn't react, Kota gave a soft "oh" in a questioning tone and took a brief moment to think before he decided to throw the cup itself at him as hard as he could. Unsurprisingly, Funai became pissed off and cursed at the brat, charging at him. With a shriek of absolute shock, Kota started knocking everything over to get away from him.

"Psycho! Psycho! You like seeing me in pain, don't you?! Eek!"

Kota didn't get the chance to escape Funai. How could he? Funai was specially trained in catching people. With great irritation, the ravenette took a fistful of the baku's hair, holding him in place while he tried to calm himself down. It wouldn't have done any good to get worked up and accidentally kill him.

"Make the portal," he demanded, watching the pink-haired male give a bashful smile and press his fingers together.

"M-Man...you guys know about that, too...?"

"No games. Do it."

Squeezing the male's hair even more and holding him up by it, he finally got Kota to obey him. He kept whining but he made the portal anyway, allowing Funai to drag him through to the other side. As soon as the portal closed behind them, the ravenette released him. Thinking he was free as long as he escaped again, the pink-haired male quickly got to his feet and darted to the outside of the hut. He got about three feet before he ran into someone, the male shivering when he saw his father standing there, a pissed-off look on his face.

"H-Hey, ayah...I...I missed you so much! You wouldn't believe what happened! B-But I think umi needs to hear it, too, so why don't we...go grab her and you two can cuddle while I tell you all about - "

"Yuno, you little fuck!"

Kota giggled nervously, only to attempt to run back to Funai, positioning the ravenette's hand back on his collar. If given the choice between being punished by his manager or his father, he would have far preferred the latter. Though, Funai was under the opinion that his father should be the one to beat some sense into him. It was the only way he was going to learn. Of course, when the pink-haired male promised him food, he was tempted to take him up on it, wiping his mouth. But he knew better than to get on Ren's bad side.

"Do you have any idea what you did?!" the male's father continued to yell, "Any idea at all?!"

"Well...it's not my fault I'm so smart."

"Smart?! You think you're smart?!"

"Hehe. Kinda."

Kota felt awfully smug up until the man caught him, dragging out from behind Funai. The pink-haired male started uttering out apology after apology, promising he would never do it again and that he would be a reformed man. Of course, everyone knew he was full of it. Kota had never once been on his best behavior. He might have seemed tame whenever his mother was around but he was always rotten inside, just waiting for a chance to screw everything up and torment other people.

"You wanna say that to the chief?" his father asked in a low tone, "Spend a night outside the village? On your own?"

"No..."

"Then, what the fuck did you do, Yuno? Hm?"

"Not much...I just figured...instead of eating like everybody else, I'd go and break into the chief's hut. A-And then borrow the little spell to go to the human world...and then go find Maya..."

"Borrow?!"

"Well, no one was letting me go! You and umi are always too busy, and it's been like ages since I've seen Maya and he was going to get married, and I didn't want him to, but then his - "

The pink-haired male shut up really fast after that. His father was already pissed at him for stealing a spell he wasn't supposed to learn until he was of age and causing chaos in the human world. Telling him he went and met a fae wouldn't have helped. It just would have made him all the more angrier. Not knowing what to do, the male burst into tears, muttering out worthless apologies and checking every now and again to see if his father fell for it. He did not.

"What am I supposed to do with an idiot like you?" the man sighed, letting the boy go and massaging the bridge of his nose.

At that point, two little baku had gotten far too curious about the happenings-on, peeking inside the hut. Noticing their little eyes peering over at him, Ren paused, giving a relieved smile and stretching his arms out. One of his daughters came running out to hug him, the other sticking her tongue out at her stupid brother. He returned the gesture with a middle finger, awfully smug she didn't know what that meant yet. Although, since his father did, he got slapped upside the head.

"Ayah," the smaller one, Meera, whined, tugging on her father's shirt, "I want to go to the human world, too. It's not fair if Yuno gets to go and we don't."

"He wasn't supposed to go either, baby."

"Does that mean he has to stay now?" the other one, Inara, grinned, copying her brother's gesture and prompting Kota to get slapped upside the head again for teaching it to her.

"Why can't we go to the human world?" the youngest child pouted, "I want to. You said we could. I want to go to the human world. I want to eat - "

"I want to model! Can't we? Like umi?!"

Ren glared at his eldest for putting all those ideas into the girls' heads. He wasn't opposed to taking them there to absorb the culture or experience where their mother came from but he learned his lesson with Kota. Regardless of their intentions, nonhuman born children didn't go well together with humans. They had to learn in moderation how much strength to use, how to speak, how to hide their inhuman roots, and they had to learn how to blend in. He wasn't so sure if they were ready for that. Then again, his guilt weighed on him. They were a bit different from other baku children.

"One issue at a time," the man sighed, patting the girls' heads, "We have to figure out what to do with Yuno. I might have a good idea."