"Don't look at me like that..." Feeling Yukino Yukinoshita's suspicious gaze, Sogo Doma hurriedly said. Fine, he understood that using his family's influence to threaten people even after running away from home was rather shameless, but the old man helping him step in wasn't for his sake. If anything, he was thinking of the other side.
After all, if Keiryu Doma handled things, there would at least be room to turn a major issue into a minor one and let it go. Even in the worst-case scenario, he could keep Takeuchi Seiga alive. But if Sogo Doma took action, the best outcome would probably be for the Takeuchi Family to cut off a limb to survive. If things went badly, the entire Takeuchi Family would end up lying neatly in coffins.
Of course, even if something happened to the Takeuchi Family, no one could use that to trouble the Doma Family. But Keiryu Doma would consider the bloodshed excessive!
Unfortunately, Sogo Doma couldn't say any of that outright...
"I know what you want to say. Just because I ran away from home doesn't mean I've severed ties with the Doma Family. In outsiders' eyes, no matter what, I still carry the Doma Family's blood. Takeuchi Seiga provoking me is the same as provoking the Doma Family, isn't it?"
The moment he finished speaking, Yukino Yukinoshita couldn't help saying, "That's why this doesn't count as running away from home at all..." Did he even know what a real runaway was? Forget changing one's name and hiding one's identity—at the very least, one had to cut off all contact with one's family. But this guy had supposedly run away from home and was still talking about carrying their bloodline.
"How doesn't it count?" Sogo Doma said. "Forget everything else, just look at