An offer

"How will I trust you? I am not so desperate for more people to get involved in my life," Haruki dared to tell the man who looked like he was going to kill him at that instance. He began regretting what he said but he could not take it back.

"You are pretty stubborn for your size," the man said in obvious disdain.

"I should also resemble you when you are my grandfather, right?" he dared to ask once again. He was too busy being angry with the fact that someone once again insulted him for his size.

"I am not surprised, you must have inherited it from your father."

Haruki scoffed angrily and parted his lips to say something but he pressed his lips together in the end when he realized who he was bickering with. he looked at the men in the room and looked down at his fingers.

"I want to go home," he mumbled as he continued walking to the door ignoring the giant that will not let him leave.

"If you only had an atom of this stubbornness, you will not have gotten bullied to the point of death," the old man told him making him stop.

Without looking back, he told the man, "That is my business, you should stay out of it."

"I have no intention to do that when you have taken a few hundred thousand from me to treat your injured body. Do you know what it means to have a ruptured appendix, it is thanks to my men and me that you are alive," the old man informed him. "You should not speak to your savior this way."

"I never asked for your help," he told the man seriously. He had enough troubles in his life already and he did not need this old man to add to his troubles by intimidating him.

He might have been bullied in school but he will never let an outsider who did nothing for him directly or indirectly bully him for any reason that was why he ran away when those men came to him in school.

"You are just like your mother. I guess you got bullied because of the weakness of your father's genes. It was so weak his son did not get to look like a man," the man spat.

Haruki's brow furrowed as he felt his nails dig into the palm of his clenched fist. He wanted so badly to punch the man. It was like he could remember his strong father who worked so hard for his family.

The man was like no other he has ever seen in his life and he could not allow this old man whom he knew nothing about talk about his father that way.

"Give him the picture, the rest of you can leave," the old man ordered.

It took only a few minutes for the room to be so quiet that you could hear the sound of a pin if dropped. The youth was looking at the picture he was given and he could not help but feel conflicted.

"I am dying," the old man told him seriously yet sounding like he was not talking about something as grave as death.

"Are you?" he asked raising his head to look at the man who looked like he had a century ahead of him.

"Yes, I am. I only have a short time and I do not have an heir since my only daughter left her home with the man I forbade her from marrying because she did not like the man, I wanted her to marry," he replied.

Haruki swallowed, he could not imagine that his mother would do that and he did not believe the picture in his hand was a real picture. He concluded that this was a setup.

"I know you think I am lying to you but I am not. I have no reason to. I am inviting you over to take over all that I have worked hard for but you do not want to take it, right?" the old man asked him in obvious confusion.

"Why will I want to take it when I am going to be some sort of charity case under your care and I know you will turn me into your slave."

"Why will I turn you into my slave when I am going to die soon?" the man asked him seriously.

He did not know why what the man had said felt believable the more they spoke. The man was rich and powerful unless such a thing was a prank his friend organized or a dream that he doubted.

The man must not have any need to lie to a high school student like himself.

"Do you know why your so-called cousin does not like you?" the man asked him after a few seconds of heavy silence.

"I am a nuisance in their home and I am stressing his mother to worry about me," he replied sincerely all that he could guess.

"Then, come with me and as your biological grandfather, I will ensure that you have the best life like your parents prayed that you will have. You will never have such a life under your aunt's care and she might not be able to as your cousins and their father will kill you," the old man explained.

Haruki shook his head despite how easy that sounded. "I do not trust you at all. My parents left because of you but you want to take me back with you," he asked in distrust.

"I know what you mean but they left because of love. They left because they could not live separately. You do not have that, right? That is why I am allowing you to live the life many youths will envy," the old man tried to invite him to their family.

Haruki was fixed on what he said earlier as he still shook his head. "Are you using this means to recruit young boys for your gang? I don't want to be a yakuza."

"You don't have to. We run legitimate businesses and I will have you maintain those businesses. I have someone who will help you to manage the other businesses."

Haruki frowned, why was every response the man gave trying so hard to persuade him? It made him confused.