“Tell Midori we’re square. But next time one of your men even looks at someone in our district wrong, I’ll decorate my walls with his skin.”
Ryo lights another cigarette without flinching.
“You think this scares him?”
“No. But it should scare his little dog.”
“Try anything outside this alley, Kaito, and I’ll hand-deliver your spine to Kobayashi-san wrapped in your own fucking guts.”
I step closer.
“Then pray this truce holds, Ryo. Because the day it breaks, I’m coming for your ass first.”
We stare each other down. Two seconds. Ten. A lifetime.
Then he nods once and flicks ash at the corpses.
“I’ll pass along yourmessage. Let’s just hope your master knows how to keep his beast on a leash.”
I grin.
“He doesn’t leash me. He lets me pick who I bite.”
Ryo turns and walks to his car. Doesn’t look back.
The wind picks up and the city hums again, hot and alive and crawling under my skin.
I smile.
Tonight I’ll sleep.
Maybe.
SECOND KNOT
Tokyo never really sleeps, but some nights it tosses in its fucking bed. Some nights, like this one, even the neon looks tired.
I stumble down the narrow back streets of Shibuya with my shirt half open, a cigarette glued to my lips, and some lipstick smeared across my jaw. I can smell sex, booze, and whatever-the-fuck else all over me.
Nothing fucking worked tonight.
I blame the fuckingpeace.
The streets don’t rumble like they used to. No one’s stupid enough to mouth off anymore, not after the last few poor fucks I turned into pavement art. So now what? I sit on my hands and wait for some idiot to crawl out of a crack and give me something worth breaking? Bullshit. I miss the singing. The fucking trembling. Thefinal gasps. I miss the way a fist crunches into someone’s face and leaves their soul leaking out. My hands have been twitching all goddamn day. Couldn’t sleep for more than one hour. Couldn’t sit still. So I went out looking for trouble. Or a rough fuck. Or something loud.
But the bar was full of soft faces and softer drinks. No edge. No heat. Just dead-eyed salarymen jerking off their lonelinesswith overpriced whiskey. I grabbed some chick who smiled at me, shoved her against a wall, bit her lip and made her yelp. Thought maybe I could drag some life out of her, fuck the rage out of my skin. But she whimpered and pulled back when I slapped her while fucking her face. She said I was too rough.Too much.
No shit. I’m always too fucking much.
So I left.
Didn’t even come.
And now I’m in some sad, stinky street.
Tokyo never sleeps, but this place is definitely fucking sleeping already. There’s no one around—no loud voices, no girls outside offering themselves, no punks pretending they are something. Instead, there are some two-story buildings, each one leaning into the next, their shop fronts dark and shut.
All except one.
