I was just supposed to send amessageto some low-life fuck who was owning money to us.The message being:stop fucking around or we gut you and hang you from the overpass.
You know,diplomacy.
But it turned into a fight because the dumb fucker thought holing up with six of his drinking buddies would be enough to keep him safe. Seven of them in total, all bark, no bite, shouting and swaggering like I’d be the one leaving in pieces. I took the first two down with my fists, shattered the third’s jaw with theheel of my boot, and when the fourth tried to bolt, I grabbed him by the collar and cracked his skull against the curb until the concrete drank what was left of his thoughts. After that, the rest didn’t look so brave. They tried knives and a fucking pipe, but it didn’t help. Nothing does when I’m having fun. Pain doesn’t register as somethingbad. All I feel is the heat crawling under my skin, the tight pulse behind my eyes, and the pressure in my chest like a scream that I never let out. All I hear is the singing and the beautiful gasps.
I left four of them not breathing. Maybe five. Don’t know if that was the plan. Don’t care. The last two limp off half-conscious, crying, and I light a cigarette over one of the bodies, ignoring the blood on my hands as I flick the match.
And then—for no fucking reason—I think of him.
Not in a poetic way. Not some meaningful echo from the depths of my soul or any shit like that. Just, there, in the haze of my pulse hammering and hands dripping, I see his fucking face. Cold and pretty.
Takahashi Naoya.
I remember the way he stood like he was carved from stillness. The way he looked at me like I was already bound. The way he didn’t flinch when I grabbed him.
I toss the cigarette, let it hiss in a puddle, and make my way back to that strange little studio tucked between a shuttered bookstore and a dead ramen joint. The street’s exactly the same—gray, grimy, cracked like old teeth. The same rusting street lamp flickers overhead, casting twitching shadows across the door. Same old kanji sign with rope coiled through it.
I push the door open, half expecting the same eerie stillness from before, that off-putting silence that pressed too tightly against the skull. But no, this time, the room’s full of movement,with at least half a dozen people spread out across the wide open room in the back. Some are on their knees. Others are standing, arms raised or stretched, held in place by ropes that coil over their skin. Pale arms. Bare backs. Bent necks. Everyone’s either tying or getting tied, and every single one of those freaks turns to look at me the second I open the fucking door.
I stop just inside the doorway, hands clenched because I haven’t shaken the fight off yet. Their eyes crawl over me, and I can smell that little spike of fear I learned to enjoy early in life.
“What the fuck—” I start, voice already half a growl, half a laugh, because I can’t believe it’s actually real. These people are really tying each other up. I stop when he appears again.
Naoya.
Sliding out from the far side of the room like he’s made of smoke. He’s dressed the same—black kimono, perfect lines, glasses that somehow make his eyes look darker. Even his hair hasn’t moved. I don’t know how that’s possible.
“You don’t have an appointment,” he says before I can open my mouth again, voice deep in a way that makes the hairs on my neck twitch.
Some of the freaks flinch. One guy drops his rope. They all look like I’m about to lose my shit and kill them all—which, in all honesty, could happen.
“The fuck you mean, appointment? Thought you said if I came back—”
“I said if you came back clear-eyed,” he cuts in, still walking toward me. “And you are. But I’m in the middle of a class, as you can see. It ends in fifteen minutes. You may wait outside.”
I stare at him. I feel my jaw flex. My fingers twitch. I just beat seven assholes into pulp because one of them thought he couldget lucky if it was seven against one, and now thisthinbastard in bare feet is telling me to wait like a goddamn dog on the porch.
The urge to break something flares hot in my chest. To grab him by that pristine collar and shove him against the wall. To hear his breath hitch. To see if that blank expression cracks when my fist connects.
But I don’t.
I don’t know why I don’t.
Instead, I scoff loud, roll my shoulders like they’re stiff, which they aren’t, and turn on my heel. There’s rain coming down in thin sheets, soft but steady, plastering my shirt to my back. I glance sideways, scowl at the darkened bookstore, then the cracked windows of the ramen joint.
Fuck it.
I shoulder the ramen-shop door open, immediately getting hit with the smell of broth and mildew. There’s one old guy behind the counter, eyes on a tiny TV set playing horse races; and some kids slurping in the corner. No one looks at me. Good. I’m buzzing and could gut every last one of them, and the last shit I want is to go off and kill that freak’s neighbor or whatever.
Fifteen minutes.
I can wait fifteen fucking minutes.
But I don’t know why I’m waiting at all.
* * *
I stay for thirty-four minutes. Thirty-four minutes of restless legs, cracked knuckles, two bowls of tonkotsu ramen and a side of gyoza I don’t remember ordering. I finish all of it not because I’m hungry, but because I need to keep moving somehow, even if it’s just my fucking jaw. The cook gives me one too many looks,like he’s wondering whether I’m going to start a fight with the air.
