Business Day
Airi and her friends go shopping with some of the Fukushin sisters.
Itsuki Ishii reclined on a sofa as Iga and two other brothers dragged the old man before him, sitting him down in a rigid wooden chair.
“So, what’s your deal?”
“What is this?!” the old man snapped. “Do you wakamono think you can do whatever you please?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Ishii retorted calmly as one of the brothers handed him a name card. It said: Obe Nobutoshi, Department Manager of Jidoka Automotives. “Tell me, Obe-san, since when do you have the right to disrupt business and harass one of my workers?”
“She was denying my drink!”
“So?”
“She was a server! She is supposed to serve! That’s her job!”
“Well, putting aside the details of her job description… why here?”
“What?”
“Why here? There are plenty of izakaya where you can drown yourself in. Not to mention,” he waved the name card in the air, “you’re a department manager. You can easily afford an all-night visit to a hostess cabaret; those ladies would appreciate the patronage, not to mention the easy money. So why come to such a niche and out-of-the-way place like the Eien-Kai Diner and Youth Club?”
“Not anymore.”
“What?”
The old man, Obe, finally began to mellow out. “I’m no longer an employee of Jidoka Automotives.” Oh. Ishii sat up on the sofa.
“You were fired?”
“Hai.”
“And… how long have you been working there?”
“Thirty-two years, ever since I graduated high school.”
“That’s rough,” Iga commented, and the other brothers agreed.
“Was there a reason given for your termination?” Ishii inquired.
“Two reasons!” Obe answered, holding up two fingers. “Officially, my ability to work has decreased; proof of this being an order of cars for Kazoku Motors that I somehow missed. But that order didn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?”
“Because the number of cars requested exceeds Kazoku’s sales for half the year. Nevermind that, if we were to accommodate such an order, we wouldn’t have any cars to supply other distributers.”
“You think that order was fake?”
“I don’t know.”
“And… you said there were two reasons.”
“Hai… Unofficially, Noboru-kun told me: ‘your time is over, the company needs to adapt to modern times.’ That is what he said.”
“Wait a minute, who?”
“Obe Noboru, my nephew.”
“Your own nephew fired you?”
“Hai. He got a college degree from Osaka University and was immediately hired as an executive.” Now that’s something you never hear about; a nephew firing his own uncle. Tapping Obe’s name card on his knee, Ishii leaned forward.
“You know what, Obe-san, what you just told me is very interesting.” He turned to the brothers. “Fetch a small table, some soba and water. We are going to have a lot to talk about.”
Airi, Akane, Takara and Naoko all bathed and changed back into their original clothes (freshly laundered) before returning to their “room” on the ninth floor. Airi lay down on a futon.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Airi asked.
“It wasn’t,” Takara admitted, sitting on the square sofa, “but, you think this is all we are going to do? We need to pay off Naoko’s debt. I don’t see us making ¥80,000,000 any time soon by just waiting tables and washing dishes.”
“But the four of us are working together,” Akane pointed out, “surely that amounts to something?”
“I’m sorry,” Naoko said weakly, sitting on the other futon with her knees drawn up to her chest.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Akane assured. “Working in a restaurant isn’t that bad.”
“Hai,” Takara agreed, “I think the only bad thing that happened was that old man.”
“I didn’t know what to do!” Naoko insisted. “He had drunk so much and seemed miserable. I should’ve just given him more shochu.”
“I’m surprised we even serve alcohol.”
“Only for adults,” Akane clarified, “said so on the menu.”
“What do you think they’ll do to him?” Airi wondered. “The old man, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Takara answered. “I think, maybe, they will just scare him and throw him out.”
“Hopefully. Come on, let’s go to sleep. Who knows what we are going to do tomorrow.”
The next day, Airi and the others awoke. Rousing themselves and stretching, they realized they had naturally woken up earlier than when they normally did back home. They lingered a while, until Akane decided to open the door and stick her head into the hallway.
And she instantly regretted it.
“Morning shorty.”
Akane immediately shut the door.
“Who was it?” Takara asked.
“That flying rat,” Akane explained.
“I have a name, you know,” Wila called through the door. “Open up, you’re going shopping today.”
“Shopping?”
“Yes.”
“You’re telling us to go shopping with you?”
“Of course not! I can’t go out in broad daylight due to my ears, remember! Go downstairs and Keiko will explain the rest.”
“Keiko?”
“Mahoshi, or whatever her last name is.”
A few minutes later, the four friends exited the elevator on the second floor of the club. Waiting for them was Mahoshi in street clothes and two other girls they never saw before. One of the girls had short hair and wore a pink and yellow shirt and dark blue cargo pants. The other wore black shirt with jagged red stripes, like claw marks, across the torso, and a black knee-length skirt. This girl had a red ribbon in her shoulder length hair.
“Good morning Takai-ki,” Mahoshi greeted.
“Shouldn’t you be in school, Mahoshi-san?” Takara inquired, glaring at the self-styled gyaru.
“Fuck school,” Mahoshi scoffed, “the only thing you can get from school is a headache. You’re better off dropping out and working.”
“So… what sort of work are we doing today?” Airi asked. “Wila-san mentioned shopping for some reason.”
“That’s because we are shopping,” clarified the girl with claw marks across her shirt. “I’m Riko, by the way,” she greeted, more cheerfully than Mahoshi, “Ishimiya Riko.”
“Yasunaga Haruka,” the girl with the pink and yellow shirt introduced herself with a friendly bow. As the friends introduced themselves, Airi noticed that Riko had one of those silver rings with a red symbol on it. And Haruka had an omamori charm hanging from a belt loop on her cargos.
“So… what are we shopping for?” Airi asked, wondering what sort of double entendre they were going to learn today.
“Mainly clothes,” Riko explained, “unless you want to wear the same outfits over and over again.”
“But we wear our school uniforms every day,” Naoko pointed out.
“A sō,” Mahoshi remarked, “that explains why you all smell the same.”
“No, we don’t!” Takara retorted. “If anyone in school had an odor, everyone would know.”
“I find that hard to believe. How can you detect an odor if everyone smells exactly the same?”
“Enough,” Riko said lazily as she stretched her arms. Mahoshi was about to say something else, but immediately closed her mouth. “Come on, let’s take the trains now before they get crowded.”
They took the Yamanote Line from Ebisu to Shinagawa. Airi almost felt like a child as Riko led the way and Haruka paid for Airi and her friends. Her mind wandered a little and imagined Mahoshi, of all people, acting like a guardian over a small group of primary students on a field trip. At Shinagawa Station, they transferred to the Keikyu Line. The second train wasn’t as crowded and they were all able to sit down; the four friends on one side, and their Fukushin minders directly across from them. Looking out the window, Airi wondered if she had actually seen this part of Tokyo before. It was still buildings, streets and people; but it also seemed different somehow. She couldn’t put it into words.
There was an electronic chirping and Haruka checked her cell phone.
“Oh, they’re never going to guess that,” she suddenly said with a bemused smirk.
“Is it the bango-gacha?” Riko inquired.
“Hai. No one is going to guess today’s number.”
“Why?” In answer, Haruka held her phone out to Riko. Riko gave one glance before also smirking. “No, they will not.”
“Number-gacha?” Naoko asked.
“Forget it,” said Mahoshi. “The four of you are exempt.”
“Exempt from what?” Takara asked. “What sort of lottery are we talking about.”
“Just a little game that the Fukushin host for others,” Riko explained. “Americans call it the ‘numbers game.’ You put down some money and you can guess a random number. If your number is the winning number, then you get one hundred times your money back.”
“One hundred times… wait, how much do you have to pay to guess a number?”
“500 yen.”
“500 yen?” Akane repeated. “Hold on… one hundred times 500…”
“¥50,000,” Takara answered.
“That, actually doesn’t sound that bad. But wait, what are the odds of the person guessing the correct number?”
“That depends,” said Haruka. “Do you often check the Tosho?”
“The stock exchange? I do not.”
“Then you’re never going to get the number right. We don’t just make up a random number. The winning number is always the stock price of the fourth-highest company stock. Which, today, happens to be Kioxia Holdings at the price of ¥44,444.”
“What is it with you and the number four?!” Airi suddenly asked. “Do you just… like how it sounds, or something?”
“Iie,” Riko said with a little laugh, drawing the irritated glares of one or two other passengers. “We like 4 so much because everyone else chooses to be scared of it.”
“But 4 means—”
“More than 3 and less than 5. It’s just a number.” They got off at Aomono-yokocho Station, with Airi noting suspicious looks from a pair of train station employees. Rightly so, as they were a bunch of school girls, walking about on a Monday morning instead of studying in school. Were they supposed to proceed with linear equations or review distributivity with negative integers in math class? Was she supposed to turn in that ecological food web today or tomorrow? They were half-way through the life of Ninomiya Sontoku in Japanese class. What did they go over in social studies? Airi thought they left off going over the benefits of the Sakoku Edict. Airi? And Miyata-sensei had veered from “original sin” to the moral benefits of capitalism.
“Airi!”
Airi jumped as Takara suddenly grabbed her arm.
“Ah! What?”
“You were about to walk into the flowerbed.” Well, less of a bed of flowers, and more of a bed of shrubs.
“Ah, sorry.”
“Does that happen often?” Riko asked.
“Not that often,” Akane insisted.
“Come on then,” Mahoshi urged. “JuJu is four blocks this way.” Four again.
Meandering through the streets, they were led by the Fukushin girls to a JuJu department store. With all the talk of numbers earlier, Airi had to notice the JuJu logo; a lime green oval with a pair of “ten” kanji within. Entering the store, they spied a pair of employees eyeing them from the customer service counter. The clearly younger of the two stepped toward them, only for Riko to hold up a hand, showing the ring on her finger. This prompted the more senior employee to stop her junior and make an apologetic bow toward them. Riko, Haruka and Mahoshi bowed back, with Airi and the others haphazardly following suit.
“Um… why did they bow?” Akane quietly asked.
“Because they know who we are,” Riko explained. “Come on, up to the third floor.” They proceeded to the third floor. There, Airi had forgotten about their current circumstances. Instead, their tightly-guarded shopping trip had devolved into another day of clothes shopping with friends.
“Why don’t you try some pants?” Haruka inquired of Takara tried on another long skirt. “You have very striking legs.”
“I know I’m tall,” Takara said with a laugh. “If I wear pants, I’ll appear even taller.” Akane, who had no qualms about pants, looked over at Haruka.
“Why do you all wear cargo pants? I see a lot of girls in the Eien-Kai club wearing them, and pretty much all of the boys.”
“Because they’re useful. You can actually have your phone, wallet, hanko, and make-up on your person without being restricted by a purse or handbag.”
“Why not wear regular pants, then?”
“Because the pockets of women’s pants are tiny!” Riko answered. “Honestly, some of us think women’s pants were designed by old-fashioned Europeans who wanted to keep women in the kitchen.”
“B-but…”
“But what?” Riko demanded of Naoko.
“Ah… h-hasn’t it been decades since those people existed?”
“Decades?... Hai, probably.”
“Then, why not ask clothing companies for larger pockets?” All three Fukushin girls laughed at this.
“You could ask,” Haruka admitted, “but they will never do anything. They just don’t care.”
“But…”
“Lesson one of the real world;” Riko stated, holding up a finger. “People, especially adults, don’t care about your well-being.”
“Not all people,” Akane insisted, trying on a second outfit consisting of a graphic t-shirt and shorts. “I’m sure there are a lot of good people out there.”
“There are,” Haruka replied. “We didn’t say people are ‘evil,’ they just don’t care.” Keiko Mahoshi, meanwhile, looked toward the dressing room where Airi was changing.
“You alright Hisakawa?”
“Hai, I’m fine. Just struggling with my bra, as usual.”
“As usual?”
“Wait a moment,” Riko started. She approached Airi’s fitting room. “I beg your pardon,” she said before entering.
“Wait? What are you doing?”
“Is this your own bra, or is it a new one?”
“It’s a new one, but it’s in my size.”
“Hmm…”
“What?”
“Hold still for a moment.”
“Um… hai?”
“……”
“What is it?”
“Are you sure this is your size? I can barely fit my pinky under the band.”
“Hai, it’s a C.”
“Hmm… I’ll be right back.” Riko stepped out of the fitting room, went elsewhere in the store, and came back with some more bras. “Try one of these,” she instructed, back in the fitting room.
“What? Why?”
“Just try one.” Airi murmured something incoherent, but begrudgingly complied. “Better?”
“Hai. It’s snug, but it isn’t tight. Is this a molded or contour bra?”
“Nope, it’s a D cup.”
“WHAT?!”
“Ah! Not so loud!”
“Sorry! But, hold on, this can’t be… it is!”
“Did we hear that right?” Akane asked aloud, tempted to peek in on her friend.
“Iie! Iie!” Airi insisted.
“Don’t be dismayed,” Riko assured. “You’re beautiful. Maybe trim your bangs a little, but your figure is striking enough on its own.”
“I don’t want to be striking! I want to wear a yukata without worrying about it falling open. And I want boys to look at my face when talking to me.”
“That’s… hai, that’s fair. So, I should put the D-cups back?”
“Iie! I’ll- I’ll take these, thank you!”
The girls left JuJu with Airi and her friends each carrying a bag of clothes. Riko paid for the clothes, making Airi wonder how much more they have to work off. Naoko’s debt plus four sets of clothes. How much did they make yesterday waiting tables and washing dishes?
“Eyes up,” Haruka spoke up.
“What?”
“I see them,” said Mahoshi. “Two satsus, across the street by the bus stop.” Everyone else saw them; two police officers walking down the sidewalk between a bus stop and a small parking lot across the street.
“Is that Makoto?” Riko asked.
“Hai. The kohai next to him is Arata, from Ota Ward.”
“Right, I’ll be the decoy this time.”
“Decoy?” Takara repeated. “But we aren’t doing anything wrong, right?”
“It’s a school day,” Haruka reminded them. “According to the adults, any kid or teenager not in school is a delinquent.”
“Hisakawa and Hasegawa, go with Haruka,” Riko ordered. “Maekawa, stay with me. And Takai-ki-san goes with Keiko.”
“Why me?!” Mahoshi interjected.
“Because I said so. Meet up at Ebisu station, and give me the bags.”
“Why?” Airi asked.
“I’m the one who paid for the clothes. It would be weird for me to have a receipt without any of the items.” They handed over the other bags to Riko and Akane. After that, Haruka tapped Airi and Naoko’s shoulders, urging them to follow her toward the Oval Garden mall.
“Come on Takai-ki,” Mahoshi muttered, walking behind a row of trees toward the northside street.
“Wait,” Akane suddenly realized, “you said ‘decoy.’ What are we doing?”
“Relax,” Riko assured. “It’s less suspicious if there are fewer of us. Come on.” They approached the crosswalk and began crossing as the lights changed. “Do your hands ache?”
“What?”
“From the dishwashing yesterday; do your hands ache?”
“Iie, my hands are fine.” On the other side of the street, the two of them heard a male voice call out to them.
“Halt! You two!”
Exiting the Oval Garden on the southern side, Airi looked over her shoulder.
“Will Akane and Ishimiya-san going to be alright?”
“They’ll be fine,” Haruka assured them. “Those officers will question them, they will probably grill Riko because they know her, and then they’ll let them go. As your other friend pointed out, we did nothing wrong.”
“Does this happen often?”
“Kind of. The boys get hassled a lot more than we do. Come on, we have a long way to walk.”
“All the way to Ebisu?”
“Why not? It’s good exercise, and we probably have a lot to talk about anyway.” They exited onto a sidewalk and proceeded westward.
“Umm… about the clothes we bought,” Airi ventured. “How much has that added to the debt we’re working off?”
“Iie, iie,” Haruka insisted, waving a hand. “Your clothes were a small price; nothing worth fretting over.”
“Oh. Well, thank you. Um… so… is there a way for us to pay off the debt faster?”
“There’s always another way to earn more money. But they are unavailable to you; some because we can’t fully trust you yet, but most because you just haven’t thought of them.”
“Excuse me?”
“There is always money out there, and so many ways one can earn it. As for you and your friends though, you are going to suffer for a while before we even consider giving you access to those options.”
“Like… the number-gacha?” Naoko asked.
“Hai.”
“But you said the price for entry was only 500 yen? How much do you even make from that?”
“I don’t know the exact numbers, but somewhere around ¥50,000,000,000 a year.”
“50 billion?!”
“Hai,” Haruka said simply as the three of them walked across a crosswalk. “And that isn’t even our main source of income.”
“What is your main source of income?” Airi asked.
“Protection.”
“Protection?” Airi repeated with obvious doubt in her tone. “Protection from what?”
“Everyone except us,” Haruka answered without batting an eye. “Our domain consists of Meguro, Shinagawa, Ota and the Ebisu district of Shibuya. In all these places, we provide certain business ‘insurance’ against other criminals in exchange for a monthly fee. This fee is usually between 3 to 10% of their monthly income.”
“Um… how do you determine the percentage?”
“Very carefully. Business never stays consistent for very long, so we have to pay attention to our clients. Sometimes they over-pay. And, every time a flower blooms on a rock, one of our clients will try and under-pay us. And, sometimes, our clients come to Ishii-sama for advice.”
“Advice?”
“Hai. As the Fukushin shuryo, Ishii-sama is like a feudal lord and our clients are akin to vassals. They provide tribute, and we provide protection and some aid. Sometimes, that aid can come in the form of a loan. But you already know about that part of the business,” she added, glancing sideways at Naoko, who flinched.
“And you do all this through that club and restaurant?” Airi asked.
“Iie. For one thing, we have three other hubs, one in each ward. In addition, we also have legitimate businesses, such as the Eien-Kai club and diner. Our largest is Æternum Apartments, which is ironic.”
“How so?”
“Well, your average apartment requires you to put down a month’s rent as a deposit, guarantor fee, brokerage fee, tenants need to pay to get their locks changed, and you’d have to pay for fire insurance. And on top of all that, you have to pay the bribe.”
“Bribe?”
“Reikin.”
“That’s not a bribe. It’s a courtesy.”
“Not when it costs the same as your deposit. Æternum Apartments does not require a brokerage fee, we change our own locks, and no reikin. Other than that, we have our own record company and a few other minor businesses scattered about and elsewhere across the country.”
“Record company?”
“Hai, Fumetsu Records.” Eien-Kai. Fumetsu. Airi had no idea what “aeternum” meant, but she was starting to think there was a common motif with these Fukushin businesses.
Naoko mumbled something.
“What?” Haruka asked.
“N-nothing!”
“Iie,” Haruka pressed as they walked by a 7-Eleven store. “If you have anything to say, you should say it.”
“Umm…” Naoko hesitated. “Wh-what, what about when you kill someone, like the people at Chiteki Printing?”
“You mean the Kigyo? That was a little overblown, but they were reaping profits from our territory, albeit indirectly. Ishii-sama wanted to make a point, but things escalated when some of the Kigyo started using guns.”
“Hai, Akane told us,” Airi explained. “But, your… fellow confidants still killed people. That’s what Naoko-san is asking about.”
“Scumbags? Hai, give me a gun, I have no problem killing scum.”
“What?!” Both Airi and Naoko stopped in their tracks. Haruka looked back at them, blinked, then laughed.
“Come on! How are you both surprised? We’re juvenile delinquents; criminals. We cheat, steal and gamble. Of course we kill too.”
To say all that, in the open, without any hesitation! Does that mean?
“Have… have you killed anyone?” Airi asked, tentatively following Haruka as she began walking again.
“Not yet. Riko has though. She wears a ring after all.” A ring? Wait, that ring?
“The silver ring with the red symbol on it?”
“Only made members can wear those rings. And it takes a lot of time and effort to be made.”
“You need to kill someone to be ‘made’?”
“Specifically, we would need to kill an enemy of the Fukushin.”
“But… do you need to? You have your number-gacha, your ‘insurance’ business, the restaurant, apartments; do you need to kill anyone?”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t want them to stop killing.”
“What? Why?”
Haruka gave them a wry smile. “If the Fukushin didn’t kill, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“Shopping on a school day?”
Akane stood nervously beside Riko as the two police officers stopped them. The older of the two was tall with a grizzled face and stern eyes. The younger was slightly shoulder with a round face and thick eyebrows. Both wore the light blue shirt and dark blue pants and vest, but the older officer had on an actually policeman’s hat, whereas the younger wore a dark blue ballcap with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police insignia on it.
“What’s wrong with that, Omawarisan?” Riko responded cooly, shifting the bags so she could keep one of her hands free. “Everyone shops on workdays. Why can’t we?”
“School isn’t work, for one,” said the younger officer.
“Yes, it is,” Riko answered back. “An older man gives you a task and you complete the task or get penalized. How is that not work?” The younger officer didn’t respond immediately. The older officer actually chuckled.
“She has a point, Arata-san,” the senior officer said with a wry smile. “More importantly, what do you have in those bags?”
“Clothes.”
The senior officer nodded. “Show them.” Riko began to hold out the two bags, including the one with-
“Not that one!” Akane started, reaching out for one of the two bags.
“Why not?” Riko asked, surprised.
“That’s the one with Airi’s underwear!”
“So? It’s not like they haven’t seen a bra before.”
“But still!”
“That’s alright,” the officer assured them, “we won’t touch any undergarments.” Akane still didn’t like the idea of a man inspecting her friend’s underwear, but didn’t obstruct further. The two officers looked in the four bags, shifting around the apparel. The senior officer fished out the store receipt and skimmed it before returning it. Neither one of them touched Airi’s new bras.
“So, just a minor errand today, Ishimiya-san?” the senior officer inquired, returning the bags.
“Today, hai,” Riko answered, her face adopting a mischievous smirk. “More than you, at any rate. Don’t you have better things to do than meet stop-and-search quotas?”
“Of course. We can stop-and-search suspected criminals. People like thieves and vandals and juvenile delinquents such as…” he crossed his arms as he looked down at them, “alleged members of the Fukushin.” Riko didn’t even flinch, looking the officer dead in the eye. After a few seconds, the senior officer relaxed his stance and looked at Akane. “Are you new?”
“Um…” How am I supposed to answer? “Hai?”
“I know how you kids behave, so I will only say this much. I’m Senior Officer Makoto, and this is my partner, Officer Arata. I don’t know why you’re here, especially with her,” he momentarily glanced at Riko. “And I also have no idea what she or any of her friends have told you. Just know that, at some point, you will be given a choice. That choice, depending on your decision, will most likely result in you committing a crime. And when you do, then we will arrest you and you will end up in either the shonenin, or prison. You don’t want to end up in those places, then stay away from these bad influences and go back to school where you can actually get a good life for yourself like all the other law-abiding citizens. That’s all I got to say.” He nodded at them before stepping away, Officer Arata following behind him. Riko gave them a respective bow, but when they got far enough away, she turned to Akane and adopted a bizarre expression and a mocking tone.
“Be a good girl and go to school. You will have a good life like every other brain-dead moron who has to rent an apartment and pay for college before being able to actually work. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can get married before becoming Christmas cake and forget all that useful education we gave you. Fuck that!” Riko snapped, waving dismissively in the direction of the officers. “They may have good intentions, but the deka don’t know anything. Come on, let’s take the train.”
“What do you mean: they don’t know anything?”
“Oh, they know things, the police are not stupid. But their experience is severely limited by their occupation. When you go day-by-day, stopping and searching anyone that looks out-of-place, meeting quotas, and filing reports day-after-day of meaningless kyoubozai incidents, you tend to forget anything and everything else.”
“But don’t you need a decent education to be a police officer?”
“Of course. But education is just knowledge that’s hammered into you. That’s not experience, and experience is the only thing that truly matters in a person’s life. And, let’s be honest, you don’t experience much in school.”
Takara looked down at the pouting gyaru next to her.
“Do you even know where you’re going?”
“I do, actually,” Mahoshi snapped before groaning. “Of all the people I could end up babysitting, why did it have to be you?”
“Speak for yourself,” Takara retorted as they strode past a small crowd of men and women in business suits. “An annoying gyaru who spends her time ignoring teachers, disrespecting senior students and disrupting class whenever she’s bored. The only reasons you haven’t been expelled is that you have good grades, somehow, and you haven’t tanned your skin yet.”
“Says the student council member who hasn’t been hammered down despite standing above all the other students.”
Takara resisted the sudden urge to just yell at Mahoshi in frustration. That was another thing about her. Mahoshi Keiko almost always tried to have the last word, especially if she was losing an argument. Crossing a street in Oi, Mahoshi suddenly rushed ahead, stopping next to a food store with an outdoor serving window.
“Tanaka-san, good morning!” Mahoshi called out while rapping on the counter. An older man with and apron over his clothes.
“Oh, Keiko-san, good day,” the man greeted with a cheerful bow of the head.
“How is business this week?”
“Getting better. More people walking around. Still not as many as before Corona.”
“Ah, don’t worry about them. The people who stay indoors are cowards.” The man laughed. “What about your niece? Ayaha-chan?”
“Oh, she’s doing much better now.”
“Good to hear. Red Taiyaki please.”
“Of course.”
“Did her school finally get rid of those bad apples?”
“Of course not. We transferred Ayaha-chan to Arinori High.”
“Ah, that’s a good school.”
“Hai, that’s what Ayaha-chan tells me.” He handed her a disposable food tray carrying three taiyaki fishes lightly coated with a translucent red glaze. “¥200.”
“Thank you,” Mahoshi said with a grateful bow as she paid the man. Takara could only stare.
How can this bad-mannered gyaru suddenly be so easily respectful to a random street vendor? As Mahoshi began to walk away, Takara hurried to keep up.
“Wait a moment.”
“For what?” Mahoshi replied, taking out a toothpick and poking each of the taiyaki in the middle.
“You can be respectful. How come you’re never respectful at school?”
“Ha!” Mahoshi scoffed. “Why should I show respect to those who refuse the same for me?”
“Our teachers are our elders,” Takara pointed out. “They deserve our respect more than—” This made Mahoshi laugh. “What’s so funny?!”
“Oh, it’s just what you say. You’re not wrong, about teachers being older, I mean. But calling them elders, with what I know of the Fukushin, is ironically funny.”
“Um… sure,” Takara said as Mahoshi bit into one of the taiyaki. “And do you respect your Fukushin sempai?”
“Of course,” she replied after swallowing.
“Then why don’t you show respect to the teachers and other sempai at school?”
“Because the teachers don’t care and the older students are stupid.”
“Excuse me?”
“The only things teachers care about are our grades and whether or not we ‘misbehave.’ And our so-called sempai? Apart from school work and pointless club activities, they don’t do anything significant except spread gossip. And there’s nothing respectable about spreading gossip.”
“Well, that’s one thing we agree on. But didn’t you just spread some gossip right now?”
“What?”
“Teachers care about more than just our grades.”
Mahoshi scoffed again. “You should’ve stayed with Riko. She has more to say about schools than most others. Of course, you probably wouldn’t believe her either.” She finished the first fish.
“Was she expelled for bad behavior, or was she attacked by a bully?”
“Neither,” Mahoshi answered. “Damn, if it wasn’t a school day I could’ve barrowed a car. We could’ve been half-way back to Ebisu by now.”
“Why not take a subway?”
“You’ve been sitting on your butt all the way to JuJu!
Airi and Naoko continued to follow Haruka from Oi, through Nishioi, and into Nakanobu.
“Did the Fukushin save your life?” Airi asked.
“Hai,” Haruka answered as they passed a small park. Airi noticed Haruka reached down to briefly hold the charm hanging from her beltloops. “Several years ago. I used to live with my family in Hiroshima. My mother loved gardening and cooking and her husband worked in the office of a shipping company. One day, we started receiving random ‘gifts’ from someone; a bowl of fruit, an ill-fitting dress, empty picture frames. One time my mother received a bouquet of flowers and she freaked out, tearing off the flower petals before throwing them out. I had no idea what was going on, and mother didn’t tell me anything. But then I heard the rumors at school. Rumors that my mother was being visited by other men. One day I returned home from school to find my mother on the floor and the house was thick with the smell of gas. I opened all the windows I could and tried to drag my mother out the front door, but she was heavy. I called out for help, but none of the neighbors came to help.”
“When did this happen?” Naoko wondered quietly.
“What?”
“S-sorry! I meant, what time of day did this happen?”
“After school, but there were at least five or six neighbors who were watching from the street. Then a young man, a gaijin, hurried forward and helped me carry my mother out of the house. He checked to see if my mother was breathing, noted my mother’s clothing and broken fingernails, then turned on the neighbors. He shouted at them. ‘What are you idiots doing? Why aren’t you helping?’ When one of the neighbors insisted they didn’t know how to help, he shouted at the person: ‘You have a cell phone, don’t you? Call for an ambulance! And call the police!’ But when another neighbor, a woman, I remember, suggested there was no reason to call the police, the gaijin turned on her. ‘Because this woman has been raped you stupid shiksa bitch! Are you trying to aid her attacker?! Are you trying to keep the police away?!’ That’s when someone called the police.”
“I’m sorry,” Airi said. “Um… what did he mean by: shiksa?”
“Huh? Oh, that’s a word in Yiddish, a language that Jews sometimes speak. That gaijin is one of the original Fukushin, known as the Rabbi, that means: teacher in Jewish. He stayed until the ambulance arrived, but left before the police showed up.”
“Is your mother still…?” Naoko hesitantly asked.
“She’s alive and well. Not that the neighbors cared.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember how there were rumors about how my mother was seeing other men? The police, fortunately, didn’t believe this after questioning me about my mother’s schedule. As she spent most of her free time gardening and only left home for groceries or to walk with me after school, it was almost impossible for her to have an affair without getting caught in the act. But everyone else chose to believe otherwise. A few days later, I was visited by the Rabbi. He asked me how I was doing and I told him about the rumors. He then told me: ‘Give me three days, and by the fourth, you and your mother will have justice.’ Three days later, the newspaper had a headline: Four Yakuza Killed. The day after that, a prominent woman from the neighborhood was arrested for hiring men to attack my mother.”
“What? A woman hired someone to attack your mother?”
“Hai.”
“Why?”
“I learned from mother later. She actually saw a young man leave the woman’s house some time before. She didn’t tell anyone, and didn’t intend to, as it was a matter of that house and not hers. But the woman didn’t want to be outed, so she started sending men to deliver those strange gifts to our home. And later, she hired a member of the Shaho-kai to attack my mother and to take pictures as proof.”
“Pictures?!” Naoko repeated in disbelief.
“The police found both pictures and video of the attack in the woman’s house.”
“Oh gosh,” was all Airi could manage. They crossed a street, moving northward toward Nakanobu station, before she spoke again. “Um… what about your father?”
“What father? You mean the man my mother married? The one who gave birth to me? I hope he’s living in agony.”
“Pardon?”
“That gesuyarou confronted mother when she was still in the hospital. Didn’t even ask if she was alright, just went on-and-on about how she was disgracing him and me and embarrassing him at work.”
“Wait, what? Why?”
“He believed the rumors.”
“I figured that. But what did he mean by being embarrassed at work?”
“Oh, the woman was actually married to a manager of the shipping company he worked at.”
“So… your father’s boss?”
“Hai. Thinking back, I was way too nice to him.”
“Why, what did you do?”
“I shouted at him, called him a coward and a neglectful husband, how disgusted I was to be related to him, and I wished he was the one raped and left to die in that house.”
“Err…” both Airi and Naoko were taken aback, sort-of. “You call that: nice?”
“Hai! I should’ve kicked him in the groin. Mother was able to file for divorce against him. And, as it turns out, that shipping company went bankrupt a year later.”
“Really? Must be karma.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because karma has no effect on piracy.” Piracy!
“Piracy? You mean?”
Haruka gave them an overly-pleasant smile. “Of course not, I’m not a pirate. I just told them the password to that man’s home computer.”
“But, but what about the other workers?” Naoko asked. “The shipping company employees who weren’t involved with your father or that woman?”
“Most of them are still working, I expect. The company, when it went bankrupt, got bought out by a subsidiary of the Shaho-kai. It’s still in business- what is going on up there?” There was a commotion ahead of them, nearby the station. Airi and Naoko did their best to stay behind Haruka as the later briskly made her way to the foot of a stairway to the station platform. There, two police officers were arguing with a man with light-colored hair and a multi-colored shirt. He was clearly a tourist, as if the backpack and map in his hands weren’t obvious enough.
“Speaking of gaijin,” Airi noted.
“Hai,” Haruka concurred. “It must be that time of the month.”
“Excuse me?”
“Policemen can’t just walk around and do nothing. Contrary to movies and television, police work is actually quite boring. So, when there isn’t any crime being committed, police need to fulfil patrol quotas. They do this by issuing tickets and random street searches. And tourists are an easy catch.”
“Maybe the tourist is just lost.”
“He’s not. Just listen and you can tell.” Easy for her to say, while they studied English, they never practiced actual conversational English. The three of them got a little closer, even as other pedestrians kept clear of the commotion. One of the officers stood by as the other spoke in slow, firm and careful English. But whatever he was saying was making the tourist more agitated. Airi caught the words for “illegal,” “nothing,” “wrong,” and the phrase meaning: “you can’t do this.” There was another word that was repeated, the word for “riken.” As the officer began speaking in a more commanding tone and his partner reached for a pair of handcuffs on his belt—
Three teenage Fukushin they knew, Hanzo, Nobu and Iga suddenly appeared and gathered around the throng; interjecting themselves between the officers and the tourist.
“Well, isn’t this a lovely morning,” Hanzo loudly remarked. “What is your business today officer?”
“What the- out of the way boy!” one of the officers snapped. “This is police business.”
“Hai, we can see that. What has this gaijin done?”
“Nothing at first. We just stopped him for a random check, but now he’s resisting. He’s obviously guilty of something if he’s resisting a street search.”
“But… he wasn’t suspicious before?”
“Iie, it was just a random stop-and-search.” Hanzo nodded a few times before looking back at Iga, conversing with the tourist in English. A few sentences later, and a shrug of Iga’s shoulders, the tourist threw up his hands and began to remove his backpack.
“He’s agreed to be searched,” Iga reported. The two officers looked at each other before proceeding to search the tourist’s backpack. Not finding any contraband, the officers closed the backpack and returned it to the tourist; the senior officer saying: “Thank you for your cooperation,” in English.
The tourist made a slight bow in thanks, but muttered something venomous as he walked away.
“What is wrong with him?” asked the other officer.
“Who knows,” replied his partner. “Gaijin are gaijin.”
“Hai, but why was he resisting despite not having any contraband? If someone is innocent, then they should have no problem being searched.”
“Tell that to the gaijin,” the first officer remarked. He nodded toward the Fukushin boys. “Thank you for that. How did you convince him to comply?”
“That was easy,” said Iga. “I told him the truth.”
“The truth?”
“You idiots needed to search his bag to meet a quota.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just be grateful,” chided Nobu. “What that American was calling you was worse.”
“Why? What did he call us?”
“He called you what you are.” Nobu then casually leaned forward and spat at the policeman’s shoes. “Kempeitai.” The Fukushin walked off, with Hanzo looking over and making a subtle nod in the direction of Airi, Naoko and Haruka.
“Kempeitai?” Airi repeated. “What is that?”
“Figures you don’t know,” Haruka said, while fingering the charm at her waist. “I’ll just say this much; a bit of gaijin wisdom. Those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it. And, from what I’ve personally witnessed, people all over the world prefer to forget something. The Americans, for one, have a habit of forgetting to consider things beyond their immediate field of vision. The Chinese have all but forgotten that the Century of Humiliation was brought about by the foolishness of their rulers. And we…” Haruka paused. Then shot them another grin that was clearly forced. “Well, it’s not like we can remember what we’ve forgotten, can we? Come on, let’s get back to Ebisu.”
¥60789 for new clothes
¥95983 average weekly salary for a "normal" person
¥160 for Train/Subway fare (per ride)
