Kazoku

by Tara A. Devlin

  We finally pulled into the parking lot and I led the woman inside. Toshiki ran behind us like a lost puppy. The boss wanted Ren and I to show him the ropes, said the kid was the son of a second cousin or something, but several weeks later he still jumped at the slightest sound or movement, like merely being in yakuza presence would get him shot (despite the fact he was one himself). If he kept acting that way, maybe it would.

  “Ah, wonderful! You’re here!” Harada smiled like a hyena as the three of us entered his office. “Come, come, sit!” A chair had been prepared on the other side of his desk, several papers lined up in front of it. Everything was done. Literally all she had to do was sign, and that was it. Easy.

  “Where’s my son?” she asked, the first words I’d heard her speak since we left her house. The black haze that hung over her apartment seemed to have followed her here, pulsating from her in waves. Her anger, her fear, it was so vivid that it had a life of its own.

  “The boy is perfectly fine, fear not.” Harada pulled the chair out for her, but she ignored it.

  “I want to see him.”

  “And you will! But first, let me express my deepest apologies. I never wanted it to come to this, I assure you. I was hoping we could settle things amicably, but, well…” Harada wouldn’t lay the blame on Kame. That would indicate that his underlings did things against his will. That would undermine his authority. He couldn’t have that, certainly not in the eyes of the general public. Why was he trying to win her sympathy in the first place? It wasn’t like she’d laugh it off. “Oh, well then, no harm no foul, you only kidnapped my son, but you didn’t mean it. Ohoho, all is forgiven!”

  “Keep your apologies,” she spat. “My son.”

  Harada grimaced and placed a pen in her hand. “First, sign the papers. Then you’ll have your boy.”

  A strength she didn’t possess the night we visited her emanated from her pores. This wasn’t the trembling, fearful mother who couldn’t even drag her eyes up to look at us. This woman was staring a mob boss down, defiantly, in his own office. But for all her defiance, she couldn’t hide the shaking of her hand as she held the pen. It wasn’t completely an act, but she was strung tight like a piano wire and waiting to snap.

  She turned and her eyes scanned the room. They fell upon each of us in turn. Harada. Toshiki. Myself and then Ren. Neither Kame nor Eita were in the room. Harada felt it was for the best if the kidnapper wasn’t around when dealing with vital business with the mother. If only he’d thought that sooner.

  “You.” Her eyes narrowed in on Ren. He pointed to himself, surprised, and pushed himself off the wall.

  “I thought I recognised you when you first came over.” She nodded, as though everything made perfect sense now. “Yes, you’re Setsuo’s son, aren’t you?”

  Ren’s face dropped, and he clenched his jaw. They knew each other?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I used to work with your mother quite a few years back. You were just a boy then, 11 or 12. You weren’t around much, and it worried your mother greatly.”

  “Excuse me?” Ren took a step forward, clenching his fist and pointing at Haruko with his other hand. “What did you say? And what the hell do you know of my ‘mother’?” He spat the word as though it disgusted him to say.

  “I know that when you left, your mother was never the same again. It broke her heart.”

  Harada took Ren in off the streets when he was 13 or so. Raised him, like me, as his own son. I never heard the circumstances of his childhood, and he never once brought it up himself. That was how we all were. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Ren’s arm trembled as he clenched his fist tighter, his knuckles turning white. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  “You shut your mouth!”

  “She was a good woman, your mother.”

  “I said shut your mouth!” Ren screamed. I’d never seen him get so worked up over something before, and so quickly. Very little riled him up, and he went through life in a perpetual state of amusement. Harada watched him quietly. “A good woman? You don’t know shit. My mother was a raging alcoholic. Did you know that? Huh? What type of good woman beats her children? You wanna know just how good she was? So good that she sold my baby sister to older men just so she could afford her vices.”

  Ren poked the woman in the chest, his jaw clenched and the vein by his temple bulging. His face turned red with the effort of containing his rage.

  “You wanna know what happened to that baby sister? She was only 10. Think about that for a minute. 10! And on her way home from school one day she couldn’t take it anymore. She threw herself in front of a train. She was 10!”

  Tears formed in Ren’s eyes, but he didn’t cry. He was too angry for that. Haruko said nothing. What could she say? None of us had heard that story before. Not even Harada knew how to react.

  “Son.” Harada placed a hand on Ren’s shoulder. He didn’t relax. He didn’t even jump in surprise. His eyes bored into the woman, as though she was his mother and it was all her fault for dragging such painful memories back up. “Go get the boy for us, would you?”

  Ren didn’t move. If the woman was a piano wire waiting to snap, Ren was the entire piano. Toshiki blended into the wallpaper, not wanting to take any collateral damage when either of them exploded.

  “Ren!” Harada’s voice grew louder. I walked over and grabbed him. We had to get him out of there.

  “Hey, let’s go.” I pushed him outside, tearing his gaze from the woman like a stubborn bandage that didn’t want to come off.

  “What the fuck does she know about my mother? She doesn’t know shit.” He shook me off and stormed down the hall.

  “Ren…”

  “No!” He stopped and poked me in the chest. “No. She does not get to bring up that asshole like she was some shining beacon of motherhood who was devastated when I left. No. She killed my sister, and she didn’t give a shit about me.”

  “I get it, Ren, but—”

  “Oh, do you, Yotchan? You get it, huh? Did you ever have to come home and find out that your baby sister threw herself in front of a train because she couldn’t take it anymore? That your bitch of a mother didn’t even care. The only thing she cared about was that it was one less mouth to feed. I might do some questionable shit sometimes, but I’m nothing like that asshole was. Nothing.”

  As a single child, no, I couldn’t imagine what that was like. It also went a long way to explain why Ren stuck so doggedly to Harada. Harada differentiated himself from the other clans because of his strict “no women, no children, no drugs” policies. That was what made this whole situation so confusing. Why he allowed Kame to get away with kidnapping a child from his mother just for a business proposition was astounding. It wasn’t like him. That wasn’t the man who raised me. Raised us.

  “Let’s just get the boy, okay?” What else could I say? Ren looked passed my shoulder, back down the hall towards Harada’s office.

  “Yeah. Sure. The boy.”

  Whatever was going on in his mind, it appeared the seeds of doubt had been planted in him as well.

  What was really going on?

  10

  My blood boiled the moment I entered the room. Kame sat on the floor beside the boy, doing a puzzle with him. His grin grew as he looked up and saw us there.

  “Ah, if it’s not Pretty Boy and the lapdog.”

  Ren held an arm across my chest to keep me back. It shook.

  “Boss wants the boy.”

  “The mother’s here then?” Kame jumped to his feet, grinning. “What was the look on her face when she realised? Gimme all the details.”

  Ren swung, connecting hard with Kame’s jaw. He hit the ground, scattering puzzle pieces all around. Ren dropped to a squat over him and yanked his shirt up, pulling his face closer. “Let’s get one thing straight here, you’re only alive because I say so, you got it? Not because of Harada, not even because of Yotchan, but because of me. Got it?”

  Blood tri
ckled down Kame’s chin from his busted lip.

  “Sorry to break it to ya, but you’re not actually in charge around here anymore. Why do you think Harada sent us with you? He knew neither of you pussies would be able to get the job done.”

  Ren furrowed his brow. He turned to look at me and I shrugged. I had no idea what this was about.

  “Your glory days have passed,” Kame continued. He showed no signs that he cared Ren was still sitting on him. “Look at you. Both of you. You’re getting old. Soft. Not in the body, in the mind. You can’t make the hard decisions anymore. The world is changing and you’re not changing with it. Harada wanted this job done. No matter what. He knew he couldn’t count on you so he sent me and Eita along to make sure that it did.” He laughed, causing Ren to flinch in confusion. “And he was right, wasn’t he? You couldn’t do it. If we went with your plan, the mother would still be refusing and we’d be getting nowhere. There’s a strict timeline, ya know? No time for dilly dallying while you sit around with your finger stuck up your ass.”

  Ren yanked him off the ground and slammed him into the wall. He leaned close and whispered, almost a growl. “Are you telling me that Harada ordered you to kidnap the boy?”

  Kame grinned. A little physical abuse was nothing compared to the joy he was getting out of this.

  “He didn’t not tell me to… In fact, I think his exact words were ‘get the fucking kid, I need that apartment right now.’”

  Confusion washed over Ren’s features. His brow knitted. His jaw tensed. His eyes lost focus for a moment before he pulled Kame forward by the front of his shirt, threw his head back, and then slammed it into Kame’s face. Kame dropped like the sack of shit he was, and Ren lifted the boy into the air by the back of his shirt.

  “Come on.”

  “Ren—”

  “I said come on!” He shoved the boy out the door and led him down the hall. The silence was palpable. Whatever Ren was planning, something told me it wasn’t any good.

  Harada ordered the boy’s kidnap. Harada. Our own father. The man we feared, but also the man we respected. He did things differently. No women. No children. No drugs. He was going back on his own rules, and all for a single apartment?

  Ren flung the door open and pushed the boy inside. Toshiki jumped as the door slammed into the wall and the mother turned around. She went to run but Harada grabbed her.

  “Mama!”

  Ren handed the boy to me and walked forward. He didn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes as he passed Harada said it all. His trust had been broken. He wasn’t going to take it sitting down.

  “See? Your boy is perfectly safe. Now, sign the papers and you can take him and be on your way.”

  The boy struggled at the sight of his mother, but she smiled. “It’s okay, baby. We’ll be out of here in a minute. Okay?”

  She picked up the pen and placed it on the signature line, but before she started writing, she turned to Ren once more. Ren stood by the window, staring into the back garden.

  “I know it probably doesn’t mean much to you, but when you left, your mother really didn’t handle it very well. It broke her heart. You were all she had, and you left without a word…”

  Ren turned, fire in his eyes. Harada laughed. “Now now, there will be time for catch ups later.”

  “It broke her heart?” Ren stepped forward, Harada’s desk between him and the woman. “Did it break her heart when she beat me so bad I couldn’t go to school? Did it break her heart when she sold my sister for alcohol money? Did it break her heart when my sister decided that life in this world was too difficult and threw herself in front of a train? Huh? Did it break her heart then?”

  The woman opened her mouth to speak, but Ren suddenly pulled the gun from the back of his jeans and pointed it at her.

  “Ren! Put that down right now!”

  Ren’s trembling hand stopped. His eyes focused dead on the woman, but something told me he wasn’t seeing her. Harada panicked, but he made no movement. That might trigger him unexpectedly.

  “She was a blight on this world. I should have killed her myself when I had the chance. I knew what she was doing but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. If I had, then maybe…”

  His finger trembled. His resolve was waning. Harada stepped forward and Ren moved the gun to him instead. Harada set his jaw and stood up straight.

  “Boy. Put that gun down. Now.”

  No going back now. I watched helplessly, like a spectator before a tragedy as it happened in real time. Harada jumped over the table, unexpectedly lithe for a big man. The mother, Haruko, dropped the pen and ran towards me. It was real time, but it was like watching slow motion play out before my eyes. Harada struggled for Ren’s gun. A shot went off, landing in the roof. The boy jumped in shock before me. Another shot, this one landing in the wall. The mother continued her sprint towards us. Then, one final shot, and the room fell silent. The gunshots rang in my ears. Harada disarmed him and slammed Ren’s face into the desk.

  “Mama!” The scream seemed distant, like it was coming from the end of a long tunnel. The mother dropped to her knees, a dark red splotch forming in her chest.

  “No!” This time Harada’s voice. He clocked Ren with the butt of the gun and grabbed the side of the desk, propelling himself forward towards the woman. She fell to her hands, then touched her chest. Her hand came away covered in blood. She looked up, confusion and fear in her eyes. The boy ran to her, tears streaming down his tiny cheeks. I looked around the room, a horror movie playing out before me. Toshiki cowered on the ground in the corner, his hands covering his head.

  The woman collapsed. She reached out for her boy with a bloody hand, fumbling to grab his. Energy drained from her body and Harada turned her over as he reached her. He screamed again, turning towards Ren and then back to the bullet wound in her chest. He screamed more obscenities that I didn’t hear. A ringing in my ears drowned everything out.

  Blood trickled down Ren’s face as he pushed himself off the desk, shock and confusion written all over him. Harada pointed and screamed, and bodies rushed past as the doors behind me burst open. Kame and Eita. Kame stopped briefly to observe the scene before nodding and continuing on to Ren. Both men grabbed him and dragged him outside. Ren didn’t fight them.

  “…Rai…” the mother whispered, her fingers clenching around the boy’s hand.

  “She hadn’t signed it yet!” Harada screamed. “You idiot! She hadn’t signed it yet!”

  The boy cried. The mother stopped moving, her eyes locked on the last thing she would ever see; Harada removing the boy from her arms and spiriting him towards the door. He reached forward, his mother’s blood on his hands, screaming.

  I could do nothing but watch them, my body frozen in place and unwilling to move as the scene unfolded.

  The woman was dead. She didn’t sign the papers.

  What now?

  11

  “That idiot!”

  Harada fumed. The mother lay bleeding on the floor, dead. The bullet went straight through her.

  “Put him in the dungeon!” Harada screamed to Kame and Eita. “I’ll deal with him later!”

  The dungeon. A tiny room in the basement that lived up to its name for those who betrayed the family. Harada raised Ren like a son, but that didn’t guarantee his safety at a time like this. What had he been thinking, waving his gun around like that? What on earth brought all that on?

  “She didn’t even sign the papers. God dammit.”

  The boy broke free of Harada and ran to his mother’s side, crying and covered in her blood. Harada looked down at him with both pity and disgust on his face. “And now what am I supposed to do with this?” He turned to Toshiki, cowering in the corner.

  “You. What was your name again?”

  “T-Toshiki, sir.” His voice croaked.

  “Right, Toshiki. Go down to the cleaner’s room on the second floor and bring some stuff back to clean this up. Ugh, what a mess…”

  Toshiki
couldn’t remove his eyes from the woman’s corpse. It was probably the first time he’d ever seen a dead body before.

  “What are you waiting for, an invitation? Go!” Harada screamed. Toshiki scrambled to his feet and ran out the door. I was alone in the room with Harada, the boy, and the mother’s corpse. I cleared my throat.

  “What now, sir?” I didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem real. I was stuck in a dream that had turned into a nightmare in the blink of an eye. I suspected things wouldn’t go well, not once they kidnapped the boy, but this? Now the woman was dead, shot right in front of her son’s eyes. Her blood stained his tiny face as he wiped at the tears running down his cheeks.

  Kame’s words came back to me. Harada ordered this. This was his fault, not Ren’s. We didn’t do this type of thing, so why now? What was so god damn important about purchasing that building that Harada was willing to turn his back on all his morals just to get it? He didn’t even seem fussed by the little boy’s life he’d just ruined.

  This wasn’t the father I knew. The man who found me when I purchased my first illegal gun at 16 and made me hold it to his head. “If you’re going to carry a gun, you better be ready to kill those closest to you with it, because that’s what’s gonna happen,” he said. The man who carried me, all 195 cm of me, to the hospital on my 18th birthday because I drank a little too much and picked on the wrong gang members, ending up on death’s door. How he did it still eluded me. He was a big strong guy, but to carry someone of my size all the way to the hospital, on foot, was beyond my reckoning.

  Harada helped pick the tattooist who turned my back into a piece of art. He even paid for it himself. He bought my first car, rented my first apartment, made sure all my needs were taken care of as a kid and gave me the space I needed as an adult. The man was my father, more so than the man who biologically helped create me ever was. If he asked, I would die for Harada. Without a second thought. I was nothing without him. The only purpose I had in life was to carry out his will. Amongst criminals, he was a man of honour. “Not all bad guys are bad,” he once told me. I laughed, but he didn’t. He truly believed those words.