Kazoku

by Tara A. Devlin

  “Yotchan!” He stormed over and grabbed my arms with a force I didn’t expect from a man his age. “Was it really Ren? Are you sure?”

  I nodded. Right down to the scar on his cheek and the blue tattooed waves peeking out from underneath his sleeve.

  “Those bastards,” he muttered. “They’ve had it out for me ever since I started purchasing properties in West Rakucho. They’re upset they didn’t think of it first. That I saw the potential and didn’t just sit around talking about it.”

  “They?” Ippei asked. Harada turned to him, fire roaring to life in his eyes once more.

  “Those Toyotomi bastards! They did this!”

  “I-I heard there’s a killer in Rakucho right now.” It was the first time I’d heard Toshiki speak to the boss of his own volition. “T-The Rakucho Nightcrawler, or something like that… They say—”

  Harada scoffed. “Believe everything you see on TV, do you boy?”

  “Besides, they say the Nightcrawler stabs his victims to death,” Kame interjected. “And he leaves the bodies in Rakucho. Neither Eita nor Ren were inside Rakucho when they were killed, and neither of them were stabbed.” His eyes flickered over to me as he said Ren’s name, a small grin growing on his lips. My blood boiled. He wasn’t even sad that Ren was dead. On the contrary. He was probably hoping that Harada would make him a lieutenant now, and I had no doubt it was him stoking the old flames of Harada’s Toyotomi hatred. Come to think of it, it was Kame who came running into the bar that night to let us know that Toyotomi boys were outside. All this just for a promotion?

  A cold breeze blew past me. The hairs on my arm stood on end. I turned around, but nothing was there. The door was closed.

  “Yotchan!”

  I turned to face Harada again. “Yes, sir?”

  “I said, I want you to grab someone for me.”

  “…Grab someone?”

  Harada sat down at his desk, the vein by his temple throbbing and his face red. He motioned to one of the men before him to clean up the mess and he ran over wordlessly, piling broken pieces of vase by the window.

  “One of the Toyotomi boys. I don’t care who, but I want you to bring me one. We need to have a chat.”

  “I can—” Kame extended a hand but Harada interrupted him.

  “If there isn’t a Toyotomi family member standing here in front of me before dinner, it’s all your heads. Got it?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. The rest of you, get out of here. No, not you, Daichi. I have something else I need you to do. Come here.”

  Kame grinned as the rest of us stepped outside. Would Harada retaliate if they found him dead at the bottom of a river? It was tempting to find out.

  I rubbed my arms. The temperature in the building seemed at least ten degrees cooler than outside, if not more. Normally the air conditioning was pleasant in the sweltering heat of summer, but now it bordered on chilly. Just a little too cold. Where you felt like you might need a jacket, but outside was sweltering and it messed with your mind. Do I need a jacket, or do I need board shorts?

  The light above us flickered. Toshiki jumped.

  “I, uh, I got business to take care of,” Ippei said, making his way towards the stairs. The man cleaning the vase stepped out of Harada’s office, his face pale.

  “Yeah, us too,” his friend said. I did a double take. They shared the same face. The same build, the same style, all the way down to the cuff links on their jackets. I shook my head again.

  Twins.

  They bowed and exited before I could say anything.

  “S-Same!” Toshiki stuttered, just a little too loudly, and stumbled over his own feet as he ran hot on their tails and down the stairs. The light flickered once more and then stopped. As I turned back to the stairs, a darkness seemed to follow them, and then disappeared.

  A Toyotomi family member. Considering the mood he was in, that was a death sentence for whoever I brought in. I didn’t believe the Toyotomi were involved in this. They weren’t without blood on their hands, and I certainly had no love lost for them, but this wasn’t their style. Harada’s hyper-focus on this project of his was making him paranoid. He was seeing enemies were none existed and dragging up old grudges because that was easier to believe than the alternative.

  And what, exactly, was the alternative?

  I slipped into the toilets by the front door. The first door was locked while the rest stood empty. Harsh light shone down upon my face, making me seem even more tired than usual. I went to the end stall, finished my business, and stood before the mirror again. They said there was no way to reverse the ageing process once it had started. Was this how Narumi felt all the time? My physical appearance never especially concerned me. Being one of the largest men in Rakucho was enough, what did I care whether I looked 20 or 40?

  Something in the mirror caught my eye. The locked stall. I tilted my head. There were no feet beneath the door. No sound. Nothing.

  “Hello?”

  No response. I stepped towards it. Why would someone lock a stall from the inside and then crawl out from underneath to leave it like that? The space between the floor and the bottom of the door was far too narrow for someone of my size to fit through, and even a smaller man would struggle. The top was no better.

  “What the hell?”

  Something dark appeared at the top of the locked door. I took another step closer. It grew longer, spreading out like tendrils, bit by bit. I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.

  Hair. It was hair.

  I fell back into the sink, jabbing the edge into my kidneys. A single white fingertip appeared next to the hair, followed by another, and another. The hand gripped the wood tightly as the hair extended down towards the floor.

  Down towards me.

  Another finger appeared on the other side. Something rumbled. Was it inside the room or inside my head? I wasn’t hanging around to find out. I burst through the door and out into the hall, not stopping until I was out of the building and standing in the sweltering heat. My heart pounded wildly, urging me to keep going. Get as far away as I could. Did it follow me? Was it right there behind me, even now? I stood up straight and turned, slowly, fearful that I was about to be face to face with something I didn’t want to see.

  Nothing.

  I sighed. My jacket sleeves stuck to me in the heat; a warm, sweaty embrace. I welcomed it. It sure as hell beat whatever was in there.

  The parking lot was empty. I walked to my car in solitude and got in.

  What was going on?

  19

  If you know what you’re looking for in Rakucho, it doesn’t take long to find it. Whether that’s a cheap bowl of ramen, a massage with a happy ending, or a member of a particular gang, Rakucho follows a particular set of rules, and once you know what those rules are, you can learn to play the game better than anyone. It took less than 10 minutes of walking through Rakucho’s back streets to find what I was after; a lone Toyotomi member doing a deal with some blues. If I needed a sorry excuse to drag back to Harada, I could do worse than him.

  The chubby man took the proffered payment and slipped it into his pocket, not bothering to look around to see if anyone was watching. Who cared if they were? What were they going to do, run off and tell the police? He removed a small packet from his other pocket and held it up by the side of his face. His lips moved, and he pointed at the kid before handing it over. A warning, or perhaps instructions. The kids nodded and ran off down an alley. The man took the money out of his pocket and started counting, his smile growing. It hit me that we’d met before. The other night, outside Serenity. Ren used him as a punching bag.

  “Fancy running into you here. Looks like a neat little side business you got going, huh?” I said, making myself known. He turned and looked up, his face dropping as he did.

  “The Tiger…”

  I hated that name.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  He shook his head so hard it looked like it might fall off, rolling down the gutter
and into a drain. His face was covered in cuts and bruises from the fight. “I-It’s not what it looks like, I swear.”

  I grabbed him by the lapels and shoved him into the wall. The air in his lungs burst forth like a popped balloon and he deflated, falling to his knees.

  “What does it look like, then? Because it looked like you were selling those kids some drugs. Am I wrong? Tell me I’m wrong.”

  I lifted him up, yanking him off his feet so they dangled helplessly below him. He cringed and turned his head.

  “N-No, I didn’t wanna do it, it was the boss, I swear! He made me!”

  I threw him against the wall, watching him carve a graceful arc through the air for a man so chubby. He landed with a squishy thud on his side and a cry of surprise. I squatted before him.

  “I’ve had a really shitty day. A really shitty week, in fact. I’d love nothing more than to continue this fascinating conversation with you, but luckily for you, I have other places to be.”

  He closed his eyes and sighed, grimacing in pain as he did. Sweat dripped from his forehead to the ground. It was another stinker of a day, and only about to get stinkier.

  “Oh, don’t get too excited. You’re coming with me.”

  His eyes shot open as I pulled him to his feet. “Wait, what? Why? What have I done? I don’t even know you!”

  I tapped the cufflink at the end of his cheap, gaudy shirt. The Toyotomi symbol shone excessively bright in the heavy sunlight. He looked down at it and then back up at me.

  “No! I-I don’t have any beef with you! I’m new, I just—”

  “Shut it.” I pushed him towards my car. “You can cry about it later.”

  “You want money? Is that it? Here, you can take it!” He threw the clip at me. It bounced off my chest and into the gutter. He watched blankly for a moment and then rushed to pick it up. “No? You want the drugs? I can do that. I know a guy, he can hook you up with a cheap supply, and he—”

  I slapped the side of his head and he cowered.

  “You’d be a lot more successful in life if you just shut up.”

  He pinned his lips shut and gave me one final pleading look before I shoved him into the boot of the car.

  “Get out.”

  The stench of sweat, bad BO, and something I hoped wasn’t urine assaulted my nostrils as I opened the boot. He rolled out and unceremoniously hit the asphalt. It didn’t take him long to jump to his feet, considering how hot it was.

  “Did you piss in my car?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s that smell?”

  “What smell?”

  I grabbed the back of his shirt and shoved his head into the carpet. He gagged.

  “That smell.”

  “I don’t smell anything,” he mumbled.

  I pulled him back and closed it. “I’m gonna make you clean that later, you know.”

  The sweat and body odour clinging to him like a haze was disgusting. I shoved him ahead of me, but when he saw the building, he shook his head.

  “No. No. I’m not going in there! No!”

  He turned to run. I grabbed his wet shirt and pulled him back, sending him sprawling to the hot pavement again. He scrambled to his feet like the ground was lava and shook his head.

  “Are you insane?! If I go in there, I’m dead meat. Minced, you get me?”

  “Nobody’s gonna kill you. We just need some answers.”

  “No.” He shook his head. I sighed.

  “Look, you have two choices. Walk in there on your own two feet, which I can only assume is the more comfortable option, or I can beat you to a pulp and drag in what’s left. Either way, we just need to ask you a few questions. The boss ain’t gonna kill ya. I promise.” That wasn’t a promise I could keep, nor did he appear to believe it, but it was hot and making me cranky.

  “It’s not him I’m worried about.”

  “…What?”

  He turned to look at the building again and a shudder ran through him. “Don’t you feel it?”

  “Feel what?” The hand slipping over the top of the toilet stall came rushing back. The long, black hair spreading out towards the floor. The chill that seemed to spread throughout the building. The shadows hiding in the corners…

  “My reikan is pretty strong. That’s why the boss hired me, after all.” He laughed. “I mean, look at me. I’m not exactly your usual gangster material. But I can sense shit. I can see shit. Shit that would otherwise get us in trouble, ya know?” He fell silent for a moment and looked up at the building. “There’s something in there. Something powerful. It’s spreading forth like a wave, a tsunami that can’t be stopped. It’s barely contained, and won’t be long until it finally breaks free and takes down everything around it.” He shuddered. “You don’t wanna be around when that happens. How any of you are still alive is a miracle. I’ve never seen anything that angry before…”

  I turned. A large, concrete building stood before us; a mix of Western and Eastern styles, just how the boss liked it. Three stories high, and rather unassuming other than the fancy security gate out front. Nobody could tell it was a yakuza headquarters from a glance. It was just another modern building in a developing part of town. Yet the man cowered before it, the building more fearful than the potential beating he was about to receive. It wasn’t Harada that he feared inside. It was something else.

  “You’re all dead,” he said, pulling me back. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  20

  The air in the house hung heavy. The boy sat on the couch watching TV and eating bread, the exact same spot as where I’d left him. The water on the rug had dried, leaving behind dried, caked mud.

  “Hey. Everything okay?”

  The boy nodded, munching on his bread.

  “We’re going out for a bit, come on.”

  He glanced at the corner, his eyes searching the area and, as though receiving invisible approval, jumped off the couch. He jumped into the back seat as we set off for Serenity.

  The Toyotomi guy’s final words rattled around in my head. “You’re all dead. You just don’t know it yet.” There was real fear in his eyes, a type of dread that you couldn’t fake. He refused to go into the building and would have happily taken being shot in the parking lot over it. Could I have dragged him inside? Sure. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Dealing with the unruly was a speciality of mine. An advantage that came with my size. But I couldn’t.

  He claimed he possessed a strong reikan, that he could see the spiritual world just as clearly as our own. Growing up, I’d always been able to see things myself, although not to the extent that he apparently could. I sensed things. Sometimes saw shadows where no shadows should be. That sort of thing. He was right, and I knew it. I’d seen it.

  No, not it.

  Her.

  The boy’s mother. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. The chubby man’s words confirmed it. She was after us, all of us, and she wouldn’t stop until we were dead. I looked at the boy in the rear-view mirror. He stared out the window at the passing city. I sensed his father in that apartment. His mother must have as well. The only place she could maintain contact with the deceased love of her life. Now that was gone, and she paid the ultimate price for it. But the boy was still here. Alive. Healthy. And I had no idea what to do with him.

  “Come on.” We pulled into a parking lot near Serenity and I shoved the kid towards it. He knew where we were going, and he bounded up the stairs two at a time. He knocked on the door before I reached it and Kazumi’s smiling face greeted us.

  “Oh, Rai! What a pleasant surprise. It’s so nice to see you again. Have you been treating Yotchan kindly?”

  The boy turned to look at me and nodded his head. To be fair, the boy had barely said more than two sentences to me since he’d last seen Kazumi.

  “Quickly, inside. I bet you’re hungry. You want something to eat?”

  The boy nodded and Kazumi ushered him inside. I followed.

  “And to what
do I owe this pleasure?” She turned to me this time. The boy ran and picked a seat by the bar, climbing up and putting his hands together in anticipation. Kazumi did make the best karaage I’d ever tasted, there was no denying that. I sat down next to the boy and she poured me a drink. Lemonade. I smiled.

  “Do you believe in the supernatural?”

  She raised her eyebrows, and a smile tugged at her lips. She wasn’t expecting that. “The supernatural? Like, ghosts and spirits?”

  I nodded and took a sip of the drink. She presented the boy with a smaller cup of lemonade and some paper and pencils.

  “I can’t say I’ve ever really thought about it before, but I guess not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why? Have you been seeing ghosts?”

  “Maybe.”

  She laughed at my unexpected answer. The sound sent tingles throughout my skin.

  “I see. And where have you been seeing these ghosts?”

  I looked down at the boy. “Around.”

  “Around,” she repeated, as though tasting the words. She started up the fryer and threw pieces of chicken into her special mix of panko bread crumbs. The blend of spices she used were exquisite. It was worth coming all this way into Rakucho just for those. “And you’re worried?”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  She shrugged and threw pieces into the bubbling oil as they were ready.

  “Has this spirit been threatening you?”

  This time I laughed before I could stop myself. She turned to look at me, eyebrows raised.

  “Sorry. I just mean, aren’t they all threatening?”

  She blinked a few times before returning to her chicken. “You’re the one who sees spirits, Yotchan, not me.”

  I took another drink and silence filled the bar. The oil crackled as crumbed chicken sizzled inside, and the boy’s pencils moved rapidly over the paper before him.

  “I don’t really see them,” I muttered. “I just… know they’re there.”

  Kazumi nodded but said nothing.

  “I think that…”