Jamie and Louis left a little earlier the next morning for school, giving themselves a bit more time in the off chance they got lost again. “Bye mum, have a good day”, they called out behind as they closed the apartment door behind them.

Their mum had been suspicious of the bruises on Louis’ face, but he did his best to play it off, claiming that he had clumsily fallen down the stairs whilst hurrying between classes. Still, their mum was no idiot, they’d been running around with gangs and getting into trouble for years back in Perth, so she probably wasn’t buying their cover story.

The twins got to their home room on time this morning. Kaoru gave Jamie a nervous wave as he walked towards his seat, and he gave her a nod in return. She blushed and quickly shot her gaze down towards her desk.

“So much for not liking the gaijin”, Yumi giggled.

“Shut up” Kaoru said, giving her friend a slight nudge.

“So are you gonna ask him to hang out or something?” Yumi asked.

“I dunno, it was hard enough just to muster up the confidence to ask him to be my partner yesterday”, Kaoru replied.

“You gotta strike whilst the iron’s hot,. You don’t wanna get stuck in the friend zone”, Yumi teased. Kaoru turned her gaze back towards Jamie, thinking about what she should do.

Throughout the day, Louis and Jamie noticed that the students all seemed to be acting different around them. It seemed that word of what Jamie had done to Mura the previous day at lunch had spread. People were being far more polite and respectful to them, but at the same time cautiously maintaining their distance.

 

---

 

The bell for the end of the day ran and the brothers met up at the front gate, setting off to try and find the address they had been given the previous day in the alleyway.

“You know what, I just realised that I didn’t see that big cunt Mura all day”, noted Jamie, as he and Louis walked down a side street, following the directions from Louis’ phone. “Maybe I scared him off” he mused with a laugh.

Louis looked down at his phone. “Alright, we need to take a right in a couple of streets, and the place should be down there”.

“Just a minute!” yelled Jamie.

Louis looked up from his phone only to see his brother running towards a vending machine. “Just wanna grab a tea”, He yelled out over his shoulder.

“Fucking hell bro, you drink that stuff like it’s water” Louis shouted back as he walked towards his brother, who was eagerly collecting his drink from the machine.

“The tea here’s so good though”, Jamie said. “Have you tried this Jasmine green tea?. Man they didn’t make it like this back home. Honestly vending machine’s everywhere is one of my favourite things about this country”.

“Give us a sip then”, Louis said reaching out his hand. Jamie handed his brother the bottle and Louis took a small mouthful. “Eh, it’s alright”.

“Alright?!”, shouted Jamie, almost stunned that his brother didn’t profess his undying love for the tea right then and there.

“Yeah, green tea’s just not really my thing”, Louis said. “Anyway, let’s go”.

The two of them continued down the road, eventually turning right and finding themselves in a small backstreet, that really looked more like an alleyway, running behind two rows of houses. As they made their way further down the tight road, the sound of Japanese rock music came into earshot, slowly growing louder and louder

The brothers stopped in front of a garage door that was about three quarters closed. The music was almost ear piercingly loud, clearly coming from inside the garage. Louis had to lean in close to his brother just to be heard above the music.

“I think this is the place”, he said.

Jamie looked at garage door, then looked back to his brother and nodded.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Jamie slammed his fist on the garage door. A few seconds later, and the music turned down and some shuffling around could be heard inside. The door rolled up and Jamie and Louis were greeted by Hiroshi.

“Heh, you guys actually showed up. Well, come in then”. Hiroshi stood to the side, waving the twins through the garage door.

The garage was fairly small, and it didn’t help that almost half of it was taken up by a modded Toyota GT86, complete with aftermarket wheels, body kit, spoiler, the works. Up the back of the garage hung a banner, bearing an emblem of two crossed kunai and some Kanji that neither Jamie nor Louis were able to read.

“Nice 86”, said Jamie as the twins walked further into the garage.

“Thanks, I’m just finishing up tuning her a bit now”, replied a voice.

The twins turned their attention to the car. They hadn’t noticed before, but the bonnet was open and someone had their head in the engine bay, tinkering around with the engine. The person stood up, revealing their face from behind the bonnet. It was Ken.

“Got a few bruises there don’t you Ken, what happened? One of those, what do you guys call em again, Gaijin’s do that to you?” Jamie said cheekily.

Ken chuckled at the jab ash he slammed the bonnet closed.

“Where’d you get the money for all that” Asked Louis, gesturing at the car.

“My cousin runs a garage” said Ken. “He found the car through a friend so I got it for dirt cheap, and he supplies all the aftermarket parts to me for next to nothing. Anyway, let me introduce you to the guys”, he said as the wiped his hands off with a rag then hung it from his back pocket.

“You’ve already met Hiroshi there” The shaved headed delinquent said, gesturing over to Hiroshi, who was once again in the middle of lighting up a smoke. “And you met these two yesterday also” he said, pointing to Ginji and Riku. “The one with the mask is Ginji, and the one with the bandana is Riku. He needs it to keep those luscious locks off his face.”

Riku flipped Ken the finger as he laughed at his own joke. He continued, “Shohei and Taka are inside, and that’s everyone”.

“So what, there’s six people in your crew?” Asked jamie confused.

Ken nodded, “yep, that’s all of us”.

“What the fuck kind of gang has only six people in it?” Shouted Jamie.

“See boys, this is the kind of shit you have to deal with when you bring Gaijin’s into the fold”.

The whole group in the garage turned to see a guy, his hair died blonde with plenty of product in it, standing in the door way that lead into the house. He had multiple piercings in each ear and sported a decent amount of tattoos on his arms.

“How the hell’s he getting tattooed if he’s still a high schooler?”, Louis thought to himself.

“So you decided to join us hey Shohei?”, Hiroshi said in between another puff of his cig.

Shohei walked towards Jamie eyeing him down, stopping within a metre of him.

“After the war that the seventh gen went through just to keep that banner flying” He pointed towards the banner hanging at the back of the garage, ‘We’re fucking lucky that there’s even six of us able to call ourselves members of Hitokiri”.

Louis got in between Jamie and Shohei, “He didn’t mean anything by it, he was just making a joke. Aussie humour might not translate that well in Japan, right bro?”.

Jamie gritted his teeth and nodded. “Yeah, I was just making a joke, meant no disrespect.

“Fucking hell Shohei, you trying to scare off the new guys already?”. The voice came from another guy as he walked through the doorway into the garage. He was slim, skinnier than anyone else in the room, and he sported an undercut with some red died into his black hair. He kind of had the pretty boy look about him, you could tell that he was probably popular with the ladies.

“Don’t get involved Taka” Shohei grunted.

Taka ignored him walking straight up to Jamie and Louis and extending out his hand. “What’s up? I’m Takaya, but everyone calls me Taka”.

Jamie and Louis each shook his hand. Taka continyed. “Hear you guys just got here? Where you from?”

“Perth, Western Australia”, replied Louis.

“Australia hey, did you guys have a pet kangaroo?”.

“Sure mate, I did fucking boxing training with him everyday” Jamie snappily replied.

The whole garage burst out laughing. “Well, looks like you’ve met everyone then” Ken said. “But what are your names again?”. At that point, the brothers realised that after all these introductions no one in the garage knew their names.

“I’m Louis and this is Jamie”, Louis said, addressing the room.

“Cool, we’ll now we’ve got that out of the way, we were thinking of going for a cruise down to the park. You guys wanna come with?”.

Jamie and Louis looked at each other for a second, then they both shrugged and nodded. “Sure, we’re down”, said Jamie.

“Great”, Ken replied. “You two can come with me in the 86, the others are gonna take Shohei’s van and meet us there, sorry for whoever has to sit in the backseat, it’s a bit tight.

 

---

 

Louis squirmed around in the backseat of Ken’s car, desperately trying to get himself comfortable and position his knees so they weren’t pressed against the front passenger seat.

“You comfortable back there bro?” Jamie laughed.

“Fuck this, how are you supposed to fit in here if your any taller than like 5’4” Louis said, unimpressed.

Ken let out a laugh. “Don’t worry, the park’s not much further”.

“So that banner hanging in your garage, is that like the Hitokiri logo or something?, Neither of us can read the Kanji”, Jamie said.

“Yep that’s our emblem”, said Ken. “Been the same for all eight generations of the gang”.

“What exactly does Hitokiri mean?”, asked Louis.

“In English, it roughly transalate to assassin”, replied Ken.

“So you boys have all killed someone then?”, Jamie asked sarcastically.

Ken shot him a look and chuckled “No, I can’t say that we have, and nor do we plan to, But I’m not sure I can say the same for some of the older generations.”

“So are you guys one of those biker gangs that I’ve heard about and seen in manga?”, Louis asked. “What do they call em again? Bosozuku?”.

“I mean, people still use the term Bosozuku yeah, but we don’t ride motorbikes. We don’t use the term ourselves”, Ken replied. “The first gen guys rode bikes, but no one really gets around on bikes anymore”. He patted the steering wheel of his car. “I’m more of a car guy anyway”, he said with a grin.

The sun had almost set by the time Ken’s modded GT86 pulled into the car park at Ueno Park. He locked the car behind him before leading Jamie and Louis down a pathway and into the park.

“Where are we going anyway?”, questioned Jamie.

“Shonibazunoike Bentendo Temple”, replied Ken.

“The fucking what?” Jamie shouted, barely being able to comprehend the name.

Ken chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it is a bit of a mouthful. It’s a pretty popular spot that overlooks a pond, but it empties out at night. It’s a nice spot to just chill and have a drink”.

As the brothers were led through the park, they were shocked and saddened to see the many homeless people sleeping rough in makeshift shelters under the park’s Sakura trees. Ken was quick to notice. “Poor bastards. It’s a side of Tokyo that you don’t exactly see in the tourism ads”, he said.

After walking for a short while, the trio reached a bridge that led out to a little island in the middle of a pond. They crossed the bridge and walked down a narrow path that led to a small, beautiful buddhist temple at the tip of the island. The light around it illuminated it under the night sky, a shining red beacon for the ducks that swam in the pond around it.

The rest of the Hitokiri guys were chilling on the steps of the temple.

“Took your sweet time”, yelled Hiroshi, in between puffs of yet another cigarette.

“You guys get the sake?” Asked Ken as he took a seat.

“Fuck yeah we did”, said Shohei with a smile as he pulled a bunch of bottles of the famous rice wine out of a brown paper bag. “Now I’ve got no cups so we’re just gonna have to share. You fuckers better not have any germs”.

“I don’t know about germs, but Taka might have gonorrhoea or something”, teased Ginji.

The whole group busted out into laughter. “yeah Taka, who you seeing now?”, asked Riku.

“Fuck off you guys”, said Taka, embarassed. “….. Her name’s Risa”.

The guys all laughed again. “That’s Taka for you”, laughed Hiroshi. “Always slaying the puss”.

The group sat on the steps of the temple, under the glistening night sky, telling stories in between taking swigs from the bottles of sake. After a while, Shohei, who was getting a bit tipsy turned his attention to Jamie and Louis.

“Anway Ken, what’s the deal with having these Gaijins come along?! Hitokiri is Japanese only! You know that! The first gen guys were very clear about it!”. He angrily slammed the bottle of sake down on the steps next to him.

Ken turned to his friend, his face not hiding his dissatisfaction with his attitude. “Yeah well that was a long time ago. The time’s have changed. Not many people want to be delinquents anymore. If we stay closed minded, then Hitokiri will ceases to exist all together”.

Shohei spat on the ground in front of him. “I don’t like it! Foreigners can cause trouble!”.

Hiroshi piped up. “These aren’t just any foreigners though Shohei. You know Mura?’.

“Yeah, at Makoshi?”, replied Shohei.

Hiroshi nodded, “Jamie here knocked him out in two hits yesterday”.

Shohei shot a sideways glance at Jamie. “… Eh, that aint that impressive.”.

“And Louis here went toe to toe with Ken yesterday”, said Ginji, before he pulled down his mask to take a swig of sake.

“Heh, I was wondering what those bruises on your face were from”, said Sohei, gesturing towards Ken.

“Besides!”, Ken said as he stood up from the temple steps. He leapt from them, landing on the pavement in front of the temple and standing in front of the group as if he was addressing them. “Who the fuck are you to question the presidents decisions?”.

Shohei muttered something under his breath as he sipped again from the bottle.

“That brings me to the reason why I’ve brought us all here together in the first place”, Ken continued. “Jamie, Louis n know this may seem sudden, but if you two are interested. I want to give you guys a shot as probationary members of Hitokiri”.

Louis and Jamie sat there stunned. The offer to join the gang was pretty sudden, hell just yesterday Louis had been brawling with this guy in a back alley. Louis turned to to his brother. “What do you reckon bro?”.

“Honestly?”, replied Jamie. Louis nodded. “Well, Like I said yesterday, I reckon it could be a bit of fun. So why the fuck not?”. Louis nodded again. “Alright then”, he said.

“Fuck this is weird bro, having me make the decisions”, Jamie said as he laughed.

“Okay!”, said Louis to Ken. “We accept the offer!”.

Ken gave a slight smile before turning to the Hitokiro members. “Now obviously this is a decision that will be voted on by every member. So all those in favour of Louis and Jamie becoming probationary members raise your hand”.

A few moments passed as the group of delinquents muttered between themselves, then slowly, Taka raised his hand. “I reckon we should give em a shot” he said with a smile. This was followed by Hiroshi, then Ginji, and then finally Riku. The only person who didn’t raise his hand was Shohei.

“Well including me that’s five to one.”, said Ken. “ That settles it! Starting today Louis and Jamie will be honorary members of Hitokiri for a period of time that is as of yet to be determined.”

Shohei grunted. “Pftt!, Just remember you two. You’re not members yet! It’s just a trial!”. He took one last swig of sake, then stood up and threw the bottle into the pond. “Well, I’m fucking out of here, if the rest of you guys want a ride home you better come with now”.

The other Hitokiri guys all said their goodbye’s to Ken and the twins before heading off with Shohei.

“Sorry about him”, Ken said to the twins, as Shohei and the others walked of into the distance.

“Pfft, nothing we haven’t dealt with before”, said Jamie.

“You guys want a lift home?” asked Ken.

Louis looked down at his phone. “Nah, actually we’re not too far from our house from here so we’ll be right”.

“Okay cool”, replied Ken. “Hey, me and a couple of the other guys are going to Ameyoko market tomorrow, you guys wanna come with?”.

“Sure!”, replied Louis.

“Cool. Just go to school in the morning and get checked off then meet us there. Makoshi don’t give a shit, so no one’s gonna follow you up or anything”.

“Alright, we’ll see you then”, said Louis. “Catch ya”, Jamie said.

Ken gave a slight wave, as he strolled across the bridge, soon disappearing from sight. The twins finished off the last little bit of sake before heading across the bridge themselves.

“So, a Japanese delinquent gang, this is new” Louis said with a chuckle as the brothers began to head home.