Louis and Jamie woke up, went to school and got checked off in the morning just as Ken had told them to. Just like the previous day, Kaoru waved at Jamie as he walked to his seat. He gave her a slight tip of the hand back before sitting down, turning his back to her.
Kaoru let out a sigh as she layed her head down on her desk. Yumi, looked at her friend from behind the screen of her phone.
"Fuck girl, just ask him out already!".
Kaoru lifted her head up off her desk. "That's it!", she said triumphantly. I'm doing it today.
The bell ran and the students all departed for their first class of the day, except for Louis and Jamie, who casually strolled out the front gate of Makoshi High.
Ameyeko Market was busy as usual. The narrow street market had once been a thriving black market in the aftermath of WW2, where you could buy all sorts of prohibited items. These days it was a purely above ground affair. Store owners yelled out at Jamie and Louis as they walked down the lane way, attempting to sell them various street food, clothing and random items. It was one of the only places in Tokyo where haggling over the price was still common practice.
“This place is fucking busy man. It reminds me of bali", muttered Jamie, “Where's this arcade where meeting them at again?”.
“should be just up here on the right", Louis replied.
Sure enough in just a few steps, the chaotic storefront of the arcade came into view. As the twins got closer to the entrance, the carnival like music that blared from inside grew louder and louder.
They walked through the front doors and found themselves overwhelmed by the bright lights, the blaring music, and artwork of famous anime and manga characters that decorated the walls.
Louis stared around in amazement. “Man, this is a whole other level to what we have back home", he exclaimed.
The brothers set off to find the Hitokiri crew in the maze of arcade games. After no sign of them on the bottom two floors, they found themselves reaching the top of the stairs and stepping out onto the third and final floor of the building.
“Oooooooooorrrrrraaaaaaahhhhhhh!”. A primal, guttural scream echoed throughout the third floor. No more than a second later, Ginji came into view, running full pelt straight for a vending machine. He leapt into the air, twisting his body and crashing into the vending machine with a picture perfect drop kick.
The machine rattled around, and the delinquent hopped to his feet reaching his hand into the drink dispensary area. “shit, still nothing!”, he yelled.
Louis and Jamie looked on at the scene in amazement as a short staff member nervously walked up to Ginji and tapped him on the shoulder.
“What do ya want?”, Ginji yelled as he spun around. “
Ssss, sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Yyyy, yy, you can't damage the store's property like that", the staff member clumsily spat out through his chattering teeth.
“WHAT!?”, screamed Ginji. “How dare you! I wouldn't even have to hit this stupid machine if it hadn't stolen 140 yen from me when I tried to buy a coffee”.
“I.... I'm sorry sir, but that doesn't excuse your behaviour”.
Ginji grabbed the arcade employee by the collar of his shirt, pulling him in towards him until their noses almost touched. “Now you listen to me. This is a problem that your dodgy machine has caused, so what are you going to do about it?”, he said.
A few beads of sweat began to roll down the employees face. “Well, I guess I.... I.. I could...”, he managed to sputter out.
“Yes, go on, you could?”, Ginji replied.
“I guess I could reimburse you the 140 yen and give you a free coffee?”.
“That’s sounding better", replied Ginji, "Anything else?, some free credit for games maybe for the inconvenience?”.
The arcade employee nodded “3,000 yen of credit on your card, how does that sound?”.
“Perfect!”, Ginji replied.
The surgical mask sporting Hitokiri member dropped the employee to the ground, who quickly hurried off to take care of the compensation. Ginji turned to notice Louis and Jamie, standing at the top of the stairs.
“Oh, hey you two, come on the others are over here".
Louis and Jamie exchanged a glance than burst out into laughter before they followed Ginji as he led them through the arcade.
Ginji led them to a row of racing games, where they found Ken, Hiroshi and Riku, playing a street racing game, where you raced modded cars through the streets of Japan. Riku slammed his fists on the steering wheel as he jumped out of the seat.
“Damnit Ken, I almost had you this time!”, he yelled
“Haha, no one’s as good as me” Ken boasted, with a huge grin on his face.
“The twins are here”, Ginji said motioning towards Jamie and Louis.
“Ah, you made it!” Ken said, “either of you fancy a race?”.
“Don’t do it, Hiroshi said as he climbed out from his seat, he smokes every one!”.
“I’ll race ya!“I’m not a bad driver! Used to be able to drift my mate’s S15 a bit”, Jamie proudly exclaimed as he stepped forward to accept the challenge.
“Hardly fucking intentionally though”, Louis said as he laughed at his brother.
“Alright!”, said Ken. Show me what you’ve got!.
Jamie sat down in the seat of the game cabinet. “Prepare to tatse defeat”, he said smugly.
A few minutes later and all sense of pride and smugness had completely vanished from Jamie. “Fuck of man! You must have cheated or something. Did you hack this game?”, He yelled at Ken.
The shaved headed delinquent laughed as he stood up from the game. “I’ve been playing these games for as long as I can remember. Practice some more and then race me again hey?”.
Jamie grunted as he climbed out of his seat.
“Anyway let’s get out of here”, Ken said. “Let’s go have a look around the shops. I wanted to get a new shirt”.
The president of Hitokiri led the rest of the guys through the third floor and to the flight of stairs. Just as they were about to descend, the arcade employee came scurrying up to Ginji, with a can of coffee and Ginji’s game card in his hands.
“Here you go sir, sorry about the inconvenience”, he said as he handed the items to the delinquent with a bow.
Ginji snatched them from his hands.”Don’t let this happen again!”.
The employee nodded, before he nervously hurried off.
The crew walked through the market, stopping at various clothing stores along the way so Ken could try and find a shirt. He wasn’t having much luck, and the crew stopped at a small sweet store where fresh mochi was being cooked in between stores.
“You guys had mochi before?”, Ken asked Louis and Jamie.
They both shook their heads.
“No”, Louis replied. “What is it exactly”.
“Just try it”, Ken said, before turning to the shopkeeper. “Can I get some of the green tea mochi thanks”, he said.
The group left the store with a bag of green tea mochi and Ken handed one each to the brothers. They each took their first bite of the Japanese sweet. Louis was surprised by the taste, it was a lot doughier and chewier than he expected, but he liked it.
“It’s pretty good!”, Louis exclaimed.
Jamie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s pretty nice!”, he said. “I usually don’t go for sweet stuff, but this is good”.
“Hey are Shohei and Taka gonna join us today?”, asked Louis.
“Nah, they both have work”, Ken replied.
Hiroshi spoke up, “Yeah, Shohei works in a warehouse, and Taka, wellllll…..”.
“He works at a host club”, said Riku.
“What the fucks a host club?” Asked Jamie.
“It’s a type of club that chicks go to. All the staff are guys, called hosts, and they pour the girls drinks and talk to them and stuff. Of course Taka’s not eighteen yet, so he’s an apprentice there. I think he mainly just washes dishes and shit like that at the moment”, Riku replied.
“So he’s a Gigolo?”, Jamie asked.
The guys all laughed.
“Well, not really Hiroshi said”, You’d have to see for yourself to get it”.
Ken led the guys further down the road. “There’s a good place up here, I should have just came here first he said”.
The group came to a small street wear store and Ken led them inside. The walls of the store displayed various types of jackets; bombers, denim, flight jackets, you name it. Ken disappeared towards the shirt section at the back, looking through the various selection.
Jamie and Louis started to browse the store with the other guys. They walked past the racks of clothes coming to a section with Sukujan jackets, the famous Japanese bomber jackets that feature embroidery, typically of Japanese iconography on them.
“Hey, you guys should get a Sukujan now you’re in Japan”, Riku said excitedly. He picked a black and silver one up from a rack and chucked it to Louis. “Come on, try it on”.
Louis pulled the jacket over his torso.
“Fuck yeah, looks sick!, said Riku.
“Yeah, it does actually suit ya”, Ginji agreed.
Hiroshi stood leaning up against the wall. “Hey don’t you guys think he looks a bit like that guy from that 90s delinquent manga. Fuck what was it called again?”.
“Hey, now you mention it, he kinda does”, replied Riku.
Louis looked at the price tag. “13,000 yen?, Oh fuck it, why not!”.
“That’s the spirit!”, Riku said, slapping the brown haired Aussie on the back.
The guys spent a few more hours hanging out around Ameyoko Market. Riku got into an argument with a guy who was trying to sell him fish and Ginji hilariously tried and failed to hit on some girls. It was now late afternoon, and the guys decided to head home.
“Well, I’m parked off this way”, said Ken as the crew walked out of a convenience store. I’ll catch you guys later alright?”
The guys all said goodbye to the Hitokiri president, before his disappeared down the road.
“Which way are you two”, Hiroshi asked as he lit up a smoke.
“Down this way”, Louis said, motioning behind him with his head.
“Us too”, replied Hiroshi “we’ll walk with ya for a way”.
The five of them set off down the street, turning into a walkway that led under a train line. As they entered the walkway, they could see that a group of 10 delinquents were hanging out under the underpass, smoking and chatting with each other, completely blocking the path. As they got closer, the delinquents didn’t budge.
“Move out of the fucking way” Ginji yelled from behind his face mask.
The biggest delinquent from the group of 10 stepped forward, getting up close to Ginji. “What if we don’t fucking want to?” He barked.
The other delinquents began to rally around what seemed to be their leader, posturing and trying to intimidate the Hitokiri guys.
“Then I’ll fucking make you”, Ginji shouted back.
The delinquent shoved Ginji. He stumbled back a little bit, hitting into Hiroshi, causing his cigarette to fall out of his mouth. Hiroshi’s face soured. He stared the delinquent leader dead in the eyes.
“No one. I repat, fucking no one, makes me waste a good cigarette!”. He brushed a hand through his slicked back black hair. “Leave this piece of shit to me Ginji!”.
THWACK! Hiroshi sent a fist slamming into the big delinquent’s face, catching him off guard. He followed it up with a kick to the guy’s stomach, sending him stumbling backwards towards the brick wall.
“Let’s fucking do this!”, Ginji screamed as he began to charge towards the rest of the delinquent gang.
He leapt into the air and drop kicked the closest opponent to him, just as he’d done to the vending machine in the arcade.
“How the fuck did this guy pull that off in a fight?”, Jamie thought to himself, as he jumped into the brawl, sending a side kick crashing into the ribs of one of the delinquents.
Louis and Riku looked at each other and shrugged, before they too jumped into the fray.
The scene was absolute chaos. Louis shuffled from side to side, dodging punches from a couple of the delinquents. One of them stumbled forwards after missing a punch and Louis sent his elbow smashing into his face, then finished him off with a round house kick to the face that sent him sprawling to the ground. Riku spear tackled one of the opponents to the ground and drove some punches into his face until he couldn’t get back up.
Jamie bounced one of the delinquent’s heads off of a table that was sitting outside a cafe just out of the underpass. Miraculously he stayed on his feet.
“Not gonna go down that easy hey? Alright then!”, Jamie yelled before picking the guy up and body-slamming him through the table. Shards of debris flied everywhere, and as the dust settled from the impact, it was clear the fight was over.
The Hitokiri guys stood victorious, and they each turned to Hiroshi, who was standing over the biggest delinquent, who was now slumped up against the wall. Hiroshi had repeatedly driven his knee into the boy’s face, and blood was running from his nose and mouth. He spat a ball of saliva that landed just next to the delinquent’s head.
“Don’t fuck with Hitokiri!”, He growled.
Hiroshi slicked his hair back again, then let up another smoke. “Come on guys, let’s get out of here”, he said as he walked past the fallen bodies of the delinquent gang”.
“Woooo, that was a fun little scrap there”, Jamie said as the group reached an intersection.
“Man, you two can really go!”, said Ginji as he patted the twins on their shoulders.
“Heh, that was nothing”, Jamie said proudly, “Anyway we’re off this way, catch you guys later”.
The twins said their goodbyes to the other three and headed off.
Jamie and Louis were just about to cross a road, heading out of the Ueno shopping district, when a voice called from behind them.
“Jamie!”.
Jamie spun around to see Kaoru smiling and walking towards him.
“You go ahead bro”, He said, to Louis. “I’ll meet you back at home”.
“Be cool bro”, Louis said with a wink before he crossed the road.
“I didn’t see you all day after home room”, Kaoru said as she reached Jamie. “Where were you?”.
“Oh, Louis and I just had some things to ta take care of”, Jamie replied.
“Oh, Is everything okay?”, she asked.
“Yeah, it’s all good”, He replied, ‘So what’s up?”.
Kaoru suddenly became nervous and started to blush a bit. She brushed a strand of her pastel purple hair away from her eyes.
“Ummm, well Jamie, uh, you see…. I was wondering, if umm, if umm….”
She took a deep breath.
“Would you like to go to the movies with this weekend?”.
Jamie looked at her. She was definitely a cute girl and he’d sort of been hoping that after they hit it off in history class, something might come of it.
Kaoru stared at him eagerly waiting for answer.
“Sure!”, he said. “I’d love too!”.
