Michio slammed open the sliding door and stormed into his house. "Mother, Father, I'm home!" He shouted. The emptiness of the household remained, and the silence was broken only by a dripping faucet. He made a noise, "Hmph" as he slammed his school bag into the nearest wall and flopped down onto the floor that was covered with strewn-about blankets and thin mattresses. The eighteen year old lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, hastily unbuckling his uniform. It had been another one of those days. Some asshole had brought up his parents. Of course he had knocked the stupid foreigner's lights out. Respect for the dead, ever heard of it? His two front teeth were payment for his lack of culture. This was the student's final warning though. One more discretion and he was out of his cushy private American school. He couldn't afford another outburst, but he hoped that this last display at least demonstrated his message loud and clear.
He wasn't hungry. He was just tired. A tiredness that seemed to never go away, that penetrated every last muscle. But he couldn't sleep. He had homework. An exam coming up. If he was to inherit his family business and make his parents proud, his classes needed to be aced. There was no choice. It was clear which path he was on, and it was the right one. For the honour of his Father and Mother, for the continuation of their names. He wouldn't let them die with him and their efforts. With great exertion he managed to pull himself to his school bag and then to the Japanese style table in the middle of the living room, hauling out his books. He worked until he could work no longer, never having a bite to eat or a drop to drink. His head slamming onto his books signaled that he needed to sleep. He didn't have much choice, really. He'd die if he didn't get at least three hours of sleep. That's what his parents had said. Of course six hours was ideal, but they had brought him up to make the best decision for the circumstances. Four and a half hours it is.
It was 2:13 am according to the display of the alarm clock, and the crescent moon was beginning to wane. Michio remained asleep on his books. A gentle scraping echoed in the house as the unlocked sliding door glided open. A shadow blocked the moon's light from spilling into the entryway. The door slid shut once again. A ruffling of fabric meant that something had now occupied the miscellaneous mattresses and blankets spread on the floor.
An electronic scream woke the student. The clock read 6:00 am. Sleep hadn't been good for him. Nightmares again. Horrific dreams of the blood, the screaming and of course a shadowed face. He looked to the books now stained with drool. Damn, he had to redo this section. Screw the afternoon therapy session, he didn't have time for that now. He brought himself to his feet and headed to his bedroom, firing up the coffee machine on his desk. The smell made him gag, but it was a necessary evil. At a whiff of the coffee grinds he could also smell something else. It stank, like some sort of smoke. It was probably the machine dying on him. He'd have to ask his Aunt and Uncle for further allowance to buy a new one. As he waited amongst the assorted whirrz, clicks and spurts, he glanced idly at the blurry image taped to his wall, a small photo from a security camera. It depicted a man walking the night streets of his neighborhood, clothed in a shaggy, bloodied hoody and carrying a katana on his back. The man looked directly into the camera, revealing his blurry face. This was definitely the man that killed his parents. When he had the money, he'd hire someone to hunt down and kill this man as cruelly as possible, he thought to himself.
A muffled ding and burst of steam signaled that his coffee was ready. Grabbing the mug by the handle, he slowly shuffled into the living room once again, heading towards the kitchen. As he turned the corner, however, he stopped in his tracks, surprised by what he saw on the ground. There was some scraggly white guy just lying brazenly on his floor, arms and legs splayed in random directions, snoring ever so softly. He resisted the urge to drop the mug where he stood and yell, simply because of what he saw under one of the three layers of dirty hoods that he was wearing. That face. That bearded appearance was the face of his parents' killer.
For what seemed like an eternity, Michio just stood in his place, assessing his situation. His coffee had stopped steaming long ago and he was already late for school, but none of that mattered. His next move would define the rest of his life. He instantly regretted his lack of sleep, however, as he needed his brain to be at full capacity at this very moment, but as his parents had said: "work with what you have, not what you wish you had."
The man was lying on the mattresses, obviously sound asleep. The katana from the photo was right beside him, mostly hidden by his filthy garb. There was a muggy sports duffel-bag two meters from him, containing a potential host of items since its zipper was straining to keep closed. Perhaps it held bombs, or money, or guns and other weapons.
Michio decided on his plan of action. He had no weapons, so he needed to get the katana away from the man. He could hold him at sword-point until he got to the duffel, neutralising any threat, and if it held weapons he would use them to kill the intruder in cold blood. If not, he would call the police, who were 2 minutes away, and get his revenge through some back-channel contacts of his parents, killing the villain in his own cell.
Tentatively mapping his first step, still holding the coffee mug, he lifted his right leg. The mattresses would muffle his sound, as long as he stepped slowly. The boy placed his foot successfully without a sound. The man didn't even twitch. This was good, he affirmed to himself. Only five more steps until he reached his target. He lifted his left leg from behind, balancing on his right. He had this. He was going to do it. Steadily he brought his leg forward. Steady. Steady... His toe scraped the fabric of a futon.
In an instant the killer jumped to his feet, layers of swirling garments giving him the impression of a bloodthirsty demon. Before Michio could even react, not even securing his left-hand footing yet, the murderer had come face to face with him, vile breath catching him off guard. The bloody butcher grabbed the boy's head, his one hand wrapping around his skull, sword hilt digging into his gut. It was over, Michio realised. He was dead.
Rice.
Michio sat on a cushion in front of his Japanese-style table, a bowl of hot rice placed in front of him. What happened?
The damn killer had held him at sword-point, ready to slice his guts open, but instead forced him to make a meal in the rice-cooker. Now his mortal foe sat across from him, crossed-legged with a bowl of rice in front of him as well, sword at the ready, staring him down behind the shadow of his hoods. Michio was still quivering from the shock. What the hell was happening!?
The killer waited and waited, for... something to happen. Michio dared not move. After a lengthy forty seconds of this, the bloodthirsty maniac opposite him made a move, his layers of clothes rustling with him. A sense of dread over came Michio as the killer lifted his arm slowly, yet with an undeniable strength, readying himself to strike. What sort of cruel joke was this, to kill him in front of a meal? The man's arm shot out. Michio closed his eyes reactively. Instead of intense the pain that he was expecting, however, he felt the soft, moist cushioning of a pile of rice. The killer had dumped Michio's head into his own meal. When the confused boy refused to budge, his face was pushed in even further and rubbed into it. What the hell!? He was begining to become angry at this humiliation. The youth growled in frustration, muffled as rice was pushed into his mouth. It stuck in his throat like a wad of moist slime.
"THAT'S GODDAMN ENOUGH!" raged Michio in Japanese, food spewing from his mouth all over the table. Stunned, he realised his actions. Surely he was dead this time. He dared to look at the killer's face, but he hadn't flinched, staring at him with the same, dirt-faced look. After seconds of tense glaring, Michio smirked nervously. This couldn't have been the killer that dispatched of his parents mercilessly. It was probably just some hobo who shanked him and pried the sword off of the dead body. The boy wasn't in any danger. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, he felt a pressure from behind his head. He had been grabbed! When did that happen? In a split second, a bowl of rice met his face once again. There's no way, thought the student. Nothing but a killer could be this sharp, and he obviously wanted him to eat. Out of pure fear, Michio obeyed, lapping up mouthfuls of the stuff until the bowl was emptied. He replaced the bowl on the tabletop sullenly. Perhaps this was his last meal, the murderer wishing to clear his conscience for killing a kid who had only just become a man.
But the killer was not done. Michio flinched as the towering man got to his feet, and at standing, throw his head back and funnel the rice into his mouth and down his throat. He gulped the white goo down like a man wandering the desert who had finally found water. After he emptied the small bowl, rice grains spotting his unshaven face, he calmly strode up to the teenager, forcefully clenching at his collar, pulling to signal him to stand. Michio obeyed. He was way too tired and sleep-deprived to resist anymore. The entire bowl of rice that he just scarfed down sat heavily in his stomach. Thoughtlessly he let himself be led by the killer. He didn't care where he went for his execution. Just as Michio began to shut his eyes, falling asleep on his feet, he suddenly noticed that he was on his back, and it felt like he was slowly falling. He was warm. He opened his eyes with effort. What? He was in his room! More precisely, he was lying in his bed, blankets wrapped around him. Sleep had taken hold of him before he could even realise it. Was he really that exhausted? He had forgotten what a spring-loaded mattress had felt like. He had slept on the floor mattresses in the living room for so long now deeming them the more convenient and productive of the two. He searched the room for his captor. His eyes rested on the man sitting on his work desk, supporting himself with his sheathed sword, head hanging loosely. He was sleeping as well? Michio was too confused to understand what the hell this guy wanted, but was honestly too tired to care. He let sleep take him, for the first time voluntarily.
Michio woke the next day to the sound of birds chirping outside the window. It had only been early afternoon when he found himself in his bed the day before, how had he slept all the way to the next morning!? The kid had never slept for this long before in his life, always rising early for studies and exercise. The groggy teenager glanced at the analog clock above his desk. Ten in the morning. Michio sighed. Although his sleep felt absolutely divine, he had missed two days of school now. No one would dare bring him up on it of course, him being the bearer of a rich and powerful name, but how the hell was he going to pass the exam tomorrow? As he looked to his desk he saw the dirt stains of the killer who had slept there sitting up-right. Killer? Was that really correct? All the guy had done was let him eat and sleep, not touching him with his sword once during either. Michio cautiously crept out from under the sheets, still in the school clothes from the day before last. As he tip-toed around the house he found no trace of his unwanted guest, only the spread of dirt stains and the empty bowls. "Hmph," he smirked to himself. Maybe he wasn't that bad of a...
As he looked to the walls of his house, the imagery and memories of his parents' blood smeared over it like paint on a canvas came back to him. Their intestines spilled on the floor, their horrified wide-eyed expressions of death, the metallic smell of fresh life-sap spilled. He remembered again. That same man had stood over their slumped bodies with that same bloodied sword in his grip. Michio clamped his fists so tightly that he thought he would break his own fingers, nails digging into his palms, teeth clenched so tightly that his jaw cramped. His face was scrunched up into a horrific expression of pure, unbound hatred. That fiend had toyed with him. He looked back to his books on the table. He had strayed from the path he was destined to be on. That smug bastard would get what's coming to him once he had the resources that his parents promised him, the power to bring anyone to their knees. The tortured youth looked to his shaking fist, knuckles white with exertion. How funny, that a simple overseas building supply company would give him the means to exact bloody revenge. Screw attendance, he was going to study harder than ever before and ace this damn exam. It was almost the final step to reaching the promised land, the position he deserved.
As Michio sat in the exam hall, he couldn't help but think how the sleep that he had gotten only a few days ago had given so much energy and so much determination to his purpose. His brain had been on full capacity for the entire study duration, and even now his thinking and recollection was clear and precise. The rice that he had been forced to eat had also re-awoken his depressed appetite, and he now ate meals from the convenience store on a regular basis. He locked his doors now, of course, but he couldn't keep the thought out of his mind: when was that insane bastard going to come for him again? His Aunt and Uncle had provided him with their own private security, so he felt safe, able to absorb knowledge in peace.
It was already becoming dark as Michio left the American School campus. Although the exams were in English, he had breezed through it no problem. Geography was his weak point, but he had prepared, and neither the maps nor the complicated terminology proved challenging in the slightest.
The schoolboy opened and closed the hefty, ornate metal gate that enclosed the family compound, surprised that the guards had left it unattended. Hmph, his stingy Aunt and Uncle must have recalled most of them. They always tried to give him as little as possible, claiming that he was some sort of 'spoiled brat'. As though that was the way to speak to their future boss. He needed to give them a small reminder of his their position when he next had the chance. He felt a half-grin creep across his face, but for some reason it didn't feel right. The thought didn't feel like it belonged in his head.
As he strolled to his house, staring at the stars, pondering, he slipped in a small puddle on the driveway, interrupting his idle mullings. He looked down to see what sort of mess he had stepped in when, by the dim light of the moon, he recognised the colour: blood. His senses stood instantly on edge, hearing every sound including his own heartbeat, feeling every change in the wind, smelling the vile stench of death, night vision fully adjusted. The killer was back for him. He needed to get out. Wait, his reason interjected, that's what he was expected to do. The damn maniac was probably waiting at the gate for him, having noticed his arrival from the squealing of metal on metal. His only chance was to get to his contingency plan: A pistol under his bed accompanied by a direct line to emergency private security forces, placed in preparation fort his very possibility. He would catch the bastard off guard.
He crept to the main building with as much stealth as he could muster, using his navy-blue blazer as camouflage and ditching his loafers for noiseless socks. When he got to the house, the front door was thankfully slid open. No sound to be made there. He crept inside, creeping across the cushioned floor. As he crept, his ears pricked at an ominous wheezing from the darkness. He stopped in his tracks, staying dead still. With dread, he craned his neck to his right, where he saw a silhouetted figure in the pitch black It was leaning, in a crouch, on a plain katana that was stabbed into the flooring, glinting in the starlight. An ember glowed in the darkness and the smell of burning a burning sweetness penetrated his nostrils. It was his assassin. Had he predicted his moves? Impossible! No sane kid would... The killer wheezed again. That's it... he was injured, and badly by the sound of it. This was a perfect opportunity! The silenced pistols of his deceased security force had weakened the monster, and it was his duty to finish their work.
Michio stood tall and headed for his bedroom, making sure not to run lest he tripped in the dark on a mattress, a potentially fatal error. But the killer stood up to meet him, with audible agony. The teenager's eyes widened with dread. The guy still had enough in him to eliminate his target. How damn determined was this demon!? Michio picked up his pace, but the figure blocked his path before he knew it. There was no option now; head-on combat was the only way to go. The instant his foe flinched, Michio was ready, and snatched the katana out of the man's hands meeting little resistance, spinning it around in the dimness, plunging it into the man's gut. He felt the unexpected feeling the scrape of flesh and bone on metal through the uncovered hilt. Michio had to shield his eyes as a blinding light suddenly illuminated the room. When he uncovered them, the boy saw a shocking sight. This murderer had not moved to end a life; he had moved to reach for a light switch. He just stood there, hand on the switch, slumping over the metal that impaled him, looking up at Michio with a gaze that spoke neither of fear nor anger. What had just happened? The stunned Michio stood in the shock of the moment as the burly white man put his hand on the youth's shoulder, spinning him around.
"I'm hungry," he groaned in English.
Michio, understanding the words but not their intent, allowed himself to be pushed to the table, where two bowls of rice were waiting. What the hell... was going on? His head was buckling under the pressure of so many things that made no sense.. He was supposed to have just mortally wounded his arch enemy, his parents' killer; yet he was sat down at a dinner table to have a rice meal again. The bloodied man, now unhooded to reveal his unruly, oily brown hair, shook uncontrollably as he tried to pick up and maneuver his chopsticks. He managed, with great trial, to get a single spoonful into his mouth before wretching violently, spewing blood onto the meal. This jolted Michio back to his senses. The monster was still alive. He was just crazy. The frenzied teenager snapped up to his knees, frantically crawling to his target, trembling as much and as uncontrollably as him. Reaching the man, he clasped the hilt, still impaled in his torso, trying to wrench it free for another, this time fatal, stab; but his hands just were not listening to him. His shaking was halted when he found himself in the warm arms of his hated objective. The man nursed him, sword hilt pressing against Michio's side. He broke away from the embrace, trying to painfully rasp more words into being.
"I'm tired."
At the mention of this, he fell to his back from kneeling, sword sliding back out of his body. Michio remained kneeling, stunned. He didn't know what to do anymore. He couldn't tell what was needed from him. Everything he knew was just turned upside down. With the man's dying breath, gasping for air in gurgled intervals, strained English words formed.
"When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes." The dying man gasped desperately for as much air as he could get. "Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean."
With this the man's eyelids drooped, his face calmed from its agonised expression, and a killer's eyes became dull.
For days Michio lay naked under the protection of his blanket, never sleeping, never eating, only getting to his feet to do his ablutions in a corner. He had become a broken wisp of a boy. After days of agonising the shock worked itself out of his system, and he trudged back into the living room where a decaying corpse rotted in silence. He had gotten used to the smell which now lurked in every corner of the house. The object of his interest was the corpse's duffel bag. In it he found a slew of papers, and among it two or three hastily rolled blunts. So that was the smoky smell that he had noticed, on the first day that the man invaded his house. He studiously read through all of the papers in the corner, wrapped in his blanket. Among them he found police reports, newspaper articles, personal logs and a diary. For hours Michio read them all, over and over again, pushing his brain to the very limit in order to finally understand what had happened to the world around him and why.
Two best friends sat in a park one evening, eating hotdogs and blazing leisurely. The two Americans laughed, joked and generally had the time of their lives in each other's company. This was a semi-regular occasion, and the two buds had been the best of mates since their innocent days in primary school. While minding their own business and toking up a storm, they were approached by a tanned man dressed in tropical summer clothes. He had offered them the deal of a lifetime, something they always thought about but never had the money to follow up: a bag of blue, powdered crystals, costing exactly as much money as they had on them. Of course they took the offer, but at the moment of truth one of them hesitated, dreading the consequences. The other shrugged off his concerns, proceeding with his actions.
Many months later, the one friend crawled into the apartment of the other, begging and pleading for money. He had wasted away, face filled with unsightly scabs and his teeth either missing, rotting or yellow.
Swearing vengeance, the unaffected student tracked down the source of the people who had ruined his closest companion's life. He found a construction site, with supposedly nothing to show for it, but after weeks of digging around he uncovered the motherload: some sort of deal had been cut with the supplier of the construction site, bags of substance hidden amongst bricks and cement.
After devoutly tracing the connections within connections, the shell companies within shell companies, he found the end of the breadcrumb trail: another construction supply company that was based in America, run from Japan.
Spending all of his life savings, he traveled to Japan, purchased the only weapon that he could afford, and slaughtered the culprits. He had finally done it. After his years long journey of revenge, silence and physical and mental steeling, he had avenged the friend that he no longer knew. All of that victorious ebbed away coldly, however, when he saw the face of a seventeen year old kid witnessing the gruesome death of his beloved parents. Inside, he was crushed.
He ran from the police, eventually losing their tailing, and for a time hid out in solitude, reflecting deeply on his actions. His life was empty, and his purpose felt like an regret-filled hole in his chest. He did, however, finally find some sort of peace with himself, the person that he now hated most in the world, even more than the people who ruined his friend's life. In a moment of clarity he decided on a course of action. He stalked the kid, watching over him silently, both protecting and observing him. He learned his motives, his fears and most importantly, the crippling depression that the student found himself in following the demise of his guardians. He also learned, through research and first-hand encounters, of a plot that the kid's relatives were busy putting into place. While the young heir struggled to be worthy of inheritance, they planned to eliminate him from the picture inconspicuously, making them a vital and wealthy component of a vast network of drug empires. The teenager was inexperienced and knew nothing of his parents' doings. He wouldn't be able to take on the mantle at his young age, or so they thought. After watching the child, however, the stalker knew that he was ruthless, wily and sharp. He would have become the greatest druglord to ever walk the streets of Japan, he mused. After even more endless days of logged hesitation and deliberation, the paper trail ended.
Michio knew all.
Michio looked to the body of a man he now suddenly found himself respecting, lasts words ringing in his mind. He now understood his motives, the way that he lived his life, the way that he was able to fill the void inside of him. He simply did what he wanted in the end, doing only what he felt, in his truest heart of hearts, was right. When he was hungry, he ate. When he was sorrowful he cried, when he regretted he put all his being into rectifying it. He did what he was truly meant to do, living from moment to moment, not listening to the screams of others, only his own whisperings. Where people, following the paths of others that they thought their own, tried to stop his one true purpose, he poured his entire being into the creation of his dreams as a reality.
Michio got to his feet shakily, shuffled to his kitchen and made himself a bowl of rice, drizzling soy sauce on top. Afterwards he gave the stinking body as best of a burial that he could, throwing out the blood-soaked flooring and scrubbing his house clean. Sleep then took him for two consecutive sunrises and sunsets. After waking from his cathartic slumber, he mounted a cleaned, sheathed and simple sword on his back, gathered what money he had, and left his home, swearing to his parents that he'd fulfill his destiny.
I may have made it a bit too long, Substituting substance in lieu of allowing myself to get engrossed in a mediocre story. My bad.
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