Ryou didn't notice me coming into the room. His eyes were glued to the window, staring at whatever had his attention outside.
"He's been looking outside a lot recently. We leave the curtains open otherwise he spams us with the emergency button," the nurse leaned in to say.
"I'm sorry for the trouble." I bowed, maybe deeper than I should which put the nurse in a difficult spot.
"It's no trouble! If anything, Ryou's been really sweet. Whenever I do my rounds in here, he's always talking about how he couldn't wait to grow up to protect his big sister." Her smile waned a bit, but the muscles drew back to a more staged expression. She suddenly noticed the bruise on my cheek. "Are you alright? Would you like me to check on that?"
I brushed her hand away. "No, please. I'd like some privacy with my brother."
The nurse apologized and shut the door behind me. It wasn't until I took a seat next to Ryou that he finally acknowledged my presence.
"Hey, sis— Wait, you're hurt? What happened?" Ryou brought a hand up to my cheek. It stung. I couldn't even feel his touch. But I didn't want to stop him.
"This is nothing. Just a scuffle at school," I answered.
My brother frowned. He scooted closer to me on the bed, and I did the same of my seat. Only, it wasn't because he wanted to get closer— he flicked my forehead and pouted.
"You won't make any friends if you keep picking fights at school," he scolded.
"Heh. The only friend I need is you." I grinded my fingers into his scalp where he used to have a full head of hair. Not a single strand was left after chemotherapy. And even then, he still wasn't getting better. "So what do you want to do today? I brought some manga if you—"
Ryou shook his head. He scooted further from me to make room on the bed.
"I wanna hear about your day at school instead," he said.
Now I wished I had taken my school life seriously. What would I even tell him? It was going to be more lies at this point, but…
His beaming smile and eagerness to hear about a life he couldn't live— I was in no position to say no. I climbed onto the bed, and he settled on top of me. His body had gotten scrawnier, cheeks sunken, and eyes without the same light they used to have.
"Alright. I'm warning ya, my life isn't all that interesting," I said.
"Hmmm. Tell me about your friends. Have you been making friends?" he asked suspiciously.
"O-Of course, I do. There's this girl in my class— her name's Tamako," I began.
Over the next few weeks, I became increasingly involved with my father's 'business dealings'. Debts, protection money, partnership fees, casinos, brothels, cabaret clubs… I was made to be a part of it all. People who owed the Makinohara Family money paid it one way or another. Growing numb to other people's misfortunes was par for the course.
Then one day, I had a change of heart.
I was sitting on a lounging chair while my men roughed up a salaryman in his home for racking up a gambling debt, when his daughter came home. Her school bag slipped from her shoulder. She gasped as our eyes met.
"K-Kaoru…?" the girl uttered my name.
It was Tamako. A few days earlier and my blood might have frozen up within the veins. Seeing her shocked expression while her father groaned and begged on the ground with a bloodied face, I hardly felt a thing.
"Heya, pops. If ya can't pay, we got a few ideas how your girl might help with that." One of the guys shoved her to the ground next to her old man.
"One month— I can pay it all back once I get my paycheck at the end of the month. That's all I ask for. Please! Don't bring my daughter into this," the man begged, prostrating in front of me.
Tamako was speechless. Maybe it dawned on her who the girl she gave the career plans handout was.
That's right. The student you sat next to in class wasn't just a good-for-nothing delinquent. She was a yakuza, a member of the Makinohara Family of the larger Tono Clan. So stop… please, stop looking at me with those eyes. Why did it look like you were pitying me?
"We gave you three fucking months, ya shit!" Another guy stomped on the father's head, yet despite all that was going on, the humiliation and the pain, he pleaded for Tamako's safety instead. "Hey! Cough up the fucking money or— "
I drove my fist so hard into my guy's gut, he staggered back and fell onto the couch. The rest of my crew gawked in silence.
"One month. That's all you've got," I said.
Everyone followed me out of the house, while two helped carry the unconscious man.
Kanda looked especially troubled. "Young miss, if we don't collect that money, your father will be furious."
"I'll take responsibility."
It wasn't just responsibility I had to take. I took a beating from my own father. Parents beat their kids all the time. It wasn't anything new or profound. Mine didn't care that I was born without a dick. I was made of flesh and bone. As far as he was concerned, I was a punching bag for him to blow steam off of.
By the time he was done with me, I had bruises all over my body except for my face. He wanted that part of me pristine for when I went to school. A servant came in to pour both of us tea like it was business as usual. I had to crawl just to get to the table.
"I've been put in charge of making a move into Kansai," he began, rubbing his fists with ointment and wrapping it up with cloth bandages. "Specifically, Kyoto. Unfortunately, a gang of miscreants have been running amok of our shipments, and we can't get past Kobe Port."
"Why… are you telling me all this?" I asked, trying to keep the pain from showing in my voice.
"You will be going down there to take care of the problem as punishment," he said.
I choked on my next words.
"But Ryou is—"
"In the hospital. He's not going anywhere. Get the job done, come back. Is that understood?" Father's glare left no room open for discussion.
"Yes, Father…" I answered meekly.
He sneered. "Hmph. How can you live up to the tattoo on your back, if you can't even lead a family of your own? I wouldn't be caught dead leaving the Makinohara Family in the hands of a weakingly."
I was made to set off for Kyoto City immediately without a chance to tell Ryou. The faster I got this done, the better. Hopefully, things would go smoothly and without issue.
Just get to Kyoto, drop the drugs off, and return to Ryou.
My father granted me five vans full of men armed with knives and bats. It was all it should take, so why did he give me a handgun? I could be locked up for life if I was caught with it.
Teach whoever is their leader a lesson to take into the next life, was what he said.
Did he actually expect me to pull the trigger?
"Is there construction on the bridge?" Kanda asked.
We stopped in front of a construction crew that blocked off the riverbank bridge. Why was there construction all the way out here in the boonies and this late at night? Whatever the case was, we needed to get back on the main road or—
Dozens of thugs crawled up from beneath the bank and blocked both sides of the bridge. Various junk and furniture had been thrown in to block our way out from where we came. An ambush? Out here? It had to be a rival faction or… the ones who had been attacking the shipments to Kyoto.
"Should I run them through?" Kanda gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
"If you drive into the river, we'll have a lot more to worry about my old man. Get everyone out of the car. It's time to get our fists bloodied," I ordered.
I thought the fight was going to be cake. So where did I go wrong? I had the strength of a family of yakuza members at my back. How the hell did a group of teenage hooligans get the jump on us?
At this rate, I was going to die. I couldn't die here. I had to get back home to Ryou.
"This is my territory." A girl about my age who looked to be the leader of them stood between me and the car. My hands went for the gun at my waist, only to find it missing. I met her cold eyes and stared down the barrel of the handgun.
This was the end for me. I fucked up, Ryou.
Just as I thought she was about to shoot me, she flipped the gun over to hand it to me. I stared in disbelief, unsure if it was a bait.
"You came here to kill me, didn't you? It's not me who you want to kill. There's someone else," she said.
I took my chances and snatched the gun from her. My shaking hands held the weapon aimed directly at her, finger on the trigger, but no urge to pull it.
The streetlights finally flickered on. She had black hair, a face that had seen shit just as bad if not worse than I have— and I thought I had it bad. Somehow I knew she, like me, had people she wanted to protect back home. In that moment, I felt a sort of kinship with her.
Before I got a chance to ask for her name, she turned her back to me and left. The rest of her crew followed after her. My hand holding the gun faltered.
Someone else… I wanted to kill?
Only one person came to mind.
I returned to my city the morning after. Our cars were beat to hell and the thugs took all our money, so I had to hitchhike the rest of the way. If any of my men came to consciousness, I didn't know. My first stop was the hospital, but when I checked in, Ryou wasn't there.
"I'm sorry," the nurse began in the most professional way someone in the medical field could be. "Your brother, Ryouichi passed away two nights ago. We did everything we could."
At that point, I was inconsolable. I cried my heart out. There was nothing fair about a world that lets a kid die before they could have a childhood.
"I… I couldn't even be there for him…" I banged my head against the nearest utility pole until I felt blood.
When I got home, several cars were parked in front of the mansion's roundabout. There was a commotion going on around back at the outdoor ceremony patio. A couple of my father's security details were guarding the door.
"I'm sorry for your loss, young miss," both of them said, then opened the door into the back patio.
It was a funeral service. A large picture of Ryou sat above his coffin and laid around him were bouquets of flowers. The cherry blossoms were blowing, petals picked up by the wind scattered past my face and across the ground. Like I was walking through a dream.
No one else was here but myself and my father standing next to Ryou's open casket. My brother's face was so at peace. I, on the other hand, something else was raging.
My father turned around, looking no different than when he sent me out. It didn't even look like he had shed a tear.
"What happened to Ryou was unfortunate, but not unexpected." That was all he said of his son. Then he asked, "Did you take care of those bastards?"
I looked my father right in the eye.
"I'm about to." I pulled the gun out and shot him once in the chest. He collapsed a second later. The guards came running in and gasped at the sight.
"Y-Young miss… what have you done?" one of them asked.
"Starting today, I am the Matriarch of the Makinohara Family. Is that clear?"