It had been a couple of months since Tomoyuki had started exercising and training his physical fitness, and the warm June season was already blooming outside. Tomoyuki, being under the tutelage of Jiahao in training, trained at a fast pace, and the young man had time to gain both muscle and experience in the training itself.
Jiahao had no trouble teaching him, and Tomoyuki, by uncomplicated memorization of the principles of street fighting and taking stances, was pleased with their training together. Takashi also sometimes taught him punching skills, but for the most part he couldn't wait to practice them on Tomoyuki, not knowing how to give examples otherwise.
Initially, Jiahao was reluctant to look out for him, initially training with just push-ups and pull-ups on the bar, but soon entering the fist, became unconsciously fond of their activities together; as a result, he Jiahao became his "sempai". Though Jiahao looked formidable and unsophisticated from the outside, his true nature was revealed only to those dear to him. There was much to learn from him, which denoted his meticulousness, and his broad muscles remarked on his love of self-improvement. Jiahao, if befriended as Tomoyuki was able to do, revealed himself at his best, for by nature he was a do-gooder, involved in the life of society, which was not suited to him.
***
Tomoyuki got tired of sitting at home from time to time, and an aimless walk around his neighborhood became his salvation. This time he decided to walk around the neighborhood to the chants of grasshoppers and cicadas, which enveloped his ears alone with the gentle rustling of the warm wind.
Sitting on a bench in an old playground unremarkable to the eyes of passersby, Tomoyuki raised his eyes to the serene sunny sky, covered by a blue veil untouched by any clouds. When he heard light footsteps coming from the side of the five-story apartments, he noticed the silhouette of a familiar teenager. This teenager, responding to Tomoyuki's interested gaze, waved at him, and soon approached his bench.
"You're Tomoyuki Yamashita!" the teenager declared optimistically, confusing him. "You and I saw each other outside the karaoke club, in the presence of Araki-san and Akiyama-san!"
"Oh…" Tomoyuki remembered his youthful face and short stature. This guy was standing behind the pink-haired girl that day, looking at him with pitying eyes. "Tamaki…"
"Tamaki Miyamura. You and I did not know each other personally or cross paths. Tomoyuki-kun, what brings you to this place?"
"Hmm? I've been wandering around the area…"
"The thing is," Tamaki pointed to the nearest apartment with his thin fingers, "that I live right here."
From Tamaki's expression did not disappear his good naturedness, which left an aftertaste of submission, and despite his short stature, he was the same age as Tomoyuki. He made it clear that he had previously been a victim of hooliganism and was now under the responsibility of Araki Okada.
His face showed dissatisfaction only when he said that he wished they had bothered to cross paths earlier. When Tamaki started talking about the bullies that Tomoyuki had ties with, he sympathized with him, for he thought that he was walking around with them against his will. Seeing his sympathy, Tomoyuki, clearly trying to comfort him, told him that there was nothing to worry about.
"Therein lies the problem," his subdued soft voice revealed. "Yamashita-kun, you think your situation is not worth worrying about. Dare I ask you… are you confident in your words and the actions you take? Have you begun to feel something amiss, like you've become their obedient dog? Don't think I'm insulting you, but I had to bring you enlightenment."
Tomoyuki looked devastated; he had stopped showing any feelings toward Tamaki.
"For I, too, had to be Takashi Matsuoka's pawn," Tamaki caught him off guard, gloomy. It was hard for him to remember the past, the roots of which proved traumatic to his mental state. "He, seeing me around annoying school bullies, thought one day to denounce me as his personal toy for beating and extorting money."
Suddenly, Tamaki seemed nervous and annoyed, and his body twitched strangely as he recalled Takashi.
"He showed me no compassion," the eyelids of his trembling eyes opened with unbearable force, and his hand clenched into a fist with such power that his nails could pierce his palms.
His hatred for Takashi and his two friends was fierce, uncontrolled by emotion, making him unable to restrain himself in front of Tomoyuki.
"Yamashita-kun," his pained eyes lifted, "I want to help you. I'll help in any way I can — just call me and I'll rush over. No one should have to follow the same path that Takashi made me follow. These people, bathed in their sins, can only humiliate the weak… and I hate them for it. With all my might, if I had them, I would exterminate every one of them, for their hypocrisy is not worth living. They are a gang of empty-headed bastards, not worthy to be called human."
Tomoyuki, who could somehow agree with the anxious Tamaki's assertions, was covered in gloomy thoughts as he pondered his words. A depression accompanied him time after time as he imagined Tamaki's past suffering for two years.
***
One day Tomoyuki came to the abandoned building of the unfinished block and went up to its top floor, where there were also three high school students. This place was especially noteworthy to Takashi, for he often called him here to collect his monthly tribute. Tomoyuki bribed him every month, at a fixed time and date.
However, what made this place memorable to Tomoyuki was the fact that there was a revolver here, which Takashi said atoned for his sins. Extortion by Takashi was considered by him to be his friend's duty, as the high school student kept saying so even in the first days of their communication.
Takashi was attentive and extremely critical, and when he was given an envelope of money, he counted each bill to make sure that a certain amount was enough. Otherwise, Takashi would have simply beaten Tomoyuki to a pulp, which the latter most clearly understood.
After their monthly ritual (in which Jiahao refused to take part, and Makoto only watched over the safety), the four of them could watch the open sky overhead with peace of mind.
"Tomoyuki-kun, has anyone been pestering you?" the brown-eyed man inquired, taking note of the schoolboy's bright gaze.
"No, no one. No one knows I'm dealing with you, though."
"So that's it," Takashi took hold of his chin. "If the bastards start pestering you, hit them hard. Just like Jiahao and I taught you, so we know for sure that our instructions weren't in vain!"
Jiahao nodded proudly, assuring him that with the acquisition of even his smallest skills, Tomoyuki would become invincible: "After all, he had learned from the best of the best."
"That's right, the best of the best!" Takashi put his hands on his hips, raising his chin.
Cheering up, Tomoyuki agreed with their assertions.
As they chatted about pressing matters for hours, their time had already flown by, and the summer sunset glittered outside. Following Tomoyuki, a few minutes later, the others also said goodbye, going their separate ways. The sloppy footsteps of the half-asleep Takashi spoke of his fatigue, for he had, to his bitter regret, recently contracted insomnia.
His ears felt the rustling of the leaves of the verdant trees, and the breeze blowing on his face spontaneously soothed him. As he yawned, he heard a few boys chattering loudly across the deserted road, and turning his attention to them, Takashi discerned Tomoyuki around them.
"Tomoyuki-kun?" he muttered, oblivious to his fatigue. "And next to him… They look like congeners, but a little younger than him. I don't recall him having any friends; maybe they're from another school?"
The teens gathered together and headed off into an area unknown to Takashi, so the latter followed them with interest, not forgetting to keep his distance.
"Is Tomoyuki in trouble?" he racked his brain as he noticed them forcibly dragging the teenager behind them. From afar, Takashi thought they didn't seem particularly strong, and hoped that Tomoyuki could manage on his own.
They crossed the land bridge and walked down the path to the artificial stream. The bridge had been built on top of this ditch so as not to cut off the length of the street road. There the teenagers were talking amongst themselves, but Takashi, huddled against the fence of the bridge, could not hear a word.
The annoyed boy, who was shorter than Tomoyuki and was facing him, swung his fist at him sharply, thus dooming his duel to failure. Tomoyuki instantly dodged and retaliated with several blows, not caring about the force of his blows. His opponent's light body felt like a punching bag, making the blue-eyed man feel good about beating him. Defending against Tomoyuki's blows, the young man was losing his composure — he could not return a single blow because he was exposed to his relentless attacks.
As he watched the teenagers who had previously surrounded Tomoyuki fall backwards to avoid his blows, Takashi realized that they were just small potatoes, unable to stick to their willpower.
In one hopeless moment of Tomoyuki's endless attacks, they began to worry about their comrade's condition. Even Takashi soon mentally recognized that Tomoyuki was starting to overreact: the young man's hands were all bloody, and his lying opponent, on which he was seated and repeatedly striking at his flushed face, was desperately trying to calm him down.
Though Tomoyuki's stunningly sharpened straight punches impressed the older boy, he began to run up to the fight.
The boys shouted for Tomoyuki to stop, but the ears of the enraged schoolboy could not hear their wild cries. Seeing his gloomy eyes, they dared not stop him.
"Stop! Damn it, I told you he couldn't be touched…!"
"I told you, when he meant that he was a friend of Takashi Matsuoka, he wasn't lying then…!"
One of them even begged for his friend's mercy, insisting that they wouldn't touch him again.
Takashi, descending the stairs, shouted out: "What the hell are you doing?!" and the boys ran away at the sight of him.
Tomoyuki stopped his battle at once, and the young man lying beneath him took advantage, got out of his grasp and ran away with shouts of apology. He said that from now on he would know that Tomoyuki was surrounded by Takashi Matsuoka.
"Takashi-san? But what are you doing here?"
Turning up the stairs, Takashi quietly said: "Come," to which the schoolboy followed him. Tomoyuki's palms whined in pain, the skin of his heels chafed.
"Did you use my name to get them behind?" Takashi wondered, composedly, as they walked back down the road.
"Yeah… I thought it might be the only way out about avoiding a fight, and if I called myself your friend, they'd realize it wasn't worth dealing with me anymore."
"That's how all the rumors spread, by word of mouth, relentlessly repeating and twisting the same words. This is less important than my question to you: why didn't you stop?"
"..."
"You saw by his waving hands that he was weak. It is also important to pick up on how you felt when you beat your opponent?"
There was no response from the silent Tomoyuki, who was stroking the surface of the bridge railing, causing Takashi to fling his sharp gaze at him.
"I get it; you only wanted to assert yourself by mentioning me and my name."
"Takashi-san, I just…" Tomoyuki found himself interrupted by his mate's heightened tone.
"Fool, were you thinking of ruining my pure name?! Enough excuses, since everything has already been revealed to be dry — by beating a man who is weaker, you thought you were strong? Did you believe in your dignity by proclaiming yourself all-powerful?"
Unable to endure the outburst of his harshness, he landed a straight punch to Tomoyuki's face. Barely able to keep his footing, Tomoyuki didn't budge, and then the older man was embarrassed by Tomoyuki's reluctance to dodge his attacks. It turned out to be not at all about the blue-eyed man's long reaction time.
"Poking your nose in front of the weak is proof of your weakness! Stupid, is that why I taught you to fight?"
"You're doing the same thing!" Tomoyuki confused the high schooler. "Being a bully, you were also beating up the hapless and helpless!"
Not wanting to listen to the shouting, Takashi prescribed him a second lunge, which was stronger than the first, but this time Tomoyuki took the blow without shifting. Now it was clear to Takashi that the teenager had no intention of ducking at all.
"Weren't you the one who wanted to tell me," Takashi said, "that we are not of the same species? What happened to your opinion, or did you start being a sinner like me? Bastard, will you at least start thinking with your head?"
No answer came from the blue-eyed man; he alone listened to his admonition, directed with an aggressive tone.
"You seem to have your defenselessness in your head! Thought up all sorts of nonsense, but for what? Are you so afraid of having a position of your own? What's your dignity worth if you throw it around so long as no one disturbs your peace! Hey, why don't you answer?"
"I can't find the right words to reassure you, Takashi-san… If I talk nonsense, you'll chew me to the ground, hate me, and stop thinking you need me. And so I have found with this duel an opportunity to prove to myself that I have a power unprecedented to me, one that terrifies and rules over the weak…"
Tomoyuki revealed his thoughts, clouded under the cloak of despair, with a straightforwardness that made Takashi feel as if his inner world had long been plunged into darkness. As he finally pieced together the teenager's philosophy, he reached the realization that Tomoyuki had purposefully followed his orders from the beginning, accepting his position as a slave.
Whether this was a made-up position only Takashi should have known, for Tomoyuki's mind was literally molded under his control.
"Tomoyuki-kun… what do you want to be in the future?"
Takashi thought that he had never before tried to understand his feelings before, leading the teenager's worldview to its imminent demise. His negative influence had turned Tomoyuki into a slave, and Takashi himself was simply unwilling to take responsibility for him.
"Do you see yourself… in the future?"
Tomoyuki remained silent in depression. Realizing the gravity of the conversation that had occurred, the brown-eyed senior asked to retrace his steps.
"All this nonsense," Takashi thought to himself, "that he crammed into his brain and digested, was created by me alone. What a shame, I screwed up again… Deprived the man of his own dignity."