"What a little nice outburst you had there, however you're surrounded. What will you do now?"
The thug in the hoodie said, looking at Arata menacingly. The guy who kicked him into a building in front of him, and behind him stood the two individuals whom he was following. As they were located in a somewhat cramped alley, Arata didn't have any realistic way to get out of there.
He looked behind, and saw that the two men were holding their guard up, prepared to engage in a fight. Blood dripping out of his mouth, he cried out loud,
"What will I do? I'll beat the shit out of all of you or die trying!"
"Hahahah! I'd like to see you try!"
Saying that, Arata rushed towards one of the thugs, and managed to get a hit in. But, it didn't help his situation, as there were two other guys behind him. Receiving two knuckles in the head, he fell down.
They succeeded in taking down Arata, and so they beat him up. After a good five minutes, they had their fill and stopped.
"So, what were you saying? Whatever. The boss told us not to kill you yet, so we will give you one last chance. You either come tomorrow to the specified building with the money alone, otherwise your brother will die, and so will you. And don't think we'll stop at just that either."
Saying that, the three men laughed at him one last time and left.
Arata had bruises all over his body, his face was bloodied due to the fact they hit him in the nose. Lying down, he tried to gather his energy. Some time later, he managed to stand up.
If someone were to look at him, they could see the intensity he currently held in his eyes. Hatred, anger, frustration, hostility. He didn't take the beating he took too kindly.
"I'm going to pay you back, tenfold."
While he said that, he suddenly heard the sound of notifications on his phone. He took his phone out and when he looked at it, he noticed he received around ten messages.
Seven of them were from his sister, Arisu. One of them was sent by Ken, and the other two were from Johnny.
(Oh shit, what do I tell them?)
The application Johnny and Arisu sent messages on would show if the recipient saw the message, so Arata decided to ignore them. Instead, he opened his conversation with Ken.
[Everything alright bro? Haven't heard from you in about 2 hours.]
The time was currently around 1:25 in the middle of the night, and Ken sent this message about twenty-one minutes ago.
Arata began writing a message to him.
[Yeah, I'm still alive. Can we talk in about 20 minutes?]
And… Sent.
[Of course.]
Shortly after, he received a reply. Smiling, Arata started walking back to his car.
Arriving at his car, he saw it was left untouched and stepped into it. He took out his phone and called Ken.
"What's up Arata?"
"Other than the fact that I got beaten up, nothing much."
"How did that happen?" Ken inquired curiously.
"Well, I got to the end of the alleyway you mentioned and I was watching the gangsters as they were talking to each other, when I suddenly got a call from my sister and they realized I was there. The rest is history."
"I see… Did she contact you again afterwards?"
He placed Ken on speaker, and opened the application once more. Arisu started sending him messages again, because he appeared online.
"She currently sent about eleven messages."
"So she's desperate to get through you."
"Yeah…"
She probably wanted to ask Arata if he's alright because it was midnight and he still hasn't come back home. Originally, he started acting behind her back and didn't inform her of the situation so he wouldn't have to worry her. And yet, here he was, worrying her because he hasn't returned yet. Pretty ironic.
"In any case, you need something else from me, right?"
After asking Arata what he was curious about, he suddenly got more serious.
"Do you know anyone who I could get a gun from?"
"I mean, yes I do. Don't tell me you want to go straight to their main building with a gun, right?"
"That's what I plan on doing."
"Dude, you better stop. That's basically asking to die."
Ken said worryingly. He didn't show his emotions so often that people would think he wasn't even capable of feeling them. However, when it came to Arata, he thought of him as his little brother.
"I know, but I don't really have any other choice. I can't suddenly get that much money without taking a debt myself, and I don't want to let them touch my family."
"Hmm… So you resolved yourself?"
"Yeah."
"You'd probably go to their base even if I didn't help you… Fine, I'll redirect you to a gal I know. I'll send you an address, make sure to be there in about thirty minutes."
"Thank you."
"No problem, but promise me one thing. Don't die."
"I will bro, don't worry."
Although Arata said that, he didn't think he'd make it out alive. As Ken said, that was basically a suicide mission. But even then, he at least wanted to believe he'd come back alive.
"Talk to you later."
"Yeah."
Ken hung up. Taking a long breath, Arata leaned back in the driving seat to relax for a bit.
A minute later, he received the message from Ken containing the location of the place where he needs to go. Entering the address in his GPS, he noticed the place wasn't too far away from him and it was a patisserie.
(Did Ken really tell me to go to a patisserie? Okay…)
And so, he started the car's engine and began driving towards the pastry shop.