Everyone makes a mistake somewhere along their lives. It's common. It's human error. It's acceptable. In Japan, in my time, a graduating senior with so much promise and potential threw it all away. Why? Easy. The simplest thought is often the truth.
I fell in love.
A girl the same year I was in became my main love interest. I loved her. I wanted to be with her. And if she asked for the moon and all the stars I'd find a way to climb to the skies to give them to her. I wanted her to be my wife, to have my child, to live a life with me. I was deeply in love. Kanami was all I ever wanted. She had dark heavy black hair that fell to her shoulders, deep brown eyes that glowed like red and a pretty smile. With those qualities alone I fell for her. I also loved the way she laughed and the way she spoke, how she was smart and gentle and kind. Out of all my friends, she was the only one that called me Taito, my whole name. I didn't mind. I was so deeply in love with her I began to express it to her, telling her in letters, with gifts, with gestures of my love. And soon Kanami answered back. My Kanami loved me too.
In our day in time, it was so bad if one was close to the opposite sex without being married, but with Kanami and I, we didn't care. I loved her and I knew I was going to marry her, I didn't have to wait. And neither did she. We did eventually end up having sex in her house when her parents were out one day. Kanami was my first, I was hers. We made plans to marry after we finished college. Our first child we decided to name Shuichi and our girl Yumkio. She said she would give me two, one of each. We planned to live in the city with our small family and live happily ever after.
How simple it seemed.
A few weeks before our college exams, Kanami told me the news. She was pregnant. And all our hopes seemed to be dashed for the moment. She was scared and so was I. I was a senior in high school with an after school job that barely covered me, let alone a family. To make matters worse, we weren't married. Kanami didn't want her child to be born a bastard, so without anyone knowing, we skipped our exams and got married instead. I would do anything and everything to make Kanami happy. I then decided our dreams were not over, they would just be starting a little sooner then expected. Kanami and I didn't tell our parents anything. Instead, we began pooling every cent we ever saved for school and began putting it towards a place of our own. I'd work until Kanami could herself, then we'd worry about the rest later. We would try to show our parents we could do this. I was scared holding Kanami's hand as she told her parents. Her father began going off on her and I thought for a moment he would hit the mother of my child. God help me if that man did. But he didn't. He scolded her and her mother began crying and she turned her back on Kanami.
My wife was saddened deeply by this. I comforted her any way I could. Then we told my parents. My mother was shocked at me because I should have known better. My father, like Kanami's yelled at me and kicked me out. We stayed at a friend’s house until we got our own place and then we began our lives.
On September tenth, 10:34 at night, Kanami went into labor. Four hours later, she gave birth to my son Shuichi. He was my pride, my joy, everything good and wholesome in my life. I wept when he was born and I held Kanami's hand, telling her how much I loved her too. I was in my late teens when I realized I couldn't do this anymore. We had gotten by on what little money we could borrow from family and friends, but we were living by paycheck by paycheck and I realized that if I kept this up, our child would starve and we would all die. I had no choice. Rather then see my wife and child starve to death, I forfeited my life and approached the oyabun of a syndicate called the 36 Moons. I didn't tell Kanami at first, I just went. I made an appointment with the oyabun there, Jia Li and when he asked what I had to offer for this job, I said,
"My life. My life, my loyalty and anything else you need at your disposal."
He was surprised. He then said,
"Why do you want this job so badly?"
"I have a wife and child I need to feed. I could make more here in one week then I ever could in a year."
"You have a child? You're so young."
"I know."
I didn't care. I wanted this job. Jia accepted me and I became a yakuza.
With this job I was able to buy us a better place to live, food and clothes and toys for Shuichi and give Kanami anything she wanted. She always wanted me to be careful, and she reminded me that I had a home, a wife and a child to come back to. It's a thought I carried with me whenever I was walking the streets with Gabriel and Aoki. I was always careful, watching my back, doing my job and anything else I was required and every night I would come back home, Kanami sitting up waiting for me. She said she could never sleep until I was home. Over the years as I did this, I was always careful and I never let my guard down once. It was also during this time that Kanami let me know she was with our second baby. I watched over the months as she got bigger and bigger, her belly swollen with my second child. I remember sitting next to her one night on the couch into her fifth month, patting her belly, feeling the baby move inside her. I knew it was going to be my daughter. Shuichi was a little bigger at this point, but still my baby boy. He would listen to his mother's belly and say he would take care of his baby sister when she was born.
With business in the 36 Moons, I was worried to see a starting war between Koniko a former oyabun of another rival syndicate and Jia. Jia told me that all I had to do was watch my back and be careful. And I did. Things over the months began to get heated, fights and robbery and Jia's most violent act against Koniko, having his daughter raped by none other then Toki. I didn't say a word against it nor did I support it. It was a war between my oyabun and another oyabun. I never excepted it to spill over to anyone else. Especially me.
I came home after a long night. I went to my apartment, taking my keys out as I prepared to open the door and see my Kanami waiting for me, her large belly of seven months keeping her from standing quickly. But the door was open. Kanami would never in her life leave the door open in fear something might happen to Shuichi. I took out my gun and slowly approached the door. I opened it, all the while praying to God that nothing happened to my family. Once I went inside however I saw my prayers were not answered. My wife was dead. She was laid on the floor, on her back her eyes closed with her arms above her head. Her nightgown was soaked in her blood, her belly now motionless. I went to her and sat beside her as I saw that her throat had been cut...I brought her arms back down and held her cold lifeless hand, lacking her wedding ring as I then remembered Shuichi. I got up and ran to his room only to find him dead as well. Shot in his bed. My poor defenseless child. I called Gabriel right away. Then the police.
I went back to the office that night with Gabriel and for a long time, I was in shock. I couldn't believe the scene I came home to. And when Gabriel went to call Jia, it hit me. My wife, my child, my unborn child....they were dead. My dreams where all gone. And it was because of me. The job I had that Kanami had worried for me all this time had killed her in the end.
I couldn't hold myself up. I put my head down and since my child was born, I wept. I couldn't contain it. Everything I had cared for had been viciously taken from me. I asked Jia for satisfaction. I killed Koniko's daughter and Koniko in return for taking away my family, my wife, my child and my dreams. But it was not enough. It would never be enough. Because I would never have back everything I cared for. I would never again come home to Kanami waiting for me, I would never hear Shuichi's cries of glee as he ran to me so I could pick him up, I would never know the child in Kanami's womb.
And for the briefest moment....I had everything I ever wanted. And just as quickly, it was taken away from me.