There's so many things in my life I've always been a fuck up in. When I was little, I was always bad. I'd get the shit kicked out of me on a daily basis by my old man who insisted I sit still and behave. I couldn't help it. I always wanted to make trouble and I always wanted to see. I was a nosy little bastard. Of course that got me right into trouble. I'd get slapped once across the face then again for good measure and then I stood in a corner for hours, just staring at the space in front of me until my legs hurt. Then I would be allowed to go to my room. Fun huh? So of course I grew up hating my old man. So when I was little, I was bad at following rules. As I got older, that became the one and only problem. But not just at home, at school too. I couldn't sit still or keep my mouth shut. I'd get the ruler across my hands then forced to stand outside the classroom for hours holding buckets of water. Needless to say, I built good arm strength. But that was just a discipline problem. I had this thing, where I felt no one, not even my father, could tell me what to do. I was me and I was going to continue to be me, regardless of what anyone said. So if someone told me to do something, I'd automatically do the opposite. Someone said sit down I'd stand, even if I was tired. They said shut up I'd keep right on talking. If they said sit still, I'd move around like I had no common sense.
I didn't care. I didn't want to do anything anyone told me to. I wasn't good at following orders. Which was ironic because that's what I ended up doing my whole life. Anyway, I had a discipline problem. I had no respect for authority, or my elders or any of that bullshit the Japanese culture teaches. I said fuck it all. Fuck customs, fuck tradition, fuck my background, fuck my proud heritage, fuck it all. I didn't give a shit. So when my father said I was disgracing my last name, I shrugged and said so? Like I care. It later turned out my last name came from a long proud lineage. I still shrugged my shoulders and looked at everything through heavy lidded eyes. I didn't care. But because I didn't care, didn't mean I wasn't smart.
In school, when I wasn't getting in trouble, I was a good student. My grades excelled over everyone else's, my test scores where high and I understood complicated material. It was all too easy for me. My teachers where astonished by the fact that my work was of such good quality, yet I couldn't shut up or stop talking back. It was because of that I learned to speak English. And yes, English not "Engrish." I wasn't a fuckin' fob. It was one of those things I learned to perfection. During my middle school years, in between getting the shit kicked out of me at home, and getting the shit kicked out of me in school, I met Li. Ah, my best friend for life. The only one in that entire fucking school that dared to approach me. Why I don't know, but he did. And became the only person I was ever close to in my whole life.
I didn't speak a word about myself. I didn't dare say that my old man was a bastard and beat me up and I hated everything and everyone around me. I was no bitch. I can carry the weight of my own problems. I didn't need some sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on. But Li, he was different. He didn't want to know all that. He just wanted to know me. How smart I was how nice I was, and any other good quality I may have had. Li was one of those people that just saw some good in everyone. He was naive in a way. And I liked that about him. When I was about to end middle school, I had applied to take my high school exam at the most elite high school. I knew I could get in easy. So did Li. He applied there as well. I took the exams and got in with ease. But I didn't tell anyone but Li. He was impressed. He wanted me to go. He wanted to spend more time with me in high school. He wanted to know me better. And I would have.
But I never made it.
The night I got home, I got into the fights to end all fights with my father. I couldn't take his shit anymore so when he slapped me that final time, I snapped. I shoved him away from me as I picked up a lamp right off a table in the living room. I tore the socket right out of the wall as I flung it with all my strength at him. It shattered near his shoulder, near his face and it cut him deeply. He was shocked. But I wasn't done. I ran right over to him and kicked him down. I was pissed. I wanted him to feel everything I felt through my life. My mother stopped me. If she wouldn't have, he might have been the first person I killed. But I was no happier with my mother. She stood idly by as everything happened, so I shoved her off me when she attempted to stop me. I would have killed my father had she not made me hesitate to shove her away. After that I went to my room grabbed all the money I had, shoved some clothes in a bag got my shoes and on my way out the door I spit at my old man and left.
Be damned if I knew where I was going. I ended up somewhere in Tokyo. I had walked from my old house to the city. I've been here a million times, but not so late at night and never without a cent on me. I was broke. I had like....I think 3,000 yen on me, which is roughly about thirty dollars. I was only about fifteen and had nothing else to loose. I thought back on Li, and how he probably thought I had ditched him. If only he knew. I spent my first night in Tokyo asleep on a park bench. It pretty much sucked. The next day, I bought something to eat and then wandered around again. I was, for the time being totally fucked. No money, no roof over my head, nothing. For a while I actually thought about going back home. But my pride would sooner let me starve to death in a ditch then go back home. Luck then smiled down on me. I was walking past this building in the center of Tokyo's business district near the Roppongi district when I heard two guys talking about some job. I needed one badly, so I turned back around and asked what they were talking about. The taller guy who was about in his mid-twenties asked me how old I was.
"Seventeen."
Lying from the start. He then said,
"You're old enough. Come on."
I followed him in the building I passed as we crossed the lobby and he said,
"What's your name?"
"Toki."
"You'll do."
It turned out I had walked right into a yakuza's lair.
I started at the bottom as one my age is required to. I ran errands, mostly drug money and drugs themselves, did dishes, polished shoes, cleaned the floors with a brush, tended to my oyabuns needs, all that shit. When they found out my real age, they just sent me out more. I was a kid and because of that I was able to sneak through things more easily. I spent a year running trade like this. By the time I was sixteen, I started smoking, drinking, running with the yakuza I so admired. I was forced to grow up. I saw my loud mouth antics couldn't fly here. Here, if I ran my mouth to the wrong person, I could find myself laying in chalk, know what I mean? Besides, I wasn't brain dead, I knew I had no kind of power, but I was making my way up. On my sixteenth birthday, my then "big brother," this guy I knew as Izumi, but was called Shadow in the syndicate and Hide known as Macabre, took me to get my very own syndicate name tattooed on the inside of my wrist. It was tradition to have your syndicate name tattooed on your left wrist if you were someone of value in the 36 Moons. My name, Silence. Because I ran in silence, you never heard me coming, I was Stealth, because you couldn't see or hear me, and I was Death because it's what I brought. As I grew up in the syndicate, Izumi and Hide taught me a few things that stuck with me through life.
Never show emotion to anyone. Love is the biggest taboo among that.
A meal is never complete without sake.
Smoking, is the least of a yakuza's concern. Health is the last thing on our minds.
Drugs are fine, but not in vast amounts. No hard stuff either. A yakuza needs to have his head on straight.
Why chase one girl when there are many.
Why chase one boy.
Why chase just one gender.
Never bite the hand that feeds you. Be loyal to the oyabun.
All of that, stuck with me as I grew up. So I became good at one thing. Being loyal. I served whoever was over me. I couldn't betray anyone that had kept me clothed, fed and well off. My salary was way too high for me to ever betray anyone. By the time I was almost seventeen, I was well into the midst of things. Somewhere along that line, Izumi, my guide through my life, was killed. I watched him die not a few feet from me when a deal went bad and we got stuck in a shoot out. He was shot but he stayed up for a while. As we hid in a warehouse, he was behind a crate not a few feet away from me. I watched him as he bled to death and then fell over. Hide was later on thrown in jail after Li came in. Izumi was not the first I watched die...and he wouldn't be the last.
Now that Izumi was dead, I took on his job. I was my oyabun's lead killer. And as such I was told to find someone to take my place. I immediately went after Li. I picked him up from high school and I was so glad to see him. Something inside me felt warm being with him. Like I haven't felt since I became a yakuza. I didn't breathe a word though. I told Li everything and once I was done, I told him to come with me, join my ranks. Without so much as even a second thought, he agreed. I thought he wouldn't...but he did. And I was glad he did.
I taught him the way that Izumi taught me. Through experience. Izumi always said you could never learn anything from anyone without going through it yourself. And he was right. I put Li through whatever he had to learn. He was much more disciplined then I was. Much quicker to follow orders then me. I didn't mind. I soon got the idea that Li, should be the oyabun. Someone like him in a high position among yakuza could very well lead us to riches. And it did. He gained my former oyabun's trust. He trusted him because he saw I trusted him. And before my old oyabun passed away, he gave up everything to Li. My best friend became head of the most powerful, ruthless syndicate in Tokyo. Little by little, Li got a hold of it, becoming feared, becoming known, becoming infamous.
Over the years, we made something of ourselves and hired more among us. My first and only infatuation Mikkie Araya. Known as Ghost. I fell for him the moment I saw him. Mostly because he looked so damn helpless. I fucked shit up royally between us though. In a drunken state, I overwhelmed him and ended up raping him. Not that rape wasn't my style. It's one of the things I'm known for in the syndicate. I don't take no for an answer. Tai the family man, stern and grown up, supporting his family, Gabriel, the gaijin that was smart and too hardened on the inside from being underestimated. Aoki, my boy, who was a tough as hell, chain smoking free from prison, bastard. Ol' one eye. Aya, pretty ass fuckin' Aya. As smart as he is pretty. I'd give anything to get my hands on him. But he did get me off a couple of times. Jun, the former doctor and once my friend. He got too cocky after he became a yakuza. I couldn't stand his smart ass after that shit and it took everything in my power not to strangle him then and there. But everything was me and Li. Tai was his left hand man, he was the one responsible for shit when Li was gone, but he and I we were always tight. And Mikkie became what I started to protect and want most.
I skipped out on Izumi's advice when it came to Little Ghost. I fell for him hard, but be damned if I admitted. I also saw one day that Li said he loved me. I told him to take it back. He always felt so fucking much I was worried that shit would get him in trouble. Emotions get the best of people and it screws up their mind. It distracts them. I didn't want that for Li. Or for myself. And I continued in my pattern of being loyal, smoking, drinking, fucking and killing. I always did say my two best qualities where killing and fucking. There wasn't a person alive I couldn't nail, one way or another. I never missed my target and I never heard no. If I did, I'd get them anyway.
The day I got arrested, the first thing I thought of was what Izumi and Hide said to me. You never bite the hand that feeds you. And I was loyal. I took the wrap for being the oyabun of the 36 Moons. I could have spent the rest of my life in jail if not for Li and Gabriel. When I got out, I saw how much he missed me. Four years had passed and Li looked at me as if it had been forty. I loved him too. I realized it that day I got arrested. I saw the fear and panic in his eyes. He was coming through the crowd to get me free to clear me of any wrong doing...but I stopped him. I said no and I love you. I would not let him fall for this. When I saw he was willing to take my place....I knew then what I had been repressing all that time. I loved him. Because I saw, that through everything, he was still at my side.
Once I was free again, I tried to make amends with Mikkie. He wasn't having it though. Still isn't actually. I also tried to make peace with myself, with everything in my past since I know that means that world for Li. Once he took over Japan, and started making his move to the states, I was right there with him. I held his face, kissed his cheek, gave him a cigarette and said,
"Let's go to New York."
He nodded and agreed.
I got three things I'm good at. Everyone knows the first two. My other one....my loyalty. And if I have to walk through hell and back for Li, then open the gates, I'm coming through. I may have been no good at anything else, but being a yakuza, is all I know and all I'm good at.