Difference between revisions of "To paste into TVR later"

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For all that happened last night, Rikiya does not remember falling asleep. He jolts awake in the futon, with just a small ache in his chest. His eyes focus themselves on the still-dark ceiling, a bit more readily than yesterday. Before he can be aware of anything else, something begins to shake, deep within him at first, but soon, all around him. It becomes strong enough to rattle the shelves and signs on the dining room walls. The noise becomes deafeningly loud within seconds, and a framed picture falls off the wall behind him. As Rikiya tries to bend up to see through the window, something grabs him by the ankles and begins to drag him, into the hall, out the door, into the painfully bright front yard. It finally lets go of him, and he squints his eyes to try to see what this force was. The light shining on him is still too bright for him to see, beyond two silhouettes, and the rumbling is too loud to know if either of them are talking, until one of them crouches over him.
+
It doesn't take too long, going up the main boulevard, before Rikiya runs into a slightly familiar face, half-hidden by a very familiar honey-blonde beard. The Tall Dwarf notices Rikiya straight away. "[Greetings again!]" he says in English, before searching his brain for something Japanese to ask. "I am looking for some English," he asks, as politely as he seemingly knows how; Rikiya only barely manages to parse what he wants, and elects to give him the benefit of the doubt.
  
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"You, boy. You're not supposed to be in there. You're not even supposed to be alive." It's a rough and ugly voice, suited only to a select few terrible people, and perfectly clear to his ears, despite the din around him. "Not from the way I shot you before. So this time, I'll make you watch." Tetsuo Tamashiro, clad in a demonic red suit that fits his persona to a tee, marches just out of view.
+
"Uh..." Rikiya dives back into his primordial memories to find the simplest way to answer him, and finally remembers the little bit of English he learned in high school. "[I can help you, please wait here.]" He silently prays that he doesn't need to say anything more, as he's sure that his accent will have eaten most of the phrase. The Dwarf, thankfully, seems satisfied enough to give him a jolly nod, before seating himself on a nearby guard rail. Rikiya looks around his familiar town, realizing that the one thing he's never had to ask for before was somebody who could speak English. A strange feeling, he thinks, to need to think like a tourist, in my own home town.
  
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Rikiya tries to raise his voice after him. ''You're not supposed to be alive, either!'' But his voice does not work, and his mouth does not open. He wants to lash out and hit this person, but his arms fail to move. Every function Rikiya can think to use is seemingly disconnected from him.
+
He figures that the most likely English-speakers in Okinawa would be policemen or taxi drivers, but neither of those kinds of people can be found, after painstaking seconds of searching. But out the corner of Rikiya's eye, there is a splash of flaming red coming out of the Gelateria. The redness belongs to the hair of a foreign-looking woman, wielding a waffle cone of mint chocolate chip; her hair is drawn back in a quick-and-dirty ponytail but still looks rather unkempt and loose, likely from the climate, and roughly curtains a face that seems to not wish to be bothered. Regardless, she is headed his way, and it is unclear whether she enjoys her ice cream or not. Rikiya holds up a hand to flag her down. "Um, [hello, good day!]" he calls out, trying to look pleasant and friendly.
  
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"And speaking of things that aren't supposed to be here," Tamashiro's voice shouts from just behind him, "how about this fucking eye sore of a house?" The rumbling seems to begin anew, louder this time, until nothing can be heard over it. From just beyond his peripheral vision, a huge blotch of yellow slides into view until it dominates his sight. "Tear it down! AGAIN! Get this shit out of here!" From somewhere off to Rikiya's right, a massive bulldozer plows forth as if nothing stands in its way.
+
The woman, standing a head and a half shorter than Rikiya, shoots an electrifying glance right into his eyes. "Good morning, can I help you?" she asks, roughly the way someone from Kansai would say it.
  
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''Haruka! Yuta! The kids! I gotta…'' Rikiya tries to get up again, but his chest once more begins to throb, until an expensive dress shoe clamps down on his neck. ''Aniki! Help! KIRYU!'' The shoe's wearer bends over and kneels down, until his face is close enough to Rikiya's that he can almost make out its features. The callously slick hairdo, the cold, traitorous eyes… ''You're here, too?''
+
Rikiya suppresses a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness, you speak Japanese. I, uh... My name is Rikiya, and I could use some help with somebody," he asks, not entirely certain why he's so nervous to talk to her. It's a feeling that he generally used to feel in the presence of important yakuza.
  
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"Call out for your beloved aniki. He didn't save you last time, and he can't save this place either," said the man that he was sure was Yoshitaka Mine. Rikiya's vision suddenly sharpens to its full clarity, as the bulldozer smashes through the supporting walls of the orphanage. He does not hear any screams over the engine's roar - least of all his own. The old building crumbles into dust in an instant, no different from the sand, as Mine briefly turns his head to watch it all happen.
+
"Well, I go by Ruby. What kind of help do you think I can give you, though?" The look on her face does not appear to be softening, though her words seem friendly enough... for as friendly as an American speaking Kansai can sound, anyway.
  
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"Now that he's seen what I want him to see, we don't have any need for him alive," says Mine, with his shoe still crushing Rikiya's neck. "Give me the gun. I'll do it right this time." He receives an old Russian handgun from Tamashiro, then plants its barrel directly against Rikiya's forehead. "Want to cry, now? Do you think he'll hear you, from whatever far away place he's at?" He squeezes the trigger with tormenting slowness, the spring audibly tensing inside the mechanism and echoing through Rikiya's skull, until the hammer drops. There is no sound or flash. The world around Rikiya, especially the two villains standing over him, come to a complete halt, and all is sudden silence to his ears. Even the bulldozer has ceased its roaring. Mine, Tamashiro, and the light all begin to melt away from him, into the featureless abyss, until nothing remains around Rikiya at all. All is a sea of blackness. A hole with no bottom. The event horizon.
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"I've got this guy waiting over here that... I guess he's looking for directions? But I don't speak much English, and I don't think he knows Japanese very well either, and... you seem like you'd know both?" His hands subconsciously fold together into a begging gesture.
  
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Null and void.
+
She takes a lick of her cone and sighs. "I guess I don't have anything important to do yet. Let's see this guy."
  
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----
+
Rikiya leads her back to the guard rail, where the Tall Dwarf waits like a loyal dog. He looks just as excited as one, as soon as he sees the two of them approaching. "[Oh, you're back! Did you find someone?]" He realizes that he said it in English without thinking, but before he can search for the relevant Japanese phrase, the woman mutters some Kansai-ben that only Rikiya can hear.
  
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Rikiya jolts awake again, his eyes having snapped open so fast that the morning light blinds him. His throat still feels as if he's been stepped on, and his chest burns so badly that he ponders inhaling a fire extinguisher. His hand reaches over to the horrible rectangle on his heart, and to his relief, both it and his arm are still there and working. He is almost finished with his self-checks when there is a ringing sound next to his head. ''Damn! My phone!'' Rikiya grabs for it so quickly that he nearly flings it into the kitchen. It is, thankfully, still ringing by the time he recovers from his fumble. “Hello?”
+
"Oh, for fuck's sake, it's him again." Ruby furrows her brow, somehow making her face look even grumpier than it already does. She fires a glare directly at the Dwarf and speaks up with the intensity of a drill instructor. "[Anton, what in the hell are you doing in Okinawa?!]"
  
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“Is this Rikiya Shimabukuro?” asks a pleasantly professional-sounding woman on the other end.
+
The Dwarf, whose name must be Anton, gives a broad, genuinely jolly smile. "[Oh, hello, Ms. Ruby! I'm on vacation, and I was asking this nice man for directions!]"
  
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“Yeah, it’s me,” he rasps, needing a glass of water again.
+
Rikiya looks at the two as if he has made some mistake, as if he has just introduced a pair of stray cats, only to watch them start hissing at each other. He focuses on the red-haired woman. "Oh no. You know each other?"
  
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“It’s Nurse Hayasaka from the hospital. How are you feeling?”
+
She does not answer directly. "Do not trust this man," she warns under her breath, not looking at Rikiya.
  
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''Hayasaka!'' Rikiya has almost never felt so relieved to hear somebody's voice. “Mostly fine, aside from some aching.”
+
"How bad can he be? Is he some kind of scammer, or...?"
  
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“Not doing anything too strenuous?”
+
"He's the tourist from Hell!" she spits. "He doesn't look it, but this man is dangerous. He's not here to do regular tourist shit. He'll want to go to places that no tourist has any business going." She isn't breaking her gaze on the Dwarf; she looks as if she could light him on fire with her eyes. "If you show him anywhere, be prepared to fight something."
  
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“Trying not to.” ''But you know how dreams can get sometimes.''
+
Rikiya thinks about his heart, and Nurse Hasegawa's dire warning. "I..."
  
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“Well, when you get time, can you come by the hospital? We’d like to give you a check-up, just in case. We don’t have a lot of coma patients just wake up, the way you did, and get to go home the same day, let alone… the stuff you did yesterday.”
+
"If you don't think you're up to a fight, I can handle myself. But I don't know this town very well, so I can't very well show him around on my own."
  
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“If I find the time, sure.”
+
"Well, if you're willing to interpret between us, I can show him some places where he can go, but I only barely know what he's asking for."
  
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"Looking forward to seeing you again!" He almost hears the smile over the phone, feeling a strange warmth spreading from his ear towards his feeble heart. He hangs up the phone and begins to gather his things. His shirt is still hanging from one leg of the upturned dinner table, seeming a bit more hopeful of life this morning. Rikiya dons it, letting the tails hang out instead of tucking them. ''Maybe I shouldn't get rid of it, but I need to figure out how to fix these holes. Maybe I'll see about that as soon as I've got some money again.''
+
Ruby takes a bite of her ice cream to stop it from dripping down the side, then finally says something to Anton again. "[Alright, he says he knows some places around here. What was it you wanted?]"
  
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----
+
"[Oh, wonderful!]" Anton gives a triumphant pump of his fist - it must be some gesture that he defaults to when he says something - and answers the question with a lot of English. "[I've always wanted to play a real game of cho-han, but I don't know where to find something like that around here. Can you ask this nice man if he can point me towards a gambling parlor?]"
  
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He carefully takes the last of the 45 stairs leading down from the monorail station and checks his pulse. ''… Yup. Still there.'' The pain has yet to return, today, but after so many brushes with death on Day One, there's no reason not to be careful. Rikiya scans the area for a nearby velotaxi, but does not find one. ''Maybe up the block.''
+
"[No,]" Ruby immediately answers, marching up to him and grabbing him by the collar of his T-shirt. "[You're going to get your shit kicked in,]" she growls at him. "[Those places are not safe for tourists and they don't take kindly to--]"
  
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Rikiya starts walking, but the first thing headed his way is not a velomobile, but a tall, somewhat plump American man, with a very Dwarven beard and a long pony-tail, probably the most…obviously a tourist… that Rikiya has seen in years. He stops, gives the most exaggerated bow he can, then begins to speak. “[Good morning!] ...Oh, um, good morning!” The tall dwarf awkwardly switches from English to a stilted, textbook Japanese.
+
"What's he wanting?" Rikiya interrupts.
  
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“Hi!” Rikiya greets, not much of a stranger to tourists. “Did you need help finding something?”
+
"Ugh... he wants to play some cho-han."
  
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“I’m feeling great, thank you!” replies the tall dwarf, with a triumphant pump of his fist, to a question nobody asked. “Do you know about English?”
+
"Well, that's not so bad... I know a spot on the other end of the shopping arcade, they're fairly welcoming."
  
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''Do you know about…? What a strange question, what about it would I--wait a second.'' "Uh… no, I'm not great with English," Rikiya says, trying not to slur his syllables together too much.
+
Ruby points her ice cream at Rikiya with great purpose. "You don't understand, Rikiya. If it is in any way possible for a fight to start around him, he will FIND that way. I don't know what it is about him, but cops hassle him, gangs shake him down, and yakuza members have tried to kill him before."
  
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"Well, that's no good." The tall dwarf scratches his beard, beneath one of its elaborate Nordic braids. "[I was going to ask if you could help me find someplace, but I don't know how to do that in Japanese. Curse me and my lack of foresight!]" Snapping his fingers, the dwarf Hi-Ho's in the opposite direction and disappears around a corner. ''I almost feel bad for the guy, but I can barely understand what he's saying. I hope he can find somebody that can talk to him, anyway.'' Rikiya shrugs his shoulders, figuring that he's done all he can, and finally finds the taxi that he's looking for.
+
"But he seems so nice...Look at him, this is the happiest person in the world."
  
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----
+
"Yeah, well, trust me, he finds a way, some way or another." Ruby notices that the ice cream has reached her hand, and grumpily sets about licking it off.
  
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The Greater Ryukyu General Hospital seems an awful lot more inviting on the way back in. Rikiya strains a bit to get out of the velotaxi, but thanks the driver profusely for his service. He holds a hand to his brick of a heart again. "This is it," he says to it, "time to see how you're doing."
+
"If it makes you feel any better, I can stick around and make sure he's not about to get in trouble..." Rikiya cannot even begin to imagine who would want to fight this man, this six-foot-six reject from a strong-man championship. The strongest yakuza from back in the day would have difficulty even lifting him.
  
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He is barely into the lobby when a familiar-looking nurse in pastel teal scrubs waves to him from next to a rather nice-looking indoor plant. Kei Hayasaka certainly looks well today; maybe she just couldn't wait for him to show up. Then again, that nonsense downtown sure took a while. "Hey, welcome in," she greets. "Here for the check-up?"
+
"Then I'm sticking around, too. I have the benefit of knowing how he operates." Ruby signals Anton the Dwarf to follow, and the three start walking through the shopping arcade.
  
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"I'm a man of my word, aren't I?" he grins.
+
Rikiya is unable to contain his curiosity. "You've known this guy before, it sounds like. What is he to you? Ex-boyfriend?"
  
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"This way, then." Kei leads him through a couple of corridors and up an elevator. They skip past most of the little triage rooms and the gift shop, and she seats him on a bed in an exam room that nobody seems to need just yet. "Want to open up your shirt for me, real quick?" she asks, rummaging in a drawer for a stethoscope. He does so, being careful not to rip the fabric any more than it already is. The stethoscope is shockingly cold to the touch, but Rikiya grits his teeth and tries to put up with it as she runs it over his chest.
+
Ruby gags slightly on her current bite of waffle cone. "Fuck no," she chokes. "I'm married, and thank God it's not to this guy." She watches Anton get distracted by the little shop selling bottles of amazake. "My life's dangerous enough as it is."
  
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"Huh, does that thing still work when it's not a real heart in there?"
+
"What do you do?" Rikiya asks.
  
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"Gotta listen to your breathing and your guts, too," she says, and listens as intently as she can. Her face doesn't make it look like she's happy with what she hears. "So, you're sure you haven't been doing anything too strenuous?"
+
"Food critic," she says, before taking another bite.
  
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"Well..." Rikiya bashfully lowers his head. "To tell you the truth, I did kind of get into a fight before we met up yesterday, and then someone tried to shoot at me, and then..."
+
"How's that dangerous?"
  
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"Oh boy." She picks up a little hand-scanner device from the bedside table and waves it over his chest. With a little beep, it starts displaying all kinds of diagnostic data. "The defibrillator's gone off...four times, in the last day. That's not normal," she understates, squinting at the scanner to make sure she's read it correctly. It isn't lying - there are timestamps, even.
+
"You'd be surprised," is all she can say through the waffle cone before she swallows again. "What about you?"
  
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"...and then I had a nightmare. About what happened ten years ago."
+
Rikiya wonders which version to give her, because things have changed so much since the last time he was conscious that he still has no idea of his place in the world. "Former yakuza, actually," he says at last, figuring all the stuff about having been shot isn't really important. "Guess you could say I'm in between jobs." Rikiya's eyes now also wander to what Anton is doing, as the tall dwarf furtively peeks into the fish market, then decides to stay out of the crowd.
  
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"Any sudden massive chest pains to speak of?"
+
-----
  
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"Yes. Every time."
+
Fifteen minutes worth of cho-han later, the three emerge from the thankfully-still-operating gambling parlor. Rikiya and Ruby are both thankful that it didn't take long, while Anton is still doing little happy-dances with his freshly won prize: a small pewter dragon, set with a glass jewel in its considerable maw.
  
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"That's *definitely* not normal," Kei says, with a hand up to her head. "No, this thing's having to work unusually hard. I need to go get Dr. Hanzawa. Do you think you'll be okay for a few minutes? I'll be right back." She drops the scanner on the bed, by Rikiya's leg, and speedwalks out of the exam room before Rikiya can answer her.
+
"I can't believe he actually won something," Rikiya compliments. "I'm kind of surprised he was able to play cho-han at all, considering he barely knows the language."
  
−
''Not normal?'' Ten years ago, Rikiya would have taken it as a compliment. ''Maybe I am some kind of genetic freak. How else could a guy survive being shot almost directly through the heart, and survive?'' Even if it did take ten years for him to recover from it? Rikiya reaches for the scanner, still displaying the diagnostic data from his metal heart. The entire past day, starting from around noon, is perfectly timelined down to the second, in the most clinical detail possible, organized by time of occurrence. 4 Alerts, 17 Cautions. '''Caution:''' Strenuous activity. '''Caution:''' Heart rate exceeded recommended level. '''Alert:''' Stoppage detected, attempted restart. '''Alert:''' Stoppage detected, attempted restart. '''Alert. Alert.'''
+
"Well, I guess if you already know the name of the game, it's just a matter of remembering which one means 'odd' and which one means 'even.'"
  
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He has to cry a bit. Brushes with death used to be exciting. Not that Rikiya was any daredevil to begin with, but he certainly never backed down from a fight. Even the ones that ended with him with his face in the pavement. He thinks hard about it and realizes that he's never really lived a peaceful and relaxing life. He isn't sure he even knows how.
+
Anton pipes up now, at last. "[Well, that was fun, and I got this amazing thing for it, too!]"
  
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The nurse and her doctor burst into the room together. "Ah, it's you!" exclaims Dr. Hanzawa. "Er... Rikiya, was it?"
+
Rikiya looks at the prize, and figures it to just be a little trinket of no particular value. "Is he going to want to sell this?"
  
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"Yeah." Rikiya realizes he's still holding the hand-scanner, and hands it to the doctor.
+
Ruby quickly interprets the question to Anton, then Anton speaks again. "[Ho-ho, nope, this thing's staying with me, it's too powerful to just get rid of. This is a Seal of the Dragon!]" Rikiya doesn't even have to wait for Ruby to translate it back, for his ears to perk up at the English word "dragon." But Anton hasn't finished speaking yet. "[But I think I should get this back to my hotel room for safe keeping. Thank you both for the wonderful time, I think my train station is this way--]" Anton bumps into a man wearing a sky-blue polo shirt, black mesh tactical vest, navy blue shorts, and a black army corps hat. Rikiya hears the clatter of sunglasses hitting the pavement, and feels his fists tightening up out of reflex. "[Oh! Terribly sorry, sir, I'll just get those for you--]"
  
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"Mm-hmm..." Hanzawa doesn't have to glance at it for very long. "I guess I should have figured, for a former yakuza. Iwata certainly made the right call."
+
"Back away, right now!" screams an oddly familiar voice, as the man in blue waves his arms aggressively to shoo him away. Anton does back off, in exactly the wrong direction, as his sock-and-sandal-clad foot steps precisely where it shouldn't. Rikiya hears the crunching of plastic lenses; he and Ruby both grimace on reflex. "Son of a bitch," growls the man in blue. "Second pair this week, you fucker." He notices that he is being watched, and reaches for the stun-gun on his belt. "Back away," he orders as he turns to face Rikiya, "or I will use..." His facial expression turns even more sour as he realizes who he's looking at. "God damn it, it's you again."
  
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"Which call was that?"
+
Rikiya almost doesn't recognize the man without the cheap shades on his face, but it's definitely the man from the empty Ryudo office. He looks at the name badge stitched into his tactical vest. "So, Sugiyama's your name?"
  
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"He made the decision to implant a miniature defibrillator in your heart, alongside the pacemaker. The very latest medical technology, at the time. All this time later, it seems like it's still doing its job. Though we might need to change the battery soon." He looks more relieved than he should.
+
"Mr. Shades" Sugiyama, now shades-less, tries to cover up the badge with one of his hands, but realizes he is now too late. "Yeah, and you wanna make something of it?"
  
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Kei draws the doctor's attention back to the screen. "Sensei, look at the timestamps."
+
"What's with the get-up? This your day job or something? Family can't keep you paid enough?"
  
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"Oh. ...Oh, my." The look of concern finally takes him over. "Four times in a day? I'm surprised this thing hasn't killed you by now."
+
"Fuck you." Sugiyama, who looks a lot less threatening in a security uniform, closes the snap on his stun-gun holster, and turns to leave. "Ain't even worth talkin' to you if you ain't doing anything illegal." As he bends over to pick up the crushed frames of his sunglasses, Rikiya spots a logo on the back of his vest for Argus Security Solutions.
  
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"Killed?!" Rikiya exclaims, louder than he intends.
+
"A.S.S.?" Rikiya has not heard the name before, and figures they must be new in town.
  
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"No, no, maybe that's the wrong word. Um..." Hanzawa scratches at one of his temples, searching for the right phrase. "The human heart is a remarkably fragile thing, for how important it is. I'm...primarily surprised that, for as long as it has been since the last time it's had to do any real work, the device hasn't failed to do its job, even with mere hours between discharges. I'd say you're lucky, but at the same time, this little gadget refuses to let anything happen to you. It's a tenacious little thing."
+
Ruby, meanwhile, lets a burst of air out her nose, and makes what must be the first smile she's made all day. "Heh. [It says 'ass.']" Rikiya, who definitely learned the funniest English swear words back in school, barely lets out a snicker, himself.
  
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"Maybe a bit like the man wearing it," Kei adds with a sly smirk.
+
Sugiyama slips the ex-sunglasses into one of his vest pockets and glares at all three of them. "Gonna let you all off with a warning this time, but you better not touch an officer of city security that way again." With this, he walks up the alleyway they came from.
  
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"So every time my chest hurts like that, it's that little robot inside my heart zapping me back to life?" asks Rikiya, tapping on the rectangle again. "Might explain why it went off when I was..."
+
"Well," Ruby begins, "I dunno what that was all about with him, but I think I better see Anton off to the station personally. You don't need to stick around if you don't want."
  
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"When you were fighting someone? When you were being shot at?" Kei finishes for him. "I mean, I suppose I can't tell you how to live your life, but you really need to avoid that kind of stuff in the future. I don't know how many more times this thing can save you."
+
Rikiya commits the Argus Security logo, and the name Sugiyama, to memory. "I appreciate the help today. I don't have money, or anything, but..."
  
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Rikiya wants to tell her it's no big deal, that he's been through worse. Not a single thing he can think to say, would reassure her at all. "Alright," he finally tells her. "I'll do my best to keep it in check."
+
"No, the one that should be paying is him," Ruby says, gesturing at Anton. "[Hey, c'mon, this guy was a big help, wanna kick something his way for the trouble?]"
  
−
----
+
Something pings within Anton's head, and he immediately reaches into a pocket of his cargo shorts and withdraws a wallet. He doesn't even take anything out of it, and hands it over to Rikiya.
  
−
His trip back out of the hospital lobby is slower, more measured and careful than usual. ''Maybe too careful,'' he suspects, ''but why push it?'' Just in case, he does look both ways before exiting the main doors, in case a certain somebody is lying in wait for him. With the way clear, he leaves, to find the velotaxi from before still waiting for him. The driver waves to him and gestures to get in.
+
Rikiya opens it and looks at all the stuff still inside of it. It contains a reasonably sized wad of 2,000 yen bills, and a lot of random plastic cards, most of which appear to be membership cards for grocery stores and libraries. "Why'd you hand me the whole thing?"
  
−
"Wanna go back downtown?" he asks with a grin.
+
Anton replies, via Ruby, "[Of course, that's not my *actual* wallet - that's my decoy gambling wallet. You may, naturally, keep all the cash inside of it, as I figured I would lose it all today and budgeted accordingly.]"
  
−
"Yeah, sure," he says, feeling more tired than he'd like to be. He climbs into the back and swipes his transit card in the machine, then once he is properly strapped in, the driver begins pedaling.
+
The money alone is far more than Rikiya already has on him, and could even be enough to secure a place for him to stay for a while. "Well, uh... [Thank you,]" says Rikiya with a deeper bow than necessary.
  
−
"Y'know, I never thought I'd get used to driving something this big without an engine, but you'd be surprised how easy these things are to move," the driver begins, as he brings the vehicle on to the side road. Going by his voice, he's a local; it's hard to mistake the way an Okinawan talks.
+
"[You are *most* welcome! And now, I must be off, for there are many more things to do on this wonderful island...]"
  
−
Rikiya sighs, remembering what the nurse just told him. "I'd almost want one for myself, but my heart probably can't take it now."
+
"[I thought you were gonna go stash that little dragon thing first,]" reminded Ruby. "[C'mon. I'll follow you to the station, so you don't slam into another security guard today.]"
  
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"Shame to hear. Way better than the old compact van I used to drive, y'know." The driver's speech has a certain quality to it that Rikiya recognizes, a bit. "Plus, y'know, does help ya lose some weight!"
+
"[Oh, is that who that was? I didn't even realize.]"
  
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"I'm sorry if this is kinda personal to ask, but did you used to be in one of the yakuza families around here?"
+
"[You absolute moron,]" Ruby laughs, and drags him along the road towards the monorail platform staircase.
  
−
The driver has to laugh for a second as he slows the velotaxi to stop at a red light. It's a mirthful, but conditioned laugh, like he's had to laugh on purpose for one reason or another. "Y'know, it's been a few years since somebody asked me that, I got to thinking nobody ever would again, since I quit bleachin' my hair and wearin' those flashy clothes."
+
Rikiya re-counts the money in the wallet, finding almost 200,000 yen in it. That's got to be enough, he thinks, to figure out how to make the Ryudo office livable again. Then I don't have to take up poor Haruka's dining room again.
−
 
 
−
Rikiya looked down at his ragged shirt, that seemed uncomfortably bright now, even compared to the bright orange vest that the driver wore. He would need to consider getting something less obvious, now, if he intended to not be in any more fights.
 
−
 
 
−
"Nah, to answer your question, yeah, used to be, but that was years ago. Family ain't around, now, so I went legit." He scratched at the back of his head, where his hair showed only the tiniest hint of having ever been anything but dark brown. "Didn't used to get a lot of customers, but I've known this place like the back of my hand for years, and I did always love showing tourists around."
 
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Rikiya thinks about the Tall Dwarf again, and briefly wonders if he should have given him a referral to this driver in particular. "I was, too, is why I'm asking. Found out I'm not in nearly good enough shape to keep that life up anymore. Was almost going to ask for some pointers, but if it's going to involve a lot of pedaling, it might not be for me."
 
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"Hah, nah, nah, don't worry about it. If you're looking for some odd jobs, I hear they just opened a Hello Work office, it'd be up the boulevard a bit. I, uh, can't take you there directly, these things aren't allowed on the faster roads."
 
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"I appreciate it, either way," says Rikiya.
 
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The taxi pulls up to a stop, next to the staircase leading to the monorail station. The driver turns as far as he can in his recumbent seat and looks at Rikiya out the side of his eye. "Thanks for riding with us, and if you're ever in need of a ride in a pinch, we've got an on-demand service, too. We got that fancy app for those newer phones, but just in case, I'll give you my card." He reaches into his vest and fishes out a little plastic badge with a name on it, which Rikiya accepts without looking at it. As soon as Rikiya's out of the vehicle, something beeps between the handle bars. "Oh, speakin' of which, got a request coming in. Gimme a call whenever, aniki!" With this, the velotaxi takes off again, coming up to speed somewhat faster without the extra weight of a passenger.
 
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''Aniki...?'' Rikiya doesn't recall hardly anybody calling ''him'' aniki. Except... he looks down at the plastic business card in his hand. On one side of it is the company logo, Ryukyu In Motion, Inc. He flips it over. ''Mikio Aragaki.'' He kicks at the sidewalk a bit. ''Did he recognize me? How'd I not notice it was him? Where'd the time go...?'' He slips the card into one of his pants pockets. ''Well...I guess it'll have to be some work, first of all,'' he thinks, and sets off towards the main boulevard.
 

Revision as of 16:17, 25 August 2022

It doesn't take too long, going up the main boulevard, before Rikiya runs into a slightly familiar face, half-hidden by a very familiar honey-blonde beard. The Tall Dwarf notices Rikiya straight away. "[Greetings again!]" he says in English, before searching his brain for something Japanese to ask. "I am looking for some English," he asks, as politely as he seemingly knows how; Rikiya only barely manages to parse what he wants, and elects to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Uh..." Rikiya dives back into his primordial memories to find the simplest way to answer him, and finally remembers the little bit of English he learned in high school. "[I can help you, please wait here.]" He silently prays that he doesn't need to say anything more, as he's sure that his accent will have eaten most of the phrase. The Dwarf, thankfully, seems satisfied enough to give him a jolly nod, before seating himself on a nearby guard rail. Rikiya looks around his familiar town, realizing that the one thing he's never had to ask for before was somebody who could speak English. A strange feeling, he thinks, to need to think like a tourist, in my own home town.

He figures that the most likely English-speakers in Okinawa would be policemen or taxi drivers, but neither of those kinds of people can be found, after painstaking seconds of searching. But out the corner of Rikiya's eye, there is a splash of flaming red coming out of the Gelateria. The redness belongs to the hair of a foreign-looking woman, wielding a waffle cone of mint chocolate chip; her hair is drawn back in a quick-and-dirty ponytail but still looks rather unkempt and loose, likely from the climate, and roughly curtains a face that seems to not wish to be bothered. Regardless, she is headed his way, and it is unclear whether she enjoys her ice cream or not. Rikiya holds up a hand to flag her down. "Um, [hello, good day!]" he calls out, trying to look pleasant and friendly.

The woman, standing a head and a half shorter than Rikiya, shoots an electrifying glance right into his eyes. "Good morning, can I help you?" she asks, roughly the way someone from Kansai would say it.

Rikiya suppresses a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness, you speak Japanese. I, uh... My name is Rikiya, and I could use some help with somebody," he asks, not entirely certain why he's so nervous to talk to her. It's a feeling that he generally used to feel in the presence of important yakuza.

"Well, I go by Ruby. What kind of help do you think I can give you, though?" The look on her face does not appear to be softening, though her words seem friendly enough... for as friendly as an American speaking Kansai can sound, anyway.

"I've got this guy waiting over here that... I guess he's looking for directions? But I don't speak much English, and I don't think he knows Japanese very well either, and... you seem like you'd know both?" His hands subconsciously fold together into a begging gesture.

She takes a lick of her cone and sighs. "I guess I don't have anything important to do yet. Let's see this guy."

Rikiya leads her back to the guard rail, where the Tall Dwarf waits like a loyal dog. He looks just as excited as one, as soon as he sees the two of them approaching. "[Oh, you're back! Did you find someone?]" He realizes that he said it in English without thinking, but before he can search for the relevant Japanese phrase, the woman mutters some Kansai-ben that only Rikiya can hear.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, it's him again." Ruby furrows her brow, somehow making her face look even grumpier than it already does. She fires a glare directly at the Dwarf and speaks up with the intensity of a drill instructor. "[Anton, what in the hell are you doing in Okinawa?!]"

The Dwarf, whose name must be Anton, gives a broad, genuinely jolly smile. "[Oh, hello, Ms. Ruby! I'm on vacation, and I was asking this nice man for directions!]"

Rikiya looks at the two as if he has made some mistake, as if he has just introduced a pair of stray cats, only to watch them start hissing at each other. He focuses on the red-haired woman. "Oh no. You know each other?"

She does not answer directly. "Do not trust this man," she warns under her breath, not looking at Rikiya.

"How bad can he be? Is he some kind of scammer, or...?"

"He's the tourist from Hell!" she spits. "He doesn't look it, but this man is dangerous. He's not here to do regular tourist shit. He'll want to go to places that no tourist has any business going." She isn't breaking her gaze on the Dwarf; she looks as if she could light him on fire with her eyes. "If you show him anywhere, be prepared to fight something."

Rikiya thinks about his heart, and Nurse Hasegawa's dire warning. "I..."

"If you don't think you're up to a fight, I can handle myself. But I don't know this town very well, so I can't very well show him around on my own."

"Well, if you're willing to interpret between us, I can show him some places where he can go, but I only barely know what he's asking for."

Ruby takes a bite of her ice cream to stop it from dripping down the side, then finally says something to Anton again. "[Alright, he says he knows some places around here. What was it you wanted?]"

"[Oh, wonderful!]" Anton gives a triumphant pump of his fist - it must be some gesture that he defaults to when he says something - and answers the question with a lot of English. "[I've always wanted to play a real game of cho-han, but I don't know where to find something like that around here. Can you ask this nice man if he can point me towards a gambling parlor?]"

"[No,]" Ruby immediately answers, marching up to him and grabbing him by the collar of his T-shirt. "[You're going to get your shit kicked in,]" she growls at him. "[Those places are not safe for tourists and they don't take kindly to--]"

"What's he wanting?" Rikiya interrupts.

"Ugh... he wants to play some cho-han."

"Well, that's not so bad... I know a spot on the other end of the shopping arcade, they're fairly welcoming."

Ruby points her ice cream at Rikiya with great purpose. "You don't understand, Rikiya. If it is in any way possible for a fight to start around him, he will FIND that way. I don't know what it is about him, but cops hassle him, gangs shake him down, and yakuza members have tried to kill him before."

"But he seems so nice...Look at him, this is the happiest person in the world."

"Yeah, well, trust me, he finds a way, some way or another." Ruby notices that the ice cream has reached her hand, and grumpily sets about licking it off.

"If it makes you feel any better, I can stick around and make sure he's not about to get in trouble..." Rikiya cannot even begin to imagine who would want to fight this man, this six-foot-six reject from a strong-man championship. The strongest yakuza from back in the day would have difficulty even lifting him.

"Then I'm sticking around, too. I have the benefit of knowing how he operates." Ruby signals Anton the Dwarf to follow, and the three start walking through the shopping arcade.

Rikiya is unable to contain his curiosity. "You've known this guy before, it sounds like. What is he to you? Ex-boyfriend?"

Ruby gags slightly on her current bite of waffle cone. "Fuck no," she chokes. "I'm married, and thank God it's not to this guy." She watches Anton get distracted by the little shop selling bottles of amazake. "My life's dangerous enough as it is."

"What do you do?" Rikiya asks.

"Food critic," she says, before taking another bite.

"How's that dangerous?"

"You'd be surprised," is all she can say through the waffle cone before she swallows again. "What about you?"

Rikiya wonders which version to give her, because things have changed so much since the last time he was conscious that he still has no idea of his place in the world. "Former yakuza, actually," he says at last, figuring all the stuff about having been shot isn't really important. "Guess you could say I'm in between jobs." Rikiya's eyes now also wander to what Anton is doing, as the tall dwarf furtively peeks into the fish market, then decides to stay out of the crowd.

Fifteen minutes worth of cho-han later, the three emerge from the thankfully-still-operating gambling parlor. Rikiya and Ruby are both thankful that it didn't take long, while Anton is still doing little happy-dances with his freshly won prize: a small pewter dragon, set with a glass jewel in its considerable maw.

"I can't believe he actually won something," Rikiya compliments. "I'm kind of surprised he was able to play cho-han at all, considering he barely knows the language."

"Well, I guess if you already know the name of the game, it's just a matter of remembering which one means 'odd' and which one means 'even.'"

Anton pipes up now, at last. "[Well, that was fun, and I got this amazing thing for it, too!]"

Rikiya looks at the prize, and figures it to just be a little trinket of no particular value. "Is he going to want to sell this?"

Ruby quickly interprets the question to Anton, then Anton speaks again. "[Ho-ho, nope, this thing's staying with me, it's too powerful to just get rid of. This is a Seal of the Dragon!]" Rikiya doesn't even have to wait for Ruby to translate it back, for his ears to perk up at the English word "dragon." But Anton hasn't finished speaking yet. "[But I think I should get this back to my hotel room for safe keeping. Thank you both for the wonderful time, I think my train station is this way--]" Anton bumps into a man wearing a sky-blue polo shirt, black mesh tactical vest, navy blue shorts, and a black army corps hat. Rikiya hears the clatter of sunglasses hitting the pavement, and feels his fists tightening up out of reflex. "[Oh! Terribly sorry, sir, I'll just get those for you--]"

"Back away, right now!" screams an oddly familiar voice, as the man in blue waves his arms aggressively to shoo him away. Anton does back off, in exactly the wrong direction, as his sock-and-sandal-clad foot steps precisely where it shouldn't. Rikiya hears the crunching of plastic lenses; he and Ruby both grimace on reflex. "Son of a bitch," growls the man in blue. "Second pair this week, you fucker." He notices that he is being watched, and reaches for the stun-gun on his belt. "Back away," he orders as he turns to face Rikiya, "or I will use..." His facial expression turns even more sour as he realizes who he's looking at. "God damn it, it's you again."

Rikiya almost doesn't recognize the man without the cheap shades on his face, but it's definitely the man from the empty Ryudo office. He looks at the name badge stitched into his tactical vest. "So, Sugiyama's your name?"

"Mr. Shades" Sugiyama, now shades-less, tries to cover up the badge with one of his hands, but realizes he is now too late. "Yeah, and you wanna make something of it?"

"What's with the get-up? This your day job or something? Family can't keep you paid enough?"

"Fuck you." Sugiyama, who looks a lot less threatening in a security uniform, closes the snap on his stun-gun holster, and turns to leave. "Ain't even worth talkin' to you if you ain't doing anything illegal." As he bends over to pick up the crushed frames of his sunglasses, Rikiya spots a logo on the back of his vest for Argus Security Solutions.

"A.S.S.?" Rikiya has not heard the name before, and figures they must be new in town.

Ruby, meanwhile, lets a burst of air out her nose, and makes what must be the first smile she's made all day. "Heh. [It says 'ass.']" Rikiya, who definitely learned the funniest English swear words back in school, barely lets out a snicker, himself.

Sugiyama slips the ex-sunglasses into one of his vest pockets and glares at all three of them. "Gonna let you all off with a warning this time, but you better not touch an officer of city security that way again." With this, he walks up the alleyway they came from.

"Well," Ruby begins, "I dunno what that was all about with him, but I think I better see Anton off to the station personally. You don't need to stick around if you don't want."

Rikiya commits the Argus Security logo, and the name Sugiyama, to memory. "I appreciate the help today. I don't have money, or anything, but..."

"No, the one that should be paying is him," Ruby says, gesturing at Anton. "[Hey, c'mon, this guy was a big help, wanna kick something his way for the trouble?]"

Something pings within Anton's head, and he immediately reaches into a pocket of his cargo shorts and withdraws a wallet. He doesn't even take anything out of it, and hands it over to Rikiya.

Rikiya opens it and looks at all the stuff still inside of it. It contains a reasonably sized wad of 2,000 yen bills, and a lot of random plastic cards, most of which appear to be membership cards for grocery stores and libraries. "Why'd you hand me the whole thing?"

Anton replies, via Ruby, "[Of course, that's not my *actual* wallet - that's my decoy gambling wallet. You may, naturally, keep all the cash inside of it, as I figured I would lose it all today and budgeted accordingly.]"

The money alone is far more than Rikiya already has on him, and could even be enough to secure a place for him to stay for a while. "Well, uh... [Thank you,]" says Rikiya with a deeper bow than necessary.

"[You are *most* welcome! And now, I must be off, for there are many more things to do on this wonderful island...]"

"[I thought you were gonna go stash that little dragon thing first,]" reminded Ruby. "[C'mon. I'll follow you to the station, so you don't slam into another security guard today.]"

"[Oh, is that who that was? I didn't even realize.]"

"[You absolute moron,]" Ruby laughs, and drags him along the road towards the monorail platform staircase.

Rikiya re-counts the money in the wallet, finding almost 200,000 yen in it. That's got to be enough, he thinks, to figure out how to make the Ryudo office livable again. Then I don't have to take up poor Haruka's dining room again.

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