The Snow is Setting In

The room was dark and my eyes were damp from sweat. With the feeling of bandages in my hands and the smell of cigars choking my throat as I was slowly fading from consciousness. All I heard were distorted screams.

“Finish him Hajime!”

“Don't let that kid beat you, Kane.”

“It's going to be you and me outside Kane don't lose this!”

“If you lose my money Hajime I'll steal every pair of shoes you own!” There were so many voices going around I forgot where I was. That's when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Finish the fight Hajime. You have school in the morning.” I realized where I was. An underground Muay Thai fighting ring. I snapped out of my trance to see my opponent standing in front of me tired and disappointed mouthing words I could hardly hear.

"Are you done, kid?" I put my hands up to guard and saw his face change quickly. We began to exchange blows until I Caught his jaw in a right hook and put him on the ground. My eyes shuttered and I appeared in a car and the image of a worried girl with white hair was in the corner of my eye looking back at me. I woke up in a cold sweat with bruises and bandages on my face and a stack of money in my lap. After placing it in a drawer I remember what happened. Mr. Saito took me to another fight and I blacked out once it was over. Quickly I went to check on my mother in the other room to see that she was still sleeping. She was laying there with an empty pill bottle beside her.

“You came home with bruises on your face again.”

“It's nothing mom. I'm going to make breakfast so lay back down.” After taking poor care of my wounds I made breakfast and went out the door.

Upon checking the mail there was an envelope with a familiar address from overseas. I ripped it up and proceeded to school.

“Hey, Hajime with the snow setting in you might wanna invest in a better coat than that.” This is one of my close friends Koichi Sasaki. He's in his 2nd year in high school along with me. He slicks back his hair and wears glasses. Though we come from different financial backgrounds we get along just fine.

“I'll get one after school.” He ran up to catch up to me.

“Great, I'll come with you. We could get matching trench coats.”

“I think I'll just get a winter coat.”

“Come on man, getting a matching coat would look so badass! Never mind you will lose the vote anyway. I'm guessing you had another fight last night?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You did a shitty job taking care of your wounds. There's no doubt she will notice when she sees you.”

“How's writing going for you?” His face went flat.

“Just fine actually. I'm almost done with my new project. I will let you read it once I find a publisher.” It sounded like he hadn't made any progress.

“Has smoking helped?”

“It's not supposed to help the way you think. It's just to feel more like a writer. It's similar to how bodybuilders go on certain diets to feel more like an athlete.”

“I don't think that's why they're dieting.”

“Hey, guys wait up!” It was Aoi Tanaka. She is a second-year in the same school as us.

“Hajime what happened to your face.” Before I could answer, Sasaki answered for me.

“He got into a fight over the weekend. Someone tried to mug him.” She pulled my face down to hers and inspected it.

“You did a horrible job taking care of it! Come over to my place after school so I can patch it up properly.”

“It's fine. I doubt you could do a better job than me.” Sasaki stepped in to make things worse again.

“That's because it's not for you, it's for her to feel better.” She looked stunned then turned towards him with an annoyed look.

“How's your publishing going?” I decided to get him back for what he said earlier.

“Apparently it's been going great ever since he started smoking.”

“You did what!”

“Damnit Hajime, you knew I wasn't going to tell her.”

“So you weren't going to tell me about it!” She began to pat him down like contraband in prison.

“Why would I bring any to school?”

“I know your type! After a long day at school, you smoke a few for the stress. You have to have them on you.” She emptied his bag and managed to find them.

“So now you're grouping me in with delinquents? I do it to feel like a better writer. All the famous ones do it.”

“I'm amazed at how far you go to feel like a writer. She threw them into some bushes and Sasaki’s face didn't change. Once she realized he wasn't moved by it she went to the bush and emptied them into the trash bin.

“Come on Tanaka, you didn't have to go that far.” She looked at him with an angry expression.

“You were going to come back for them after school wasn't you.” Then proceeded to pour a bottle of water into the trash bin. He took a deep breath and changed the subject.

“Anyway, I and Hajime were talking about getting matching coats for the winter.”

“I think that would look cool! We could all have matching trench coats.” So this is what he meant by I will lose the vote.

“It's settled then we can go right after school.”

“First we have to go over to your place Sasaki.” His face turned into stone.

“Don't worry all we will be doing is going through everything you own to make sure you don't have any more cancer sticks.” His plan to change the subject failed.

When we got to school almost everyone was grouped into one segment of the hall. There was a new girl who just transferred in. While we were making our way towards the class everyone was moving out of my way while staring at the wounds on my face. Once we got to the class two guys approached me.

“Hajime, it looks like they're back again. I can't stand the two of them” The two students were Makoto Yamada and Kazuki Arai, both 2nd years. They were known delinquents in our school but no one seemed to ever stand up to them. The problem is they're always trying to recruit me.

“Damn Hajime every time I see you you're banged up. You must really be a soldier.”

“I just manage to attract trouble is all.”

“Well so you know if you rolled with my group you wouldn't have to fight alone anymore. We plan on hanging out on our usual spot today so swing by if you have nothing better to do.” Tanaka stepped in front of me.

“Sorry, but the three of us planned to go shopping today.” Yamada jumped into the conversation.

“Oh, it's Hajimes puppy Aoi. I hope you're doing well today.”

“Sasaki, are you going to let him call me a puppy?” Sasaki rolled his shoulders in agreeance.

“Calm down he just meant that you're really cute and I can agree.” While the three of them were going back and forth I peeked my head into the classroom to see a girl with long white hair and blue eyes. There were tons of people around her trying to get a word in but when she looked toward me our eyes locked for what felt like hours. She began to stand up. Before I could step into the room and speak to her Tanaka grabbed my arm and pulled me to class.

“Come on Hajime im done talking to these guys.” She forgot to bring Sasaki with us.

“Are you another one of Hajime's friends?”

“Yeah but im not a puppy.”

“I see.”

“I know Aoi is a solid 8”

“Your friend Aoi is a solid 8” I looked back to see if he was ok and Sasaki was clasping hands with Yamada. Once he caught up with us he heard an earful from Tanaka before we got to class.

Classes were over and the three of us were standing in front of the school. All I could think about was that girl. If she was new to the school then there was no way that she was at the ring yesterday night. I just couldn't piece together why she was in my dream.

“Ok so first we're going to stop by my place to get Hajime fixed up. After we can go shopping for jackets then search Sasaki’s entire home and street for cancer sticks until 1 in the morning.”

“Sorry, but could we do this another day. I have a lot of errands to run and I don't want to hold you guys back.” Before Tanaka could go against it Sasaki stood up for me.

“No worries man if you have things to go ahead and do we won't stop you right Tanaka.”

“Yeah, it would be wrong for us to get in the way of your responsibilities.” Sasaki is pretty much the only person I've talked to about my home situation and how I make money so he understands why I need to go alone. Tanaka on the other hand I keep in the dark.

I had to go and buy a new coat, get medicine for my mom, and have food for the week. When I was going to get grocery I noticed a car was following me. I chose to keep a close eye on it while traversing in crowded places. They trailed me almost the whole day. I went to an ally way and made sure I had a way out. Three guys got out of the car and followed me. I dropped my bags and turned towards them to see the man I fought yesterday and an old guy.

“Hello, Hajime. We noticed that you were walking around today and decided to pay you a visit. We asked Mr. Saito to grand a rematch between you and Kane but he saw no profit in a fight for honor instead of money.”

“So you came to me instead.”

“Well, you were born with free will? You brought disrespect to my fighter here and he wants to win it back fair and square.” I've met these types of guys before. They pretend to want a rematch when they just want their money back. I've already spent most of what was on me but that won't stop these guys. I went into a fighting stance and let the first guy approach me. We both still had wounds from yesterday but he seemed full of energy and refreshed. He threw the first punch. His attacks were fast and heavy ao blocking them still hurt. After a few blows to the core, I started to fight back. His form was almost perfect and his counters were fast and decisive. I went off of defense and full offense. He didn't guard though. I remembered why he was so difficult to beat. He based his fighting style fully on counters and attacks with little defense. I threw away my defensive techniques too and went on the attack. The direction of the change to whoever could dodge and take the most attacks while dishing out the most damage. He didn't go for my face though. It was only body shots and leg kicks. I realized what his plan was. He wanted to break my spirit. I took this opportunity to stop guarding my face and go on full attack. When I did The first thing I saw was a strong jab to the face and I stumbled to the ground.

“Good job on winning back your honor Kane and my money.” His whole plan was to lower my guard to get one solid hit in. I lay in the snow accepting my defeat. When the man reached into my pocket my opponent grabbed his arm and threw him back and spoke in a whisper.

“I don't remember putting any money up on this fight. And I don't rob kids.” He leaned down to me and reached into my pocket.

“For your troubles go buy a coffee on me.” As they left I began standing up holding my face. He really did get a good hit in. Before going home I went to the store to get the coffee I was promised. When I got there I saw the girl with the white hair drinking a coffee in front of the store wearing the uniform.

“Hey, are you the new girl?” Before I could finish my sentence she walked up to me and took a close look at my face. Her face was red from the cold.

“These bruises look new.” She began to inspect my face before looking down.

“Im sorry! The cold was getting to me and I thought you were someone else. I wanted to get a closer look when I saw you at school this morning but you left in a hurry.” She was talking about when Tanaka pulled me away earlier.

“It's fine but arent you new around here?”

“Oh yes, I just got here this Saturday. My name is Emi Ando. Please call me Emi though.”

“So what's your name?”

“It's Akira Hajime. So anyway, why were you worried? She looked confused when I asked until I realized that she may not have known that I saw her yesterday.

"Since you were looking at my bruises I assumed that you were worried about me or whoever you thought I was."

“I don't know myself. My dad wasn't home yesterday when I got off work. I questioned him about it he brushed it off. The only clue I have was that some guy was beaten up in the back seat of his car so I thought it was you.”

“So where did you live before here?”

“I actually started here in Aomori but I moved to Tokyo with my mother. There was too much piling up here and I had to get away you know.”

“Yeah, I get it the snow can pile up really high here.” She began to laugh and someone knocked on the window. It was the owner of the store Ms. Shikimori.

“Akira when did you get here?”

“I just came by to get some coffee before I headed home.”

“How's your mother? Is she doing better yet?” I held up my bag of medicine.

“I understand. Well, thanks for giving my worker company but her break is over.”

“Im sorry! I didn't realize I was out here for so long.” She rushed back into the store but peeked her head out the door one more time.

“Make sure to say hi to me at school tomorrow!” And waved at me before Shikimori pulled her back into the store.

As I walked back home I crossed a bridge to see Sasaki waiting for me on the bridge. He had a worried expression on his face holding a bag. I knew what this was about. But I didn't know how to respond to him.

Later in the night Kane and his manager were driving down the snowy road.

“Kane you're never gonna survive in this business without cutting down your opponents every once in a while. This way even when you lose I can still win in the end. That's what keeps food on the table for both of us.” Kane began to unravel the bandage on his hands.

“Don't act like what you were trying to do was justified, old man.”

“It's a dog eat dog world out there and no matter how you see it if you don't eat your share you're going to starve. So if you don't want to starve you will do what I say. Since Saito wants to bring young blood into the ring we will do the same.”

“You're letting me go?” He began to re-wrap his hands in the bandage.

“You're scary when angry you know that. I and you both know that you went easy on the kid at first. So I lined up a fighter around the same age and you will be training him. That should be ok with you. Make sure to discipline him well too. He's a rowdy one.”

“Are his parents ok with this? I've told you already that im a fighter not a criminal. I draw the line at kidnapping.”

“How about relaxing a little. From what I know he doesn't have any. He's a local delinquent and a pretty good fighter untrained.”

“Fine, I accept under the condition that he goes to school. I refuse to rob the youth of a teenager to make money from fighting.”

“Your moral compass pisses me off sometimes. Don't worry about that. If it makes you feel any better ill even enroll him in a private school.