A Boy and A Brother

- 18th of April 1986-

The officer tugged my arm viciously as he almost dragged me through the hallway. You would have thought they would treat their suspects with a bit more decency, but to them, I was just another juvenile running around and causing trouble. Well, I still found it hard to compare myself to them.

As we passed by the other cells I saw an entire bōsōzoku locked up. They all stared me down as we continued. When they’re behind bars you feel safe, but once they're out of here, they get ten times more terrifying. What's even worse than that, being locked up with them, you might as well remove the idea of the bars entirely.

Soon, we stopped in front of a metal door, that made the cells the bikers were locked up in look like a luxury. “Onii-san, I think I saw a bit of extra space in the previous cells–” Too late, he had already opened their door and thrown me inside. Well, shit… I heard the door slam behind me with a loud metal clank. 

Looking around I found this room, I began to realise that I hadn't actually imagined that the holding cells could've been this shitty. A small concrete room with only an old mattress. The lack of space for the mattress, the small window, and the metal door with only a tiny opening to the outside all gave the impression that this wasn't intended to be a jail cell. It was definitely a torture room. I stood there for a moment as if I was expecting the keikan to be just messing around with me. That was when reality set in…

“No, no, no!” I started banging on the door. “Onii-san, give me a fucking break, will you! I don’t want to be stuck in this kempeitai shithole!”

“Shut the fuck up, gaki” A voice said from the door across from mine. It was a similar-looking cell to mine, and through the similar opening in the metal door, I could see the back of his head.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck u–” I shouted but quickly stopped when he moved a bit away from the door. Something stretched across his neck. It almost looked like a…

“Yes. Sure, of course! Whatever you say, aniki!” I nervously tried to say optimistically. I remember changing my attitude drastically. The other option was just continually kicking the door and screaming for help. ‘There’s a fucking yakuza, and I accidentally told him to shut up!’ I could see myself walking down the street before a black car pulls up and just unloads all its bullets on me. And then I would survive and be forced into witness protection so the same assholes who got me into this mess could look out for me. Well, whether or not they got me into this mess I guess is subjective.

He definitely seemed to have noticed that I had gone quiet, because he began speaking to me. “What were you about to tell me earlier?” He asked in an intimidating tone.

“I’m very sorry. Incredibly sorry. I regret it deeply. You'll never hear me speak so rudely to you ever again. Please, I beg you don’t tell the Yamaguchi about this!”

“Yamaguchi?” He asked before he suddenly began laughing. “Gaki, I’m Ichiwa.”

“Go fuck yourself then” I confidently shouted at him. I guess his telling me he was Ichiwa became a huge ego boost. I had connections to the Yamaguchi after all… As in I beat the shit out of somebody who knew somebody whose boss was a drinking buddy of a Yamaguchi member. Not a high-ranking one just a regular one, but that still counts.

“What happened to your awfully polite tone?” He asked intimidatingly once again.

“I am not falling for that trick twice! I’m not scared of an Ichiwa. Look around dumbass you’re in Honō-kōjō, this place is a Yamaguchi stronghold. You’re practically already dead as soon as you step foot outside that cell.”

“No, you look around yourself. You’re in a fucking holding cell at the police station. You’ve got nothing to brag about.” He shouted at me, this time aggressively. I could feel he was really pissed off now.

“Yeah? Well, I ain't scared of you or your pathetic group. You may be yakuza, but this is the home territory of my gang–”

“You got no fucking gang! You’re alone…” That finished the conversation. I didn’t know what to say. How did he know... Was it something I said?

“You don’t have to pretend you’re tough. You have nobody to back you up…”

“How do you know that…?”

“I see that look in your eyes. You can’t decide whether or not you’ve been betrayed or if you're the traitor. Trust me I feel the same way. One moment, we were together and everything was fine. The next we split up, and I don’t know if I made the right decision.”

Wait, if he knows what it feels to be without a gang, does that then mean...

“You got kicked out of Ichiwa didn’t you?”

“Ha. Yeah, I was kicked out of Ichiwa...” His laugh was mixed with a sigh as if he was both relieved but also saddened by it. “And you? What did you do?”

I didn’t really want to tell him, but it would’ve been kind of rude that he was willing to admit to his mistakes and I wasn’t. But don’t you think for one moment, I regret what I did. What I did was no mistake.