Terms and Conditions

I was uncomfortable.

It wasn’t because of the pleading recommendation the bureaucrat at the municipal office had made. His supervisor had approved the citizenship claim paperwork without paying much mind to it, but the 40-something office worker had looked almost desperate to get Ayasa to reconsider her choice of living in Tokyo - the one place in the South that the Northern Government could exert more than token influence. Ayasa had remained firm in her insistence that she would be living in Akiba. Seeing the line behind us growing ever longer, he had at last relented and turned back the paperwork that would turn Ayasa Higashiyama, Northern refugee into Sayu Midorikawa, Tokyo high school student.

It wasn’t because Miho hadn’t spoken to me since that afternoon. We would pass each other in the hallways now and again, but where once Miho would have shot me a concerned- perhaps pitying- glance backwards, she now either simply ignored me or actively avoided acknowledging me. On the few occasions where social circumstances had not allowed her to walk away, she kept her responses aimed through intermediaries where possible and aimed at nobody in particular when it was not possible. Fortunately, no owner of the car that Miho had accidentally damaged had come forward to Hiroki asking for compensation- it would have been extremely awkward to hound her down for money after all this.

It wasn’t because the newly-minted Sayu Midorikawa had not ended up in the same homeroom class as me, though that, too, wasn’t good. Although she really would have been a 2nd year if she had come to Akiba North through normal means, the Northern curriculum didn’t match the South’s and she had ended up at a 3rd-year-of-middle-school level in a self-test. We were still close enough for the start of high-school that the academics wouldn’t be too far removed from what she knew, but it must have been a blow to her pride to suddenly be behind people a year younger than her. That wasn’t the real issue, though; The real issue was that a Northerner like her was being dropped right into the middle of a crowd of people who had no idea what she had been through over the last few weeks. Sayu Midorikawa was supposed to be a social butterfly, but Ayasa couldn’t just go around telling people where she was really from. In that sort of situation, Ayasa would naturally choose to be as reticent as possible. That quietness would cause isolation. That isolation would guarantee her safety, for sure, but it also meant that things wouldn’t really ever improve for her. If me and Hiroki and maybe Miho were the only people she could talk to freely, would life really be better for her?

It wasn’t because of that vague feeling that had been creeping around me that something was wrong here. Very, very, very wrong. Miho’s words from that night kept turning around and over in my head, but I found myself unable to ever cling to their meaning. Why was this wrong? I had done what I promised. I had given Ayasa a new life as Sayu. It had to be better than whatever she had in the North, right? We had all sorts of things they didn’t. Smartphones. Arcades. Karaoke- at least, in a private setting where you didn’t have to worry about embarrassing yourself. Freedom. The worst thing we had to worry about was failing an exam, not getting disappeared because you said or did the wrong thing. This was better.

No, the reason I was uncomfortable at this specific moment had nothing to do with Ayasa. It had everything to do with the fact that one very-pissed-off Junichi Kanamaru was holding me by the neck and pinning me to the wall of the 4th year homeroom. He was dripping with the same kind of sleaze he usually exuded, but his actions had no hint of charm to them.

“Hello, Freshieee…”

Ootake had led me here after class. I hadn’t been surprised by him- he had been back as usual shortly after that Monday. Kanamaru and Hosoya, on the other hand, had been out at least a week and a half at this point. I had been dreading their return. They were a lot more forceful than Ootake could be on his own.

“Kanamaru!”

Kanamaru’s grip was strong enough that I struggled to get out more than his name. He seemed to relish in the control.

“That’s Kanamaru-senpai to you. Show some damn respect.”

I felt a knee drive into my stomach, but I was still too strongly pinned against the wall to curl up in pain.

“Oh, right. You don’t respect me, freshie. That’s why you stole all my money, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t steal-”

I felt another knee in my stomach. This time, Kanamaru’s grip had loosened enough to allow me to keel over onto the floor.

“Oh, you didn’t steal my money? You just forgot that little 40,000 yen I so graciously spotted you? Is that it?”

“I was going to-”

Kanamaru kicked me in the stomach. It wasn’t a full force soccer kick- more like the way you might kick a can laying on the ground when you’re bored. It still hurt like hell.

“You were going to return my money, freshie? You didn’t seem to be in a big hurry to return it, dipshit.”

Another kick. This one was a little harder, but Kanamaru still wasn’t going all out for some reason..

“You were out of school! I didn’t know where you-”

“Ootake says you didn’t ask. Doesn’t sound like you were too interested in repaying your debts, Nishzawa. Or maybe you can’t? Did you spend it all on that Northern bitch?”

“Northern-”

“That girl you dragged over. You think I didn’t see that?”

Shit. I had completely forgotten about it. Kanamaru, Hosoya, and Ootake had all seen Ayasa’s face. They had only seen her briefly, but they knew exactly where she had come from.

“Don’t drag Aya- Sayu into this.”

“The hell kinda name is ‘Ayasayu’?”

Hosoya spoke up. He sounded pissed, too. Kanamaru shushed him.

“I don’t care who she is. That Northern Bitch is a part of this. She’s the reason all my working capital has been confiscated by the Citpols. She ruined a perfectly good business.”

“Your business seemed a lot like you getting taken for a ride.”

Kanamaru kicked me again. This time, he wasn’t holding back.

“Freshie. Nishizawa. Don’t ever insult my BUSINESS SENSE.”

Kanamaru said the last two words in English, like some kind of corporate sloganeer. I was still curled over, but the glimpse I caught of his face told me he was completely serious.

“So. Where’s my money?”

“I- I spent it.”

Kanamaru let loose a heavy, heaving sigh. He kicked- or more accurately, tapped- me with the toe of his shoe.

“Of course you did, Freshie. Of course you did.”

“Should we-”

Hosoya spoke up again, standing up from the desk he had been sitting on. There was murder in his eyes. Kanamaru held up his palm to stop him.

“No. We’re not gonna shake the kid down. He’s got nothing anyway.”

Kanamaru squatted down, leaning into my face.

“Hey, freshie. Remember when I said that you owed me?”

I nodded.

“Let’s make that official. You owe me a debt of money and/or servitude.”

“Huh?”

“The way I see it, in addition to the 40,000 yen of misappropriated bail money, you also owe me damages for the rat tunnel you ruined. Why don’t we make it easy and call it your stake in the whole thing?”

“You mean…270,000 yen?”

“Well, 310,000 if we total it together. I think that’s a fair settlement, don’t you?”

It wasn’t fair. The 40,000 had to be paid back, but why was I responsible for the failure of his scheme? Still, I couldn’t do much except for meekly nodding along. If Kanamaru wasn’t going to kill me, then Hosoya was definitely ready to. Ootake was tucked away in the corner, watching it all.

“Great. I’ll be nice like that entrepreneurial tanuki and let you repay it anytime this year. In exchange, I’m charging the moderate interest fee of being my errand boy.”

“Errand-”

“It means, when I say jump, you say, ‘how high?’ Got that?”

“...Yeah.”

“Great. Then we have a deal.”

Kanamaru strolled out of the room, proud of what he had done. Ootake followed him out, averting his gaze from my crumpled form. Hosoya followed last, sneering at me.

“It’s a really good thing Jun likes you, freshie. I’ve seen what he does to kids he doesn’t like.”

Shit. This was bad. 310,000 exceeded any savings I had by a five-fold margin, and how was I going to repay it? A summer job wouldn’t cover all of that.

Wait, maybe there was a way. A summer job plus all my savings would-

No, no, no, what was I thinking? I only owed him the 40,000 yen. Anything else was his fault. What could he do to me if I just refused to pay it? He was already on the teachers’ shit list. Nobody would care about drumming him out as a 4th year- he’d already met graduation requirements anyway. I was untouchable.

Oh, wait. There was something he could do. I was untouchable, yes.

Ayasa was not.