Matsui Kin

I accepted their offer.

My brother supported me on this decision. Honestly, I wasn't expecting him to do so, but he was indeed a good brother. In the end, he was happy to see me recover from what happened back in my hometown.

It's been around three months now. I spent most of my time learning Japanese. They also gave me the name Matsui Kin as my new identity. Nothing in particular has happened since then, so I had a lot of time to learn about the situation of current Yakuza families.

I already said that someone had united all the Yakuza at the beginning of the war. I couldn't recall the name before, but now I know it. Yamakawa Danno, the man who brought peace to the whole of Japan as a Yakuza. He was retired a few years ago because of his old age, but still, all the families out there were respecting him a lot. However, recently, the Yamakawa family declared his unexpected death. I reckon it happened some time around my arrival in Japan. Peace between the families seemed to be fine, but some families started to push their limits slowly to measure tension. Eventually, some families started to stir things up underhandedly.

Now there are some families who want to end this peace. The Kurokawa family has already announced that they're in favor of peace. That's why they were targeted by anti-peace families.

Throughout the whole time, I kept an eye on the young lady, or, by her name, Kurokawa Tatsumi. She was the only child of Mr. Kurokawa, which was actually another good reason for other families to target them. Since I had a language barrier, I couldn't attend school. Well, that way, it would have been too obvious that I was her personal bodyguard. Imagine someone is attending your school as a transfer student and suddenly starts to stick around a girl from your class, and then they start to walk home together as if they were very close friends since their childhood. You get the point.

At that point, I just started to stick around her way to school. It wasn't too bad, honestly. I was chatting with the shopkeepers, which helped me a lot to improve my Japanese. Sometimes I took Mr. Kurokawa's dog Shiro for a walk. I even started working on the delivery of newspapers to make a living. It's not like I needed money, though, but it was a good experience, and I honestly felt better that way. Thanks to Mr. Kurokawa, all my needs were already met. During all this, I had a great chance to observe the neighborhood as well as Tatsumi's surroundings.

There was a big park on the way to her school. I took Shiro for a walk, as always. Since I had nothing to do until the lessons were over, I chose a bank to sit in. It was early in the morning, and with the birds, sunrise, and a fountain right in front of the sun, there was a great view right in front of me. It became my new favorite place to visit. An old man sat beside me, and I wasn't even aware of it.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" asked the old man.

"O-oh, yes, yes it is."

It actually scared me a bit; maybe I was too distracted with the view, which wasn't good for me as a mafia member and a personal bodyguard. Maybe because I thought the old man might need somebody to talk to, I decided to keep the conversation going. In the end, life was kind of boring around that age, and people could be happy with this kind of small kindness.

"Were you visiting here often, sir?"

"From time to time, especially when I'm in a good mood."

"Good mood, you say?"

"Sure, I couldn't enjoy the view otherwise. What about you, young man?"

"Ah, I recently found this place, so it's kind of new for me. It's a shame that I didn't know about this place before."

The old man laughed heartily. After a short while, he took some bird food out of his pocket and started feeding the birds.

"So you're new around here?"

"Yes, I am."

"Don't you have school or something? You're too young to wander around aimlessly, unlike me," said the old man jokingly.

"Oh, I'm working as a newspaper delivery guy. Our job is usually done before the sunrise."

"Ah, I see," said the old man as he nodded his head a few times.

"Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, young man. I feel like you'll bring some fresh air to our neighborhood."

I wasn't sure what he meant by that, so all I could do was take it as another joke. After that day, I didn't see him around much except a few times. Well, it had nothing to do with me, so I didn't think much of it.

I also started spending more time together with Tatsumi. She was mostly helping me with the language, but we generally had a friendly relationship. However, I still couldn't be seen with her outside, which was a big problem as her bodyguard. You couldn't know if somebody was still watching her or not. We were sure that I didn't draw much attention to myself; I was having an ordinary life to avoid that happening. One day, Mr. Kurokawa figured out a way for that purpose.

"I want you to start working at Adachi Bakery. There's a kid named Misaki Ken; he's a classmate of Tatsumi's. The plan is to introduce you as a friend of Misaki Ken, so you can get a chance to get closer to my daughter without drawing attention."

"So I have to get along with him."

"Exactly. It sounds easy, am I right?"

"Leave it to me, Mr. Kurokawa. I can assure you that I will never let you down."

"I'm glad to hear that, son. I trust you that you won't."

It was a simple plan, but that doesn't mean that it was bad. In fact, the more complex a plan, the more likely it is to fail. Simple is usually better in this kind of matter.

With the contacts we have, it wasn't too hard to get a job at Adachi Bakery. We even arranged our shifts so I could get closer to my target.

Misaki Ken, unlike me, was an ordinary high schooler. At least that was what I thought.