Post by Downfall on Mar 25, 2023 22:41:53 GMT -5
“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough, without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
- D.H. Lawrence
"Again," he growled, through teeth clenched so tightly they might shatter like fine china.
The three teenaged boys, each carrying a wooden practice sword nervously between two hands, circled like a pack, obeying. Danny, sweating profusely, stripped to a pair of shorts and nothing else (the better to let the bandages on some of his badly-healing scars breathe), stood his ground, arms akimbo, as they feinted towards him, and the leader, a ropy, arrogant young orphan from Pine Street named Jimin, bared his teeth like the feral stray dog he was at heart.
He sliced his wooden sword as if it would cleave sinew instead of air, swinging directly for the neck of the wounded wolf.
Danny parried, taking the stinging shot on his forearm and bracing against the pain (Jimin did NOT hold back on that shot, (good)) but tucking in close as the wooden sword was deployed in it's strike, and in that split second, he was close enough to flip Jimin helplessly to his back and disarm him.
Feeling rather than hearing the next cut coming by his ear, his smile was savage, wild, a song.
He didn't grunt appreciation or tell Saito that his form was improving, why would he? He was too wrapped up in the game.
As her keys jangled in the security gate lock, pushing it back with a clatter, Rumiko heard the grunts and curses.
The boys, being boys, were talking shit to their tutor, taunts of "Almost, old man!" - "Watch the left!" "How the fuck you miss that, he's one old white dude with a bum leg!" but all she heard as she came into the big, open air studio, was him. The to-go boxes of sushi and omurice she carried in a white bag were held by the crook of one arm, but she watched, fascinated, despite herself.
Years-ago practice on the mats with her own brother gave her insight, muscle memory reading the scenes and knowing it was still three against one, this wasn't so much training for them, as Danny pushing himself, testing himself. She'd known that he was going increasingly frustrated by his healing timetable and cooped up inside.
But it worried her, seeing his beaten body, still two weeks out of what should have been a night in intensive care, in such strenuous motion.
And that he had invited his boys, the conscripted vigilantes he'd recruited from this street's sons. They were a mixed bag.
All of this she picked up on as she eyed the one, hungry, lean one at the back... Jimin was the one that drew her eyes the most, and made her mouth tense with worry.
There was a darkness there, as he crouched, snarling, that frightened her in her secret heart... it, very nearly, mimicked Danny's.
In less time than it took for her to tell all of this, she sees, too, that he's favoring that leg worse now. Under his skimpy shorts, his left leg is heavily bandaged. She was there the night he'd returned from Nashville, and had sworn he'd gotten the best care there. Saito and Tsuuya, playing this like a game, got on either side, swarming Danny and cutting at both sides, but while he tried to dodge back, that leg buckled noticeably.
From behind, Jimin's lip peeled back, contemptuously, and he waited until Danny was just about up... Jimin nailed that leg, full force with a practice sword... were it steel, the leg would have been a kebab. Now Danny did go down, and Rumiko yelped "Hey! Time out!" Danny cursed, groaning in pain, and tried to keep upright.
"Yo, yo, time out," Saito stopped himself, and stopped Tsuuya, "Danny, you good man, that was - "
The teens offered a hand up, and Danny swatted their hands away doggedly, sweat on his upper lip as he tried to put weight on a leg that was now nerves afire and straighten up. His face had gone positively ashen. He struggled, but he forced his face to compose into a stoic mask and barked, "All of you, fall in." His eyes bored into Jimin's, who was coming around the side, looking mean. "All of you."
Holding her keys and the bag of to-go food in one hand, Rumiko tried to intervene, saying "Why don't you boys go shower up, and -"
"Fall in," he told them, as if she hadn't said anything. Rumiko sighed and shook her head, machismo the death of her.
Now, despite the pain, despite the fact that the wounds on his bare back obviously needed changing (and that heavy bandage over the second-to-third degree on his thigh needed some serious attention), he strutted back in forth of them, Patton to the core, the Downfall who'd turned the Inner Circle into his army in the act of making the sons of Japantown just another Inner Circle, eyes beating into their own, that burning basilisk stare.
"Saito, don't grimace before you lunge, it's a clumsy tell and it forecasts where you're looking."
"Tsuuya, your cross swing is too wide, it leaves you open on your right side and you don't move fast enough to cover the weak spot you leave open."
"Now, we could review it move by move and I could point out each and every beat, where you got sloppy, where you swung at me without committing, or where you didn't think your opponent's next move out..."
Pacing, he went from in front of one to the other. Their eyes stayed on his, but Saito and Tsuuya jostled each other, joking around, "Yeah you heard him, yo swing was trash", "Man, he said -"
"QUIET."
The levity died from the moment, and they looked sorry, they mumbled, sorry.
Saito and Tsuuya, street punks though they may be, were boys. Children, playing, now directed into silence and recalcitrance.
Danny moved on, pacing to stop right... in front... of the third, who stared at him, not playful, not teasing, and not one bit recalcitrant for any perceived reprisal from the teacher. He looked at Danny as if daring. Danny stared right into his eyes. "And Jimin."
"Sir," said Jimin, not respectfully, but playing a part.
"Was a good move, taking the weak point," he admitted, gingerly touching the heavy bandage on his thigh, "You've got a good killer instinct under that cookie dough soft ass. Got some real fire. How old are you, Jimin?"
"Eighteen," Jimin said, chin lifted.
"Eighteen," Danny's voice echoed, soft, "Yeah. You're coming along the fastest out of all the sons that train here, Jimin. Putting in tons of hours at the gym. Practicing with the training dummy, fencing, all of it."
"I'm just trying to get on your level, sir," Jimin said, again, not respectfully, and his eyes flitted down to the bandage on Danny's leg.
"Yeah," his response was sotto voce, his smile a ghost touch on his lips, and then his brow knit with righteous outrage. "So, tell me Jimin... why have I been getting tabs that you're peddling to neighborhood kids? To school age children, Jimin?"
"I - what?" Jimin's cocky facade faltered, and he looked to his left in confusion, as if about to explode that one of the other two had ratted on him. Now Danny's smile was thin, his eyebrows devilish and knowing.
Danny turned a shoulder on the lined boys, arms laced behind his back, and he sneered. "I won't bother to ask where you get your product, because it's inferior and it tells me you scored some off one of the remainders of the Deathriders... But Jimin; Bubby. God, you disappoint me."
"I disappoint you?" now the cocky young shit stepped out of the line, angrily, "Who the fuck are you even, you come in here and wanted all of us to bow up to you, and play wooden swords in your little slum and - "
"And I wanted," Danny's voice was patient, "An agreement with every shopkeeper on this block, and for them to volunteer to do their part to clean up this neighborhood and be the watch. Be the vangua- " He caught himself before he used that word. He shook it out of his head, stubbornly. "To keep the peace."
He grabbed Jimin by the lapel of his gi. "Not to sell their product."
Jimin slapped his hands off, "Fuck off me you old gaijin..."
"Little Jimin," he taunted, "I can read you like a book, born to Korean parents and forever outcast in Japantown because of ethnic prejudices that go back to your grandfathers' fathers time, unwanted, unloved, turned to a life of crime out on the street... and when someone offers him a hand up, a hand out of his miserable, little existence, you bite the hand that feeds..."
Rumiko tried stepping in again, "Danny, sidebar..." She also saw that Danny's venom, his outrage, was, while hinging on the discovery of Jimin's side hustle, motivated by deeper hurts.
"Yo FUCK you, you don't know me." He shoved Danny again and moved to swing. Danny, although favoring his leg, grabbed his wrist, twisting it forcefully.
"You're done in my dojo, kid."
"This... Ah!! ...Isn't your dojo..." His eyes shifted to Rumiko's, even though he was squinting in pain. "'S her brother's... and he'll come f'r it..."
Danny heard these words, and his sweaty lip trembled... but he took a small relish, clipped words biting hard, "Get. Out." and he pushed Jimin the length of the mats.
Adrenaline spent, and the teenager expelled, Danny wobbled. Dazed, fatigued, he clutched his head, and that burned leg began to give out on him. Rumiko saw him faltering, and snapped to, yelling "Help him!" at Saito and Tsuuya. Jimin glared over his shoulder, but he retreated.
Danny was growling, low in his throat, and incensed at the two young boys who were endeavoring to keep him from falling on his ass, pushing them away. He was slick with sweat, and his heavy bandage was oozing. "I'm fine, I'm fine, get off..."
Rumiko retrieved the to-go bag, which had upended and teriyaki sauce splashed the containers inside, but fine. "Class is dismissed, go home," she told the boys. They looked unsure, but he fumed, and waved them off. "And be on the lookout for any more activity selling at the playground!" he snapped after them. Saito and Tsuuya, looking worried, walked out, but still looked after their teacher. They were good boys, all told.
"You're a mess," Ru assessed, calmly, as she took a napkin and probed at the edge of the burn bandage.
"Oh, well, thank you for your clinical assessment, I thought your degree was in dentistry."
"I went to med school, Daniel, but it wouldn't take an intern or a particularly experienced resident to see you need bed rest, antibiotics and a consult on this burn... it's... Danny, this bandage is leaking, it - "
"I'm fine," he said stubbornly, "I'll wrap it back up after a shower. Don't need your help." And he was pushing himself up again, now moving gingerly to the wall so it could help him stay upright. Angrily, Rumiko got on the side of him, and wouldn't allow him to push her off.
"Step by step. There we go. Walk slowly. We're just going to your bed roll in the main office, and I'll dress your wound, okay?"
He looked annoyed. "I didn't ask you for that. Or for you to keep coming over and bringing me takeout. I'm fine."
Rapidly losing her patience with this myopic brute, she snapped bitterly, "Oh, that's weird, because the badly-healed wound you got from someone touching a flaming torch to your leg for twenty seconds says different."
He was losing his patience as well, and he rounded on her, indignant, "No. You think I don't know why you keep coming around here? I'm all out of stories about the big brother you never got to know, and I'm all out of pretty speeches about how I'll keep the dojo alive because it was important to his memory. I'm tired, Rumiko... and I'm damn tired of people coming around me only because they wanted something from me all along. Piss off." And he made his own way to the converted bedroom that was once an office.
To her surprise, he'd actually put in a cot, and some other furnishings, and he moved towards the bed, gingerly.
"No, you don't do that." She followed him in. "You are not taking your shit out on me. You forget yourself, who came to who hat in hand wanting to take this place and make a new start, make something of a tarnished legacy. Don't you dare."
He scoffed, and looked at her, mockingly. "Oh, what, you gonna tear up my lease, put me out?" He eased down onto the cot. "Go back to your dentist's office, Rumiko, leave Pine Street to me..."
Now it was her turn to let out a frustrated exhalation, and then she glared at him, how can one man be such a bastard?, it said. "I should. I should do everything in my power to get you out of here... What you've been doing for this neighborhood, it's..."
"It's what?" he said, simply, challenging, "I've been cleaning up the trash. I've been getting guns off the streets. No more tenement fires or intimidation rackets. It's taken time and there's been some..." he knew if he closed his eyes, he'd still have the after-image of the bodies they found, specifically the first two murdered in retaliation and left as a message, right outside of his door, the couple that Hinata's men had butchered and written threats in blood... he'd still see their pleading, open eyes... they were the first, and that image was seared into his dreams, but they weren't the last. "......losses." he finished, pensively.
Her eyes were hard, staring into his face. "But you're selling drugs, too."
He startled, blinked, almost an admission, but he clammed up.
"It isn't hard to figure out, the sons of the shopkeepers come here after school three times a week for kendo practice? Mmm no... And someone has to pay to keep the police off of Pine Street..."
He shrugged, not confirming or denying, just stretching his burned leg and letting it rest.
"That's why you were so outraged by Jimin's cutting in with Death Rider product and selling it out on the street tonight, because you -"
"Jimin -," Danny broke in, holding a pointer finger up sternly, "-Was selling, to CHILDREN. That isn't flying, not in my neighborhood. No, I'm going to take care of that right away, as soon as my leg is - "
She rolled her eyes, unable to believe the depths he was letting this go to, holding her hands out, "How can you not hear yourself right now, Daniel, you're a fucking villain. Literally, what is the difference between you and that James Nightengale asshole you used to run with, or David Sanchez, that dude that used to traffic girls with the MS-13 gang? What's the difference?"
"The difference? -" Danny says, a fuck-you scowl on his face, "Is that I am not hurting kids. I'm doing this to make sure no more kids get hurt, to make sure nobody else like the Hasegawas lose their fucking five year old child, how dare you - "
"No, that's just something you're justifying... You jumped at this chance, you took this street and took control of it, mister "I'm the kingpin", because all of your life is based around running away from a feeling of powerlessness and asserting control over something - "
"I am not running," he said, their exchange growing more heated, "In point of fact, Rumiko, I've done less running this calendar year than I've done in decades. I made the decision to stay here. I didn't run from this, I planted my flag."
"Ohhh, well thank you sooo much, mister neighborhood watch! You've really cleaned up this burgeoning community, and really injected some vitality in the inner city life! Thank you for swaggering out of your little hole and showing us backwards Asians how to live!"
"Christ," he swore to himself, "I don't need this grief. Get the hell out of here," and he waved her away. She came around to the cot now, arguing the point. "No, you're not getting rid of me the way you did Dionysus." And she saw that that struck a raw nerve in him, and not just in his burned leg.
"Dionysus," he said, levelly, "Was full of shit, and, again, completely proved my entire point, that his friendship was only ever transactional. All he wanted from me was clout and to act like the friendly man he was until I had a title he'd like to put himself in for. Don't try to throw Dion in my face, 'cause Dion is not a good example if you're trying to make a case that I push out everyone in my life that genuinely cares."
"Oh, no, I don't believe that at all. I believe you push everyone out regardless of whether or not they think you're worth a damn thing at all."
"Shut the hell up. You just shut your prissy, Virgo, sorority sister, basic mouth. You don't even live in this neighborhood, Rumiko... but you still keep coming around here. I know why you keep coming around here!"
For you, the impulsive thought, brought up to the surface comes unbidden to her mind, but there it is. But she challenges it just as soon as she thinks it, glaring right into his flushed face. "I came around because you need people around you to keep you in check. Because you're losing touch entirely with the reason to be human."
He turns away from her, "You and everyone else keep thinking that, but it's not true."
"No? Then tell me, Daniel, why do you stay here and 'protect' the people in your building, 'protect' the storekeepers on this street and 'protect' their sons by having them be your lookouts? Is it because you care about them? You value their lives?"
The way she framed that gives him pause, and here, again, the images of the dead on this street snap by every time he blinks, Tomie Hasegawa five years old never to get older, a couple, laid side by side and butchered into pieces... and what, really, does he feel?
"Well?"
Stressed, he snapped, "I'm still thinking about it."
She looked down at him, "It shouldn't be a hard thing to answer, if you care about people, Daniel. .....Well?"
Hand to his forehead, concentrating, he said to himself, "...I'm still thinking about it."
"Yeah," she says, a whisper.
"You're wrong about why I'm here," he finally says.
And, despite the pain, he stands, going over to the window.
"The world out there, the broken world, is in a constant state of entropy, decay. A constantly-cracking dam that we as society do little more than spackle over or plug a leak here and there. Nothing lasts. Everything is built to hasten to it's end, and that is because humans are intrinsically made to hasten things that way."
"You think I blame Dionysus for showing his hand and proving deep down he's greedy for gold? Dionysus was just showing the true human condition."
"In time, all partnerships, all social constructs, all families, neighborhoods, cities crumble. In the end, all we are is solo, the "we" is just every person in society being the selfish animal at their core. That's why this doesn't last. That's why "The Vanguard" as a concept didn't last. That's why love doesn't last. It's doomed by the damn narrative."
"Because, eventually, through human failings, it will end. And, in the macro sense, it will be as if it never mattered anyway. Everything returns to dust."
"Jesus, your worldview is bleak," Ru mumbled, but the line about why love doesn't last stung her, and she looked at an old, scuffed ring on her third finger.
"There's nothing wrong with admitting to being 'little better than a beast'... because an animal don't fucking apologize for it's true nature, and that's something I've come to increasingly over the last year. And animals tend to move in packs... animals tend to group together, to fight off other predators. There's a good deal of behavior that you can learn, if you're just not ashamed to admit it's a trait, not a flaw. So, yes, I've gathered kids like Jimin in off the street and made them a pack. Because a pack of wolves is more efficient than one by himself, every time."
Perturbed, her brow knit together, she clasped her hand on her knee, "If... like you say, all life is entropy and decay and nothing we do matters in the end, then... you're admitting trying to fix Pine Street, trying to... stop any more little five year old girls from dying..."
He shrugs, "Maybe it's a drop in the bucket. Maybe it doesn't matter any way..."
"But... it's you trying to take control of the anarchy..."
He snorts, "Control over any system is ultimately a lie..." but then, leaning, hard, with the heels of his hands on the windowsill, his voice taking a wistful tone.
"But don't you see how arrogant that is? That only you can stem this tide of... entropy like you're talking about?"
He looks over at her, but now there's a bit of a wild, youthful fire in his eyes. Or, maybe, an acknowledgement that this can only end in flames. Either way, the look on his face is hungry for it. Hungry, like the proverbial wolf.
"Do you really think that... all human emotion, all... love... is?" she doesn't know how to frame any of it, and she thinks of the one woman who had that humanizing effect on him. "Even... how you feel about Michelle?"
That just makes him look a bit sad, as he looks out the window, thinking of her, but then his eyebrows pinch, bitterly, and he looks down, "Why don't you go down to the apartment down the street where she's playing with Barbies like a little kid, because she's been regressed. Michelle isn't there anymore... and what we had..." his hand fluffs outward like someone throwing dust into the wind, motioning that it's gone. Completely, in his mind, proving his point. All life, all love, all... of everything... doesn't last. Nothing gold can stay.
"That makes me sad, Danny. That must be... a lonely view."
He's looking out onto the city, and he sees Jimin. Jimin is down on a basketball court catty-cornered down the street, dressed is hip hop clothes instead of his gi now, and holding a basketball... rather than playing, he's waiting around for someone. Danny scans the rest of the street, searching for black SUV's trawling like sharks.
"It's an honest one," he replies.
"I'm pretty tired now, kid... I'm gonna wrap this burn and take some meds and go to bed."
"Yeah... Danny... listen..."
He shakes his head, "You're a good egg, Rumiko. I do believe that. You should run, actually. Run far away from me. Run far away from anyone... away from this jungle, and go find people that know, and like to be, people. Ha."
She wants to reach out again, but he's stonewalling, she knows. Still, all of the heat and vituperation has gone out between them, and there's no more air in the room. He won't argue with her, anymore, but she senses that he's placed the wall against her tonight, and there will be no more discourse, of anarchy, of Pine Street's sons, or of love. Awkwardly, Rumiko mumbles, "I'll call ya"... and, not knowing what to do, leaves the sodden bag of spilled soy sauces and takeout on the desk, exiting.
She's wandering this street, as now, only a few of her storefronts are still open. A pool hall, of course, it's neon red signature casting a glare on the ground around it's outline of the billiard balls. A yellow sign for a liquor store down the street. Ever unfamiliar, the faces of these stores in the dark, so unlike the Pine Street she, and Hinata, had grown up on when she was young. She walked for a while, lost in thought.
And, again, she fingered an old ring carried on her third finger, from an engagement, long ago, thinking with some hurt about the truth carried within the nihilistic dismissal of all of humanity's endeavors being for nothing, in the end... even of love. Danny couldn't be right, about Pine Street, about any of it... could he?
She heard the sudden, tearing squeal of tires, and knew with a start that it was dumb kids drag racing from a light; She flinched, all the same. Suddenly, she felt a lot less safe. The streets weren't crowded-crowded like they were on a Sunday morning when there were market stalls lining the streets, but they were still peopled... and the unfamiliar faces she passed all seemed to be looking at her. It was true, what Danny said, she didn't even live here, and, right now, she felt isolated, a stranger on a street she once grew up on. The sensation of people watching her made her chest tighten.
Somewhere, far, far away, a wolf's howl resounded through her ears, and she felt as if she was going mad.
And, back up in Downfall's room, he sits up with gritted teeth as he applies a fresh bandage against the burned flesh. He lets out a tiny exhalation, sinking, exhausted, down to the cot...
But when he looks over, the familiar ghost that's been haunting him, the red-haired shade that silently taunted him with it's judging glare, watched him. He looked at it for just a moment, knowing that it was judging him because it was still, somehow, trying to get him to look to his better angels.
"Fuck off out of here," he snarled at the shade, and aimed a bottle of ointment right at it's head, passing through it.
The red-bearded apparition, apparently realizing it was not going to get him to listen to his reason, just did the famous blank gaze just off-center, and walked away.
And, down at the basketball court, a young man stewed... kicked out of the dojo, was he? Fuck Daniel Fehl, what business was it of his if Jimin made a little money on the side or how he made it? Like that psychopath was one to suddenly impose some kind of weird, arbitrary moral code...
Jimin shuffled his feet, uneasily. He had his basketball, and he had an eighth of white powder in his pocket, and not much else... he'd even left his bag with the rest of his clothes back in the dojo when he walked out... and he didn't have a place to crash tonight... fuck, he hadn't thought this through.
Still, fuck him, yo. He wasn't gonna walk back in that dojo and beg Daniel for another chance, swear not to sling product on the streets, who does that cracker think he is. He wasn't about to feel sorry for himself. He'd been the one on these streets since he was ten damn years old. Daniel Fehl didn't know shit about that.
"Another one of Daniel's castoffs, huh?" came a voice from his left, amiable and convivial and almost giddy. "Fun fact about Danny... he has a pattern. When something isn't working, we kick it to the curb, every time. When you challenge his authority in the slightest, that's when you've got to go."
"Who the fu-"
A huge shadow, spreading to over six feet and bulky, stepped up. Obscured, partially, by the overhead glare of the lamp lighting the basketball court, he was backlit, so the big man was in shadow, but his teeth were visible. White, in the dark, flashing like a predator's. "I know that. Because he did the same to me."
"Yeah? And what did you do?"
"Well," the voice seems to consider this with amusement, "I fought back when he kicked me out of his little group... and, with a little bit of tenacity... I brought his career to an end, once..."
Intrigued, Jimin stepped forward, "...For real?" But then the suspicion borne of living on the street kicked in. "How I know you on the level...?"
"Oh, kiddo... I'm about to be your best pal. You're already biting on our product," the big man says, stepping close, and now Jimin gulps nervously. "How would you like to join a real family. That's unless... you'd rather stay around all night feeling sorry for yourself?"
That little enticement made Jimin's lip stiffen, and he puffed himself up. "Nah. Not me."
"Good. Because if Danny's got his kids on the ground, we're going to need... well. Not children. Soldiers."
"Yo, what's your name, man?"
"...Just call me Adam."
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough, without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
- D.H. Lawrence
"Again," he growled, through teeth clenched so tightly they might shatter like fine china.
The three teenaged boys, each carrying a wooden practice sword nervously between two hands, circled like a pack, obeying. Danny, sweating profusely, stripped to a pair of shorts and nothing else (the better to let the bandages on some of his badly-healing scars breathe), stood his ground, arms akimbo, as they feinted towards him, and the leader, a ropy, arrogant young orphan from Pine Street named Jimin, bared his teeth like the feral stray dog he was at heart.
He sliced his wooden sword as if it would cleave sinew instead of air, swinging directly for the neck of the wounded wolf.
Danny parried, taking the stinging shot on his forearm and bracing against the pain (Jimin did NOT hold back on that shot, (good)) but tucking in close as the wooden sword was deployed in it's strike, and in that split second, he was close enough to flip Jimin helplessly to his back and disarm him.
Feeling rather than hearing the next cut coming by his ear, his smile was savage, wild, a song.
He didn't grunt appreciation or tell Saito that his form was improving, why would he? He was too wrapped up in the game.
As her keys jangled in the security gate lock, pushing it back with a clatter, Rumiko heard the grunts and curses.
The boys, being boys, were talking shit to their tutor, taunts of "Almost, old man!" - "Watch the left!" "How the fuck you miss that, he's one old white dude with a bum leg!" but all she heard as she came into the big, open air studio, was him. The to-go boxes of sushi and omurice she carried in a white bag were held by the crook of one arm, but she watched, fascinated, despite herself.
Years-ago practice on the mats with her own brother gave her insight, muscle memory reading the scenes and knowing it was still three against one, this wasn't so much training for them, as Danny pushing himself, testing himself. She'd known that he was going increasingly frustrated by his healing timetable and cooped up inside.
But it worried her, seeing his beaten body, still two weeks out of what should have been a night in intensive care, in such strenuous motion.
And that he had invited his boys, the conscripted vigilantes he'd recruited from this street's sons. They were a mixed bag.
All of this she picked up on as she eyed the one, hungry, lean one at the back... Jimin was the one that drew her eyes the most, and made her mouth tense with worry.
There was a darkness there, as he crouched, snarling, that frightened her in her secret heart... it, very nearly, mimicked Danny's.
In less time than it took for her to tell all of this, she sees, too, that he's favoring that leg worse now. Under his skimpy shorts, his left leg is heavily bandaged. She was there the night he'd returned from Nashville, and had sworn he'd gotten the best care there. Saito and Tsuuya, playing this like a game, got on either side, swarming Danny and cutting at both sides, but while he tried to dodge back, that leg buckled noticeably.
From behind, Jimin's lip peeled back, contemptuously, and he waited until Danny was just about up... Jimin nailed that leg, full force with a practice sword... were it steel, the leg would have been a kebab. Now Danny did go down, and Rumiko yelped "Hey! Time out!" Danny cursed, groaning in pain, and tried to keep upright.
"Yo, yo, time out," Saito stopped himself, and stopped Tsuuya, "Danny, you good man, that was - "
The teens offered a hand up, and Danny swatted their hands away doggedly, sweat on his upper lip as he tried to put weight on a leg that was now nerves afire and straighten up. His face had gone positively ashen. He struggled, but he forced his face to compose into a stoic mask and barked, "All of you, fall in." His eyes bored into Jimin's, who was coming around the side, looking mean. "All of you."
Holding her keys and the bag of to-go food in one hand, Rumiko tried to intervene, saying "Why don't you boys go shower up, and -"
"Fall in," he told them, as if she hadn't said anything. Rumiko sighed and shook her head, machismo the death of her.
Now, despite the pain, despite the fact that the wounds on his bare back obviously needed changing (and that heavy bandage over the second-to-third degree on his thigh needed some serious attention), he strutted back in forth of them, Patton to the core, the Downfall who'd turned the Inner Circle into his army in the act of making the sons of Japantown just another Inner Circle, eyes beating into their own, that burning basilisk stare.
"Saito, don't grimace before you lunge, it's a clumsy tell and it forecasts where you're looking."
"Tsuuya, your cross swing is too wide, it leaves you open on your right side and you don't move fast enough to cover the weak spot you leave open."
"Now, we could review it move by move and I could point out each and every beat, where you got sloppy, where you swung at me without committing, or where you didn't think your opponent's next move out..."
Pacing, he went from in front of one to the other. Their eyes stayed on his, but Saito and Tsuuya jostled each other, joking around, "Yeah you heard him, yo swing was trash", "Man, he said -"
"QUIET."
The levity died from the moment, and they looked sorry, they mumbled, sorry.
Saito and Tsuuya, street punks though they may be, were boys. Children, playing, now directed into silence and recalcitrance.
Danny moved on, pacing to stop right... in front... of the third, who stared at him, not playful, not teasing, and not one bit recalcitrant for any perceived reprisal from the teacher. He looked at Danny as if daring. Danny stared right into his eyes. "And Jimin."
"Sir," said Jimin, not respectfully, but playing a part.
"Was a good move, taking the weak point," he admitted, gingerly touching the heavy bandage on his thigh, "You've got a good killer instinct under that cookie dough soft ass. Got some real fire. How old are you, Jimin?"
"Eighteen," Jimin said, chin lifted.
"Eighteen," Danny's voice echoed, soft, "Yeah. You're coming along the fastest out of all the sons that train here, Jimin. Putting in tons of hours at the gym. Practicing with the training dummy, fencing, all of it."
"I'm just trying to get on your level, sir," Jimin said, again, not respectfully, and his eyes flitted down to the bandage on Danny's leg.
"Yeah," his response was sotto voce, his smile a ghost touch on his lips, and then his brow knit with righteous outrage. "So, tell me Jimin... why have I been getting tabs that you're peddling to neighborhood kids? To school age children, Jimin?"
"I - what?" Jimin's cocky facade faltered, and he looked to his left in confusion, as if about to explode that one of the other two had ratted on him. Now Danny's smile was thin, his eyebrows devilish and knowing.
Danny turned a shoulder on the lined boys, arms laced behind his back, and he sneered. "I won't bother to ask where you get your product, because it's inferior and it tells me you scored some off one of the remainders of the Deathriders... But Jimin; Bubby. God, you disappoint me."
"I disappoint you?" now the cocky young shit stepped out of the line, angrily, "Who the fuck are you even, you come in here and wanted all of us to bow up to you, and play wooden swords in your little slum and - "
"And I wanted," Danny's voice was patient, "An agreement with every shopkeeper on this block, and for them to volunteer to do their part to clean up this neighborhood and be the watch. Be the vangua- " He caught himself before he used that word. He shook it out of his head, stubbornly. "To keep the peace."
He grabbed Jimin by the lapel of his gi. "Not to sell their product."
Jimin slapped his hands off, "Fuck off me you old gaijin..."
"Little Jimin," he taunted, "I can read you like a book, born to Korean parents and forever outcast in Japantown because of ethnic prejudices that go back to your grandfathers' fathers time, unwanted, unloved, turned to a life of crime out on the street... and when someone offers him a hand up, a hand out of his miserable, little existence, you bite the hand that feeds..."
Rumiko tried stepping in again, "Danny, sidebar..." She also saw that Danny's venom, his outrage, was, while hinging on the discovery of Jimin's side hustle, motivated by deeper hurts.
"Yo FUCK you, you don't know me." He shoved Danny again and moved to swing. Danny, although favoring his leg, grabbed his wrist, twisting it forcefully.
"You're done in my dojo, kid."
"This... Ah!! ...Isn't your dojo..." His eyes shifted to Rumiko's, even though he was squinting in pain. "'S her brother's... and he'll come f'r it..."
Danny heard these words, and his sweaty lip trembled... but he took a small relish, clipped words biting hard, "Get. Out." and he pushed Jimin the length of the mats.
Adrenaline spent, and the teenager expelled, Danny wobbled. Dazed, fatigued, he clutched his head, and that burned leg began to give out on him. Rumiko saw him faltering, and snapped to, yelling "Help him!" at Saito and Tsuuya. Jimin glared over his shoulder, but he retreated.
Danny was growling, low in his throat, and incensed at the two young boys who were endeavoring to keep him from falling on his ass, pushing them away. He was slick with sweat, and his heavy bandage was oozing. "I'm fine, I'm fine, get off..."
Rumiko retrieved the to-go bag, which had upended and teriyaki sauce splashed the containers inside, but fine. "Class is dismissed, go home," she told the boys. They looked unsure, but he fumed, and waved them off. "And be on the lookout for any more activity selling at the playground!" he snapped after them. Saito and Tsuuya, looking worried, walked out, but still looked after their teacher. They were good boys, all told.
"You're a mess," Ru assessed, calmly, as she took a napkin and probed at the edge of the burn bandage.
"Oh, well, thank you for your clinical assessment, I thought your degree was in dentistry."
"I went to med school, Daniel, but it wouldn't take an intern or a particularly experienced resident to see you need bed rest, antibiotics and a consult on this burn... it's... Danny, this bandage is leaking, it - "
"I'm fine," he said stubbornly, "I'll wrap it back up after a shower. Don't need your help." And he was pushing himself up again, now moving gingerly to the wall so it could help him stay upright. Angrily, Rumiko got on the side of him, and wouldn't allow him to push her off.
"Step by step. There we go. Walk slowly. We're just going to your bed roll in the main office, and I'll dress your wound, okay?"
He looked annoyed. "I didn't ask you for that. Or for you to keep coming over and bringing me takeout. I'm fine."
Rapidly losing her patience with this myopic brute, she snapped bitterly, "Oh, that's weird, because the badly-healed wound you got from someone touching a flaming torch to your leg for twenty seconds says different."
He was losing his patience as well, and he rounded on her, indignant, "No. You think I don't know why you keep coming around here? I'm all out of stories about the big brother you never got to know, and I'm all out of pretty speeches about how I'll keep the dojo alive because it was important to his memory. I'm tired, Rumiko... and I'm damn tired of people coming around me only because they wanted something from me all along. Piss off." And he made his own way to the converted bedroom that was once an office.
To her surprise, he'd actually put in a cot, and some other furnishings, and he moved towards the bed, gingerly.
"No, you don't do that." She followed him in. "You are not taking your shit out on me. You forget yourself, who came to who hat in hand wanting to take this place and make a new start, make something of a tarnished legacy. Don't you dare."
He scoffed, and looked at her, mockingly. "Oh, what, you gonna tear up my lease, put me out?" He eased down onto the cot. "Go back to your dentist's office, Rumiko, leave Pine Street to me..."
Now it was her turn to let out a frustrated exhalation, and then she glared at him, how can one man be such a bastard?, it said. "I should. I should do everything in my power to get you out of here... What you've been doing for this neighborhood, it's..."
"It's what?" he said, simply, challenging, "I've been cleaning up the trash. I've been getting guns off the streets. No more tenement fires or intimidation rackets. It's taken time and there's been some..." he knew if he closed his eyes, he'd still have the after-image of the bodies they found, specifically the first two murdered in retaliation and left as a message, right outside of his door, the couple that Hinata's men had butchered and written threats in blood... he'd still see their pleading, open eyes... they were the first, and that image was seared into his dreams, but they weren't the last. "......losses." he finished, pensively.
Her eyes were hard, staring into his face. "But you're selling drugs, too."
He startled, blinked, almost an admission, but he clammed up.
"It isn't hard to figure out, the sons of the shopkeepers come here after school three times a week for kendo practice? Mmm no... And someone has to pay to keep the police off of Pine Street..."
He shrugged, not confirming or denying, just stretching his burned leg and letting it rest.
"That's why you were so outraged by Jimin's cutting in with Death Rider product and selling it out on the street tonight, because you -"
"Jimin -," Danny broke in, holding a pointer finger up sternly, "-Was selling, to CHILDREN. That isn't flying, not in my neighborhood. No, I'm going to take care of that right away, as soon as my leg is - "
She rolled her eyes, unable to believe the depths he was letting this go to, holding her hands out, "How can you not hear yourself right now, Daniel, you're a fucking villain. Literally, what is the difference between you and that James Nightengale asshole you used to run with, or David Sanchez, that dude that used to traffic girls with the MS-13 gang? What's the difference?"
"The difference? -" Danny says, a fuck-you scowl on his face, "Is that I am not hurting kids. I'm doing this to make sure no more kids get hurt, to make sure nobody else like the Hasegawas lose their fucking five year old child, how dare you - "
"No, that's just something you're justifying... You jumped at this chance, you took this street and took control of it, mister "I'm the kingpin", because all of your life is based around running away from a feeling of powerlessness and asserting control over something - "
"I am not running," he said, their exchange growing more heated, "In point of fact, Rumiko, I've done less running this calendar year than I've done in decades. I made the decision to stay here. I didn't run from this, I planted my flag."
"Ohhh, well thank you sooo much, mister neighborhood watch! You've really cleaned up this burgeoning community, and really injected some vitality in the inner city life! Thank you for swaggering out of your little hole and showing us backwards Asians how to live!"
"Christ," he swore to himself, "I don't need this grief. Get the hell out of here," and he waved her away. She came around to the cot now, arguing the point. "No, you're not getting rid of me the way you did Dionysus." And she saw that that struck a raw nerve in him, and not just in his burned leg.
"Dionysus," he said, levelly, "Was full of shit, and, again, completely proved my entire point, that his friendship was only ever transactional. All he wanted from me was clout and to act like the friendly man he was until I had a title he'd like to put himself in for. Don't try to throw Dion in my face, 'cause Dion is not a good example if you're trying to make a case that I push out everyone in my life that genuinely cares."
"Oh, no, I don't believe that at all. I believe you push everyone out regardless of whether or not they think you're worth a damn thing at all."
"Shut the hell up. You just shut your prissy, Virgo, sorority sister, basic mouth. You don't even live in this neighborhood, Rumiko... but you still keep coming around here. I know why you keep coming around here!"
For you, the impulsive thought, brought up to the surface comes unbidden to her mind, but there it is. But she challenges it just as soon as she thinks it, glaring right into his flushed face. "I came around because you need people around you to keep you in check. Because you're losing touch entirely with the reason to be human."
He turns away from her, "You and everyone else keep thinking that, but it's not true."
"No? Then tell me, Daniel, why do you stay here and 'protect' the people in your building, 'protect' the storekeepers on this street and 'protect' their sons by having them be your lookouts? Is it because you care about them? You value their lives?"
The way she framed that gives him pause, and here, again, the images of the dead on this street snap by every time he blinks, Tomie Hasegawa five years old never to get older, a couple, laid side by side and butchered into pieces... and what, really, does he feel?
"Well?"
Stressed, he snapped, "I'm still thinking about it."
She looked down at him, "It shouldn't be a hard thing to answer, if you care about people, Daniel. .....Well?"
Hand to his forehead, concentrating, he said to himself, "...I'm still thinking about it."
"Yeah," she says, a whisper.
"You're wrong about why I'm here," he finally says.
And, despite the pain, he stands, going over to the window.
"The world out there, the broken world, is in a constant state of entropy, decay. A constantly-cracking dam that we as society do little more than spackle over or plug a leak here and there. Nothing lasts. Everything is built to hasten to it's end, and that is because humans are intrinsically made to hasten things that way."
"You think I blame Dionysus for showing his hand and proving deep down he's greedy for gold? Dionysus was just showing the true human condition."
"In time, all partnerships, all social constructs, all families, neighborhoods, cities crumble. In the end, all we are is solo, the "we" is just every person in society being the selfish animal at their core. That's why this doesn't last. That's why "The Vanguard" as a concept didn't last. That's why love doesn't last. It's doomed by the damn narrative."
"Because, eventually, through human failings, it will end. And, in the macro sense, it will be as if it never mattered anyway. Everything returns to dust."
"Jesus, your worldview is bleak," Ru mumbled, but the line about why love doesn't last stung her, and she looked at an old, scuffed ring on her third finger.
"There's nothing wrong with admitting to being 'little better than a beast'... because an animal don't fucking apologize for it's true nature, and that's something I've come to increasingly over the last year. And animals tend to move in packs... animals tend to group together, to fight off other predators. There's a good deal of behavior that you can learn, if you're just not ashamed to admit it's a trait, not a flaw. So, yes, I've gathered kids like Jimin in off the street and made them a pack. Because a pack of wolves is more efficient than one by himself, every time."
Perturbed, her brow knit together, she clasped her hand on her knee, "If... like you say, all life is entropy and decay and nothing we do matters in the end, then... you're admitting trying to fix Pine Street, trying to... stop any more little five year old girls from dying..."
He shrugs, "Maybe it's a drop in the bucket. Maybe it doesn't matter any way..."
"But... it's you trying to take control of the anarchy..."
He snorts, "Control over any system is ultimately a lie..." but then, leaning, hard, with the heels of his hands on the windowsill, his voice taking a wistful tone.
"But don't you see how arrogant that is? That only you can stem this tide of... entropy like you're talking about?"
He looks over at her, but now there's a bit of a wild, youthful fire in his eyes. Or, maybe, an acknowledgement that this can only end in flames. Either way, the look on his face is hungry for it. Hungry, like the proverbial wolf.
"Do you really think that... all human emotion, all... love... is?" she doesn't know how to frame any of it, and she thinks of the one woman who had that humanizing effect on him. "Even... how you feel about Michelle?"
That just makes him look a bit sad, as he looks out the window, thinking of her, but then his eyebrows pinch, bitterly, and he looks down, "Why don't you go down to the apartment down the street where she's playing with Barbies like a little kid, because she's been regressed. Michelle isn't there anymore... and what we had..." his hand fluffs outward like someone throwing dust into the wind, motioning that it's gone. Completely, in his mind, proving his point. All life, all love, all... of everything... doesn't last. Nothing gold can stay.
"That makes me sad, Danny. That must be... a lonely view."
He's looking out onto the city, and he sees Jimin. Jimin is down on a basketball court catty-cornered down the street, dressed is hip hop clothes instead of his gi now, and holding a basketball... rather than playing, he's waiting around for someone. Danny scans the rest of the street, searching for black SUV's trawling like sharks.
"It's an honest one," he replies.
"I'm pretty tired now, kid... I'm gonna wrap this burn and take some meds and go to bed."
"Yeah... Danny... listen..."
He shakes his head, "You're a good egg, Rumiko. I do believe that. You should run, actually. Run far away from me. Run far away from anyone... away from this jungle, and go find people that know, and like to be, people. Ha."
She wants to reach out again, but he's stonewalling, she knows. Still, all of the heat and vituperation has gone out between them, and there's no more air in the room. He won't argue with her, anymore, but she senses that he's placed the wall against her tonight, and there will be no more discourse, of anarchy, of Pine Street's sons, or of love. Awkwardly, Rumiko mumbles, "I'll call ya"... and, not knowing what to do, leaves the sodden bag of spilled soy sauces and takeout on the desk, exiting.
She's wandering this street, as now, only a few of her storefronts are still open. A pool hall, of course, it's neon red signature casting a glare on the ground around it's outline of the billiard balls. A yellow sign for a liquor store down the street. Ever unfamiliar, the faces of these stores in the dark, so unlike the Pine Street she, and Hinata, had grown up on when she was young. She walked for a while, lost in thought.
And, again, she fingered an old ring carried on her third finger, from an engagement, long ago, thinking with some hurt about the truth carried within the nihilistic dismissal of all of humanity's endeavors being for nothing, in the end... even of love. Danny couldn't be right, about Pine Street, about any of it... could he?
She heard the sudden, tearing squeal of tires, and knew with a start that it was dumb kids drag racing from a light; She flinched, all the same. Suddenly, she felt a lot less safe. The streets weren't crowded-crowded like they were on a Sunday morning when there were market stalls lining the streets, but they were still peopled... and the unfamiliar faces she passed all seemed to be looking at her. It was true, what Danny said, she didn't even live here, and, right now, she felt isolated, a stranger on a street she once grew up on. The sensation of people watching her made her chest tighten.
Somewhere, far, far away, a wolf's howl resounded through her ears, and she felt as if she was going mad.
And, back up in Downfall's room, he sits up with gritted teeth as he applies a fresh bandage against the burned flesh. He lets out a tiny exhalation, sinking, exhausted, down to the cot...
But when he looks over, the familiar ghost that's been haunting him, the red-haired shade that silently taunted him with it's judging glare, watched him. He looked at it for just a moment, knowing that it was judging him because it was still, somehow, trying to get him to look to his better angels.
"Fuck off out of here," he snarled at the shade, and aimed a bottle of ointment right at it's head, passing through it.
The red-bearded apparition, apparently realizing it was not going to get him to listen to his reason, just did the famous blank gaze just off-center, and walked away.
And, down at the basketball court, a young man stewed... kicked out of the dojo, was he? Fuck Daniel Fehl, what business was it of his if Jimin made a little money on the side or how he made it? Like that psychopath was one to suddenly impose some kind of weird, arbitrary moral code...
Jimin shuffled his feet, uneasily. He had his basketball, and he had an eighth of white powder in his pocket, and not much else... he'd even left his bag with the rest of his clothes back in the dojo when he walked out... and he didn't have a place to crash tonight... fuck, he hadn't thought this through.
Still, fuck him, yo. He wasn't gonna walk back in that dojo and beg Daniel for another chance, swear not to sling product on the streets, who does that cracker think he is. He wasn't about to feel sorry for himself. He'd been the one on these streets since he was ten damn years old. Daniel Fehl didn't know shit about that.
"Another one of Daniel's castoffs, huh?" came a voice from his left, amiable and convivial and almost giddy. "Fun fact about Danny... he has a pattern. When something isn't working, we kick it to the curb, every time. When you challenge his authority in the slightest, that's when you've got to go."
"Who the fu-"
A huge shadow, spreading to over six feet and bulky, stepped up. Obscured, partially, by the overhead glare of the lamp lighting the basketball court, he was backlit, so the big man was in shadow, but his teeth were visible. White, in the dark, flashing like a predator's. "I know that. Because he did the same to me."
"Yeah? And what did you do?"
"Well," the voice seems to consider this with amusement, "I fought back when he kicked me out of his little group... and, with a little bit of tenacity... I brought his career to an end, once..."
Intrigued, Jimin stepped forward, "...For real?" But then the suspicion borne of living on the street kicked in. "How I know you on the level...?"
"Oh, kiddo... I'm about to be your best pal. You're already biting on our product," the big man says, stepping close, and now Jimin gulps nervously. "How would you like to join a real family. That's unless... you'd rather stay around all night feeling sorry for yourself?"
That little enticement made Jimin's lip stiffen, and he puffed himself up. "Nah. Not me."
"Good. Because if Danny's got his kids on the ground, we're going to need... well. Not children. Soldiers."
"Yo, what's your name, man?"
"...Just call me Adam."