Goodbye's Second Chance

I Will See You Again When the Night is Dawn

Iwa

I knew Masashi was pretty important in his line of work, but I didn't really understand what it meant to be the 'head of a family' until we were on a chartered plane taking off from a private air strip outside Tokyo. I looked at my watch and it'd been exactly 45 minutes since we were standing in his living room and I was telling him he was taking me with them or I'd be going alone. They must have thought I was an idiot when I said 'book another ticket'; man has his own damn plane.

Masashi had simply looked at me after I delivered the ultimatum, expression unreadable. Hitori looked like he wanted to filet me alive but didn't move a muscle, obviously conditioned not to act without his master's instruction. After a moment of tense silence, Masashi nodded. "Leave your phone here, they're tracking it. Call work from this phone, tell them you're home with the flu." He handed me an old model cell, a burner cell I guessed. I didn't even know those things really existed. I called in and left word for my assistants to cover the team and by the time I was saying goodbye, I was being herded into a black Range Rover in a cavernous garage.

I hung up and handed the phone back to Hitori who I watched promptly reset the phone to factory settings and then throw it out the window into the traffic on the street as we pulled out. There were at least 3 more identical Range Rovers ahead of us and at least one more behind us. I couldn't tell exactly how many cars there were in total, but I felt like I'd somehow crossed into some spy movie when I realized there were other cars that were driving along side the SUV's, matching our speed exactly, never passing or falling behind.

After about 15 minutes, the cars began peeling away one by one down random streets, then off random exits of the highway, until there was just one car in front and the one still behind us. We pulled into what looked like an abandoned airport, but was actually just privately owned by the Fukuda clan, which Masashi now led. There was no delay whatsoever. We pulled around this huge hangar and into the open bay. Hitori got out first, directed me out and then Masashi. I followed them to a small plane where we boarded along with 3 other guys that got out of the other accompanying cars, one of them went up to the cockpit as we walked back and sat down, the others sat down in seats near the front of the plane.

A moment later, the door shut and we were already backing out of the hangar and on to the runway. Masashi hadn't said a word since we left the house and, to be perfectly honest, he had a totally different manner about him. I know that this was "work" for him, but he was literally Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. A few minutes after we levelled off in the air, Hitori got up and walked further back in the cabin to a small bar. He saw me watching and grabbed a third glass. After a moment he walked back to where we were sitting, handed a glass to Masashi and then me, and sat down in the seat in front of me, swiveling around to face me.

I looked over at Masashi and he was downing the drink like it was water. "He uh...doesn't like to fly." Hitori said quietly. "You don't say." I replied reflexively, my knack for sarcasm overriding the filter in my brain. As soon as it came out, I looked up at him, a bit worried that he was going to deck me. But he was stifling a laugh as he sipped his whiskey. "Kid," he said after a hefty swallow, "You either have titanium balls or an inadequate sense of fear. Whichever it is, kinda makes me wanna punch you and shake your hand at the same time." He smiled and for the first time, of all the time we'd spent together over the past days, he looked somewhat relaxed.

I took a sip; the premium liquor went down with ease. "It's definitely not lack of fear." I muttered, more to myself than to him. He just looked at me. I took another sip and stared out the window. "Tooru's always been the strong one. I'm fucking scared of everything. If it weren't for him, I'd still be at home, alone, being used as a punching bag." I got quiet as the memories flooded through my head involuntarily. I took another sip of my drink, trying to chase them away with the thought of anything else. "That skinny bastard?" Hitori said with a smirk, making me chuckle under my breath.