The Worst Hero

Welcome to Heartbreak

Ribayashi opens the door to the apartment.

"Morning, sleepyhead. It smells like old lady clothes in here."

"I'm old, and I wear clothes."

"But you're no lady."

Ribayashi slips into his house slippers.

"Oh, so comfy."

Ribayashi walks toward the couch but falls down. He's too lazy to get up.

"Oh, sit on a stick."

"Did you get hurt? How about some ibuprofen?"

"Yeah, ibuprofen should do it."

Ribayashi flashes his nub.

"How's that, Kullen? Ikea doesn't assemble itself, you know."

"You're telling me. But it's an improvement over the fartyg."

"Please, anything is an improvement over the fartyg."

Ribayashi giggles.

"Fartyg... It's a real thing on Ikea; look it up."

The old lady giggles.

"How is the Kullen coming along, though?"

She puts the top board onto the Kullen.

"Ta... Da."

As soon as she sits down, it falls apart. They both sit in silence.

"That's fantastic."

"Why are you in a bad mood today, Ryohei?"

"Let's recap. The cock thistle—"

"Language!"

"The main antagonist butt buddies slipped through my arms today... Arm. And that was my only chance to be normal again and stop that shit—"

"Ryohei!"

"Stop that from happening to anybody else. Yeah, so today was about as much fun as a sandpaper dildo."

The old lady shakes her head.

"I'm going to go sit in the bathtub for a couple of hours."

"Have fun."

Ribayashi sighs, making his way to the bathroom.

"Now, Chiyo might not have deserved that. Oh! Yeah, the old blind lady is named Chiyo. She looks like Yoda but Japanese and zero Jedi abilities."

Ribayashi turns on the bathwater.

"Now speaking of appearances, how do I look? The beauty of reading about my exploits is that I can be anything your imagination wants me to be. A 600-pound tub of lard, or a 6'7 Jordan Barrett lookalike—the possibilities are endless, I say. Now, how would I personally describe myself? Imagine Ryan Gosling crossed with a topographical map of Utah and throw that mental image into a blender with Freddy Krueger's love child, and you've got me. Handsome on the inside, but on the outside... Let's just say I'm what happens when you microwave a chimichanga for too long."

Ribayashi is now in the tub with his bath cap on and a rubber ducky in hand.

"You were imagining me naked, weren't you? You dirty, dirty dog. But there is no better place to reflect than in the bathtub. Come pop a squat, and I'll tell you all about my origin story. And don't worry, I'll be there with you too—past and present me."

Ribayashi grabs a book next to the tub. It is the King James Bible with his vigilante mask painted onto the front.

"It was a dark night in Musutafu, and little 12-year-old me was having a family reunion at some government building. We had everyone over since my dad was officially retiring. From where, you ask? The JGSDF or Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. And not only that, he was in a 'Special' group within the JGSDF, which is the Japanese special forces. Talk about being fucked from the start. How was I ever going to compare to someone in the special forces? Not only that, he was trained by the Green Berets in some joint training they had going on in 2003—some real hardcore shit. In simple terms, Japan made my pops a super soldier. And my mom? Guess where she met my dad. The JGSDF. In my household, bedtime stories were tactical briefings, and family game night involved live grenades. Their version of quality time was hand-to-hand combat. Now, thinking about it, no wonder I turned out like this. Therapy is for the weak anyway. So my dad, a hardened special forces badass, decided to swap his camo for a suit and tie and dive into the political swamp. At first, it was like watching Rambo give a TED talk. But now he's out there kissing babies and shaking hands. The man could take down an insurgency squad by himself and charm a crowd in the same breath—talk about multi-talented! Anyway, he got voted in as the Director General at the Customs and Tariff Bureau and started fucking shit up in there. I liked to think of him as the ultimate undercover agent, and his field operations involved paper cuts and clips. Now that you are caught up, how did I turn into a monster, you ask? Well, back to the retirement party."