Part 1 Story 5: Informant and Hitman
Translator: Ririi Rain
After having dinner in
Chinatown and going outside again, Secret said that there was a place that she
needed to go to, and so, they headed towards Ishikawacho Station.
After passing through the main street under the overpass, the buzz of the city that can be heard until then became quiet, like it was just a lie.
The sudden change in the atmosphere made Ringo feel uncomfortable. It was not a very good feeling to get chills.
It was only after a few minutes
of walk that he realized. It was quiet because there were barely any people and
many stores were closed with shutters.
The buildings were all old. Iron scraps and woods were piled up high in a place that should have been a parking lot.
Here and there, old people were standing around the road. There were almost no young people like the two of them.
It was clear that those old people were staring at them even though they were just walking, and Ringo realized that this neighborhood wasn't the strange one, rather, they were the odd ones in this neighborhood.
"Secret, this place-"
"Here, we have arrived!"
His inquiry was interrupted, and when he looked towards the place that she pointed at, a slightly dirty illuminated signboard was sitting there.
‘Bar, Red Brick’. The old-fashioned white font was shining on the red background.
There was a staircase leading to the second floor of the building behind the signboard. When he climbed up the stairs to catch up with Secret, there was a bar that was neither more than nor less than what he had imagined.
It was in Showa retro style,
or rather, it had been persevered since the Showa era without refurbishment.
A faint moldy odor that got mixed with the scent of drifting cigarette smoke was stabbing his nose.
At the end of a row of tables, there was a counter with a variety of bottles of alcohol. The myriad of clear glasses glowed softly in the indirect light, and the gray-haired old woman owner stood at the counter without looking anywhere.
At the far end of the bar,
around the billiard table and the dartboard, some real hoodlums, unlike Ringo,
were gathering and making noises.
When they were halfway through to the counter, the owner finally seemed to notice Ringo and Secret.
"Mama, one sweet martini, please. And also,"
"O, oolong tea."
Where on earth is this? When he was still looking around restlessly, another customer came in.
He was a young man who was dressed
up in a flashy and unrefined suit that clearly identified him as a host. His hair
was dyed in a conspicuous deep pink color.
From the corners of his droopy eyes, he distinctly gave off the air of a womanizer.
As it turned out, the man sat down next to Secret, as if he was familiar with her.
"Good evening1〜 , I've been waiting for you, you know."
"Damn, how many women do you think are waiting for me?"
Gray smoke rose from the man’s smoked cigarette to the ceiling, and Ringo coughed involuntarily.
"I will treat you, okay. Mama, add a fuzzy navel."
"I'm in a rush, so make it quick."
The haughty and foul-mouthed man drank the offered cocktail like it was water, pulled a piece of paper out of his chest pocket, slid it on the counter, and handed it to Secret.
After exchanging a few words, he quickly stood up.
Contrary to the boy's earnest wish, which was for that guy to finally leave, the said guy brought his face in front of Ringo who had been erasing his presence all this time.
It was a face that seemed
like it would be popular with the opposite sex.
Ringo would be a human who stood at the opposite end of the spectrum, and he was not good at crude language either.
"Heh〜, so this is the juvenile criminal from the hottest topic right now, huh?"
"Huh?!"
Upset by the loudness of those lines rather than the rude words, Ringo looked around the bar in a hurry. Before he noticed, the hoodlums were already gone, but still, the owner should be able to hear it clearly.
"It's okay, Ringo-kun. He knows everything because he's an informant, and Mama also won't tell anyone. This shop is that kind of a shop."
"You are, an informant?"
While Ringo was stunned by the existence that he had only seen in mangas, it seemed that the pink-haired informant had lost interest in him. He cut into a new topic.
"Ah, I forgot until just now, but, Secret. It seems that recently, guys who have lost their sanity are wandering around here. One of the boys at my shop got done in. His upper arm was bitten off by a zombie like in the movies. You should be careful. "
"Zombie? Somehow it's been getting more and more dangerous lately. I'll be wary."
"You baldie over there too, if you are being a vacant lump like now, you will be eaten from the head."
"Y, yes ..."
(This person, as expected, I don't like him.)
Ringo shrugged his
shoulders.
"Fufu〜n, drink, drink."
Secret was humming in a good
mood, but her staggering legs made it dangerous.
In the end, even after the informant returned, Secret and Ringo stayed at Red Brick for another two hours and she continued to drink.
Because the drunkard said that she wanted to sober up using the night breeze, the two were enjoying a midnight walk just from one station to another one.
The surroundings were in
complete silence, but as they were walking along the railroad tracks, the noisy
running noise of the train sometimes broke the silence.
Every time the light inside the train was reflected on the asphalt, Secret's blue eyes were illuminated.
"That place, what was that?"
That place was clad in a
strange atmosphere.
It was as if, that place had been cut off from the rest of modern Japan.
"Hnnー? You see, that place, is called Doya2 District."
"Doya District?"
"Doya is a kind of inn. It's an area where low-income earners are gathering as there are super-cheap accommodations for day laborers. That Doya District seems to be one of the largest in Japan. Maybe that's why, there are izakaya3 and set meal shops, but they are all unusually cheap. And in fact, there are also gambling venues (casinos)."
"Those gambling places (casinos) are illegal, aren’t they...?"
(So there’s such a place. I didn't know.)
Ringo straightened up his back for some reason.
"Don't mind the details〜"
"Jeez, you've had too much to drink."
He felt a sharp breeze right next to his cheek as he supported Secret who was leaning against his shoulders.
The next moment he noticed, he was being blown to the right side by a tremendous force and he kissed the asphalt with his face.
"Wha ?!"
When he got up while
frowning because of the severe pain on his face, Secret blocked his mouth.
He desperately moved his eyes and looked around, and it seemed that he had been dragged into a back alley.
Everyone seemed to throw away trashes as they liked, because his nose smelled something pungent and rotten from the garbage bags that were piled up there.
It could be seen that something like thin smoke was rising from the ground where Ringo was standing until just a moment ago.
It was a bullet hole.
Furthermore, it was most likely aimed at Ringo.
(Am I being attacked by someone?!)
"You don't move, just stay here."
Even though she was dead drunk until just a moment ago, now, Secret whispered to him in a commanding voice.
"Secret sa〜n, please come ou〜t."
The voice that echoed was unexpectedly
close and it made him jump.
It doesn't sound human, it was like an anime character who had a high-pitched voice that stabbed the brain and resembled mechanical sound.
The assailant knew the name Secret. Are they acquaintances?
He didn't want to admit it, but he realized that someone was aiming for his life and that the assailant seemed to have a gun.
While Ringo endured stressful nausea at another spot, Secret raised her voice from the back alley.
"It's been a long time, Mizari. Where did you get the request this time? "
"Kyahaha〜h, of course I can't say it. After a〜ll, Mizari is a professional hitman, you kno〜w?"
The moment Secret heard that voice, she threw a garbage bag beside her to the street.
In a blink of an eye, the garbage bag was shot at and it became full of holes. Lumps of tissues and food waste were scattered from the torn bag.
"Ringo-kun, is there a building within 30 meters in that direction that is about two stories high?"
"There are the three-story Minato Building, two-story Chinese West Building, and the also two-story Minamikawaso Apartment."
In his head, he recalled the map from an app that he had seen before.
"That means... I see. As expected of a hitman."
"What do you mean by that? And a hitman-"
He heard a word that was too disturbing, and the olive fruits that he had snacked on when he was at Red Brick earlier had come back to his throat.
***
1 Originally use English pronunciation, but it is written in Japanese characters↩
2 Several major Japanese cities have a slum district known as a doya-gai. The word doya is a venerable piece of Japanese street slang. It is the word yado (an inn) reversed, and it means a cheap lodging place. The nearest English equivalent would be “skid row”—in both cases, we are talking about a slum that is populated almost exclusively by men. The most famous ones in Japan are Kamagasaki, in Osaka; San’ya, in Tokyo; and Kotobuki, in Yokohama. Secret will explain more about it.↩
3 Izakaya: Japanese bar that also serves various dishes and snacks↩
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