“You let your brother, practically ten years younger than you, push you through a table? You’ve had training! Your father paid for that training and to hear that you’re … ” She steels herself. “I can’t believe that you are as weak as you are. I have one son who is an utter failure, one who is a weakling, and I don’t know which is which at times!”
She returns her focus to Ryuk. Next to him, Kodai fumes, his head bowed and his fists clenched tightly together. “Why would you push your brother through a glass coffee table?”
“Like I said, he attacked me first. He beat me up outside the hostess bar in Shinjuku. Hajime saved me.”
“Oh, that,” she says flatly. “I’m aware that he roughed you up a bit. I told him to beat some sense into you and, apparently, he took this literally.”
“You told him that was okay!?”
Their mother ignores him. “But now that you’ve both gotten your revenge, petty as it is, it is time for you to bury your aggression towards each other. What is done is done. There is no need for this matter to continue any longer and what I need you both to do, Kodai, Ryuk, is to realize that this family business hinges on three people, you,” she points to Kodai, “me and you,” she nods to Ryuk.
“I don’t want any part in it,” Ryuk grits.
She exhales audibly. “You’ve told me that before, and I’ve told you before that it isn’t really a choice. But I believe you’ll understand this with time. For now, I need to make it crystal clear to you that you will enroll in university this summer.”
“No.” Ryuk stands defiant, his chest slightly puffed out.
Kodai glances at him out of the corner of his eyes. He tries to contain his shock by clearing his throat.
“What … did you just say?” Their mother narrows her perfectly manicured eyebrows at him.
“I’m enrolling in a Proxima trade school. I’m going to tell you the same thing I told him.” He nods to his brother. “I want you both to leave me alone. I want nothing to do with what our family does business-wise. And if you cut me off, I’ll just apply to the JUBI program. That’ll cover the costs of me being permalogged in.”
“JUBI?” Kodai scowls at his younger brother.
The Japanese Universal Basic Income program is partially run by the Proxima Company. It keeps people logged in permanently and performs various tests on their bodies as they’re logged in. They can log out if they’d like, but the funds for the program are set so they just barely cover the cost of domicile at one of the Proxima facilities.
“You heard me! I want to be left alone,” Ryuk seethes. “This, all of this,” he says, waving his hand around the room, “has come from blood money or money built on the backs of … backs of other people, mostly women! It is not a business!”
His mother lets him finish huffing. Finally, she says, “You poor, stupid boy. Were you always this daft? Was there ever a time that you sounded less educated than you sound now? I cannot remember you ever speaking to your brother or me in such a way.”
Ryuk starts to bow his head but stops. No, he thinks, be a man.
“This little fantasy of yours, that you’ll live your life in a make believe game world and that you will be of no concern to society will end as you get older.” Her voice thins. “I am highly disappointed in you, Ryuk, and you will do as I say. Understand? This isn’t a negotiation. Summer. If summer comes and you aren’t enrolled at Waseda … ”
“What will you do? You can’t kill me! You can’t intimidate me like you do your business partners. There is nothing you can do!” He carefully enunciates the next words, even though his voice quivers: “You have no power over me. None. I will live my life my way and there’s nothing that you,” he points at Kodai, “or you,” he turns the finger to his mother, “will do about it.”
She stares him down for a moment and as he keeps his finger in the air, pointed right at her, he suddenly feels like she’s looking through him, and from that feeling, he gets the notion that she’s actually proud of how he is misbehaving.
Proud? Even lightly acknowledging the way he’s reading her visage throws him off guard. How could she be proud after what I’ve just said? He swallows hard as he lowers his finger.
“If you aren’t enrolled by the summer, I’ll take Hajime away from you.”
“Hajime?”
But how does she know? he wonders. How does she know about our relationship?
Kodai grins cheek to cheek. He starts to say something, but stops and waits for his mother to speak.
“You enjoy Hajime’s company, do you not?”
“Yes,” Ryuk says softly.
“He’s your only friend, admit it!” Kodai blurts out. “Especially now that your girlfriend is dead.”
“Enough,” their mother tells him, not at all concerned by the death part of Kodai’s statement.
“Fuck you,” Ryuk hisses.
“You’ll need to learn a better way to tell me off than that,” his older brother says out of the corner of his mouth.
Their mother folds her hands together on her desk. “Ryuk, you may go now. Remember what I’ve said: enroll, or lose Hajime’s services. I could use a humandroid; it seems everyone is getting one,” she says, again focusing on Kodai.
Ryuk turns and he’d slam the door on the way out if it were the type of door that slams. Instead, he waits for it to open, turns, and kicks it once it has closed behind him.
Chapter 19: Imp Melee
Ryuk can’t log in fast enough.
He’s so consumed by anger on the way home that he hardly says anything to Hajime, who seems to be in a very reflective mood as he stares out the window at the city below. The city is suddenly dead to him, suddenly empty of its millions upon millions of inhabitants, all going about their lives oblivious to his own personal drama.
Ryuk smirks at this thought. How is it that so many things can be happening all at once, most of which will never affect the person one room over, or walking across the street, or in a different booth at the same coffee shop.
It’s amazing we keep it all together, he thinks, as the vehicle lowers into a different airlane. In the aeros immediately to their right, a woman in a little sailor hat sits in the back seat using her reflected image on the seat in front of her to put on makeup.
To the left of their aeros, two teens dressed as characters from a popular anime make a beeline to Harajuku, famous as a place where anyone can dress in any way and not be judged for it.
Harajuku. Ryuk wishes he could simply step out of his apartment, take the subway, and arrive at Harajuku Station. What a day that would be! He’d have some coffee, walk the back alleys that lead to Omotesando, have some okonomiyaki at Sakuratei, head to Yoyogi Park, and hell, walk a mile south to Shibuya and take in all the sights and sounds.
But for someone like him, someone that can barely get out of the house without security – and for what? Why all the security, especially as of late? – the best Ryuk can do is park his ass in his bed and log in.
Some life, he thinks bitterly.
Hajime finally speaks up as the Uberyota lands. “I will assume that the meeting went poorly.” He clears his throat, a very human gesture for an android that has no reason to do such an act.
“I hate them both.”
“Hate? What did they say that made you hate them?”
“She threatened to take you away if I don’t enroll in university.” Ryuk swallows hard. “She threatened to take you!”
Hajime considers this for a moment. As he does so, the vehicle informs them that they are now clear to exit the cabin. “Well, is university that hard?”