Original Love

Episode Twenty-One

Kenji Yanagi has just received the call from Jin Sasai not over a minute ago, and he is almost dashing out of his office, leaving an abrupt instruction to his stunned secretary outside of the door to cancel the rest of his engagements for the whole day. He quickly calls for his other men waiting near the elevators to go with him as they take the platform and go down to the basement floor where the parking lot is located.

It is only when he has finally gotten in the backseat of the black Rolls Royce car parked right outside the exit of the basement lobby, that Kenji Yanagi lets out a long relieved sigh and closes his eyes. He immediately rests his head down on the soft cushion of his seat behind him and eventually feels the slow burn of comfort wrapping him around as the knowledge of Aoi Chiba's consciousness finally came. He has been so stressed out for the last two days thinking and worrying over the fact that she might not wake up sooner and now that the good news has resolved all of his anxieties, Kenji can only give himself a mental pat on the shoulder.

Sakamoto's share of what had transpired a few moments before the shootout happened that day suddenly pops into Kenji's mind and he casually mulls over the pending decisions he has been cramming the whole day. He has to make another move soon and he has to choose what to do with Aoi Chiba after this. He could not really deny it, after all, he still cannot let go of her.

In fact, even when he has already been doubting her until now and even had found out her connection with Ito Yamazaki, Kenji cannot still make himself get rid of her. It feels strange and he can certainly guess already why he feels this way now, but he still does not want to admit it.

He just wants to keep the illusion alive for now, so long as he can still guarantee that he is not being distracted yet. His focus should be and must always be just on the purpose of extending and strengthening the power of the Yanagi family and sealing the Dojima clan's future for the best.

The territories around Tokyo has gotten pretty much critical to the point that the Dojima executives themselves are already starting to doubt each other. So far, for Kenji, this occurrence can only be a good and a bad thing for his own favor. He can definitely gain a quicker alliance with the most reliable big family inside the organization that he can work with and make much better progress in earning more favorable votes among the other stronger bosses. Or if his luck completely runs out, the staggering stability of the Tokyo districts could just result in him getting more and more enemies around him who would only see him as another huge threat over the seat of the possible successor to the clan's Oyabun.

So, if he is to be wise this time, what he truly needs to do is to devise a very concise tactical plan and negate any fallout that might possibly happen. He has to be more vigilant and very ahead. But given the several things that have happened over the course of these past few months, it has been hard for Kenji to focus only on managing and strategizing. He has done so much more damage control than he had been doing for the last five years as the Boss of the family. It is truly draining him out of energy and he has already lost so much sleep that he has already forgotten how many days had already passed by.

As he watches the blurry view of the city streets from the tinted window beside him, his mind slowly wanders back to the old days when he was still so new in this kind of world... As a Yakuza.

He was a Yankee (juvenile delinquent) ever since his middle school days up until he started joining small gangs around Tokyo and probably had even spent most of his life just living off from what he can find of use in the streets and from pickpocketing. When Kenji was nine years old, his mother had been murdered by his drunken violent stepfather who was, later on, had been sentenced to life imprisonment. This unfortunate event had been the biggest turning point for the pitiful and very innocent Kenji (who was then still Kenji Yoshino) who automatically became an orphan and was quickly sent off to be taken under his mother's younger brother's custody.

At that time, Kenji was still unaware of the upcoming fate that will eventually fall upon him. So when he had begun to start his days living in a small apartment in one of the ghetto areas within Tokyo along with his uncle, he also struggled to adapt to the lifestyle. His uncle, who had turned out to be a longtime member of a Yakuza gang quickly taught him to the dangerous ways of being a Yankee and this became what eventually molded the kid until he got older and mature.

It was at the age of seventeen when Kenji started to stray off and left his uncle alone to begin his independence while still relying on the support he can get from his fellow gang members whom he had also treated more of his family then. Kenji was soon introduced to the dynamic trade of moneymaking where they used to earn enough to keep them going by doing casual jobs (and even illegal kinds) around the city. It had pretty much become the very whole world for Kenji. And later on, he had also begun to believe that he can never really run away from that kind of life anymore.

And without any much of an attempt to ever abandon that world, Kenji had strived to commit himself instead to the much more critical and even ominous activities of the gang. He slowly became a big name to many, and his prosperity had eventually risen that soon gained him a slightly bigger reputation around a small famous district in Tokyo. And later on, this development had also helped him to become the new leader of the gang he was in.

Since then, Kenji only went on and on and got engaged more in gang fights and running around. He was so used to escaping and punching and getting hurt that he no longer feel the pain like a normal person would.

That had been his life before he had become the one he is now...

And for some reason, when he remembers those old days of him just running and panting around the streets looking for a place to hide from this cruel world, he feels the void slowly becoming much more tangible inside his chest.

It sinks him down... yet it makes him even more desperate.

There is really no way for him to escape this life anymore.

Because once a Yakuza... Will always be a Yakuza. And it will always stay... No matter how much he will try to forget it. The past will still remain the same and unchanged.

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