Take This Love and Eat It! Chapter 1

“Oh, oh, yes, yes…!”

The flickering light from the television screen cast three long shadows on the dingy white walls as the sounds of lusty moans and wet slaps bounced around the dim room. The ill-fitting sliding door did nothing to dampen the noise, which spilled with increasingly loud and heedless enthusiasm into the room next-door.

“Oh, oh, OH!” she screamed in piercing ecstasy, her voice joined by a man’s low, breathless “whoa” mere milliseconds before the ostensibly faulty sliding door slammed wide open.

“For fuck’s sake, can you turn that shit down!” came a resounding bellow, popping the room’s stuffy air of debauchery like a balloon. The white glare of cheap fluorescent lights silhouetted the towering figure in the doorway: a man dressed in traditional Japanese clothing and radiating anger. His fit frame was clad in a casual kimono of indigo silk, sash tied low on his hips. His short black hair shot up in unruly spikes, only a whisper short of brushing the door’s head jamb. From his eyebrows slanting upwards over large eyes, to his lips pressed into a tight line, every feature of his face intensified the power of his glare. He had a sharp, unassailable kind of handsomeness, and he was perfectly comfortable wearing traditional dress. He would probably have appeared right at home on the streets of Edo, although his look was more villager than samurai, and more gambler than gentleman.

“You come all the way to my place so you can hole up three guys in a room and watch porn? Go home!” shouted Ei Tokisaka, the owner of the old house, at the three men sitting in a circle around his fourteen-inch television. The men, however, seemed utterly unfazed by his fierce scowl.

“Oh come on, waka!¹” wheedled the short man sitting in front, dressed like the textbook definition of a hooligan. “This was for you! We saw you’ve been frowning a lot recently and we thought you could use an oasis.”

“Oasis? And what kind of oasis is this exactly?”

“You’ll see if you watch, I’m telling you! This video is my top pick. Makes it a little too wet in your pants, if you catch my drift,” he said with a big dopey grin, digging the heel of his palm into his crotch through his clothes. The furrows in Ei’s brow cut deeper.

“Nah, Nobu, I’m sorry but this lady isn’t waka’s style. Waka likes a good-girl face with that sexy thick bombshell body,” corrected the eldest of the three, sitting in the middle and looking rather smug. He had a keen gaze and slightly thick lips set in an angular, masculine face. His black hair was slicked and parted to one side with a few stray bangs across his forehead, and he pulled off his dark pinstripe suit with an edge that didn’t quite suggest “law-abiding citizen.” Rather than watch porn, he looked more like the type to be somewhere behind the camera, conducting some crooked dealings.

“How about you don’t discuss who my style is, Tsuda. Is the moneylending business that slow these days?”

“No, no, it’s been quite cushy actually, lots of good customers,” he replied unabashedly. God only knew what kind of customer a loan shark would consider a “good” one.

“It’s the middle of the day, quit lying around here! You have a nice fancy office! Who knows, maybe someone’s there knocking on your door right now!” Ei punctuated his words with a savage kick to all three of their backs (including Tatsu, who had been observing the situation in impassive silence), and with clear reluctance the men climbed to their feet.

“Aw, y’know, it’s just cozier here.”

They were well-acquainted with Ei’s temper and thus neither scared nor upset by the rough treatment. Their faces were obnoxiously familiar to Ei as well; he and Tsuda, whom he’d known the longest, went back almost twenty years.

“Tsuda—and you guys too, Nobu, Tatsu. You’re always welcome here, that’s no problem, but stop it with the waka already, alright? I left the family a decade ago. I mean, the gang doesn’t even exist anymore, and you guys aren’t gangsters either.”

Ei had been born and raised in the Tokisaka family, a small gang with old roots. That long history had come to an end four years ago when the gang had closed up shop following the death of Ei’s father, the seventh boss. Tsuda had been the second-in-command at the time, and Nobu and Tatsu had worked under him. Now all three had cut their ties with the underworld and ran a moneylending operation together. They still rather looked the part, but they were technically no longer gangsters.

“Doesn’t matter if we’re not gangsters, doesn’t matter if the gang’s gone. You will always be waka to me. Just ah, consider it like a nickname and let it go, please.”

“And quit the ‘please,’ too. You’re ten fuckin’ years older than me.”

Ei was twenty-seven to Tsuda’s thirty-seven, while Nobu and Tatsu were around thirty-two or thirty-three.

“In that case, you’re also being pretty familiar with a man ten years older than you,” Tsuda played devil’s advocate with a coy smile on his face.

“Er—I mean I, uh… Mr. Tsuda, I really must ask you to stop speaking so politely.”

The words had barely left his mouth before Nobu and Tatsu started cracking up.

“Th-That sounds so creepy!”

“And you’re still giving him attitude!”

Ei could only stare at the pair glumly as they poked fun at him in between splutters of laughter.

“Let’s not, waka,” Tsuda said. “I feel embarrassed already.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Nevermind. Look, you guys get out of here and go do some work. …Ugh, what is this, what’d you close the curtains for!”

“Well you gotta watch this stuff in the dark, y’know? To set the mood,” Nobu said with a bawdy smirk, and Ei treated him to another kick on his way to yank the curtains aside and throw open the window.

The fresh May air was crisp and refreshing… or would have been, if perhaps not for the view outside. The old diner had been constructed over thirty years ago, and its second-story windows looked out over a deserted downtown back-alley and a drab sky. A wire spanned the width of the alleyway right about at eye level, and from it dangled a sign that read ‘Paradise Alley,’ looking one stiff breeze away from plummeting to the ground below. It was the name given to this alley which stretched about thirty meters to the south, though only longtime residents knew the name existed.

The narrow alley was lined with the sorts of businesses that one might marvel at for having survived this long: cheap tin-roofed dive bars and shady-looking massage parlors, hardware stores and sweet shops. The atmosphere was more post-war than sixties. Passersby were always familiar faces; it was a rare sight indeed to be graced with a first-time customer. Turn a few corners and you’d be on the well-trafficked main street that boasted trendy bars and restaurants, even a ramen shop with lines out the door. It was hardly surprising that few people would go out of their way to venture down these abandoned-looking roads.

The figures from the ledger he had been glowering at only a moment ago came back to mind, and Ei heaved a big sigh. He had started working here at Toshishun around five years ago, and when the previous owner had passed away three years later he had inherited the business. The diner had been scraping by on the brink of going into the red ever since, in constant danger of going bust with no promise of booming. He wasn’t aspiring to a Michelin star or anything, but even basic financial stability was a quandary that had him racking his brain on a daily basis.

He huffed for a second time, and a high-pitched giggle echoed down the alley as if to laugh it away. Glancing in that direction, he saw two young women walking gaily by with magazines clutched in their hands. He didn’t need to look to know exactly where they were heading: the chic Italian restaurant that had opened across from Ei’s diner about six months ago. A cabaret had formerly occupied the lot before going under, but not a vestige of it remained in the new red brick exterior, black iron ornamentation, and simple stained glass windows. At night, the light of its lamps cast a warm glow over the bleak alleyway. It was a portal to a foreign land in the middle of the post-war streetscape, and young glamorous women collected there one after another to vanish inside like moths to a light trap. For a man almost ready to throw in the towel on his dire struggle to attract even a single new customer, the sight had come as an enormous shock. He had even secretly tried the place out for himself in the name of reconnaissance to scope out what tricks they were using, but…

“My food’s way better.”

Well, the taste hadn’t been bad. The ambiance had been good too; he could see why their hideaway vibe would be popular. But when it came to hideaways, his restaurant ought to be the biggest name in town! Now if only anyone actually wanted to hide away there.

“Oh, are you looking at Higa’s joint?” asked Nobu, following his gaze as he came up behind him. “Fuck those guys, getting all the business. If you wanna take ‘em out, I’m in.”

“Why would I want to take them out? Look at all these girls actually coming down here for once. What I want to do is poach those customers.”

“All you gotta do is stand out front, you’ll get ‘em in one. Put Tsuda out there too for double the punch. Oh, but you gotta smile. You both look a little scary when you’ve got a straight face on.”

Nobu steered Ei and Tsuda to stand alongside each other in the window and urged them to smile, but Ei couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Oh, waka! I just had a great idea!” Nobu cried out, dashing out of the room, and a short time later his voice beckoned eagerly from downstairs, “Come down here!”

Ei begrudgingly stepped out into the hall and descended the stairs with Tsuda and Tatsu close behind. The sliding lattice glass door that served as the diner’s entrance now had a sheet of paper taped to it. It read, ‘Boy band idol types come to eat here incognito!’ The moment Ei saw it, all the tension drained out of him.

“See that ‘types,’ it’s a magic word! I learned that the other day. You just tack it on and you got all your bases covered, that’s what he said.”

“What who said?”

“Big boss Kanda.”

“Oh great, that pack of show business scam artists…”

“Now you just have us walk in with sunglasses on, and it’ll be perfect!” Nobu declared, chest puffed out with pride.

“I see now that you… are a true, honest-to-goodness moron,” Ei muttered gravely. In what universe did idols in a boy band put on crimson suits of all things and swagger around bowlegged? And he wanted to call that ‘incognito…?’ The suggestion appeared to have rendered Tsuda and Tatsu speechless as well.

“You don’t gotta be mean about it, waka!”

“Look, I appreciate the thought,” he said as he reached up to tear the sign off the door, but his hand froze at the sound of an unbelievable exclamation from outside.

“Whoa, it says boy bands come here! Do you think it’s true?”

“Are you serious? There’s no way,” someone retorted immediately, and for some reason Ei was relieved to hear it.

He glanced in the direction of the voices, and locked eyes with a group of three women no doubt on their way to the aforementioned Italian restaurant. He smiled at them, a conditioned reflex from years in the service industry, and the women paused at the door.

“Well, you won’t see any boy bands here but we do make some good food.” Technically the diner wasn’t open yet but he tried the line out on them anyway. The women blushed and nudged each other with their elbows, and just as they were poised to take a step forward—

“Oh, that place is a gang hangout,” a deep voice carried across the alleyway, stopping the women in their tracks. “It’s no place for ladies like yourselves.”

A tall man dressed in a beige suit and wide rectangular sunglasses stood outside the Italian restaurant, leaning against the brick wall with the hint of a smirk on his lips. He looked like he’d just stepped off the page of a fashion magazine.

“Sojun,” Ei growled at the unwelcome interference, eyes narrowing automatically in a glare.

“See? Those are his true colors. Three lovely ladies like you, you don’t want to get scammed into working at a ‘massage parlor.’ Best be careful.”

It was hard to tell at a distance through the light sepia lenses, but Ei was sure that behind them, Sojun’s almond-shaped eyes were sharp and cold, like a predator eyeing his prey. His eyebrows were bold and strong above the shapely bridge of his nose. His bangs swept up and to the sides as if to showcase his handsome face, falling in natural waves that brushed against his sunglasses, and his white dress shirt was open wide at the collar, exposing a sensual strip of chest to entice feminine attention. The effect appeared to be instantaneous; the women’s eyes were drawn to him as one, and when he opened the door and beckoned them inside, his gentlemanly flourish reeled them in.

“Enjoy your dinner,” he said, flashing them a charming smile, and Ei and his three companions screwed up their faces like they were sucking a lemon. Sojun shut the door and strolled over to them, and the smile still playing on his lips now held a cruel edge that was nothing like before.

“Man, chicks really fall for a phony smile like that?” Nobu groaned in frustration, and while Ei was in complete agreement with him, he had much more pressing words for the man.

“Sojun! Quit your lying! Why the hell are you calling my diner a gang hangout?!” he snarled at the man standing two inches taller than him.

“Where’s the issue? I’m right, loosely speaking. Most of your regulars are either former or current gangsters. In fact, you’ve got the Higa family’s number two himself walking through your door every day.”

Sojun wasn’t wrong, seeing how he was the Higa family’s number two, but—

“I wouldn’t scam girls into anything! And you’ve got no fuckin’ room to talk. Yeah we get a lot of gangster types in here, but your place is a goddamn gang operation!”

There wasn’t even a whiff of it from the outside, but that Italian restaurant was managed by Sojun Higa, right-hand man of the boss of the Higa family.

“Stop yelling, you’re disrupting our customers,” said Sojun coolly, the same man who had been happy to disrupt Ei’s customers not a minute before, and Ei’s temper flared.

“You motherfucker—”

“Waka, he’s just a waste of your time,” soothed Tsuda before Ei could lunge for the other man. “Come on, you should be prepping the food right now.” He looked daggers at Sojun before reaching for Ei’s arm and steering him back towards the diner’s entrance.

“Right, yeah, I haven’t even done the cleaning yet.”

There was no point in standing around quarreling in the alleyway. He was already behind schedule. He let Tsuda pull him to the doorway, but just as he made to step inside Sojun called from behind him,

“You start getting young women flocking to Toshishun, and they really will get sold off—by me. Every last one.”

“Excuse me?!”

“I eliminate anything that gets in my way. Whatever it takes.” Sojun’s gaze was not on Ei but on Tsuda as he smirked in challenge, and Tsuda returned a chilly glare.

The Tokisaka and Higa families had both been gambling syndicates in neighboring territories, and the history between them ran deep. Even after the gangs had shared a cup of sake two generations ago as a mutual pledge of loyalty, the entrenched rivalry between their men had remained a frequent trigger of conflicts. That rivalry appeared to be alive and well between Sojun and Tsuda even now that the Tokisaka gang was disbanded, and the two were at each other’s throats every time they crossed paths.

“Don’t try to tell me who my customers are!” Ei cut in loudly, drawing Sojun’s eyes back to him. He had absolutely no intention of trying to patch up Sojun and Tsuda’s issues after all these years, but there was something unpleasant about watching them go over his head to growl at each other—even if he did feel a bit like a child demanding attention.

A mocking smile tugged at the corners of Sojun’s lips as he watched him, and then he turned on his heel without a word and walked away, this time towards the main street instead of back to his restaurant.

“Someone’s gonna stab him one day,” the usually quiet Tatsu prophesied, and Ei nodded in agreement as he watched Sojun’s back retreat up the alley.

“Yep. The guy’s gotta be making enemies left and right, plus he loves to work alone.”

“Word is their guys have a real tough time working under him. Do something out of line and he gets pissed, do nothing and you’re out. He gets right to the point with his orders, only says what he needs to. I heard some of ‘em get ulcers from the stress, feeling like they’re constantly being tested.”

“Yeah, I can definitely picture that. But, still, it sounds like he’s a big part of the reason Higa’s business is so secure. Doesn’t matter how nice you are; if you can’t put food on the table for your men, you don’t deserve to be in charge of them.”

To make it as a gangster, what you needed was money. Families needed to forge bonds and maintain goodwill with each other in order to survive, and bonds and good will were bought with money. Condolence money for funerals, celebratory gifts, a little something for men serving time in prison, an envelope of cash to accompany a pledge of loyalty—gangsters had a laundry list of occasions to expect payments from each other, and the size of those payments was no joke. Skimping out meant losing face in a world where to be made light of was synonymous with death. On top of that, the lot that signed up for the gangster life were all men who had no place in polite society, and in the current climate with the noose of the law tighter than ever, it was a struggle just to keep everyone in the family fed. Ideas and business acumen were critical, whether applied to legal pursuits or illegal ones. Any man who wanted to rise to the top needed breadth of both perspective and knowledge, and exceptionally quick wits.

Sojun possessed all of those traits without a doubt. He had the skills to open a restaurant in a place like this and make it a trendy destination. The stark contrast between Sojun and himself gave Ei the self-deprecating feeling that he had indeed made the right choice not to succeed his father as head of the family. Maybe Sojun had intentionally chosen this location for his restaurant in order to flaunt the gulf in their abilities. After all, restaurant profit margins wouldn’t amount to much more than pocket money for his men.

But when it came to taste, Ei’s food absolutely had them beat—that was the one thing he took pride in.

“Alright, I’m gonna go start cleaning. Get back to your office and work your asses off!”

Tsuda’s financing company was doing reasonably well, from what he’d heard. The only one not doing so well around here was Ei himself, and the thought cast a dark pall on his mood.

“Okay waka, we’ll go get a little work in. We’ll come back tonight.”

“Yeah, sure. Oh, hey, Nobu! Take that video with you!”

“Aw, I’ll leave it for you. You’ve been looking down these days. Give it a watch, it’ll help you feel refreshed. Bye!” he yelled over his shoulder, all but fleeing down the alley at a run.

“Wait, hey!”

Tsuda and Tatsu ambled off after him, broad grins on their faces.

“Do I really look like I need to get laid that badly?” It was true, he hadn’t had much going on in the way of girlfriends for a while now, but the diner was occupying all of his attention. How could he attract more customers? How could he keep it afloat? Maybe he should let go of his pride and vanity and just ask Sojun for guidance, but that was the one option he wanted to avoid at all costs.

“Look at me, refusing to go to Higa for help… Must be that Tokisaka DNA.”

And even if he went and begged him for help, he had a feeling that Sojun probably… no, definitely wouldn’t tell him anyway.

Ei gave his head a little shake to banish his gloomy mood and set about cleaning the diner.

Notes

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1. Literally “youth.” A respectful term of address for the son of a gang boss. ↩