Chapter Text
Ryouta just finishes eating the lunch at a small but crowded food vendor not far from his office. He’s not alone there as he is with his two of co-workers and also the managers like him. The weather outside is very hot as the sun shines brightly on the top of the afternoon.
“I told you guys; this place is really recommended” said Satoshi, one of Ryouta’s coworkers who’s responsible of managing surveillance division.
“Yeah, I mean the food is great but damn, it’s scorching hot in here” said Ryouta before drinks his iced cold water.
“It can’t be helped, this place is always swarmed by people all the time, especially in lunch time like this” said Toshiro, another coworker of Ryouta who’s responsible for financial matters.
“Fair, I mean besides the food is great, the price is also friendly too. Especially in today’s economy where everything is inflated,” said Ryouta.
“That’s true and don’t forget that this year alone, we already saw so many companies who laid off their workers to prevent more losses. Everything is so messed up these days,” said Satoshi.
“Yeah, by the way, I’m thinking of having a divorce with my wife” said Toshiro which makes Ryouta and Satoshi both got surprised.
“It’s so sudden, but why?” Ryouta asking him.
Toshiro sighs a little. “The thing is, my wife and I are always found ourselves in constant heating arguments. I mean, I’m already trying to be patient, but now I feel like I can’t. We are even now sleeping separately,” said Toshiro.
“I feel you man, but are you sure? I mean you got a kid,” said Ryouta.
“I know, but I’ll figure it out something,” said Toshiro.
“How long this been happened?” asked Satoshi.
“It’s been two and half years by now. I’m already stressed at work and at home my wife keeps yelling at me non-stop. We’re growing apart day by day,” said Toshiro.
“Well, maybe divorce is the only way to solve your problem,” said Ryouta.
“Well, like I said before, I’m already strongly considers taking this kind of measure,” said Toshiro.
“So, you already have your own attorney to begin with?” said Satoshi.
“Not yet, but, it’s easy matter. I already have a contact of a law firm who ran by my friend,” said Toshiro.
“Moreover, you need to talk to your wife about your decision, and eventually, to your daughter in the end,” said Ryouta.
“Yeah, I’ll get all thing resolved once and for all” said Toshiro with a weak smile.
“Don’t worry bud, you got this. You deserve better,” said Satoshi.
“Yeah, thanks for that mate,” said Toshiro.
Satoshi then looks at his watch. “Hey guys, I think we should go back to the office. The lunch time is 20 minutes left” he said.
“Well, there’s still enough time to make a quick stop on the minimarket along the way, I want to buy pack of cigarettes,” said Toshiro.
“Oh yeah, I also want to get a couple of coffee cans for myself before my division’s internal meeting,” said Ryouta.
“Well, okay,” said Satoshi.
After that they leave the food vendor premises and walks around 200 meters, before they reach a small local minimarket near an intersection.
“Welcome” said the cashier.
Ryouta then goes to the refrigerators area where they keep all kinds of cold drinks. He opens one of them and find his favourite coffee brands. While at it, his mind then taking him back to the conversation that he and his coworkers have earlier.
Marriage can end in two things. One, the successful and happy one, and the other one, the failure and disappointment, back then, before he decided to propose to Mikami, he thought about those possibilities, but in the end, he got a wonderful and happy marriage life.
It’s not like that his marriage without flaws too. Sometimes, he and Mikami also engaged in arguments too. It’s normal, but both of them can always find a middle way to almost everything. It’s all about understanding each one’s perspectives. From what he learnt from Toshiro’s case, it’s clearly that there’s no kind of understanding but instead one wants to dominate the other.
In other word, it’s slowly becoming toxic marriage. The love that once bloomed has now slowly rotting and eventually gone because of the harsh realities of surviving the marriage world.
Ryouta closes the refrigerator and brought his coffees to the cashier where Toshiro and Satoshi already waiting for him.
“The total is 250 Yen, Sir,” said the cashier.
Ryouta then grabs his wallet from his pants pocket and gives the money to the cashier. And then the cashier gives him the change and also his coffees.
“Thanks” said Ryouta to the cashier.
Then, Ryouta and his coworkers steps out from the minimarket and make their way back to the office.
“Thank God, tomorrow is Saturday,” said Satoshi.
“You have a plan or something?” said Ryouta.
“Nah, I’ll probably just sleeping all day and, on the afternoon, I’ll be in my bud’s wedding reception,” said Satoshi.
“I see,” said Ryouta.
“Hey, I heard that you and Sugihara will go to Sapporo next week,” said Toshiro.
“Yeah, for renegotiation with one of our clients and after that, I’ll be doing monthly inspection to Sendai,” said Ryouta.
“I see, so you will basically spend almost an entire week on the road,” said Satoshi.
“Pretty much,” said Ryouta.
After walking for some minutes, the three of them are finally back to the office and immediately disperse to their respective offices.
……………………………..
Ryouta is sitting in front of his computer in his work room after dinner and take a bath. He got off from the work early today and decides to spend the rest of the day to watch some YouTube videos and playing his favourite games.
Before that, he decides to check his email page to see if there’s any unread important emails that he missed.
“Well, there’s nothing new and the rest are just spams and ads” he said as he then proceeds to clean all the unnecessary inbox mail into the trash and deleted it all forever.
He’s also archived his work-related emails.
“Now, it’s looking clean and neat. Well then, now it’s time to watch some YouTube videos” he said with a smile.
Just before he closes the page, suddenly a new email popping up. Ryouta looks at it with a little surprised look.
From the thumbnail, it’s said about “Hyakkaou Academy Reunion Invitation” which makes him even more surprised. He decides to click on the link and it’s revealing the full extent of the invitation details.
“Reunion for the classes of 2016, 2017, and 2018? Huh, that’s interesting,” said Ryouta.
He then read the rest of the invitation as it’s also stated the location and time of the reunion in a mega convention centre on the neighbouring prefecture next Saturday. Also, there are lists of sponsors that also taking part of this event and the contact person on the bottom of the invitation.
Ryouta still feels sceptical and decides to finds out more about the event. He goes to the school’s website and found the same promotional poster with the same details which means this event is a real deal.
He doesn’t expect that his old school will hold event like this. He’s then rested his back against the chair. Fond memories from his high-school days starts pouring in his mind.
Hyakkaou Academy is an elite and prestigious private school that established almost 130 years ago. It’s the place where he spent 3 years of his high-school. He can go there because of his late parent’s financial capability and also, he got a scholarship.
That school is not an ordinary private school, but rather, a casino. Ryouta still remembers on his first day of stepping his feet on the school’s ground, where he learnt about the school’s policy and curriculum that are not focused on the academic nor sports, but rather a practical skill for business and political world based on Machiavellianism and Charles Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory.
This is also correlated to the fact that the students that attend the school are mostly coming from very wealthy families or clans, politicians, and some occasions, the underworld families. And to achieve that, gambling in any forms with ruthless and severe consequences becoming the main curriculum although the school still has formal education and the students are still required to attend the class or participating in exams.
His days back in high-school were not so great. The good experiences or memories that he had on that place can be counted by fingers. It’s not all that bad, but he feels that most of it are just bland and not special. Despite all of that, he graduated there learning a lot of lessons for his personal’s life upgrade.
And about the people that met along the way, he never saw them again since the day of the graduation, but he remembers some of them. Especially that particular girl who has unnatural passion for gambling. Like, everybody was gambling and so did he, but this girl, she’s an entirely different person.
He once closes with this girl and spent sometime together, watching her craziness and maniacal acts of gambling up close. Besides that, this girl was saving him at the lowest point in his high school days when he accumulated the 5 million yen in debt as result of his losing streak against another prodigy gambler girl back then.
He honestly can pay that although it will drain his bank account back and planned to leave the goddamn school until this girl helped him with his debt as the thanks for him to show her the school and helping her in her first gamble. She was the new transfer student back then, and he eventually also developed a feeling for her, but he eased it off as he felt that he was unworthy of her.
The girl’s name is Jabami Yumeko. The girl with the crimson eyes which always glows whenever she’s excited. It’s terrifying but it holds so much untold stories that he still doesn’t manage to understand until now. But he can feel that there’s certainly more of her, another side of her that she keeps to herself.
Like the others, he never saw her again ever since graduation. He’s wondering how she doing these days after all these years. Is she still the same or she already turned into a completely different person with a completely different path of life.
He looks at the invitation again and sighs a little. He’s now having to decide to whether he will come or let it pass.
Ryouta then gets up from his desk and goes to one of the book shelves. His eyes then examining the books until he found what he’s looking for. He pulls out a red and black vertical book with hard cover. It is his high school yearbook of his class.
He doesn’t remember the last time he touched that book. He cleans up the dusts that attached to it and return to his desk.
He opens the book and flip the pages one by one, until on page, he found the photo of himself along with his name and personal email address. Class 3-A Chrysanthemum.
“That’s how I looked back in the day? Can’t believe it” he said to his mind while examining the flat expression of himself on the photo.
After some minutes, Ryouta put back the year book back on the shelf. He already makes up his mind to come to the reunion party next week.
He doesn’t expect much but he thought that he can make a good memory from it. Just come, mingles a little, and then back to realities again.
…………………………………………
The next morning, Ryouta is busy cleaning his house. It’s a routine activity that he does once in a week. The activity that he also once did together when his wife was still around. Right now, the time is hitting 10:30 AM in the morning and Ryouta’s just finish cleaning the downstairs area.
Ryouta is already drenched in sweats but he doesn’t feel tired yet. He brought all the cleaning equipment to the upstairs.
When he gets there, he takes a quick 15 minutes to clean his bedroom and the spare bedroom. He’s tidying up the beds, and replacing the sheets that already not changed for two months, and all the others things.
After that, he goes to his working room and starts cleaning the desk book shelves with the duster. Ryouta then looks at a direction toward one of his bookshelves. He goes there and put his right hand to reach some kind of flip behind the books.
He successfully flips the switch and the book shelf starts to move and revealing a medium sized secret room. Ryouta smiles a little and goes inside. The room has many stuffs in it including three sets of JGSDF uniforms that placed on mannequins. On the table near it, there’s five black boxes.
Ryouta opens one of it and it reveals a black emptied FN Pistol and a black commando knife. He takes the pistol and examines it. He co*cks it up and found it’s jammed a little. He puts it back and deal with it later.
Before his current job, Ryouta was in Japanese army. After high school graduation, Ryouta decided to enlist in National Military Academy entrance exam and got accepted. He spent four regular years there and six months in officer candidate preparation school. He graduated with the rank of First Lieutenant.
The first post of his military career was in 25th Infantry Regiment in Camp Engaru. He only spent one and half year in there, before his old commander recommending him to take the Special Forces Group selection exam due to his exceptional skills in military marksmanship.
And so, once again he found himself on the harsh and unforgiving selection process of special force for a couple of months. If he remembers correctly there was around 400 candidates including him that participated but one by one is slowly eliminated.
He and the other 19 remaining candidates are able to finish all the trainings and examinations until the end. He was assigned to 1st SFG Regiment in the 1st Platoon in Funabashi. Funabashi is also the city where he first met Mikami who worked in a four-star restaurant on the city-centre.
Ryouta was involved in some dangerous missions in both domestic and international soils during his time in 1st Platoon and his career is showing a great rise as he was promoted to the captain rank in the age of just 26. The age where he and Mikami married.
After that, Ryouta got a new assignment to 7th Regiment which part of 3rd SFG Division in Tokyo and together they bought the house that they live in until Mikami passed away. After Mikami’s first diagnose, He decides to put a resignation letter to the army HR to stay close to Mikami and find an ordinary office job in Tokyo that has more flexible time.
But, although all the efforts have been done, God wills the other way, as Mikami was gone in the end. He’s sad and part of him is still empty to this day, but deep in his heart, it might be better that way because she has been free from her pains.
Ryouta sighs a little and then smiles. He looks at the clock on his working room and decide to continue his house cleaning again.
