Chapter Forty-Seven

“No. I have no idea. I… I vaguely remember pizza? Did you give us pizza one time?” Shugo asked.

“Same… I remember some snacks, pizza, and sorry, no, I’ve got nothing.” Rin answered.

“Do you know Asahi?” I asked.

“Our cousin.” Shugo answered, “Of course. A yankee thug kind of guy…”

“But nobody better to have at your back.” Rin answered.

“Do you remember an accident?” I asked.

Shugo and Rin traded a long quiet look…

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Rin finally asked.

“I’m afraid so.” I replied, “Your cousin and his parents have been more or less looking after you ever since.”

“So then, I’m sorry, not to be rude… this is just a lot.” Shugo said and looked around my room, “But this isn’t a hospital room, and how are we fine now if we were that bad then.”

“Your cousin is… well I know him, so I called in a favor with a doctor who specializes in brain surgery and he tinkered with your pink meat and fixed you right up and now you’re fine. You’ve been unconscious for over a week now, you just got back to my apartment a little while ago. I was just going to call your cousin, but you woke up first.” I answered with a charming expression on my face, “Congratulations, you’ve got your brains back, I guess. There still might be some other damage there, some headaches, memory loss from the time between the accident and now…” I was just making stuff up, to be honest, but it sounded true and that was plenty.

“Damn… I just realized, I never got his number.” I snapped my fingers, and both Rin and Shugo rattled off a string of numbers in rapid succession.

“Okay, great.” I said, then said, “But let me actually get my phone here.” I huffed and dialed the numbers they gave me.

“Hello? Who is this?” I heard Asahi’s voice on the other end, and mischief struck, I held up one forefinger to his cousins, put speaker on, and held the phone out beneath the two of them.

I raised a second finger for the two count.

“Hello? Is this is a prank call I’ll find you and kick your teeth in, I’ve got enough to worry about right now!”

I raised a third finger for the three count, and nodded.

“Asahi!” Rin and Shugo shouted at once.

“Rin?! Shugo?! You’re…. You’re back?! You’re back!” Asahi was screaming, I can only assume ‘crying’ into the phone.

“Yes, and before I have to feed them, could you come pick them up? They’ve been napping for hours now, and comatose or not you shouldn’t sleep in a strange lady’s bed, or hang out in her bedroom one more minute than you have to!” I said with mock anger. “Perverts.” I added.

“I’ll be right there, Miss Kayobi!” He shouted, the phone disconnected, and I led the pair out of the bedroom with Celia following right behind us.

We did not have to wait for long.

I even left the door open for him, and he came barreling into my apartment like he owned the place and hugged them both as tight as he could around the neck.

“Don’t strangle them, idiot, do you think I have enough cache to call in two doctors?” I asked, and Asahi laughed while he relaxed his grip on the two.

“Ah, introductions…” Shugo said finally when looking over his cousin’s shoulder in my direction.

“Kayobi Taida. My niece, Celia Norn.” I said putting my hand on my chest and gesturing toward the diminutive cute little Celia. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, but right now you’re between me, my snacks, and… I think an episode of a nice zombie anime with chests that defy the known laws of physics.”

“Right, right ah… so… is there anything, anything at all I can do for you right now?” Asahi asked.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

My place was kind of a mess.

“Later. For now, go celebrate. Come by tomorrow, and remember, Celia’s mom will need a job, so if you hear anything? Also, there’ll be laundry, probably… the usual.” I said with a wink, then took out some cash and said, “Go, play, have fun, everything else can wait.” I slammed the money into Asahi’s hand and he looked down at it in utter disbelief.

“A yukichi… that’s ten thousand yen, I know you’re a foreigner, but… this is… how…?” He looked at me with utter disbelief etched on his face. He knew I didn’t work, everybody knew that.

Of course, thanks to Suki, I’m sure the rumor going around about where I got my money was… unsavory, but I figured it might be kind of fun to play it up. I said in a quiet, Yakuza boss style voice, “Never ask where my family gets its money.”

“Th-Thank you!” He said and bowed deeply to me before taking his cousin’s out. “I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise.” He all but shouted, and then just like that, Celia and I were alone again.

“So? Magic chests?” I asked.

“I… don’t know what to say to that but, yes?” Celia asked.

And that was how we spent the rest of the day, though Celia continued to search for work in the meantime, she had a hard time focusing when the high school girls were screaming and beating zombies to death at every turn. It was fine, what was one day, it’s not like she needed the money.

Still, I could see the frustration was getting to her. Some people just need to feel like they matter in that particular way… not that it makes sense to me but… whatever, I’m not going to judge.

But as her frustration grew, she inched closer and closer to me until she was right up against my side.

“I hate feeling useless… I hate it.” She mumbled, and I put my arm around her and gave her a squeeze.

“Celia, if your friends are happy to have you around, you’re not being useless, you’re the most useful person in the world.”

“Thanks, Kayobi.” She blushed when she said it and looked up at me with those big, green, worshipful eyes.

I really wanted to help her right then, but what did I know about work on this planet? Not a thing.

I was still wondering about what to do, when the very next morning, Asahi’s number rang on my phone. We were just settling in for her to repeat her job search while I picked an anime about a semi-romantic serial killer pair escaping from a crazy lethal institution… which I had to pause.

“Asahi, hey, what’s happening…?” I asked, I wanted to rebuke him for calling before I should even have been awake but… I couldn’t, not really. Not when he was no doubt ecstatic still.

“Hey, I’m sorry to call so early, but, I needed to know something.” He said, and when I grunted encouragingly, he hesitated. Then in a conspiratorial whisper he asked, “Is Celia Norn’s mother involved in the same ‘line of work’ as you?”

“More or less. Why?” I asked, “You know I meant don’t ask anything about our work or money or anything like that, right?”

“Right, right, sorry, sorry. But it’s just…” He was continuing that absurd whisper and so I snapped out.

“Spill it!”

“Sorry.” He hastily apologized, cleared his throat, and said in a more normal voice, “This is going to sound weird, but… look, my father works at one of those cross-dressing bars, it’s run by ‘a company’.” He didn’t need to explain to me that he meant the Yakuza. “Somehow… and look, I did warn you it’s weird. But they’re convinced that Shinjai has a literal devil living in it, and so they’re changing their approach to how things go on here. It’s going to be their ‘sanctuary’ space, a kind of vacation place without any crime.”

“Okay, that’s great, but what does that have to do with me?” I asked.

“Not you. Your niece’s mother. They want to start a private school here just for the children of Yakuza families, as well as set up some vacation hot spots… and if your sister wants, well, I talked to dad, I told him that you’re kind of a genius tutor… if your sister is a good teacher too, then maybe she’d like the job?”

“My mom would love that!” Celia shouted toward the speaker.

“Great! There’s only one condition. Miss Kayobi would have to help out some too, at least until they can hire enough teachers to work there. Don’t worry about paperwork, since it’s a private school, you don’t have to have a certification like other schools… so are you interested?” Asahi asked.

Celia looked up at me with those big, pleading eyes. Her hands clasped together. I knew if I refused, she’d accept that and just keep searching.

“Fine. Make the arrangements. I’ll even do it for free, on the condition that she is guaranteed a four year contract which she can opt out of at will but can’t be fired from.” I promised.

“Seriously? That’d be a lot of work for nothing…” Asahi said over the line.

“Not really.” I replied right away, watching her eyes light up with the utmost joy, she dove against my side and wrapped her arms around my waist and gave me probably the tightest hug I’ve ever had. No, not probably, it definitely was.

“I hate work with a passion. But it’s not really work if you’re doing it for a friend.” I replied, and hung up the phone.

Yet more of my days off were interrupted for… probably a few weeks at least, maybe more, and yet more shenanigans were going to find their way into my life.

But you know something? I was alright with that.