Chapter 6 - Another shitty day

I

suddenly tore my eyes wide open, jerking up to a proper sitting position and looked around, my heavy eyes fell on the broken analogue clock resting on the floor in a corner. It was 5:17am – Fuck, I am bloody late!

I quickly got up, even with my body was still sore from the beating, I had to go to work.

I looked at my brother, who was still sleeping but his breathes were heavier and he was sweating like crazy.

Guess his peaceful sleep didn't last that long and his body was finally telling him how bad things are.

I reckon his broken arms are causing him most of discomfort, I don't know what Fuyuko gave us but it couldn't possibly combat the damages of two broken arms and a severely beaten body.

I sort of suspected this yesterday, but gave by myself some baseless hope that Genji will get healed up all his wounds with that herbal concoction.

I couldn't do anything at that now; my father is gone and I have to make payment to those assholes, the only thing for me to do will be to go scrap around for some coins, hopefully I could make enough in 2 or 3 days that I will have some change to spare for Genji's condition.

I put on my armless hoodie, boots and carried my bag; preparing to leave immediately when I heard my brother's voice.

"Bro, take care of yourself out there… Don't do anything fucking stupid like dying" His voice was very weak and dry but there was a presence of strength in there somewhere.

The struggle to mask the pain could still be clearly heard in his voice, and couldn't help by smile in my mind as he said that last part - 'Don't do anything fucking stupid like dying'. Of course, none of them wanted the only way to get spared of Kuro and his fuck-boy hands and claws of starvation to die.

No one is loved or cared for just for who they are but what they can do, be it NOW or in the FUTURE.

I held that thought, then simply looked at him and said "Take care of yourself and try to eat something" before walking out the door, after about 40 minutes of walking through alleys I got to the UnderGrounD.

The chill that followed the rain yesterday still basked Sumiyoshi with its presence, under the sunless morning sky, which was kind of nice but as soon as the gym came to view, that feeling ghosted; there I saw Razor and his boys having a little throw down with a group of 6 people – mostly women and clearly just Humans.

From my view, Razor and his crew were on top of things, tossing them punks to the other side of the street one after the other.

Those guys were thrashed so much; they were covered more of blood than mud.

Razor dragged the last one of them by her hair, if one wasn't attentive to detail, you will think she was dead but her lazily opened eyes, very slow change of facial expressions with her chest sluggishly rising and falling gave it all away.

Razor and his guys were seriously panting and some had some cuts and bruises here and there, but they weren't even close to how roughed up the punks they tossed to the other side of the narrow street, smashing against large pile of rotten wooden junks and other garbage.

I walked up close to them, and called out Razor's name to get him and his guys' attention so they will be aware that it is just little old me, not one of those guys.

He stared at me weirdly; tilting the right side of face slightly upwards, before giving me a barely noticeable nod, which prompted me to make my way into the gym.

Immediately I held the door handle to push it open, Razor's asked from behind me "You are late, Rat-boy and you still look like crap… What happened? the coins you made last night wasn't enough"?

I slowly turned my head behind me, with my eyes swiftly searching and locking on Razor.

"No… No, it wasn't" I replied blankly, then stepped into the gym.

I knew this was Razor's and everybody else's way of making smalls, but stupid questions like that is what makes me hate small talks for the most part. There's no one here who will ever have enough cash to skip work for a day.

It was almost 6:00 am and the gym already stunk with sweat and mist of body odours. It's not like they ever clean this dump, but seeing like 25 or more sparring, lifting concretes weights, pulling humongous ones and other shit.

I walked to one of the rings where two guys in hand-to-hand sparring combat and called out to the guy with a Mohawk hair tilted green, his back entirely covered with a green and black tattoo of a giant snake, with few piercings here and there.

"Todo… Todo?!" I raised my voice a bit to get his attention.

He told the other guy to pause for a moment, before turning to me to say - "Ahh… Ratty, you bounced in late, your session is long gone" he said brushing the hair on his head backwards with his fingers as he breath heavily.

"Come on Todo, don't do me like this… Just a couple of minutes, I'm sure the other guy won't mind" I said in a slightly persuading tone.

"Bro, I won't do shit… You can't just walk in here and take out of another person's time" Todo said stretching his arms out to his sides (a gesture telling me 'It's out of his hands').

I simply sighed and walked to a vacant punching bag in a corner, dropping my bag pack at the feet of the wall's corner.

Normally I trained every morning around 4:20 am (sometimes around 4:30am) which meant I wake up as early as 3:30 am but I can't blame my body from wanting a little rest because of yesterday's beating. I punched and kicked the bag; sharpening my fighting technique, while doing some basic exercise like pull-ups and squats during intervals.

After 20 minutes, I stopped training and walked up to the counter, I met Hanzo there as usual, and he appeared to be cleaning a cup or something as he smoked. I called out his name.

"Hey, Hanzo… You seem to be having a good morning" I greeted him; showing a bit of gratitude for yesterday.

He closed his eyes for a second there; which seemed like he was sighing, I could not hear the sound of his breathe from here because of the protective glass between us, so I couldn't say for sure that he was sighing.

"Shitsubo.." He said as a form of reply. I should assume that I'm might be disturbing him, so I will say what I want to say quickly.

"Is Hoshi here?... I wanted to thank both of you for yesterday" I said. He looked behind him before replying back to me.

"I don't want your thanks, I did nothing yesterday… if you want to thank someone, thank Hoshi" he said indifferently as he continued cleaning his cup (which upon taking a closer look might not be a cup but a car part or something).

Now I get the 'memo' that I am disturbing him, but he did help me so I just said

"…Well tell him, thank you for me when you see him, alright?" then left the gym and headed to the train station.