Archive of Our Own

THE BEAT GOES ON UNTIL CONVERGENCE

Youngsters these days didn't know how to appreciate anything.

Shinta'd been right: Shibuya had changed. But that youngster himself didn't know diddly squat about why. Millennials, zoomers, Heisei babies, Reiwa zygotes—who gave a flippity flying frog's frenulum? Every generation had its stupid kids who learned to appreciate the finer things in life once the school of hard knocks hard-knocked it into 'em.

The real problem? The real reason Shibuya had gone to the dogs—and not the loyal akita inu kind?

One word.

Tourists.

Too many tourists descendin' onto Shibuya like swarms of locusts every day. Too many tourists movin' into Shibuya like cuckoos smacking eggs outta nests. Demanding the city warp and change around their idea of what a pretty, fashionable, trendy Shibuya oughta look like. And anything that didn't fit whatever cockamame fantasy they'd smoked up in their contactless-pay-obsessed heads got smoked instead.

The tourists had gotten 104 revamped and PARCO dolled up while Dogenzaka rotted and Udagawa had its graffiti hosed 'cause the tourists pissed their pants at self-expression. The tourists had upended all the homes 'n' lives up above the MIYASHITA Expressway and fiddled it into some grand-sponsored-o-okuri-shimasu patch of grass nobody'd asked for except other tourists. The tourists had turned her Takeshita into a joke of a souvenir rack. Takeshita? More like Take-a-shit-a, at this rate.

If it hadn't been for good ol' Taka, that bastard and a half, she would've up there on the Expressway when the tourists'd torn it all down. Would've said sayonara to her life in Shibuya. Probably her life, period.

Couldn't survive except on tourist money, eh? Fine.

So she'd turned croaky panic into a tourist trap. Kitschy frogs and kitties, ninja outfits and Santa clothes, maid costumes and rainbow afros, even summer gifts as half-hearted as Shibuya felt today. Not like anyone who lived in Shibuya still sent 'em. Nothing but a fancy little quaint custom for tourists to point their fingers at, ooh and aah about, and buy it when it wasn't worth the cheap-ass noshigami the word ochugen was printed on.

The city looked its best a little grimy, a little dirty, a little rough-around-the-edges, with a little personality, all the weight and feel of papers and coins passing from hand to hand. None of this namby-pamby contactless dreck that promised shmucks a convenient way to pay and made the world that much meaner for folks who couldn't have a phone or only had some bills from time to time. She bristled every time she saw the devil's words: ShibuPay Only. The list of stores she'd shop at and restaurants she'd eat at had started to get a little short.

But if she couldn't beat 'em, she had to join 'em, or else get beat herself.

Yeah, Shinta'd been right. Shibuya had changed. But if she didn't take ShibuPay, she'd ShibuPassAway soon enough.

Shinta'd still staunchly refused to take ShibuPay. Cash or yen-pin only said Cosmic Corner. She respected that. But she'd already gotten thrown on the street once, saved only by Taka's intervention. Couldn't afford to play around and stick to her guns just because.

Still: they'd have to pry croaky panic and the cash she also took out of her cold dead hands at this point. Even if she didn't make the rent one thing, she'd go the way of the dodo and the MIYASHITA Expressway community, bless their hearts: keeping her fat ass parked in place until they forcibly removed her from the premises. And they'd only do that if she was dead. Cooked alive like the frog boiled slowly over the years, like Shibuya going the way of the tourist over the years, rattling corpse still propped up with some fancy new department store every few years.

She'd been outta the well. She'd seen the world. She'd hopped back into the well willingly 'cause she liked it the best.

And people who didn't like the well and thought it needed to be made clean, and pretty, and marketable? They could all go frog off, far as she was concerned.

And the worst part? Not the tourists, snapping their wolfish teeth and chewing on the mutton's marrow.

But the sheeple of Shibuya sacrificing their neighbours willingly to the slaughter, chucking and chunking the old and the sick out to the wolves, happily watching their meadow turn into a bloodbath as long as they thought they wouldn't turn into snacks next, too busy getting fattened up by the wolves to care about what that meant.

'Course, she still needed to get stuff from outside the well. So she had to hire from help once in a while. Old bones not what they used to be. Old city not what it used to be. All rafters rotting while they put up pretty paintings and pretended it didn't stink. Well, whatever. The stink attracted flies and the flies attracted frogs.

And all the help she'd tried to hire off those garbage rent-a-runt apps had gotten her nowhere. No reliability. Overworked, skittish and scared, too busy leaping from odd job to odd job for her to teach 'em the way she wanted things done. Them one-size-fits-all pay-for-a-task-at-a-time didn't let her get to know a guy, find out what worked for 'em and how they could work for 'er, reward 'em and punish 'em until they got what she wanted just like she figured out what they had.

Felt kinda lonely. Couldn't set up a steady job. One delivery here, one there. The kinda tourist-y system that only worked if everyone wanted the same shit.

The kinda tourist-y system that had people talkin' as little as possible, every interaction shrivelled down like the family jewels of a guy who'd shot himself up with too many steroids into a financial transaction, no relationship, no bond, no messin' around, no shootin' the shit or pissin' in the wind, no nothing but do-work-get-money.

What a load a' crap.

Then on a whim she'd gotten an honest-to-goodness old-fashioned word-a'-mouth recommendation. In 2022! What a rush of nostalgia! Damn near took her out. The recommendation might as well have come neatly wrapped up in one of his gag gift boxes. Yeah, that novelty-chasing ramen-rabbler-turned-curry-carouser knew a guy who knew a guy. A buncha guys who knew a guy.

Vouched for his appetite for curry, his 'big bro' aura—whatever the hell that meant—and not much else. Strong arms, broad back, loyal as a dog, not a braincell in sight.

Just the way she liked 'em.

'Course, with his hair bleached yankii-style, his 'phones blockin' the city's sounds, his 'board tricked up, and his sense of fashion screaming New American, he might as well have been a tourist himself.

But she needed someone. So she'd hired him for a single delivery, just to get some new half-hearted summer gifts in time for the summer's start. Tourists didn't need to know that chugen only ran for the first half of July when she could start selling them as early as March once the weather warmed. He'd bungled it up on his board, box coming in hot, battered, and beaten, but he'd shown up so fast she would've sworn he'd surfed the cement sidewalk to get here. Wacker than wack.

At least the chugen inside didn't look too bad for having been rough-and-tumbled their way over. A little grimy, a little dirty, a little rough-around-the-edges. Ehhh, the tourists could handle a little personality.

So she hired 'im again. Here and there, when she needed some stuff in. Man, he took up her jobs so fast she had to wonder if he even had any other work.

What, too rough around the edges for the tourists who ran every other damn shop in Harajuku, huh? Said his words a little funny, didn't have the shiny-whiny diploma that said he'd gotten the 'Buya beaten out of him on the soulful-Shibuyan-to-soulless-model-citizen pipeline?

Yeah, she'd hire the kid. Sure beat having to explain to some new guy every single time that they'd have to lean on the back door and jimmy the handle just like that to get it open. Wasn't nothing wrong with the door. Just needed some familiarity, patience, and elbow grease to get it open. Sheesh, it was called having personality, not that any of those sterile tourist goons had one 'sides how many yen they could throw around in a weekend.

The days got hotter and the half-hearted summer gifts sold faster. One particularly sizzlin' day that even had her scalp sweating under her afro—she swore it got hotter every year, Naraka-a-knockin' on their door in exchange for too many places only takin' ShibuPay—he rolled up to her back door, leaned on it, jimmied the handle just like that, set the chugen delivery down, and wiped the sweat off under his overgrown bangs.

From her usual back-of-the-aisles perch where she could see the whole store, she watched 'im take an unusually long break puttering around the back under the fan, leaning on his skateboard like his legs couldn't hold up, brow glistening from the heat. "...Kid. Don't die on me. I'll need anotha delivery tomorrow."

The kid shook his head, little drips of sweat flying off the tips of his hair. "I ain't finna die, Gramma. Too much I gots ta take care of. Anotha delivery tomorrow?"

"Hmph. You got eyes, don't ya? Those summer gifts been flying off the shelves faster than I could put 'em on." The chair creaked as she leaned back. "C'mere. At least pack some barley tea in ya system before you keel over halfway to Pork City and screw up my delivery schedule. They don't slow down for pedestrians, y'know. Only speed up."

"Oh, fo' sho'?" The kid started to step over with a little smile before stiffening up like a board. "Hol' up. This ain't comin' outta my pay, is it?"

"Didn't your mom teach you not to turn down some hospitality? Sheesh, what're they teachin' ya on the street these days?" She pulled out the pitcher she'd been drinking from herself, ice cubes clinking, and a spare glass. Her son's painted some little froggies on the side years ago. "Yeah, yeah, it's free. Ain't even gonna make you sign a waiver. Would'ja look at that. An exchange that ain't paperworked out to hell and back. Now drink your damn tea and get outta my 'fro."

"My ma didn' teach me a whole lot," the kid said as he reached for the spare glass, his other hand hanging onto the tip of his skateboard like a cane. She watched his hand like a hawk; if he busted that glass she'd be busting his ass. His thumb gently rubbed across the old paint, chipped in a few places but it didn't lose its shape. He held it up for some damn tea. "Don't mind if I do!"

She poured him some damn tea. "Only got tea of the finest quality. Probably too fine for a runt like you..."

"Don't be like dat, Gramma!" The kid grinned as he threw back the glass and tanked the tea down to the last drop. "Ahhh! I'mma have seconds!"

"Good, huh? Too bad. Any more'll cost ya." She took a nice, cool, loooong sip from her own glass.

The kid set the glass down, a smile and a little more life in his face after coolin' down. "You stingy, Gramma, I ain't got the cash ta spare. No big, though, 'ppreciate the drink."

"Didn't get far in the biz bein' generous to punks like you." Didn't get far in the biz at all without Taka's rescue, but the kid didn't need to hear that. "This is why I hate kids. They never buy anythin' but bitch my ear off about Mommy not giving 'em more of an allowance."

Frowning, the kid tilted his head with a question on his face and about to come outta his mouth. "Whatchu mean, Gramma? My ma don't give me anythin'. Ain't neva had an 'llowance."

"Oh, yeah?" She snorted. "That's why you got so little going on in your life ya spring on my deliveries quick as a coyote on a human baby?"

"Got rent to pay and food ta buy." His frown turned upside down. "Savin' up for my lil sis' college, too. I'mma take what I can get, feel me?"

Rent, huh. His reflection in the glass made his cheeks look a little chubbier. Little younger, maybe. She rolled her eyes and propped up the pitcher. "Too much of a layabout to get a real job, kid?"

"A laya-what?"

"Too much of a lazy bum for a real job, or just too dense to hold one job?" Fixing him with her glare, she waved the pitcher around to punctuate her point, tea and ice cubes splashing within. "You ain't miss one of my deliveries yet, even at the last minute. Don't think I'm payin' ya enough to cover the cost of living in the city, 'less you're squattin' the backstreets. So who's payin' your allowance? Your daddy?"

"Ain'tchu listenin'?" The kid spoke up with a touchier tone than before. "I'mma take what I can get. Ya think I 'nly do deliveries for ya? Ain't got no momma or pops to give me 'llowance, I work for all I got."

Pitcher getting a little dangerously tipped with how she tilted it to and fro. She gave her lips a good smack. "Nice story. Where you livin' at, kid?"

The kid shrugged. "Lil 'partment down in Udagawa. What's it to ya?"

"Hotter it gets, the faster the summer gifts fly off the shelves. Getting odd deliveries from ya just ain't makin' the cut, kid." She jabbed a bony finger in his direction. "If you crawl out here from Udagawa, that ain't too far. Need me a handyman who can do deliveries for me every day the rest of the summer, capisce? You up for it, or should I find a punk who ain't that much of a layabout?"

"Yo, fo' real?" The kid looked surprised.

Happened to have the pitcher half-hovering over his glass. "Think I got the time for jokes? Ain't got all day. In or out, kid. What's it gonna be?"

"I'm in, Gramma! I ain't no laya-whatsit; gimme summin' to do and I gotchu."

"Hmph. Not bad, I guess." Her wrist drooped a little. The pitcher's angle splashed some tea into his glass. Enough to fill it up. She scoffed at the sight. "Whaddawaste a' good tea. Didn't even have a chance to clean it from your dirty mouth yet."

"Don't get yo' 'fro in a twist, Gramma. I'll take care of it!" The kid took the glass and downed it just like before. "Whew! Ain't no waste now!"

She clicked her tongue at him. "That's enough outta you, kid. Get on outta here. I'll see ya bright and early tomorrow with another box a' summer gifts. Seven in the morning sharp if you want extra for speed."

He nodded with a grin as he hoisted up his board and started for the back door. "I gotchu, Gramma! Seven o'clock, I'll be here!" He took off out the back, with that reliable speediness.

On his way out he jimmied the handle just like that and leaned on the door to get it back open. She watched his receding back before the door swung shut and the handle caught, again.

Useless piece of junk.

Made her get off her perch and go open and close it again to get the handle unstuck. Yeah, a little grimy, a little dirty, a little rough-around-the-edges, with a little personality, even if that personality meant she had to slip outta her comfy seat every so often and do something about it.

Next time the kid came over, she'd show 'im how to close the door easy so it didn't get stuck like that.

And since he'd keep coming over, she wouldn't hafta reteach him from scratch every time. Maybe a reminder here and there.

If he actually came over. Youngsters these days. Tourists pissin' poison in the wells the Shibuya kids drank from, too.

So colour her shocked when the kid and his beat-up board rolled up the next day. Seven sharp. 06:59, even.

Yeah, yeah, she gave him his extra due. She'd said she would, all right!? Nothing more to it than that.

And the next day, and the next—

All right, so she hired the kid, so what? She needed those deliveries made and Taka's handymen either didn't wanna work with her—his loss, whatever that punk's name was, who wouldn't even give her the time of day long enough for her to see his face—or kept quitting. At least this kid, dense enough to sink in water, actually showed up, did the work, and took cash. Made it easy for her gettin'-on-in-age eyes to mistake a hundred for a ten, a thousand for a hundred, but it sure beat having to piddle around with ShibuPay. Big boy like him could handle getting a little extra pocket change here and there.

Except that moron'd notice and give it back. Tell 'er to hobble over to the eye doc an' work her senior citizen discount already, in case one of these days he forgot to check. And the day he did forget to check? Brought the cash back the next morning. What an idiot!

But with him getting in deliveries every day, she could expand her stock a little, start stockin' things she hadn't before. Barley tea, sure, some snacks here and there, stuff that had to go fresh.

And anything these ungrateful germophobe tourists wouldn't touch for fear of shidding and pizzing themselves all night—back in her day, a little food poisoning built character—would just get chucked when she closed up for the day. Whaddawaste.

But the kid? He'd take care of it. Said as much.

Head as empty as his gut judging by how many leftovers he could put down. The rest he'd bring home. Heh. Maybe that long skating trek from croaky panic to Udagawa in the hot summer evenings would give him and his lil sis food poisoning. Get some character built. Nothing like a night spent worshipin' the porcelain shrine to get some appreciation for how pretty the sunrise looked after. She'd vouch for the experience herself.

Early summer wrapped around to July. She gave Taka a summer gift: some unsold bunny maid ears that gave him a good chuckle. He got her a cheap six-pack and they lounged around on his engawa cracking open cold ones and kvetching about how Shibuya had gone to the lapdogs.

Her granddaughter, the only member of her stinkin' family she still had a smile for, sent her a bag of mandarin oranges—'course she did. Well her granny had another memento for her, anyway: a baseball bat from her sukeban days. Would'a gotten her the whole leather jacket but her granddaughter didn't wear nothing but orange. "Listen, kid," she told 'er, working the bat through a few warm-up swings, "when you're out markin' your name on the wall, and you see a copper comin' at you or one of your girls, you give 'em porkers the—" Schwing! "—what-for, and then ya run, got it?"

"G-Grandma!" Her granddaughter waved her arms. "The cops don't come after graffiti artists like me!"

Not like the punks in Udagawa who kept getting their shit hosed down so Shibuya's "premiere" "artists" like that kiss-ass CATTY or whatever their name was could have their "socially acceptable" "art" stay up on the wall for three years straight. Whaddawaste. She didn't believe for a second that CATTY came from the city. That junk had to come from somewhere else. The tourists even managed to gentrify graffiti. Couldn't have shit in Shibuya!

At least that kid kept popping over every single day with his deliveries. She bumped his pay with the temperature. Got barley tea on the house for him whenever he swung by. To keep him from buying the farm before the summer's tourists bought out her chugen stock.

Chugen season'd nearly come to an end. Which wouldn't stop the tourists who'd keep buying that crap up long into autumn even as sales sloooowly waned, until she finally swapped out the noshigami for the ones that said oseibo instead of ochugen. Not that many who gave her summer gifts anymore. Something of a dying breed.

Even her granddaughter only really did it 'cause she'd complained about youngsters these days.

The kid stood beneath the fan with a glass of barley tea in one hand, with the old paint covered up by his fingers. In the other, a small baggie with something inside. A quick pit stop, he'd said, before taking care of another delivery. She didn't give a hoo-ha about what other deliveries he took as long as he got hers in on time, every day; they'd shaken hands on the arrangement. Somethin' was up, though. Whenever he was melting, he'd slam back the damn tea and let out a chilly breath. This time, he stood and sipped and took his time.

"Ain't you got another delivery, kid?" she asked, watching him with one eye and some tourists gawking at her goods with the other. They jabbered in English as they pointed and laughed at the ninja costume, rolled the word coh-whyyy around their mouths at the frog merch, snapped a thousand selfies in front of the novelty kitchen utensils—probably for their 'Ten Kookiest Kitchen Appliances You Won't Believe Those Wacky Japanese Use Everyday' listicles—and then actually hushed up in awe at that shitty replica katana with .JPEG artifacts out the ass from that Elated Stratosphere whatever-it-was-called, because the only thing that linked Shibuyans to overseas was a drooling love over bad boys. "You've got good taste to savour that damn tea, but you can't pull the wool over my eyes."

The kid blinked. "Yo' eyesight's so bad now dat everythin' looks like wool?"

She sighed. "Kid...I swear ya got a whole zoo up there. Elephants stompin' on your brains and monkeys chewing on your smarts. What're you loitering 'round here for?"

"'Pparently it's more like worms up there," the kid said, randomly. "Least, dat's what Kitty Girl sez."

Reminded her of what that one nerdy gal with the idiot tourist boyfriend said once about a vermis in the head, brainrot assuming direct control and autopiloting her to buy one of those shitty replica Elated Stratosphere katana. She could only shake her head.

The hell was a fine Shibuya gal like her doing with a tourist like him?

But no matter how many times she'd tried to give the gal that advice, the gal just spouted off something about congruence and not dismissing folks just 'cause they came from somewhere else. Yeah, right, whatever. She'd buy that when the gentrifiers stopped trying to gentrify a hot poker up her ass, too. Could've picked a fine Shibuyan young man like the kid instead. And speakin' of the kid: "Worms or monkeys, didn't you say you had another delivery? Don't tell me I'm such great company you'd rather dawdle here than get your paycheck."

"Hah! Don't worry, Gramma, I ain't 'bout ta tell ya dat. I just got a lil time to cool off." The kid shook around the ice in his glass, sending out quiet klinks throughout the shop. He took another sip, bit deeper than his last few, 'fore turning his face towards her. His cheeks looked less chubby when she was looking right at him and not his reflection, but he sure didn't look any less young. "Yo, Gramma...July's movin' quick. It gon' be the end of the gift-givin' season soon..."

"Psshua. Since when does a punk like you know jack about chugen?" She stared the tourists down. Yeah, those dipshits were gonna get the sword. Typical. "Wait. Lemme guess. You heard somethin' about gift-giving and thought I gotta get you something? Plot twist, kid: chugen's the other way 'round. Now scram."

"What?" The kid shook his head and looked confused—well, he always sorta had that look on his face when he didn't have his ear-to-ear lopsided grin like he was boutta take a bite out of life. "Dat's wack, yo. I neva said nothin' 'bout gettin' me anythin'! I wanna give you somethin'!"

Her hand dropped to the counter. "...What?"

"What's 'what?' I gotchu a lil somethin' for the summer." The kid shrugged and sipped his tea. "Ain't nothin' big, just, you know. Somethin'!"

"...Yeah?" she said, cautiously, as if she were putting her hand right up to the chimpanzee's mouth and hoping it wouldn't chomp her fingers off.

The kid set down the glass on a shelf nearby of other decorative glasses—hopefully he wasn't so dim to get the cups mixed up—and reached into his small bag. "I got dis a lil while ago, back when shit was crazy for me. I ain't got the spare change to getchu somethin' new, but I hope dis is good." He pulled out a box, wrapped in reddish-brown noshigami with a simple red-and-yellow bow decal on the top and—hold on a damn minute.

She would've accused him of filching from one of his deliveries, except this year's designs used blue and gold wrapping instead of 2021's reddish-brown. "This a joke to you, kid?"

"Huh?" The kid seemed dumbfounded. "You don't like it?"

"Kid..." Nah, he couldn't pull the wool over her eyes even if he tried to, and he wouldn't try to. Dense as lead without a thought in his bones, but a heart warm enough to explain how mind-scorchingly hot this summer had become. At least she wouldn't have to worry about paying the heating bills all winter with him around. "...Where'd you get that?"

"Ain't too sure, got it a year ago." The kid rapped his knuckles lightly against the box. "Neva opened it either. Thought it'd be betta used by someone else."

Holding her hand out, palm open, she curled her fingers in. "They're usually food, kid. Whatever's in there has gone bad by now. It's nothing but a box of food poisoning and well-wishes."

"Oh, fo' sho'?" The kid paused for a second, as though some gears were actually turning upstairs. "Still givin' you my 'well-wishes,' right?"

For a moment she just eyeballed him and his earnest expression. Giving her a gift, was he. Feeling indebted to her? For the job? Or had he seen through her... "Guess you really damn are, kid. Imminent diarrhea and all."

The kid handed over the gift and nodded. "Might wanna be careful widdat, yo. I would'a gotchu something else, like I said, but shit's tight right now."

"Hmph." She felt the familiar paper wrapping crinkling into the creases of her palm. A little pokey and rough around the edges, but also familiar. "Listen, kid, if shit's tight, how's about you give me a gift that don't cost nothing?"

The kid blinked. Again. "But this gift don't cost nothin'."

She sighed. Again. "Lemme ask you a question. I'll take the answer as a gift. Ain't cost no money to flap your gums."

"A'ight, shoot."

"It's hard to keep up with whatever trends the youngsters got these days, but I need to get the damn tourists and the damn kids in the damn door. You and your lil sis are primo damn kids, so what're you two into? Got any favourite things? Foods? Fruits? Y'know, the kind for summer gifts?" She wagged her finger at him. "Gimme that market research."

"My lil sis, she likes some fruits. Melon's a fav' a' hers, I know. Melon would be good for summer!" The kid spoke up excitedly, as he mentioned his sister.

Mental note, check. "Melon... Youngsters these days got all kinds of tastes. And you, kid?"

"Me?" The kid didn't even think for a second. No thoughts, words going straight from stomach to sound. "I like bananas. Ain't too sweet, but still tasty, you feel?"

"Bananas and melons. Got it. Kids these days are into their potassium, huh." She tucked the summer gift he'd given her into her pocket, feeling the bulk in the fabric. "Thanks, kid. Shocked that a punk like you'd give me a gift like this. Most kids your age wouldn't know a chugen from a choo-choo train if it hit 'em on the tracks. By the way, you got a birthday or anything? Figure you'll want the day off, so I'm askin' so I can plan ahead of time."

The kid nodded, like there really was nothing but air between those ears. "Yeah, comin' up, the first of August. I'mma still comin' to work, though. Can't just be lettin' days slip by like dat."

"Heh, I like that about you, kid." She patted the bump in her pocket. "But remember, your job ain't your friend. All work and no play makes ya a dull boy. Live a little before Shibuya goes even more down the drain."

"My lil sis says the same kinda thing." The kid sounded like he was gonna go on, but a chime coming from his phone interrupted him. "Looks like my break's over. Gotta go, Gramma, thanks for the tea!"

"Tomorrow's delivery better be on time, kid!" she called after him. "Lookin' forward to you guzzling up my tea again, layabout!"

When he left, the handle didn't stick that time. He'd learned.

His lil sis sounded like a smart cookie. Smarter than her big bro, at any rate. With her goin' through college and all that, a little shochumimai gift—even with positions inversed—could do her some good.

At least he didn't lollygag around the next few days. That half-hearted summer gift of his weighed down her pocket, but she kept forgetting to take it out. Old age, messing with her memory.

July gave way to August. The summer weather had her fed up. Just walking around outside threatened to melt her into the asphalt. Shibuya summers never used to get this overbearingly sweltering. So she'd forget about all that noise. The summer could go on without her. She'd quit going home and just sleep in croaky panic's back room until the weather cooled off a little. When her bones hadn't creaked quite so much, she did that all the time, saving on rent, trying to make the place last another month longer before bankruptcy dumped her in the landfill anyway, where she would've stayed if Taka hadn't fished her out. Now her back ached and her head throbbed whenever she slept in the back, but it sure beat trying to beat the heat.

Could be that one of these days the ache from waking up after a store-room sleep would be more trouble than it was worth. But not today.

The first of August showed up all of a sudden. She waited for him. 06:55. :56. :57. :58. :59. No customers here yet. Just herself and the wait for the birthday boy too stupid to take his own big day off.

If someone ever tried to get her to work on her birthday, she would stride out the door, no two-week notice, just a big middle finger all the way down the street.

But youngsters these days. She shook her head and brought out the pitcher of barley tea for when he'd arrive.

He rolled up to her back door, leaned on it, jimmied the handle just like that, and stepped inside. His bangs clung to his forehead in the end-of-summer heat, but the grin on his face really told the world, 'I don't mind a little hot weather.' "What up, Gramma?"

"Hey, kid. I got something for you." She had a sneer on her face. Could feel it tugging on her wrinkles. Probably had her gold fillings showing. Her shiny teeth and her. "Hold your hand out and close your eyes."

"Eh?" The kid shrugged. He closed his eyes and held out his hand. "Uh, what's goin' on, Gramma?"

Withdrawing it from her pocket, she crooked her fingers over the crinkled noshigami for a second before she plopped the gift down into his palm. "Happy birthday, kid. Got ya exactly what ya wanted."

The kid grinned. "You 'membered my birthday—"

He opened his eyes and looked down at his gift: a box, wrapped in reddish-brown noshigami with a simple red-and-yellow bow decal on the top—

"The hell? Ain't this just the gift I...?"

"Like how ya gave me a summer gift bought from my own store?" She smirked crookedly at him. "Still giving you my well wishes, kid."

The kid looked confused. "Whaddya want me to do wit dis now? Ain't you say the food's prolly rotten? I mean, if you ain't gonna eat it, and I ain't gonna eat it..." He pointed to the trash can. "I mean..."

"How should I know? Chuck it if ya want. Or shove it where the sun don't shine, peddle it for a yen, give it back to me for seibo if you're petty enough..." She shrugged. "It's your gift. Ain't my problem no more 'less you make it my problem again."

"It is my gift, ain't it?" The kid drummed his thumb against the box. "Then I'll show ya just how petty I can be, once seibo rolls 'round. I'mma be the pettiest boy in the 'Buya!"

She barked out a sharp, dry laugh. Felt like the dust that'd settled in her lungs for years had gotten unclogged. "Then ya better expect it right back atcha for New Year's, punk!"

The kid let out a little sigh. "What is this, a game of hot tomato?"

"Nah, but that reminds me. I got a job for ya after this, in addition to your usual delivery." She drummed her fingers on the desk. "If you're up for it, kid."

He perked up. "Whatchu need, Gramma?"

With a heave, she pushed herself out of her chair and gestured behind the counter, to a blue-and-white plastic tub with handles. "Big ole cooler right here. Think you can deliver it to a client in Udagawa before it melts?"

"Udagawa? No prob, I can make it happen. What is it, 'nyway?" The kid looked over the counter and at the cooler with a curious gaze.

"Ooo, someone's getting nosy. Your mom never teaches ya to shut up and do your work?" She clicked her tongue. "Fine, fine. I got a shochumimai gift for ya lil sis. Not you, you lazy bum, but that smart lil sis you got going to college. Whole melon ain't gonna last in that heat, kid, so bring the cooler back after."

"Da hell?" The kid got all wide-eyed, and he stepped back like he really couldn't believe it. Would'a totally blown him away if he weren't a big boy. "Shit, Gramma, my lil sis's really gonna love it!"

She slapped the cooler's top. "Yeah, well, none a' it's for you, got it? This is for her havin' to put up with the densest big bro this side of the Shibuya River, who can't even hold down a steady job." A brief pause, and then: "And if you can make the cooler delivery 'fore it melts, I'm thinking of workin' ya even harder than before. Break ya into a proper courier. Could be delivering stuff from croaky panic to clients all over the city. But ehhh..." She shrugged. "...If you're too lazy 'n' just want to do the seven o'clock delivery, go for it. Be a layabout."

"I ain't no layabout. You gimme stuff to do, Gramma, and I'll do it, fo' sho'! I'll show ya! Want me ta deliver all over the 'Buya? I know the city like da back a' my hand!" The kid was almost hopping from foot to foot, raring to go. "And thanks, Gramma. For the gift fo' Rhyme!"

"Ha! Be careful what you wish for, kid. I'll be working ya from dawn to dusk with that attitude! Fresh fruit in the summer, hot food in the winter. Shitty sword replica delivered right to hikikomori doors so the NEETs don't even have to go outside!" She rubbed her hands together. "I'll make a killing! Now, what are you waiting around here for? The ice to melt?"

"Bwah! Right!" The speed the kid had to roll out of the shop and vanish outta sight after, wasn't too surprising anymore. The strength to hoist up the cooler and make a dash for Udagawa was a little new. He pushed himself hard every day, but for his lil sis, he seemed to push a little harder.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, she yelled at the shutting door and the handle that hadn't stuck since June. "Have the best damn day of your life, kid!"

Whether or not he heard her didn't matter. Surely that 'Rhyme' lil sis of her would have enough crumbs in her cookie to figure it out herself when she popped open the cooler and found that melon swimming in bananas.

Never thought she'd be running a fruit stand, but eh, if she could adopt ShibuPay, some ShibuPapayas and ShiBananas were the least of her worries. So what if she'd end up paying him more for deliveries throughout the day? Meant more profit for her. Shut-ins and hikkies would order maid outfits and Santa costumes straight to their doors instead of having to make the walk of shame from their apartments overflowing with stained figures to croaky panic and back. Heh, maybe she'd call the service that, too. Come to croaky panic for the in-store experience, and turn to croaky calm online to get it brought to their door.

She'd work that kid to the bone. All summer, all autumn, all winter, all spring. Work him 'til he got the smarts to back out and find a real job. Work him from seven in the morning to whenever she finished deliveries. Maybe eight hours or so. Give 'im a break in the middle so he didn't drop like a fly.

Youngsters these days had their delicate bits and all. Had to take lunch breaks, even. And they sure didn't know how to appreciate anything. Didn't know how to appreciate a half-hearted summer gift, didn't know how to appreciate top class barley tea, didn't know how to appreciate the fashion they walked past every damn day instead of that New American style they had goin' on.

Nah, what did they appreciate? Some skateboard Taka'd sold 'em at a rip-off price. A chance to work and pay their own rent. Their lil sibling enough to see 'em through college.

College sounded like the kind of trap tourists tricked others through. But if 'Rhyme' had a big bro like that, maybe she had the cleverness and the heart to see through, as much as she could see right through ShibuPay.

Could be, that like picking up ShibuPay, college'd become a necessary evil.

With any luck, a temporarily necessary evil, until they could run Shibuya's tourists out and let nature heal without worrying about the rent going up again in another year or the Olympics gettin' tent cities razed down one by one.

Shinta'd been right: Shibuya had changed. But that youngster himself didn't know diddly squat about why. Millennials, zoomers, Heisei babies, Reiwa zygotes—who gave a flippity flying frog's frenulum? Every generation had its stupid kids who learned to appreciate the finer things in life once the school of hard knocks hard-knocked it into 'em.

The real problem? The real reason Shibuya had gone to the dogs—and not the loyal akita inu kind?

One word.

Tourists.

But the tourists would pry this place outta her cold, dead hands. Until then she'd keep an eye out for other Shibuyans quietly resisting in their own little ways. From the rotting Dogenzaka, the hosed-down walls of Udagawa, the aging Mark City, and all the folks who didn't have the luxury of an old friend bailin' them outta bankruptcy and homelessness.

Shibuyans had to stick together, didn't they?

Heh, she'd have to ring Shinta up and gloat to him that she'd found a youngster with enough Showa-era scent to still gift-give for chugen. But from what she'd heard, he'd found a Heisei baby fledgling of his own. Some nerdy gal with a shitty replica katana—wait a damn minute.

Heh...

Chugen—youngsters gave 'em out to the people who'd helped 'em. The people they felt indebted to. That was what the older folks were s'posed to do, huh. Help the younger. Guide 'em. Cultivate 'em. Keep 'em from getting crushed by tourists underfoot.

Sure, chugen might've fallen out of favour. But chugen couldn't spring from the youth. Had to come from the old guard, first: only when the old guard'd helped the youngsters would those damn kids and damn punks finally get it through their thick skulls.

If Shibuya could change for the worse, buried beneath tourists and moldering from the inside out, it could change for the better, too. With kids like that one. Strong arms, broad back, loyal as a dog, not a braincell in sight, and capable of skating Shibuya right into a croakier, panicier future, a little grimy, a little dirty, a little rough-around-the-edges, with a whole lotta personality, to the beat of his own drum.

Just the way she liked 'em.

If anyone could turn a half-hearted 'Japanese summer gift' into a full-hearted chugen, he had the well-wishes and the big ol' heart to do it.

Yeah...

Shibuya could change for the better.

Maybe she'd even live long enough to see it.