Chapter Text
The Ghost of Christmas Past - A Bonten Christmas Carol
A long time ago in a Tokyo of a time long past, a messy-haired but otherwise very inconspicuous boy by the name of Shinichiro Sano used to have a dream of bringing back the golden age of biker gangs.
By the time the events of this story unfolded, Shinichiro Sano was dead as a door nail and had been for a long time.
Bonten’s veteran advisor Takeomi Akashi was intimately aware of this. During their time as leading duo for the infamous biker gang Black Dragon, Shinichiro and him had been best friends for many years before the leader’s untimely death. As the naturally more amicable of the two, Shinichiro Sano rallied all kinds of delinquent youths under his banner and put up his best friend Takeomi as his vice president to make the strategic calls to grow their numbers and earn the respect they deserved.
This youthful ambition set in motion the events that would, many years down the line, indirectly cause the death of Shinichiro Sano.
Losing his leader, his friend and the only person who saw more in him than the mediocre guy with a bad temper and a collection of vices to rival the worst - hurt him in a way he had never thought possible. He wouldn’t be able to say when it started, but the pain of being left behind got less over time. Nevertheless, no matter how many years passed, his best friend’s death had taken something from Takeomi that he never managed to get back.
Despite taking on Sano’s figurative legacy in the form of his brother’s gang formed from the ashes of Shinichiro’s, Takeomi Akashi did not take on Sano’s literal legacy:
S S Motors.
Still, the abrasive gambler never had it in him to change out the sign for Shinichiro’s old bike shop. It remained hung above the window front, letters slowly fading. Forever a reminder of the friend he had lost too soon.
While the shop had not gone to him, it still was occasionally used by the boys Shinichiro had taken in during his days as a mechanic. Takeomi never had any remarkable technical skills the way Shinichiro had and would often just leave scratches in immaculate paint as soon as he touched a wrench or a screwdriver with hands unstable from drinking, not to mention the hazardous spills of oil buckets while he hung around smoking one after another.
No, he was never as good at anything as his former best friend was and it had always reflected in people’s demeanour towards him.
As the years had gone by and their shared past faded, fewer and fewer people ever bothered to chat him up on the street. Takeomi couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard an “Hey, Akashi-kun. How are you doing?” from someone not under Bonten’s boot and small talking to buy time.
With his fall into alcoholism after his friend’s death, years of gambling debt and unemployment, even the most benevolent acquaintances had rid themselves of him.
A lot of time had passed since those darkest days and Takeomi had managed to pull himself up again to work as advisor for Shinichiro’s little brother running Japan’s most infamous crime syndicate now. But the amount of people that had a kind word for him were few and far between.
His moody, disgruntled personality perhaps played a role in that, but what gives.
This Christmas eve, Takeomi Akashi sat in a stuffy backroom of a Bonten-owned gambling hole and was busy counting the monthly profits.
Outside it was bleak and dark. Despite the clock only striking four in the afternoon, the sun was nearly done setting and the theoretically colourfully illuminated Tokyo alleys were swallowed up by a thick fog.
In order to keep an eye on the owner vacuuming the stained carpets and picking up stray gambling chips, Takeomi had left the door open and checked what he was doing every few stacks.
For a while now this place had been behind in turning over the expected profits and only last month Takeomi had made the call to cap their monthly expenses for heating and electricity. What he counted so far didn’t look good. They’d probably have to shut the place down or give it into more capable hands.
Already uncomfortably cold due to the turned off heating, the man only clad in a white shirt and red waistcoat shivered and rubbed his own upper arms when the door opened and a gust of cold air swept through the premises.
A familiar voice snarked across the hall. “Merry Christmas or something, old man.”
Takeomi did not need to see the pink mane to know who had just dropped in. It was his estranged brother who nowadays went by the name of Haruchiyo Sanzu.
Before the older man was able to kick the door shut in his face, Sanzu had stepped into the room and extended an arm to hold the door in place.
“If you’re gonna keep grouching like that, chances are Enma’s gonna let you roam the deep lakes for half an eternity before swallowing your soul, you know.”
Always the notorious chainsmoker, Takeomi dismissively exhaled a breath of smoke and threw a pack of bills into the bag between his feet. “Anyone still celebrating Christmas should be strangled with one of those stupid wreaths and lit up like a candle. What do you want?”
Sanzu briefly thought about the Christmas evenings with his older brother back when he had still been a kid. He could not remember any gift he’d gotten. Money had always been tight, despite their father being gone all day and night to bring home some of it. What he did remember though was sitting around the kotatsu in the living room - their little sister maybe 4 years old, him barely much older and Takeomi heavy-handedly lobbing pieces of fried chicken onto their plates. He remembered how his older brother accidentally knocked his beer can over in the process and started cursing like a sailor, only to get an even worse fit about it when he remembered about the little girl at the table and frantically jerked back and forth between the plates and trying to cover her ears while cursing even more.
Back then, as a kid, it had scared him a little. If he thought about it now, there was a slight comedic edge to it.
There was no love lost between Haruchiyo Sanzu and his older brother Takeomi Akashi - the name change was the most glaring proof of that. The slender man with facial scars as prominent as his brother’s was hard-pressed to come up with any kind of fond memory of their shared past. And yet, looking back as an adult, Sanzu had come to see that Takeomi had always tried to do his best for them. After all, he wasn’t the one who had wanted kids, but the one who stepped up to save what was left to save after their parents neglect.
Sanzu also remembered how little Senju’s crystal-blue eyes had lit up that night when she unwrapped a training jacket with the Sano dojo logo on it while he was busy doing the dishes like Takeomi had told him to. She had run around looking for Takeomi to thank him, and bumped into his leg while he was on the phone in the hallway. Takeomi punched the wall and his voice came out louder than he intended to as he yelled into the speaker that their father might as well be dead if he never bothered to be around and angrily hung up.
Senju looked up at Takeomi and started to cry on the spot. Takeomi’s shoulders dropped down, once again unintentionally having scared his siblings with anger not directed at them.
Sanzu had watched him sigh deeply and then ruffle the little girl’s head apologetically before turning his head yelling for the blonde boy to remember to look after their sister.
“You know…” Sanzu fumbled a cigarette out of his waistcoat and lit it. “You can bitch about Christmas all you want, but you weren’t always this miserable. There was a time you tried.”
The older man’s facial scar crinkled when he narrowed his eyes and gestured for his junior to bugger off. “You’ve always been too sentimental for your own good, Haruchiyo. Grow up.”
Turning on his heel, the pink-haired man lingered in the door frame for a moment.
“Thanks to you I did, a long time ago.”
Not waiting for another reply, thin long fingers waved goodbye to the man with a cash bag between his feet.
“Hurry up, Mikey-san wants to know if it’s time to tear this place down or not.”
Takeomi grunted and got back to the task at hand.
After some time the man, approximately the same age as the one doing the counting, hesitantly peeked into the backroom again. “Is it enough, Akashi-san?”
Dark brown eyes met in silence. There was no need for words to get the message across. When the realization sunk in, sweat formed on the rattish employee’s forehead despite the bitter cold around them.
“Is there nothing to be done? Can you at least postpone the closure until the new year?”
"You owe Bonten, Tanaka-san. We’ve given you enough chances. Finish up and hand me over the keys to this place.” The middle-aged casino owner was too baffled to react, so Takeomi decided to bark him out of his shock. “MOVE IT.”
“B-but Akashi-san, I live here.”
“Not Bonten’s problem, not my problem. Only proves you’ve been dragging out the inevitable for even longer than we thought.”
Stuttering the man fell onto his knees and put his head to the ground.
As if on cue, a throaty cough could be heard from upstairs, immediately followed by a wailing baby.
“I beg you, Akashi-san. Only 2 more weeks to help me figure out something else, we have nowhere to go.”
Takeomi’s right foot pushed the man back by his shoulder and he snipped the cigarette stump against his forehead.
“Not my problem. Now grab your lot, give me the keys and get out.”
Takeomi’s big scarred hands pulled the collar of his wool coat closer to his ears.It really was exceptionally cold today for a Tokyo winter. The climate was changing noticeably in recent years and it showed on days like this. When the Bonten advisor stepped out of the Konbini, plastic bag with cheap snacks and drinks in hand, he could barely see four steps ahead. Most of his surroundings were eaten up by the fog, and the area he lived in usually was gloomy already regardless of this weather making it that much worse.
Since his gig at little Manjiro’s syndicate had started, the former bosozoku with the glaring facial scar dooming him to a life of crime either way, had not only made his way out of his own piled up debt, but also looked after the well-being of all their shared finances to make sure his best friend’s legacy was safe.
He had learned his lesson during his gambling days. Long gone was the time of living beyond his means. Takeomi lived in a humble place - a one-room in a big run down apartment complex. Small. Convenient. Close to SS Motors. Easy to keep tidy, even if he never bothered and just lived in his dirt for the most part.
His shoes clacked past his late friends’ store when just before turning a corner, Takeomi felt a shiver run up his spine and turned around. For a brief moment he thought he saw Shinichiro in the shop window next to the latest refurbished zipper bike. His face untouched by the years gone by. Spit got caught in his throat as he wanted to shout and he ended up coughing into his cold hands. When the man looked up again, his friend was gone.
Muttering to himself, he climbed up the stairs to his flat and unlocked the door.
As usual, he had instant ramen and an onigiri for dinner by himself and washed it down with some Asahi. For a few times his phone screen lit up, but Takeomi was not in the habit of letting others interrupt his dinner time, come what may, so he ignored it. Indecisively flipping through the channels, he eventually fell asleep in front of his old tv.
A shrill noise woke the man in open dress pants and a white undershirt from his nap. Startled, he hurled insults at the unknown source of the noise - that turned out to be an obnoxious tv ad for a singing moose santa to mount on your living room wall.
Takeomi fell flat on his back and stared at the ceiling. He was so utterly fed up with this Christmas nonsense. All this noise, the bright lights, stupid songs everywhere and families rushing through the streets in their struggle to find some latest gadget to gift their kids spoiled rotten. He hated it. The sentimentality of it, the compulsive gifting, the forced joy. His thoughts trailed off to his childhood, a time so long gone he couldn’t even remember the face of his mother anymore. She had left his dad and him when he was 14, when his siblings were in kindergarten. The only thing he faintly remembered was the way her heavy perfume mixed with cigarette smoke used to tickle his nose.
As he sat back up and turned his head to look for the remote, his glance fell onto a figure sitting cross-legged in front of him in silence.
Takeomi’s eyes widened.
Dorky as ever, the black-haired figure waved at him.
This had to be some prank. Takeomi’s eyes widened.
“What is this? Who’s doing this?”
“Come on now, Omi. It’s me, Shinichiro. We used to be best friends, remember?”
Scrambling to his feet, Takeomi went to search the kitchen and the balcony for the perpetrator responsible for this stage play.
“There is no way you are Shin, this is some stupid VR trick or something.” His voice thundered through his flat. “SANZU!? Where are you? Did you lace my dinner with some of your shit again?”
The unnaturally transparent boy in his living room laughed.
“It’s really me, Takeomi. I am here to give you a heads up, so listen up you old grump. You’ve been on a pretty bad downward spiral since I’m not around anymore. I’m a bit worried where you’re headed like this. My hands are kind of tied -”
Spectral hands splayed and held in front of his chest, the thing claiming to be Shinichiro gestured apologetically and chuckled.
“So here’s what we will do with you, old man. I’ll be sending some hauntings your way. Heed their warnings..”
Bushy eyebrows furrowed.
“What do you mean ‘hauntings’? What nonsense is this? SANZU!?” The upset advisor looked behind curtains and wardrobes alike, but he couldn’t find anyone else in his flat. Finally coming to terms with the ghostly visitor in his living room, Takeomi turned to look him up and down for good, but the lanky figure was already disappearing towards the balcony.
“Shin! Wait! Is it really -”
Even as a spectre, Shinichiro looked the same way he always had. Loose, ripped jeans and an oil-smeared white tee that was a mess even in his friend’s transparent state. Last but not least, his messy hair stood up in all directions as it always had after a day of screwing together a machine.
Big black eyes curled into crescents and with a wide grin, the ghost of Shinichiro Sano disappeared off the balcony into the night.
Takeomi slumped back onto his floor pillow and - fumbling with a new beer can without looking at it - stared at the night sky outside.
Surely this must have been his stupid brother’s prank or something.
The encounter weighed more heavily on him than he wanted to admit and he fell into a deep sleep only a few sips in.