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One of the kids from the other class had gotten real brave and came after Kiryu one afternoon during break. He slid the door open hard and fast so that it clattered along its tracks and hit the other side with a bang, startling some of the kids who were gathered nearby. His name was Sasaki and he was big, taller than anyone their age by far, and had a mean look on his face. But it was twitchy. He was amped up.
He must have known who he was looking for, more than just his reputation, because he did a perfunctory scan of the classroom before zeroing in on Kiryu. Kiryu, with his head in his arms trying to sleep through the rest of the school day. Nishiki was leaning up against Kiryu's desk with his hand on his back, in the middle of telling him to suck it up and follow him to the vending machines at the end of the courtyard.
"Kazuma," Sasaki called out as he strode over. Most of their classmates were pretending not to notice, trying to continue their conversations under this looming threat of excitement, but a few of them stared openly. "I heard something interesting about you."
Kiryu lifted his head and looked, bleary eyed, at him. He didn't respond. This wasn't the first time some other guy sought Kiryu out and tried to talk shit, tried to rile him up. This was, however, the first time one of them had looked so flighty and uncertain. Kiryu was still trying to wrap his head around that when Nishiki took control.
"Lame." Nishiki put his hands in his pockets and tried to look tough. "Who are you?"
Sasaki's face faltered and Nishiki knew he had taken the right track. He wasn't drawing the crowd he had expected. At this rate, most of the class probably wouldn't even hear him, which meant nobody would back him up.
Nishiki widened his eyes and tilted his head slightly, inward towards Sasaki conspiratorially. "Go back to your class and don't bother us again. I would hate to make a scene after you came all this way. Besides, you won't come out of it looking cool."
Sasaki hesitated.
"And forget what you heard. Got it?"
He scrubbed his palm over the back of his neck and sighed. "Whatever. I'm out of here."
He left the door open.
Kiryu looked at Nishiki, the ghost of an expression dawning over his face. "Scary."
Nishiki giggled, shaking off the posture he had adopted. "He's pissin' his pants, for sure. Now, come on, I wanna get a coffee."
Kiryu stood, chair squeaking against the floor, and grabbed for the loose cigarette he had stashed in the inner pocket of his book bag. He waited until they were on the shadowed side of the courtyard to light it, with Nishiki swiveling his head like an owl to make sure they were alone.
"What do you think he heard about me, anyway?"
Nishiki fed the machine a few coins and then stopped, glaring down at the change in his palm and mouthing the numbers as he counted. A moment passed like that before he continued sliding coins into the machine. "Does it matter?"
Kiryu shrugged. "No," he said, but it sounded like he wanted to say "maybe." As in, it definitely matters.
Nishiki finished paying for his can of coffee and cracked it open. He shoved the remaining 10 yen into his back pocket. "He was probably just gunna say he saw you feeling up some girl."
Kiryu's face grew red impressively quickly.
"Or that he knows you're broke!" Nishiki threw his head back, cackling.
Kiryu shoved him and he spilled some of his coffee onto his jacket, yelping. "You're broke, too."
"Yeah, yeah."
-
It was instinct. The other guy had gotten Kiryu on the ground, on his back, and he got scared. Nishiki was far outside his periphery and they were outnumbered two to four, and now he was trapped. He ate a few clumsy blows to the head, unable to block with his right arm wedged underneath him and left up and out at an awkward angle. He flexed his fingers in the dirt, slapping at the ground and searching for anything he could grab. He wanted a rock. Something he could bring down hard against this guy's temple and knock him off kilter. What he got was the hilt of a kitchen knife.
Kiryu sliced out wildly and he saw it all in fragments. He saw the other guy squint his left eye shut as the blade came close and his expression morph into teary eyed panic. He saw the gleam of the knife, pitted with rust but still reflective. He saw the trajectory, and finally the skin part open. Beads of blood bubbled up to the surface in a very thin, broken line from his temple down to his upper lip.
He got up, staggered backward, and he was wailing. It was an unnatural sound that sent a chill through everyone present. The three guys surrounding Nishiki froze and turned to look, turned to watch their friend's irritated skin bloom up around the shallow cut across his face, and the impressive amount of blood that trickled from the wound.
Kiryu stood, held the knife out in front of him, breathless.
"Fuck that," one of them said, jumping a little as he broke into a jog. "You're crazy!"
The remaining two huddled around the guy Kiryu cut and hustled him away. One of them pressed a dirty hand against his face and the other tried to speed them up by dragging them by the shirt sleeves.
Nishiki, kneeling on the ground with his hands over his head, waited a second before he uncurled.
Kiryu dropped the knife.
-
"Turn that off."
Kiryu flinched and the beam of the flashlight jumped up the wall before settling back down at the base of the door. In the darkness, Nishiki could barely make out that Kiryu had turned to face him.
"You were doing this last night too, weren't you? You're lucky that the girls have their own room now or Yumi would kick your ass." Nishiki rubbed at his eyes.
Kiryu didn't say anything. He had turned back to the door.
Nishiki sighed and dropped his arm against his comforter. The sound made Kiryu flinch again, harder this time as if Nishiki had shouted. "Whoa, Kiryu, what the hell?"
"Go to sleep," he said. Then, "leave me alone."
"Go to sleep?" Nishiki squawked. "You've got a light on! I can't just sleep."
Kiryu didn't answer.
Nishiki sat up. "Why are you doing this? And can you please stop?"
"I have to be ready," Kiryu said, and he was quiet. "Some of them saw me."
Nishiki, in the few seconds that passed, racked his brain for what the hell Kiryu could be talking about. He came up short. "Who saw you?"
"On Christmas. With Kazama-san."
"Oh." Nishiki couldn't think of anything else to say. That was a week ago at this point and no one had come for him yet. If they were going to go after anyone, it would be Kazama-san in Kamurocho, not a twelve year old out here at Sunflower. "Didn't Kazama-san kill them all?"
Kiryu didn't respond.
Nishiki was sure he could recall Kiryu, bright eyed and trembling, saying that Kazama had shot and shot until no one was left standing. That even after he had been forced out of the building he could hear the gunshots in the alleyway. He got off his bed and sat down beside Kiryu on the floor. Their knees touched. He looked straight ahead at the circle of dark wood illuminated by the flashlight and opened and closed his hand pointedly. "You kept watch last night so it's my turn."
Kiryu stayed still for a long second. Nishiki had all but decided that he was too stubborn for this to work when he passed the flashlight over. The plastic was tacky and warm despite the relative chill of their bedroom.
"Okay." He said at last. "Wake me up if they show up."