Chapter Text
“I’m sorry, Keiji, but I can’t give you any extra money right now.”
Keiji stared back at his aunt and nodded in understanding. He knew that they were going through some financial troubles, especially after the death of his uncle. It was hard watching her work so tirelessly to support them.
“It’s alright,” he assured her. “I, uh… I’ve been thinking about getting a job to help.”
She stopped cleaning the kitchen table and looked at him. She left the cleaning spray on top of it and gripped the washrag in her hand.
“Oh, Keiji, you don’t have to do that. I’ll think of something. I don’t want you to—”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and smiled gently down at her. She was always reminded of how tall he’d gotten since entering high school whenever he’d look down at her.
“Aunt Mai,” he interrupted her, firmly holding onto her shoulders, “I can help. Please let me.”
Mai looked up at her nephew. She’d never wanted to think that he needed to take on such an adult responsibility. She wanted him to enjoy being a child while he still had the chance. But as she looked up into his sad eyes, she caved. He wouldn’t enjoy his youth fully if she didn’t let him do this. She knew him. She knew that he hated seeing others struggling.
“Alright, Keiji…” she said. “But you must listen to me. I do not want you doing a sketchy job. I do not want you working too many hours a day. I do not want you to think that you have to support the both of us. The money that you earn will help, but I don’t want you to think that everything is up to you. Got it?”
Keiji smiled warmly back at his aunt and nodded.
She smiled in return.
“Good. I will let you do this, but find a job within reason. For my sake. Please?”
“I promise.”
The building was intimidatingly tall as Keiji’s eyes drifted up from the bottom to the top of the skyscraper. He looked up at all of the windows as they glistened against the beating sun and at how the top of the building seemed to live far up into the clouds. He craned his neck too far and started rubbing it when it began to ache.
Taking in a deep breath, he walked into the building. He tapped his fingers together in front of his stomach and slowly made his way to the front desk.
A woman with curly black hair and bright red lipstick delicately painted across her thin lips smacked her gum and drifted her gaze towards him.
“May I help you?” she asked him in a bored tone.
“I just came to see if your job offer for a photographer was still available,” he told her. His nerves were all over the place, but Keiji had a way of keeping them at bay. He usually looked rather collected, but his mind screamed, and he always had a habit of playing with his fingers to help.
She clicked away at her computer and hummed words to herself, nodded along to the things that she was saying with her mouth closed. She chewed her gum—the smell of strawberry wafted towards Keiji’s nose—and grinned with the fakest grin that Keiji had ever seen on a person before.
“Why, yes. We do. You can go speak to Mr. Joshuya about the position.” She picked up something from her desk and handed Keiji a pass. “You’ll need this. His office is right down the hall.”
“Thank you,” Keiji said, dipping his head and then heading to Mr. Joshuya’s office.
He stopped right in front of the door to read the words painted across the window.
JIN JIROU JOSHUYA, JR.
He must be part foreign, Keiji assumed by the strange additions to his name that weren’t traditional to the majority of Japan.
Keiji took another deep breath and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” he heard a gruff voice say.
Slowly and nervously, Keiji took a hold of the doorknob and opened the door. He shut the door behind him and stood by it as he introduced himself. “Hello, sir. I’m Akaashi Keiji, and I came for the photographer job.”
“Yes, yes. We’ve been looking for a skilled photographer,” he said. “Do you have any prior experience?”
“Not particularly,” Keiji admitted. He grabbed out a portfolio from his shoulder bag and handed it to Mr. Joshuya as he came up to his desk. “But I do have a portfolio of some of the photographs that I’d taken for my group at my high school and some shots that I did to gain some skills.”
The editor-in-chief took the portfolio and flipped through it diligently. He rubbed his chin and smiled to himself as he looked back up at Keiji.
“You’ve got a keen eye for photographs, I’ll give you that,” he told him. “These aren’t bad at all.”
Keiji’s eyes widened in surprised. “Really?”
“I think I can give you a small photographing job here. It won’t be full-time because you’re still a highschooler, but I think I could pull some strings. You can accompany…”—he rummaged through some pages atop his desk and picked up a sheet of paper swiftly, handing it to Keiji—“Takeda Ittetsu! He’s an amateur reporter, so his stories should be very mild. You can take some photos to go along with his stories.”
“That’s perfect, sir. Thank you.”
“You can start today. Just meet up with Takeda-san and see where you two will be going. You can use one of our cameras from the supply closet.”
Keiji bowed in gratitude and placed his portfolio back into his bag as Mr. Joshuya handed it back to him. He looked down at Takeda Ittetsu’s file but looked up sharply when Mr. Joshuya called out his name.
“But remember, kid; even on simple stories, there’s danger. Be careful out there. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Takeda-san, you seem nervous,” Keiji commented to his superior.
Ittetsu straightened out his jacket and positioned his glasses back onto his nose. He laughed nervously and nodded. “Just a bit anxious because of the reports of some strange guy roaming about.”
“Strange guy?”
Ittetsu jumped and waved his hands. “Nothing to be alarmed about though!” He suddenly rubbed his temples. He didn’t want to scare Keiji because he was only a high school student, but here he was acting all nervous and alarmed instead. It was sure to make Keiji even worse off than he was.
Keiji played around with the settings on his camera and lifted his brow up at Ittetsu. “What guy, Takeda-san?”
“Just… some guy in an owl costume. He’s been flying around and scaring the bejeezus out of everyone. Some people think that he’s some kind of new superhero, but others are kind of mistrusting of his intentions since he tends to scare others rather than help them.”
Keiji snapped a photo of Ittetsu with his camera by accident as his hand slipped across the button. The abrupt flash temporarily blurred the older man’s vision.
“Gah!”
“Sorry!” Keiji apologized.
Ittetsu rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “It’s alright. It was just an accident.”
“So, there’s this strange owl guy going around and disrupting people?”
“It seems so. I’m just kind of nervous to run into him because, believe it or not, I’m very faint-hearted.”
Keiji believed him, but he only grinned gently and nodded. He waited until Ittetsu regained his vision to follow him to the bakery at the end of the street. They entered, and a bell was sounded as they did. Ittetsu and Keiji were greeted by an elderly woman.
Ittetsu pulled out his notepad and began to talk with the woman about her winning the recent competition for her beautiful and delicious homemade pie that received the most votes towards a winner in over forty years.
As Ittetsu discussed her momentous win, Keiji took to taking pictures of her shop and of her pies that were out on display. He was asked to take a picture of the winner, and she showed them to the back and explained to them how she made her pies.
The story was cute and a nice change of pace for Keiji. Lately, he hadn’t liked reading bad news in the newspaper since his Uncle Benjurou had been killed by a bugler a few months ago. The guy had never been caught, and Keiji could still feel the weight of that on his heart.
“Thank you for your time, ma’am,” Ittetsu said once he’d gotten all the information that he needed.
“Please take a free pie!” she insisted, handing them a box with one of her blueberry pies placed inside of it.
Ittetsu smiled sheepishly at her. “Oh… Thank you!”
She beamed and nodded. “No, thank you!”
Keiji smiled and waved to her as they left the bakery. He clicked through the pictures on his digital screen of his big bulky camera that he’d borrowed from the supplies closet. He smiled to himself at the photos, feeling rather accomplished.
“You did a good job,” Ittetsu told him.
Keiji looked up from his camera. “Thank you…”
Ittetsu smiled and held the pie box up in his arms. “You’re a gifted photographer,” he continued.
Keiji lowered his head in embarrassment. He glanced up quickly and turned towards the alleyway when something caught his eye. He stopped and narrowed his gaze into the dark alley.
“What is it?” Ittetsu asked as he stopped and looked back at Keiji.
“I thought I saw something…” Keiji said. He looked down at his camera. “Do you mind if I go look?”
The hairs on the back of Ittetsu’s neck stood up, and his eyes widened in surprise. “In the alley?! I can’t allow you do to that, Keiji-kun. It’s not safe.”
“The car’s right there,” Keiji reminded him, gesturing towards Ittetsu’s vehicle only a few feet away. “I’m just going right down there.”
“I don’t know…”
“I promise I’ll be careful.” There was something pulling Keiji towards the alley. It was a strange force, and he wanted to see if there was something worth getting a picture of down there.
“I don’t think so,” Ittetsu said anxiously. “We better get back to The Daily Tokgle. It’s getting kind of dark, and I don’t like the thought of this idea.”
Understanding Ittetsu’s worries, Keiji abandoned the idea of venturing into the alleyway and followed Ittetsu to his car, but he looked up when he saw the flash of something fly across the tops of the buildings before him.
He blinked and slowly slid into the car.
There was an undeniable feeling of dread that scratched at the inside of Keiji’s stomach. He kept turning around to make sure that nobody was following him as he made his way back to his house from The Daily Tokgle’s building.
He froze when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him. He slowly turned around to see a man coming towards him. He looked like a bland fellow with unkempt hair and a scruffy beard. His footsteps were heavy against the sidewalk, and Keiji took to briskly walking, hoping that the man wasn’t after him.
When the footsteps behind him picked up into a sprint, Keiji started running without even looking back.
“Hey, kid!” the man behind him shouted. “I just wanna talk!”
No, no, no. Keiji dashed through the sidewalk and ducked into the alleyway. He went and ran towards the dumpster. The guy ran past the alley, but Keiji noticed him back up and narrow his eyes toward him.
With the hairs on his arms sticking up and the thought of survival embedded in his mind, Keiji climbed up on top of the dumpster and grabbed the ladder above it. The ladder shook with his weight, but he kept climbing as the guy below looked up at him and climbed up after him.
“Leave me alone!” Keiji begged, edging along the fire escape and backing up into another ladder.
The man met him up on the ledge and tried to soften his expression into an innocent one.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he lied through his crooked teeth.
Keiji didn’t care if he was telling the truth or not. This guy creeped him out. If he didn’t have the intention of hurting him, then he wouldn’t have followed him all the way up here.
Quickly, Keiji turned around and started climbing up the other ladder until he made it to the roof of the building. He watched the ladder shake as the guy followed him up there. Keiji ran over to the roof’s entrance, but the door was locked when he shook the doorknob. He frantically looked back as the guy climbed up onto the roof, so Keiji hid behind the wall on the side of the entrance.
He closed his eyes and held his breath as he heard the footsteps of the guy creeping towards him. He bit his lip and slowly opened his eyelids to find a pair of golden, shimmering eyes staring back at him.
The strange person in front of him was wearing an owl mask and was wearing a shirt with an owl symbol on it.
Keiji yelped just as the owl man covered his mouth. He put his finger up to his lips that were beneath a beak that was attached to his mask, and Keiji stared back at him in fear.
“I’m going to save you,” he whispered. He held Keiji’s hand and pulled him along the roof. The guy called out after them when he spotted them running out from their hiding place, but the owl man grabbed Keiji and held his body close to his chest as wings sprouted out from his back. He flew them off of the roof, prompting Keiji to become too shocked to scream. He wrapped his arms around the man and tightly closed his eyes as his body shook from fright.
The owl man landed them in a yard, and he patted Keiji’s shoulder to tell him that they’d landed and that he was safe.
Keiji unsteadily pulled himself away from him and stepped back from him.
“No, no,” he said gently. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not a bad guy.”
“Y-you’re… You’re that… The… o-owl… man…” Keiji stammered. He held his hand to his chest and kept backing away from him just as the owl man came toward him slowly.
“I’m not a bad guy,” he repeated. “I know that I’ve kind of scared lots of people recently, but I didn’t mean to! People are just jumpy.”
Keiji looked back at him skeptically. He stopped walking backwards when his back was brought up against the brick wall of a house behind him. He touched the wall with his hands, keeping his eyes on the strange person in the peculiar owl attire in front of him.
“It’s all just been a misunderstanding,” the owl man said. “I’ve been trying to help people, but most people are scared of me.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Because you have giant wings that come out of your back and you come out of nowhere,” Keiji blurted out.
He blinked back at Keiji and then smiled underneath his beak.
“I need to work on that, I guess,” he said.
Keiji nodded, lowering his eyelids and looking at him with slight annoyance.
The owl man stood directly in front of Keiji and rubbed his chin. He blinked back at him and snapped his fingers. “Hey! I know you!”
“What…?” Keiji became guarded and glanced around for someplace to run to.
“I saw you walking by the alley by that bakery a few weeks ago.”
“That was you?” I knew that I saw something…
The owl man backed away from Keiji to give him some air to breathe and nodded. “Yeah. You were with some reporter guy. You had a camera, and he was praising you because of the pictures you’d taken.”
Keiji relaxed against the wall and began to twiddle with his fingers.
“Do you work for the newspaper?” he asked Keiji curiously.
“Yes,” Keiji told him. “I’m a photographer there.”
“You’re so young!” he exclaimed in surprise.
“I only take pictures for one of the reporters there. It’s just a part-time job because I’m still in high school.”
“Still,” he told him. “You must be really good to work there.” He smiled and opened the back door to the house. “Take a picture of me! I want to see how good your pictures are.”
Keiji looked at him strangely and looked up at the sky. It was dark, and his aunt would be expecting him home soon. He had no idea who this owl man was or why he was acting so friendly towards him. Besides, Keiji didn’t have a camera with him, and he told the owl man so.
He waved his hand towards him and pulled him inside. “I have one!”
As he led Keiji through the home, Keiji asked, “How can I trust you? Why are you acting so friendly towards somebody you don’t even know? How did you even become this?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” the owl man said.
Keiji blushed. “I’m sorry… I don’t usually—”
He laughed loudly, and Keiji looked around to make sure that nobody was coming. But nobody came, and the house seemed to be empty of any life besides them. Keiji assumed that this was the owl man’s house and that he lived alone, but the owl man put those accusations to rest as he handed Keiji a digital camera from a kitchen drawer and said, “My grandparents won’t be home until later, so I can be as loud as I want to!”
“You live with your grandparents?” Keiji asked.
“Yeah. My dad died when I was a baby, and my mom passed away when I was four, so I’ve been living with my grandparents ever since.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your parents,” Keiji said as he turned the camera on. “My parents passed away in a car accident when I was little, and my uncle died a few months ago, so I just live with my aunt now.” The words came out too easily, and Keiji mentally scolded himself for being so forward with his personal life.
Silence suddenly took a grasp of the situation. Keiji looked up from the camera when he didn’t hear a response, thinking that maybe he’d said too much too quickly.
The young man donned in the owl attire looked back at him sadly.
“That’s really… awful,” he replied.
Keiji stared back at him and quickly began fiddling with the camera. He adjusted the settings and pointed it at the owl man. The digital camera didn’t have the same feel as his usual camera from The Daily Tokgle or the one he had at home, but it would do just fine.
“It’s alright. Let’s just take the picture,” he hurriedly told him.
The owl man was reluctant to move at first, but he sat on top of the kitchen counter and posed after a short moment. “Okay, take it now.”
Keiji took the picture and barely had time to look at it before the owl man snatched it from his hands and peered down at it.
“Oh, wow! I look awesome!” He turned back to Keiji and showed him the picture like he hadn’t just taken it himself. “Did you see this? This is so cool!”
“It’s not that great,” Keiji told him. “The lighting isn’t very good in here.”
“Don’t be so modest!” he said. “Here, take a picture of me with my mask off.”
Keiji reached forward and held onto the owl man’s hands as he attempted to pull off his mask. He looked up at him with wide eyes and shook his head slowly. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” he asked him. “How can you trust me?”
He blinked down at him. “You have an honest face,” he said.
Keiji looked taken aback.
“My reputation as a superhero hasn’t taken off yet,” he started to say. “Lots of people are labeling me as some kind of hoax or ruffian, but I really just want to help people. Maybe you can help me.”
“Help you how?” Keiji asked.
“You work for the newspaper. Maybe if you take some pictures and get that reporter to write some good stories about me, people will look at me differently. Maybe they won’t be afraid of me, and I can do better as a hero.”
He posed with his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest.
Keiji didn’t want to buy this kind of nonsense, but this guy seemed genuine when he said that he wanted to help others. He’d saved Keiji, after all.
Not many people knew what his true intentions were, but Keiji believed him when he said that he wanted to help others.
He looked back at him and nodded. “Okay. I’ll try.”
His golden eyes shone, and he grabbed Keiji’s arm. “Really?!”
Keiji nodded again.
“Then, I trust you,” he said. “All great heroes have someone that they trust that know their secret identity.”
“Are you really sure that you want to reveal yourself to a total stranger?”
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re my new best friend,” he said to him. He pulled off his mask and held out his hand to Keiji.
Keiji looked back at the black and white hair sticking up on top of his head and his arched eyebrows above his glowing eyes.
Hesitantly, Keiji shook his hand.
“Bokuto Koutarou,” the owl man introduced himself. “Also known as Owl-Man.”
I shouldn’t be getting involved with somebody like this… Keiji told himself. But against his thoughts, he introduced himself to Owl-Man.
“Akaashi Keiji.”
“Akaashi, you’re now my friend. Welcome to Team Owl.”
“We need to work on these names,” Keiji commented sardonically.
Mai grabbed Keiji by the hood of his pullover before he could leave out the front door. She pulled him back and frowned up at him with a look of disapproval painted across her face.
Keiji knew this expression well. It was the expression that she got whenever she was cross with him.
But unlike other times, Keiji had no idea why she would be upset with him.
“What’s the matter, Aunt Mai?” he asked her.
“What’s the matter? Oh, I don’t know…” She let go of his hood and slapped the newspaper that she had had rolled up in his other hand onto the tabletop. “Maybe this is what’s the matter.”
Keiji looked down at the article. It was on the cover of The Daily Tokgle and was the article that he’d helped Ittetsu to write about Owl-Man, accompanied with some “candid” photos of the daring hero dashing through the sky and some alleyways.
Confused, Keiji only looked up at his aunt.
She looked back at him and sighed. “You took these pictures, right?”
He nodded.
“Keiji, that’s really dangerous!” she yelled. “I can’t believe you got so close to this guy to take such clear photos!”
Keiji grabbed her hand as she plopped down into a chair. He patted it gently. “Aunt Mai, he’s not a criminal. My partner has been researching this guy for awhile now. He’s alright.”
“That’s not what people are saying at the restaurant…” she said. “They think he’s a menace and that he’s scaring people half to death!”
Keiji sighed and sat down across from her. He laid his arms across the table and let her slide her small hands into his slightly larger ones. He squeezed his aunt’s hands with care and looked back at her seriously.
“I promised you that I would be safe, and I am. Just trust me.” His voice was as sweet as honey, and his expression was as soft as cotton.
She looked back at him helplessly. “I don’t know, Keiji… I worry about you. Losing Benjirou was hard… If I lose you, too, I…” She gripped his hands even more and looked at him with sadness in his eyes.
He smiled at her gingerly. “I won’t get hurt. I’ll be extra careful.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” He stood up from his seat and went around to kiss the top of Mai’s head. “Now, I need to get to Takeda-san. We’re working on another story.”
She looked after him as he hurried out the door. She sighed and folded her hands on top of the table, praying that her nephew would be safe from harm’s way.