Tokyo Drift Arc (5)

Tokyo Drift Arc (5)

After getting off the bus and walking for about another fifteen minutes, then turning three corners, they reached the destination of their trip.

Zhang Heng looked at the small shop called Takeda Fisheries before him. "Does your father live here?"

"Yeah. It smells bad inside, so you can wait outside." The closer they got, the more uneasy Ameko looked, though she was still considerate.

"We're already here. Let's go in together." Zhang Heng did not hesitate. The two passed the promotional stand and discarded old freezer outside the shop and entered the seafood store. A distinctive briny stench immediately hit them. Fish, shrimp, shellfish, and other seafood filled every corner of their view, but there was no one inside. Only conger eels darted about wildly in foam boxes.

"Dad~ Dad~" Ameko called twice, but no one answered.

"Did he really go to the hospital?" the girl muttered. After hesitating, she headed upstairs, with Zhang Heng following behind her. The wooden staircase looked as though it had not been repaired in ages. Many places were cracked, creaking beneath their feet as if they might break at any moment.

Zhang Heng had thought the first floor was already packed to the brim, but the second floor was where there was truly nowhere to step. Dirty clothes, beer cans, and pornographic magazines had been thrown everywhere. A stubbly-faced man lay sprawled shirtless on the floor, snoring loudly.

"I'm such an idiot. I actually believed the same lie over and over again." Ameko pressed a hand to her forehead.

"In a way, that's good news, isn't it? Better than really being laid up in a hospital."

"No, this is absolutely awful. How could there be a man in this world who would even lie to his own daughter?"

Though she said that, Ameko still grabbed the man's arms and tried to drag him onto the tatami mat beside them.

"I'll do it." Seeing that Ameko was struggling, Zhang Heng stepped up to help.

As they dragged him, something fell out of the man's pants pocket. Ameko picked it up and found that it was a worn brown wallet. She froze for a moment when she took hold of it, seemingly lost in thought. Just then, the man on the tatami suddenly sat up and lunged at Ameko with a roar.

In the urgency of the moment, Zhang Heng had no time to think. He instinctively used the little self-defense technique Bear had taught him, throwing the man over his shoulder and slamming him onto the floor. The man had taken a sudden heavy blow, his eyes rolled back, and this time he fainted outright.

Only then did Ameko manage to cry, "Don't!"

"Ah, did you kill him?!" The girl was startled by the commotion.

"Uh, no. But he probably won't wake up for a while. What was he shouting at you just now?"

"Give me back my wallet..." Ameko murmured.

"..."

"I'll keep studying Japanese Language when we get back." Zhang Heng broke out in a cold sweat. Then the two of them worked together to move the drunken, unconscious man back onto the tatami.

Seeing that Ameko was still holding the battered wallet, Zhang Heng asked, "What, is there a fortune inside?"

Ameko shook her head. "No. My mom gave him this wallet as a birthday present sixteen years ago. I didn't think he'd still carry it with him." As she spoke, the girl opened the wallet. Beneath the half-remaining transparent sleeve on the left was an old yellowed photograph of a family of three.

Ameko pointed to the one-year-old baby being held in the picture. "This should be me. Behind me are Dad and Mom. Mom said that Dad hadn't developed his gambling addiction back then, and our family was very happy."

But Zhang Heng's gaze had fallen on a very cool-looking Nissan behind the man in the photo. His expression shifted. "You never told me your father used to be into modified cars."

"Modified cars? No, no, how could that be? Don't look at what he's like now—when I was little, he was a model man. Business was terrible when the seafood store first opened, and he couldn't compete with the local shops. To increase sales, he worked hard at learning English Language so he could find foreign customers. He called them one by one and even visited them in person. At his best, our seafood was sold as far as London, Los Angeles, and even Peru... Someone that dedicated couldn't possibly have had anything to do with Bōsōzoku."

"...And ever since I can remember, he's never driven. The seafood store always hired people to make deliveries, too." Ameko recalled, then glanced at the photograph again. "That car was probably just parked there by someone when the picture was taken."

"I see..." Zhang Heng did not pursue the matter. He merely said, "I'm pretty interested in cars. This one should be an antique by now, right? Can I take a picture of it?"

"Sure, but don't take a picture of me. I was super ugly as a child." Ameko covered her one-year-old self with a finger and let Zhang Heng take the photo.

Afterward, the girl rinsed two teacups, boiled some water in the electric kettle on the table, and dug out a packet of dark, almost black tea leaves from a cabinet.

"This... is probably oolong tea?" Ameko sniffed it uncertainly.

The two drank tea and chatted, though Ameko did most of the talking about her childhood. About half an hour later, the stubbly man on the tatami finally opened his eyes. Rubbing his aching shoulder, he eyed Zhang Heng beside him warily.

Ameko hurriedly spoke up, apparently explaining the relationship between the two of them.

Only then did the stubbly man's expression improve slightly, shifting from hostility to indifference. The two rapidly exchanged words in Japanese Language.

In the end, Ameko took out fifteen thousand Japanese Yen from her bag and placed it on the table. However, the stubbly man did not seem satisfied. The more he spoke, the more agitated he became, until he sprang up from the tatami.

Zhang Heng frowned and stepped in front of Ameko. His workouts over the past while had been fairly effective. Though he did not have much muscle, there was no excess fat on his frame either. Combined with the fact that he had just given the man an over-the-shoulder throw, the stubbly man's momentum visibly weakened upon seeing him.

At that moment, Ameko also stood up from the floor. She looked deeply dejected, her eyes reddened as she said, "Let's go."

On the train back, the girl stared blankly out the window. Zhang Heng did not disturb her. After a while, he pulled a box of mixed-flavor gum from his pocket and said in clumsy Japanese Language, "If you don't eat any, I'll eat all the strawberry-flavored ones."

"You mean if you don't eat any, I'll eat all the strawberry-flavored ones," Ameko corrected him. She took the gum, and her brows relaxed at the same time. In Chinese, she said, "Sorry, Zhang, for making you see something unpleasant."

"It's fine. You've always been the one helping me. It feels pretty good to help you for once... So, did you two make up in the end?"

"Not really. He said that the person he originally hired at the shop was going back to his hometown this month, and he couldn't find anyone suitable to drive deliveries for him, so the shop wouldn't be able to stay afloat. Anyway, he can always find similar excuses. I can't even be bothered to tell whether they're true anymore. I gave him this month's allowance. It should buy some peace and quiet for a while." Ameko sounded helpless.

Everyone, remember to eat mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. You need the energy from mooncakes to vote~