Tattoos

"You two bastards! You think you can steal the Takasaki Family's property while Dad's sick? I won't let you get away with it!"

The blond punk shouting at the entrance looked about twenty-two or twenty-three. Wearing a loose tracksuit top and low-rise trousers that exposed his belly, he cursed as he swaggered toward the door, trying to barge inside.

"You... you can't come in. We're open for business right now... and..."

Fine beads of sweat covered Takasaki Tsuki's forehead as she stood helplessly at the entrance, trying to stop him.

"If you've reopened, you must've made plenty of money. Hurry up and hand over my share!"

"We haven't made any money! We've only just started running the place again..."

"I don't care! Give me my share, or you can forget about keeping this place open, you two bastards!"

The blond punk kept spewing abuse as he forced his way inside. He shoved Takasaki Tsuki to the floor, then raised his foot as if to kick her.

"What are you doing?"

A customer nearby couldn't stand watching any longer and rose to intervene.

"Take a good look! See what's on my arm?!"

The blond punk rolled up his sleeve, revealing the large, colorful tattoos covering his arm. The customer's expression changed. He lowered his head, took out some money, left it on the table, and hurried away.

"Hah!"

Looking smug, the blond punk raised his arm and displayed his tattoo like a medal. It depicted a colorful tiger entwined with a dragon python in an ukiyo-e style, making quite an imposing sight.

The other customers turned away too, afraid of getting themselves into trouble.

"How dare that bastard come here!"

Takasaki Anzu's eyes widened, growing bloodshot. She grabbed a single-edged pointed knife from the kitchen counter and was about to charge out.

Uchiha Naruto caught her and held her back. Then he clenched his fist and started forward himself.

"Little Takasaki, your hands are so lovely and clean. Dirtying them over trash like this wouldn't be worth it. Ah Xiu!" Matsudaira Chiyo's gaze turned cold, and she snapped her fingers.

"Yes, miss!"

The blond punk was still arrogantly showing off his tiger-and-snake tattoo when he saw an expressionless woman in a black suit approach.

"Stay out of this, you bitch!"

He cursed viciously and raised his hand to slap her.

Just before his palm reached her, the black-suited woman swiftly caught his wrist. She stepped around behind him and twisted his arm up behind his back.

"Ow!"

Then the black-suited woman raised her foot and delivered a sharp, ruthless kick to the back of his knee. His legs buckled, and she followed through, pinning him to the floor.

"Are you all right, Takasaki?"

Matsudaira Chiyo took off her glasses and walked over with easy composure. Takasaki Tsuki had already climbed to her feet. She wasn't hurt, but her cheek had scraped against the floor and picked up a little dust.

"Matsudaira, what brings you here?"

Taking out a handkerchief, Matsudaira Chiyo gently and affectionately wiped Takasaki Tsuki's face. Perhaps embarrassed at being treated like a child by her senior, Tsuki blushed slightly.

"What's the story with this piece of trash? Is he your brother? Biologically, I mean?"

Matsudaira Chiyo raised one of her long, black-stockinged legs, intending to nudge his blond head with her shoe. Whether out of disgust or some other concern, she ultimately didn't bring her foot down.

"Yes." Takasaki Tsuki lowered her head awkwardly.

"You two bastards aren't my sisters! You little bitches!" the blond punk shouted.

"This bastard isn't our brother! He's not even on our family register anymore. Two years ago, he broke into someone's home to steal and shoved the elderly person inside to the floor, seriously injuring them. Our family had to pay a fortune in compensation. Dad already cut ties with him."

Takasaki Anzu rushed over and spoke loudly, as though determined to disavow any connection. Then she muttered under her breath:

"Besides, we don't even have the same mother."

It sounded as though they were half siblings with a fairly complicated family history behind them. Still, it was their private business, so Uchiha Naruto couldn't say much.

"A disowned, unfilial son who takes advantage of his father's illness to bully and extort his two younger sisters while they keep the family business afloat. Even among the scum I've met, he ranks near the top."

Matsudaira Chiyo gave a bored yawn and shot the black-suited woman a look. The woman nodded and increased the pressure both with her hands and with the knee planted against the blond punk's back.

"Ow, ow, ow-!"

The blond punk cried out repeatedly in pain, but even the usually gentle Takasaki Tsuki showed no sympathy.

"Is she your bodyguard?"

The black-suited woman's practiced movements as she subdued the punk had caught Uchiha Naruto's attention. She had also been deft at doing Matsudaira Chiyo's makeup in the car earlier, so he'd assumed she was her maid.

"Yes. Standard equipment for a young lady from a wealthy family. A maid is standard equipment too, of course, and I'm no exception. I'll introduce you next time, Uchiha." As though she knew what he was thinking, Matsudaira Chiyo smiled sweetly at him.

Seeing them chat casually as if he didn't exist, the blond punk pinned to the floor slammed his one free hand against the ground. Then he raised that tattoo-covered arm and roared:

"Let me go! Do you know who I am? I'm with the Iijima Family! Take a look at this!"

A yakuza member? Uchiha Naruto couldn't help frowning.

In Japan, gangs were formally known as boryokudan, or yakuza, and their members were called boryokudan members. Like new religious movements, they were a major blight on society.

Takasaki Anzu and Takasaki Tsuki exchanged a glance, worry and fear appearing on both their faces.

"Scared now, huh? Then hurry up and let me go!" the blond punk shouted brazenly, looking smug.

"Huh? That's it?"

An amused expression appeared on Matsudaira Chiyo's face. She looked around, her gaze finally settling on the kitchen.

A kettle of freshly boiled water still stood on the stove. The gas had been turned off, but white steam continued puffing from its spout.

Matsudaira Chiyo went into the kitchen and lifted the kettle with some effort, then walked back with a decidedly malicious expression.

"Ah Xiu, hold him down!"

Stopping in front of the blond punk, Matsudaira Chiyo stepped on his hand. With a cruel smile, she poured the nearly boiling water onto the colorful tattoo covering his arm!

"Hiss-!"

"It burns! It burns! Help!"

The blond punk's arm turned bright red, like pigskin scalded with boiling water. The colorful tattoo dissolved too, washing away in a stream of black liquid.

"Just as I thought. A temporary tattoo. You're just some street punk. Why pretend to be yakuza?"

Matsudaira Chiyo looked unsurprised, her expression filled with satisfaction after inflicting the pain.

"A cheap little bluff, borrowing someone else's clout. Did you really think a two-bit thug like you could wear a fancy tattoo like that? If you really belonged to a boryokudan, your boss would chop off your little finger when he saw it."

Watching the blond punk wail and scream on the floor, Takasaki Tsuki grew uneasy and tried to dissuade her in a quiet voice:

"Matsudaira, isn't this going a little too far?"

Working in the kitchen, she knew very well how dangerous boiling water could be. One careless mistake could scald the skin and cause an infection.

"You're so gentle, Takasaki. You even feel sympathy for scum like this. Ah Xiu, take him to a clinic and have him... taken... care... of~"

Despite her words, there wasn't a trace of warmth in Matsudaira Chiyo's eyes as she drew out the phrase.

"Understood, miss!"

The black-suited woman nodded to show she understood Matsudaira's hint, then hauled the blond punk out of the restaurant like a dead dog.

"Thank you, Matsudaira. Without you, I wouldn't have known what to do."

"Not at all. Uchiha was here too. Even without me, he would've stepped in to help," Matsudaira Chiyo replied with dashing ease.

"He's already delayed my sashimi. I certainly don't want something like this ruining my appetite."

Matsudaira Chiyo returned to her seat and picked up a slice of cherry salmon sashimi, tasting it plain. She nodded slightly, then dipped another slice in wasabi sauce and put it in her mouth, a satisfied smile spreading across her face.

"It's delicious, Uchiha."

"Is that business settled now?"

The Takasaki sisters might not have caught Matsudaira Chiyo's meaning from the subtle change in her tone, but it hadn't escaped Uchiha Naruto.

"As long as Ah Xiu is a little rough with him, she'll scare the courage right out of that street punk. I've seen plenty of worthless cowards like him, barking loudly and putting on a tough front."

Matsudaira Chiyo leisurely enjoyed her sashimi.

"If he really were a boryokudan member, wouldn't that cause some trouble?"

"Tokyo isn't Mexico City. In a properly functioning society, the yakuza are merely weeds tolerated at the edge of the garden, not poppies allowed to flourish in the sunny, fertile courtyard," Matsudaira Chiyo said dismissively.

"This isn't the nineties before the bubble economy, or the chaotic decade or two after the war. To our country, the boryokudan are cham... trash cans. We bring them out when we need them, then find them an eyesore when we don't. This economic downturn has dragged on for far too long, and the country is growing less and less tolerant of them."

Nearly five minutes later, the black-suited woman returned to the izakaya. Uchiha Naruto's sharp eyes spotted a few flecks of blood on her trouser cuffs.

"I'll be leaving, then. I'll discuss the business plan for the Takasaki Izakaya with Takasaki another time."

After Matsudaira Chiyo left, Uchiha Naruto glanced at her plate. Most of the sashimi remained. She had eaten only the cherry salmon belly slices, the richest, fattiest, and most succulent pieces.

That woman really was picky about her food.

A week passed like that, and the blond punk never came back to harass them.

Uchiha Naruto attended classes during the day, studied in the library for two hours after school, then headed to the Takasaki Izakaya to work for another three or four hours. Now that he was mainly responsible for preparing sashimi, he had far fewer miscellaneous chores to handle.

At noon that day, Uchiha Naruto opened his lunchbox as usual and took a bite of each dish. A strange expression crossed his face.

Why was the food getting more and more mediocre?

On the first day he'd eaten the lunch Takasaki Tsuki gave him, only the grilled mackerel had stood out as unusual; everything else had been delicious. Since then, the tasty dishes had grown fewer and the ordinary ones more numerous. Today, every dish in the lunchbox tasted just as unremarkable as that first day's grilled mackerel.

Her cooking consistently remained excellent when he ate the staff meal in the evening. Why did she keep falling short with his lunchbox? Was this her indirect way of expressing dissatisfaction with him?

Just as many people watched videos while eating, Uchiha Naruto narrowed his eyes over his meal and surveyed the city as usual through the eyes he had scattered across Tokyo's skies.

Suddenly, Uchiha Naruto frowned.

He saw the Takasaki Family's blond-haired bastard, whom he hadn't seen in quite some time, hiding at a street corner with the young monk who had previously come to proselytize. They were pointing toward the izakaya.

How had those two scumbags ended up in cahoots?