Tokyo: Rabbit Police and Her Evil Partner

Chapter 346 What a Man Should Do

Watanabe Shun was lying on the ground. Everything around him gradually slowed down, and the sounds became elongated. He felt his consciousness drifting away, and the marquee of life flashed before his eyes one by one.

All the memories that had been forgotten came flooding back, from the first time he went to kindergarten to the time his father died of tuberculosis, followed by six years of self-abasement in elementary school, three years of ignorance in junior high school, and three years of rebellious high school. After graduation, he joined a violent gang on the street and hung out with a bunch of bad friends every day...

His mother Hezi often persuaded him to be more restrained and find a proper job, but he always made excuses and refused, saying that he would find a job after a while, but in fact he didn't take it seriously at all.

"The economy has been bad in the past two years. It's not easy to find a job..."

"I know, I know, stop nagging me! It's so annoying! I'll go for the interview tomorrow, is that ok?"

"...Ah, something happened yesterday... It was really important. My brother got beaten up, so how could I not go and help..."

……

Hezi persuaded him day after day, but he refused day after day.

To be honest, he didn't have much daily expenses. He usually ate and lived at home. Apart from that, he had never asked his mother for money.

When he ran out of cigarettes, he would ask his friends for cigarettes; when he ran out of wine, he would ask his brothers for wine; occasionally he would help his brothers in fights. He lived a carefree life like this, and he didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

At first, he felt that he had seen through life. Life was like this. As long as you were content, you would be happy. Why bother working so hard? In the end, you wouldn't be able to save much money. It would be better to enjoy yourself first...

Until one day, Hezi also fell ill.

When the grocery store owner came to inform him, he was still squatting on the roadside picking up cigarette butts with his friend.

The doctor said it was lung cancer, in the late stage. Without treatment, I would only have three to six months to live, but with treatment I would probably live two years.

This disease is actually quite common. At that time, corporate regulations were imperfect and the working environment in handicraft workshops was quite poor, especially for textile workers. Even without masks and ventilation and dust removal equipment, they were exposed to asbestos for a long time. The SMR of lung cancer was 4.17, and female textile workers had a clear tendency to die from lung cancer.

Hezi was a textile worker who often coughed, an old problem. He never took it seriously, but he never thought that his mother would get cancer and cough up blood until she fell into a coma.

Hezi didn't want to waste money because he was going to die anyway. When he rushed to the hospital, Hezi was already going through the discharge procedures.

He was very unwilling, angry and upset, and kept persuading his mother to receive treatment.

Hezi did not refute, but walked home in silence, coughing from time to time, until he was on the futon, and then he asked calmly:

“Who will pay for the medical expenses?”

His first reaction was that his mother had savings, which should be used to treat the disease. But Hezi insisted that she did not have any, and her salary could only barely cover daily expenses, without a penny left.

"After I die, you have to find a way to live on your own," said Hezi.

He refused to accept his fate and told Hezi not to say such things. The shadow of his father's death had always been lingering in his heart, covering his childhood and youth. Now his mother was also leaving him, how could he easily compromise?
"Just wait! I will collect the medical expenses! Then you can go to the hospital for treatment without any worries about the money!"

He left home in a panic after making such bold statements.

But how could a small-time gangster who didn't have a proper job make a lot of money through legitimate means?

He first went to borrow money from his former friends. His brothers all sympathized with his situation and none of them were disloyal at the critical moment. They emptied their pockets and stuffed a bunch of small banknotes and coins into his pockets.

He counted them and found that there was only 2100 yen in total.

The cost of a chemotherapy session ranges from 10 to 50 yen. If you use ordinary chemotherapy drugs in a public hospital, the cost will be at least 4 yen, excluding the amount reimbursed by health insurance.

There's no way. Those bad friends are all poor guys and rich people won't hang out with them.

He had no choice but to go to the gang leader and ask if he could borrow some money. The leader said yes, but the prerequisite was that he had to work. There were plenty of jobs to make quick money, it just depended on whether he was willing to do it.

For example, if he goes to the city to distribute cocaine, he can get a commission of 3000 yen for each order. As long as he brings a pound of cocaine, he can do about orders. If he is not caught, he can earn yen a week.

He thought about it and didn't agree.

The boss thought he was not cut out for selling things, so he introduced him to other jobs, such as being a professional thug, cutting off people's hands and feet, and even killing them; or being a debt collector, throwing paint at the doorsteps of debtors, throwing dead animals, and harassing debtors...

In short, as long as he is willing to work, there are still many opportunities to make money.

After much hesitation, he decided to become a debt collector. It was natural to pay back debts, and he felt that he was not doing anything bad, so he was not afraid of the gossip of neighbors.

He started working that night. The boss assigned him a business, asking him to collect debts in the countryside. No matter how much interest he collected, it would all belong to him. The boss only wanted the principal, just as if he was taking care of the newcomer.

He set out at night, taking a good brother with him, and walked to the debtor's home. The latter lived in a small wooden house in the suburbs, with deserted fields and no one cultivating them. Before he knocked on the door, he heard bursts of heart-wrenching coughs coming from the house.

"Debt collection! Debt collection!"

The brother yelled and kicked the door open. There were only two people in the house, a girl of the same age as him and a middle-aged man who was sick in bed. The girl knelt on the ground and begged bitterly, saying that she had to borrow money at high interest rates to treat her father's illness, and begged them to give her some time.

The brother nudged him with his arm, signaling him to say something - for example, asking young girls to sell their bodies, or asking middle-aged men to sell blood or organs... In short, the principal and interest must be recovered.

He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, but no words came out.

"You can't do this!" the brother advised: "I thought you were a real man, but don't be a coward!"

He clenched his fists, grabbed his brother's clothes, and questioned him: "Can you still be called a man if you bully such a poor person?!"

"It's not important, is it? What's important is that you shoulder your responsibilities! As a man, you should protect your family at all costs, right? If you don't even have the awareness to do bad things, then you should go back."

The brother was very open-minded. After he finished speaking, he patted him on the shoulder and added: "If it really doesn't work, I'll help you this time, but you'll have to rely on yourself next time."

He couldn't refute and left in shame.

The next day, his brother gave him 50,000 yen, saying it was interest from debt collection, and asked him to use it to treat his mother's illness.

He didn't dare ask where the money came from, nor did he dare ask how his brother recovered the debt.

He didn't want to accept it, but he had to.

Hezi asked him where the money came from, but he couldn't answer. He could only lower his head and impatiently urge his mother to go to the hospital.

Hezi was determined to get to the bottom of the matter. He became angry and had a big fight with his mother and forced her to go to the hospital.

The treatment process was painful, and the monitoring in the ward was exhausting. After two or three days, the hospital bills had to be paid again, so he could only ask his brother to help take care of his mother while he went out to earn money.

It was not until he really needed money that he realized how difficult it was to make money.

People cannot live without money.

He didn't want to go after the desperate people to collect debts, so he asked the boss to assign him some tough guys. The boss advised him not to be impulsive, and that he had assigned him a soft target because he was a newcomer. If he really went after those deadbeats, he was afraid that he would not be able to beat those tough guys.

"We have to play even if we can't win," he said stiffly.

Seeing that he had made up his mind, the boss didn't try to persuade him any more. He gave him an address and reminded him that it would be better to bring a few more people.

He didn't want to implicate his friend, so he got hot-headed and went home, got a kitchen knife, and went alone to collect the debt.

The debtor was the owner of a fish farm, who borrowed money at high interest rates to run the fish farm, and had more than 30 fishermen under him. As soon as he entered the shop and explained his intention, the fishmongers on both sides of the pawnshop picked up their fish-killing knives, surrounded him, and told him to get out.

He really wanted to do as in the TV dramas, using a kitchen knife to chop people from one end of the street to the other, and after knocking everyone down, he would slowly light a cigarette and step on the boss's head to make him pay back.

However, when the fishmonger put the knife to his neck, he thought of his mother who was still lying in the hospital bed and could only leave in shame.

You can't beat the tough guys, you can't bear to bully the weak, and you don't have the courage to do bad things, so just do some hard labor!
He went to the dock to unload goods, to the construction site to move bricks, to the restaurant to wash dishes, and finally borrowed some money from his friends, and only then was he able to raise enough money for the hospitalization.

After paying the money, he did not dare go back to the hospital to see his mother. Instead, he sat on the steps at the hospital gate, picked up a cigarette butt, and smoked in a daze.

If only he could start working sooner.

Try to save some money so that you don’t have no money to treat your illness now.

The boss of the dock workers is a good man. When a formal employee wanted to get married, the boss gave him a generous gift. The construction site contractor is also a good man. When a formal employee broke his leg, the boss paid the medical expenses in full and personally visited the employee in the hospital. The restaurant owner is also a good man. When a formal employee had a funeral in his family, the boss allowed the employee to take paid leave... Even the colleagues are good people. If something happens to someone, everyone will raise funds together, encourage each other, and encourage each other to stand up and work hard to support a family.

But he was just a temporary worker.

And he is a well-known gangster on the street.

It was good enough that the bosses didn't deduct his salary, how could they give him subsidies? He didn't have much of a relationship with his colleagues, and even if he died outside, his colleagues wouldn't care.

He finally realized that he had been avoiding responsibility for the first half of his life. Now he had nowhere to retreat, but he found that his shoulders were simply unable to bear such a heavy burden.

Forget it.

give up.

Anyway, my mom doesn’t want to be treated anymore.

Rather than struggling painfully with chemotherapy for two years, it is better to be relieved early.

What he said was "I have to find a way to live on my own in the future". If he was alone, surely he could feed the whole family? He wouldn't have to worry about such things at all... He thought about it and decided to die at the age of 40, so that he would not be tortured by illness and would be free from worry.

It was at this time that he met Takusai Kazama.

Hezi wrote a letter to Kazama Terugo, asking for help from Kazama Terugo, whom she had never met, to bring her son, who had gone astray, back on the right track - Hezi was not afraid of death, she was only afraid that after her death, her son would not be able to live alone.

Kazama Terugo is Kazama Takusai's father. He was a classmate of his father in his early years. The two trained in the same police academy and are said to be close friends.

My father once told Hezi that if one day he was gone and the family encountered any difficulties, she should send a letter to the Kazama family and Kazama Terugo would definitely help.

However, when Hezi's letter arrived at Kazama's home, Kazama Terugo had already passed away many years ago.
After receiving the letter, Takusai Kazama read it and personally asked his mother to confirm that his father really had such a good friend. He then took a long vacation and took a car to find Watanabe's house. He went all the way to the hospital, met with Koko, listened to her request, and promised to help. When he went downstairs to leave, he happened to meet him sitting on the steps smoking.

"Are you Watanabe Shun?"

"Go away."

He was very annoyed at the time and ignored Takusai Kazama.

Unexpectedly, Kazama Takusai showed his police ID and asked him if he had participated in any illegal activities recently. He panicked, thinking that the police had caught his brother collecting debts, and shook his head like a rattle.

Takusa Kazama didn't ask any more questions and turned and left.

He breathed a sigh of relief, not knowing what was going to happen next.

Takusa Kazama contacted the local police station and asked for cooperation in the investigation. He took people to investigate the local violent gangs and find out what they had done recently.

Before he could react, his former brothers, friends and the boss were all arrested and taken to the police station. Everyone called him and begged him to help with bail, but he couldn't raise the bail money. Only when the boss asked his family to pay for it, he was barely released on bail. The next day, he was working in a grocery store, and the boss sent someone to call him to dinner, saying that he had something important to discuss with him. He was happy to get a free meal and went there happily.

He originally thought that the boss would let him tell a few jokes to amuse him, or let him stand aside to support the occasion, but he didn't expect that this time the boss would let him sit at the main table, personally pour him wine, and keep pouring out his grievances to him:

"The new detective from the search department doesn't follow the rules. He arrests people without any evidence, making life difficult for everyone..."

"You know that, right? Ueda is probably going to be sentenced to ten years in prison... And Koji, didn't he help you collect debts some time ago? He was also arrested..."

"Why? How would I know? That criminal police officer arrested people without explanation, tortured them in the interrogation room, and forced them to confess. Isn't that a corrupt police officer?"

……

He knew in his heart that the boss and his friends had indeed done bad things, and although the criminal police enforced the law violently, the arrest was not unjust.

But the boss usually took good care of him, and his brothers also had a close relationship with him. Although they didn't have much money in their pockets, they were willing to raise money for his medical expenses. He always remembered this kindness in his heart. Now, after hearing the boss complain a few words, he slammed the table and cursed the criminal policeman to death.

"In that case, then go and kill him."

The boss pulled a pistol from his pocket and placed it on the table.

He was stunned, and his hand holding the wine glass froze in mid-air.

The eldest brother continued to persuade him, claiming that everything had been arranged, that someone would take care of his mother afterwards, and that she would definitely be sent to the best private hospital for treatment. He would not be sentenced to death, and if he was lucky, he would be able to be released on bail after serving a few years in prison.

Judging from the verdicts, the average number of criminals sentenced to death in the first instance in Japan is less than 8 per year. Since the Supreme Court of Japan announced the death penalty sentencing standards ("Nagayama Standards") in 1983, the court will consider many factors when sentencing to death, such as the nature of the crime, motive, form, result, family feelings of the victim, social influence, age of the criminal, whether or not there is a criminal record, and behavior after the crime.

For a first-time offender like him, he would not be sentenced to death even if he killed a police officer.

As long as the detective from the investigation department is killed, the boss will be able to control this neighborhood securely. No one in the black and white worlds will dare to mess with him in the future, and the brothers' lives will be much better.

"You're just wasting your time out there anyway, why not go in and make some more friends..."

"I won't treat you badly after you get out. You will be a club leader then..."

"Even if you don't think about yourself, you should always think about your mother..."

……

After the boss's persuasion, he was drunk and took the gun for some unknown reason.

That night, after returning home, he sat there all night, unable to fall asleep. He stared at the pistol, feeling extremely confused.

Maybe what Yukiji said was right. He was a man and couldn't be a coward. He had no choice but to kill someone for his mother.

The next morning, before dawn, he went out wearing a mask.

There were few pedestrians outside the police station. He squatted next to a telephone pole, guarding the intersection, and waited for two hours, finally waiting for Takusa Kazama to get off work.

He reached into his pocket, gripped the handle of the gun, hesitated, and was reluctant to draw his gun. He followed Takuya Kazama for about ten minutes until Takuya Kazama stopped in a dead end.

"If you don't go to work, what are you going to do with me?" asked Takusai Kazama.

He didn't have time to think about it, and he pulled out his gun and pointed it at Kazama Takusai. The latter turned around and asked him what he was doing. He trembled and said, "Don't blame me... You did too much... Someone wants to buy your life... My mother has cancer, and I can't do anything about it..."

He seemed to be explaining, or justifying himself.

"Isn't that right? You're just escaping," said Kazama Takusai. "You don't want to work hard anymore, you don't want to sit by your mother's bed and take care of her, you don't want to bear the sky-high medical bills, you just want to evade your responsibilities this way... You'd rather go to jail than support your mother, are you still a man?"

He remembered it clearly, every word, and every scene was engraved in his bones.

Next, he got angry and pulled the trigger.

Gunshots were fired.

Takusa Kazama staggered and fell to the ground, with blood all over his chest.

His mind went blank, his hands trembled, and the gun fell to the ground. He didn't dare to pick it up, so he turned around and ran all the way home, huddled under the quilt, waiting for the police to come and arrest him.

No, I have to leave a letter for my mother...

He lay on the ball of cloth, his right hand trembling, holding the tip of the pen, but not knowing what to write.

His mother must be very disappointed in him, right?

If his father were still alive in heaven, he would also scold him, right?

He wanted to comfort himself by saying that he did all this for his mother's medical expenses; but he knew in his heart that the criminal police was right and he had just been running away all along.

Even the thought of committing suicide at the age of sixty seemed particularly cowardly at this moment.

He waited and waited, but no police came; he began to have wild thoughts, thinking that maybe the police didn't realize he had committed the murder, or maybe the police hadn't found the body yet; when night came, he was so sleepy that he fell into a daze and dreamed that his father was pointing at his nose and cursing at him. When he woke up, he found that his pillow was wet with his tears.

The next morning, he went out to find the boss, only to learn that the boss had been arrested on charges of assaulting a police officer with a gun, and the police station refused visits or bail.

Only then did he realize that Kazama Takusai was not dead.

The bullet hit Takusa Kazama's shoulder but did not injure his internal organs. Afterwards, Takusa Kazama wiped off the fingerprints on the pistol and identified the boss, who was thrown into prison.

When he learned about this, he was very puzzled and confused about the future.

The eldest son who took the best care of him is also in jail. How should he pay for his mother’s medical expenses?
Thinking of this, he inexplicably felt some resentment towards Takusa Kazama.

He gritted his teeth and went to the hospital to question Takusai Kazama, only to learn that his mother had sent a letter to the Kazama family. He was shocked and couldn't understand why Takusai Kazama would come all the way to do such a thing just for a letter.

Takusa Kazama was lying on the hospital bed, peeling an apple for himself: "Although I have never met your father, I believe he must trust my father very much. Even if my father is gone, he might still believe that I will help, so I came here, there is no other reason."

"It's inexplicable, meaningless, totally incomprehensible! You caused my boss to go to jail, who can I rely on in the future?"

"Of course it's you. You're a man, why do you always think of relying on others?" Fengjian Takusai paused, raised his head and looked at him: "If you have to rely on someone, then rely on me... Since I promised your mother, I won't give up halfway."

"You bastard! Will you pay for my mother's medical expenses?"

He grabbed Takusa Kazama by the collar, trying to force him to release the boss, but ended up getting slapped in the face, making him see stars.

Until now, he still remembers how painful that slap was.

"Find a way to make money yourself," said Fengjian Takusai, "I've already given you a chance, don't let me look down on you."

He covered his face, feeling both unwilling and unconvinced, and wanted to fight back. However, when he saw the wound on Takusa Kazama's shoulder, he fell silent again, thinking that he deserved the slap.

He always deserved it.

After he left the hospital, he was completely broken down, the burden on his shoulders crushed him. His self-esteem was shattered, and he couldn't get up. He locked himself in his house and thought about committing suicide several times.

After Takusa Kazama was discharged from the hospital, he was dragged out of the house by force and forced to work. He shouted loudly to protest, but was beaten by Takusa Kazama. Only then did he behave himself and had to continue to do hard labor.

Takusai Kazama no longer continued to collaborate on the case, but worked with him.

The two of them went to the dock to unload goods, moved bricks at the construction site, and washed dishes at the restaurant. His life was still very hard. If he relaxed for a moment, he would be slapped by Fengjian Takusai. He complained, hated, and thought about running away, but thinking of his mother on the sick bed, he gritted his teeth and continued to persevere.

However, half a year later, the miracle did not happen and Hezi still died.

He had no money for a funeral, so the government paid for the cremation. He took his mother's urn and took the tram home, where he placed it on the altar, next to his father's.

Fengjian Takusai came to pay his respects and lit a stick of incense.

The two of them knelt in front of the spirit tablet. He did not shed tears, but felt deeply tired: "What is the meaning of all this I have done?"

Takusa Kazama took out a suicide note and a passbook.

After he took it, he unfolded it casually and saw familiar handwriting on it.

"Ah Jun, it's nice to see you."

"Mom is not very literate, so this letter was written by Mr. Kazama. He is a trustworthy person and a benefactor of the Watanabe family. You must repay him well in the future."

"There's not much to say, but there are a few points you need to remember: there are a few jars of wine buried in the fields of my hometown, open them and drink them when you get married; don't forget to dry the quilts at home, they must have a lot of mites; don't shout when talking to people, and be polite when you go out; don't spend the money in your passbook carelessly, find a good girl in the future, and only with savings can you live a stable life; don't say you don't want to get married, a person alone is a wanderer, only when two people are together can you have roots, and it's better to have each other to rely on and depend on..."

"Finally, Mom is proud of you"

"Don't feel guilty about your mom's death"

"You have done your best. You are a man of your own standing."

……

His face was filled with tears, his nose felt sore, and the words on the letter paper were smudged.

……

Watanabe Shun was lying on the ground, and the voice of Kazama Takusai floated into his ears:
"You still have a long life ahead of you, and there may be even more painful things waiting for you in the future."

“It’s no big deal to suffer behind the scenes. There are still many people who silently endure the difficulties in front of others, the pressure of money, the ups and downs of life… In the future, there will be continuous burdens on your shoulders, and you can only endure it, work hard to stand up, and never fall down.”

"You ask what the point is. I can tell you clearly that there is no point."

"It's just what men do."

……

Watanabe Shun coughed up a mouthful of blood and heard the arbitrators counting down. He didn't know which number the arbitrators were counting, he only knew that he had to stand up.

Even if you fall down, you must try your best to get up.

His pupils began to dilate, adrenaline surged in his body, the pain gradually subsided, and his heart pounded to pump blood.

The onlookers were silent. Everyone was looking at him, watching him stagger to his feet, grab the arbitrator's shoulders, and say incoherently:

"continue."

(End of this chapter)