On the evidence of my previous messages, one can guess I’m living all alone by myself, since I caused all nearby living forms to run away from me –in their shoes you would probably run away from me, screaming-. Well, I am sorry to inform you that I do have excellent friends, some of them I recently saw, ill-timed, round the corner of a street…
***
“Move your ass!”
Forgot to tell you that my friends are plain-speakers. I was going out of a coffee shop –yes I happen to idle a bit when I’m celebrating one-more-still-alive day- when they stopped the “intimate special” car (the one with smoked windows) next to my sidewalk.
Shinzu, Maro and I are close friends: we’re on first-name terms, nearly nickname, and sometimes, we smack each other. In their defense, their boss is usually sending them to “call me in”, invitation that I would always courteously decline. Speaking of, my latest courtesy is still spreading on Maro’s arch of eyebrow, swinging between the color of rotten meat and a peach yellow. Shinzu sticks his gun between my ribs and grabs me by the neck as I make enquiries about his health.
“Shut up and move!!”
He takes the driver’s seat while in the other seat, gun pointing at my head, Maro keeps me at bay. He’s telling me that “Gekkô-shachô” (company manager honorific title) wants to see me.
“You sure we cannot drop by a coffee before? We never have time to chitchat…”
I give them the buddy-buddy smile and end up with a slap behind my head and the order to shut my shit-hole. God, I love their humor even better than their trash-talking… Usually, they’re kind enough to let me decline three times before dragging me up to “Gekkô-shachô”.
If there is one person I must introduce, that’s him.
Gekkô Setsu is the head of Gekkô-AL, the biggest company of the fattiest and stodgiest industrial food in the whole country. Even if I love the conveniences of quickly cooked-gobbled-expelled junk food, I’ve never ever ate anything coming from his factories. Principles choice rather than a taste issue.
Sometimes, he requires my presence, in a very diplomatic way as you can notice –nonetheless, if he really was in the diplomatic area I would kindly send him to hell the same way as I actually do-. Setsu is the kind of guy a man can either envy or despise, and I picked the last. His outward appearance is of a deeply involved business-man, and also a filthy rich, influential, self-satisfied arrogant little schemer. Inwardly, one may smell a rat, and not belonging to the minor species but a big fatty.
“Gekkô-shachô, your guest is here.”
Carrying me up to the last floor wasn’t an easy job for the two watchdogs: proof is, when we are in Setsu’s office, each of them is holding firmly one of my arms and the mouth of the gun is lovingly squeezing between my vertebrae. Gekkô-shachô seems not to mind the lack of formal in my arriving: he’s used to, as I sometimes drop by smashing open the doors.
“Thank you, sirs. I think you can let him go.”
His crooked smile makes a dimple at the corner of his mouth. Setsu is around two heads taller than me, wrapped up in a white suit matching his hair. Right between the bangs and the collar, there’s a pair of yellow eyes that never blink and a smile that makes me want to rearrange its symmetry (buuuut master onmyôji, no violence… bla bla bla).
Shinzu and Maro dump me on the floor, turn around and walk away. I wink at them proposing to postpone our coffee, and failing for coffee Maro seems quite willing to shoot at me. Shinzu holds him back and they go out of the office with a nasty glance towards my direction.
Gekkô circles around his desk –which size would appear indecent to any megalomaniac manager- and looks at me trying to get up, without offering any help.
“If you keep on taunting them, you’ll be found one day with all your bones unstrung. Coffee? ”
I refuse the cup he’s handing to me and stare straight at him, remaining silent. I pride myself in having a glance full of meaning, deep enough to keep my mouth closed. At the moment, it means something like “lucky you that I practiced hours of zen meditation”.
“Nice to see you having a break.”
“Whatever you call having a break I call it abduction. That raises a vocabulary issue.”
He shrugs and sits down in his chair, crossing his legs and gazing upon Tokyo’s sunlight gaining ground, nearly thirty floors under him.
“I was referring to the coffee shop you’re hanging around each morning. Ten minutes, not a second more… consistency is one of your best qualities, Satoru-chan.”
I hate, I abhor, I loathe this obsequious sucker and his tv show outfit calling me Satoru-chan. Non-Japanese speaking here? Well, the act of giving some –chan to a master onmyôji is like patting him on the head, give him a lollypop and a balloon and tell him to go coloring-in somewhere else. I see you get the idea. I may turn a blind eye to the average joe struggling with the idea of giving me credit, but not to a kitsune openly jerking me around.
Did you notice that word? The one just before “openly jerking me…”? That is the big fat rat I was talking about before. Should bring a new light on the very own personal affection I display for Setsu Gekkô, shouldn’t it?
I suppose the word “kitsune” – or rather "kyûbi" may remind some of you to that orange stuff with a nasty case of teenage mutant acne, living in a mass market success manga which name I shall hold back (Do I really need to name it?). If anything, a kitsune/kyûbi is more of an illusionist. Look at him, pretending to be perfectly human is his favorite hobby. That and creating the most havoc it can within the less amount of time it requires... Optimum chaos, sort of.
If the word “kitsune” is not ringing any bell to you: a kitsune is a fox-spirit, mind-games buff, metamorphosis enthusiast and sometimes human meat gourmet. Depends on which way the wind blows.
“Are you tailing me now? I wouldn’t like to be in your minders’ shoes, because my days may seem very long to them.”
He and I have the displeasure of knowing each other since a long time, even before he reached the position I’m doing my best to make him fall from. That’s my way to remind him that humans do not exist for his exclusive service. Quietly, I come closer and slam the palm of my hands on the desk, shaking it a little.
“Open the door. I don’t have time to play with you.”
He keeps on staring at me, still smiling, and quietly puts back his coffee cup. A second before he lets go of it, the cup blows up and coffee spreads, staining his sleeve –looking by the small scowl altering his smile, I bet that coffee was burning hot-.
“As a rule in that situation, a true human would have sworn like a trooper, Gekkô.”
“And he would have thrown you out by the bay window. I know.”
Looking nearly sad, he looks at the stain on his sleeve.
“How childish, Satoru-chan. So unworthy of you. I feel you are in a poor form lately… maybe because of what happened at the courthouse?” (He’s probably alluding to my wonderful 19 of July).
He slowly crosses his fingers, giving me a better glimpse of his fine clawed hands.
“As a rule in that situation, a true human would have told me to screw myself, wouldn’t he?” he adds, slightly amused. He’s staring at me straight and I must gather all my composure to keep a poker face.
As if all my offenses still had any effect on this tie-guy, as if I wanted to loose my time cursing him. That’s a game you can’t win with a kitsune: if he manages to mentally abuse you, then you’re running a risk of being eaten.
I turn back and walk toward the door, on which a beautiful yôkai seal hangs proudly. Extending his neck, Gekkô watches me with interest while I join my hands together, forefingers up to the sky, and starts reciting a fed-up sounding destruction mantra which cracks the wood from top to bottom.
A step to the side and the door collapses at my feet, neatly cut in two parts.
“Say hello from me to your board of directors,” I drop while going out.
Lately, I prevented him from using his factories workmen as part of fast food raw material, without any further consequence from the Prime Minister than a single eyebrow raising and the factory manager’s internment as ideal fall guy. The only consequence for Gekkô was a “ministries’ notification” –understand: a meeting in the diet palace with a request for being at least more discreet and not to beat the crap out of the onmyôji sent to tear a strip off him.
When you have the yearly record of hired people –even if you also own the same record in work-related accidents- you’re more likely to end up with your fingers whacked with a ruler rather than ending in the slammer.
And I have in mind that was the reason he called for me this morning. Better saying that his projects were absolutely spectacularly ruined because of me. Needless to add that both his stockholders and his yôkai little friends might have a lot of rusty nail incrusted bats and galleons of scalding hot oil fantasies involving my inestimable person.
As I’m almost to the elevator, a pair of clawed hands pinions my hands to the metallic wall, framing my head. Never turn your back to the unhappy kyûbi. One may live longer by doing so. Slowly, one of his hands slides from my wrist to my cheek.
“Scratch the slightest inch of me and you’ll eat your next employees with a straw.”
“Interesting threats you can’t execute…”
Cocking a bit my head to the side, I give him one of my “don’t try to screw me please” smiles.
“Don’t be mistaken, Gekkô. The only difference between a minor yôkai and a kitsune is the range you need to kick its ass.”
His smile unhide sharp white teeth, slightly but enough to stay discreet… he’s struggling to keep his human look.
“Be careful.”
I pinch his lips with two fingers.
“Don’t try to terrify me like you do with your subordinates. They might call for an exorcist… Wait, there’s something more. If I come upon one of your minders tailing me somewhat too much closer, I’ll send him back to you in more than one parcel.”
I know how to adapt myself to the person who’s speaking with me. As I rush into the elevator, I wave a good-bye to an arms-crossed, still smiling Gekkô.
Status quo, same between us since more than ten years. But I can see he still finds it funny. Lucky him, that’s not mutual.
***
There’s an epilog to this nice interview.
Two days later I received a letter, here are the best parts:
“Further to your extremely poor behavior lately… insulting company head… material damages for which we do not wish to pay for… offended employees… scandalous… spiritual elite… must set an example…”
Well, you have surely understood that the Minister wants to see me. Noticeably, although I am not the best of diplomats, he may not want me to bring him croissants with his coffee.
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Source of image : http://www.flickr.com/photos/deapeajay/3046121538/
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