I had a message from En ar Ciel a while back asking if I was going to write Gokusen again, and I replied that I probably would and it would likely be around the next time I reread the manga. Well I downloaded ALL of the translated manga and have been frightening people by laughing out loud while reading it in public. My passionate obsessive urges to see Shin all Yakuza-ed up inspired this.
Shin had never liked his house very much. His flat, where he lived from sixteen was all right, but the Sawada residence seemed more like a custody suite than a home. Maybe he only looked back bitterly, or maybe he'd never really felt comfortable there. He didn't exactly grow up the most well-balanced of kids, constantly outshone by Akira and fighting with his father at every turn. If he couldn't be the honour student, at least he'd get attention for being bad, right? Perhaps he'd just been acting out when he was younger, but then the rift became real, and he was only ever happy when he left.
It was suffocating inside, like no air ever got in or out. Sealed in with locks and alarms and guarded by policemen. His mother tiptoeing around like the floors were made of eggshell, going along with her husband's wishes and never arguing back. Shin felt like she had abandoned him, saying nothing and siding with his father. Even when he was wrong, especially then. Akira didn't do anything either; he had the passive streak too, he just watched Shin fight and did what he was meant to do – until he realised he couldn't take it any more and left.
Shin stood at the gates and glared at them. They didn't glare back. He hadn't been back here in a good few years. Not since he graduated from uni, he guessed – they were proud of him for that, at least. For one day his mother and father could stand on either side of him and boast that their son had graduated from a top university with the highest marks. Of course, he went and joined the Kuroda Kumi the next day, so the moment was very short lived.
That was almost two years ago now, and although not a qualified lawyer, he knew the law well enough to serve as Shinohara's replacement; secretly he hoped to be better, but he was still learning. He still studied, but refused to do any further training; there was no point in gaining his license if he never intended to be a legitimate tradesman, he argued, and there nothing Ryuuichiro or Yankumi could say to change that.
He had to come back sooner or later – he'd known that. He had something important to do, and to hell if he was going to take the coward's way and deliver the news indirectly. So he breathed deeply and pressed the buzzer. There was a camera, so they must have known who it was because the gates opened without a word.
His father was standing at the door, across the door, by the time he was down the path.
"Well," he said coldly. "Look what the cat dragged in."
"Evening," he replied shortly, striding up to his father and looking him straight in the eye. "Gonna let me in, or should I just stay outside with the rest of the dogs?" He held the stare for a moment, and then his father stepped back.
"Your mother will want to see you," he said bitterly. "Though I can't imagine why." The moment he stepped in, Shin felt the room closing in on him; it was like the air never changed, just got staler and older as the years passed. Trapped in his father's perfect view of how things could be, not permitted to change, when really it just grew more and more decrepit.
He walked to the sofa and slumped into it, reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a box of cigarettes.
"You don't mind if I smoke, do you," he muttered, not asking the question but voicing a taunt, and tapped one out, jabbing it into the corner of his mouth and lighting it.
"Dirty habit," his father judged, and Shin smirked. He didn't even smoke that much, he just wanted to push – at least it might cloud out the air a little. He breathed deeply and blew a cloud up towards the ceiling.
"I've got worse ones," Shin retorted, pulling again. He heard footsteps, and then his mother appeared at the doorway.
"Oh, Shin," she said quietly. "What a surprise."
"Yeah," he muttered. "Thought I'd pay a visit." Wordlessly, she moved into the room and took a seat, glancing at her husband a few times to gauge the situation.
"What's this about?" his father demanded crossly. "Or did you just come to pollute the air?" Shin thought it was perfectly noxious without his help at all.
"No, I'm here for a reason," he answered stonily. "I have some news to break."
"If it's about falling in with that Yakuza family," his father spat, "I wouldn't bother. We know more than enough about your stupid decision." Shin pulled on his smoke again, stretching out an arm and flicking the ash off into a potted plant – that anything could grow in here seemed impossible. He nearly snorted at his father's suggestion; if that was what he'd wanted to say, he could have come up with much more entertaining ways. He could have worn a sleeveless shirt and let them see the tattoos laced along his shoulders, all the way down his back.
"Funny. My stupid decision seems to be the best one I ever made," he remarked obnoxiously, and stubbed out his cigarette in the plant. "No, I'm here to tell you something else."
"Then spit it out," his father growled. "We don't tolerate scum and criminals in this household."
"Ouch," he retorted uncaringly, and then glanced at his mother – she was the reason he came mostly, although Yankumi's insistence didn't really give him many other options. "Well, I just thought I should let you know," he said frostily, "I'm getting married."
To his delight, they both looked shocked – this was not what they expected. That was what he'd wanted out of them, disbelief, something to shake them out of their hazed-over world for just a moment, to actually get a reaction.
"Shin? Really?" his mother asked, and he grinned.
"It's official," he gloated, and it was something worth gloating about. He'd asked the woman he loved most in the world to marry him and she'd said yes. He was over the fucking moon.
"To who?" she asked next, but then her husband shot her a fierce look.
"I know," he glowered. "That woman, right? The Kuroda boss's grandaughter."
"I just call her Kumiko," Shin replied smugly.
"But wait, wasn't that the woman... didn't she used to be-"
"My teacher, yes," he answered succinctly. "That too." He hadn't looked forwards to coming here, but now he couldn't deny enjoying it a little, basking in their scandal. An older woman, a gangster, a former teacher – all of the things they looked down on so much, each one just another reason he loved her like no other.
"If you're trying to get a rise, it stopped working a long time ago," his father snapped, and now Shin laughed.
"A rise?" he scoffed. "You think I'm making it up? I bought a ring and everything. I got down on one knee. As of next year, you're going to have a daughter-in-law, and because she's a much better person than either of you will ever be, she insisted that I tell you because of a misguided belief you have the right to know!"
Either his temper or the heating was making him warm, so he shed his coat, knowing that they would probably spot the fingers of ink running out from underneath his collar, stretching up the side of his neck. Another thing he'd been advised against doing – tattooing so extensively, higher than even collars reached, but again he had no intention of carrying out gainful employment, and he liked the way it looked so that was exactly what happened. The Kuroda family weren't the only ones entitled to being stubborn.
"So what does that mean?" his father said stiffly.
"It means I'm getting married," he replied obviously.
"To a boss's grandaughter," his father retorted. "What does that make you?"
"It doesn't make me anything... yet," he told him, but between them they knew what the implication was. The Kuroda family tradition was still much-prized, and the exception of Yankumi's docile mother had been completely countered by her daughter's fierce character.
There was no way that Shin would ever run the Kumi alone as the 4th generation boss. He might be the acting or day-to-day head, but Yankumi was always going to be there too. Shirokin had gone from accepting her to fiercely defending her as their greatest asset, and Yakuza-wife and boss or not, they would still have her as a teacher. He didn't think he could do it without her anyway.
He sprawled back in his seat and looked every inch the Yakuza. His hair shocking red and pushed back, brightly patterned shirt and tattoos just visible. Your son is a Yakuza, he thought, and wondered what they made of it. It wasn't like a kid falling in with a gang, or starting out at the bottom with some minor group. He was accepted, he was known. He was the Yondaime of the Kuroda Kumi, he'd been to court for them, he fought with them. Unless his father took an early retirement, there would be a good few years when they were on opposite sides of the law.
"Anyway," he added bluntly. "That's all I came to say. I expect she'll insist we send you an invitation to the wedding, but I don't expect to see you there." He grabbed his jacket and stood up. "Tell Akira I said hi if you see him." He'd see himself out, but as he turned to walk away he heard his mother speak.
"Shin, wait," she said quietly, and he paused, back still to them. "Do you love her?" He looked over his shoulder.
"Yes, of course," he answered without a shadow of doubt or hesitation. It seemed like such an underwhelming way to answer the question, yes just wasn't enough. He loved her past reason or rationality. He adored her. But he just carried on walking away, shouldering out of the door and hoping it was the last time he'd ever have to leave this house.
Past the gates he saw her leaning against a lamp post, bundled up in a leather jacket.
"How did it go?" she asked, and he shrugged. Reaching out for her, he clutched an elbow and tugged Yankumi into a hug, pressing a kiss against her forehead, then temple. She turned up her face and they kissed properly, but pulled away after he opened his mouth and brushed tongues with her.
"You've been smoking," she asserted distastefully, and he grinned.
"Only one," he answered, slipping his arm around her underneath her jacket, pressing her slim waist against his.
"You don't smoke," she declared. He did when he was out with Kyo or Tetsuo and Minoru, but she didn't know about that.
"I do when it pisses them off," he replied smugly.
"You're too disrespectful," she judged half-heartedly. "Are they coming?" She lay her hand against his chest, fully-splayed, where a ring enclosed her finger.
"Of course not," he said frostily. "They wouldn't even come to my funeral." Yankumi didn't argue, although he knew she disagreed with him. They'd had enough arguments over his parents to not want any more, and instead she just hugged him tighter.
As he'd predicted, even Ryuuichiro was insistent upon his parents getting an invitation to the wedding – inviting a chief police officer to a Yakuza wedding was slightly unconventional and more than a little controversial, but Shin assured them that it wouldn't be an issue anyway, as his father wouldn't come.
What he hadn't expected, however, was that his mother would. She'd spent so long hiding in her husband's shadow that he didn't believe her capable of independent action anymore, yet there she was. He found a moment away from the ordered chaos that was the Kuroda family trying to organise anything but crime, and cornered her.
"What are you doing here? What does he think about this?" he demanded, but his mother only looked up at him and smiled.
"You look good, Shin," she said fondly.
"Didn't he forbid you?" he said crossly, not sure whether he was angry because he'd been wrong, or that she might provoke his father's temper on his account.
"I couldn't miss it," she answered obliviously, raising a hand and squeezing his arm. "He's not going to come and get me, so there's nothing he can do at this point."
"Why?" Shin scowled. Why bother, he thought, why stand up now, five, possibly ten years after it would do any good.
"It's your wedding day," she replied simply. "I wanted to be here." She looked around the room uncertainly, not missing all the suspicious stares as to why a Katagi was at a Yakuza wedding.
"But, I don't get it," he argued. "If you care, why didn't you ever-"
"Shin, you never needed me to do anything for you," she interjected. "Not then, not now. You're better at fighting him than I've ever been. It was your courage that gave me mine to come today." He had a suspicion she might be right.
"Kumiko will be thrilled you're here," he offered dully, checking a clock on the wall. They didn't have much more time.
"Yes, I'd love to meet her," his mother replied, and noticed his wandering gaze. "I must be holding you up. Take care," she said, and then completely unbidden pulled him into a hug. "Always remember, I'm glad you're happy, no matter what," she said unassumingly, and then for a moment Shin hugged her back, let himself remember that she was his mother and he did love her.
"Come and sit at the front," he said resolutely, taking her by hand and leading her up to the front row. "You don't deserve to sit at the back."
"Shin, I couldn't-" she protested, but he went right ahead and lead her up to Ryuuichiro, who looked up quizzically, still as strong in spirit as he ever was, if slightly frailer in body. "This is my mother," Shin introduced, and realisation quickly ignited in Ryuuichiro's eyes, "please take care of her."
"Sawada-san," he greeted politely, and gestured Wakamatsu to shift up a seat and make space for her. "It is an honour."
"No, really I just... I'm only..." she mumbled uncomfortably, and Shin put a heavy hand on her shoulder and pushed her into the seat.
"This ceremony is about family and love, Sawada-san," Ryuuichiro told her firmly. "Nothing else. Your place is here." Shin was proud to see the look in his mother's expression, the surprise at how dignified and honourable the Yakuza could be.
"Speaking of which, I should go," he interjected, and nodded his goodbyes to his mother and soon to be grandfather-in-law.
Yankumi was predictably thrilled that she'd come, and managed to ruin her wedding makeup by bursting into tears at the moving reconciliation; not to mention locking her mother-in-law into a fierce hug, somewhat scaring her. The reception was back at the kumi, so it was at that point that his mother took her leave, but before she left Shin and Yankumi bid her farewell.
"Thank you for coming," Shin said politely, clasping his brand new wife's hand in his. "Don't let dad push you around."
"If he gives you any trouble, Sawada-san, you let us know and we'll come to your rescue," Yankumi professed loudly. Shin's mother tittered, and wrapped her coat tighter around herself.
"I'll be fine," she insisted. "Congratulations, you two. I wish you a very happy marriage." She bowed, and then got into a taxi, which they watched pull away.
"Are you crying again?" Shin questioned, not turning to look at her.
"Snn...snn... nuu," Yankumi sniffed, and with a soft laugh Shin pulled her into a hug. He could hardly believe that they'd actually done it – that they were actually married, but the proof was all there. Soon the rest of the family joined them, ready to get a car back home and celebrate Kuroda-style. Which, compared to the bachelor party that Kyo threw for him, was a regular feat of rest and relaxation.
I remember now that early pics from the manga have Shin smoking, naughty boy, and I wanted to slip that in here too.
So yeah, kind of a short piece of nothingness that I don't really know what to do with, but I enjoyed writing it and hope some people enjoy reading it at least.