Some opening remarks: I have seen the movie "Kikujiro" only once, and I enjoyed it a lot. The characters, in my opinion, left a lot of room to write about. I hope you'll bear with me if the characters happen to be OoC (which I hope I can prevent, but you never know), and allow for a few grammatical errors, as english is not my first language. I am trying to keep them out as much as possible, but somehow, some of them always make it through!
THE REAL KIKUJIRO
The man watched the boy running down the road, down to the apartment he shared with his grandmother, located in one of Tokyo's suburbs. Involuntarily, he felt a smile spreading on his lips. The little shit, Masao, had been fun to be around, after all.
He turned around, beginning to make his way home to his wife, who, most likely, would harp at him for staying away for so long.
He had said to Fatso the biker that Masao reminded him of himself. Ever the loner, his mother removed from him, nobody ever paying attention to what he was doing. Japanese society was hard to its weakest members. He hoped the kid wouldn't end up in the same cul-de-sac he had been unable to find a way out alone...
Back then, when he had been a child, there had been no grandmother to look after him. His mother had left his father when she had found out that he killed people for a living, in the service of one of the Families. He had grown up around Yakuza, among bodies, weapons and drugs. By the time he turned ten, he had seen more real bodies than his fellow boys had been able to catch on TV. His father took pride in his work, and he told him over and over again that there was nothing Kikujiro couldn't have.
"You don't have to be friendly to people, my son," he explained at least twice every week, "Tell them to give you what you want, and if they don't, tell me about it, I'll fix it for you."
Thus, Kikujiro had grown up, endeared to threats and estranged from proper manners. After all, manners, so his father said, were for weaker children than him. He enjoyed to be cross with people – especially, since, even without the imminent threat of his father shooting or stabbing somebody, the subjects of his bullying largely seemed to obey his notions. He knew he irritated them, but took pleasure in the fact that, in the end, his behavior worked every time.
He had been handled as the heir to his father's post of the loyal killer of the Family, and when he was killed by the time Kikujiro was 17, everybody was waiting for him to show promise. He, however, had never been that fond of killing people – he preferred to bully them while they were still alive. Thus, he lost his inherited position rather quickly, and ended up as a common thug, roughing up the people Aniki told him to.
He had been prone to nightmares in these days; finally, after years of uneasy rest, he decided on a rather unusual way to cure them. He drew a picture of the creature haunting his sleep, black outlines with a little green and a lot of vivid bloodred. Then, he took this picture to a tattoo parlor, and had it transferred onto his back. The few friends he had saw this as final proof that he was crazy, especially since he had refused so far to get the regular tattoo markings of his branch; however, it seemed to work – the nightmares were gone and stayed gone.
Kikujiro remained the person for roughing jobs for years, and would have ended up in jail or dead in the gutter for sure, if it hadn't been for Haruka. She and her mother found him lying on the sidewalk after a job had gone wrong for him; he had been bleeding profusely, feeling Death creeping up on him. Haruka had insisted that they take him home with them, to see to his wounds – and she had won the argument.
Of course, Haruka never lost an argument – if there was a God, when she died, she would argue with him until he sent her back to life, just to have Haruka off his back!
Well, Haruka managed to nurse him back to health, and he never went back to the Family again. Nobody ever came for him – obviously, he was of low enough rank not to be regarded as a threat.
They were married one year afterwards; there had been no father-in-law to disapprove of Kikujiro – he had died some years back. He had to force himself to behave halfway politely in his new wife's presence, for she had told him in very blunt terms that she wouldn't take any bullshit from him. Haruka possibly was the only person that could control him, instead of being controlled – and that was exactly what had endeared her to him in the first place.
By now, they had spent almost twenty years together in marriage. Much had happened; by now, they were owning a small restaurant and bar in a decent area of the city. Haruka didn't feel the urge to produce offspring, and he had been quite content with that. He had never liked children very much, which had made his odd relationship to Masao all the more unusual.
Of course, on their trip to find his mother, they had been through a lot together. They had met a lot of people, and experienced many things, sad and happy alike. Kikujiro didn't particularly warm up to any of the weirdos they had encountered, but Masao had been, and it gave him a strange kind of pleasure seeing the lonely child happy.
Not that he would ever admit that to anyone but himself.
When he had been at the pension home his mother lived in, back when they had been camping at the beach with the Poet, Fatso and Baldy, for a moment he had wanted to go up to the old woman, to tell her who he was. But then, in one of the few altruistic acts he had committed in his life, he decided against it. It would not please her to see him, there was no question about that, and he wasn't about to torture her with his presence, his manners, and the fact that he resembled his father, the Yakuza killer, a lot.
Instead, he had turned around, and gone back to their camp.
At least, he had been able to make Masao forget that he was an unwanted boy, as well. And that had to count for something.
Finally, he arrived at the apartment he shared with Haruka. One deep breath, then he opened the door – and the expected greeting sounded out of the living room when he removed his shoes:
"Where have you been that long!"
Kikujiro smiled. She wouldn't believe the answer, anyway.
"I'm home!", he simply answered, and walked through the narrow passageway to join his wife at the supper table.
There you go, one shiny new "Kikujiro no Natsu"-Fic! Have one more planned and will try to write it before I forget the things from the movie again ;-)
Please drop me a line – comments appreciated!