Yay! We have officially stepped into part two of the story... that was a LOT of back story (and might at some points been unnecessary, but whatever. Me write what me likey.) This is the part that I was concerned with so that I changed the rating to T, that and other parts that I will later write in the story as well… R&R as always! (Esplandian, I know you always do. I count on you for your input! And you are greatly appreciated. I accredited someone once for reviewing though and then they never reviewed again… I think I creeped them out… I hope this isn't creepy… I'm sorry if it is!) Oh well! Thanks and onward to reading!
Chapter Seven
The entire little seaside town was alive and bustling with the noises and colors of a Japanese festival. There were various entertaining games to be won; in the distance a Ferris wheel loomed enticingly in the distance with various other amusement park attractions. Everything smelled delicious due to the various dishes being cooked in the booths lining the streets: bowls of udon noodles, takoyaki, various seafood dishes and onigiri were being sold at record speeds. Toys hung in these booths as well, tempting small children who passed by with their parents to jump and beg and harass them into buying the toys for them.
Pinoko and Black Jack were the victims of this festival, due to the fact that everything Yukia saw excited him to the point that it seemed he was going to totally freak out. He pointed at everything and rushed around to all the stands. There were several instances at which they had almost lost him in the schools of people crammed into the streets.
"Mama!" Yukia had cried out, running back towards them.
Pinoko took the opportunity to grab his hand and take it tightly. "No more running around!"
"Sorry." Yukia hung his head a little. "I'm really excited. This is cool."
"It's your first festival isn't it?" Black Jack asked, glancing down at him.
Yukia nodded eagerly. "Uncle and Auntie never attended them. I don't ever remember going to one, at least…"
"Well we do have a budget for while we're here, you know," Pinoko advised him. "So I don't think we should waste all the money we have on toys…"
She pointed to the Ferris wheel in the distance. "What about the big wheel, Yukia? Why don't we go on that?"
"You want to go on that?" Black Jack mumbled uncertainly, glancing up at it.
It was incredibly tall, of course, but probably taller than most wheels were. It was slightly intimidating despite the wonderful colors.
"Yes! Let's go on it," Pinoko said, hugging his arm. "Oh, don't you remember?... We went on this years ago."
He smiled, recalling the memory. He had always been busy with a case or something such as that, so he couldn't attend the festivals very easily. But that day, five years ago, he had taken the time off to go there with her. Pinoko had dressed up in a cute pair of cut offs and a tank top; putting her hair up in pigtails. At night, after walking around and playing the games, he had kissed her on the Ferris wheel just as the fireworks had gone off over near the ocean waters. It was quite the picture perfect memory that you would find in a movie…
And it was the night that he had decided that he had wanted to marry her.
And various other things had happened as well afterwards, but that wasn't an appropriate time to be remembering those kinds of things.
Yukia had been terrified at first when it had creaked and groaned on the way up, and when he had looked over the edge of the cabin he marveled at how small even the town hall building looked.
Pinoko sat next to her husband happily, surveying Yukia as his eyes focused on the city beneath them. She smiled, turning her head to look at Black Jack. He glanced over at her, and she kissed him on the lips sweetly.
"I love you," she whispered, closing her eyes and leaning back against the seat; a light blush now present on her ever-lovely face.
He squeezed her hand in return. He didn't need to say anything.
The Ferris wheel finished its cycle before gently lowering each cabin down onto the ground and allowing its passengers to exit. Pinoko reached into the purse she was carrying and pulled out a Polaroid camera to take pictures with. Yukia shot a couple pictures of his parents in front of the Ferris wheel, then he stepped in and posed with his father, and then with his mother.
They took several more pictures throughout the day… they passed by food booths, bought small mind boggling toys, watched interesting games, and then at the end of the night, gathered on the open plains area with the other residents to watch the fireworks. One by one, they launched into the sky, glittering at first, and then exploding into something that was dazzling beyond compare.
Yukia fell asleep immediately after the fireworks had ended. After all, he was five years old. Pinoko this time, hoisted him up and carried him home in her arms. They walked along the road, talking a little bit, but mainly remaining quiet.
Pinoko glanced up at her husband from time to time and saw that he had this everlasting cheerful smile plastered on his face, oddly enough. He wasn't a typically cheerful person.
"You seem happy, hmm?" she commented.
"Happy?" he repeated, glancing back down at her.
She nodded. "You're smiling so much more these days… It's nice to see."
Well, he thought, I'm not longer living a life of solitude.
All at once, the events of the past six and a half years of his life came rushing back into his mind as he pieced together who he was now.
Here I am now. A wife. A kid. I have a typical family… Well, sort of… he continued inside his head. I didn't think I'd ever end up here… like this. But I'm happy that I did.
A couple of weeks later, Black Jack headed out to the city to perform a plastic surgery on another wealthy older woman. It was rather far away, on a private island located near Shikoku, so he wouldn't be able to take Yukia and Pinoko with him.
"Have a good trip, honey," Pinoko had murmured before giving him a kiss on the cheek while he was leaving.
"Yep, thanks." He grinned and picked up two suitcases, one with his personal belongings, another with his medical equipment.
He nodded to Yukia, who was waiting patiently in the doorway as if wanting permission for something. At his nod, Yukia sprinted out and hugged his legs tightly.
"Bye, Papa!"
Black Jack tousled his hair and nodded again before loading the suitcases and climbing into the car. He drove away, glancing back in his rearview mirror at their house.
The operation was complicated due to the fact that the women micro-managed everything that she wanted corrected. Higher placed cheekbones. A thinner, sleeker nose, and she also wanted her eyebrows to have more of an arch to them, and she wanted her forehead to be smooth and wrinkle free. She also wanted her skin to be cleared of any blemishes or liver spots, otoplasty, liposuction, and implants within her lips.
While it was a ridiculous list of demands for a woman of only sixty and also ridiculously expensive, Black Jack performed the surgeries successfully (and made sure that it wasn't overdone as well) and collected his payment.
Before heading out on the long drive home he called Pinoko and let her know that she was coming home.
"What are you guys doing?"
"Cleaning, baking…" Pinoko mumbled in an easy going manner. "Just the usual."
"Oh. Alright. Well I should be home soon."
"We're making you a special cake for when you come home. It was Yukia's idea." Pinoko giggled.
"Is that so? I'm looking forward to it."
"Yep. Oh—Yukia! Gosh! If the timer went off why didn't you say anything—Black Jack, I got to go. Have a safe trip home."
"Yep," he said, nodding in agreement. "Goodbye."
"Wait!" she cried out suddenly.
He groaned impatiently. "What?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
"I love you."
"I love you too," he answered in a grumble that most certainly did not convey that he loved her. "Okay, bye."
He hung up and then climbed into his car and then started to drive home. He drove across the oceans, past the island of Shikoku, towards Honshu, onward to home. The sun was beginning to set and he yawned, contemplating whether or not he should pull over for the night and rest at an inn. He decided against it, since he didn't want to spend any extra money. Besides, he would be able to make it.
Suddenly, there was a ringing noise that echoed throughout the cabin of the car. Startled, Black Jack looked around confusedly. Was that…?
He slid back the top of a small hideaway that held a car phone. He glanced down and saw that it was ringing. How odd. He had rarely used this phone, and didn't think that Pinoko knew the number…
He pulled over and put his vehicle in park, then turned off the car. He reached out and answered the phone.
"Hello?" he said.
There was nothing but a slight breathing on the phone. Black Jack's blood suddenly ran cold. He instantly had a premonition that this was not going to end well.
"Hel—"
"—Good evening!" suddenly a voice burst out over the phone.
Black Jack winced at the loud voice and held the phone a little ways away from his ear.
"Who are you? Why are you calling me?" Black Jack demanded irritably.
"Ah, yes, you must be Doctor Black Jack… they told me you were a rather grouchy man. Listen, Black Jack. I need to talk to you about something."
"If you tell me who you are."
"Who am I?" the man's voice dropped several octaves, to a level of noise that was almost demon like. "I am the man that you don't want to screw with right now, Black Jack. So I'd drop the pissy tone, eh?"
Black Jack swallowed slightly, furrowing his brow. He listened intently.
"See, Black Jack, I believe that a couple of my boys had a little run in with you a while back. Do you remember? The Jaakuna Gyangu?"
Black Jack snarled, "What the hell do you want?"
"Ah, so you don't know." The man paused. "See, Ronny, he's my brother. My dearly beloved brother. You remember him. With the gunshot wound. You operated on him… you have to have remembered him."
"I remember him. I think I would remember the cause of the incident that terrorized my family."
There was a gunshot then over the phone and the man snarled into the phone, "That was strike two. Try me again."
"Proceed, please."
"Ronny, my brother, died. On the ambulance ride to the hospital, his stitches ripped open and died right there. Seems that you did a shoddy job on the operation, eh?"
"I don't ever do amateur jobs on my patients," Black Jack growled in response. "I don't know what you're talking about. If his stitches ripped open, then your men shouldn't have caused such a ruckus and rushed him out of there—"
"—then your wife shouldn't have called the police. And oh by the way, Ronny wouldn't have died if your little orphan boy hadn't slashed up the tires of that nice Italian car I had."
Black Jack dragged a hand over his face and waited for the man to continue.
"I am someone that you don't want to play games with Black Jack. And the minute Ronny died, you got thrown into a game with me. And now we're going to play."
"Who are you?"
"I am known by many names of course. Some call me a murderer. Some call me a sadist. Others call me Kyobona, the Berserk."
The man chuckled darkly over the phone, almost maniacally. Black Jack's spine shivered.
"I will play no games with you, with a man who cannot even show his face."
"You wouldn't want to meet me face to face, Doctor. I don't have a pretty face. Trust me." he chuckled once again. "On the other hand, your wife does… You've got a very pretty wife, Black Jack. She's making you a cake right now. Frosting it with that little abandoned boy of yours. Tell me, how good is she?"
"Hey!" Black Jack cried out sharply. "You do not touch her!"
He turned the key in the ignition and pulled back out onto the highway, pressing down on the accelerator determinedly.
"Damn, it's such a shame. Personally, if I were in a nicer mood, I'd just take her and lock her up somewhere for my own enjoyment. The little boy, he would die either way. I've got no need for a charity case."
"You're disgusting!"
"Heh, right, I'm disgusting for saying that about your wife. Aren't you the same? You built a little girl who served you for so many years, right? And you kind of tossed her around for a while, didn't you? Everything says that she was crazy in love with you…"
"What are you…?"
"I know everything about you, your wife, and your kid. Your name has circled around so many times it's hard not to know."
Black Jack pounded the steering wheel. "Leave them alone! Look, I'm the one that performed the operation—"
"—Oh, Black Jack, if only you were the only one involved!" he cried out then, sucking in air through his teeth in mock disappoint. Black Jack could hear him pounding down on something. "But you weren't! Your little fabulous wife played assistant, your boy prevented my men's escape. So everyone should be punished, shouldn't they? Since they had an equal involvement in Ronny's death…"
Black Jack glanced up at the highway signs and saw that the exit leading to his town was right ahead of him. He switched into the lane and quickly sped up, weaving around the cars.
"No! They're still innocent! You're willing to blame a five year old kid for the death of your brother?"
"Oh, so you would prefer I just killed your wife?"
"NO!" Black Jack roared. "DON'T TOUCH HER!"
"Black Jack… ah, ah, ah." He clicked his tongue against his teeth in disapproval. "Oh, you just can't behave, can you?"
"Leave her alone! Leave them alone! I'm going to be home soon, and then you can have me! You can do whatever the hell you want with me! Leave them alone!"
"But then I can't punish you all properly! It's not enough if just you dies! In fact, I don't want you to die, Black Jack…" his voice snarled at him. "I want you to feel the same pain I feel. When your blood, when your kin, dies right before you have a chance to say goodbye."
Black Jack bent his head and his pleading screams begged for reconciliation.
"Please, no…"
"No matter how you beg, it's not going to change my opinion."
Black Jack hung up the phone and sped up at an unbelievably high speed. He grumbled and cursed under his breath and eventually, approached the town. He careened through the streets, his tires practically on fire, leaving black skid marks slashed across the path behind him.
He was approaching the cliff, and his brakes screeched as he pressed down on them. He got out of the car and then sprinted up towards the house, shouting for Pinoko, shouting for Yukia. He knew what was coming. It was so predictable… it was so foolproof…
Just as he had reached about 50 feet from the house, an explosion echoed through the air. Plumes of pure black smoke burst up, mingling with the night sky and killing the stars and the view of the moon. The fiery wood, stone and glass remains of the house splintered the sky, springing outwards and in all directions. Black Jack was on his knees, trembling violently. He watched in horror as everything he had loved; everything he had ever cared about…
Become lost to the mass chaos of the flames as the night wore on.