Kick It Up: Yoshi's Story

[x-sanfuaiyaa.livejournal.com]

Backdated to Thursday afternoon. Shiro has a lunch meeting with his friend Yoshi, who doesn't show. After a little bit of searching, Shiro finds him in the same situation he was in last week. And this time, he learns the truth and tries to help.


Shiro flipped his cell phone close and sighed. Yoshi was late. They'd made plans to meet up for lunch today at noon, but even at 12:30 he was no where to be seen, and he wasn't picking up his phone. He had a bad feeling about this. Though Yoshi had insisted that the previous week's incident was isolated, Shiro wasn't so sure he believed it.

He wasn't too far from where they'd met on Thursday, so he decided to head back in that direction. As he approached the alley, he heard a person (or people) grunting and hissing, so he sped up. "Deja vu," he muttered, stepping into the alley and glaring at the two well-dressed men having a field day on Yoshi's face. "Can you not come up with something more original?" he asked as the already warm afternoon became even hotter. "Or am I just stuck in a quantum loop?"

"Shit, man, they traveling in packs these days?" the one thug said, before turning to look at Shiro. Recognition crossed his face as he backed up. "Aw, hell no! Fuck this, man!" he swore, reaching into the back of his waistband in a gesture that practically screamed "gun".

Before the one thug could draw, however, his companion held a hand out, stepping in between Shiro and the other mugger. "Ease up, man. No beef here. We were just helping Yoshi here get his bearings, ain't that right? Brother seems to be kind of lost lately, don't he?"

"Yoshida?" Yoshi's voice was tinged with shame and no small amount of pain. His glasses were broken this time, one eye already beginning to swell shut. "I didn't, I mean... it's all right."

The first thug dropped his hands to his sides, nodding. "All right, yeah. That's how you want to play it. Since you're so all right, you got another day to pay up. We bounce." He nodded to the other, and they backed their way down the alley away from Shiro and Yoshi.

Shiro held out his hand, ready to blast the second he saw even a hint of metal. He was almost disappointed when the second thug stopped his buddy, but he stepped aside and let them pass, his eyes flashing dangerously. He blasted the pavement behind them, melting it, and just shrugged as they turned to see what had happened.

"Maybe I am precognitive," Shiro said to no one in particular as he walked over to his friend. He fought the urge to kick him for not being entirely truthful. "So," he said, kneeling, "Who are they?"

"No one," Yoshi tried to insist, but under Shiro's gaze his resolve wavered. "They work for a guy I owe some money to," he sighed. "I borrowed from my parents, but it wasn't enough and that's why they... well, they'll just come back, I suppose."

"~You're lucky I'm more angry at them for assaulting you than I am at you for lying to me~," Shiro grumbled in Japanese. He gently removed Yoshi's glasses and held the broken bridge with his thumb and forefinger. In a couple seconds, the metal was fused into a single piece again. "This will do for now. Let me help you. You need to get to the hospital."

"No!" Yoshi pulled away from Shiro, backing against the wall. "No hospital, it's... my parents don't know that I... I'm a mutant, like you. I can see things, hear things. I should have heard those two guys before I went around the corner, but I'm on such a downer right now, man. I just need to kick it up again, you know?"

Yoshi looked up at Shiro, pupils slightly dilated, probably from either excitement or exertion. "That's who I owe the money to," he confessed. "The guy who sold me the Kick."

"The what?" Shiro jumped to his feet, hands held out to catch the wobbling Yoshi if he fell over. "Yoshi, you cannot expect me to simply let you go. What are you involved with?"

Yoshi tensed up, then relaxed under Shiro's grasp. "It's called Kick. You haven't... no, I suppose at a private school you wouldn't." He rummaged in his pocket, coming up with what looked like a small asthma inhaler. Cradling it in his hands, he turned it over. "It's like it supercharges me, I mean - normally I can read that street sign over there from four, five blocks away." He pointed with his glasses to the sign out across the alley, then looked at them sheepishly. "They're for looks. My parents don't know, and... right, the Kick."

He pantomimed priming the inhaler and taking a breath off it. "When I'm Kicking, it's like everything's turned up. I can read a newspaper from a football field away. I can hear conversations in the next dorm. It takes your powers and it... well, Ho says it unlocks potential."

This made the kind of sense to Shiro that didn't. Yoshi being a mutant wasn't all that surprising, really (although he's one of the few whom Shiro has met outside of the context of the school, he reminded himself). "It increases your powers? How?" he asked curiously. He took the inhaler and peered at it closely. Just a nomal looking asthma inhaler, nothing special about it.

"I'm no chemist, man," Yoshi laughed, seeming to feel better. "I'm going to art school for crying out loud. I mean, I know I shouldn't have gotten into it, and it's not even addictive or anything but it makes me feel... I don't know, like I'm doing more."

Yoshi's laugh earned him a smack upside the head. "Bakayarou. 'Doing more'? What, by counting the passengers on airplanes passing by? You have nearly been killed twice, and I do not plan on becoming your bodyguard." Shiro sighed. He also didn't plan on just letting Yoshi go. "Fool me once," he muttered, reaching into his pocket to withdraw his wallet. "How much do you owe?"

Yoshi sniffed and rubbed his nose. "It was five hundred, I already gave him three but the check my parents gave me won't clear until Wednesday. I can get around them until then - look, you don't have to..."

"This is what you are going to do," Shiro said firmly. There would be no argument. "You will end your debt today, and then you will never use Kick again. Do you understand me?" So sympathy isn't one of his strong points. But that's not to say he wasn't concerned. If this wasn't ended now, then Yoshi would probably be killed, and there was no way that Shiro would let another death be on his conscience. He refused to lose anyone else, even just an acquaintance. No more.

Yoshi began to argue, but stopped, hanging his head in shame. "Yeah, you're right. Ho's not going to be happy, but I can pay him off and then just not come around any more, he's got lots of people buying. One won't be missed, right?"

Shiro nodded but frowned. Was this a big operation? It was a disturbing thought. What if someone like Magneto got his hands on it? Shiro suppressed a shudder and turned his attention back to the current trouble. "There is a bank across the street. I will get you your money, and then you can go to this Ho and pay him." His expression softened as he gingerly helped Yoshi to his feet. He'd seen plenty of movies about drug dealers. "Call me if you need help. Please."

"Of course, I... thank you, Shiro." Yoshi rubbed his nose and leaned against the wall. "Just... please do not tell anyone?"

Though maybe he shouldn't have, Shiro nodded. "Just end it, okay? Whatever you feel cannot be worth all this." Maybe he shouldn't have been so quick to just take Yoshi's word for it. He had a nagging feeling that this ran deeper than it appeared, but Yoshi had promised him. Even a nikkei-jin would understand this matter of honor and pride. He had to. What else was there without it?