Deep in the Weeds in Yagisawa

Every time Kenji was away, we would end up debating for hours which actor would play him in the movie about us. “Ryusei Yokohama has the looks”, Takeshi would say. “Nijiro Murakami is more his style”, I’d retort, adding that Nijiro literally played an assassin. 

We'd go back and forth: His nose is too flat. He’s too old. When Kenji finally showed up, we’d stop. He usually needed some cheering up, not being compared to a movie star. Once the beer and shochu were flowing, we’d hear about the job he carried out in Tokyo. We would do much the same when it was our turn.

We all lived like students without classes in a rented house in Yagisawa, a tiny summer beach resort town a half-hour bus ride from Atami and its Shinkansen Station. I'll admit it: Yagisawa is beautiful in October. The grassy hills slope down to the ocean, and sea gulls float in the dusky sunsets. Not bad. But there was absolutely nothing to do here. Not even a game arcade or pachinko parlor.

Why were we living out here in the sticks during the off-season? Because there were no CCTV cameras. And in the winter, no tourists walking around taking pictures of everything with their mobiles with facial recognition in every app.

Our employers, yakuza crime bosses and rich company honchos, don’t want us spotted after we carried out a contract for them. And with the money they paid us, we could live for months in a rental house in a place like Yagisawa in the off-season.

The streets were entirely dead by 5:00 PM. The only traffic consisted of elderly vegetable farmers driving tiny K-trucks at five miles per hour. If they ever came for us, we would hear them coming from a kilometer away.

It was an ideal hideout, except for the local gossip.

"They don’t have wives," Mrs. Tanaka from the local grocery store whispered to her husband one day as I was arguing with Takeshi over the price of daikon radishes. "And the big one? I saw him buying a sewing kit in town last Tuesday..."

Another old farmer, with alcohol on his breath, cornered us one afternoon. “What’s up with you three young guys living together out here?”  

He held the back of his hand to his face and wagged his pinky finger at us, the universal ojisan symbol for gay men. I held back Takeshi, who was a real brute of a man who took everything literally.

“We’re stand-up comedians,” I’d explained to the farmer. “Out here to concentrate on practicing our routine.”

 “Tell me some jokes then.” 

“We aren’t ready yet.” 

The old man walked away unsatisfied, then shook his head in mock disgust every time he saw us after that. 

So it went. In winter we would stay in Yagisawa getting harassed by farmers, and in summer at a ski resort in Niigata freezing our ass off after the sun went down in the high mountains.

“Why do we need to live in Yagisawa in the middle of winter?” I asked Takeshi, listening to the distant rattle of a farmer’s truck chugging past. “Because they grow fresh vegetables here in the winter, and vegetables up in the mountains during the summer.”

“Our hideout strategy is based around crop rotations?” I blurted out.

“Stop joking around.” He launched into the whole lecture about the CCTV cameras again. Takeshi was always logical. Like a walking Wikipedia of information. It was a weird quality for a man who was a 100 kg mountain of muscle.

Just last week, he freaked out about our lack of recycling. 

"If you don't separate the cardboard from the plastics, the neighborhood association is going to kick us out," Takeshi moaned.

"We are operators, Takeshi. Operators do not get scolded by 80-year-old Japanese women about trash disposal." I yelled loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

Kenji, who had been watching us, glared at me. “Hiro, you need to let things go sometimes. Or it's going to get you killed someday.”  

I could handle Takeshi. But Kenji was a real threat. He could see straight through me. And when he was on a job he worked with a quiet, ruthless efficiency, 

Unbelievably, the next week the neighborhood association formally appointed Takeshi as the town’s "Recycling Monitor" because he was so strict about it. The sight of this massive, terrifying man taking his civic recycling duty with absolute seriousness only heightened this small town's confusion about who we were.

Eventually, we got busy again with work in Tokyo. One chilly night, as steam rose from the pork buns Takeshi had brought back from Tokyo, he filled us in on the gist of how it went. The buns were a few hours old, but even microwaved, they tasted magical compared to the bland fare we ate out here. As he went through the details of the job, in the mild autumn air blowing in from the crack in the window, everything felt right in the world, as if we were exactly where we needed to be in this moment.

“Can you teach me your blade techniques?” I asked Takeshi, as he chewed.

“Then you won’t need me anymore,” mumbled between bites. He looked dead serious, so I let it pass.

Kenji jumped in to lighten the mood. “It’s great out here before the real winter kicks in, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.”

We opened the first bottle of shochu and sat around on the tatami mats, admiring the bounty of food from the city thanks to the job Takeshi completed. Takeshi was solemn, a common post-job mood for him. When he went to the toilet. I noticed tiny spots of blood on his chair, explaining why he kept nervously adjusting his sleeve while he was drinking.

“You okay, Takesh?” I asked when he returned.

“Just a few scratches,” he hissed, the memory of the effort showing on his face. “They put up a fight sometimes.”

Despite his nerdy obsession with household chores, Takeshi was our heavy muscle. Kenji was the good-looking one, and as things often go for attractive people, didn’t take life as seriously as he should have. He was used to having things easy. 

Things took a big turn a week later. On a slow afternoon, Kenji returned from a supply run carrying a tiny raccoon-like animal with huge bulging eyes. It looked like he grabbed a wild animal out of the forest, except it was on a leash and wearing a miniature harness meant for a chihuahua. 

“Where did you get that out here?” I asked, staring at it.

"It’s a Sugar Glider," Kenji beamed, ignoring my question. “Its name is Moyu.” 

He let the tiny creature glide from his hand onto Takeshi’s massive, gnarled shoulder. Takeshi didn't blink. He just stared at the creature, a slow, terrifying smile spreading across his face. 

By nightfall, Takeshi had knitted Moyu a miniature sweater.

The real trouble started when Kenji took “Moyu” to the local convenience store. A girl named Hina, who worked the register, apparently couldn’t stop screaming “kawaii!” looking at his pet. To our horror, Kenji invited her over to the house.

"Are you insane?" Takeshi hissed, frantically shoving a knife case under the kotatsu table as Hina walked up the porch. "She's going to find things!"

"She's just coming to see Moyu!" Kenji insisted, smoothing back his newly styled hair.

For the next three weeks, Hina was a permanent fixture. 

We had to completely change our behavior. As Kenji flirted with Hina, to keep up the town's rumors and keep her from asking questions about our source of income, Takeshi and I had to lean into the neighborhood’s "cohabiting partners" rumor. 

Takeshi would wear an apron and serve tea with aggressive hospitality, while I would sit in seiza position in the corner, carefully feeding Moyu pieces of apple with square-tip tweezers.

Hina thought we were “adorable”. 

The charade cracked one afternoon, when she caught me alone in the kitchen, and cornered me.

“So Kenji told me about the ‘jobs’ you do,” she said. “That you're working for a crime syndicate.”

My face burned red. My hand drifted instinctively toward my waist where I usually kept a backup cutter.

“And he said that you’d take me with you on the next job.”

The veins on my forehead nearly exploded. How could he do this? Talking to an outsider was dangerous enough, but inviting her along? Exposing our entire operation? I fumed silently.

I managed a tight smile. “It's… a possibility.” We Japanese are bad at expressing ourselves directly. Life would probably be easier if we just said what we meant

“Great!” she said, clapping her hands. “When do we leave?”

“Fine. Meet me here tomorrow at 7 am.”

Early the next morning, she was there smiling like an eager Shiba Inu. 

Kenji had told me if he took her himself, she would throw off his technique, a real risk, and I was doing him a solid.

I pulled out a heavy black box and cracked the lid. “Hardware,” I explained,showing her rows of sharpened blades.

Then another heavy box. “The gun.”

“And disguises.” I opened another locked box and selected a wig for her, fake moles, and plastic implants for her cheeks.

“Medical-grade blood-resistant gowns for both of us.” I handed one to her. “Check the size.”

Her smile finally faded.

We took a very roundabout way to the train station. We sat in the back of the car pretending to be asleep. Then blended into the morning crowd filing into the bullet train bound for Tokyo. 

“One slip here, and our lives might be over,” I cautioned her as we navigated the Tokyo streets to the address I had been given.

She gulped.

When we finally reached the crime boss’s door, I held her behind me and knocked. Hina gasped when she saw the door opened by a heavy-set man with a jagged scar on his face. 

“What are you here for?” he barked, looking us up and down. Laying a final heavy look on Hina. It wasn’t usual to bring a newbie on a job.

“We’re the talent. Here to take care of Shacho.”

“Ugh,” he grunted and opened the door.

“He’s in the back room,” he said.“If you talk, ever say a word about what you see here, you’re dead.”

Hina’s eyes went wide. As if she finally realized this wasn’t a joke.

The man turned and led us into a spacious, sunlit living room overlooking the Sumida River. On a pristine white silk-covered sofa sat a tiny Pekingese with wild, disheveled, overgrown hair. The tiny dog let out a nervous yelp and bared his teeth.

“You hold his legs, and I’ll grab his neck,” I instructed Hina, pulling on my gown.

We pinned him down, and my electric razor came to life, and I drew it to his abdomen. I moved the sharp blades in precise, meticulous cuts right down to bone. 

Within an hour, he was perfectly groomed. After a quick wash, I motioned to Hina to take out the blow gun for a final dry.

The scarred man inspected our work. “The boss will be pleased,” he said, satisfied. He handed me a gym bag stuffed with cash. We worked cash on delivery.

On the way back, at Tokyo station, I bought 3 boxes of octopus balls to take back to the boys.

“Look,” I explained quietly. “This all started after the yakuza boss Shimamura was busted by the national police, by a dog groomer they turned into an informant who planted listening devices on their pets. If the cops can trace their dog groomers, they can trace the bosses. So, we’ve got to live in hiding.

“Really?” Hina blinked, the gears turning in her mind.

“Yes.”

“Oh my god!” she said, a look of profound realization washing over her face. You three aren’t hitmen. You’re an underground grooming gang.”

“Exactly.”

When I finally got home in Yagisawa, dropping Hina back to her place on the way, I immediately went back to arguing with Takeshi about who forgot to buy dish soap. 

Kenji was occupied putting a tiny camera strap around the Sugar Glider. “Like a drone, to spy on people.”

“Clever,” I said.

I washed up. As I put out the spread of food I brought back, I distributed the cash. Kenji popped an octopus ball into his mouth and poured me a drink.

“So, did she buy our cover story?”

I took a long sip of shochu before answering.