Kobe (2)
I have to run….
That was the instinctive warning that had flashed through his mind just moments earlier in the pachinko parlor.
Now, once again, it rang through Lee Kang-woo’s head.
But his legs wouldn’t move.
Down on the first floor, Okamoto-gumi’s elite men were waiting with knives at their waists.
If he shouted, they’d rush up here like lightning.
And yet the thing he’d seen in the pachinko parlor—the monster named Yacha—had moved in a way he had never seen in his life.
It felt like what had happened there might be about to happen all over again.
And this time, he couldn’t be sure he’d survive it.
“Sit down.”
“……”
Na Kang-hae pointed to the sofa.
Instead of calling for his men, Lee Kang-woo chose, in the end, to sit.
Thud, thud—
The moment he lowered himself onto the sofa, he heard a heavy beating in his ears.
Only after a moment did he realize it was the sound of his own heart.
Listening to it pound, Lee Kang-woo looked at Kang-hae.
He looked like nothing more than some green twenty-something kid.
And Lee Kang-woo could hardly believe the fact that he, a man who had joined the yakuza at nineteen and climbed all the way to deputy captain of the enforcement squad, was frightened by someone who looked at least ten years younger.
Lee Kang-woo had fought in one conflict after another since entering the yakuza.
As a Japan-born Korean, he had always thrown himself into the front lines to prove he was no different from the others, and when he opened a pachinko parlor in Osaka’s Minami district and went to war with the Sumiyoshikai faction that controlled the area, he’d even taken a blade to the lower abdomen.
And the instant he’d been stabbed, Lee Kang-woo had driven an awl into the throat of the Sumiyoshikai member who had done it.
He’d fought like that year after year.
So why the hell can’t my body move now… damn it…!
Lee Kang-woo lied to himself, telling himself he had too much to lose.
He was one of the candidates for executive within Okamoto-gumi.
And if he became an executive, then with the help of his Japan-born Korean seniors, he might even become the oyabun of Okamoto-gumi, a subordinate group under the Yamaguchi-gumi.
That had been his dream ever since he joined the yakuza.
But now some young Korean-speaking monster had shown up and was trying to ruin all of it.
“Y-You… who are you?”
Lee Kang-woo forced out his awkward Korean.
“Do you know a man named Lee Jeong-tae?”
Kang-hae went straight to the point.
The instant he saw Lee Kang-woo’s eyes tremble, he pulled a sashimi knife from his coat.
Then he set it on the table.
Clack—
The sashimi knife belonged to one of his men who’d been taken to the hospital.
Blood from his subordinates had dried along the blade.
Lee Kang-woo shivered before he even knew he was doing it.
If he lied, that knife would go through his body.
“Y-Yes… I know him…”
In the end, he confessed.
“Where is Lee Jeong-tae now?”
“I-I don’t know that…”
Kang-hae stared at him in silence.
“I-I’m telling the truth…!”
Terrified, Lee Kang-woo blurted out the honorifics without thinking.
And Kang-hae decided he didn’t seem to be lying.
“Do you trade drugs with Lee Jeong-tae?”
“Y-Yes, we do…”
“How long has that been going on?”
“Ten years…”
Ten years ago.
That would have been right after Lee Jeong-tae stole Hanshin Textile from Kim Seong-ju.
Kang-hae’s anger flared again at the thought that not only had the man stolen a healthy company, he had also smuggled drugs out of North Korea through the Kaesong Industrial Complex.
“Tell me everything.”
At Kang-hae’s words, Lee Kang-woo answered in a rush.
“H-He said the drugs Lee Jeong-tae makes are high quality…”
Kang-hae already knew that North Korea’s most notorious export on the black market was drugs.
Now he had only one goal.
Catch Lee Jeong-tae.
“I need to know where Lee Jeong-tae is.”
“I-I really don’t know…!”
“Then the people who do know where he is must know, right?”
Lee Kang-woo’s eyes wavered.
Kang-hae stared at him a long moment, then slowly opened his mouth to explain what Lee Kang-woo would be doing from here on out.
* * *
Tokyo Imperial Hotel.
Seong Ha-yeong hadn’t been able to sleep until late into the night.
Kang-hae, who had gone off to Kobe, had kept not answering his phone.
It was only after two in the morning that she finally managed to speak with him.
“Kang-hae!”
The moment he answered, Ha-yeong raised her voice.
[Yes.]
“Phew…”
Just hearing Kang-hae’s voice, as calm as ever, made her exhale in relief.
“I was worried because I couldn’t reach you.”
[I’m fine.]
“Nothing happened, did it?!”
[No. I was just handling something.]
“Handling something?! Already?”
[Yes. There was a fight with some yakuza.]
“A fight…?!”
[Nothing serious.]
“You always have this talent for making terrible things sound like no big deal.”
[Do I?]
“So, did you win? No, wait. You must have, or you wouldn’t be calling me.”
Ha-yeong muttered the words to herself, half under her breath.
[How are things there?]
Only then did Kang-hae ask about her schedule.
“Tomorrow—no, today—I’m going over to Kobe in the morning to visit the Kobe Steel headquarters. It looks like we’ll have a meeting too.”
[Then I’ll join you.]
“All right. Be careful.”
[Yes.]
That ended the call.
Only then did Ha-yeong lie back down on the bed.
And, praying that nothing would happen to Kang-hae, she forced herself to sleep.
* * *
The next day.
As soon as dawn broke, Lee Kang-woo got into a car and headed for Kobe’s Nada Ward, specifically the affluent residential area of Rokko.
Like the wealthy neighborhoods in Seoul, expensive houses lined the hillsides.
At the far end of the hill stood the home where Okamoto-gumi’s oyabun lived.
Lee Kang-woo stopped the car in front of the residence.
After getting out, he straightened his clothes carefully.
A moment later, the door opened.
Lee Kang-woo headed inside.
He passed carefully trimmed pines and a small pond.
Then, standing before the entrance, he adjusted his clothing once more.
Sliding—
The door opened.
“The oyabun is waiting for you.”
A young gang member came out.
Lee Kang-woo took off his shoes and followed him.
He passed several rooms with tatami floors and stopped before the third one.
Sliding—
After a moment, the door opened.
Inside were not only Okamoto-gumi’s oyabun, Kurosawa Genji, but several executives as well, all seated and drinking tea.
Lee Kang-woo bowed at ninety degrees to Kurosawa Genji and said, “Tetsuya is here to see the oyabun.”
Shinohara Tetsuya was Lee Kang-woo’s Japanese name.
“Sit.”
Oyabun Kurosawa Genji offered him a place.
Lee Kang-woo ignored the hard looks from the executives who were glaring at him and sat in the seat at the very end.
Then he lifted his head and looked at Kurosawa Genji.
He was a small man with graying hair.
On the street, he might have passed for nothing more than an ordinary man in his fifties.
But on closer inspection, he was missing the index finger of his left hand.
And the feral look in his eyes told you all you needed to know about him being yakuza.
“What happened yesterday?”
Kurosawa Genji and the executives in the room already knew about the previous night.
“It was a killer sent by a Korean organization.”
Everyone stared at Lee Kang-woo as if asking what he meant.
“As oyabun knows, the boss of the Imperial faction is currently in a Korean prison. While he’s tied up there, it seems another Korean group took the chance to attack them.”
Lee Kang-woo poured out the lies exactly as Kang-hae had told him to in the office the night before.
And the yakuza in the room didn’t especially doubt him.
Every time a boss left his seat unattended, there were always attacks from other groups; they’d seen it happen too many times to count.
Lee Kang-woo kept going.
“Not long ago, a drug lab managed by the Imperial faction was raided by the police. The police investigated, but it seems the group behind it was the same one that attacked us this time.”
The executives’ faces hardened at that.
Then each of them muttered something under their breath.
“Why drag the police into a fight between organizations?”
“Those damned Koreans…”
Some of it was clearly meant to insult Lee Kang-woo, a Japan-born Korean, but Japanese yakuza had long considered it a disgrace to bring state power into a conflict between organizations.
Of course, it happened from time to time in the modern era.
But most yakuza who still clung to the old ways regarded it as shameful.
“I heard the man disappeared from the pachinko parlor last night.”
“He came to my office.”
No sooner had Lee Kang-woo spoken than one of the executives raised his voice.
“Tetsuya! You mean you looked that man in the face after he came to you of his own accord and still let him walk out alive?!”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The executives’ faces twisted darkly.
“I’ll accept any punishment!”
Lee Kang-woo slammed his forehead to the floor as he spoke.
“He needs to be disciplined, oyabun!”
One of the executives said, looking at Kurosawa Genji.
But Kurosawa Genji showed no particular emotion.
In the same level voice as before, he asked, “Tetsuya.”
“Yes, oyabun!”
“Why did you let him live?”
“Because he proposed a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yes, oyabun. He said he would cut ties with the Imperial faction and trade with our organization instead. And if we agreed, he promised to supply drugs at twenty percent less than the Imperial faction’s price.”
“……”
Kurosawa Genji fell silent, thinking.
His organization had become one of Yamaguchi-gumi’s more prominent subordinate groups only after they began trading with the Imperial faction.
The North Korean drugs supplied by the Imperial faction were far superior in quality.
Host club boys and the women who frequented them.
Brain-dead teenagers who admired yakuza and hangure types.
They all came looking for Okamoto-gumi’s product.
And Okamoto-gumi had been able to nibble away at the drug market in Kobe’s back alleys little by little.
Not only that, but supplying other yakuza groups in different regions had also brought in considerable profit.
But if he could import the product at twenty percent less than he paid now…
That meant he could make far more money than he did today.
And if that happened, he might even rise beyond the level of a subordinate organization’s oyabun.
He could aim higher.
And the dream every yakuza secretly carried with him—becoming the kumicho, the supreme boss of the organization—might not be impossible after all.
That was when Lee Kang-woo called out to Kurosawa Genji in a cautious voice.
“Uh, oyabun…”
“What is it?”
“There was a condition.”
“A condition?”
“He said the condition was that we hand Lee Jeong-tae over to him.”
“……”
Kurosawa Genji fell into thought again.
Switching trading partners wasn’t that difficult, but selling out someone they had been doing business with for years could become a problem.
After all, reputation and loyalty were everything to the yakuza.
But it was also too good an opportunity to reject outright.
He needed a convincing pretext for handing over Lee Jeong-tae.
Kurosawa Genji agonized over it, and everyone waited for the oyabun to speak.
Silence settled over the room for a long time.
“Tetsuya.”
At last, after a long while, Kurosawa Genji opened his mouth.
“Yes, oyabun.”
“Bring that man here.”
Kurosawa Genji had decided he needed to meet him first.
“Yes, oyabun!”
Lee Kang-woo slammed his forehead to the floor once again in answer.
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