Episode 7: DECISION | DURRUN by Aito Kitazaki

Episode 7

The sushi finally happens. A late-night counter in MACHIDA, an eight-piece set, and Ojiki beside them asking only for tea — watching this lot eat, he says, is his drink for the evening. Utaki orders kohada on its own, impresses the chef, and disappears into a twelve-year-old dream so completely that her own brother cannot tell what she is doing. Beside her, Ojiki asks Soujun how he became a Fuser and gets an answer that trails off. So he offers his own instead: everyone gets backed into a corner eventually, and what a man decides in that corner, stripped of temperament and pretence, is who he actually is. Soujun says he is leaving in the morning. Yu-ri warned him TOKYO is full of syndicates, and Yu-ri has his own business — something about becoming the boss of this city. Coming here was a secret dream, he admits, and being a Fuser was not in the plan, but he is satisfied. For Utaki, Ojiki finishes for him. Then he catches a smell. The sushi bar comes apart around them. A truck is in the wall, and the GEJI-GUMI are shouting for Janga, promising to scrap MACHIDA if he does not show. Utaki charges them, still muttering about her kohada. Soujun holds her back with an empty tank and their mother’s last request in his head. Ojiki has a plan that needs him to risk everything, and Soujun takes it. For Utaki’s sake. The tank he opens spills petrol into the flames, and what stands up out of the blast is no longer afraid.