Chapter 118: Chance Encounter With The Future Futaba Kindergarten Principal! Bunta Takakura’s Resolve!
“Good… okay!” Bunta Takakura nodded repeatedly, his voice tinged with excitement.
No way around it, starting a business is just too hard!
Before, he had always done filming in a photo studio, but unexpectedly, starting this year, business had plummeted, and with no other choice, he could only come outside to actively seek out people to photograph.
But because of his scary face, business wasn’t good.
This was the first time someone had proactively wanted to take photos!
So he raised the Nikon camera in his hand, which looked quite professional, and got to work.
“Come on, everyone, get a bit closer! Yes, yes, that’s it, sir, put your arm around your wife’s waist, more naturally! Smile, imagine the scene of your company going public and ringing the bell!”
“And you two over there, don’t be so stiff! Young people should act young! Be more lively! You can do a peace sign!”
Under his direction, the originally somewhat awkward atmosphere instantly became relaxed and pleasant.
The shutter clicked crisply, and one by one, faces full of hope were precisely captured on the film.
Bunta Takakura looked at the photos in the viewfinder, brimming with youth and dreams, especially that young man with his arm around a pretty girl, a carefree smile on his face, and deep in his eyes, a trace of undisguisable envy emerged.
What a young and promising young man!
He even felt that this young man looked a bit familiar.
However, Bunta Takakura and his partner were too busy with work and didn’t watch variety shows or news, and rarely even read the newspaper, so they just focused on their own tasks.
Bunta Takakura did the filming, his partner handled the lighting.
It was professional too.
“Done!” After taking the last group photo, Bunta Takakura lowered the camera, and the ferocious smile on his face softened a bit.
Hiroshi Nohara smiled as he pulled a cigarette case from his pocket and offered one: “You’ve worked hard, Mr. Takakura, have one?”
“Ah… thanks.” Bunta Takakura accepted it somewhat flattered, letting the other light it for him.
He took a deep drag, the pungent smoke swirling in his weathered lungs before he exhaled, the smoke billowing.
“Mr. Nohara, you… are really fortunate.” He looked at the brand-new office not far away, then at Misae Nohara sweetly nestling beside Hiroshi Nohara, his voice full of emotion: “So young, already successful in your career, and opening a company like this for your girlfriend. It’s… truly enviable.”
“Just a small start, hardly a career.” Hiroshi Nohara chuckled lightly, looking at Bunta Takakura and casually asking: “And you, Mr. Takakura? From what you said earlier, it seems… you don’t really like being a photographer?”
“Sigh.” Bunta Takakura sighed deeply upon hearing this, a look of desolation and helplessness appearing on his ferocious face, utterly at odds with his appearance: “It’s not about liking or not. It’s just… making a living.”
He glanced at his partner in the blue suit, who was packing up the equipment with a dissatisfied look, and gave a self-deprecating smile: “As you saw, with my looks, I’m not cut out for the service industry. I just want to take good photos for people, but customers see my face and react like they’ve seen yakuza. This month, the two of us are again at the bottom of the company in sales.”
“Actually…” He ground out the cigarette butt underfoot, his turbid eyes gazing at the distant sky dyed golden by the sunset, his gaze revealing a pure longing almost childlike.
“Actually, my real dream is to return to my hometown, Kasukabe, and open a small kindergarten there.”
“Kindergarten?” Hiroshi Nohara’s brow arched, a playful glint in his clear eyes: “Why a kindergarten? Forgive my bluntness, Mr. Takakura, with your appearance, opening a kindergarten might be an even bigger challenge than being a photographer.”
“You think so too?” A bitter look, as if to say “just as I thought,” appeared on Bunta Takakura’s face.
He instinctively reached for his pocket for another smoke, but halfway, as if remembering something, he abruptly stopped.
He looked at the fingers of the hand that had held cigarettes, an embarrassed and annoyed expression on his face, and quickly tossed the just-lit cigarette to the ground, stomping it out hard.
“See, I’m like this, always unable to break these bad habits.” He shook his head with a bitter smile: “Actually, I don’t smoke. It’s just… in this big city, if you don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t socialize, it’s like… you’re an outsider, unable to fit into their circle.”
“I hate it.” His voice was filled with irrepressible weariness and fatigue: “I hate wearing a mask every day, saying things against my heart, doing things I don’t like. I… I just want to go back to that small place, back to Kasukabe, where there are familiar streets and friends I’ve known since childhood.”
“Most importantly…” He paused, and on that ferocious face appeared a gentle, almost sacred glow.
“There, there are children. Being with the children makes me feel like… a clean person. No need to pretend, no need to flatter, just play and laugh with them, that’s enough.”
Hiroshi Nohara looked at him and fell silent for a moment.
Then, he pulled a ten-thousand-yen bill from his wallet and handed it over.
“Payment for today’s photos, and… a tip for you.”
“Eh?!” Bunta Takakura was stunned, staring at the crisp new bill with the fresh ink fragrance of Fukuzawa Yukichi, disbelief and shock in his turbid eyes: “No, no! This… this is too much! Mr. Nohara! I can’t accept it!”
“Take it.” Hiroshi Nohara’s voice was calm but carried an unquestionable force: “Consider it a small advance on tuition for my future child.”
He paused, flashing a brilliant smile under the man’s stunned gaze: “If I have a child later and happen to live near Kasukabe, I’ll definitely send him to your kindergarten.”
Bunta Takakura’s body trembled sharply.
He stared blankly at the young man before him, those clear eyes holding no pity or charity, only the purest respect and recognition for a stranger’s dream.
He recalled the countless drunken nights when he’d boasted of this “great dream” to so-called “friends,” only to receive mocking laughter.
“You? Opening a kindergarten? Don’t scare the kids to tears!”
“Takakura, you should go collect protection money instead; that suits you better!”
But this young man, meeting him for the first time, this seemingly important person of high status, he… he actually believed him?
“I…” Bunta Takakura’s eyes instantly reddened.
Unable to hold back any longer, this man, worn smooth by life’s pressures, bowed to Hiroshi Nohara.
A standard ninety-degree bow full of gratitude and respect!
“Thank you… sir… really… thank you so much!”
Hiroshi Nohara just smiled calmly, thinking to himself.
Looks like this future kindergarten principal really didn’t recognize him.
All the better.
Hiroshi Nohara now understood the troubles of being a celebrity.
……
After Bunta Takakura and his partner left with endless thanks, the oppressive atmosphere finally dissipated.
“Whew— that scared me!”
Misae was the first to exhale deeply, patting her still-thumping little chest, her delicate face full of relief from the aftermath of a disaster: “Hiroshi-kun, you were so bold just now! I thought… I thought he was going to pull out a knife!”
“Who says otherwise!” Yō Kitagawa and Hoshi Minamimura nodded repeatedly, their young faces equally filled with lingering fear.
“Earlier… my legs went weak! You didn’t see his eyes; they were just like the yakuza back home collecting protection money! Yō and I were about to… about to hug each other!” Hoshi Minamimura said with lingering fear.
“Oh? Hugging each other?”
Hiroshi Nohara’s clear eyes flashed with a teasing glint.
He turned, looking at the two young people who had instinctively drawn close from nervousness with a half-smile, and said unhurriedly: “I recall the Tokyo Television Station personnel handbook clearly prohibits… office romance, right? You two should watch your influence.”
“Eh?!”
Yō Kitagawa and Hoshi Minamimura’s faces flushed red instantly, like cats with stepped-on tails, springing apart three feet.
“N-No… nothing! There’s nothing!”
“Section Chief, don’t misunderstand! We were just… just purely scared!”
They explained in a fluster, their guilty panic only making Misae beside them cover her mouth in silvery laughter.
Hiroshi Nohara watched them and finally couldn’t hold back, bursting into hearty laughter.
“Hahaha! Just teasing you!”
He waved his hand, eyes gleaming with cunning mischief and indulgence.
“Tokyo Television Station has rules; that’s their business.”
Hiroshi Nohara paused, then under their stunned gazes, slowly delivered a domineering declaration that they would savor for countless nights to come.
“But in my department, I am the rule.”
……
Bunta Takakura and his partner named Suzuki were walking one behind the other down a dimly lit alley near Ginza, the air filled with the mingled aroma of food from high-end restaurants and the sour rot from trash cans.
‘Vroom—’ At the nearby intersection, a brand-new black Crown Majesta full of futuristic flair drove past.
It left the two staring wide-eyed.
Men like luxury cars.
But with their wages, forget luxury cars—even an ordinary sedan was out of reach!
“Hey, Bunta.”
Suzuki, walking behind, finally couldn’t hold back, breaking the silence in a resentful tone as he kicked an empty can with a piercing clang: “Tonight… we only made ten thousand yen? Split between us, five thousand each. That’s… not even enough for our drinks tonight!”
As he spoke, he irritably scratched his already sparse hair, his shrewd, calculating face now etched with anxiety and dissatisfaction at reality.
“The newspaper blows every day about how great our neon economy is, how our stock index creates new miracles daily. But why do I feel like… money’s getting harder and harder to earn? Prices rise every day, but our income’s stuck at three years ago. This world is getting harder to understand.”
Suzuki’s complaints ignited like a fuse, quickly targeting the man ahead who had been silently brooding like a walking low-pressure system.
“In the end, it’s all your fault!”
He pointed at Bunta Takakura’s broad back, his voice rising sharply with undisguised contempt: “How many times have I told you! Smile less ferociously! Your face looks like yakuza unsmiling, and smiling… it’s like an evil spirit just crawled out of hell! Who wouldn’t be scared? Today that young Mr. Nohara was bold; anyone else would’ve called the cops!”
“…” Bunta Takakura’s steps didn’t pause.
He just walked silently, his burly figure casting a long, lonely, oppressive shadow under the dim streetlights.
His presence seemed to clear the area.
A few young office workers, arm-in-arm and drunk from a bar, boasting loudly, sobered halfway at the sight of his face, scattering like frightened rabbits.
Even the nightclub guards at a nearby pachinko parlor entrance— in floral shirts, tattoos showing, squatting and smoking, looking tough—extinguished their cigarettes upon seeing him approach, standing straight against the wall, trembling as if facing a real “big boss” from another dimension, tougher than them.
The bone-deep awe was genuine.
“See! See!”
Suzuki pointed at the suddenly obedient guards, his voice full of schadenfreude glee, yet tinged with unconscious fear: “Even real yakuza act like mice seeing a cat with you! Still say you’re not yakuza?!”
Bunta Takakura’s steps finally stopped.
He slowly turned, his child-scaring ferocious face even more somber in the dim light.
He said nothing, just pulled a somewhat crumpled pack of Seven Stars cigarettes from his pocket.
He took one, put it in his mouth, then pulled out a lighter.
“Click.”
A small flame danced in his bottomless ink-black eyes.
Like anger.
The firelight illuminated the deep nasolabial folds on his face and, beneath his sunglasses, the profound fatigue hardened like stone by life.
He wanted a drag.
He really wanted a drag.
To numb his already full-of-holes heart with the pungent smoke.
But…
Uncontrollably, the young man’s calm, sincere smile as he handed over the ten thousand yen flashed in his mind.
“Consider it a small advance on tuition for my future child.”
“If I have a child later and happen to live near Kasukabe, I’ll definitely send him to your kindergarten.”
Children…
Kindergarten…
Bunta Takakura’s lips around the cigarette began to tremble uncontrollably.
He recalled the children in his Kasukabe hometown, always clustering around him, giggling, calling him “Uncle Bunta.”
Their pure, untainted eyes like a clear spring, washing away all the filth and fatigue of this big city from him.
He knew children didn’t like the smell of smoke.
‘Snap.’
A light sound.
Under Suzuki’s stunned and baffled gaze, Bunta Takakura crushed the pack of Seven Stars, along with the just-lit cigarette, fiercely into his palm!
The hard cigarette case deformed instantly in his vise-like grip, groaning under the pressure.
The burning cigarette butt scorched his palm with a faint sizzle, the smell of searing flesh quietly spreading in the air.
Yet he felt no pain, all expression fading from his ferocious face, leaving only a deep gloom like black clouds before a storm.
“Bu… Bunta… wh-what are you doing?” Suzuki’s face paled instantly.
His mind seemed to crash.
He recalled the mysterious rumors about Bunta Takakura at the company.
Some said he really ran with the yakuza in his youth, hands stained with blood.
Some said he once protected a bullied newbie, taking on five protection-racket yakuza alone and beating them senseless.
Others said he left Kasukabe for Tokyo because he offended some local big shot he couldn’t afford to cross, forced to flee.
He’d dismissed these as jokes before.
But now, seeing this man venting some unspeakable inner turmoil in near self-harm, he… he was afraid.
Truly afraid.
“Th-that… Bunta… Bunta-san!”
His voice sharpened with fear, the address instinctively shifting to the most respectful: “I… I was just joking earlier! D-don’t take it to heart! I… I think your smile is… very manly! Really! So charismatic!”
He explained in a fluster, his guilty panic like a clown clumsily performing to hide fear before a tiger.
Bunta Takakura ignored him.
He slowly opened his hand, tossing the mangled mess of tobacco and paper scraps into the roadside trash can.
Then, he looked up, his turbid eyes under the sunglasses gazing at the distant sky dyed eerie purple-red by neon lights, the look like a caged beast’s endless desire for freedom.
After a long while, he slowly exhaled, as if releasing all the unwillingness of his half-life.
“Suzuki.”
His voice was no longer hoarse or suppressed, but calm: “No need to say more. I… understand.”
He turned, looking at his partner, pale and trembling like chaff, deep fatigue on his ferocious face.
“I’ve decided.”
He said word by word, his voice like a death knell for his past, a trumpet for his future.
“Three more years.”
“Once I’ve saved enough, I’ll go back to Kasukabe.”
“To open my kindergarten.”
“To find…”
“My ideal and dream!”
Finished, he ignored his dumbfounded partner and strode steadily and resolutely into the bizarre, mismatched Tokyo streets.
His back was still burly, still oppressive.
But somehow, Suzuki read a sense of relief and newborn resolve in that oppression.
He looked at that back, then at his own empty hands, and inexplicably felt a trace of…
Envy.
And Bunta Takakura, in his heart, silently thanked the young man he’d met only once.
He knew his dream, rusted by reality, had been polished anew by that young man’s casual encouragement, shining with brilliance to light his remaining years.
“Wait for me, children.”
He murmured, a gentle, almost sacred glow on his ferocious face.
“Uncle… will be back soon.”
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