warm & tender, like a chicken nugget

- ̗̀ aj !  ̖́-

23

she/her

filipino-american

illustrator & comic artist

SUMMARY OF ART 2025

resolve

Remembering that he didn’t have his right hand anymore should have been easy. It wasn’t exactly a thing that someone could just ignore. Yet, Tachibana had tried to, anyway. While he had adjusted to exclusively using his left hand, he had ignored the reality that he would never get his right hand back. It was gone and its absence had weakened Tachibana’s defenses. Even if Tachibana wanted to soothe the cuts Kazue inflicted on him, he couldn’t. His hand may be gone now, but he survived. Tachibana wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. He wasn’t going to wallow in his regrets or wish that he had done things differently. Whatever Tachibana had left—time, resources, money, his own life—he was going to use it all to save Xiao Qiao. If it was the last thing he’d ever do. “You think you can do this all by yourself?” Kazue taunted as they circled around each other. “Then you’re gonna have to convince me!”

Previously, on last year…

After a group of Kijin Clan men stir trouble with his subordinates, Tachibana searches for their patriarch in order to settle matters before the flames can grow out of control. He ends up at The Grand and is led to Maharajah by Kazue, an enigmatic hostess. Tachibana encounters Nishitani, ending the night with a fight and a tryst. Tired of his life in Sotenbori, Tachibana resolves to leave for Tokyo to search for his family, unaware of how much changed since he last saw them…

last year

“How far are you willing to go for her?”

Sotenbori, April 1988. A rise to influence, a descent to revenge. Nothing is ever straightforward when it comes to yakuza affairs. The overture in the race for the Empty Lot has begun and Tachibana Tetsu becomes a late participant to ensure his sister’s safety. With limited time and next to no resources, he enlists Kazue, a woman who seems to have a pulse on the city’s secrets, to help him stand against the country’s most influential yakuza factions. However, he is unaware that she has her own goals to achieve and that it may conflict with his own.