Boss
Chapter 1: Keep Your Head Down
There’s a formula for life that Sojiro Sakura has figured out. It took years of hardship and fuckups to tweak it to perfection. It’s the surefire method by which he maintains peace, stability, and the merciful stagnation that ensures he doesn't slip further down life's unforgiving slopes.
Keep your head down.
It might not look like a good life. Yeah, it definitely isn’t what it could be, or what it should be. But it’s relative. When you consider the batshit hurricane of the past, the storm he and Futaba only just recently escaped from, stability looks a lot like forward motion. And, well. It’s been going on that way for a while now. Nothing better has happened, but more importantly, nothing worse has happened. You keep your head down and the mud they sling your way just flies right overhead. You keep your nose in your own business and you won’t smell anyone else’s shit.
A sudden spring rain is clearing out the gutters of Yongen-Jaya and sending all the strays bolting, seeking shelter beneath eaves and parked cars. Leblanc sits empty, the booths and barstools all watching out the windows. Sometimes weather makes the whole world stop to watch, and everybody remembers they live on Earth for a minute, before business as usual resumes. Those clear sheets rumbling outside paint the café in washed-out shades of itself, dulling the warm reds and browns into something clean and peaceful and grey. If he doesn’t already have customers in the café when a cod-dragger like this hits, he won’t be getting any.
Two umbrellas hang on the hook by the door. One of them, he brought with him when he opened. It wasn’t raining when he opened.
He looks away from them and tries to find something to clean.
That freeloader hadn’t washed a single one of the dishes he’d used for breakfast, so Sojiro’s job now is to clean up after him. Seriously, he ought to just take all these up to his room and dump them on his bed. Every day that goes by reminds him of what a pain in the ass he took upon himself. He broke his formula. Specifically to saddle himself with hassle. He asks himself why, and finds the experience much like looking down at a crossword in his hands that he already knows the answer to. Pretending to stew over it so that he can act like he wasn’t paying attention to whatever’s going on around him.
That first night sealed it. It was like looking in a mirror stuck 30 years in the past. Watching Ren sulk and seethe quietly behind his glasses while Sojiro grilled into him about probation and watching his step. He couldn’t believe the sass that came out of that kid’s mouth, like he had no clue just how serious his situation was. That, or he just couldn’t give a shit. Still young enough to be angry, to care more about unfairness than result. Sojiro used to be like that. And it got him into deeper trouble than a kid knows can even exist. There are things he has found out about the hard way. Things he can warn of. So that maybe Ren’s life doesn’t lead toward the same pitfalls Sojiro has already climbed out of. At least he can throw down a rope.
That’s why, every time he gets a chance to lecture that dunce about fixing his life before it’s ruined completely, Sojiro gets a little dose of some weird moral-based relief. And every time, Ren snaps back with a sour smile and some understated but cunningly sharp remark. He knows how to spar, how to sting. And Sojiro knows he should get pissed, but all he wants to do is laugh. He wonders sometimes if this is catharsis, an opportunity to treat his dumbass former self the way he really wants to. Projection. Fulfilling the urge to go back in time and smack himself on the head and tell him what to do better.
Well. Guess even he isn’t immune to the elderly’s unrelenting need to boss around young folk.
But if someone really had come at him like that, back then, would he have listened? Why hell no. Sojiro remembers what it’s like. How angry you get. He didn’t hold one inch of space for any elderly bastard who wanted to come at him with the scepter of good advice in one hand and a superior attitude in the other.
…Maybe if someone had approached him while holding an umbrella, instead.
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When he makes it to the front gates of Shujin, his pant cuffs are soaked and his joints are aching. He grumbles about weather and vaguely thinks ahead, wondering if he’s going to lay into this kid when he sees him. Probably. Maybe he’s about to step in shit, and maybe he should have stayed home. This is something new, after all, and something new could go one of two ways. Up or down. Better or worse. This isn’t in his formula.
Jeez. He really is an old man, getting so worked up over one tiny break in his routine. It’s just one umbrella.
He’s told by the front desk that Ren is in a meeting with his teacher. In the guidance office.
God fucking dammit.
What did he do now!?
Right. Enough. Smarting off is one thing. Acting on it is another. He was late on the first day of class, immediately involved himself with bad influences, doesn’t even do chores and fucks with the customers while smirking straight at him. It’s like every single thing Sojiro tells him to do, Ren takes it as an immediate directive to do the exact opposite as soon as possible. And now he’s in trouble at school again Whatever he says to this smartass when he gets to him is no longer something he will feel bad about. He’s got it coming now.
He rounds the corner with an umbrella in each hand, ready to use both and more to beat this crooked kid back into a proper shape. He plants himself directly in front of the guidance office’s door. As soon as Ren opens it, probably smirking about his clever escape from the frying pan, he will find himself staring right into the fire.
“…can do whatever I damn well want to you. You know that, right?”
Sojiro hears a sound like dousing water, rising steam.
“You dumb little fucks are under my authority. You’re gonna learn how that works one way or the other. You, and every other worthless little shitbag who is called ‘student,’ are mine to do with as I see fit.”
His fist tightens on the umbrella.
“That’s what ‘teacher’ means.”
Sojiro slams the door open so hard it nearly cracks.
“What the f—” What appears to be a six-foot tall meatloaf with eyes whirls around, leaping away from Ren, who has his back to a wall and a look in his eyes that could burn a forest down. He quickly tilts his face downward so that his hair, his lenses, shield it from view.
The teacher stammers. “What—I’m sorry, but, who are you?”
Sojiro’s voice comes from low in his throat, like the first rumble before a guard dog barks. “I’m this kid’s caretaker.”
“I—see. You must be here to pick him up, then.”
“Yes. I am.”
“Well, now. It’s just that—” He has been taking minute steps away from Ren. He paints on what he must believe is a charming smile. “His guidance session is still in. Hm. Session.”
Sojiro looks past him. The front of Ren’s shirt is ruffled.
“Is that the sort of thing Shujin Academy defines as a guidance session?” His lip curls. “I may be old, but when I was in school, I don’t remember a single teacher being allowed to call me a worthless shitbag.”
The man stares at him for a moment. Then he straightens his back. “I believe you must be mistaken.” His genial act fades away, like colors under rain, washed out as the oppressive black cloud of authority swells overhead. “I would never say any such thing to any of my students. Shujin’s future alumni are too precious to give anything less than the utmost care and support.”
Glaring down at him from above as he stood beside his desk, leaning over his shoulder to reach toward a police report form and snub out his cigarette on the paper. Heinous commands in a voice that stank of shit and brandy. Power. Absolute power.
“Ren.” Says Sojiro. “Get your ass out here.”
The teacher sidesteps to place his massive bulk into Ren’s path, and one step closer to Sojiro. He clogs up the entire doorway. The size difference between the two men is comical. It’s like a rhino standing over a beansprout. If there were sun, Sojiro could use him as shade. Probably be more useful that way.
“As I said. Amamiya is still in a meeting.” He smiles. “You can wait until I’m done.”
Sojiro feels like he’s just swallowed a slug. But it's no shock. He knows the taste.
He stares back languidly, his flat eyes dissecting and bored. “When a kid’s guardian wants to pick them up from school. The kid goes,” Sojiro says evenly. “A teacher is a teacher. But a child’s parent is a child’s God.”
The man’s sneer could curdle cream. He leans down, nose to nose. “Then it’s too bad his parents dumped that sorry piece of trash in a landfill as far away from them as they could find.”
His eyes flare hot and wide. “How dare—"
Ren appears in the hallway like he’d been conjured, like a ghost, somehow standing right behind Sojiro. How did he get out of there? Angled toward the exit, he’s grabbing Sojiro’s arm. He tugs.
Without breaking eye contact with the asswipe that calls itself a teacher, Sojiro reaches behind him to grab hold of Ren—he catches a fistful of his shirt, by which he hauls him down the hall and away from this cockhead.
It isn't until they're outside the school gates that Ren jerks himself free of his grip.
"Hnf." Sojiro glares over his shoulder at the school. "What a jackass. Shittiest attitude I’ve seen since—I mean where the hell’d they find him?"
He finally turns to look at Ren, finally sees the look on his face. Sojiro pauses, looks over his shoulder, looks down at himself. "Did I. Grow a second head, or."
"What was that!?" Ren asks, with all the decorum of someone who's just watched a giraffe stand on one arm and play the tuba. Which is sort of a relief. Something had to give, really. It was getting pretty damn irritating to keep trying to pry one genuine word out of this kid’s smart mouth, always getting nothing but that fake-ass smarmy act in response.
"What? Guy was a prick." He opens his umbrella. Little taps on the canvas. He hands Ren the other one.
"Yeah, but." He’s staring at the umbrella in his hand, his other a fist knotted into the hair at the side of his head. "Why did you yell at him?"
"Cuz’a the shit he said to you."
"To me?"
"Look, a teachers's got no right to treat a child that way—no, more like, a teacher's got a responsibility not to, they oughta be—"
"You hate me, though!"
Sojiro stares. So does Ren.
"Hate you?"
"Yes."
"When did I say that?"
"Quite clearly, every day."
"Now look here—"
"Cause any trouble and I'll kick you out. Smoke crack and I'll kick you out. Pull a knife on the cashier at Don-ki and I'll kick you out. You literally told me this morning to stay away from the cash register because you 'can't trust a kiddie-Clyde around visible money'."
"Tch." Sojiro adjusts his hat. "...Funny though."
"That didn't make any sense!"
"See, Clyde was this American bank robber who went on a big wacko crime spree with—"
"You took my side."
"Oh. Well, the other side was knee-high dogshit."
Ren stares at him, the bafflement on his face slowly melting into something almost pleading.
"C'mon. Let's not give anything worse the chance to happen," Sojiro starts off toward the subway. "Also, I didn't bring that thing all the way out here for you to stand in the rain."
After a few moments, he hears the umbrella open behind him.
They don’t say another word to each other on the subway, or in the alleys, or at the front door of Leblanc. The overhead bell greets them home, and they take off their coats, and they act like they’re too preoccupied with shaking out their umbrellas to talk. Ren hesitates as Sojiro wanders behind the bar. He watches him closely. Then, eventually, he starts toward the stairs.
“Nope. Sit down,” orders Sojiro. Ren does.
The whole time he’s brewing, Ren sits perfectly still and poised, staring at his own hands where they’re laced together on the bartop.
“Not one single child in this world is born a piece of trash,” Sojiro says, watching the grounds darken under the water he pours over the filter. Amber-brown drops begin to fall out the bottom. One by one, soon an unbroken stream. “People become what they believe they are. Then they spend the rest of their life convincing themselves it isn’t true. That’s what kind of man that is, that teacher of yours. He turned himself into garbage somewhere along the line and now he’s so damn scared of himself he has to scream to the whole world that he isn’t wrong.”
“You know a lot about those kinds of men?” Ren mumbles.
He pauses. Watching the coffee swirl. “I’ve met a lot of people. Some of them are garbage and it’s too late not to be. Some of them still get to choose.”
When Sojiro sets the cup down in front of him, the steam rises up to further cloud his rain-spattered glasses. Ren doesn’t move. “You gonna clean your glasses or what?”
He takes them off and tosses them onto the counter. “They’re fake.”
“Huh?”
“Wear ‘em and see.” He takes the coffee only to stare into it.
Sojiro actually does swap Ren’s glasses for his own, squinting. “Huh. They really are.” He takes them off, rubbing his eyes, but doesn’t put his own back on. “…Why?”
“Things aren’t…” he speaks it like a revelation, like he’s learning this in real time. Or maybe re-learning it. “…what they seem. On the surface. Especially not people.”
It’s the first time he’s looked at him since the school gates. It’s surreal, seeing his eyes without a transparent buffer, without the frames that reflect half of the world in front of them. It’s like he’s meeting Ren for the first time. He probably is. “You look better without them,” he snorts.
Ren, slowly, allows a smile to contort his face, showing teeth, sharp and curved and touched by something wild. Forward motion. Just looking at it makes Sojiro feel thirty years dumber.
“You too, Boss.”
