Tokyo: Rabbit Officer and Her Evil Partner
Chapter 365 - 268_2

Chapter 365: Chapter 268_2

The brothers shouted as they kicked the door open. Inside the room were only two people, a girl around his age and a middle-aged person bedridden with illness. The girl knelt on the ground, begging bitterly, saying she had to borrow at a high interest rate to treat her father’s illness, and pleaded for an extension of time.

The brother nudged him with his elbow, signaling him to say something—like suggesting the girl sell herself, or the middle-aged man sell blood, sell organs... In any case, it was necessary to get back the principal and interest.

He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, unable to utter a single word.

"You can’t go on like this!" the brother advised, "I initially thought you were a man, but don’t be a coward!"

He clenched his fists, grabbing the brother’s collar, questioning him, "Is bullying such pitiable people worthy of being called a man?!"

"Isn’t that unimportant? What’s important is that you bear your responsibility! As a man, you should protect your family at all costs, right? If you don’t even have the resolve to do bad things, you’d better go back."

The brother saw it plainly, patting him on the shoulder after speaking, adding, "If nothing else works, I’ll help you this time, but next time you’ll have to do it yourself."

He couldn’t argue back and walked away despondently.

The next day, the brother brought him fifty thousand yen, saying it was interest collected from debt, instructing him to use it for his mother’s medical treatment.

He didn’t dare ask how the money was obtained, nor did he dare ask how the brother recovered the debt.

He didn’t want to take it, yet he had no choice but to accept it.

Aiko asked where the money came from, but he couldn’t answer. He could only lower his head, impatiently urging his mother to go to the hospital.

Aiko insisted on getting to the bottom of it, and in a fit of anger and shame, he quarreled with his mother, forcing her to the hospital.

The treatment process was painful, and monitoring in the ward was exhausting. Two or three days later, the hospitalization fee was again due, and he could only ask his brother to look after his mother, while he went out alone to make money. _{freew\e bnovel.com}

It wasn’t until he truly needed money that he realized how hard it was to earn it.

A person can’t live without money.

He didn’t want to demand payment from desperate people anymore, so he asked the boss to assign him to some tough clients. The boss advised him not to be impulsive, suggesting that as a newcomer, he was previously given easy targets, and if he went after veteran debtors, he might not handle those tough characters.

"Even if I can’t handle it, I have to try," he said stubbornly.

Seeing his determination, the boss didn’t advise further, providing him with an address and reminding him to bring a few more people.

He didn’t want to involve friends, so he impulsively went home, grabbed a kitchen knife, and went alone to demand debt repayment.

The debtor was a fishery owner who borrowed a high-interest loan to keep the fishery running, with over thirty fishermen under his command. As soon as he entered, stating his purpose, the fish vendors on both sides of the pawnshop picked up their fish knives, closing in, telling him to get lost.

He wished he could be like those in TV dramas, using a kitchen knife to fight his way from one end of the street to the other, then light a cigarette unhurriedly after knocking everyone down, stepping on the boss’s head to force payment.

However, when the fish vendors put a knife to his neck, thinking of his mother still on the hospital bed, he had no choice but to walk away dejectedly.

Unable to fight the tough ones, and too kind-hearted to bully the weak, lacking the courage to do evil deeds, he resolved to do some hard labor!

He went to the dock to unload goods, to construction sites to move bricks, to restaurants to wash dishes, finally borrowing a bit from friends to barely scrape together the hospitalization fees.

After paying, he didn’t dare to visit his mother in the hospital, instead sitting on the hospital steps, picking up a cigarette butt to smoke while dazing off.

If only he had worked sooner.

Saving a bit of money early on wouldn’t have left him unable to afford treatment now.

The dock worker foreman was a good person, gifting a substantial wedding present to a formal employee getting married; the construction foreman was also kind, fully covering medical expenses for a formal employee who broke their leg, and even visited them in the hospital personally; the restaurant owner too was good, allowing employees paid leave for family funerals... Even colleagues were kind, rallying to raise funds and encouraging each other should someone run into trouble, striving to support a family.

But he was just a temporary worker.

And also a reputed hoodlum in the streets.

It was fortunate that the bosses didn’t withhold his wages, let alone give him subsidies. There was no camaraderie with colleagues; even if he died outside, they wouldn’t care.

He finally understood, having avoided responsibility for the first half of his life. Now, with nowhere to retreat, he realized he couldn’t shoulder such a heavy burden.

Maybe it’s time to give up.

To let go.

After all, his mom didn’t want treatment anymore.

Instead of struggling painfully through two years of chemotherapy, perhaps liberation should come sooner.

Talk of "finding a way to live independently in the future" held no meaning; if he was alone, he’d certainly focus only on himself, without worrying about such things... Contemplating it, he decided to live until forty, then die, avoiding the trouble of illness, effortlessly carefree.

It was during this time that he encountered Kazama Tatsuya.

Aiko wrote a letter to Kazama Keigo, asking for assistance from the Kazama Family to help her son, who had strayed onto the wrong path, return to the right one—Aiko wasn’t afraid of death; she only feared that after her death, her son wouldn’t be able to live independently.

Kazama Keigo was Kazama Tatsuya’s father, who in his early years had been a classmate of his father, both training at the same police academy, reportedly close friends.

His father had once told Aiko, if one day he were gone, and the family encountered difficulties, to mail a letter to the Kazama Family, and Kazama Keigo would surely help.