As I slid the door open, its lightweight, lattice frame slipped from my grasp, threatening to reach the end of the track with an unpleasantly loud sound. But despite the inadequate force of my push, the fragile-looking bamboo door with its translucent sheets came to a soft, silent halt.

A breath of relief escaped my mouth just before my lips tensed up once again as I was confronted with three pairs of eyes: K’s green stared steadily at me with a gleam of boredom, Sunny’s brown were open wide in positive expectation, and Shin’s black reflected no emotion whatsoever. These same eyes ditched me in the next instant, turning to Sueno san, who came up behind my back. Freed from their grasp I sat down on the soft tatami mat and threw a glance at K and Sunny across the low table while pushing my knees below it. Shin was sitting at the left end of the table in seiza, looking uncomfortably formal with his back straight as a board.

I never thought I’d be back at the Doc’s house, yet there I was, at the insistence or rather the blackmailing of K, who threatened to end my contract with Yamato Damashi, had I not visited the good doc for a thorough check-up after the skirmish with Sato and his gang.

“So, Nik san, are you okay?” Sunny leaned forward toward me, putting more of her weight on her elbows, which stood firm against the table. Her fingers were intertwined as in prayer and her eyes reflected genuine interest.

“Yeah, everything’s fine…I think,” I answered, looking sideways at Sueno san, who still stood at the doorway between the bedroom and the dining area, explaining my physical condition, or so I presumed, to K quite in detail, judging by his lengthy speech.

When he finished talking, he stepped closer to the table and his rather large hand landed on my shoulder. His face, darkened from the sun, lowered toward me and his large mouth spread into a grin, barring the few lonely teeth, as he proclaimed in a loud, hoarse voice: “Nik san, okay, ne?”

He nodded enthusiastically while his hand tapped with considerable strength on my shoulder and then departed with its fingers shaped in an okay sign. Sueno san sat cross-legged at the end of the table opposite Shin, He poured himself a cup of sake and with a loud kampai he brought the cup to his lips.

Sunny clasped her hands together, her smile as wide as Sueno san’s, and said: “Oh, I’m so glad, ‘cause you don’t look well at all. Your face is all swollen, and your arms are full of purple bruises. I was worried that you might be seriously injured.”

I threw a glance at K, who had listened to Sueno’s san report with an unperturbed focus and now looked rather thoughtful.

“What did he say?” I asked her. Even though Sueno’s okay confirmed what I’d already felt – that there was no serious injury – I wanted to hear it from K.

With oblique laziness, her eyelids closed and reopened, during which the direction of her stare changed from some vague point in the room toward me. “You will be fine. Nothing is broken.” The tone of her voice was so void of any appreciation for the positive result, that I felt a slight disappointment.

“You sure? I’ve got this pain right here… I thought a rib might be broken…” Rubbing my hand over the left side of my torso, I realized I was fishing for some sympathy, or an approval maybe. Am I really that pathetic? The thought of it quickly changed my disposition. “Ech…it must be just a bad bruise…” I concluded, discarding the forced aching expression on my face.

K shook her head, her lips pressed together, forming a thin line. “No, nothing is broken. You were lucky in that regard. Sueno san says your previous injury healed as well so your liver recovered completely. You’re all good to go.”

“Good to go?”

“You can resume your trainings tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Sunny turned to K, her lower lip dropping. “Isn’t it a bit too soon? I mean…he’s all blue and purple.”

K snorted and gave a careless shrug. “Fighters are like that all the time.”

Sunny turned her stare downward at the table and muttered the words while shaking her head in subtle refusal of K: “No, not like that.”

Her care comforted me and I looked upon her drooped head with gratitude.

The chatter died out, and as if the tastiest dish had been served everyone at the table became silent. It wasn’t a comfortable silence, but rather the type that pushed itself into the room like a fat passenger on an overly crowded train. The only one who didn’t seem bothered by it was Shin, whose eyes passed from one person to another, savouring the awkwardness on our faces with a gleam of delight.

It was the merry doc, who after downing another cup of sake, brought to end the uncomfortable atmosphere by posing a question to K. Not understanding his question or K’s lengthy answer, save for discerning my name being mentioned a few times, I observed the reactions on the faces of the listeners. Sueno san listened with interest, keeping his stare on K while sipping from his glass and chuckling in between. As K’s explanation continued, his chuckling became louder and more frequent just as K’s voice became more expressive and energetic. A smile grew on Sunny’s lips, starting with the ends of her mouth barely lifting up and advancing into the full exposure of her teeth, during which her downward stare left the table and returned to the level of our faces. Even Shin when he pulled down the mask to drink the tea from the cup exposed a grin on his previously concealed mouth.

The cheerful intensity in K’s voice rose to an annoying crescendo, striking at my nerves like a finger tapping on the top of my head at irregular intervals, and creating around me a whirlwind of conspicuous glances, chuckling, giggling, and muffled laughter.

I sat there like a mute doll, my inquietude unnoticed, understanding very well what K was saying without understanding her words.

When after a dramatic pause her narration resumed with what sounded like a punchline the whole group burst into a loud laugh, which mixed with the jeering laughter coming from some show on a TV set in the kitchen niche. My darkened gaze and my stillness grew into such an oppressive contrast with the cheerful demeanour of everyone else that once their laughter subsided, their stares, one by one, were all drawn to me, the last one being of the old doc, whose nature was too loud and merry for him to notice the negative energy which emanated from me.

As if a cloud passed over K’s eyes, her vivacious green pupils turned a darker shade. When our stares met she immediately averted hers downwards.

“Nik san, K was just telling Sueno san—“ Sunny started.

“Yeah, I know,” I cut in sharply; “about what happened with Sato.”

“Yeah…” Sunny simpered with relief, failing to detect the contempt in my answer and misinterpreting my participation in the conversation as a positive sign. “She told us how you locked her in the warehouse, while you--”

Sunny shuddered at the loud smash of my palm against the table, leaving her sentence unfinished. K promptly raised her eyes from the table.

“What the fuck is there to laugh about?” I growled, my voice reverberating loud within the dining room. “It could have ended very badly for me….a-and for K too…What’s so damn funny?”

The moment was charged with a sense of my own moral superiority. However brief, I enjoyed and bathed in it, until it was burned down by K’s stare, which focused on me like a laser gun.

She lashed out: “What’s this? What’s this way of talking…and smashing on things?….Such behaviour in somebody else’s house?” Her right hand grasped tightly the edge of the table, its knuckles protruding out in desire to lift off and reciprocate my action. But K stayed in control, which only emphasized the inappropriateness of my doing.

Sunny, sweet Sunny, whom I least wanted to offend tried to mend the situation: “Oh, Nik san, it’s just that you locked K inside and well…she…” Her eyes jumped with restlessness from me to K, to Sueno san, and then back to K; ”…She…well…K could have helped you...”

Are they all crazy? Perhaps they don’t quite grasp what went down in that alley. “No, Sato was after me. I explained that. I didn’t want to get anyone else hurt on my behalf,” I spoke, lowering the volume of my voice considerably.

Feeling offended by K’s mounted offense, I crossed my hands over my chest, and turned my head sideways, giving everyone my best sulky profile. I protected her, risking everything that matters to me. And it wasn’t that I wanted a thank you or even an acknowledgment; it was after all my mess to clean up. But to be laughed at?

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

Her voice, stern in its sharp calmness, reached me from across the table like a chilling, night wind. From the corner of my eye I caught her glaring stare at me. Her eyes were like two green patches of soft moss, embedded in the dark, impenetrable forest of her thoughts extending behind them. She might have as well said I don’t want you to protect me.

I couldn’t understand why doing something I considered objectively good and noble brought me nothing but a confrontation with my proxy. Perhaps, it was something Japanese, some cultural modes of behaviour I didn’t yet grasp. No, it didn’t feel like that. It was more personal. Could it be… protective?

A heavy hand of Sueno san tapped on my arm, hitting the spot of yellowish and deep purple colour. As I winced slightly, the connection between K’s and my eyes appeased, unable to sustain the strained exchange of thoughts at the raspy and cheerful voice of Sueno san.

“Nik san, did okay. Strong boy!” His hand kept pressing on the bruised part of my arm with the intent to offer some comfort while he struggled to convey his words to me. I thought it would be rude if I tried shaking off his grip. “But K san…. very strong!… If next time…no worry… K san is kirra…“ His voice sounded as if originated deep from his lungs, its hoarseness reminding of a heavy smoker, even though I’ve never seen Sueno san smoking.

Kirra?” I asked, thinking he mispronounced the last word or overestimated my understanding of Japanese.

He nodded his head several times, his eyes under his thick grey eyebrows arching in the opposite direction of his grinning mouth. I glanced at the others for an explanation but nobody offered one.

Sueno san finally released my arm, his face expressing confidence that his words stroke an understanding with me. Since I appreciated the old doc’s affection but didn’t consider it meaningful, I forced a smile and nodded my head out of politeness even though the meaning of his words still eluded me.

There was nothing more to say. I resisted the urge of rubbing the aching spot on my arm and let my eyes wander around the dining room and kitchen niche. I paused my stare at the small shelf, set on the wall between the TV and the window. It was adorned by a single lily in a tiny, white vase, its white petals widespread and touching upon the wooden frame of a photo. An incense holder and a shallow cup were on the shelf too, but their existence seemed unimportant next to the opulent flower. All of the objects including the flower, however, were subjugated to the framed photograph of a small girl of about five years old. She was dressed in a pink kimono with a flowery pattern and had a white lily, similar to the one in the vase, pinned to her hair, which spread like a black waterfall over her shoulders. She held the hand of a woman, whose body was not captured in the photo saved for her arm sleeved in a light blue kimono. The girl’s stare was turned upwards straight at the lens of the camera, and her lips were drawn into a proud smile.

When I noticed the photo during my first stay at the doc’s, I thought it was just a usual, sentimental ornament of a family member and as such, I barely gave it any notice. Knowing now the girl on the photo was Hana, or Hana chan as K called her, Sueno san’s diseased daughter, a look at it prompted an immediate sympathy and affection toward the Doc.

Sunny had once told me the whole story, describing it in detail, as if she was reading a paragraph from a novel. Before coming to Kanagawa, Sueno had lived in Hokkaido, the northernmost region of Japan. He was a respected doctor working at the main hospital in Sapporo. His wife was a beauty and a talented painter, and their only daughter Hana was the pride and joy of their little family, showing very early in her age the same beauty and talent as her mother. On one of the many snowy days in Sapporo, Sueno san was late for a meeting with his wife and daughter in the park, having been held up by the complications of a patient. With his hands in the pockets of his coat, stamping from one foot to another with impatience, he waited by the traffic light, when his five-year-old daughter spotted him from the park on the other side of the road. She ran towards the road, causing a surge of panic in her father as well as her mother, who realized with a delay that her daughter left the park. But Hana was a smart child, and just as her parents had taught her, she stopped at the traffic light and waved at her anguished father on the other side. With a nervous smile and still all tensed inside from the dreadful possibility of Hana chan crossing the road on her own, Sueno san took the hand out of his pocket and waved, shouting from the top of his lungs to Hana not to move. His wife was approaching from the park and was no more than twenty meters away from Hana when something entered his peripheral field of vision from the right. At that moment Sueno san already knew what was going to happen. His subconscious must have gathered all the visual signals and deducted the inevitable result. And in that brief, yet never-ending moment, he felt helpless as he watched in utmost horror the predictable scene playing out in front of his eyes. A car driving too fast coming down the road, the desperate sound of brakes as the traffic light flickered green for pedestrians, the treacherous road with icy patches hidden under the light cover of the newly fallen snow. The car slid, crushed into the traffic light, and then continued sliding into the fence of the park, taking Hana and two other women, who waited to cross the road as well, with it.

The grinding sound of breaks against the snow and ice imprinted on Sueno’s mind and tormented him every night. He couldn’t be in the vicinity of his wife anymore, for her presence only amplified the emptiness that Hana’s death left behind. He found no satisfaction or divine justice in the fact that the driver, who was responsible for the accident, a young student, committed suicide as soon as he was released from jail two years after. He wasn’t mad at him, or his wife for letting Hana slip out of the park alone, his rage was directed at the number of coincidences that conspired together on that day to take his little daughter away from him. It wasn’t just the inexperienced driver or the carelessness of his wife, it was also him being late, it was the ice, it was the snow that covered the road on that day…there was no clear murderer with evil intent to blame, no terminal disease that would have killed Hana’s body, there were only many unfortunate coincidences coming together on that fateful day, almost as if some higher power was pulling the strings. But, he didn’t believe in any God either, so her death seemed even more pointless and this pointlessness was something he could not deal with.

At the request of his wife, they didn’t divorce. For her, it was a matter of financial security and appearances, and he didn’t object, because he didn’t care. But he could no longer stay in Hokkaido. For the next ten years, he travelled Japan, casting aside all his medical knowledge and delved instead into different alternative practices, which promised to cure the body as well as the soul. He searched out various Shinto priests, herbalists, and local shamans. Although they distracted him for a while, he didn’t find the answer he was hoping for, and pressed by his grief he searched for some consolation in temporary oblivion brought upon by alcohol and various drugs.

He never fully explained how he had become involved with Yamato Damashi, he only said he had met Fujiwara when he was at the lowest point in his life, and that Fujiwara saved him. He repaid Fujiwara by treating his fighters and once his services were not needed anymore, he retired to a small house in Kanagawa. He met K during his time at Yamato Damashi and she kept in touch, paying him occasional visits in Kanagawa, where he became a respected practitioner of alternative medicine.

I found it interesting that even now, when I was officially a Yamato Damashi fighter and had a proper doctor at my disposal, K took me to Sueno san instead. Having developed an aversion towards hospitals since my jaw operation, I didn’t really mind. I preferred this homey setting, and if I had had doubts about Sueno san’s competencies at first, they were dispelled by now. He never demanded anything in return, and it felt almost as if treating me stemmed from some self-imposed penance. His unorthodox methods of healing clearly worked and the more I got to know him the more I liked him. I had never told the Doc that my father also died in a traffic accident, which happened in bad winter conditions on a snowy day. Still, I felt like he knew I was branded by the experience of a sudden loss too, which affected our relationship positively.

This train of thought, prompted by the photo of Hana chan, led me to K. The horrid death of her parents left a mark no doubt, but the feeling I got when she had spoken to me about them was that she had come to terms with that loss. There was something else, some other darkness that loomed inside her. K was branded all right, but not in the same way as me or Sueno san.

My previous irritation with her was once again replaced by my desire to solve the puzzle that was my proxy. Fastening my mind on K, my eyes lay on her without me realizing it. Only when I saw her lips moving, I became aware I was staring at her face. She naturally assumed I was listening to her, but I was so deep in my thoughts, I didn’t hear a thing of what she’d said.

“Err…” An embarrassing, idiotic expression must have set on my face at that moment. “Could you repeat that, please?”

K made a heavy sigh, heard by everyone at the table. Her voice was calm and low, but held authority. “I said, it’s time you start fighting with some proper opponents.”