Yuuto was stunned. On his first full day in Tokyo and he had already been conned into taking someone else’s enormous debt. Now, some of the not so friendly debt collectors had become very interested in him.
It was not a good type of interest, but the type that caused problems down the line.
Yuuto decided to head out and find something to eat so that he could have time to calm down and see if he could figure out what to do next.
He walked through the maze of unknown streets until he found a street full of restaurants. Each of the restaurants that he passed had a long line of people waiting to order their food.
Yuuto decided to find someplace less crowded and continued to walk down the street and turned off onto a side street where he found an outdoor ramen shop.
Only two other people were eating at the small counter. So Yuuto decided to order his food here. After looking at the menu he ordered the specialty of the shop and waited for the food to be served.
After he finished eating and paid for his food, he started to wander around town not paying attention to where he was going. The events of the past few weeks ran through his mind as he tried to figure out what to do.
He was jolted out of his thoughts when he was roughly bumped into by someone.
“Watch where you’re going!” said the muscular man who Yuuto had bumped into.
“Sorry.”
Yuuto looked around and found himself in a large crowd of people who were walking every which way.
He had been too deep in thought to know where he had been walking so he had to search for the street signs and figure out where exactly he was and how to get back to the building.
While searching his pockets for the map, he noticed his secondary wallet was missing.
Luckily, that wallet didn’t have any money, important documents, or his photo id. It did, however, have the business credit card that he had used to pay for lunch.
Cursing under his breath, he pulled the map out and walked back to the ramen shop to see if he had left it at the shop or dropped it near that area.
He had no luck finding it. So he gave up and started walking back to the office.
He would have to call the credit card company to notify them that it was stolen or lost.
***
Yuuto picked up the phone in the empty room and dialed the credit card company’s number.
“Please hold as all our representatives are busy at the moment.”
He was forced to wait for over twenty minutes.
Finally, a female voice picked up, “Hello my name is Dementia, how may I help you today?”
“Hello, I need to cancel my business credit card since my wallet was stolen,” replied Yuuto.
“I’m sorry to hear that. May I ask for your name and the last 4 digits of your account number.”
“My name is Yuuto Shimizu. The last 4 digits are 0169.”
“And when was the card stolen?”
“Today around 1 pm after I had eaten lunch.”
“One moment please while checking the system for your information.”
A minute past before she spoke again but this time her voice had lost all its warmth and was cold.
“Hello sir, it seems that you have several problems right now. An update to your account just this morning shows your company is in a large amount of debt with many defaulted payments. This has greatly lowered your credit score so we can’t issue you another card. Looking at the information on your card it seems someone has charged multiple large amounts on it well before the time you say it was stolen. We will be able to cover the charges that were made after it was stolen but you will still have to pay for all other charges.”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding me. Things just keep getting worse. I only used it once for food at lunch today. Don’t you have policies to protect the credit card holder?” asked Yuuto.
“I’m sorry sir, but those charges are from before the time you said the card was stolen. Since you owned the card at the time of the charges, we will send you the amount due on your next statement. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No, are you sure there is no way to fix this?”
“Sorry sir, there is nothing we can do. Thank you for calling and we hope you continue doing businesses with us when you sort everything out. Good day.”
Yuuto put down the phone after the representative hung up.
It was already late afternoon and he was exhausted from all that had happened today, he decided to just return to the capsule hotel and sleep.
After making sure that the building was locked he started walking down the street.
“Ah!” the surprised scream echoed out from one of the side streets somewhere ahead of him. The sound of a furious struggle could be heard as Yuuto continued walking.
He picked up his pace and started walking faster towards the sound of the scuffle to see what was going on.
When he reached the side street where the noise was coming from, he found a young female office worker and two equally young delinquent males arguing with each other.
The delinquents had the young office lady pushed up against the wall of the building behind her.
As he started to walk closer, the office lady noticed him. The delinquents seeing her eyes dart to something behind them turned around to see what it was she was looking at.
“Hey what are you doing to her?” asked Yuuto.
The delinquents didn’t answer him and just whispered a few words to each other and then turned back to the young female office worker saying something only she could hear.
Before leaving they gave her a hard shove to her shoulder causing her to slam into the building again.
Yuuto quickly ran up to her and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I am thanks to you. I’m just a little shook up is all. I need to catch my breath and get my head back in order,” as she said this she leaned against the wall and put the back of her left hand against her forehead and let out a loud sigh.
“Is there any place I can take you to?” asked Yuuto.
“No, I don’t want to bother you.”
“It’s fine not a bother at all.”
“Okay then, would you care to join me for a drink and an early dinner? Of course, it’s my treat for you saving me. I know of this small restaurant that’s supposed to be a nice place. ”
“It was nothing, I’m sure just about anyone would have helped you in that situation as well. Lead the way and I will follow. I’m looking forward to the food and drink.”
They walked silently for another ten minutes until they reached a small family specialty of the day restaurant.
The young office lady quickly entered the restaurant and sat down at a table in the far left corner of the restaurant.
The head cook behind the counter nodded his head to the two while he was cooking something over one of the stoves.
A black waiter that was at least 6ft tall, walked over to their table.
The uniform he wore made it hard not to notice that his body was packed full of muscles.
“What can I get for you today?” asked the waiter.
“Two specialty dinners and drinks to go along with it,” said the young office lady confidently ordering for both of them.
“Coming right up.”
After the waiter left Yuuto asked, “Do you eat here often?”
“No, this is my first time here as well. I just wanted to eat at a small restaurant and relax a bit. I always wanted to try out a place like this so it’s nice to have someone else come with me,” she replied.
The wait for their food was short, it was a type of thick stew with a mixture of vegetables and meats. On the side were thick pieces of freshly baked bread with butter.
The two of them ate in silence as they enjoyed the flavor of the stew.
When finished eating, they made small talk while drinking, buying refills when their glasses emptied. Yuuto was starting to feel very sleepy and could barely keep his eyes open.
“I have to use the restroom. I will be right back,” she told him.
So he rested his head on his hands while he waited for her. While waiting he drifted off into a light drunken slumber.
He was jolted awake when someone started to shake his left shoulder. Yuuto looked up to see who it was and saw that it was the waiter standing over him.
He looked out a window and saw that it was now completely dark outside several hours had passed.
“Sir, the restaurant will be closing soon, you can’t sleep here any longer,” said the waiter.
“Sorry, I must have fallen asleep from too much drinking. Where is the girl I was with? Did she leave already? I didn’t even get to ask her for her name,” Yuuto groggily mumbled to the waiter.
“She left several hours ago when you decided to fall asleep. Can you please pay your bill and leave so I can close up the shop.”
A small leather book with a bill inside of it was placed in front of him.
Yuuto looked back at the waiter and asked, “Didn’t the girl pay the bill already? She said she would.”
“She told me that you would be paying. So please pay now.”
The small slip of paper that the bill was printed on was shoved into his face.
Yuuto grabbed it and looked at the cost. The shocking total made his jaw drop.
The outrageous prices for everything were at least ten times higher than what was normal. Plus, there were extra service fees on the bill such as table usage fee and entertainment fee. He looked back at the waiter confused.
“What is this bill? Are you sure there isn’t a mistake with the prices? And what’s up with these extra service fees?” asked Yuuto.
“The prices are not wrong. You should have read the notice of possible fees posted above the entrance and on the menus. Wait… you wouldn’t be trying to skip out on paying the bill would you?” asked the waiter as he started to flex his muscles and crack his knuckles.
“Well you see, it’s not that I don’t want to pay you, but recently I’ve gotten into a few financial problems and can’t pay something like this even if I wanted to,” said Yuuto while slowly trying to back away from the waiter.
Before he knew what was happening the waiter jumped at him and put him into a chokehold.
Yuuto tried to pry the waiter’s arm off his neck but was losing strength as he was slowly losing consciousness, his arms dropped and he was out like a light bulb.
“Hey boss, I got another debtor here. What do you want me to do with him,” shouted the waiter as he handcuffed the unconscious Yuuto and tied his feet together.
“See who he owes the money to. If it’s a large enough amount of money then call the old man and see if he wants to buy his debt. If not, then call the yakuza and they can come pick him up and take care of him,” replied the cook behind the counter.
While rummaging through Yuuto’s belongings some business cards fell to the ground.
The waiter reached down and picked them up and read the name off to one of his loan shark friends that was currently on the phone with him.
“Wow, you sure that’s his company?” asked the loan shark. “If it is, that guy is in really deep debt. Not your average small-time loans.”
“Would his creditors mind if the debt was bought from them?”
“I’m sure they would much rather have the cash then have you hand him over to them. There is no way they could squeeze enough profit out of him by having him ‘Work’ for them.”
Yuuto was slowly regaining consciousness. There was something heavy pushing down on his back making it so that he could not move no matter how hard he struggled.
“Thanks for the information. I have to go now, the big fish just woke up and I have to put him back to sleep.”
The waiter hung up and took his foot off of Yuuto’s back.
In one swift motion, he swung his foot back and kicked Yuuto in the head making him lose consciousness again while saying, “Go back to sleep.”
