He sat on it for three days.
Not because he was afraid, or at least that was what he told himself. More because agreeing to something the same night it was offered felt like the kind of move that told the other person more than you wanted them to know.
So he went to work, moved boxes at the noodle shop, sorted cardboard at the depot, and let the decision sit in the back of his head where it could be looked at without being touched.
He accumulated quite a bit of Fear Points over the time, walking behind people in dark alleys in the middle of the night seemed to work wonders.
CURRENT BALANCE: 676
He stared at Uncommon gatcha, his eyes hesitant on if he should spend it. Though the promise of a better reward was tempting him.
The third day came by, his mind reminded him of the unwanted visit to his abode, and he finally went.
The address he had been given was in Koto ward, a narrow building wedged between a laundromat and a shuttered print shop, the kind of place that looked like it handled import logistics or small-scale accounting and probably did, among other things. The ground floor light was on. The street was quiet.
Kai stood outside for a moment, not hesitating, just reading the building the way he read everything, exits, sightlines, the shape of what he was walking into. Then he went in.
The tattooed man from before was waiting in the entrance. He looked at Kai the way he'd looked at him through the windshield, with that same flat recalibrating attention, and then turned and walked up a narrow staircase without saying anything. Kai followed.
The room upstairs was small and deliberately unremarkable. A low table, two chairs, a window with the blind drawn. No decoration except a single ink painting on the far wall, a mountain half-hidden in cloud, the kind of thing that had been there long enough to stop being a choice and just become part of the room. A kettle sat on a side table, already steaming.
The man behind the table stood when Kai came in.
Ryusei Oda was in his mid-forties, lean in the way that came from a life that didn't leave much room for excess. His face was angular and composed, with the kind of stillness that wasn't calm exactly but was something that had been built out of calm's raw materials over a very long time.
His hair was greying at the temples. He was dressed plainly, no suit, just dark slacks and a collared shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, and there was nothing about him that announced what he was except everything.
He gestured to the chair across from him.
"Sit down," he said. His voice was even, unhurried, the voice of a man who had never found it necessary to raise it. "Tea?"
"Sure," Kai said.
Oda poured. The tattooed man, Sho, took up a position near the door and became very still and very quiet in the manner of someone with a great deal of practice at both.
Kai noted the absence of the older heavyset man from the car and filed it away without letting it change his posture.
Oda set the cup in front of him and sat back and looked at Kai for a moment without speaking. It wasn't a test exactly. More like the pause of someone deciding where to start because they had more than one option.
"How long have you been in Tokyo," he said. Not quite a question.
"Three years," Kai said.
"Alone."
"Yes."
Oda nodded once, as if this confirmed something he'd already suspected. He picked up his own cup and looked at it before he spoke again.
"Tanaka tells me you're reliable. That you do what you're asked, you don't ask what you shouldn't, and you notice things." He looked up. "He also tells me you put three of my men down in an alley about a month ago. That the other two left because they chose to, not because you were finished."
Kai's eyes slightly shifted, a realisation passing over him. It seemed that Tanaka-San was spreading his reputation to others.
He kept his face still. He thought about the alley, the stone knuckles, the electric hair, the tall one who'd ran.
"Your men started it," Kai said.
"They did," Oda agreed, without any particular heat. "They were told to. It's a good way for them to let off steam."
Kai looked at him.
"You got five people to jump me." he said.
"I did." Oda set his cup down. "Yet you didn't run. You didn't freeze. You read the room, picked the right target, and finished it before it could escalate further. And when it was over you didn't gloat, you just left." A pause. "That's not nothing, for someone your age. Not to mention, my men didn't see you use a quirk at all. That's rather impressive. "
Kai sat with that for a moment. He wasn't sure if he was angry about it. He thought maybe he should be, five people sent to hurt him for fun, and one of them had cracked his ribs in three place
"What do you want, I doubt you'd be so lovey dovey with me after I beat up your mem?" he said.
Something moved at the corner of Oda's mouth. Not quite a smile.
"I run certain operations in this ward and two adjacent ones. Logistics, primarily. Some of what I move is legitimate. Some of it requires discretion." Before Kai could ask what it had to do with him, Oda continued.
"I have people for most things but what I don't have, is a gap, someone who can move without drawing attention, handle small complications without escalating them, and who has no prior connections to anything I do or anyone I know. As for why you? Well let's just say I trust Tanaka's judgement, not to mention you seem to be able to handle yourself."
"A gap, huh?" Kai finally said, ignoring the praise.
"An asset," Oda corrected, mildly. "The word gap implies a deficiency. I prefer to think of it as an opening I've been waiting to fill with the right person."
"And I'm the right person because I put your men down."
"Precisely." He looked at Kai steadily. "Although I do wonder, what exactly is your quirk." He asked, his eyes carrying a glimpse of excitement.
Kai drank his tea. It was good tea, which he noted and didn't mention.
"Don't have one," he said, Oda stopped sippinh his tea, wether purposely or put of shock, he didn't care.
"I... See. Well no matter, my offer still stands." Oda said coughing.
"Hoe much is the pay?" Kai asked.
Oda named a number. It was not a small number. Approximately three times what Kai made in a good month across all three of his jobs combined, and clearly calculated to be exactly impressive enough without being so large it felt like a trap.
"I want to know what I'm moving," Kai said. "Not the details. Just the category. I have lines."
Oda studied him for a moment.
"No people," he said. "I don't move people, you could say it's relevant drugs, I'll tell you what's relevant to each job and nothing more, and you'll find that sufficient."
It was not a complete answer. It was, however, an honest shape of one, which was more than he'd expected.
"Alright," he said, not caring about the fact he would be breaking the law in doing so. His current situation didn't allow him to be a chooser on what was right or wrong. What he needed was money.
Oda tilted his head slightly. "Alright you'll think about it, or alright you're in."
Kai stood up. "Alright I'll start Monday," he said. "And don't send people to jump me again."
The corner of Oda's mouth moved again, and this time it completed the gesture.
"Understood," he said. "One thing. You said you have lines. So do I. Cross mine and the conversation we have won't be over tea."
"Same," Kai said, and meant it.
* * *
He walked home through streets that looked exactly the same as they always did and thought about the shape of the last month.
The alley. The system arriving like a door kicked open in the dark. The envelope job, the men in the car, the careful geography of being watched by people good enough that he'd only caught half of it. All of it deliberate. All of it leading here.
He wasn't sure how he felt about that. There was something uncomfortable in the idea that the night he'd thought was just bad luck had actually been the beginning of something arranged, that the bruised ribs and the cracked jaw had been someone else's audition process.
He'd been the subject of an experiment he hadn't consented to and hadn't known about and had passed, which was the part that sat strangest of all.
He stopped at the vending machine on the corner of his street and bought a can of coffee and stood there for a moment in the yellow light, drinking it.
The car was gone.
Oda had pulled them before Kai had even asked, which was either a good sign or the kind of move a very patient man made early to establish trust cheaply. Probably both. With people like Oda it was usually both.
He finished the coffee, dropped the can in the recycling, and went upstairs.
Monday, then.
He'd figure out the rest as it came.
Before going to bed, his eyes lingered onto the uncommon gatcha, though he stopped his fingers from moving.
Tomorrow will do.