Post by Asami Sato on Jun 9, 2017 11:52:17 GMT -6
Asami sat alone that night – after getting home from the funeral. She buried her face in her hands, eyes red and dry from how many tears she shed. She even forwent her usual makeup, knowing it would only run from the water works. She was surrounded by boxes. She had to sell off almost everything she had in order to pay for a double funeral for both her parents. The house, the car, the family dog, her mother’s jewelry and her father’s gun for starters were the first things to go. She kept a few trinkets that were cherished, but each loss was cutting her deeper and deeper.
It had been a shooting. Her parents were coming home from the theater and some punk with a gun shot them both. It had been an instant kill, a mercy, she supposed if there was one, because they felt nothing. Just bang. Dead. A witness had said the man shouted, ‘the don sends his regards’ before pulling the trigger. Asami knew what this meant. Worst of all, the rat had gotten away with it! They never caught him, but she was starting to think that they didn’t even try. The police were all but letting it drop because there were more important cases to worry about. She hadn’t known what to say. What could be more important than murder?
Her father had been running a speakeasy in the basement of the family house. She had heard a man in a suit threatening her father for protection money, but never got a good look at him. That they would give it to him or else bad things would happen to the Sato family, but the man’s demands were too high. Hiroshi Sato couldn’t pay that, not if he wanted to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. The speakeasy might have been profitable but it was only getting them by. They weren’t making a lot of money from it. She only wished she could have identified him before she lost everything. Gone to someone – the police even! Instead, she had to go through her family belongings and decide what was worth saving and what she could afford to lose forever.
She had a new apartment waiting for her on the other side of town. If she could have afforded it, she would have taken the first bus out of this nightmare of city. She had a new job, but she barely made enough to cover the rent for this new place. The whole situation left her feeling helpless and weak. There was nothing she could do but roll with the punches. Pulling herself after a blow like this was hard. She didn’t know how she was supposed to do this on her own. Her parents had been the only family she had in the country. Now she was in a hostile city on her own.