Masato watched his mother, Sayomi, fret over ironing her uniform while he made their lunches.  He was not handy around the kitchen, but he'd learned enough to make a half-decent bento.  After all, his mother worked two full-time jobs -- the least he could do was make their meals.<br/><br/>"Oh, damn it," Sayomi muttered.  "I'm going to be late!  Why didn't I do this earlier?"<br/><br/>"Relax, mom," Masato said with a slight chuckle.  "You still have fifteen minutes and the restaurant is right across the street.  You aren't going to be late."  He tied a handkerchief around the bento and turned to hand it to Sayomi.  "Here's lunch."<br/><br/>"Thank you, sweetie," she said, giving him a motherly peck on the cheek.  She put away the ironing board then gathered her uniform and her purse.  "Now, I'm going to be working at the bookstore today, too, so..."<br/><br/>"I know, I know.  You'll be late.  Just be safe coming home and give me a call if you're going to be any later than usual so that I can come pick you up."<br/><br/>"I'm a grown woman, Masa-chan," she said with a laugh.  "I can walk myself home, you know."<br/><br/>"Yeah, well, what can I say?  I get scared of the dark when you're not home!"  Masato smiled widely, revealing his abnormally pronounced canines.  Seeing her son's fanged smile darkened Sayomi's expression for a moment, and he knew why.  His good humor all but gone, his smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.<br/><br/>"You be good at school, sweetheart," Sayomi said after a moment of awkward silence, smiling gently and squeezing his hand.  Masato nodded sadly.<br/><br/>After he saw her out, Masato simply sighed and stood in silence for a while.  He rose extra early in the mornings to make lunch for his mother and so he often had a good deal of time before classes began.  But the apartment was cold and confining when he was alone and so he simply gathered his books and left.  When he was a block away from the house, he took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up, taking a deep drag.  He hated cigarettes -- they tasted terrible, but he loved the sensation of fire in his chest.  He didn't tell his mother that he smoked, though he figured she could probably smell it on his clothes.  He'd give it up if it weren't one of the few things that calmed him anymore.<br/><br/>Having plenty of time, he took a more scenic route to school, cutting through shady alleys and areas that most sane people would know to avoid.  The streets of Tokyo were his playground, after all -- where he could be himself without worry of holding back.  As he passed a massage parlor that was known to be owned by some Yakuza big-shot, a large bald man without eyebrows stepped out and regarded Masato toughly.  He turned his chin upward in a thuggish salutation.  Masato nodded back as he took another drag.  He strolled straight past pachinko parlors, tea houses and all sorts of gangster hang-outs as the people around him backed away and gave him a wide berth.<br/><br/>Everyone knew "Oni" Kurokawa, after all.<br/><br/>He hated that name and while few were every stupid enough to say it to his face, he knew that's what they called him.  On the bright side, his reputation as the youngest enforcer of Boss Shikijima meant that no one ever messed with him.  Unfortunately, it meant that he had fewer people to hit, and while part of the reason he agreed to work for the Yakuza in the first place was so that he could help his mother with their money troubles, he really just needed a way to vent the rage that he seemed to accumulate daily.  At the very least, he managed to convince his mother that he'd taken an after-school job to help pay tuition.  Thankfully, she did not ask so many questions that he could not cover himself, bless her heart.<br/><br/>He meandered around the city for a while before finally ending up in front of the school about fifteen minutes before the bell.  Students were starting to pile indoors already, all avoiding him when they passed.  He took a look around the grounds -- at the building, the trees, the students and their uniforms.  It was all too fancy for him.  He knew he had no business in a place like this, but he could afford the tuition now and he wanted to make his mother proud.  He was halfway through his fourth cigarette of the morning when he noticed Matt -- one of the only people he actually knew at the school -- speaking to another foreign girl.  Out of curiosity, he watched them converse in a language he couldn't understand before Matt left.  Toward the end, their conversation did not look pleasant.  Masato was not the most brilliant man in the world, but he had a strong hunch what they were discussing.  It was actually something he'd wanted to ask Matt about himself.<br/><br/>There were predators in the school.  Everyone knew it, but no one would do anything about it.  Masato was no hero, but rapists made his blood boil like nothing else.  He took an enormous drag off his cigarette, depleting the remainder in one take, and flicked the butt in a random direction, ignoring the squeak of whoever it hit.  He marched after Matt, walking past the girl he'd spoken to as well as the funny girl in the boy's uniform whom she now spoke to.  He growled lowly as he passed them.  A little fear of strangers couldn't hurt.