Oh. My. God.
8
It was Victor. And it wasn't Victor.
I had never seen this version of him before. He was wearing the same basketball uniform as Byron, Jake, and the other two guys. But he looked nothing like them.
Flanked by heavily tattooed men on either side of him, he looked way more dangerous than any of the other boys his age in the locker room. And somehow even more beastly than the first time we met.
“Which one hurt her?” he signed again.
He was talking to Byron, not me. There was a good chance he hadn’t seen me yet. Jake and his friends hadn’t the last time until I made my presence known.
I decided against doing that this time though. I shrank back behind the lockers, too confused to do anything but hide and watch.
“What is he saying?” Tim, the American, asked Jake in English. His voice was shaking with fear. He probably couldn’t have spoken Japanese at that moment if he tried.
Jake threw his friend an irritated look. “I don't know. I don't speak sign language.”
Byron answered Tim’s question in the next moment when he raised his arm to point straight at Yoshi. “Him. Yoshi. He's the one who hit my sister.”
Yoshi paled, then immediately started begging. “Please forgive me! It was an accident! Don't hurt me!”
Victor didn’t answer Yoshi. Didn’t even raise his hands to sign.
Yet, the huge guy I’d never seen before stepped forward like an order had been given.
He looked to be around the same age as Han, who once told me he was twenty-one. But other than age and being of Asian descent, he and Han had nothing in common.
He was huge, with tattoos peeking out from every piece of exposed skin below his neck. Like Donny, he wore a suit with an open-collar shirt. And he was even more muscular than Victor but without any of the sharp beauty that kept Victor from looking too scary.
His face was a few hard slabs of concrete, thrown together without any thought to symmetry. This guy got the “extra terrifying” package when looks were handed out. Maybe he’d even signed up for it. He looked like the kind of guy who would choose the most intimidating option. His eyes were two pieces of coal inside all that concrete, gleaming with violent anticipation.
He was so large. He appeared to close the space between him and Yoshi with just one step.
“So you like punching girls in the face,” he said to Yoshi.
His voice was a shock. He spoke English. And even though he looked like he could easily play the role of Super Scary Chinese Gangster in a Hong Kong movie, he had an American accent—a really tough one without a trace of East Asian intonation.
But Yoshi was probably too busy panicking to notice that detail.
He tried to back up. To run away. But the wall of lockers stood directly behind him. Almost as hard and unforgiving as the mountain in front of him.
“It was accident!” Yoshi cried, opting to explain in his terrible English. “Not try to hit her. Try to hit him. He homo. He look at me like he going kiss me.”
The American Mountain gave Yoshi a skeptical up and down look. “I highly doubt that story is true. You ain’t that hot.”
True that. I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so busy hanging onto every single word of their conversation.
“Not lying!” Yoshi insisted. “He try with Jake too. Ask Jake! I swear he—”
“OK, Donny, c’mon. This guy’s boring me.”
That was all the warning Yoshi got before the American Mountain slammed him into the lockers.
I knew then that Victor and his associates must have arranged for the coach to stay away. The sound of Yoshi’s body hitting the locker was so loud, it made my ears ring. There was no way he hadn’t heard that.
Donny came over to join the American Mountain. By silent mutual agreement, they each took an arm, holding Yoshi prone against the lockers. Just like Yoshi helped Tim hold my brother there before the winter break.
Victor started walking forward, and Yoshi burst into tears. For a few moments, the only sound in the locker room was of Victor’s steps and Yoshi’s wailing as he begged for mercy in both broken English and Japanese.
I looked to Jake to see if he was going to do anything. But he looked between Victor and Yoshi, his eyes confused and angry.
Victor stopped in front of Yoshi and stood there. Just stood there. Signing nothing.
“Look at him,” the American Mountain instructed Yoshi, his voice violent and low.
Yoshi’s loud sobs quieted, and he did as the American Mountain told him. From my vantage point, Jake’s friend looked like a puppet, powerless to disobey.
He turned his face up to Victor, who was looming over him, sinister as a raven. And soon, another sound joined his pitiful weeping—a quiet, wet hiss.
