Confronting a 'Yakuza' behind the restroom! A 'tale of valor' from my junior high days

A few days ago, while writing about 'yankees' (delinquents), I remembered a story.

It is a story from my junior high days, over 50 years ago.

It was the early 1970s in northern Kyushu.

At my junior high school, a group of delinquents centered around the children of yakuza members held sway.

They were said to be associates of the G family, which had influence from northern Kyushu to the Chugoku region.

This was before the so-called 'tsuppari' or 'yankee' trends became popular nationwide, but everyone wore long school jackets, and the girls wore long skirts (yes, girls were in the group too). They had shaved hairlines and hair slicked back with pomade.

Rather than yankees, they looked closer to the characters in the old manga 'Aa!! Hana no Oendan'.

However, they were not just tough guys; they were seen as being connected to professional organized crime syndicates.

They had become an extraterritorial presence within the school.

They did not follow school rules, were constantly late, and rarely attended classes properly, but the teachers could not say anything.

They were habitual thinner sniffers, and they always smelled of thinner.

Extortion and fighting were likely common, but I think there was actually less of that inside the school itself.

The leader, the boy who acted as the 'bancho' (boss), was in my class.

Let's call him B.

During breaks, five or six of B's male and female friends would always hang out in my classroom.

Because of that environment, we spent our school days in a state of considerable tension every day.

However, we 'normal kids' and they were not necessarily in a hostile relationship.

After all, we were junior high students, fellow children, and classmates, so there was a certain kind of camaraderie.

Well, since we were forced to coexist in a single 'society,' we spent our time ignoring certain parts and cooperating in others so that we could both live more easily.

It already felt less like a place of learning and more like being thrown into the real world.

There were also some amusing things about them.

At one point, B brought a guitar into the classroom and sang a Yosui Inoue song in front of everyone. (This was right around the time 'Ice World' was a huge hit.)

Thinking back on it now, I think he was trying to fit into the class in his own way.

The performance was surprisingly good, and I was impressed.

Perhaps it was because I praised B's performance.

B and I weren't exactly close friends, but we had reached a relationship where we could talk normally.

One time, B said to me,

'Hey, look at this.'

And he handed me a photograph.

It was a picture of a middle-aged woman laughing while spreading her naked lower body toward the camera.

B watched my surprised expression with amusement.

The black, tangled, jungle-like scene in that photograph remained in my teenage mind for a long time.

At the same time, it seemed like proof that B was indeed connected to the 'underworld'.

＊

I believe the balance with them collapsed around the end of my second year of junior high.

As mentioned earlier, B's group was always hanging around my classroom.

As mentioned earlier, there were girls among them who looked like B's mistresses. The group was always laughing and making noise happily.

However, their group and us 'normal kids' lived in separate spheres within the class.

There was an unspoken rule that we wouldn't interfere with each other.

But one day, B started bothering a girl from the 'normal kids' group.

Let's call her C-ko. C-ko was about the second cutest girl in the class, and I had a secret crush on her too.

She was a serious, honor-student type.

During break time, B was clinging to C-ko, persistently trying to talk to her.

C-ko was bewildered and frozen in place.

I instinctively said,

'Cut it out!'

I shouted loudly.

B's entourage was there too.

"What do you want?"

B yelled at me.

I no longer remember the details of what kind of exchange took place there.

I succeeded in pulling B's attention away from C-ko, but as a result, I was called out to the back of the school restroom after school.

*

In such cases, being called out by a delinquent is always set at the "back of the gymnasium" in Tokyo manga and dramas, but my rural middle school didn't have anything as fancy as a gymnasium. (We did have a gloomy 'auditorium', though.)

In our case, the back of the separate restroom building was the standard stage for such occasions.

Even though it was behind the restroom, there were pine trees growing there and white sand spread on the ground, making it look picturesque as a site for a 'duel' (at least in my memory, that is).

The only one who came to the spot was B.

B and I stood facing each other in silence.

B didn't have a weapon, but I thought, 'Ah, this is it, I'm going to die.'

The silence was broken, and

"You're getting cocky."

Just as B said something like that to me,

PFFT!!

A loud sound rang out.

I had farted from the sheer tension.

"What was that?"

B asked.

"It was a fart."

I replied, having no other choice.

"It was my fart."

"I see."

B said that, and then fell silent.

I thought I would be laughed at, but B actually had a somewhat complicated expression on his face.

In any case, the tension of the "confrontation" was lost for both of us.

"Don't get too carried away," B told me, and I also,

"You should cut it out too."

I think I replied with something like that.

But I don't remember it very well anymore.

We both "dispersed" without laying a single finger on each other.

That is how it ended.

Looking back on this moment later,

I thought,

“It was a good thing I only let out a fart,” but I might have leaked a little bit of urine and feces as well.

It didn't really turn into a 'tale of valor,' but as far as I'm concerned, I believe it was a heroic act to protect C-ko.

And I just wanted the yakuza to understand the code of honor and not lay a hand on ordinary citizens.

Incidentally, C-ko probably doesn't know about the 'confrontation,' and after that, C-ko and I never became close.

Well, not just limited to this, my 'heroic acts' have never once been appreciated by girls.

＊

By the final year of middle school, B hardly ever came to school anymore.

B did not go on to high school, and for all intents and purposes, he disappeared from our lives.

I left Kyushu and moved to the Kanto region, so I haven't heard any rumors about him since.

However, I still think about B quite often.

Every time there is a yakuza conflict in northern Kyushu, I worry about whether his name might appear, but I have never seen his name since then.

If anything, I hope he made a name for himself in that world, but it seems he didn't. Or perhaps, he died young...

With that one 'fart' at that moment, my legendary tale was ruined.

My life is pretty much like that. Whenever I try to look cool, I fail. I end up looking pathetic at the most important moments.

But, if it hadn't been for that 'fart,' what would have happened?

I still cannot decipher the meaning of the complicated expression B had at that time.

What did B think of me?

Now that I am at an age where my life is nearing its end, I cannot help but worry about such things.

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