My Name is Hiroshi Nohara, Star of Neon Film and Television!

Chapter 118: Encountering the Future Principal of Futaba Kindergarten! Takakura Bunta's Resolve!

"O... okay!" Takakura Bunta nodded repeatedly, his voice carrying a hint of excitement.

It couldn't be helped, it was too hard to get business going!

In the past, he had always conducted photoshoots inside a photo studio. However, he hadn't expected his performance to sharply decline starting this year. Left with no other choice, he could only come outside to actively seek people out for photoshoots.

But because of this terrifying face of his, the results weren't good at all.

This was the very first time someone actively wanted to take a photo!

Thus, he raised the somewhat professional-looking Nikon Camera in his hands and began to work.

"Come on, everyone, get a little closer! That's right, sir, put your arm around your wife's waist, a little more naturally! Smile, imagine the scene of your company going public and ringing the bell!"

"And you two over there, don't be so stiff! Young people should act like young people! Be a little livelier! You can throw up a peace sign!"

Under his direction, the atmosphere that was originally a bit awkward instantly became relaxed and cheerful.

The crisp sound of the shutter rang out, and smiling faces brimming with hope were accurately frozen onto the film.Looking at the photos brimming with youth and dreams in the viewfinder—especially that young man with his arm around a pretty girl, a Calm and Indifferent smile hanging on his face—an unconcealable envy flowed from the depths of Takakura Bunta's eyes.

What a young and promising young man!

Moreover... he even felt that this young man looked a bit familiar.

However, because Takakura Bunta and his partner were too busy with work, they didn't really watch variety shows or the news, and rarely even read newspapers, so they simply kept busy with their own affairs.

Takakura Bunta took the photos, and his partner handled the lighting.

It was also professional.

"Alright!" After taking the final group photo, Takakura Bunta set down his camera, and the ferocious smile on his face softened considerably.

Nohara Hiroshi smiled, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and offered one: "Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Takakura. Care for a smoke?"

"Ah... thank you." Somewhat overwhelmed by the favor, Takakura Bunta accepted the cigarette and allowed the other party to light it for him.

He took a deep drag. The spicy smoke swirled in his weather-beaten lungs before he exhaled, the smoke filling the air.

"Mr. Nohara, you... truly are blessed with good fortune." He looked at the brand-new office not far away, then at Koyama Misae, who was leaning sweetly against Nohara Hiroshi. His voice was full of emotion: "To be so young yet successful in your career, and to open such a company for your girlfriend. It truly... makes one envious."

"It's just a small start, it doesn't count as a career." Nohara Hiroshi chuckled lightly. He looked at Takakura Bunta and asked seemingly casually, "And what about you, Mr. Takakura? From what you meant earlier, it seems... you don't really like this job as a photographer?"

"Sigh." Hearing this, Takakura Bunta let out a long sigh. A loneliness and helplessness completely out of place with his exterior surfaced on his ferocious face: "I wouldn't say whether I like it or not. It's just... a way to make a living, that's all."

He glanced at his partner in the blue suit beside him, who was currently packing up the equipment with a resentful expression, and gave a self-deprecating smile: "You've seen it too. Looking the way I do, I was simply not born to work in the service industry. I just want to properly take a photo for people, but the moment customers see my face, it's like they've seen the yakuza. This month, the two of us are once again dead last in performance for the entire company."

"Actually..." He stubbed out the cigarette butt on the ground. His cloudy eyes gazed toward the sky stained golden by the setting sun in the distance, and the look in his eyes actually revealed a pure, almost childlike yearning.

"Actually, my true dream is to return to my hometown, Kasukabe, and open a small Kindergarten there."

"A Kindergarten?" Nohara Hiroshi's eyebrow twitched, and a trace of playfulness flashed through his clear eyes. "Why a Kindergarten? Forgive me for being blunt, Mr. Takakura, but with your esteemed appearance, opening a Kindergarten might be even more challenging than being a photographer, right?"

"Do you think so too?" A bitterness of 'I knew it' surfaced on Takakura Bunta's face.

He subconsciously wanted to pull out another cigarette from his pocket, but halfway there, as if remembering something, he abruptly stopped.

He looked at his fingers that had held the cigarette. An awkward and remorseful expression appeared on his face. He hurriedly threw the cigarette he had just lit onto the ground and viciously stomped it out with his foot.

"You see, I'm just like this, always unable to change these bad habits." He shook his head with a bitter smile: "Actually, I don't smoke. It's just... in this big city, if you don't smoke, don't drink, and don't socialize with others, it's like... it's like you're an alien, completely unable to blend into their circles."

"I hate this." His voice was filled with an irrepressible weariness and exhaustion: "I hate wearing a mask every day, saying things against my conscience, doing things I don't like. I... I just want to go back to that small place, back to Kasukabe. The streets I'm familiar with are there;

the friends I grew up playing with are there."

"But most importantly..." He paused, and a nearly gentle, holy light actually surfaced on that ferocious face.

"There are children there. Only when I am with children do I feel like I am a... clean person. I don't need to disguise myself, I don't need to curry favor. I only need to play with them and laugh with them;

that's enough."

Nohara Hiroshi looked at him and remained silent for a moment.

Then, he pulled a ten thousand yen bill from his wallet and handed it over.

"Today's photography fee, and... a tip for you."

"Eh?!" Takakura Bunta was stunned. He looked at that brand-new Fukuzawa Yukichi radiating the fresh scent of ink, and an unbelievable shock instantly surfaced in his cloudy eyes: "No, no, no! This... this is too much! Mr. Nohara! I cannot accept this!"

"Take it." Nohara Hiroshi's voice was calm, yet carried a power that left No Room for Interference: "Just consider it... a tiny bit of tuition paid in advance for my future child."

He paused, and under the man's astonished gaze, revealed a brilliant smile: "If I have a child in the future, and we happen to live near Kasukabe, I will definitely send him... to your Kindergarten."

Takakura Bunta's body jolted violently.

He blankly stared at the young man before him. In those clear eyes, there was not the slightest bit of pity or charity;

there was only the purest respect and approval for a stranger's dream.

He thought back to himself, on countless drunken nights, bragging about this "great dream" to those so-called "friends," only to eternally receive roaring laughter filled with mockery in return.

"You? Open a Kindergarten? Don't scare the little kids into crying!"

"Takakura, you should go collect protection money instead, that suits you better!"

Yet this young man before him, whom he had only met for the first time, this "big shot" whose identity clearly wasn't ordinary... he... he actually... believed him?

"I..." Takakura Bunta's eye sockets instantly turned red.

He couldn't hold back any longer. This man, all of whose sharp edges had long been ground away by the heavy pressure of life, bowed his waist toward Nohara Hiroshi.

A standard, ninety-degree bow full of gratitude and respect!

"Thank you... sir... truly... thank you so much!"

Nohara Hiroshi merely smiled calmly, but silently pondered in his heart.

It seemed this future Principal truly hadn't recognized him.

But that was fine too.

Right now, Nohara Hiroshi had also come to experience the helplessness of being a celebrity.

...

When Takakura Bunta and his partner left, expressing endless gratitude, that oppressive atmosphere finally Vanished into Thin Air.

"Phew—that scared me to death!"

Misae was the first to let out a long breath. She patted her little chest, which was still continuously thumping. On her exquisite little face was written the rejoicing of Surviving a Disaster: "Hiroshi-kun, you were so bold just now! I thought... I thought he was going to pull out a knife!"

"You can say that again!" Kitagawa Yao and Minamura Hoshi also nodded repeatedly, lingering fear equally written all over their two young faces.

"Just now... my legs went weak just now! You guys didn't see it, but his gaze was exactly the same as the mobsters collecting protection money from my hometown! Kitagawa and I... we almost hugged each other!" Minamura Hoshi said, his heart still palpitating.

"Oh? Hugged each other?"

Hearing this, a trace of playful mischief flashed in Nohara Hiroshi's clear eyes.

He turned his head, looking with a half-smile at the two young people who had subconsciously drawn close due to nervousness, and said unhurriedly: "I remember, there seems to be a clear rule in TV Tokyo's HR manual prohibiting... office romances, right? You two should pay a bit of attention to your image."

"Eh?!"

Kitagawa Yao and Minamura Hoshi's faces blushed instantly. Like two cats whose tails had been stepped on, they instantly bounced three feet away.

"N-no! We don't!"

"Don't misunderstand, Section Chief! We were just... just purely scared!"

The two of them explained in a flurry. Their awkward fluster, like a sign reading 'no silver buried here,' caused Misae, who was standing to the side, to cover her mouth and let out a bell-like giggle.

Looking at them, Nohara Hiroshi finally couldn't hold it in anymore and erupted into a hearty burst of laughter.

"Hahahahaha! I'm just teasing you!"

He waved his hand, his eyes carrying the cunning and indulgence of a successful prank.

"TV Tokyo has rules, that's their business."

Nohara Hiroshi paused, and under their astonished gazes, slowly uttered a domineering declaration that would be more than enough for them to endlessly savor over countless future nights.

"But in my, Nohara Hiroshi's department, I am the rules."

...

Takakura Bunta and his partner named Suzuki were walking one behind the other through a dimly lit alley near Ginza. The air was permeated with a unique scent—a mix of the aroma of food wafting from high-end Ryotei and the sour, putrid smell emanating from garbage cans.

Vroom, vroom, vroom— Beside the intersection, a brand-new, futuristic black Crown Majesta drove past.

Leaving both their eyes glued to it.

Men all loved luxury cars.

However, relying on the salaries of the two of them, let alone that kind of luxury car, they couldn't even afford an ordinary sedan!

"I say, Bunta."

Suzuki, walking behind, finally couldn't hold it back anymore. Breaking the silence with a tone full of resentment, he kicked an empty soda can near his foot aside, which let out an ear-piercing clang: "Tonight... we only made that ten thousand yen? If the two of us split it, it's only five thousand each. This... this isn't even enough for our drinking money tonight!"

As he spoke, he irritably scratched his already sparse hair. On his face, which usually carried a bit of shrewd calculation, was now written full of anxiety and dissatisfaction with reality.

"The newspapers blow their own horns every day, saying how good our Japan's economy is, saying our stock indices are creating new miracles every day. But why do I feel like this money... is getting harder and harder to earn? Prices get higher day by day, yet our incomes are still stuck at the level they were three years ago. I truly can't make sense of these times anymore."

Suzuki's complaints acted like a lit fuse, rapidly directing the spearhead at the man who had remained silent from the very beginning, resembling a moving zone of low atmospheric pressure.

"In the end, it's all your fault!"

He pointed at Takakura Bunta's broad back, his voice abruptly rising, completely unhidden disgust radiating from him: "How many times have I told you! Restrain yourself a bit when you smile! When your face isn't smiling, you look like a mobster. When you smile... you practically look like an evil ghost that just crawled out of hell! Which customer wouldn't be terrified seeing that? We were only lucky today that young man named Nohara had guts. If it were anyone else, they probably would've called the police long ago!"

"..." Takakura Bunta's footsteps didn't pause in the slightest.

He simply walked silently. Under the dim yellow streetlights, his burly silhouette cast a long shadow brimming with loneliness and depression.

Wherever he passed, it seemed to come with an automatic area-clearing effect.

A few young salarymen who had just come out of a bar, drunk and loudly bragging with their arms around each other's shoulders, sobered up by half the instant they saw his face. Like rabbits that had seen a ghost, they instantly scattered in all directions.

Even a few bouncers standing near the entrance of a Pachinko parlor not far away—wearing floral shirts, exposing their tattoos, squatting on the ground smoking, and looking like people not to be trifled with—subconsciously put out their cigarettes when they saw him walking over. They stood up straight with their backs against the wall, shivering, as if they were looking at a true "big boss" from another dimension who was even more not to be trifled with than them.

That awe stemming directly from their marrow was definitely not faked.

"Look! Look at that!"

Suzuki pointed at those bouncers, who had instantly become honest and well-behaved. His voice was full of schadenfreude at watching a good show, yet also carried a trace of fear that even he himself hadn't realized: "Even those real yakuza look at you like a mouse seeing a cat! And you still say you're not involved with the underworld?!"

Takakura Bunta's footsteps finally halted.

He slowly turned around. Under the dim lighting, his ferocious face—capable of making a child cry in the night—appeared increasingly gloomy.

He didn't speak, but instead pulled out a pack of Seven Stars cigarettes, heavily deformed from being crushed, out of his pocket.

He pulled out a cigarette and held it in his mouth, then pulled out a lighter.

Click.

A tiny cluster of flame danced across his pitch-black, bottomless eyes.

Like a raging inferno.

The firelight illuminated the deep nasolabial folds on his face, and also illuminated the deep exhaustion at the bottom of his eyes—hidden behind sunglasses—that had long been worn by life into stubborn stone.

He wanted to take a drag.

He truly, really wanted to take a drag.

To use that spicy smoke to numb his heart, which had long been riddled with holes.

But...

Within his mind uncontrollably surfaced the calm and sincere smile that had been on that young man's face when handing him the ten thousand yen.

"Just consider it... a tiny bit of tuition paid in advance for my future child."

"If I have a child in the future, and we happen to live near Kasukabe, I will definitely send him... to your Kindergarten."

Child...

Kindergarten...

The lips Takakura Bunta used to hold the cigarette uncontrollably began to tremble slightly.

He thought of those children in his hometown, Kasukabe, who always surrounded him, giggling and calling him "Uncle Bunta."

Their pure gazes, untainted by a single impurity, acted like a spring of clear water capable of washing away all the filth and exhaustion belonging to this metropolis from his body.

He knew that children didn't like the smell of smoke.

Smack.

A soft sound.

Under Suzuki's astonished and bewildered gaze, Takakura Bunta viciously crushed the pack of Seven Stars in his hand, along with the cigarette he had just lit, tightly into his palm!

That hard cigarette pack was instantly crushed out of shape within his large, iron-pincer-like hands, letting out an overburdened groan.

The burning cigarette butt seared into his palm, emitting a faint tsss sound. A smell of burnt flesh quietly permeated the air.

Yet it was as if he felt absolutely no pain. All expressions faded from his ferocious face, leaving behind only a profound gloominess, like dark clouds pressing down on a city before the arrival of a storm.

"Bun... Bunta... what... what are you doing?" Suzuki's face instantly went pale.

In this moment, it was as if his brain was about to crash.

He remembered those rumors full of mysterious colors regarding Takakura Bunta within the company.

Some said that during his youth, he had truly mixed with the underworld, and had blood on his hands.

Some said that in order to protect a bullied rookie, he had single-handedly fought off five yakuza who came to collect protection money, beating them until their teeth were scattered all over the floor.

And some even said the reason he left a small place like Kasukabe and came to Tokyo in the first place was because... he offended a certain unprovokable big shot locally and was forced to leave his home behind.

In the past, he had only listened to these rumors as jokes.

Yet now, looking at the man before him venting an unspeakable emotion within his heart using a method bordering on self-harm, he... he was scared.

He was truly terrified.

"U-Um... Bunta... Bunta-san!"

Because of fear, his voice grew sharp and ear-piercing. He even subconsciously changed his address to the most reverent form: "I... I was just joking earlier! Please... please don't take it to heart! I... I think your smile... is incredibly manly! Really! Exceptionally charming!"

He explained in a flurry. His awkward, revealingly flustered appearance was like a clown attempting to use a clumsy performance to cover up its fear in front of a fierce tiger.

Takakura Bunta paid him no mind.

He simply slowly loosened his hand and tossed the garbage that no longer had a recognizable shape—a mix of tobacco and paper scraps—into a garbage can by the road.

Then, he raised his head. Through his sunglasses, his cloudy eyes gazed toward the sky in the distance, stained a bizarre purplish-red by neon lights. His gaze was like a ferocious beast trapped in a cage, full of an endless craving for freedom.

Only after a long while did he slowly exhale a breath. That breath seemed to carry away all the unwillingness he had felt in his life so far.

"Suzuki."

His voice was no longer hoarse, no longer suppressed, but rather full of calm: "You don't need to say anymore. I... understand it all."

He turned around, looking at his partner—whose face had been scared dead-pale by him and was currently trembling like a sifter—profound tiredness appearing on his ferocious face.

"I've decided."

He spoke, emphasizing every word. The sound was like a death knell tolling for his own past, and also like a bugle sounding for his own future.

"I'll work for another three years."

"Once I've saved up enough money, I will return to Kasukabe."

"To open my... Kindergarten."

"To find..."

"My ideals and my dream!"

After he finished speaking, he no longer paid attention to his partner, who was dumbfounded by these words. He turned and took steady and firm steps, blending into the Tokyo streets that were full of bizarre and motley sights, yet completely out of place with him.

His back was still burly and still full of an oppressive presence.

But for some unknown reason, amidst that oppressive presence, Suzuki actually read a trace of relief from having a burden lifted, and a determination running toward a new life.

He looked at that back, then looked at his own completely empty hands. At this moment, a feeling inexplicably welled up in his heart, a feeling even he himself hadn't realized...

Envy.

Meanwhile, within his heart, Takakura Bunta gave a silent word of gratitude toward that young man he had only met once.

He knew that his dream, which had long since been rusted over by reality, had been polished anew tonight—because of that young man, because of that seemingly unintentional word of encouragement—and began radiating a brilliant light sufficient to illuminate the remainder of his life.

"Wait for me, children."

He murmured to himself. On his ferocious face actually surfaced a holy light bordering on gentle.

"Uncle... will be going back very soon."