NOVEL WEB Chapter 2: Shattered Bonds
(5 years ago) Hiro walks out of the organization building after speaking with the big boss. After a long day, Hiro decides to grab his stuff out of the old abandoned factory, which was the gang's hideout. While walking to the factory, he thinks, "It's for the better... At least now I won't be able to feel the guilt anymore." He then arrives at the factory where he stops in front of it and says to himself. "Welp... Time to go get my stuff and get out of here quickly." He enters the factory while trying to get to his locker while not trying to grab any attention from anyone, he's trying to get in the locker room but all of a sudden Aidan stops him in his tracks. Aidan then says to Hiro "Hey Hiro. How was that big meeting with the boss?" Hiro looked awful, he was trying not to make it obvious and said to him "It went... well, to say. But I really got to get going, my father wants me home early for some work he wants me to do for the house..." He suddenly starts to move in a rush and as he goes to the locker room. As he goes into the locker Aidan says to him "Oh... Well then let's talk about it later..." Hiro without no response just leaves that area immediately. Aidan starts to become more suspicious about him. Hiro enters the locker room and tries to find his locker quickly. He then starts to rapidly grab some files and some items he needs. As he grabbed all of his stuff he started to think to himself. "If I leave through the exit with all of these files I will definitely attract some attention..." He immediately thought of going through a secret area he made when he first joined the gang. After he grabs all of his stuff he starts to head for the secret area but over in the shadows, Aidan is spying on him. Aidan thought to himself "What could Hiro be doing with all of his files?" He decides to follow.
As Hiro exits the factory he stops near an old alley. He started panicking, contemplating the previous mission he just completed for the organization. Until all of a sudden, behind him. Aidan says with an angry expression on his face. "What's wrong Hiro... seems like you saw a dead body. And why in the hell did you grab all your stuff in a rush?" Hiro turns back in fear and sees Aidan. He responds with caution, "Oh... it's nothing. Just completed a big mission for the boss. I can't really talk about the mission... But on another note." His next response was not what Aidan expected. "I'm going to quit the organization." Aidan gets angry at that response. He clenched his fist and responded with a death stare. "You can't be serious." Aidan looks at Hiro's face and sees Hiro's eyes. He starts to think to himself "He looks awful... What the hell could that mission have done to him to make him want to quit?" He suddenly says "So... If you do mean it. Then answer me this Hiro... Why did you decide to quit." Hiro was afraid of what Aidan could do if he gave a bad answer. He was choosing what to say wisely. One wrong move and it could end up bad for him. He says "The stuff we are doing in this Organization is wrong... Killing innocent people because they owed money to the organization a long time ago. That's wrong!.. The organization is just greedy... The big boss is greedy. And you should know it better than anyone here Aidan! " Aidan is even more pissed than before, he replies. "Tsk. You've gotten soft. Why do you care about what the organization does? We just do the damn job and don't question it. That's what you said in our first mission. You know what we signed up for when we first joined!.. You know the jobs we have to do to just stay alive!" Hiro yells out with an angry expression on his face. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I HAD TO GO THROUGH!! IT'S JUST WRONG AND I CAN'T HANDLE IT ANYMORE!" Aidan is starting to get tired of Hiro's choice and replies and clenched his fist even harder. He slowly started to approach Hiro slowly. "You are not quitting! You hear me! I won't let you!". Out of nowhere, he swung a left hook to Hiro's face. Hiro stumbles back and drops all of his files. He grabs his jaw and yells at Aidan "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!!!" Aidan smirks and says to him "I'm not going to let you quit... If I have to beat you up to make you stay... Then so be it." All of a sudden all hell broke loose. Aidan rushes off to Hiro and both of them start to trade blows. They were on par with each other, blocking and dodging each other punches and kicks. During the fight Aidan started to yell at Hiro, saying to him while trying to punch Hiro "THIS IS WHAT WE WERE BORN TO DO... THIS IS PART OF BOTH OUR FAMILIES' HISTORY... YOUR FATHER... MY FATHER... THERE'S NO OTHER ROUTE FOR THE BOTH OF US... OUR FATHERS HAD BIG EXPECTATIONS FOR BOTH OF US". Suddenly Aidan throws a gut punch at Hiro, catching him off guard and knocking him to the ground. Aidan doesn't stop there, out of pure anger he starts to choke the life out of Hiro and breaks down in tears saying to him. "WE WERE SUPPOSED TO DO THIS TOGETHER!! YOU AND ME, BEING THE BEST OUT OF THE WHOLE ORGANIZATION... WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE BETTER THAN OUR FATHERS!!" After hearing this Hiro managed to get out of Aidan's hands and managed to kick him in the stomach throwing him off across the alley. Aidan hits some garbage cans making him unable to get up. Hiro gets up and tries to catch his breath. He then replies to him with tears on his face. "I'm sorry Aidan... I know how much this meant to you... But I changed and I'm not willing to do this anymore...". After that, he immediately grabbed all of his stuff. He ran the scene with all of his stuff except one item. A USB flash drive.
Hiro ran home. As soon as Hiro got home he burst open the door and headed to the Living room. He grabbed a match and some fuel and put them in the fireplace. He was burning all the files into the fireplace. Suddenly her mother walks into the room confused. "What happened Hiro?... Why are you all beat up?" Hiro looked at her mother with tears in his eyes. He didn't want to make her worry but he didn't want to lie to her either so he told her the truth. "I got into a fight with Aidan... Because he was pissed that I wanted to quit the organization." Hiro's mom was shocked to hear this news. She didn't understand why he decided to quit at first but deep down understood what Hiro was going through, and she said to him calmly. "Everything will be fine... I'm sure that he will understand in the future." Hiro then rushes to her mom to hug her. Hiro starts to break down in tears. Her mother looks at him and says to him "Let's have a conversation with your father when he comes back." Hiro nodded and both of them headed to his room. As they waited for his father to come back home she comforted Hiro giving him hugs and staying by his side until his father came home. A few hours pass by and Hiro's father arrives. Hiro's mom gets up from Hiro's bed and heads out to the front door. Hiro's father then looks at his wife and realizes that she looks worried about something. He then asks "What's wrong Mai?" Mai looking at him replies. "It's our son Hiro... he decided to quit the organization, Kousuke." Kousuke was shocked to hear this but deep down understood why. He then replies to her "Don't worry about him... I'll talk with him... Everything will be fine." He then starts to walk up to Hiro's room and as he slowly opens the door he says to him. "Hey Hiro... So you decided to quit the organization..." He then sits down next to Hiro on his bed. Hiro gets up from his bed and looks at his father in the eyes. "Yes, I did..." Kousuke then asks him. "Is it because of mission X?" Hiro was shocked to hear about him talking about mission x and quickly asked in fear. "How- how the hell do you know about mission X?" Kousuke confused about why Hiro is so scared replies. "You left an important file one day on your desk labeled mission X". Hiro now scared for his life quickly says to his father. "Yes that's the reason why I left but let's drop that topic please." Kousuke was shocked to hear this reaction from Hiro, he then quickly understood that mission x was a classified mission and quickly dropped the topic. Kousuke stood up and headed for the door and looked behind him at his son with a smile on his face, saying to him. "At least you're not going the same path as me... I love you, son..."
(end of chapter)