When the bell finally rang announcing the end of the School day, Hangaku Mae approached Sakamo’s desk and said:
“I was supposed to go to the recording studio, but I don’t see how I can manage to get past all those reporters! They are probably still there, waiting for me!”
Sakamo took his phone from his pocket and dialled a number. A voice picked up and spoke with a serious tone:
“Yes, Sakamo-san, how may I help?”
“Can you have a car outside School ready to take Hangaku Mae to a place? Get another for me, I need to go somewhere.”
“There are already a few cars near your School because we feared those reporters could annoy you. I will tell my people to make a safe area for Hangaku-san and you, rest assured. Do you have a cap you can put on or at least, lower your head? We don’t want your face appearing on today’s news.”
Sakamo looked around and saw Tadasaburo Sasaki talking with Shintaro Nakaoka and they were both glancing at him.
“I think I can get a cap, thanks for your help.”
Sakamo put his phone in his pocket again and smiled at the curious girl near him:
“All set. You can ask the driver to wait for you and he will take you home when you finish.”
“Thanks, but when I finish, I can call my father’s security guys, and they will come and get me. I guess I will need to come and go to School from now on by car. That would be a bummer, I like to be a normal girl instead of the silver-spoon-stuffed-up-her-ass type of girl.”
Sakamo kissed her goodbye and went to Tadasaburo Sasaki and spoke with a slight smile:
“Tadasaburo-san, may I ask you a favour? Do you have a baseball cap you can lend me? I need to blend in with everyone else as we leave School because of all those reporters.”
The little Shintaro Nakaoka answered before her big boyfriend could open his mouth:
“Afraid of a few reporters, are we? Such a Master swordsman like you? If you want, I can protect you with my shinai, unless you think it’s not threatening enough.”
Sakamo frowned and his tone of voice went lower a few tones:
“Careful, Shintaro-san, it’s not a good idea to make me angry so that I fight you. You may find yourself with a few fingers less, by the end of the day.”
Shintaro Nakaoka approached him and looked up with a wrinkled nose:
“Put your sword where your mouth is, tough guy, and let’s see what you are made off.”
Sakamo leaned a bit and said with a serious face:
“You won’t be able to defeat me, even if I use mine in my mouth. If you are really up for it, I think I know just the place where we can test your big mouth. Bring your toothpick with you, and I will even let you make the first strike.”
Shintaro Nakaoka turned and went to her seat, and took her bag with her protective gear and the kendo sword that was leaned on a wall. She pointed the tip of the shinai at him and said:
“You are on! I will make you swallow those words, Sakamo-kun!”
Sakamo touched the tip of the bamboo sword and felt her trembling hands. He made a slight smile and said:
“See your hands shaking because I made you a bit angry?”
When Shintaro Nakaoka glanced at her hands, Sakamo swiftly grabbed the tip, pulled it in, and tapped the side with his left hand, disarming her. He flipped the kendo sword and pointed the tip at her neck:
“Anger makes you lose focus, and you become open to all sorts of attacks and disarm techniques. You need to practice meditation during recess. Dwell deeper and deeper in you, forgetting all the noises around. Only when you are in peace even with a lot of noise and distractions around you, you can remain calm and focus during a fight.”
He gave the shinai back to the angry-looking girl, and she put it on her back. She pulled a baseball cap from Tadasaburo Sasaki’s bag and threw it at him:
“Let’s get going, I can’t wait to knock your head!”
Sakamo grabbed the cap and shook his head as he was putting it over his head:
“You really don’t understand. Maybe it was my fault because I didn’t explain properly. I am not only a Kenjutsu Master with a real sword, I am also a Kendo Master. I won’t explain what type of training I underwent because you won’t believe me. Let’s get going then, I have a car waiting outside.”
Shintaro Nakaoka pulled Tadasaburo Sasaki and followed him. Yoshinobu Tokuga was in his seat, still grabbing his bag, but when he saw them leaving, he rushed to follow his friends. In the corridor, he asked the almost blowing in anger little menace:
“What’s the matter, Shintaro-chan? You look like you are about to kill someone.”
“Yeah, that dumbass. He mocked me and my Kendo. I am so going to teach him a lesson!”
Tadasaburo Sasaki said:
“He didn’t mock you, Shintaro-chan, and you know that. He even gave you a few advices.”
“What side are you, anyway? If you like him so much, why don’t you date him?”
Tadasaburo Sasaki scratched his head and said with a serious face:
“Well, he already said I am good-looking. I suppose that if I wanted to date him, he wouldn’t refuse me. Well, he has Hangaku-chan, but maybe when she gets bored with him I stand a chance.”
Shintaro had her mouth wide open, and she looked at her boyfriend and at Sakamo, that was shrugging his shoulders near them. Yoshinobu Tokuga stood in the middle of the couple and put his arms over their shoulders with a big smile:
“Now, now, no need to make Shintaro-chan jealous, Tadasaburo-kun!”
That funny remark granted him a punch on his stomach from his two friends, and he almost didn’t have time to flex his stomach muscles to endure the blows.
As usual, Sakamo called the attention of every girl he crossed paths with, and a few smiled and waved at him, receiving a smile back that almost made them melt. Shintaro Nakaoka kept on staring with a grin at Sakamo’s back, already imagining how she would mock him the moment he got knocked out by her Kendo bamboo sword, her faithful shinai, the one that her father gave her right before the School began, so that she had a new one, because the shinai she had before was so damaged because of continuous use.
When they reached the School’s gate, there was an even bigger crowd outside. It was not only reporters anymore, but a few people that were passing by and stopped to check why all that commotion. Sakamo pulled down his cap till his eyebrows and guided his friends in the direction of an open path made for him by a group of men in dark blue suits and black shades hiding their features. Most of the reporters didn’t notice Sakamo and his group because they were gathered near a group of girls that were showing a recorded footage on their phones. Sakamo heard a reporter saying something about Hangaku Mae, but he couldn’t figure out what it was, because he entered the car that was waiting for him.
Sakamo took a card from his pocket and gave it to the driver while his three friends were wondering who was the man on the driver’s seat with that serious face.
“Do you know this place? I want to go there, but you will have to wait for us for a couple of hours.”
The man touched the panel incorporated in the dashboard and answered:
“I don’t know, but he knows. It will be just a moment.”
After putting the address in the GPS of the car, the driver returned the card to Sakamo and started the engine. Yoshinobu Tokuga asked while glancing at the GPS map:
“Where are we going, Sakamo-kun?”
“I am going to visit the gym of a Master that I meet yesterday morning, and while we are there, I am going to teach a few things to that angry girl near you.”
Shintaro squeezed the shinai in her lap:
“Let’s see who will be the one learning and the one that will do all the teaching.”
Sakamo took his phone and checked his email while saying:
“Yeah, keep convincing yourself, like I couldn’t perfectly see that you are shacking all over. I don’t know if you are shaking in fear, anticipation or in anger, but you are completely unfocused. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and focus on your breathing. Let your mind become empty, and your heart will slow down, beat by beat, by beat, by beat…”
Shintaro Nakaoka surprisingly found herself doing as he said, and she closed her eyes. With the calm tone of his voice enticing her, Shintaro emptied her mind and focused on her breathing. At each second, she was calmer and calmer. A few minutes went by, and her heart rate diminished, leaving her calmer than she was, ever since Sakamo asked for a borrowed cap.
The car finally stopped, and the driver opened the door for them. Sakamo nodded at the driver, and as the others were greeting the serious driver with an awkward smile, Sakamo looked around. They were in a side street, very near to the main street full of moving cars and people on the sidewalk. A nearby shop had protective gear behind a thick and big window, with the same white clothing that he saw the ‘Capoeira’ fighters using. Sakamo went for that shop and looked up. A sign over the door said ‘Mestre Manoel Machado, Capoeira Gym’, and he smiled.
“Yeah, not a bad location indeed. Let’s go, I want to check this.”
When he opened the door, a Japanese woman was at the reception dressed in a white t-shirt and white pants, tied with a rope for a belt, and she raised her head from the laptop in front of her. While Shintaro Nakaoka was looking around at the several pictures of foreigners dressed in white clothes while making weird poses, the muffled music could be heard from the closed door near the reception desk. Sakamo approached the curious woman with a smile plastered on his face:
“Hello. I want to talk with Mestre Manoel Machado. I hear music, so I guess he is in class right now?”
“Yes, he is. Are you a new student or just curious? Because you can enter and check things out for yourself, as long as you don’t interrupt the class. Unless Mestre Machado stops the class, that is.”
“I could be a new student or a Master in there, lets see how our talk goes.”