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She is not a Haitani. But she does show up one day, as a Haitani does, on one of those hazy mornings in October, when Ran is only six and Rindou is too young to remember. She’s there for the drugs, but the problem is that Mama has been lying dead for over a week on the living room sofa, her grip still firm on that bottle and the cabinets are too high up for Ran to reach and he can’t tell the difference between heroin and cocaine. And so, she walks into that one-light working, slippery floor, no heater apartment and finds what she needs herself. Throws a few bills on the counter and rustles Ran’s hair, smiling at Rindou who’s got his head peeked out through the door and disappearing into the dawn set day.
For a while, she only comes once a week, the same routine but after a few months, every week turns into every three days and every three days turns into every other day. Eventually, Ran’s got the door unlocked, the key beneath a plant plot, and a note by the counter before he’s off to school. He’s not sure when it happens, but she’s soon a part of their small-scale empty family. Her role is uncertain. She’s too old to be their sister. Too kind and loving to replace Mama. She’s got no name but once, whilst out grocery shopping, she accidentally hits a big-beard man with her cart and he screams Fuck off, Junkie! Keep your fuckin’ shit to yourself. And from then and there, Ran calls her Junkie, and because he calls her Junkie, Rindou does too.
She is not a Haitani. She’s got dark, thin hair that reaches her shoulders and small saggy eyes and wrinkles that curve around her lips when she smiles that toothless grin. She’s got a voice that screams; a voice that flips off middle-aged creepy men and a voice that squeaks and coos and embarrasses Rindou when she’s watching his football games. She’s tall and has tattoos of Neptune’s 14 moons. Soon, after a year or so, she gets a tattoo of them; Ran n’ Rindou, on her collarbone, right underneath her left ear. You see that, kids? She tells them, proudly, the night after. When you grow up, we’ll get you a tattoo of your own. One that does your name some good.
Ran thinks she’s just like mama. She drinks and smokes and snorts cocaine on the same wooden-coffee table mama did. But she’s not really like mama because does it with a smile and her grin, and when she’s drunk enough, she sits them down on that tiny red couch and gives them long, drawn-out, slurred speeches. About everything and nothing. About puberty and stupid romance and how to headlock someone with your thighs. And she dances around whilst doing it. Paces around the room, and does stupid gestures that makes Rindou laugh. She takes them places, too. To the movies and the parks and the mall. And she drove them - to those two different schools they go to because Ran got kicked out of his and Rindou was too stubborn to leave. She loves them. And she even says it, one-two time when she's too far gone. She holds them, strokes their hair, what-not and whispers, beneath the empty evenings’ air, I love you. She never remembers the next day. No one remembers the next day.
And she is not a Haitani. But she is the one who gives the name meaning. She is the one that people talk about on the streets, the one that gives their broken-out business life again. She is the best supplier around Roppongi, the one who makes the Haitanis THE Haitanis - the one who shows Ran how to swing a bat, and innocent ol’ Rindou to kick a man.
The first time Ran fights, he’s fighting a sour-rotten kid who’s kicking Rindou down. And perhaps it is an unfair fight because he uses less of his fists, and more of his bat and beats the kid until he’s bleeding and screaming and limp on the floor. And when the kid’s taken to the hospital, and when she's called to pick him up, she apologises and drags Ran out, and Ran thinks he’s about to get screamed at. The same way mama screamed at him. But instead, she smirks, tells him he did good, and takes him to get ice cream.
That day, Ran learns that it’s better to play dirty than lose. It’s what she tells him, as she’s got her feet up on the windshield of her car and is slurping up strawberry ice cream. “Some kids will never learn with a fair fight. You gotta make it hurt - real bad.”
A week later and she’s dead. No one told him how; she’d just died. Was no longer alive. Had suddenly vanished. As quick as she came. She was not a Haitani. In all honesty; she was really just a middle-aged drug addict. But she took them in - and bred them well. Taught them all they’d know. And now, she is dead. Without even a goodbye.