Page 3 of Shifting Gears

“That’ll work for now.”

I slid the drawer back inside and rolled out the mattress and bedding. Better do it now while I was awake instead of when I was tired as fuck tonight.

Then I noticed a small old TV in another corner of the room. I plugged it in and turned it on. It worked, but everything on all the channels was in Japanese.

“Damn, what’s even the point of watching TV if I can’t understand it?”

I turned it off and unplugged it before I decided to grab it and shove it in the closet. I looked around the room. It was tight, but I could probably fit a punching bag inside the room in the corner the TV had been in. Hang it from the metal beam along the ceiling.

I grabbed the key he had left on the counter and walked out of the room, locking it behind me. I made a quick stop to glance in the bathroom on my way down. It was an odd one, but there was a toilet, sink, and shower. Should be able to figure it out easily enough.

I walked back down the stairs and into the shop, where I met the other two guys who had been looking at the car earlier—Ken and Minato. They were new as well, and both of them spoke more English than Takumi. Sounded like the guy had been having trouble keeping help lately because his attitude was so bad.

I got directions to a nearby grocery store, which I had one of them put in my phone so I could favorite it. Then I turned to them and asked, “So, any gyms around here?”

“A bunch. There is an Anytime Fitness near enough, a short bus ride away,” Ken said, and he marked it on my phone as well.

I wasn’t one for a fancy subscription gym, but it was good enough for now. I’d swing by it as well. At least I might get them to order a bag for me, or they might know someone I could get one from.

I left the warehouse with plans in hand. Time to get shit done because, tomorrow, this was where the real work began.

CHAPTER 2

AJ

The first few weeks here,I had spent most of my time split between the gym and the warehouse. It was pretty damn busy, considering the boss was an absolute ass to deal with. More times than I could count, I wanted to rip that stupid beard off his face, but I knew what I had agreed to, and if I made things go south working here, I didn’t know enough about Japan to find a new place to live.

Most of my work was doing a once-over on cars Kayden himself was buying, making sure they matched the description on the paperwork that I had Minato translate for me. So far, it had been going okay.

But I was never much for a nine-to-five. I’d started to get bored of the everyday grind, especially working on cars. So, after I hit the gym, I made it a point to go down new streets on my way back to the warehouse in order to explore this area better.

I discovered I really enjoyed going to these places called pachinko parlors. The gambling that took place—from the machines in the front to the less monitored games in the back, ensured there was always a mixed crowd of people in them. It became my after-gym hangout spot since I had nothing better to do. I won some, but mostly lost, and soon, my money dwindled.Before I knew it, a few months had passed, and I had blown through most of the money Kayden had given me.

So, I worked out new ways to spend less on my current after-work hobby. A lot of people could be easily distracted by someone like me. I attracted their attention, and a fast sleight of hand allowed me to grab a fistful of pachinko balls from their boxes and drop them into mine. Everyone in this area seemed to go a lot off the honor system, but when you realized you didn’t have to honor the system, it was funny how much you could do.

But I knew I needed to change something. Working this blue-collar life just wasn’t for me. I had been born to boost cars, not fix them and move them across the sea. What I was missing from my day-to-day life was doing what I was good at and the adrenaline rush that came with it.

I strolled over to the folder that had the cars Kayden was looking for this month. Thankfully, it was in English, so I looked around the lot the company’s cars were in. I crossed each one off the list as I found it, but there were two cars we didn’t have.

Shit.

This forced Takumi to search auction sites for a cheap one, hoping it would match its listing. More often than not, there were a lot of small things not noted that needed to be fixed when they arrived.

That was when it hit me. I could just go out and get a mint-condition one. I’d seen these guys forge a few things in a shipping document before. How hard would it be for them to change some guy’s scribbles?

I walked back inside the shop and found Ken.

“Ken, if I bring in a car on the list, you can make that VIN match what it says it should be in the system, right?” I said as I came to a stop by the car he was working under.

He rolled out from under it and sat upright. “AJ, are you asking me to do something devious?”

He had that curious look in his eyes. As much as he pretended he was on the straight and narrow, I knew he was forging legal docs to help pay for his grandparents’ property out in the boonies. He knew his way around a computer enough to be a good partner in this.

“All I’m asking is, if I bring in some cars that match the make and model, can you make sure the VINs come out clean? And don’t ask questions about where I got the cars from,” I said as I tucked my hands into my hoodie pocket.

Ken glanced around to see where the others were before replying, “Only because I like you, but don’t ask me to do it all the time. Easier to be caught that way.”

I nodded. “Twice a month?”

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