VISION GRID SYSTEM: THE COMEBACK OF RYOMA TAKEDA - Chapter 492: A Cut at Every Level

Chapter 492: A Cut at Every Level

The next day, Arman is already awake with water hitting his shoulders. It’s still dark outside, the sky heavy and uncommitted, the city holding its breath before the day decides to begin.

By the time he steps back outside, wrapped in a thin towel, the call to Fajr Prayer has already begun to drift through the neighborhood.

Ash-shalātu khayrun min an-nawm floats from a loudspeaker, the reminder woven into the Azaan: that prayer is better than sleep.

Arman dresses, and walks toward the small mosque a few streets over. The road is quiet in that fragile way Jakarta only manages before dawn.

Inside the mosque, he follows the congregation prayer as best he can. The stillness, the humility, and the way the men stand shoulder to shoulder without asking who deserves the space.

When it’s over, he steps back outside and finds Mr. Mulyono already there, tying his sandals.

“Morning, Arman,” the old man says, smiling as he straightens up.

“Morning, Pak Mulyono.” Arman replies.

He takes the old man’s hand, and bows his head slightly. Then they walk together for a short stretch before Arman stops.

“Sorry, Pak Mulyono. I won’t be coming to the site today,” he says.

Mr. Mulyono turns, eyebrows lifting, curious. “You sick?”

“No.” Arman shakes his head. “I need to go to the gym.”

The old man studies him for a moment, then smiles wider. “Ah. You have a fight?”

“Maybe,” Arman says. “A challenge. From Japan. Not confirmed yet.”

Mr. Mulyono’s eyes brighten. “Good. You should go then.”

Arman smiles, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t want to disappear without saying anything.”

The old man waves a hand. “Work will always be here. Just let me know how it goes.”

Arman nods once. And they part ways without ceremony.

Back at the kontrakan, he changes again; running shoes, light shirt, mask folded into his pocket. He steps outside and starts his roadwork before the sky fully turns.

This is the only hour that belongs to him as the streets are still manageable now. He settles into his pace, breath steady, feet tapping against the asphalt.

By the time the sky lightens, and the city wakes violently.

Honk! Honk! Honk!

“Hey! Watch it!”

“Oi! Sidewalk!”

“I said move!”

An engine snarls too close. A bike jerks up onto the pedestrian path, tires scraping concrete.

“Get off here!” someone shouts.

“It’s jammed, damn it!” the rider fires back. “Where am I supposed to go?”

Voices overlap, a hand slaps metal, and someone curses. The horn blares again, longer this time, pure frustration.

Motorbikes multiply. Cars crawl. Horns begin their useless conversations. What had been a road becomes a negotiation.

By six-thirty, the traffic jam has fully claimed the city. Thousands of engines idling, inching forward with no conviction.

Arman pulls the mask up over his face, and keeps running along the edges; side streets, narrow gaps, places where traffic gives up trying to be orderly.

This is why he runs early. Once the day sets in, Jakarta doesn’t let go.

***

When he reaches the gym, it’s already past eight. And for reasons everyone silently tolerates here, the shutters are still down.

Arman stops, face wrinkles with disappointment. Minutes pass and finally hunger makes the decision for him.

Across the street, a vendor is already set up with a small cart and plastic stools. He orders without thinking, sits, eats ketoprak from a paper plate, peanut sauce heavy and sweet.

He adds a couple of gorengan because they’re cheap and filling. Because training on an empty stomach is worse.

He knows it’s terrible; oil, sugar, no structure, no nutrition plan. And clearly no schedule that respects an athlete’s body. But he eats anyway.

This is what the days look like when nothing is certain, when preparation has to happen around other people’s delays, around traffic, around money that doesn’t arrive on time.

***

Past nine thirty, and they gym is still close.

Arman looks up just in time to see a familiar figure shuffling toward the vendor, sandals slapping softly against the pavement.

It’s Coach Yohanes.

The man wears a sarong hitched too high, a sleeveless undershirt stretched thin over a round belly. And he doesn’t look at the gym. He stops at the cart.

“Ketoprak, please,” he says cheerfully.

The vendor nods, already reaching for tofu.

Then Yohanes turns, blinks, and breaks into a grin.

“Eh! Arman.” He laughs, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Arman stares at him for a second longer than necessary. “Coach,” he says flatly. “What about the gym?” Arman asks.

Yohanes frowns, confused. “What gym?”

“The gym,” Arman repeats, his voice tightening. “It’s past nine.”

“No one comes this early,” Yohanes says easily. “No reason to open it.”

Arman exhales through his nose. “I heard from Sugiarto. We got a challenge. From Japan.”

“We did.” Yohanes nods, as if Arman has just reminded him of something minor. Then he turns back to the vendor. “More sauce, please.”

“And?” Arman asks.

Yohanes accepts the dish, and then sits heavily on a plastic stool. He takes a bite, chews, swallows, but doesn’t answer.

Something inside Arman shifts, enough to feel dangerous. This is how it always goes. News arrives, possibility flickers, and then it dissolves into delay, into meals, into other people’s schedules.

He looks at the gym again, and the thought comes clearly now: I don’t have to do this anymore,clearly not with this bastard.

“Eat,” Yohanes says, nodding at Arman’s plate. “You’ll need energy.”

“For what?” Arman asks.

Yohanes exhales, then wipes his fingers on his sarong. “Let’s go,” he says. “The gym’s close, so we’ll wait at my house.”

“For who?”

“Sugiarto,” Yohanes replies. “He’ll come.”

“When?”

“He said ten.”

Arman doesn’t say anything, only nods, and follows without much expectation. He’s lived in Indonesia long enough to understand what ten usually means.

***

Yohanes’ house is modest but comfortable, with a small living room and a fan oscillating lazily in the corner.

They sit there and wait. Ten passes, then ten fifteen, then ten thirty.

By eleven, Arman stops checking the time, because he already knows.

Only at eleven forty-five, a black Pajero finally rolls up outside.

The door opens, and a man steps out, adjusting his jeans with one hand while holding a cigarette in the other.

Sunglasses rest on his forehead, and his shoes are polished black, catching the light. Sugiarto locks the car with a soft beep and flicks ash onto the street.

As the man steps into the room, Arman looks at him without bothering to hide the contempt.

“Seriously,” he says. “Is this what you call ten?”

Sugiarto laughs it off. “I came, didn’t I?”

He takes a seat without waiting to be invited, stretching his legs out comfortably. Almost immediately, he starts talking, not about the fight, not about Japan, not about money, but about gemstones. Batu akik

.

Colors, patterns, how some trader in Bandung swore this one had doubled in value, how another piece was impossible to find now unless you knew the right people.

Yohanes leans in, interested. He nods, asks questions, even gets up to fetch something from another room, returning with his own gemstone to show Sugiarto.

Arman stays where he is.

Minutes pass, then more. The conversation loops, drifts, circles back on itself. And no one looks at him. No one brings up the fight.

By the time the call to Dzuhur prayer echoes through the neighborhood, thin and distant through the open window, Arman has stopped listening entirely. He stands without a word, just scraping the chair against the floor.

Only then does Sugiarto look up. “Eh, where are you going?”

Arman doesn’t answer. He lowers again, not to sit, but to slam the table with both hands.

BAM!

The sound cuts the room cleanly in half.

“I came here for the fight,” Arman says. “Not to listen to stories about your ugly gemstones.”

Sugiarto swallows and forces himself to breathe. He reminds himself, that this is the OPBF number two standing in front of him.

“Alright,” Sugiarto says, raising both hands slightly. “Alright. Let’s talk.”

“I’m done,” Arman says. “I don’t want to do business with you anymore.”

Sugiarto moves quickly then, hands out. “Wait. Wait. You can’t just walk away like this. We already replied to Japan. We accepted the fight.”

Arman turns on him. “You accepted it without asking me?”

“The purse is big,” Sugiarto says. “And I didn’t think you’d refuse.”

Arman looks at him. “How much?”

“Four thousand U.S.,” Sugiarto says. “You get 2.800 clean.”

Arman does the math without showing it; more than 36 million rupiah, enough to breathe, enough to stop carrying cement for more than eight months.

“I want the money first,” Arman says.

Sugiarto nods. “I figured.”

He walks out to the Pajero and returns with a thick envelope and a folded document. He places both on the table.

“Thirty seven million,” he says. “My own money. Use it for preparation. The fight’s on August twenty-fourth. We fly on the twentieth.”

Then he slides the contract forward and sets a pen beside it.

Arman doesn’t argue, doesn’t negotiate. He picks up the pen, signs, and leaves without another word. The door closes behind him.

Yohanes turn to Sugiarto. “That was a lot of money to give up front.”

Sugiarto grins. “Actually, they offered six thousand dollars.”

He pulls out his cigarette, lights it, and exhales slowly.

“I’ll give you one thousand,” he adds. “But don’t tell him.”

This is how it usually works here. Not just with time, but with money.

A cut at every level. A delay that becomes an excuse. An excuse that becomes a margin.

Sugiarto wasn’t late because of traffic. He had spent the morning bargaining, actually securing USD 10.000 for the fight.

But numbers always change once they land. He told Yohanes it was six thousand. He told Arman it was four. Then he handed over thirty-seven million rupiah and called it generosity.

Everyone along the chain took what they believed they were owed.

Everyone except the one who would bleed.