by Carrie Asai
I folded up the bo and stuck it in my bag.
“Come on!” Hiro yelled, grabbing my hand. We went through the front gate out to the street. The air raid sirens stopped. I looked back. Masato was nowhere to be seen. Had he even woken up? If he had, he was watching the whole ordeal from inside the house.
On the street I got a flash of something horrible surrounding Hiro. Run, my instincts said. This isn’t good. So I started to run away from him as fast as I could.
“Wait, where are you going?” he shouted.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said over my shoulder. “I want you to stay away from me.” Fighting Kaori had brought my confidence back. I was strong; I had a weapon now; I had a diamond necklace to sell. Maybe I could go to Kyoto and hide out in the Zen gardens. One thing was certain, though: I needed to stay away from Hiro. Seeing him in Japan, overhearing what those maids had said—even if it wasn’t true—made him seem more dangerous than ever.
“No!” Hiro said, running after me. “I thought you said—”
“Don’t you get it?” I said angrily, still running. “I don’t trust you anymore, Hiro. I appreciate your chivalry in trying to rescue me. But as you can see, I got out of there just fine without you.”
“Look, I realize how angry you are, and I know why,” Hiro said, jogging alongside me. “I should have never lied to you about my ties to the yakuza. Which is why I didn’t lie when you asked me if I hadn’t for a moment considered accepting my father’s offer.”
“Well, it looks like you did accept it, didn’t you?” I said smugly.
“No!” Hiro said. “I met with my father, yes. That was the ruse to get back to Japan. Do you think I had money to get back here? He paid for my ticket. He picked me up at the airport. Or at least his driver did.”
“Mr. Lumberman is all high and mighty now, huh?” I asked.
Hiro sighed. “I met with my father, but I haven’t agreed to go through anything. And now I’ve escaped. I can never go back there again.”
“Well, I can’t forgive you!” I snapped. I stopped running and put my hands on my knees. I bent over, breathing heavily. Hiro stopped, too.
“Never?” he said. “I didn’t want to lie to you…. I just…Does it mean anything, how far we’ve come together? Our loyalty to each other? If only in the samurai sense?”
“Don’t bring that up right now,” I said, remembering that one of the samurai tenets was to be loyal to your sensei. “All that stuff flew out the window when I found out you lied.”
We were still in Masato’s neighborhood. The street was deathly quiet. The trees cast ghostly shadows on the sidewalk. I looked up at a large high-rise apartment building. It was completely dark. Everyone was sound asleep.
Loyalty. I fumed. How dare Hiro play the samurai loyalty card?
“Listen, I want you to tell me everything you know,” I said, hands on my hips. “Starting with why Masato didn’t come out to get me back there. Why he didn’t bring me back into the house. Why didn’t he come out and drag me back in himself. Look at how easily we escaped! Those guards didn’t even have guns!”
Hiro shook his head and looked down. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“He let me go!” I shouted. I looked up at the apartment building again. A light flicked on. I began to walk quickly down the sidewalk. Hiro followed me.
After a long pause—maybe too long—he continued. “I do know that Masato is keeping you under lock and key. They didn’t want you running amok anymore. They…” He dropped his head.
“They who?” I said. “As in…Mieko?”
“Yes, her,” Hiro said. He looked like he was searching for words.
Finally he spoke again. “I found out that Masato is just as entrenched in yakuza as your father is.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“From…my father,” he said, speaking very slowly. “He filled me in on some of the major participants in the organization. Like who is in the drug business, who runs the garbage rackets, who controls the gambling.”
“This is making me sick,” I spat.
“Masato is a big player,” he continued.
“And your father?”
“My father is…yes. My father is too, now.” He hung his head again. “But…but I’m not, Heaven! We are in the same danger and we should stick together.”
“Funny, you sound like someone I know called Teddy,” I said, and then realized—it was really true. Teddy had said those same words to me countless times. We’re in the same boat—we have to stick together.
“Just trust me,” Hiro said. “I realize that we can’t be what we once were, but I still love you, and I want you safe.” He took my hand.
My head hurt from when Masato had cracked it earlier today, and my body hurt from fighting Kaori. My lungs hurt from running. My heart hurt, too. I was lost.
“Well,” I said, looking around. We were on another dark street. Down a ways was a gas station, eerily lit up but closed. It was as if we were the only people alive.
“This neighborhood creeps me out,” I said. “Kaori’s gonna send the dogs out to find us soon.” I glared at him. “But one false move and I’m gone. You got that?”
Hiro paused for a moment. He swallowed ever so softly. But I heard it.
“Of course,” he said, regaining his voice. I narrowed my eyes at him, then spun on my heel and started walking.
“This way,” Hiro said. We passed a trashy-looking geisha girl in fishnets and hot pants.
I was disoriented. Hiro had insisted that he knew a “shortcut,” but we’d been walking for hours. The neighborhood we’d just entered looked seedy. Were we near Shinjuku? It seemed like it, I thought.
I looked at a storefront in front of us. KABUKICHO KARAOKE. Outside were a couple of broken pachinko machines. And then a heap of what looked like pachinko-machine parts. In the next storefront I looked right in and saw a bunch of shady-looking suits in stained, sleeveless shirts huddled around a table. A taller guy in a velour tracksuit rolled some dice. They all shouted when the dice hit the table, and I cowered back.
“We’re in Kabukicho?” I hissed to Hiro.
This was the land of the yakuza.
“What are we doing here?” I said, starting to panic. My body bristled. This is a bad move, this is a bad move, this is a bad move, said my brain. I glanced at the street. Crack pipes, bottles, used condoms, and cigarette butts littered the gutter.
“We had to go this way in order not to go by my father’s neighborhood,” Hiro said. He looked me over quickly and took off his bulky sweatshirt.
“Here, put this on and pull up the hood,” he said. “Hurry.”
“There were five million other ways we could’ve gone,” I argued, stopping in my tracks. A burly guy pushed past me. I drew the cords on the hood tight. “Why are we doing this?”
“Just a circuitous route. Trust me. Let’s just get through here quick,” Hiro said, taking my hand and dragging me down an alley. I heard angry voices coming from somewhere.
An uneasy feeling crept over me. Was this…was this a trap?
A thuggish guy came up to us, his hair in a tightly coiled perm. He had squinty little eyes and a piggish face and was about three times Hiro’s size. My heart started to pound. He was staring right at us.
“What are you doing here?” he said. At first I thought he was talking to me. I opened my mouth to answer.
“Hey, man,” Hiro said, shaking his hand.
I clamped my mouth shut. Hiro knew this guy? He was missing a part of his little finger. I could see the outline of a gun in his pants. Across the street a guy and a girl, arm in arm, came out of a seedy-looking bar. The girl had on an ugly gray-and-white fur stole and tottered on four-inch heels. All of a sudden she screamed, picked up a stray bottle, and threw it at the boyfriend. The guy let out a grunt and lunged at her and started punching her again and again. No one tried to stop them. I looked away.
“Yo,” the guy answered, barely noticing what was ha
ppening.
“Uh…Suki, this is Aki.” He turned to me. Apparently for the moment my name was Suki.
“Hey,” Aki said, barely looking at me, not shaking my hand. I wondered—with my freaky, grown-out, black-roots-showing geisha hair and my skimpy sleeping outfit and my skater-boy hoodie—maybe he thought I was a hooker. Either that or a homeless waif named Suki.
“So you know where we can get a car?” Hiro said. “I’d like to take a little drive.”
I was fuming. He was asking this meathead? The car was obviously going to be hot.
“Yeah, I’m not on that shit anymore,” Aki said, leaning down. “He’s got me on the H tip now. That and crystal meth.” He smiled. All of his teeth were crooked. “But hey, congrats on the ceremony tomorrow.”
Hiro bristled. “Ah, it’s been postponed,” he said in a low voice.
“What’s been postponed?” I said.
Both of the guys looked at me, and I could tell that Aki suddenly recognized who I was. He did a double take, then looked back at Hiro.
“Maybe you wanna ask someone else in the neighborhood, though,” Aki said. “About the car, I mean.” His gaze wandered back to me. He squinted, as if asking himself, Is that Heaven Kogo? Or is it just Suki the hooker?
I quickly pretended I was very interested in the bar we were standing in front of. I peeked inside. Skanky girls danced naked on the stage. They looked about thirteen years old.
“Okay, thanks,” Hiro was saying. He grabbed my hand. “See you around.”
“No doubt,” Aki said.
I grabbed his arm, hard. “Who was that?” I asked.
Hiro sucked in air uncomfortably. “He works for your father,” he said. “I don’t think he recognized you, though.”
Chills ran up and down my spine.
“What was he talking about, the ceremony?” I asked.
Hiro didn’t answer. He navigated through the dark streets. We nearly bumped into two guys with tattooed arms and legs, sitting on the bottom step of a building, busily snorting something off a mirror. Right in plain view. A skinny girl sat beside them, swinging her legs, wearing nothing but a tiny bra and underpants. She looked my age. When they finished with the mirror, they passed it over to her.
We walked by an alley where a businessman in a suit and tie was getting beat up by two bald muscleheads. The only word I could hear them grunt was money. Hiro tried to hide the sight from me, but I’d already seen the worst. The guy’s face was a pulpy, horrible mess. They were no doubt going to kill him.
“Come on,” Hiro said.
I felt worse and worse with every step. This is wrong, I told myself. All of this. Hiro, everything. Every guy that passed, I wondered, Does he work for my father? Does he work for Teddy’s father? Does he work for Masato?
Do any of these guys work for Hiro’s father?
What was even creepier was that when we passed by a group of guys, one of them turned and patted Hiro on the back. “Hey, man,” he said. The others nodded at him. In another cluster Hiro got another nod. They knew him. But he’d only been back for a few days. What was going on?
“How do they all know you?” I whispered.
I felt like I was in free fall.
And then I realized what I wanted. How desperate I was.
I stopped. “I need to see my father,” I said.
“What?” Hiro said, turning around slowly.
“Get me out of here. I want to see my father. Now.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Heaven, you can’t—” he said.
“Why is everyone saying that I can’t see him? What are you talking about? Why can’t I?” I felt like I was in jail. Like I couldn’t breathe.
I tried to stare him down. “What do you know?”
Hiro didn’t say anything.
“Why did we just have to walk through there? Were you…were you just passing a code to some other yakuza guy? Why can’t I see my father? What’s going on?”
“You’re imagining things,” he said. “There was no secret code.”
He’s like the rest of them, I thought. Just like Masato and all the others.
“You just can’t see him,” he said. “I…”
Guys rushed past us, nodding to Hiro.
“I want to see my father,” I said again, slowly and angrily.
“I’m sorry,” Hiro said. He looked distracted and nervous. He glanced at his watch. “I can’t let you do that.”
There was something behind his eyes that looked…I don’t know. Untrustworthy. Wrong, somehow.
“Fine,” I said. I turned and began to run. My footsteps rang out on the sidewalk under me. I dodged a bunch of guys hanging around, smoking a joint. I ran through a swarm of hookers and disgusting-looking guys. I ran and ran and ran and realized I had no idea where I was. I had no idea where the hell my father was, either. I turned a corner and fought back tears. Shit. I was in front of KABUKICHO KARAOKE again. I windmilled around, wondering how I’d gone in a circle.
I was lost in my own damn city.
I stopped and put my arms out in the ready stance, prepared to kick someone’s ass if they came near. Including Hiro. I had to make a plan.
“Heaven,” said a voice.
I turned. There he was.
“Get away,” I snarled.
“Look, I don’t know where he is, okay?”
“Liar.”
“All right…” He put his head down. “I know where he is, but there’s no way you could get to him. Not now.” He looked up at me finally. His eyes looked remorseful and pained. I gritted my teeth. I hated him. I’d never been so filled with hate for anyone before in my life.
“They’ll kill you if you try to get to him,” he said.
There was conviction in his voice. He was telling the truth.
I looked down at the ground. It was littered with huge shards of broken glass. I heard a police siren in the distance.
“I can get you out of here,” Hiro said quietly. “You just have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust you,” I said, biting back tears. “I’m terrified of you.”
“But you shouldn’t be,” he said. He tried to come closer, but I backed away.
“What an ass you are, leading me through Kabukicho like that. How stupid are you?” I said. I blinked. Now I was crying. “You know, it hurt to find out my father was in the yakuza. It hurt to find out that Mieko would rather I was dead. It hurt to find out that Kaori wanted to kill me, and it hurt to find out that everything that came out of Masato’s mouth was a lie. These are people who said, ‘You’ll be safe with us, Heaven,’ and then they turn me around and stab me in the back. But you know….” I sniffed and wiped my face. They were angry tears. My blood boiled hot. “I can deal with all of them. I knew I shouldn’t trust any of them, anyway. But you.” I pointed my finger at him. “To realize that you are deceiving me…that’s a different story.”
He didn’t say a word. I glared at him. I wished that I just didn’t care. I wished that I could just walk away and leave Hiro and put all of this behind me. But I stood there, so angry I was shaking.
“Please,” he said. “I’m not deceiving you.” His voice was desperate and pleading. “How can I get you to believe me?”
He paused. “Kabukicho was a mistake. I’m sorry. I thought we could get a car. Again, I’m sorry.”
He swallowed. “But I can’t let you go see your father. I know this for sure. Just believe me on this one. If you try to see your father, you’ll die.”
“Just tell me where he is,” I said quietly.
“But then you’ll go….”
“I won’t go, all right?” I said. “Just treat me with enough respect to tell me at least where he is.”
Hiro paused. He rubbed his hands together. He moved his foot, raking it against the broken glass.
“He’s at your house,” he said. “But he’s…he’s near death.”
Then in a lower voice he said, “They’re killing him.”
My chin
quivered.
We didn’t say anything for a moment. I tried to keep it together.
“Look at me,” he said. He walked a little closer. I didn’t move away.
“Heaven, look at me. Please. I love you. I’m trying to take care of you. I’m trying to keep you safe. I’m loyal to you. We went through that neighborhood because that would be the last place anyone would look. But this was a mistake. And I’m sorry. But really. I’m going to get you out of here. Do you understand?”
I thought of my father, on life support, in our house. They were killing him. That sense I’d had—back at Masato’s—had been right. Rage bubbled up inside me. I wanted to tear Masato limb from limb. I looked at Hiro, now completely overwhelmed with emotion.
“Will you help me get out of Japan?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes. Of course. That’s what I was thinking, too. Out of Japan.”
I paused. There was a chance I’d never see my father again. I was powerless. How could I stop this? How could I reverse this without putting myself in danger?
No, I had to leave. Now.
“All right,” I said. “Help me get out of Japan.”
Relief flooded his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. I stayed stiff as a board and didn’t hug him back.
He grabbed my hand. “This way.” We were in full-fledged Shinjuku now. The place was still hopping, even though it had to be about 3 A.M. Hiro flagged down a cab. It stopped right in front of an Irish pub–type bar; a girl was throwing up in the alleyway. “Get in!” he yelled at me.
I stood around the flashing lights. They sort of looked like the EKG machines you see in hospitals.
They’re killing him.
I looked up at the sky. I would have to say good-bye to my father here, at least for now. I closed my eyes. “Try to hold on,” I whispered to him.
“Heaven, get in!” Hiro cried.
I turned back to him. What could I do? Stand around Shinjuku all night? So I climbed into the car and tried to clear my mind, if only for a moment.
6