The Book of the Heart

by Carrie Asai

  Training. A wave of dread washed over me. My eyes met his, and for a moment I flashed back to the sex and then back beyond that, to a time when I’d known nothing of Hiro’s past. A simpler time, when we’d trained together. When he’d been my sensei.

  But I didn’t want Hiro to be my sensei again. Or did I? I was confused.

  “This way,” Hiro said. We were on another navy base and had to find our way out. Here were the same sorts of squat buildings, the same weird silence. But I could tell we were in America. The air around us just had that feeling. It was wonderful to be away from the stench of the sub.

  Hiro and I rushed through the shadows until we came up to the gate and a tall cyclone fence.

  “What do we do?” I whispered. “How do we get out?”

  Hiro looked right and left. “Shinobi-iri, maybe,” he said. He pointed out some shadows that we might be able to slip through undetected. The guard looked half asleep.

  We crept toward the shadows and then did the ninja stealth walk, silently skulking, knees bent, not making any sudden movements. When the shadows faded, we dropped to the ground and dragged ourselves forward on our stomachs.

  But then I heard the click of the safety of a gun.

  I froze.

  “Who’s there?” said a voice. Gate guy. The gun was pointed right at us.

  “We’re not in his range of vision,” Hiro whispered very softly.

  “Show yourself or I’ll shoot,” he said.

  “Let’s creep around and get him from behind,” Hiro said.

  He was crazy. This guy had a gun. I followed Hiro, legs wet and shaking, until we were close enough to jump the guy. And in one movement Hiro grabbed him from behind and tossed the gun away.

  I scurried to pick it up. The thing was heavy. I slung it over my shoulder.

  The other guard lunged for us. “Who the hell are you?” he snarled, grabbing for his gun. I kicked it out of his hand before he could get to it.

  Hiro had the other guy in a stronghold, paralyzing his arms. He planted his feet, ducked down, and flipped the guy backward so that he somersaulted in the air and landed with a bone-shattering thud. He groaned.

  The guy I’d kicked came back, fists raised. But Hiro managed a kick to his jaw, knocking him down as well.

  “Come on!” he said, grabbing my hand.

  We were only a couple of yards away when we heard the shots.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “Just keep running,” Hiro said. “Stay in the shadows.”

  We ran in the darkness of trees, telephone poles, buildings. Our footsteps rang out, quick and nervous. I couldn’t control my breathing. The shots still came, fiery and blazing.

  We rounded a corner and stopped. “I don’t think they’re coming,” Hiro said, listening.

  “Let’s run farther,” I said. So we did.

  I didn’t know how long we ran. For three miles, for six, for ten. I didn’t know how we could’ve run so far since we’d eaten almost nothing in the days we were on the sub. Adrenaline pushed us along. Finally, in a seedy residential neighborhood far from the base, we stopped, wheezing, doubled over.

  I edged into the glow from a streetlight, free. I coughed and suddenly felt dizzy. Tears sprang to my eyes. I brought my hands to my face and tried to control myself.

  Hiro came up to me and gave me a huge hug. “It’s okay,” he said. “We made it. We’re here.”

  His hug was passionate; he wanted more. I hugged him back wearily. I felt like this was rock bottom. The wind kicked up. Wet from the ocean, I shivered.

  “Come on,” Hiro said, patting my shoulder, then taking my hand. “Let’s see if we can find somewhere to stay.”

  The El Penguino hotel was only a notch better than the sub berth. From the outside it looked like it had been built in the 1800s and never renovated. A neon sign flickered Vacancy. A large woman in a flower-print muumuu manned the desk.

  But it was all we could afford with the limited amount of money we had. The lady at the front desk eyed us suspiciously, as if she knew who we were and that we’d illegally entered the country on a submarine. Then slowly she handed us the key. We turned away and quickly walked to our room.

  “Why was she looking at us as if we’re criminals?” I said.

  “Probably everybody who stays here is a criminal,” Hiro said. He kept looking right and left nervously.

  “Do you think someone’s following us?” I asked.

  Hiro shrugged.

  We swung open the door. The knob was falling off. And there was a giant cockroach in the tub. When I saw it, I screamed. Then I smashed it with my shoe.

  At least there was a bathroom.

  I peeled my clothes off down to my underwear and filled up the sink with water and laundry soap from a little El Penguino complimentary toiletries kit. There was only one flake of soap, but I didn’t care. I threw all my clothes in the sink to soak. The motel wasn’t the type of place that offered bathrobes, so I wrapped myself in a dingy towel and flopped down on the bed.

  I could hear the neon Vacancy sign buzzing out the window.

  “I guess we’ll stay here until we figure something else out,” Hiro said. “Maybe until we find your mom.”

  I sighed. Finding my mother had seemed like an optimistic idea when we’d been in Japan. Now that we were here, having gone through what we’d just gone through, it seemed impossible. Who would help us track her down? I racked my brain to think of people I knew in San Diego. There was Detective Wachter. My mind flicked back to the last time I’d seen him. When I’d set up Teddy.

  “Hey,” I said to Hiro, who was counting his remaining money. “Was Teddy in Japan?”

  He looked over at me, surprised. “Not that I know of,” he said.

  “Your father didn’t mention anything?”

  “I thought he was dead.”

  I’d neglected to tell Hiro about my adventure with Teddy right before Masato had brought me back to Japan. I’d been set up to frame Teddy and collect information that he’d been part of a major drug deal, but I’d told him to run instead.

  “So he’s not dead?” Hiro asked.

  I opened my mouth to explain all this but then groaned. There was too much to tell. “Come on,” I said. “If you’re as connected as you seem to be, you must know for a fact that Teddy’s not dead.”

  “I thought we went through this,” Hiro said, frustrated. “I’m not all that connected.”

  I drew in my breath. Ouch. I’d hit a nerve.

  “Sor ry,” I said, pulling the towel around me.

  “I guess I did know,” Hiro said after a minute. He put his wallet down. “I just didn’t know…that you knew.”

  “Hiro…,” I said weakly. “Why do you keep things from me? Like…why did you hide all that stuff from me about you? Why didn’t you tell me anything about your family’s ties to the yakuza when we were in L.A.? I mean, it seemed like you told Melissa about that…and you didn’t tell me…I don’t know…any of it…. Don’t you realize that makes me trust you less? That it hurts my feelings?”

  Hiro sighed, still tense. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you things because they’re complicated. I didn’t want to scare you off right away. I didn’t mean for things to turn out…the way they did.” He didn’t seem to want to talk about this.

  “But I didn’t tell Melissa anything,” he continued. “She’s a bullshitter. She pretends like she knows everything about everyone even if she only has half a clue. It’s not like I went around bragging about my past and where I came from.” His face reddened. “Why do you think I came to this country? Why do you think I studied to become a samurai?”

  “Okay, okay, sorry,” I said. “You’re right.”

  Hiro didn’t answer. He paced angrily back and forth.

  And then after a while he said: “But there are other things I need to tell you. Things I couldn’t talk about on the sub. I thought the crew might’ve heard too much talking.”

  Silence. I rolled
over, not facing him.

  “There’s something big,” he said.

  “What is it?” I asked, tensing up.

  “I came back to Japan in order to find you, but I had to go through my father. He gave me the money to go there, and I knew he’d give me some inside information on what was going on with Masato and Mieko. But when I met him…he assumed that I would join the business. And with joining the business came initiation…if you know what I mean.”

  “Don’t tell me you got initiated,” I said, sitting up. “If you did, I’ll never speak to you again. I’m outta here.”

  “No, no, I didn’t. It was set for the night after I came for you. That’s what Aki was talking about in Kabukicho, remember?”

  “Oh…,” I said. “Yes, that’s right. I wanted to ask you about that.”

  “I escaped just in time,” Hiro said. “Luckily. I don’t know what would’ve happened if…”

  He trailed off and pulled his T-shirt over his head. His washboard stomach was still a little wet from sweat and the ocean.

  I wondered if somewhere deep down, Hiro secretly wanted to get initiated. I looked at him and shuddered. Our intimacy on the boat—Hiro taking my shirt off, Hiro kissing my stomach—flashed through my head. I quickly shoved it away, a little disgusted.

  “So what else did you find out about Masato and Mieko?” I asked. “Anything you haven’t told me?”

  “Well, the consensus is that Mieko has never liked you,” Hiro said.

  “I could’ve told you that one,” I said, mustering a laugh. “She treats me like she’s a lion and I’m a zebra. She wants to gnaw on my leg, I think.”

  “Also, according to my father, Mieko is heading up Konishi’s company.”

  “She’s heading up Kogo Industries,” I repeated.

  “You didn’t know that?”

  I rolled my head around. “Maybe. I don’t know. I mean…it makes sense. She was all dressed up when I saw her. Businesswomanlike.”

  “And you might not want to hear this, but she’s telling the press that you’re dead.”

  “I’m dead?” I said. “That’s a good one. I just saw her a couple of days ago. How does she explain that?”

  “She denies it, of course. She says she didn’t see you. At first she told the press that yes, you were alive and things were happy. But now she’s telling the press that the reports she got were wrong and that you aren’t alive. You’re dead. My father says it’s to swing the stock price of Kogo, Inc., and that I could get in on the deal if I wanted to. Those who know when the price is going to change make a ton of money. I refused, of course.”

  “Wait, I don’t get it,” I said. “They’re using me being alive or dead to affect the stock price?”

  “She tells the press you’re alive, business is good, the CEO is happy, the stock goes up. She tells the press there are now rumors that you’re dead, which means the CEO is upset and business is bad, and the stock goes down. The yakuza investors make a killing because they know what she’s gonna say before the public does.”

  “That’s disgusting,” I said. I didn’t know what was worse: Mieko manipulating the stock market or Mieko claiming I was dead. She’d done something similarly weird before. She’d taken me shopping to Isetan, a rare event. I’d headed straight for the junior apparel section, trying on anything I could get my hands on. I’d been right in the middle of trying on an awesome Free People shirt when all of a sudden a voice came crackling over the loudspeaker.

  “Heaven Kogo, please report to the information booth. Mieko is looking for you.”

  I’d thought it a little strange then. Why hadn’t she said, Your mother is looking for you? Didn’t those messages usually just say your mother? No, she’d said Mieko, as if she was a completely cold person, isolated from me. It was weird.

  And to add to the weirdness, when I’d turned up at the information booth, after getting a stern look from Mieko, the woman at the booth had smiled and said, “Oh, how cute. You two look so much alike. Is this your daughter?”

  And Mieko had looked at her and said, very sharply, “No.”

  Yikes, I thought now. She had a heart of ice.

  “So your father wanted you to get in on it?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Hiro said. “But I promise you, I didn’t.”

  I paused. This was heavy stuff.

  He continued to talk. “She also hates Konishi. I mean, I guess you realize that by now. Otherwise she…they…wouldn’t be…”

  I nodded, understanding. A twinge of terror and regret ran through me. I’d forgotten about my father in the last couple of days. Would anyone be able to stop them from…doing whatever they were doing? Were they really killing him?

  The strange thing was, I’d never noticed Mieko doing anything mean to my father. I couldn’t quite believe she was trying to kill him. They weren’t exactly the most together couple…they never were affectionate in public, and Mieko often went on extensive spa leaves at a moment’s notice, basically staying way out of the picture…but they had to have some love for each other. Right?

  “Do you think Masato really has anything to do with this?” I said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I don’t know.” I thought this out. “Masato wouldn’t shut up about how he just wanted me to ‘relax’ the whole time. Maybe that’s what Mieko told him this was all about…relaxing. Maybe she said, ‘Take her to your house since her old home is far too stressful right now, with her father sick.’ ”

  I could feel Hiro’s hands tighten up. “I don’t exactly think that’s it,” he said.

  “Yeah? You think Masato was more in on things?”

  “I…I do.”

  “How do you know?”

  Hiro was silent.

  “I just do,” he said. “I…I can’t explain. Not yet.”

  He sounded on the verge of tears.

  “Well, all right,” I said. “Maybe he does know something. I mean, there was some guy in Roppongi the other day who clearly looked yakuza who had a gun pointed at my head. And I’m betting Masato had a hand in that. He was the one, after all, who conned Kaori into taking me to Roppongi in the first place. Of that I’m sure.”

  Hiro remained silent.

  “It scares me to think what they’re doing to my father,” I said.

  I thought of something else. “Oh my God,” I said, clapping a hand over my mouth. “Do you think…do you think they both had something to do with Ohiko?”

  Hiro lowered his eyes. “It’s very possible,” he said.

  “It makes sense,” I said, my voice choked. “They want the business, right? They’ve probably always wanted it! And Ohiko was next in line after my father….”

  “So they had to make sure he was out of the picture,” Hiro said ruefully.

  “Oh God,” I said. “This is all about my father’s stupid business!”

  “It’s ironic, too, since Ohiko didn’t even want to work for your father.”

  “They probably thought he’d change his mind. And there were so many others they could pin this on, you know? Yakuza, angry that he wouldn’t join; the Yukemuras…other families…enemies of my father…”

  I balled my fists. “I hate them,” I said. “It’s all about greed and money. That’s all that matters to them. Masato and his sports cars and Mieko and her…and her new clothes. It’s sickening.”

  We sat there in silence for a long time. The neon continued to buzz. A couple in the room next to us started yelling at each other. In the room to the other side someone was watching a boxing match at maximum volume.

  “I miss my brother,” I said, a little out of nowhere. “I loved him so much.”

  “I know,” Hiro answered. “He loved you, too.”

  We sat on the bed. I could feel Hiro moving a little closer to me. I could tell what he wanted. But I couldn’t respond. I knew I’d just have to reach over and kiss him, and it would all start again.

  But I didn’t want that.

  So instead I flopped down
on the pillow. “I’m exhausted,” I said. “I want to go to sleep.”

  “There’s only one bed…,” Hiro said flirtatiously, flopping down beside me.

  “You can sleep next to me—I don’t mind,” I said. And then I snuggled under the covers and closed my eyes. I was exhausted. I hadn’t slept well on the sub. To be in a real bed, on something that wasn’t moving, was a wonderful feeling.

  I felt Hiro beside me, frustrated. But I kept my eyes closed. He stroked my hair. I could tell he was looking at me. I could tell he was dying to kiss me, to be closer to me. But instead he burrowed under the covers with me and snapped the light off.

  Even though my body was tired, my mind was still reeling from all the news I’d just heard—about Hiro’s almost initiation, Masato, Mieko’s bloodlust for my father, Ohiko’s killers revealed. It was all freaking me out.

  Talking about all this had also revived the memory of Ohiko again. I could almost see him standing beside us, as plain as day. His hair was the same as it had been when he died, somewhat long, hanging in his face. He was wearing his traditional white gi, as if he’d come fresh from the dojo.

  I so badly wanted to ask him things. Can you help me with any of this?

  Did you know about Hiro? Should I trust him?

  And the big one. Was it Mieko who had you killed?

  But Ohiko stayed silent. I blinked, and he wasn’t there anymore. I was getting no answers. I wondered if anything would ever be resolved in this big, terrible mystery. Or would I just have to keep running?

  What would happen when there was nowhere left to run?

  I started to grow sleepier. The pillow was surprisingly soft. The buzzing of the neon seemed quieter now, less obtrusive. The couple next door had stopped fighting.

  “There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” Hiro said, his voice wiry and thin.

  “Huh?” I said. Now I was dead tired. Hiro’s voice sounded like it was in a tunnel, far, far away.

  “I…,” Hiro started. But then his voice moved even farther away. I drifted into a fitful, deep-sea sleep. Whatever he said next, if he said anything at all, I didn’t hear.