by Carrie Asai
As far as I knew, nothing had been run about me recently. But my father was still in a coma, and I had a hard time imagining that subservient Mieko would be able to do the kind of damage control for which Konishi was famous. Not to mention the fact that with the new job at Vibe and everything else distracting me, I hadn’t been checking the papers the way I had before.
I ran to my room and pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Book Soup, a bookstore and newsstand in West Hollywood, carried all the international and domestic papers. I could search through them, then go meet Hiro and tell him about the song and anything else I might find. I threw the CD in my messenger bag and headed out.
The bus lumbered down Sunset Boulevard, and I stared out the window into the bright California sun. The people on the street seemed so carefree and happy. I nearly ran the block from the bus stop to the store. People stared at me as I rushed over to the periodicals and began pulling papers like theAsahi Shinbun off the racks and pawing through them.
Half an hour later I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d come up empty-handed. Still feeling giddy, I decided to bus it back to the Virgin megastore farther east on Sunset. If the single was there, I might have a problem. As the bus passed the famous Chateau Marmont Hotel, where the stars had stayed for almost as long as there had been stars, I thought about how weird L.A. was—it was almost like three cities in one—the city of the celebrities, sheltered and unreal, filled with glittering parties and beautiful people; the city of everybody else, waiters and waitresses trying to make it, people and families going to work and school every day like the rest of America—and then there was the city I lived in. A city of whispers and dark places, a city the light of the sun couldn’t reach.
At Virgin my luck changed. The single was there, lodged among the other imports and independent label offerings. I bought the original copy and took it outside, where I sat on a bench and unwrapped it. No more clues to be had. The original insert just gave the band members’ names, none of which I recognized, and offered a few more pictures and the address of their recording studio, in Tokyo. I studied the photos of the band members for the telltale tattoos that symbolized membership in the yakuza. Nothing.
Sitting on the bench, I though about how Ohiko and I would have laughed if something like this had happened back in the day, when we still lived at home and when it still seemed like we might eventually lead some kind of normal life. We would have got such a kick out of it to have a hip-hop song about our family. The songs about me from back when I survived the plane crash were in a different vein—just stupid little tributes people recorded in their basements or home studios that the radio played for a few months when the country was gripped by “Heaven Fever.” My nanny, Harumi, had recorded them all and played them for me when I was older. I wondered how many people the Funkitout single would reach. If A. J. and DJ Slavo knew it, it had to be getting pretty wide play even outside of Japan.
How long would it take before someone made the connection?
One thing I knew for sure—I’d definitely bemis- translating those lyrics for A. J.
I stood up and headed back to the bus stop. A small part of me relished the thought of giving Hiro the bad news. Dumping me wouldn’t be quite as easy as he’d hoped.
When I was a child, my nanny, Okuma-san, used to tell me the story of Urashima, the kind fisher lad who rescued a sea tortoise from a group of mischievous young boys who were about to torture it to death. After Urashima convinced the boys to give him the tortoise, he released it into the sea, but the tortoise returned the next day and offered to take Urashima to the underwater palace of the Dragon King of the Sea. Riding on the tortoise’s back, Urashima visited the kingdom and there met the Sea King’s daughter, a beautiful princess. The princess told him that he saved her, for she had chosen the form of the tortoise to explore the world outside the kingdom’s walls.
In my favorite part of the story Urashima married the princess and she showed him all the delights of the kingdom. But Urashima, after the first delight had passed, realized that his parents would be devastated by his absence. Sadly, the princess conceded that he must return to land. But before he left, she gave him a black lacquered box tied with a red string. “This is Tamate-Bako,” she told him, “the ‘Box of the Jewel Hand.’ You must accept this gift from me, but you can never open it.”
Urashima agreed and, with a heavy heart, returned to land. But something was different. Although the landscape remained unchanged, the faces that passed him on the streets of his village were strange to him. Urashima then learned from a passerby that three hundred years had passed in what seemed but a few weeks under the sea. His parents were dead. There was nothing left for him on land, in his village. Unable to figure out what else to do, Urashima presumed that the only way for him to return to his beloved princess was to disobey her and open Tamate-Bako. He untied the red string and opened the box, and a red mist floated out. Within moments his skin wrinkled, his body shrank, his hair turned white, and he was transformed into an ancient man.
“Now, listen, Konishi-chan,” Okuma-san would say as she finished the sad tale, “that is what happens to young boys who misbehave. You must always do as you are told.”
When I first was injured, this story came back to me, and it was as though I were Urashima. I could feel myself sinking under the waves, the world outside still there but far above me, untouchable. I can hear the voices through my watery shroud: Mieko’s voice, her murmur, and the things she whispers in my ear.
I must get back to the surface. They are holding me captive here in this sea world, keeping me away, and my greatest fear is that too much time will have passed before I return, if I ever do. I must help Heaven, warn her of the forces that are working against her.
I must leave this floating blue-green world, for in this incarnation, it is not I who holds the Tamate-Bako, but Heaven.
Opening it will kill her.
I must return.
Konishi
9
My hands were sweating when I got to the dojo. I’d learned my lesson from last time and had stopped to call Hiro’s house from a pay phone. There was no answer. But it wasn’t until I was pushing open the smooth wooden door of the dojo that I considered that Hiro might not even be there. I’d been so shocked by the song and my mad investigative rush into West Hollywood that it hadn’t even occurred to me Hiro could just as easily be at work.
“Heaven? Oh my God! Hi!” Sami, a tall blond instructor at the dojo, looked up from her seat at the front desk. “I haven’t seenyou in a while!”
“Hi, Sami,” I said, smiling. She was one of my favorite people at the dojo and one of the only instructors (beside Hiro and Karen, obviously) who always took the time to ask how I was doing.
“Where have you been?” Sami asked. “Do you want some tea or something?”
“No, thanks. I was in last week, actually—I didn’t see you, though.”
“Yeah, I was on vacation. I went to Vegas!”
“Wow, that sounds awesome!” I said. Sami’s smile was infectious. “Did you like it?” Not for the first time I wondered if I should pack my bags and head for Vegas myself. I could find my tutor, Katie, and we could start a new life there together. The only problem was that I’d left her mother’s phone number in the hotel (along with everything else I owned) the night of the wedding, and information had no listing for her.
“It was great,” Sami said, “but pretty intense. I don’t think I could take it for more than a few days. I liked the slots a little too much, if you know what I mean!”
“How did you get there?” I asked—I didn’t really know what she meant.
“I flew—they have ultracheap tickets, and you’re there in an hour. I think I paid about ninety dollars round trip.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. “So cheap. Do you need a passport to get on the plane?” My passport was something else I had left behind.
“Passport?” Sami asked, giving me a weird look. “No. All you need is an
ID. Haven’t you ever flown anywhere in the States?”
“Nope,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Just international.” No flight to Vegas for me—somehow I doubted my fake ID would pass muster at the airport, especially with all the increased security these days. If I decided to get out of L.A., I’d have to take a bus or something.
“Hey,” I said, “is Hiro around?”
“Heaven? What a surprise.” Karen walked over to the front desk, looking distinctlyun- surprised. She was wearing street clothes and looked like she was on her way out of the dojo. “I suppose you’re looking for Hiro?”
I looked over at Sami, whose smile had disappeared. She seemed clued in to the tension between Karen and me.
“I’ve got to run this paperwork upstairs. Good to see you, Heaven.” Sami slipped out from behind the desk and made her escape.
“Bye, Sam,” I said, desperately wishing she had stayed.
“Well?” Karen asked.
“Actually, yeah,” I said. Talk about dispensing with the small talk. The only person who’d ever looked less happy to see me was my adoptive mother, Mieko. In fact, the only time I’d seen Karen look so tired and out of it was after the kidnapping. Today she had dark circles under her eyes, and her normally smooth hair was held back in a messy ponytail. Not that she didn’t look hot—now she just looked gorgeousand needy.
“Too bad. He’s at work.” Karen crossed her arms and leaned back on the desk. “Nothing I can help with?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I have some information I need to let him know about.”
Karen looked at me for a second as though she was trying to think of what to say, then she unfolded her arms and stood up straighter.
“Come with me for a second,” she said, walking toward one of the practice rooms. On the way down the hallway I said hello to a few other people I recognized from when I’d been at the dojo all day every day. Every single one of them looked at me strangely. Like I was a ghost.
“Why don’t you tell me what you need to talk to Hiro about?” Karen said, her voice cold as she shut the door to the practice room. “I’ll give him the message.”
“I’d really rather not,” I said, nervous, but irritated at her for trying to boss me around. “You know Hiro thinks it’s in your best interests not to know about what’s going on with me. And you’ve already had to deal with the consequences.”
“Exactly. Your shenanigans got me kidnapped. So I’m not too worried that one more piece of information will land me in a situation much worse than that.”
Shenanigans? What did she think this was? A game of cops and robbers?
“Karen, you don’t understand—”
“Oh, I understand perfectly,” Karen said, her voice barely controlled. Her mouth twitched as she crossed her arms again. She was buff, that was for sure. “I understand that ever since you and Hiro had your littleconversation the other day, he’s been a total and complete wreck. He’s preoccupied, distracted—he’s been doing nothing but working and meditating.”
Karen’s information was surprising. Somehow I’d imagined that after Hiro got the Mieko call off his chest that day, he and Karen had just skipped happily back into their lovey-dovey, newly Heaven-free lifestyle without another thought. It was news to me that he was as upset by our fight as I’d been. I couldn’t help being a little happy about it.
“Are yousmiling? ” Karen asked fiercely.
Oops. I straightened my face. I really hadn’t meant to. “No,” I said seriously. “I’m just nervous and trying to think of something to say.”
“Why don’t you say, ‘Okay, Karen, I’ll leave your boyfriend alone’?”
“I can’t,” I said, growing angry.
“Why not? Hiro’s life was normal before you came into it. And I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but I want you gone.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I snapped, “so you’re in no position to tell me what to do. Besides, I think you’re forgetting that if it wasn’t for me and if it wasn’t for Hirohelping me, you’d still be tied up in a dark room somewhere. Or worse—”
“Give me a break,” Karen yelled, interrupting me. “If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have been kidnapped in the first place. I was planning on staying at Hiro’s that night, but you had to come along with your ‘little girl lost’ act, needing to talk, and that’s why I went home at that hour.”
She’d really gone over the top. It was like a totally different Karen was standing before me than the one I knew. Sure, I’d suspected before that having to share Hiro with me and my problems was less than optimal, but this—all of a sudden she was like Alicia Silverstone inThe Crush or something. An Asian Alicia Silverstone. But still. If her protectiveness of Hiro wasn’t so awful and desperate, it would have been funny. I certainly didn’t see myself as quite the home wrecker she did.
“Yes, I came by that night,” I said, still picturing Karen standing ominously by the side of a glowing blue pool, “but no one told you to leave. All I needed was five minutes of Hiro’s time, but you wanted to be independent and go home by yourself when no one even cared—you could have gone into the other room for a couple of minutes, or—”
“But I didn’t!” Karen yelled, cutting me off again. “I left. And I got kidnapped. By people who were afteryou! Do you know what things are like for me now? Do you know how it feels to have to watch your back every time you leave your house? To hold your breath every time you unlock your car door, hoping that no one’s right behind you?”
“Welcome to my world!” I shouted. “Welcome to my freaking world!” I took a step toward her, and Karen finally shut up, looking a little taken aback. Well, she wasn’t the only one who could let loose. And I was just getting started. “Who the hell do you think you are? Look—I’m really sorry you got kidnapped, but I live with that feelingevery day. They didn’t mean to take you. They meant to take me. They wanted tokill me. And they’ve already come after me again since then.” Karen’s face had hardened—I didn’t think I was getting through to her, but I didn’t want to stop. It felt too good to vent.
“As soon as I finish one fight, another one starts. Do you think that’s fun? Huh? They killed my brother right in front of me. And my father’s in a coma. If the attack had gone a little differently, I would have had to watch his murder, too. And I’m sorry if my needing Hiro’s help means you don’t get to have your perfect life right now, but I can’t do anything about it!”
My voice shook as I uttered my last words. Karen still looked unmoved, aloof. It was clear she hated me and would do anything to get me out of Hiro’s life. The truth, however much of it she knew or understood, made no difference to her. And I didn’t really care what she knew anymore. That was her problem. I’d always known she was a perfectionist, but I hadn’t banked on her being willing to fight so hard in order to put the Hiro part of her life into apple-pie order.
“Too bad,” Karen said evenly. “But it doesn’t change anything. You better stay away from Hiro. You’ve already quit your training twice. So the way I see it, you’ve run out of passes. Go find someone else to help you.” Karen walked toward me, and I almost laughed as I realized she was getting ready to spar with me. The last thing I needed was to get into a physical confrontation with her. Hiro would never forgive me.
“Why don’t you just calm down?” I asked her nervously.
“Why don’t you get the hell out of here? And get the hell out of my life while you’re at it,” Karen hissed, putting her face close to mine. I stepped back, and Karen followed.
“You’re not his mother,” I said, instinctively raising my arms in case she lost control of her temper. “You don’t speak for him.” Suddenly the ridiculousness of the whole discussion hit me. Here we were arguing about Hiro as if he was a twelve-year-old boy! As ifwe were twelve-year-old girls! And although I didn’t have much experience (okay, any) in this kind of thing, it seemed pretty absurd. Like Catwoman and Batgirl duking it out over Batman—or
was it Robin they were fighting about? I couldn’t remember, but for a second I imagined Karen clad in black leather from head to toe—it was kind of a scary image.
“No,” Karen said. “I speak for myself. So I’m going to say it one more time.Lay off. Figure it out yourself. Get yourself a boyfriend of your own to help you.”
That’s when it hit me. Karen wasjealous. It was so obvious. But I’d spent so much time feeling inferior to Karen, who was so self-composed, sotogether, that I’d never thought she might view me as competition for Hiro’s affection. For his time, maybe, but not his heart.
Could she see something that I couldn’t? My heart bounced in my chest. Was there any possibility…
“Did you hear me?” Karen barked, and I jerked my head back. I wasn’t even mad anymore. Her desperation seemed truly, completely pathetic.
“I heard you,” I said quietly. There was nothing to be done. If Hiro wanted to see me, he would come and see me. Until then I could spend a lot of time hoping that maybe Hiro would eventually see this side of Karen and maybe think twice about wanting to be with her.
“And?” Karen pressed, still in the moment.
“Good-bye, Karen,” I said calmly, which only seemed to infuriate her more. She stayed right up in my face, her body taut, her stance defensive. But all the fight had gone out of me. I’d never admit it toher, but she’d more than achieved her purpose. No, I wouldn’t tell Hiro about the song. I wouldn’t ask for his help or advice. Not because of Karen, but because of him. I didn’t want to mess up his life anymore. I didn’t want to drag him down with me.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Karen shouted as I opened the practice room door.
“Get over it,”I whispered under my breath, just to make myself feel better, then slammed the door behind me. I ran out of the dojo.
I was trembling a little when I got outside. No matter how off base Karen had been, it wasn’t any fun getting yelled at—or threatened, for that matter. When I went over the whole scene in my head, I thought of a hundred ways I could have handled it better—snappy comebacks I could have made, biting, witty responses that would have left Karen apologetic and in tears. But it was too late now, and mostly I just wished I hadn’t set foot in the dojo at all. Now I had yet another unpleasant encounter to mull over, along with all the others. It felt like I had the plague. Was there anyone left who didn’t hate me? I thought of Teddy and wished all over again it had been him at Vibe that night. Then at least I’d haveone person around who liked me, even if I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about him.
