by Carrie Asai
“Duh. But you know what I mean.”
I did. Watching Hiro fight was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. He was so graceful and fluid—weightless, almost.
“Okay,” Hiro said, returning. I hoped he hadn’t overheard any of our conversation. “I’ve spoken with the driver, Cheryl. It’s all paid for—he’s going to walk you into the house, too, okay? So just go inside and put some ice on your ankle, lock the door, and we’ll be a few minutes behind you. Just wait on the couch.”
“Such a gentleman,” Cheryl joked, widening her eyes at me. She wasn’t the type to abandon humor for long. Hiro and I placed her gently in the backseat of the cab and watched her speed off before hopping into another one by ourselves.
“That was it!” Hiro said excitedly as our car pulled away from the curb.
“What?” I asked. I was acutely aware of how one of his arms was stretched over the top of the seat behind me. Our knees were touching. Hiro grabbed my hand.
“You did it! You cleared your mind.”
I nodded slowly but couldn’t manage to work up the same excitement as Hiro. The adrenaline that had pumped through my body had totally ebbed away, and I felt dull as an old coin. Hiro let go of my hand. I fought the urge to put my hand back in his.
“I suppose,” I said with a sigh, seeing again for a moment the three luminous spheres that had guided me and feeling acutely the absence of his hand on mine.
“You suppose—Heaven, you were amazing! I told you before I thought you had natural talent—more than I’ve ever seen in one person. You can’t deny your gift. You have to continue your training.”
“Wait,” I said, confused, “you mean you saw what happened on the tracks?”
“I came down the stairs just as the train was coming into the station.”
I shuddered. “Close call, huh?”
“Yes, yes, it was.” Hiro looked into my eyes, and I felt my heart melt. Everything that had happened between us seemed irrelevant. I forgot the fights, his not telling me about Mieko’s call (and he’d turned out to have had the right instinct on that one, horrifyingly enough). And I concentrated on the fact that we were together. “Heaven,” said Hiro, running his fingers through his hair, which was a little wilder than usual from all the action, “will you let me train you again? Can we get back on track somehow?”
“Yes,” I breathed, afraid to let the goofy smile that was in my heart spread across my face. It was a good omen that he’d said what he had.Back on track. Exactly where I’d been trying to get myself over the last few days. And what was the use of pretending anymore? I loved him. What’s more, I trusted him. And now he was the only one I had.
“But…,” I said. I had to ask. “Won’t it cause problems to be training me if you and Karen are living together?”
“What?” Hiro pulled away and stared at me. “Who told you that?”
“Well, are you?”
Hiro looked embarrassed. “No. No way. That would be a little premature, don’t you think?”
“I guess.” I smiled to myself. So Karen had been lying. Could this moment get any better? “Hiro—there’s something you should know.”
“Tell me.” Hiro moved closer, and we sat huddled in the middle of the seat with our knees touching and our faces close. Closer than we’d ever been, actually, except when we were sparring.
Just then the cab pulled up about a block from Vibe. Hiro jumped out.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Wait—Hiro—” Hiro turned around and ducked his head in the window.
“Do you need something?”
“Just—could you just tell A. J.—he’s the bartender—tell him I’m sorry.”
Hiro looked at me probingly, and his brown eyes seemed to go a shade darker.
“Okay,” he said simply, and headed into the club. I watched his tall, lean body jog down the street and toward the front door. It was getting near closing time, and the crowd of people waiting to get into the club had all either gained entry or given up and gone home. It was hard to believe I’d never be going inside Vibe again—and I wondered if I’d ever see A. J. and Matt, or DJ Slavo, or even Dubious. It seemed a shame to meet so many people and then abandon them without so much as a good-bye. I’d been doing too much of that lately.
The mistake was thinking that I could build a home here,I thought. It was just impossible. Someone had already destroyed my home, destroyed my family, and I wouldn’t be able to settle down anywhere until I figured out why. Because it looked like now I knew who was behind it. I closed my eyes and opened my mind to the information I had learned.
Mieko.
What could she possibly gain from killing me? Not money, certainly. Her future was assured. Whatever happened to Konishi, even if he lived and if, in some bizarre tabloid twist of fate, he decided to divorce her, she would be okay for the rest of her life. She could be assured of living like a queen. And there wasno way she had wanted Ohiko dead. He had been her only reason for living, as far as I could tell. Sowhat? Was she caught in somebody else’s grip? Was she being threatened by the yakuza—were they using her as a pawn? Or had she just been playing dumb all these years?
Hiro jumped back in the cab and gently handed me my messenger bag.
“Your friend A. J. seemed pretty concerned,” Hiro said.
“He was a good friend,” I said softly, looking Hiro straight in the eye. There was a deep connection between us—I knew Hiro understood what I meant. And I wasn’t worried that he would think something had happened between A. J. and me. A week ago I might have enjoyed trying to make him jealous. But all that stuff just seemed petty now.
“What were you going to tell me?” he asked gently.
I told him about Marcus. About what he had said about Mieko. About his flawless Japanese. I told him about Teddy.
“I just don’t know what to think,” I finished, “I mean, it’s the last answer I expected out of all this.”
“More like just another question,” Hiro said.
“You know what I mean—butMieko? She was always such anonperson at home. So submissive. And one thing I know for sure is that she loved Ohiko. He was everything to her. So how could she be this devil woman all of a sudden?”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Hiro said mildly. He seemed much less surprised about the Mieko connection than I was, but then again, he didn’t know her. He hadn’t grown up in the same house with her.
“But they shouldn’t be,” I said, looking out the window. “When am I going to learn that I can’t take anything for granted anymore? The only thing I’m sure about right now is you.”
Hiro slipped my hand into his, and I turned around to face him, my heart pounding.
“Please trust me, Heaven. I don’t want to fight with you. We have to work together to get through this.”
“I know,” I breathed, hardly daring to talk for fear of saying the wrong thing. “I do trust you. Absolutely.”
“It’s our fate. Our destiny.”
Hiro raised his hand and touched my face, skirting my swollen eye and running his index finger down my cheekbone.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“No,” I said, and thought,Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.
Hiro cradled my chin delicately, and I closed my eyes, giving myself up to the warm touch of his hand on my face. I remembered all the times I had dreamed of just such a moment—now it was finally here.
“Good,” Hiro said. He removed his hand from my face. My eyes flickered open. Hiro was looking out the window, his jaw tight. “We’d better have the driver stop a few streets away from your house—just to make sure we weren’t followed from Vibe.”
“Hiro,” I whispered, disappointment seeping through me, “are you mad at me?”
Hiro turned around, and I saw that his face was tender. “No, Heaven, of course not,” he said. “I just…” He turned away again.
“Yes?” I prompted, scootching a few centimeters closer to him on the seat.
> “Maybe we could talk about this another time, okay?” Hiro cleared his throat, and his tone became more businesslike. “I’d really like to—just not now.”
“Okay,” I said, wanting desperately to press him but sensing that he needed his space. The disappointment couldn’t ruin the deep core of warmth I still felt from Hiro’s touch. Maybe he and Karen weren’t such a sure thing after all.
The cab turned onto Dawson Street, and I stretched my legs in preparation for actually having to stand up. My muscles had turned from jelly to cement—it hurt just to straighten them out. I hoped that eventually I’d be able to come through a fight with a little more pep. That was one thing to focus on at least. I smiled to myself. I had to admit, being back with Hiro was great, but knowing that I’d be able to devote myself 100 percent to my training felt almost as good. I realized that I was nothing without my training. As Hiro had said, it was my path, and I couldn’t deny that.
A few blocks from the house Hiro paid the driver and helped me out of the cab. He wrapped his arm around my waist, and I enjoyed the feeling of just having him close to me. As we walked in silence, I wondered if I should ask him in for a while. It would be comforting to have him around. I could make some tea, and we could all sit around in the living room and keep each other company. I even had a bag of rice crackers to snack on.
That was the first time I realized just how lonely the last couple of weeks had been.
“What’s that?” Hiro asked, breaking the silence and pointing to a strange glow that rose in the distance. Almost simultaneously the sound of sirens filled the air. Two fire trucks rumbled by as Hiro and I sped up. A block later we could see police cars and more fire trucks clogging up the road and people coming out of their houses to watch the chaos unfold.
I instinctively grabbed Hiro’s hand and we started to run. I forgot about my bashed-in face, my spent muscles. The sirens got louder as we sprinted down Dawson, the heat more intense.
As we got closer and closer, I let out a yell.
It was my house that was on fire. And Cheryl was trapped inside.
