by Carrie Asai
A job. I nodded quickly, not wanting to look stupid, but my mind began to hum with questions the minute Hiro said the word. I’d never held a job before. And, to be totally honest, I’d never really expected to have one. The daughter of Konishi Kogo didn’t need to work for money, and it went without saying that I would be supported by my father until I married a man who could afford to take care of me. The thought of actually working was totally frightening. What could I even do? I had no college degree, and I’d never known anyone who worked except people like my father, and who knew what he did during the day?
“I want you to practice those moves until I get back,” Hiro said.
What? No break? “These same three series?” I sputtered. I’d already been doing them forever.
“Yep. You can take a break in a couple of hours, but don’t forget to stretch before you start back up again,” Hiro instructed. He sounded so cheerful. Clearly he loved torturing me.
“Okay,” I answered. I really had no choice.
“Karen will check up on you at some point, so just let her know if you need anything.” Hiro threw his practice stuff in his bag without looking at me.
“Who’s Karen?” I asked.
“An instructor here,” Hiro said. He looked away from me and began to rearrange his practice stuff, which as far as I could tell didn’t need rearranging.
“Why aren’t you an instructor here?” I asked. “That would be the perfect job for you. I’d pay to take lessons from you…. Well, if I had a job, I would.”
Hiro shrugged. “I like bike messengering. It keeps me humble.” He broke into a smile. “Gotta go. I’m going to be late.”
I passed a quiet hour practicing my moves, but then I started to get bored. If I wanted to make fast progress, it seemed silly to be wasting time on four moves I’d already learned. When I heard noises coming from other parts of the dojo, I decided to go exploring. Hiro wouldn’t know.
Across the hall a class was in session—I assumed it was karate and noticed that all the students were wearing white belts, like me. Beginners. I watched for a while and recognized a few of the things Hiro had shown me. Why not join in? That wouldn’t actually be going against what Hiro had said because I’d still be practicing karate. Just practicing a little more than what I was supposed to. You could even say I’d be over achieving. I slipped in at the back and tried to blend in.
By the time the class wrapped up, I was feeling really strong. I’d learned a lot more than my three original moves, and the fast pace was exactly what I’d been hoping for. The instructor, an eerily beautiful woman whose impressive moves reminded me of Lucy Liu, approached me.
“Are you Heaven?” Her eyes flicked up and down, taking me in from head to feet.
I smiled, my heart sinking as I realized she was even more good looking up close. “You must be Karen,” I said, wondering how well she knew Hiro.
“Yes.” She shook my hand with an iron grip. “Aren’t you supposed to be practicing your moves next door?”
I nodded. “It’s just—I worked on them for an hour, and when I heard the class going on, I thought it might be good for me.”
“Hmmm.” She gave her head a slight shake. “You’d better keep running through them like Hiro said. I’ll come over in a few minutes and see how you’re doing.”
“Okay.” I’d been hoping she’d invite me to go to another class, but she didn’t look the kind of woman you argued with. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, and she had a widow’s peak that made her look like a real warrior. She was really tall and had surprisingly greenish eyes. She was gorgeous.
I returned to the practice room and started going through my moves. When Karen came in and joined me, I tried to impress her with how well I’d mastered my attacks. But it turned out I hadn’t mastered them at all. It was shocking how many things she found to correct about my stances. I had been making small mistakes ever since Hiro left, so I had to relearn everything.
After about an hour the door to the practice room swung open. Hiro came in and dropped his messenger bag. “How’s it going?” I noticed he addressed Karen, not me.
“Great,” said Karen. “Heaven’s doing solid work on the stances, and she even came to my class this morning.”
“What?” Hiro looked at me with disapproval. “I thought I told you to practice by yourself.”
Why had Karen told him? “I was, but then it just got…a little repetitive,” I explained meekly.
“Repetitive? What did you expect?” Hiro’s voice had an edge to it, which irritated me. It wasn’t like I had blown off practicing to shop for shoes or something.
“I was training all morning, just not by myself,” I said. My voice had a little edge to it, too.
Hiro’s black spotlight eyes burned into my face. “If I’m going to continue to train you, you need to do as you’re told.”
“Hiro,” said Karen, in a soothing tone that was clearly intended to smooth things over, “Heaven really did a fabulous job. Your student has a natural sense of balance, and she’s picking up the moves at lightning speed. I think it’s in her blood.” Karen smiled at me, then at Hiro. Was it me, or was there something just a little bit off in her tone? Maybe I was just feeling jealous or something, but her praise seemed a little…fake.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Hiro answered. “But these moves need to be second nature to you, Heaven, and the only way that’s going to happen is if you repeat them over and over and over until you’re dreaming about them. Or else you have no hope in a fight. Do you understand me?” He seemed concerned now, not angry.
“Yes. Of course.” For a moment the image of the ninja filled my mind, so fast, so deadly. With sudden clarity I realized that I wouldn’t have been able to do anything to save Ohiko unless my moves were like Hiro said—second nature. There would be no time for thinking during a fight.
If life in L.A. really was like life in the movies, the next three hours would have only taken a minute or so. They would have passed in a fast montage, like the one in Legally Blonde where Reese Witherspoon, cute little dog by her side, is studying for the LSAT to get into law school. Sixty seconds and she’d aced it.
But even though I was in movie town, I didn’t get a montage. Or a cute little dog. At the gym I had to lift every single weight. I had to climb the endless stairs of the StairMaster for every minute of the half hour Hiro programmed in. I had to pedal the Lifecycle for every second of the forty-five minutes Hiro dictated, my eyes blearily focused on the posters of great martial arts fighters that filled one wall.
“Okay, that’s it for the day,” Hiro finally said. I glanced in the mirror as I clambered down off the Lifecycle on my jelly legs. My face was red and flushed, my undershirt was soaked, and my hair was lumped into a straggly bun on the top of my head. Sweat ran down the sides of my face. I looked really, really gross. Meanwhile, Hiro looked like he’d spent the day reading magazines poolside.
Hiro must have achieved some higher Zen plane, I thought glumly as I showered back at the apartment. Or maybe he was a robot. I almost fell asleep as the hot water pounded over my aching body, and by the time I was dressed, all I wanted to do was lie down on the couch and forget everything. But the smell of dinner gave me the strength to drag myself to the table. I could have eaten a tiger.
Hiro wisely chose not to talk to me until I had bolted down my first bowl of rice and fish. “So, Heaven. Do you think you want to continue with this training, now that you know what it’s all about?”
“Definitely.” I smiled at him, with my mouth full of fish. “As long as I can go to sleep after dinner.”
“Of course. It’s going to take your body some time to adjust,” Hiro told me. “Pretty soon you’ll need much less sleep.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was seven o’clock. Whoa. How could I be this tired?
Hiro drained his teacup. “It’s time for me to tell you about your mission.”
“Mission?” I sat up a little s
traighter.
“Yes. It’s an important part of the training. You’ll get several of them.”
“Like, a secret mission?” This was getting good.
Hiro laughed. “Not exactly. You’ve watched too many movies, Heaven.” He poured himself another cup of tea, and for a moment he looked into the steam that rose from the cup. “Your mission is to accept death,” he finally said.
I frowned at him in confusion. I’d been expecting to be told to break into a bad guy’s office and steal documents or bend metal with my mind. “What?”
“Accepting death is the key to becoming a true samurai.”
For a second I didn’t know what to say. I wondered if Hiro’s brains might have been frazzled by too much physical activity. Then I decided that he was far crazier than I ever imagined.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I protested. “Why learn to fight if you’re just going to accept death? Doesn’t that sort of defeat the whole purpose? I mean, the point is to avoid death, right?”
“I can’t explain it to you, because part of the mission is to come to an understanding of it for yourself. But I’m going to tell you a story that might help you. Okay?” Hiro pushed his plate aside.
“Okay.”
“Bear with me.” He took a sip of tea, then began. “Once there was a young samurai who had dedicated himself to the samurai ideals and was making great progress with his training. After a few months, though, the great strides that he had made in the beginning disappeared. Soon it seemed that he was no longer making any progress—he was stuck in his training, unable to get past a mental obstacle.”
“What mental obstacle?”
Hiro wagged his finger at me. “That’s beside the point. Just listen.”
“Sorry.”
“The master sat the young samurai down and asked him what was keeping him from progressing. The young samurai admitted that lately, he had a terrible fear of death. Everywhere he went, everything he did, he could think of only one thing: What if this were my last hour on earth? What if I were to die? The master sat back in his chair and looked at his young student.” Hiro leaned back in his chair, with a faraway look in his eyes. “There is only one solution to your problem, the master told him. You must go and die.”
“Go and die?” I stared at him. Were we still on the same planet? “How did he do that?”
Hiro ignored me. “Of course, the young samurai was shocked. He said that he didn’t want to go and die. Then live, said the samurai master. And from then on, the young samurai no longer feared death. And he made great leaps and bounds in his training.”
Hiro scooted his chair back up to the table and resumed eating. I stared at him.
“ ‘Go and die.’ I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what that means. Maybe you could just explain it?”
Hiro shrugged. “That’s for you to find out. Think about it as you pursue your mission.”
“Right now my mission is to go to bed,” I said, standing up and putting my dishes in the sink. “Maybe I’m just too tired. Nothing you’re saying makes any sense to me.”
“It will,” Hiro said. “But there’s time. You’re well hidden here, and you’re healing, whether you realize it or not. So much has happened to you so quickly—no wonder you’re exhausted.”
“I guess,” I said. “Anyway, good night.”
“You’ll understand when it’s time,” Hiro called out as I walked to the living room.
I wasn’t so sure about that.
10
Wash the dish. Dry the dish. Put the dish away. Repeat.
Hiro had added housework to my training routine. I now knew how to wash dishes, make my bed, use the rice cooker, and sweep. It was embarrassing to think that only a few weeks ago I’d never even held a broom. I’d never cooked anything but popcorn. I so hadn’t given the servants at the compound nearly enough credit. This stuff was hard.
I put the last dish away, then wiped out the sink with a yellow sponge and emptied the little metal drainer thingy. I guessed that my life would have been more like this if I’d grown up in the United States, in a nice white house in the suburbs with a small yard and neighbors on either side.
No time to think about it now. It was after five in the A.M. I had to get into my gi. Half an hour later Hiro and I were in our usual spot in the park. I was starting to recognize some of the regulars. One of them was Minnie Driver! She walked her dog, a Lab, in this park. She looked kind of like her big-screen self, except her hair was messier and her skin wasn’t quite as good. I was slowly learning that life in Tinseltown wasn’t really like living in a movie.
After the park, the dojo. Somebody could have set a watch by my new life.
“Hold your hands like this, then thrust. Don’t let your arms drop or you’ll leave yourself open to attack,” Hiro instructed once we were in the dojo, where everything was business as usual. It was like he sucked out all the fun parts of himself before we started training.
I wearily raised my arms and tried the move again. “Hiro, couldn’t we have a few hours to play?”
“Come on, Heaven, grow up. You’ve almost got it. Try again.”
I had held out my arms and gotten into the position, fully prepared to do as I was told, when all of a sudden it was as if some mischievous demon took hold of me. In a split second I abandoned the stance and jumped around the grass like the girl from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, fighting an invisible foe.
“Let’s go, Hiro,” I said, pretending to climb the walls as I wielded an invisible sword. “You be the Hidden Dragon. Hooowwwwwwaaaaaaah.”
Hiro rolled his eyes and waited patiently for my outburst to end. After a few more make-believe sword thrusts, I stepped back onto the center of the mat obediently, but it was too late. I had the giggles and couldn’t help going through my stances with several unnecessary flourishes and sound effects.
“Thwack! Hai! Huh! Hiiiiiiiiiii-ya!”
After a few rounds Hiro ran his fingers through his hair. “Okay, Heaven. I give up. Maybe we do need a break.”
“Yippee!” I danced around the practice room.
“Let’s finish our morning practice, and if you get down to work, we can take the afternoon off,” Hiro told me. “It will give you time to contemplate your mission, and I have a few things I need to take care of, too.”
My mission. He thought a fun afternoon off was thinking about how to accept death? The boy needed to lighten up. “Excellent,” I said. “I will be the best Crouching Tiger ever, you’ll see.”
“Just be the best samurai-in-training, how about that?”
“Your wish is my command.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest and made the I Dream of Jeannie nod-and-blink. I felt like hugging him but wisely restrained myself. I thought maybe I was falling victim to this thing I’d read about called Stockholm syndrome. It happens when hostages get really attached to their captors and start to be grateful to them and stuff. Hiro spent hours and hours every day torturing me, and he just seemed cuter and cuter. When he smiled at me, I turned all gooey inside. And he was more than just cute. He was so much more complete than the other boys I’d met, friends of Ohiko’s, mostly. He radiated purpose and calm. He was a grown-up. And did I mention his butt? I’d gotten a lot of good looks at it during our practice sessions, and I’d decided it was one of the ten best butts in Hollywood.
Living together seemed right somehow. I admitted to myself that there was an element of “crush” to the way I felt about him. And that it was so not appropriate. I didn’t feel less like I was in mourning or less alone. But I was having a hard time hiding my feeling for Hiro from myself. In the few moments when I felt happy, feelings about Hiro crowded in, like beautiful gate-crashers at a party. I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t want to.
I was a model pupil for the rest of the morning. “So what do you want to do?” Hiro asked when we were done.
“Besides all the huge stuff, the one thing in the world that would make me happy is if I could go shopping for c
lothes,” I told him.
Hiro looked surprised. “Why?”
“Why? Well, basically because I have one pair of underwear, one pair of jeans, and one T-shirt to my name. If that girl Cheryl hadn’t given me these flip-flops, I’d be barefoot! You know I can’t wear those stinky sneakers you gave me except at the gym.” I kicked my foot up in his face for emphasis—what with all the aikido and the stretching I was getting really flexible.
“But you wear gi all morning for practicing, and you have two of those. The sneakers are unpleasant, I admit, but they’re clean. I put them through the washing machine. And you’re fine in my old shorts for the gym, aren’t you?”
I sighed. I don’t want to sound all spoiled, but back in Tokyo, I had a pair of vintage Levi’s that cost 62,000 yen—that’s five hundred dollars American. I would never have admitted it to Hiro, but I was so jealous when I saw girls in cute outfits walking by. I used to be the girl decked out in the hottest designer fashions. Now I had one pair of jeans, a T–shirt, and a sweatshirt to my name, along with a grubby pair of flip-flops and some castoffs of Hiro’s that didn’t fit right.
“Really, Heaven. I think you’re fine on the clothes front,” Hiro said.
I gave him a look. “Underwear?”
“Okay, okay. You’re right. Sorry, I hadn’t thought….”
Was Hiro blushing? Over a couple of pairs of underwear?
“I’ll write you directions to the mall. There’s one you can walk to from here.” Hiro laughed. “That should be quite a pilgrimage for you, pop-culture girl. But when you’re there, you need to be really careful not to draw attention to yourself. A lot of Japanese people go to that mall, and if you’re not careful, somebody might recognize you.”
“I’ll be careful, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of the fun,” I admitted. “Why don’t you come with me? You’ve been teaching me all kinds of stuff. I bet there are a few things I could teach you at the mall.” Like which jeans would make him look absolutely perfect and that it was possible to laugh more than once a day.
