by Carrie Asai
“Sure,” I managed to choke out. “I have to go to work, anyway.”
Hiro smiled and gathered up his stuff as I tried to regulate my breathing. Lock my apartment when you leave? Thank God I hadn’t spent the night at Karen’s the night before. It would have killed me to know for sure that she wasn’t coming home…and why.
“Great work today, Heaven,” Hiro said, putting his hand on my arm. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll call you and let you know where we’ll be practicing. And remember, start going through those stealth exercises.”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered. Right. Stealth. “See you.” He shut the door and walked down the slope to where he’d parked his bike.
As he left, I turned back to my empty bedroom and tried to calm the frantic feeling in my stomach. Distance, I thought. Distance yourself, Heaven. But still, I felt like someone had stuck an ice pick in my heart.
How ironic, I thought, that my new mission is to become invisible. Just when I wanted Hiro to really see me.
Another hour of meditation is the only answer. I have much to think about. I sit on my mat and breathe in and out. I try to release the negative ki within me. I release one by one my five weaknesses. First anger, dosha. I let it flutter out of me. Next fear, kyosha. I feel a buildup of strength within my body. I fear nothing. Next lust, kisha.
Lust is harder. I know the bushi way is to keep lust under control. Lust means weak-willedness. It means you are unbalanced.
Karen is so composed and patient. She is a lotus flower. I try to keep my emotions in control around her, but sometimes it is difficult. Sometimes I can’t believe my good fortune.
It has been a strain, however, because I haven’t told Heaven about it. There were times this week when I wanted to, when I tried, but somehow I couldn’t get the words out. There would be times when our eyes would meet, and the scenes from Heaven’s life would flash through my head—how we had to abandon her father when he was knocked unconscious. Her story of the tragic wedding. The death of her brother. I am filled with grief for the so many terrible things that have happened to her in the last months.
But it’s more than that. There’s something else, something that I can’t quite put my finger on. We agreed that it would be best if she moved out, but the house is so empty without her. So…different. Well timed, of course, because of Karen. But different.
Karen told me she’d said something about us to Heaven. I asked, without trying to sound too eager, “How did she take it?” Karen shrugged and said, “Good, I guess. She has her own things to think about.”
I think of Heaven sitting on the couch, in the face of adversity, making me laugh over a silly joke. I’m nervous about her moving away. What if something happens to her?
In, out. In, out. I do a few easy stretches and try to clear my mind. But I can’t. There are these two women, one the black of the yang, the other the white of the yin. If I lose one, will I lose my balance?
Hiro
6
“Good morning!” Farnsworth said, beaming, as I walked into Life Bytes later that day. I wondered if he was just happy that I’d shown up. It wasn’t like he had any contact info on me, so he was really taking a leap of faith in assuming I’d be there that morning.
The atmosphere of the place was identical to the day before, except there were different guys at the computer terminals, and a slightly different acid house song was on the stereo. But the Professor was still in the corner with his big headphones on. He perked up when he saw me. “Hello, milady!” he said, and then blushed. The other customers glanced up, then quickly back to their screens.
“Um, what should I do?” I asked Farnsworth.
“Just go behind the counter and I’ll show you,” he said. He crashed into the counter; I could tell he was nervous. “This is the counter,” he said. “You’ll be manning this…or, um, womanning this, whenever there’s a customer.”
Womanning. Right. He walked over to the two huge coffee tureens. “Decaf and caf coffee,” he explained. “This one’s name is Xena”—he pointed to the one with the black top—“and this one’s name is Gabrielle.”
I almost burst out laughing. Katie had been weirdly fascinated with the Xena show and brought over videos for us to watch. She’d tried to get me into it, but I’d found it totally goofy. Not my kind of show. But I could see he was dead serious.
Farnsworth showed me some other items on the counter. I was relieved to see that it was kept fairly clean. Actually, the coffee mugs were kind of cool—almost futuristic looking. The guys at the computers tapped away at a million miles a minute. After a few more directions, Farnsworth left me on my own at the counter and headed into the back room to finish some paperwork.
I stood behind the counter and looked blankly out the window. In the time Farnsworth had shown me around, no one had come in.
A young Asian kid in a bright yellow Adidas track jacket approached the counter. “Hey,” he said. “You remember me? Shigeto?” He smiled. I remembered that he’d freaked me out by speaking Japanese the day before, but now he looked pretty harmless. He had a nice, open face—he seemed like a happy guy.
“Sure,” I said with a smile. “And I’m Heaven. What can I get for you?”
“Another coffee?” Shigeto thrust his mug out at me. I dutifully grabbed Xena and filled up his cup. This job was way too easy.
“Thanks,” Shigeto said, taking his mug back. “So, are you here every day now?”
“Only four days a week to start.”
“Cool.” Shigeto sipped his coffee and grimaced. “Damn! Maybe you can convince Farnsworth back there to invest in some better coffee. This stuff tastes like mud.”
I shrugged. “I can try, I guess. Maybe he’ll upgrade to Starbucks or something.”
Shigeto nodded. “Now you’re talking.”
I rested my elbows on the counter and laughed. Actually, Shigeto was kind of cute. I tried to think of something else to say, but my mouth felt all awkward, like I’d never spoken before or something. Then I looked up at his face. He had this easy, mild smile, like he was just the friendliest guy in the world. Suddenly I didn’t feel so awkward. “So, you’re one of Farnsworth’s homeys?”
To Shigeto’s credit, he didn’t even look embarrassed. He gave a little chuckle and nodded. “That’s right. I’ve known Farnsworth for years. We went to school together at UCLA.” Shigeto sipped his coffee and made another face. “He’s a great guy, really. Got a heart of gold.”
Suddenly the Professor called from the other side of the room. “Shigeto, you better come over here,” he said. “I’ve got the download of the one of the new Xbox fighting games!”
“Awesome,” Shigeto said. “You’re kidding.”
“I hacked into the system,” the Professor explained.
Shigeto turned to me and grinned. “Well, duty calls,” he said airily. “I’m glad you’re going to be working here. You’ll definitely class up this joint.”
I leaned back and smiled. “Thanks!” Shigeto headed back to the computer terminals. Now, there’s a nice guy, I thought as I put Xena back on her warmer and grabbed a rag to wipe off the counter. Why can’t Hiro be more like that? Cheery. Easy to talk to. Easy to understand. My mind wandered back to his phone call with Karen that morning…how she’d stayed at his place. I realized that the night before was only the second night I’d been out of Hiro’s house and the first night Karen had stayed there. Suddenly a horrible feeling washed over me. Had he just been waiting for me to leave so he could move in on Karen? My stomach lurched. I remembered that moment making dinner a few days ago, the moment I’d been so sure he was going to say he had feelings for me. Maybe what he’d wanted to say was more like, “Hey, would you mind getting lost for a night?” I felt nauseous. It sounds stupid, but I’d kind of believed Hiro was better than that. Not that he didn’t have desires, like everyone. But he’d seemed so noble, like he could hold all of his desires in check…until the right moment. The right, fabulous, fabulous moment.
Stop it, Heaven, I thought, reining my imagination back in. I should forget about him. At least in that way.
Shigeto and some other kids gathered around the computer terminal. I noticed some other guy was watching a movie download—it looked like Gladiator—on the Internet. It had been a long time since I’d used the Internet myself. Hiro didn’t have it at his house; the last time I’d used it had been to find Hiro’s address at Cheryl’s. I wasn’t supposed to use it in Japan. My father had been too strict. Katie had a laptop, and we snuck on sometimes and watched world premieres of videos and surfed into stupid chat rooms, and I even had an e-mail pen pal from Australia for about a week. But then Konishi had found out because Mieko had “accidentally” let it slip. Of course my Internet use had ended right then and there. I wondered if Cheryl had an Internet connection at home now that her roommate was gone; probably not. I kind of remembered that it was his computer we were using.
I thought a little more about this. I wondered if the Internet could give me any clues about who was after me. Where could I start? It wasn’t like someone was going to post, I’m after Heaven Kogo, ha ha! on a chat room site or something.
But then there was my father. All the secrets he was keeping. The attack at the restaurant that had left him comatose—an attack that might have been aimed at either one of us. Say those thugs were after my father all along. Say it was bad business blood; a deal gone wrong and my father was to blame. Frankly, I had no idea what my father did for a living. I had some concerns about it—I mean, my father wasn’t always a very nice guy, especially in matters concerning his “business”—but no hard facts. Kogo Industries might be a ring of serial killers or a Hello Kitty distributor. All I knew was that every morning, Konishi would disappear into his office on the other side of our compound. Sometimes we wouldn’t see him until dinnertime. Sometimes we wouldn’t see him for days.
It made sense that I could use the Internet to figure out what kind of business my father did. And depending on what I found out, that information could lead to who was after us.
I went up to Farnsworth, who was working on another computer. “Do you mind if I, um, use the computers when there aren’t any customers?”
Farnsworth nodded eagerly. “Of course, that’s fine,” he said. “Just make sure to get back to the counter when you’re needed.” It didn’t look like that would be very often, but I didn’t say anything.
I got straight to work. The Professor floated over and stood over me. “Need any help?” he said. “I do know quite a bit about the Internet.” He blushed a little. Weirdly enough, he looked smug and kind of embarrassed at the same time.
I minimized my screen. “Uh, no, I think I can manage,” I said. Then I smiled. “I’ll let you know if I do, though.”
He smiled back and walked away.
I opened up a window with the MTV web site to throw them off and opened a smaller window where I would do my search. I immediately typed in KONISHI KOGO to google.com. Quite a few listings popped up. Links to his business web site, links to major newspaper references, links to interviews. But I wanted the dirt, the gossip. The stuff that wasn’t necessarily true and wasn’t found in the most reputable of resources but had some street credibility to it. I guess I knew what to look for from all of the crime investigation movies I’d watched. I was looking for the underground viewpoint.
Then an article came up, buried on the eighth page of search results. It was titled “Rumors of Kogo Industry Empire.” I hungrily clicked on it. I skimmed the text, glossing over the background information about my father and his work. And then I came upon a sentence that I hadn’t exactly anticipated.
Kogo Industries is rumored to have very strong yakuza connections.
I felt like my heart literally stopped.
Yakuza.
The Japanese mafia.
I felt like I had to be shaking, even though the customers around me didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. I felt my face grow hot. The yakuza were criminals, killers, drug lords. I almost felt ready to throw up. Had my father ever…killed anyone? Did he only have connections to the yakuza…or was he yakuza himself?
I closed the screen and took a few deep breaths.
I did a few other searches on the yakuza in general. The mafia. The Chinese Triads. Extortions, killings, prostitution, rigging of big industries, illegal gambling, torturing.
This was what my father did for a living. Or if he didn’t do it himself, he worked with people who did.
My father. The same man who’d held me on his lap when I was a little girl, reading me stories. The same man whose hugs, when I was little, could always stop my crying. Has those same hands…killed someone? Was it possible that the father I loved and…honestly, feared…had been hurting innocent people every day of my childhood?
Finally I just couldn’t take any more. I closed the window where I was conducting my research and was faced once again with the MTV web site. Completely oblivious to the terrifying information I had just received, Carson Daly grinned up at me vapidly.
I shut his window, too.
Slowly I backed my chair away from the computer and stood. Shigeto turned from the computer where he was playing the Professor’s Xbox games and smiled. “Done playing around, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I tried to smile, but I don’t think I succeeded. I walked stiffly back over to my counter and stared out the window.
I was done playing around. And all of my research had told me only one thing.
I didn’t really know my father at all.
7
Time seemed to pass quickly at Life Bytes. Which was strange, because it wasn’t like I was doing much. But for some reason just hanging out at the counter, playing the occasional game of Minesweeper, and talking to all the regulars felt right. It calmed me down, even after the bombshell I had just received. For the time being, at least, I was just a regular person doing her job.
Not some freak mafia daughter who was barely outrunning her killer father.
Late that afternoon, about an hour before my shift ended, someone walked through the front door. Actually, he was the first person to walk through the door all day. This new guy was tall, with spiky black hair and a gold tooth. He looked different from the others in the place—more “street,” somehow. More dangerous. He wore a gigantic ring on his thumb. “Coffee, black,” he ordered, scanning the room.
I filled his coffee, my hands quivering. Something about this guy set me on edge, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
He stood at the counter and slowly sipped his coffee, looking around at the computers. I stood awkwardly, not sure what to do with my hands. Farnsworth was hovering over some kid’s computer in the back, probably still playing a video game. The front doorbells jingled and another guy walked in. I felt myself blushing almost—he was gorgeous. He wore a leather jacket and was tall and lean. He walked up to the guy at the counter and they gave each other a weird handshake. His face was angular and he had these gorgeous cheekbones. I studied him carefully. He looked Japanese.
He saw me behind the counter and broke into a smile. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said, and smiled back. “What can I get for you?”
“Hmm.” He studied the menu. His friend leaned against the counter, bored, and then wandered off to one of the computers. “A coffee, I guess. Heavy on the milk.”
“Right,” I said. If Shigeto was cute, this guy was hot. I thought briefly of Hiro and then pushed the picture of him out of my mind. Forget Hiro, I reminded myself. You’re invisible to him. You can make this guy see you. He was different from the regulars, too—he had sort of a dangerousness about him. I had a feeling that if Hiro saw me talking to him, he’d get upset—and not because he was jealous. Because this wasn’t the kind of person I should associate with. He had a slick suaveness that didn’t seem quite real. He seemed like trouble.
But damn. It was high time I got to flirt with someone!
“Here you go,” I said, handing him h
is mug. He winked at me, and I smiled. That was when I noticed it.
He was missing a finger.
The color drained from my face, and I quickly turned around to face the coffee tureens. When a yakuza henchman did something to upset the big boss, the only way to regain his favor was to prove your loyalty by cutting off a finger. It was like a mini act of seppuku, ritual suicide. I shuddered, picturing the tiny stump in my mind. This guy was yakuza.
Then I had a scary thought.
What if he knows my father?
What if he’s here because of me?
I turned around. Truth be told, it didn’t seem like the guy was paying any attention to me. He had his hands in his pockets and was talking in fast Japanese to the other guy. They were talking about meeting up with some girls later or something—I couldn’t quite tell, since they were talking in such low voices. I breathed out.
Maybe I could make him pay attention to me. And learn a few things from him. If I played my cards right.
The guy turned back to me and smiled. He’d drained his coffee cup. “You mind if I have a little more?” he asked.
“No problem,” I said, trying to smile. He handed his mug back, and I poured him a cup from Xena. I straightened up and handed him the coffee.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I said in Japanese. The guy’s eyes lit up. He broke into a lazy smile.
“Where are you from?” he asked, also in Japanese.
“Tokyo,” I said, running my fingers through my hair and staring right into his eyes. I totally didn’t know whether I was doing this right. All of my information on flirting came from soap operas and 90210 reruns.
But the guy seemed to respond, leaning in so that I could smell the leather of his coat. “Yeah?” he said. “Where in Tokyo?”
“Oh, around,” I said. If he started asking too many questions, I might inadvertently give something away. “So what’s your name?” I looked directly at his missing finger.
