Otani Akira

The Night of Baba Yaga

First published in Japanese under the title Baba Yaga No Yoru by

Kawade Shobo Shinsha Ltd. Publishers.

Copyright © 2020 by Akira Otani.

English translation copyright © 2024 by Sam Bett.

All rights reserved.

This English edition is published by arrangement with

Kawade Shobo Shinsha Ltd. Publishers, Tokyo in care of

Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.

First published in English in 2024 by

Soho Press

227 W 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Otani, Akira, author. | Bett, Sam, translator.

Title: The night of Baba Yaga / Akira Otani ; translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett.

Other titles: Babayaga no yoru. English

Description: New York, NY : Soho Crime, 2024.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023055100

ISBN 978-1-64129-491-1

eISBN 978-1-64129-492-8

Subjects: LCGFT: Thrillers (Fiction). | Novels.

Classification: LCC PL874.T36 B3313 2024 | DDC

895.63/6—dc23/eng/20231204

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023055100

Interior design by Janine Agro

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The white sedan, reeking of blood and cigarettes, shot west into the setting sun.

Squeezed into the back seat between a man with a gaudy necktie and a man wearing a loud shirt, a woman with long hair nodded in and out of consciousness. She wore torn jeans and a cheap yellow T-shirt. Her dirty hands flopped at her knees. When the car went over a bump, a wad of phlegmy blood fell from her mouth onto her chest. The two men looked increasingly uncomfortable with her. So did the young guy behind the wheel. At every traffic light, his eyes jumped in the rearview mirror.

The sedan was tailing a black Ford, polished to a gleam. Light glanced off of the paint job. It was the sort of evening when the sunset burns. The glass towers of Shinjuku were tinted red, as if blood was streaming down the window panes.

Eventually, the two cars pulled into a tranquil Setagaya neighborhood. Hard to believe that this idyllic setting was, like bustling Shinjuku, a part of Tokyo. A few turns later, the road ended at a gate set in a high stone wall. Chiseled blocks of fine white stone, stacked high in neat rows, topped off with accordion wire. Keeping people out. Or keeping something in. The cars stopped long enough for a cartoonishly large camera to notice them and activate the iron gate.

Behind the walls was a sprawling mansion landscaped in the Japanese style. The cars followed a driveway paved in stone and parked by a small pagoda in a corner of the grounds.

Out of nowhere, a crowd of men wearing white shirts and bright matching neckties surrounded the cars. Young guys with punished faces.

The driver jumped out of the black Ford and opened the door to the back seat. Glossy black shoes touched the ground. A thin man dressed in black, like for a funeral, stepped from the car. His sunken cheeks and cauliflower ear stood out.

When he tipped his chin, the back doors of the white sedan swung open, and the men inside began to extricate the woman. She was tall, not fat but thick and muscular. The men were having a hard time moving her.

They dropped her on the cobblestones. She rebounded from the impact, only to collapse flat on her stomach.

“You alive?” asked the tall man in the black suit.

The man in the loud shirt kicked the woman in the shins.

She let out a sandy groan. Propped up on all fours, like a crocodile, she looked at them. Long hair, pasty with blood, stuck to her cheeks. More dark blood dribbled from her nostrils. The skin by her right eye was a bluish mound.

“We got ourselves a real dog, huh.”

The man in the black suit let out a nasal laugh, cueing his men to do the same.

“Go on, get her up.”

Loud Shirt nodded and tugged the woman’s left arm, trying to lift her. And she let him, tottering to her feet, but then . . .

“Blouaugh!”

It was the voice of a man-sized toad being kicked into the air. Loud Shirt went twirling and fell flat on the cobblestones.

The men were furious. Loud Shirt was wheezing, unable to catch his breath. His eyes rolled back into his head. He was out.

The woman, unperturbed, assumed position. Fingers spread, arms outstretched, she glared at the men and loosened her jaws, showing them her bloody teeth.

One of the white shirts, who understood her smile as a gesture of defiance, scowled and made a run at her.

Whoosh.

A sound like a blade slicing through the air came through her teeth. Crouching low, she ducked her head and charged. The man went up, headbutted in the stomach with the brute force of a wild boar. The first part of him to hit the hard ground was his shoulder, which dislocated with a dull pop. He let out a woozy scream.

There was a moment of confusion. Then the men closed in.

Whoosh.

A man jumped at her from the right and got punched in his Adam’s apple. Silenced, breathless, he fell on his ass and kicked the air. A man lunging at her from the left got a swift kick in the kneecap from her steel-toed safety shoe. Through the chaos of the melee, you could clearly hear the sounds of tearing joints and muscle. A man thunked her in the cheek. She staggered, one foot floating in the air, but caught herself and put her guard up like a boxer.

Whoosh.

Blocking the next punch with her forearm, she planted her steel toe between his legs. Ouch. Growl. A crowd of white shirts was assembling in front of the garages. Faces hot with rage and panic; eyes dazed like they were dreaming. Not able to accept what was happening in front of them, unable to believe it.

Faced with all this rage and consternation, the woman showed her teeth and smiled. She was covered in their blood. She laughed out loud and doled out punch after punch, kick after kick.

Behind the bellowing jeers, she heard a barking dog. A mass of black and brown burst through the crowd of white. It was a Doberman, enormous, wearing a thick black leather collar. The dog sprinted toward the woman, who caught all ninety pounds of dog weight in the chest and was knocked onto her back. The men moved in and held her down. Snarling like the dog. Tearing at her clothes.

“Hey, don’t kill her. She’s a present for Pops. Easy, now.”

The man in the black suit looked amused. It was the end of sunset.

IN THE MIDDLE of the gravel walkway to the main house, the woman lay prone on the ground, pinned down by a quartet of men holding forked spears, men not without injuries of their own. Scowling bitterly, they looked down at the woman’s body. Her hair and clothes were even messier than before, only now, she wasn’t struggling, but breathing softly, face down to the gravel. Her shoes had been pulled off, and the black bra visible through her torn yellow shirt made her look like a wounded tiger. In the stillness of the evening, you could hear koi fish slapping in the ornamental pond.

“Yanagi, what’s that you got, a woman?”

It was a man’s voice, torched from drinking. He was seated on a leather sofa on the engawa deck edging the building, dressed in a striped yukata. In his mid-sixties. Corpulent. Bald head. Bull neck and sloping shoulders.

“Would appear so. Figured she would be a good fit for that job you had in mind.”

The man in the black suit—Yanagi—pulled a distressed orange leather wallet from the woman’s pocket. Inside, he found her license.

“Yoriko Shindo . . . twenty-two. She’s a dosanko^1 from the north country.”

“What’s her story?”

“There was a fight outside the office, so I sent a couple of guys to check, and they found this bucking bronco out there raising hell. She’s a rare breed. Figured we had to snatch her up.”

This last comment made the big man cackle. Hellishly colorful tattoos peeked from his parted collar.

“Snatch her up, huh.”

“Yeah. To make her play nice, we had to crank her head a couple times with a big bottle of beer. Not sure about her story, but as far as fighting is concerned, she holds her own. Hell, she just fought ten of our best men. It’s too bad she’s a woman, or I’d recommend we add her to the ranks.”

“You sure that she’s a woman? These days, it’s not unheard of for these female types to have a dick between their legs.”

“We’ll certainly look into that as well.”

The men exchanged rowdy laughter.

The woman—Yoriko Shindo—listened to them from the gravel, turning her head toward the man sitting on the leather sofa. Not glaring at him, or with pleading in her eyes, but simply watching.

“While you’re looking into things, give her a good scrub, too, huh? Nice and clean. Can’t have her meeting her new pal looking all gunked up.”

The big man stood up laboriously and went into the house. Seconds later, white shirts appeared like stagehands to remove the ashtray and the sofa.

“Grab the hose. Water on.”

They brought Yanagi a hose from the garden. He shot Shindo with cold water.

“Hey. Sleepyhead. Had enough yet?”

The blasting spray scraped at her bloody face. Shindo opened her mouth and guzzled down the water like it was delicious.

Yanagi smiled.

“You’re an odd duck. Either that, or you’re so stupid you’re not sure what’s going on.”

The water tapered off. The cold spray had cleaned the blood off her face, but the new bruises she had picked up in the rumble were badly swollen. Hard to imagine how she looked without them.

“Stupid’s exactly what we’re looking for. You hear me, Yoriko? As of today, you’ll be working here. With us. If you don’t like that, say your prayers. You understand?”

Shindo nodded sternly, nothing to say.

“Good. Back there, we were just playing around. From this moment on, if you so much as lay a hand on me, you won’t have time to see what happens next. You understand?”

Yanagi parted his suit jacket to reveal the plain wood sheath of a tanto at his hip. Shindo nodded once again.

“Let her go.”

When Yanagi gave the signal, the forked spears were raised away from Shindo’s body.

“Get up.”

Shindo took to her feet. Unperturbed. Her body, underneath the tattered clothes, was crazed with fresh slashes and bruises, though the pain didn’t seem to register.

“You heard us back there. Strip. Let’s make sure you’re a woman under there.”

Shindo pulled off her T-shirt, which was already in tatters, and tossed it to the ground.

“Everything.”

She pulled off her black bra without flinching. A few of the men gathering around her snickered at her naked breasts, but the definition of her abs was enough to shut them up. Her biceps too, no longer hidden, pulsed with brawny strength. Standing there, she struck a figure not unlike the fierce guardian gods at the Great South Gate of Todaiji Temple, each carved from a single tree.

“I said everything. Show us the goods.”

Keeping her eyes on Yanagi, Shindo unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them down. Her black underwear drew the men’s eyes to her big hips and sculpted thighs. Their lines of sight converged on her body.

The next moment, Shindo whipped Yanagi in the face with her wet jeans.

“What the fuck!”

The soggy denim packed a wallop. In the second that it took Yanagi to fend her off, Shindo lunged at his chest, seizing the lapel of his suit with her left hand and pulling the tanto from the scabbard at his hip with her right. This time, Yanagi fought back. Grabbing ahold of Shindo’s hair, he pulled her in and took her down in a sweeping leg throw. Once she was on her back, he kicked at the hand holding the blade, but Shindo rolled away and sat up.

“Sic her!”

A voice ordered the Doberman to pounce. Baring its white canines, the dog leapt for Shindo’s half-naked body. She grabbed the jeans off of the ground and wound them around her forearm, shoving it in the dog’s face.

With a whimpering yelp, the dog closed its jaws on the denim. It had her arm clamped hard enough to break the skin and snap the bones of anybody else, not letting go for anything. She tried to shake it off, but it only bit down harder.

The beast locked eyes with this beast of a woman.

Shindo showed her teeth and snarled. Showing the dog who was boss. While it didn’t loosen its grip, a look of fear swept through its gleaming eyes. But the dog had her. Must have been a hundred pounds. Shindo could barely move. Again the forked spears caught her, pinned her to the earth.

“Git!”

The dog let go and ran back to its master.

Yanagi combed his fingers through his hair and spat on the ground. His leather sole pressed into Shindo’s wrist. She was still gripping the tanto.

“In case I wasn’t clear, buddy, we’re gangsters. Yakuza. We’re not afraid of dying.”

Genuinely amused by Yanagi’s merciless expression, Shindo cracked a smile.

“I’m not your buddy, shit for brains.”

“Hey! She can talk.”

Yanagi stood on her wrist, bearing down. The tanto rattled from her hand.

“How come you didn’t stab the dog, bud?”

Shindo screwed up her face and spat blood on his shiny shoes.

“Hey, Nishi, bring that dog back here.”

Another white shirt, Nishi, led the Doberman back over, this time with a leash clipped to its collar. Yanagi stooped to grab the tanto.

“I’ll say it again. As of today, you’re working for us. If you’re not happy about that, I can end things now.”

He poked her cheek with the tip of the blade.

“Go ahead. If it means I gotta take orders from you, I’d rather die.”

“That so?”

Yanagi snatched the collar of the Doberman, which had been seated on the ground wagging its tail, and pressed the tip of the blade to its throat. Shindo opened her eyes wide.

“—Stop.”

The dog let out a keening groan. This ferocious creature, capable of killing someone with a single chomp if adequately provoked, was unable to fight back, fearing for its life.

“Can’t hear you.”

The Doberman tucked its tail and let out a godawful screech.

“STOP!”

The dog’s big ears went flat against its head, its brown eyes opened all the way.

“We’ll kill her first, then. All because of you. Poor thing.”

The blade pushed into the dog’s neck. Its glazed eyes stared at Shindo.

“I’ll do whatever you say.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll do whatever you say!”

Yanagi released the collar. The dog cried out and lowered itself to the ground, looking at Yanagi with upturned eyes. No trace of grudge or resentment.

“So you’ll kick a man in the balls, but you’ll take pity on a dog. You’re a real softie, Yoriko, know that? All right, so listen up. If you disobey, even once, or try to run away, I’ll slit open this pooch’s belly and skin her alive. While you watch.”

Yanagi slipped the tanto back into the scabbard. There was no blood on the blade.

SHINDO SAT IN a roofed passage that was open to the elements, between two buildings. The wood floor had been buffed to such a sheen that she could almost see her own reflection. Red hair tied back with a rubber band, dressed in an ill-fitting white shirt and black pants. Face wrapped with bandages and gauze, concealing all but her eyes, nose, and mouth, like a poorly executed mummy. Not first aid so much as an attempt to cover up her cuts and bruises.

While she was changing into the clothes borrowed from the men in the white shirts, Shindo had received a mini lecture from Yanagi on her situation. This was the residence of Genzo Naiki, boss of the Naiki family, a part of the Okitsu-gumi, the largest gang in eastern Japan. Yanagi was his right-hand man, in charge of the white shirts—or what he called the “junior staff.”

All household matters, from cleaning the floors to preparing meals, were undertaken by these young guys handpicked from the urban offices, though a small number of tasks necessitated, in Yanagi’s words, “a woman’s touch.” From what Shindo had gathered, this was why they had snatched her up.

Yanagi had told her to sit tight. In half an hour, he said, he would come back and show her just what sort of tasks they had in mind. So she sat there. On her heels, in seiza. In the dim light of the roofed hall. Nobody else around. It was only twenty meters to the stone wall. If she made a run for it, she could have gotten out of there, but instead Shindo did what she was told.

The shrill voice of the Doberman, so lonesome in the face of death, rang in her ears.

Dogs can’t be blamed. No matter how monstrous their owners are. It’s never the dog’s fault. Those eyes . . . so lonely, yet no sign of fighting back against the men that held its life in their hands. And that miserable whimper. Just like any other dog. Ready to pledge allegiance to the worst people imaginable.

Shindo sighed. Her ribs were sore. Didn’t seem broken, maybe bruised.

It had been a busy day.

One of Shindo’s two jobs was food delivery, which meant biking all around Shinjuku. Finishing up on this particular afternoon, she swung by her apartment in Shin-Okubo, washed off her sweaty body, changed into new clothes, and headed back toward Shinjuku on foot. She could have eaten dinner in her neighborhood, but she was in the mood to catch a movie at the cineplex. On her way, she passed through Kabukicho, where she ran into some bad dudes, who were obviously shitfaced and pretended to bump into her. One of them slapped her ass. Shindo spun around, grabbed his lapels, and kicked his feet from under him. The man fell face first on the asphalt. It was strange how his companion kept on walking, like he hadn’t noticed, although once he caught wind of what happened, he took a swing at her. Shindo would have walked away, except a crowd was watching them. It would save her trouble later if the guys punched her first, so she took a hit, right in the face. The guy was either drunk or had no clue how to fight. It barely grazed her. She caught his wrist and twisted his arm toward his chest. Bones shifted in her palm with a disturbing pop. On her first try, she had dislocated the guy’s wrist. Ouch! Panicking, the man tried desperately to punch her in the stomach with his free hand. Shindo let him go and kicked him onto his back. The audience was growing by the second. The first man down wriggled in agony, getting dirt all over his magnificently bloody nose. She had a few more punches ready for them, but why bother? If someone called the cops, there would be trouble, so she split. Or tried to. Three more bad guys stepped out of the crowd and blocked her path. More? One kicked her in the face. He fought much better than the others, though he was on the shorter side. Kicked her a second time, a third, calling her a bitch, a fucking pig, etc. Shindo dodged him. On the fourth kick, she grabbed his leg and stepped onto his pivot foot, so that he couldn’t move, then swung his kicking leg over her shoulder, whereupon she dropped into a squat, forcing his hip joint into a full 180-degree split. That left him wailing like a newborn baby. When she was on her feet again, something nailed her in the back. Felt like another jump kick. Turning around, she gave the guy who’d kicked her a swift kick in the throat. Bam. But then she felt a dull blow to her side. Her ribs killed. When she turned, she saw a man was chopping at her with an empty bottle of wine. That probably explained the feeling in her ribs. It was risky bringing weapons into a crowded public space. Someone could get hurt. She searched for a way out. Just as the man with the bottle wound up again, taking aim, she punched him square in the jaw. More goons appeared between the faces in the crowd. Coming to get her, fists clenched, winding up. Shindo couldn’t help but smile. If only she’d had more room to move, no risk of hurting anyone, she could have taken all those guys on at once. She cursed the cramped and crowded city. Which was when she felt a clean thud on her head. This time it was a beer bottle, one of the big ones, if she could trust Yanagi’s version of the story. Thicker glass. Another thud, and she blacked out.

A night wind, cool for May, passed through the yard and traveled down the roofed passage. The floor was cold and hard. Vigilant, she took another breath and stroked her throbbing head and ribs.

Just then, a wooden door slid open at the far end of the hall. One of the white shirts, looking a little sore, waved for her to come. Shindo stood. She did as she was told.

In the next room, the heady smell of temple incense pricked her nose. The room was huge, its floor spanning at least twenty tatami mats. At a low desk made from precious wood, the man who had appeared on the deck earlier—Genzo Naiki—sat crosslegged on the floor. Behind him were taxidermied specimens of a hawk and a male pheasant, along with a display case packed with painted clay Hakata dolls, a miniature golden pagoda, and other tacky decorations, giving the room the pretentious air of new money.

Yanagi sat off to the side. Four white shirts with especially good builds stood at attention in each corner of the room.

“Come in, sit down.”

Faced with this oddly friendly welcome, Shindo complied and sat in seiza on the floor. All eyes on her. Naiki sucked down a mouthful of the canned coffee sitting on the desk and smiled at her.

“So. Yoriko, huh. For a woman, you’re one hell of a fighter. Did a number on some of my best young men.”

His hoarse voice had a sadistic twang that his inviting gestures failed to hide. Not offering a response, Shindo flexed her butt muscles, ready to jump up at any time.

“If word got out that my best men had seven shades of shit beaten out of them by a woman, we’d be the laughingstock of Tokyo. Be grateful you’re not paying off the damages with that physique of yours . . . or with your life.”

Putting extra emphasis on the word physique, Naiki dragged his salivary eyes up and down her body.

“Matter of fact, we’ve been looking for a woman just like you, one that’s strong and loves to fight. I haven’t heard what sort of scuffle you got into. But how’s about we make a fresh start. What do you say, country girl? Take the job?”

Shindo stared back at Naiki. When it comes to staring, people are like animals. The first to look away is the loser.

“I don’t need another job.”

This made Naiki roar with laughter.

“Be careful, thunder thighs, or you’ll get a piece of cold steel up that stinky twat.”

Naiki had a big grin on his face. Yanagi, off to the side, shot him a glare.

“Let’s have the two of you meet. Come on out, Shoko.”

The fusuma door behind the men slid open.

There was a woman sitting there, beyond the threshold.

She looked almost like a mannequin, but then the woman, Shoko, stood up without a word, as if all of this was normal, and stepped into the room. She was real.

She looked young enough she could have easily been taken for a girl. Dressed in a plain white long-sleeved blouse and a lengthy dark blue skirt. Homely nude stockings shielded the eyes from what little might have been seen of her skinny ankles. Her long black hair was plaited in a single braid down her back. Her figure was slight; her skin was so pale it shone blue. She had thin lips and the black marbly eyes of a baby deer. Like a poster portrait of a beauty from another era, fifty or a hundred years ago. She was a classic beauty, somehow young and old-fashioned at once.

Without so much as a glance in Shindo’s direction, this young lady, Shoko, walked over to Naiki and sat in seiza on the floor. All the more doll-like beside the hulking boss.

“Meet Shoko, my one and only daughter. This spring, she’s taking classes up at Shirahama Women’s Junior College in Suginami. Only the best for my little girl. Her classmates are the daughters of the most elite families around. These days, though, you can never be too careful. Shoko needs someone to drive her there and pick her up. A bodyguard. That’s where you come in. If I had my way, I’d watch over her myself, day and night, but believe me, I’ve already got my hands full.”

Naiki petted her shoulder. A doting signal that made Shoko look less like his daughter than a house dog. Shoko didn’t open her mouth or register a reaction, just stared down at her hands, which were resting in her lap. Her fingernails were cleanly shaped. Pink seashells tumbled smooth by the waves.

Shoko looked awfully out of place in this den of yakuza. Like a crane perched in a landfill. A troubling heat, or violent desire, wafted off of Naiki and Yanagi and the white shirts. Shindo, too. To put it nicely, their bodies emanated life. Raw and vital. From the young lady, however, there was not a whiff of animal vitality to be detected.

Shindo cast glances at the white shirts posted up around the room. She had felt them tensing up the instant Shoko came in through the door. She was so beautiful she didn’t seem like she was real. None of the men would look at her. Bullets of sweat dripped off the temples of the youngest of the white shirts, whose gaze fixed on an empty space in the exact opposite direction of his boss’s daughter.

“Who says I’m qualified to be a bodyguard?” asked Shindo.

“Shit, it’s simple,” Naiki said. “Any shady character comes near her, break his neck.”

“That’s a hard sell.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because it makes no sense. Why would a yakuza boss trust his daughter with a total stranger? There’s no shortage of bodyguards around here.”

Naiki sneered.

“Go grab Exhibit A.”

A white shirt slid open the sliding door and came back carrying a lacquer box, square and black, the size of a large bento. As he placed it on the low desk, a nauseating odor wriggled through the incense smoke.

“To your point, we tried having one of the guys here do the job. Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep his grubby hands off Shoko. As a woman yourself, I’m sure you find that unacceptable. Some piece of shit defiling her pure body before marriage? No thanks. My baby girl is all grown up. I can’t have horny boys holding the door for her. What can I say, I’m a protective father.”

Naiki removed the lacquer lid.

“I’m sure that you would never make the same mistake as him. Stop me if I’m wrong.”

Inside the lacquer box was a man’s right hand. Severed through the wrist, where you might wear a wristwatch. The blackened flesh had turned, exposing bone. Viscous liquid, dark and slimy, oozed out of the skin, pooling in the bright red inside of the box.

The foul odor multiplied in force. One of the white shirts bent over and puked. Shoko, however, seated right before the rotten hand, looked at it with a blank expression. It was this barren face that interested Shindo, not the hand.

“I’m not seeing any green around the gills. That takes guts. Yanagi’s intuition hasn’t failed him yet. Okay, it’s settled. Welcome to the team. Yanagi will explain the rest.”

Naiki waved at her like he was shooing off a dog. Yanagi stood up and directed Shindo with his gaze. She had no choice but to follow him.

“HERE’S WHAT YOU can expect.”

As they proceeded down the hall, Yanagi let out a big sigh.

“From now on, you’ll be working as Miss Shoko’s bodyguard and driver. This mansion is your new home. Every day, you’ll make sure she arrives at school on time and makes it home without even the tiniest scratch. Her well-being is your responsibility.”

“What if I say no?”

“I’ll kill the dog. Then you. No joke, as you can see from that . . . display back there. If that’s okay with you, go off and run along. Nobody’s standing in your way. But I can promise you, we’ll send a guy to knock you off and toss that puppy’s entrails on your body as a parting gift.”

“. . . I don’t know how to be a bodyguard.”

“All it takes is the brains of a dog. Just like Pops said, if anybody gets too close, you punch him in the face. Which shouldn’t be an issue. For a woman, you sure aren’t shy about doling out punches left and right. Honestly, I’d say this is a great job for a brawling broad like yourself.”

Shindo looked down and clicked her tongue. Yanagi held a cigarette in her face.

“I don’t smoke.”

“What kind of punk are you?”

Shindo scowled. She was about to tell him that she must be missing something, if a yakuza was calling her a punk, but she held off, not wanting to converse with this off-putting man any more than necessary.

Yanagi lit himself a Peace with a silver lighter. He took a long pull off the cigarette. Through the curling smoke, he gave Shindo an indiscreet once-over.

“So, what the hell was that? Karate? Wrestling? Or judging from your comfort sitting in seiza, maybe aikido? Definitely not kung fu.”

Shindo didn’t respond. Yanagi raised his eyebrows.

“You realize you’re in deep shit, right? I wouldn’t put it past a person in your shoes to hit the floor and ask for me to kill you now.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Consider yourself warned. The man that hand belonged to? He was slowly raped to death, over the course of half a month. We’ve got a guy who loves that kind of thing. He gets a kick out of keeping his victims conscious up until the last possible second, so they feel everything. You could have easily met him today. Lucky for you, I stepped in. Could you find it in your heart to at least give me a thank you?”

Shindo watched Yanagi’s smoke drift off into the night air. No change in her expression.

“You’re a piece of work,” he said. “How can a person your age, and a woman no less, sit there looking all smug, as if nothing scares you?”

“I’m a little scared of you,” said Shindo. “Those judo moves are not what I call fun.”

Yanagi was taken aback.

“Guess that’s why you risked the tackle, then, huh? Go for the chest.”

“Not much of a risk. You’re, what, a hundred and fifty pounds?”

This made Yanagi laugh.

“You crazy bitch. Just my luck. Now that I’ve saved your life, I guess I’ll have to make sure you survive. Here.”

He waved a fan of 10,000 yen bills in front of her, then pressed it to her chest.

“Tomorrow, once you’ve dropped the princess off at school, go buy yourself some new clothes and some makeup or whatever.”

“I’m fine.”

When she brushed his hand away, Yanagi changed his expression. Dead serious.

“No, you’re not. Can’t have you standing next to Miss Shoko like that, all grubbed out. Go get yourself some decent clothes. And paint some makeup on that mug of yours, too, while you’re at it. Okay? Any funny moves, you’re dog food. Remember that.”

Yanagi tossed the bills onto the floor and disappeared down the hall.

SHINDO WOKE UP. She had to pee.

Sitting up on the makeshift bed of floor cushions, she tested out her neck and shoulders. All her joints and muscles ached. The bruises and the soreness weren’t so bad she couldn’t move around. She didn’t seem to have a fever.

Once her eyes adjusted, she caught sight of the unfamiliar walls and ceiling. The edges of the room were piled high with cushions, cardboard boxes, crates of files. No windows, stuffy air. Relying on a shaft of light coming in through the cracked sliding doors, she opened a few boxes just to see. Sealed packs of towels and tenugui, rolls of packing tape, synthetic twine, ballpoint pens and staplers. Boxes of office supplies, boxes of documents filled with tiny script. Boxes of old newspapers.

Brightly embroidered like the robes of a monk, the floor cushions were much more comfortable than she expected. Even so, Shindo missed sleeping in her crummy old apartment. It was too far from the station, cramped and rank with a gross sewer smell no matter how thoroughly she cleaned, but it was hers. She wanted to go back.

She stood up and stretched her arms and legs, bent down to touch her toes. Once her blood was circulating, she felt a little warmer. The metallic taste inside her mouth reminded her of how long it had been since her last meal.

The night before, without the social graces of a bath or anything to eat, they led her through the main house to this closet of a room. Diagonally across the hall from “the princess,” Miss Shoko. At first, she could have sworn a guy was sitting just beyond the fusuma, guarding the door, but once Shindo convinced herself she was alone, she passed out cold. How many hours had she slept? It had been at least a day since she had eaten anything.

She left the storage room and found a toilet at the far end of the hall. Every inch of this place sparkled like a brand-new piece of real estate. When she was done, she looked into the toilet bowl before she flushed. No blood. Organs probably okay. At the sink outside the door, she washed her mouth. The cuts inside her cheeks stung from the icy water, but her teeth were fine. All there. She would have loved to wash her face. The gauze and bandages made it too much of a hassle. Using the tails of the white shirt to dry her hands, she walked back up the hall.

The house was still. From the tone of light coming through the frosted glass, she could tell that it was early morning. The lack of people was unnerving.

Until now, Shindo had failed to grasp how vast the compound really was. Down the hall past the closet and Miss Shoko’s room, she encountered a long wall of paper doors, all the crosspieces meticulously dusted. Still more rooms further down. Through the windows of the hallway was a courtyard that resembled something from a pamphlet for a fancy inn, tastefully landscaped with ornamental trees and a pond. She had no clue how exactly Naiki made his money, but he certainly had plenty to spare.

An enticing fragrance tickled her nose. Somebody was grilling fish. Her stomach growled like a revving engine. The smell pulled her down the hall.

This end of the hall opened onto a breezeway. She stepped out. The grilled fish smell was coming out of the next building, a sort of annex joined to this one. She could hear people inside, lots of them, talking and moving around. As she reached for the door, she detected miso soup and some kind of a stir-fry in the rich mixture of smells. Her stomach groaned.

Entering the annex, she found herself in a room furnished like an office space. Nobody there; the voices were all coming from the neighboring room. When she poked her head inside, she saw a big dining room decorated much more simply than the building where she slept. A low table extended down the middle, set for twenty, each seat readied with a pair of chopsticks and a little bowl. It was like one of those places schools rent out for a class trip. A few of the white shirts passed between her and the table and hummed to show they noticed her.

“Is this where we eat?” she asked one with a buzzcut and a boyish face. His look made her regret asking. She ducked out of the room. Too late. Men spilled into the office. Among them was a face she recognized, one of the guys she had punched the day before.

“Who let you out?”

He had a flattop and a bruised face. Half of these guys shot her looks of unabashed scorn, while the other half ogled at her with frank curiosity.

“I’m here for breakfast, too.”

As she spoke, she found the creases of the tatami with her bare feet, ready to lift off whenever necessary. Twenty gangsters, guys who fought fights for a living. It would be tough to take them all at once. Though not impossible. The big veins in her neck swelled with blood. From a different angle, this was an all-you-can-eat buffet of skulls to crush. A lineup of hot-headed men who could put up a decent fight. Joy plumped her arteries.

“Back off. That’s Miss Shoko’s new bodyguard.”

Fists clenched and ready for a brawl, she was confronted by a white shirt with a metal ladle in his hand. One of the guys who had been standing guard for Naiki in his study the day before.

“Listen up, Yoriko Shindo. You can’t come waltzing in here unannounced. We’ve got a front door for a reason. Use it.”

All the other white shirts turned to the one with the ladle, apparently their leader.

“Try waking up a little earlier. Starting today, you’re bringing Miss Shoko her breakfast. Half past seven. On the dot.”

News to her. She checked the clock on the far wall. It was a little after seven twenty.

“Fine. Can I have something to eat first, though? I’m so hungry I could die.”

“Save it. Here, go bring this to the princess. Now.”

He handed her a silver platter. White teapot, small plate with a single piece of very, very thin toast, a ramekin of jam, a small glass bowl holding three slices of fruit. The sort of things you might feed to a darling canary. Yet in her eyes, sharpened by hunger, it was a feast.

“Once I’m back, I get to eat, too, right?”

“All right, go on, get moving.”

The man with the ladle chased her away. No other choice, she headed back to the main house carrying the silver platter.

The quiet hallway was as eerie as before. Shindo set the platter down in front of Shoko’s room. She strained her ears, but she heard nothing, so she knocked twice on the fusuma.

“Time for breakfast.”

No answer. The smell of toasted white bread filled her nose. She could have packed the whole slice, chewed, behind her molars. Barely a morsel, though at this point, anything would do. She could have sucked it off the platter. Curbing the impulse, she knocked again.

“Breakfast.”

No answer. Must be sleeping. Unsure if this was out of bounds, she slid open the door.

“Oh.”

Shindo was stunned to find Shoko awake and fully dressed, sitting at a table on the floor. Like a mannequin. She wore a blouse and skirt, just like the day before, and her hair was pinned up neatly. Her room was organized yet lacked even the slightest decoration. Not a single photograph, a single flower. The room was somehow even plainer than the storage room where she had slept.

“Three minutes early. Out.”

Shoko dismissed her without so much as a glance.

“Get out.”

Her voice was quiet but unwavering. For a girl her age, she sure was comfortable with giving orders.

Shindo found this more perplexing than anything. Behaving as instructed, she stepped out with the tray and shut the fusuma behind her. Inside her head, she counted out three minutes on the dot, then knocked again and slid open the door.

Shoko was sitting in the same position at the table.

“Breakfast,” Shindo said.

She set the platter on the table. The princess didn’t even look at what was on the tray.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Cool, mind if I eat it, then?”

Shoko opened her eyes wide with shock but regained her composure.

“Go for it.”

It took Shindo less than a minute to devour everything. As she chugged down the hot black tea, Shoko watched her, openly repulsed.

“Your face is a mess . . . it’s disgusting.”

The princess looked askance at Shindo, who was not about to argue with the first part. Her face was a mess indeed. Blood had soaked through the bandages and gauze. What little skin that could be seen was discolored from internal bleeding.

Shoko elaborated.

“Don’t think that I’m the least bit happy you’re the one who’s taking care of me. You make me sick.”

“Look, I’m not here because I want to be, okay? I have no choice.”

The princess raised her impeccably trimmed eyebrows.

“Did no one ever teach you any manners?”

In response to this frank display of disgust, Shindo let out a little burp.

“Don’t expect to fit in with the men, or with any of their women, either. You’re too ugly. They’d never waste their time with you. Those guys only like pretty women.”

“Pretty . . . like you?”

Shoko tossed the steaming contents of the teacup at Shindo’s face. The bandages sucked up the tea, making her appear even more monstrous.

“Anyway, they’ll fire you in no time.”

Face dripping with tea, Shindo stared at Shoko, whose exasperation was at least more recognizably human than the doll that she had met the day before.

“Don’t worry,” Shindo said. “I’m not gonna touch your ass.”

This time it was the cup that hit her in the face. The princess had surprisingly good aim. Sure, it grated on Shindo’s nerves, but it only bumped her face. She wouldn’t lay a finger on her. She looked so delicate even a gentle prod might shatter her to pieces. Shindo picked up the teacup and returned it to the platter.

THEY GAVE SHINDO the keys to a brand-new Honda Civic, compact and ordinary as they come. Another iteration of Miss Shoko’s taste for plainness.

Any trace of blood spilled during yesterday’s rumble had been hosed into the gravel. As she pulled the Civic up to the front entrance, white shirts washing other cars by the garage complex or tending to the grounds gave Shindo piercing stares. Hunger was going to her head. Careful. Don’t lose your cool. Her fists were clenched so hard they squeaked, itching for prey.

Shindo got out and leaned against the car, waiting for Shoko. A buzzer sounded through the compound as the gates swung open and a group of cars snaked up the drive. They slipped past Shindo and drove one by one into the bays of the garages. At first she thought this was another group of yakuza, but the cars were a mix of foreign models and beat-up minitrucks, while the people who came out of them were an odd mix of gangsters dressed like Yanagi, middle-aged guys with beer bellies, and unassuming college students. Some of them pulled heavy cardboard boxes or briefcases from the cars. Something was up.

Watching them unload, Shindo noticed Shoko step out of the main house.

In the light of day, she looked a bit more human. Over her white blouse and bulky skirt, she wore a pale blue cardigan. Black patent-leather flats with rounded toes and white socks made of lace. Her fingers clasped the handle of a brown leather satchel that made her look like she was heading off to middle school, not college. It didn’t look like she was wearing makeup, but she did wear jewelry: a gold necklace with a pendant of the letter N decorated with a single pearl. Shindo didn’t know the first thing about fashion trends, but it was clear even to her that Shoko’s clothing and accessories were dowdy and old-fashioned for an eighteen-year-old girl. She looked like a high school drama student dressed up for a play about the olden days.

Shoko opened the car door herself and climbed into the passenger seat. Shindo sat down behind the wheel.

“Don’t ladies like you ride in the back?”

“Are you telling me what to do?”

“Higher risk of dying in the front, is all I’m saying.”

Shoko stared at Shindo for a moment, then turned up the corner of her mouth, smiling.

“Duly noted.”

Shindo shrugged this off and started the car.

“Do you know the way there?” asked Shoko. “If I’m late for school, I’m blaming you.”

“I have a general idea.”

She knew all the main roads in and around central Tokyo. Shoko’s college was in Suginami. A short drive, twenty minutes max, without traffic.

Shindo was ready for her first day on the job. In her pocket was a cheat sheet, handwritten in neat script on good quality paper, listing everything from Shoko’s schedule for the week to her favorite foods. The list was made for her by Sumida, the leader of the junior staff, who had approached her with the ladle in the mess hall. She still didn’t get how they could leave the princess with a nobody like her. Though if one complaint was enough to chop her hand off—and her head while they were at it—it made sense that almost anyone would do.

Shindo pointed her thumb toward the garages.

“Were those guys in the minitrucks more yakuza?”

Shoko tensed up.

“No . . . they’re private investigators.”

“Oh. Like detectives?”

“How should I know? Don’t talk back. Just drive.”

She didn’t say a word the rest of the ride to school.

AFTER DROPPING SHOKO off by the front gates, Shindo peeled out and stopped at the first restaurant she saw. For lunch she had a chukadon with extra rice, a plate of chicken karaage, two helpings of gyoza, and a small bowl of ramen, which she gulped down in the order they arrived. This was a low-brow spot, no beauty contest, but the cook and other customers made sure to keep their distance from the peculiar woman with a bandaged face.

Stomach full of rich and fatty foods, she had some water and took a breather. She could finally relax. It was dangerous to let herself go hungry. It made her brain stall, pushed her past an already low threshold for annoyance.

She pulled the orange wallet from her borrowed black pants. It was full of cash, the money that Yanagi had forced on her the day before. Good sum.

She could escape. The thought occurred to her. But at the same time, she was haunted by an image of a dog, eyes bright as marbles. Trustworthy to a fault. It was not the Doberman from yesterday. It was a dog she knew when she was little.

Technically she was her grampa’s dog. They called her Three. A mix of Japanese breeds, fur reddish like a fox, floppy cheeks. Clever and tame. Her favorite food was chikuwa fish sticks, with the factory-browned skin. She loved sticking her tongue into the holes at both ends. One time her grampa caught Shindo feeding one to Three. “That’s people food!” he said and smacked Shindo so hard that she fell over.

Three was a gentle dog, so kind, but she was Grampa’s dog, a fact she made clear periodically. She stuck with him to the very end, buried alongside him in an avalanche. Dogs can’t be blamed. There’s never been a creature so dependable, so kind.

Shindo finished her water, paid the bill, and got back in the car.

SHE STOPPED AT the first men’s clothing store she saw, just like the restaurant, and bought herself some socks, three plain T-shirts, a thin navy blue suit, a belt, and underwear. The clerk gave her a strange look. Shindo couldn’t help it if men’s clothing fit her better. That was her body type. Last time she checked, she was over five foot seven and weighed around 165 pounds. It wasn’t easy finding women’s clothes that worked for her.

On the same street, she stopped at a tiny pharmacy for some painkillers, a bottle of disinfectant, and fresh bandages, which she applied in the car, using the rearview mirror.

While the only thing that needed dressing was the gash next to her eye, the bruises looked way worse than she imagined. Deep red splotches. Her skin was on the lighter side, so any bruise stood out. Like a kid had doodled spirals on her face with crayons, purple, green, and black. Maybe she should’ve picked up some foundation, too. Or a pair of cool dude sunglasses. Then she’d really fit in with the junior staff.

“Whew.”

Shindo leaned back in the driver’s seat and sighed.

What a couple of days. By now she should be wearing a ridiculous pink apron, running errands for the flower shop. This counted as a no-show. She was liable to lose her job. The hissy fit her boss would throw was all too easy to imagine.

It had been about a year since she picked up a second steady gig delivering cut flowers for a shop in Ikebukuro. Not exactly her dream job, but apart from her boss rubbing her the wrong way, she enjoyed it. She liked driving. It came naturally to her. She even thought of someday buying her own truck and going solo as an owner-operator. She had no education or good looks to lean back on. Going solo. It made sense for someone who loved getting into fights and hated bowing to authority. Ever since she was little, she had always hoped to find a job that she could do herself, for her entire life. Deliveries and truck driving weren’t the worst ways to make a living. The work suited her, though she never dreamt she would wind up driving around a yakuza princess.

Done with her errands, Shindo drove back to the college, parked on the street within sight of the main gates, and promptly reclined her front seat for a nap. If she ate well and slept well for the time being, she’d heal up quick. In the meantime, she could let them think that she would do whatever work they asked of her. Once she had regained her strength, she would give more thought to what came next.

NODDING OFF, SHE had a little dream.

White sky and blue ground stretched out to the horizon. She could hear a child crying. At first it sounded sad, but with time she realized it was yelling in a voice shaken by distress. A giant bird slipped over the blue ground.

HER EYES OPENED to the sound of a knuckle on the window glass.

“Unacceptable.”

It was Shoko. What was her problem? She slipped triumphantly into the front seat.

“You need to be parked right outside of the main gates at least ten minutes before class ends. I shouldn’t need to walk more than ten paces to the car.”

She had parked under some trees, maybe fifty feet from the gates.

“It’s my first day.”

“I don’t care. You messed up.”

“What now? Is your father gonna make a lunchbox out of my hand too?”

Shoko glared at Shindo with a look of unmitigated scorn.

“I’ve warned you once already. Watch your mouth. Remember: I’m the boss. Your master. No more lip. You understand? Show some respect.”

“Yes, Miss Shoko, anything you say, Miss Shoko . . . Is that better?”

“You’re giving me a migraine. Hurry up and drive.”

Shindo checked Sumida’s cheat sheet. Ikebana class. Cooking lessons. And that was just today. The week was packed with lessons of all kinds. Tea ceremony. Kitsuke. Wasai. Piano. English conversation. Every single day. No rest. She caught herself staring at the side of Shoko’s face.

“Hello? Don’t you know it’s rude to stare?”

“Is all of this stuff . . . fun for you?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Like ikebana, and tea ceremony.”

Shoko laughed. Most of the time laughing makes a person appear younger. In her case, she looked strangely more mature.

“I’m not doing this for fun. It’s to build character. A woman has to learn these things before she can get married. For your information.”

“Ha. I’ve never done any of this stuff.”

“That’s because you’re an ugly country bumpkin with no money. I’m jealous of people from poor families. They’re so free.”

Now it was Shindo’s turn to laugh. She started up the car.

“Poke fun all you want, Miss Shoko, I’m not breaking the speed limit.”

Through the corner of her eye, she thought she noticed Shoko blush.

SHINDO’S JOB AS bodyguard and escort was no different on the holidays and weekends, because Shoko never stopped. If she didn’t have some kind of class or lesson, the hours were crammed with other plans. Shindo couldn’t believe there were so many ways of building character. The girl took horseback riding, archery. You wouldn’t think she had it in her, but she did it all without complaining. As someone who had had a hard time making it through high school, Shindo wondered what it must be like to have a brain like that. She almost wanted to ask Shoko how her brain didn’t explode, busy with all that crap. The princess didn’t seem receptive to that kind of question, though. She was only interested in giving orders or lobbing insults dressed in fancy language.

Something puzzled Shindo. She had never seen Shoko interact with other girls from school. Before and after class, she saw the students hanging out in twos or threes and sometimes bigger pods around the gates. Almost none of Shoko’s peers showed up alone or left alone like her. They all came across as having money, though plenty of them wore minidresses and thick makeup, and the girls who had big friend groups took their modestly immodest fashion choices even further. Shoko was the only one with an old-fashioned style.

Shindo knew she couldn’t have been that much older than these college girls herself, but they all looked so young to her. She hadn’t graduated college or even thought of going. School wasn’t for her. It had been a long and painful process, surviving elementary school and middle school and high school, before somehow graduating in one piece. All those years, she never felt like she fit in. Every grade was a bland mixture of kids who all had some way of relating to somebody else. An anomaly like her, though, nothing in common with the other kids except her age, was treated like a reject. School spat her out like vomit. It was hard to believe she had once seen herself that way, as vomit, scared of kids who, looking back, were as helpless as a bunch of baby chicks. She could remember almost nothing that she learned back then. She had to wonder whether Shoko was accepted by the other kids at college, in her classes, whether the girls saw her as one of them, and not as an anomaly.

SHOKO EMERGED FROM cooking class, her last item for the day, and slid into the car on a cloud of perfectly browned sugar. Shindo sniffed the air, earning herself a dirty look.

“Stop sniffing. What are you, a dog?”

“Did you bake cookies?”

“Florentins.”

“Floor and what?”

“Ugh. They’re a cookie from France. Made with almonds.”

Shoko reached into the bag she brought with her to lessons and pulled out a small white pastry box.

“Ever seen these before?”

She opened the lid. The little box was full of bite-size squares, like teeny-tiny fancy-pants granola bars. Their sweet smell filled the compact car.

“Are they sweet?”

“They’re cookies. What do you think?”

Shindo apologized and drove the car. She wasn’t particularly fond of sweets, though it was getting close to dinner time; the aroma of roasted almonds prodded at her appetite. Taking a normal breath, no sniff, she detected other sweet scents floating underneath the smell of the French cookies. Bar soap. Shampoo. Fabric softeners. Womanly smells. Why did everything they sold to women have to smell like a dessert?

“Once I have kids, I’m going to bake all of their desserts. From scratch, obviously. Every day, I’ll put my heart and soul into a tasty treat to serve after the tasty foods I make exactly how they like them. Because that’s a mother’s job.”

Shindo turned the wheel, offering the bare minimum of a response.

“Yeah.”

“For the Peach Festival each year, Mother always made us sakuramochi. Even pinker than the cherry blossoms. Just a hint of salt to make the sweetness glow. Wagashi is much more difficult than yogashi, like these cookies. If I end up having a daughter, I want to make her sakuramochi too. But first I need to have a son. What did your mother make you? God, you’re like a bear. What does someone have to feed a kid to turn them into such a hulking brute? Did your mom make you yummy desserts too?”

“No idea. I never even saw my mother’s face.”

The car was silent. Oh, well. Shindo could care less, though she could tell that Shoko was, shall we say, not so comfortable. Must be more sensitive than she thought. So there. Shindo turned the wheel, so amused she could have whistled.

Back at the ranch, she drove them right up to the main house. Twin sconces blazed into the night, lighting an entryway more spacious than the lobby of the building Shindo lived in, or used to.

An alert pair of white shirts flanked the steps. Shindo hopped out first and went around to open the car door. Shoko got out looking sullen and handed her the pastry box.

“I don’t need these. Throw them away for me.”

Shindo took the box of cookies, warm from the oven, and watched Shoko tiptoe off into the depths of the main house.

FROM THE GARAGES, Shindo made a beeline for the annex. By showing up for meals like she belonged there, she eventually convinced the guys to save enough for her each night. The junior staff took turns doing the cooking, working in shifts that they posted on a wall like something out of elementary school.

This was her first experience with any kind of yakuza establishment. Things were much more regimented than she would ever have imagined. If you could forget for a second how these guys made their money, it was almost disappointing how professional they were—waking up early, washing their faces, putting on a crisp white shirt. Fail to clean up after themselves, and they would get a smack upside the head from their superiors. They were expected to show proper manners pouring tea and serving guests. The guys at the “top” and the regional bosses, like Genzo Naiki, seemed to do whatever pleased them, but the guys living in the annex may as well be inmates or, at their age, kids in juvie. If they could follow rules so well, stiff upper lip and all that junk, why not find decent jobs on the outside? Shindo had to wonder, although now and then an answer arrived in the form of the familiar heat, or aura, she felt radiating from them if she got too close. The heat was something that you never felt around a normal person with a normal life, an honest job. It was familiar because she had it, too, the same heat, spilling out of her. She was unsure of what to call it, but aware of what it did, or made her do. It fed on violence, chased it down.

When she showed up in the dining room that evening, the other guys were finishing their dinner. Tonight was curry rice. At this point, so long as she came in without a word, they didn’t really bother her. Granted, they stared at her, pretty much constantly, but she was technically working for Yanagi, so they couldn’t get away with giving her a hard time. Having people ranking under her or over her was not how Shindo ever hoped to live her life. But if it helped reduce her headaches in the short term, she could live with it for now.

Out in the kitchen, she dished some rice into a big bowl and flooded it with soupy curry that she topped off with two raw eggs. There was mugicha in the fridge, so she poured herself a cup. Rather than sit in the dining room with all the guys, she pulled a stool up to the countertop and started shoveling down food.

They were watching TV in the next room, talking and laughing about whatever was on. It made her feel uneasy. Spooning curry into her mouth like a curry-eating machine, she looked over the pastry box set on the counter. Was the girl pulling her leg or what? Shindo wasn’t used to cutesy little French cookies like this. The whole box, unchewed, could have fit into the roof of her mouth. At the house that she grew up in, all she ever had to snack on were the strips of kombu left in the stockpot after making dashi, or the occasional batch of dried sardines simmered to a sticky paste in mirin and shoyu. She had not so much as licked a piece of cake until she came to Tokyo. It amazed her that some kids grew up eating this stuff every day.

Speaking of.

Shoko had mentioned “Mother” in the car. The first Shindo had heard of her, much less seen. Nobody else had said a word about her either. Apparently she wasn’t living with them anymore. Could be divorced, maybe deceased.

“What’s this? Can’t be yours.”

Shindo looked up. It was Nishi. The guy who had been holding the dog leash on her first day. He flicked the pastry box with his finger.

“Miss Shoko gave them to me.”

“Liar. I bet you stole them, didn’t you?”

Nishi seemed like he’d been drinking. A little older than the other members of the staff, he had an odd face, like his eyebrows had been shaven off. Since her first day at the compound, Nishi had been giving her particularly hostile looks.

“If you wanna check, go ask her.”

“Don’t fuck with me! I’ll fucking kill you.”

Nishi smacked the box off of the counter. Cookies spilled across the floor. Hearing the commotion, white shirts rushed into the kitchen.

“Listen up, you fucking pig! I don’t like you! Hear me?”

He grabbed her cup of mugicha and dumped it in her bowl of curry, a third of which remained uneaten.

“Oomph!”

A sound like someone battling a hiccup came from Nishi’s teeth. Shindo was standing in his face with both her hands closed around his throat.

“That was perfectly good food you ruined. My food.”

Shindo could feel the bones of his Adam’s apple moving underneath her thumbs. She worked them through the sinews of his neck, driving the floating bones into his throat. A desperate squeaking sound came from his hot pink lips. Nishi was clawing at her arms, trying to break her grip. It was no use. Shindo was not letting go. In no rush, she lifted him by the jaw. Nishi’s toes danced on the kitchen floor.

“I’m not trying to pick any fights here.”

She heard the pitter-pat of something dribble, like the start of rain. Nishi was pissing himself. Feet kicking the air. A warm cloud of ammonia wafted from the tiles.

“But if you pick the fight, I’ll double down.”

Just as Nishi’s eyes were rolling back into his head, she let him go. His feet slipped in the piss, and he tipped back and banged his head, lights out.

Shindo sighed. She went over to the sink and washed her hands. Then she went over to the cupboard for another of the big bowls and dished herself a fresh helping of curry rice.

SHINDO’S ONLY TIME off the entire day was between dropping Shoko off at college and picking her up after class. Enough time to scarf down a big meal and take a nap inside the car. No way in hell was she spending it back at the compound. The yakuza had built themselves a world of bullshit, based on those in power keeping those below them on their knees. They loved acting high and mighty, with their honor and their chivalry, but it was all a front. The compound was a swamp, foggy with rules and subordination. No semblance of the stark clash of forces Shindo took for granted as a child in the country. This was power of the cheapest kind imaginable, narrowly defined as a tool for persuasion.

Ever since Nishi pissed himself, he hadn’t messed with her or called her names, regardless of who else was around. He had, however, found new ways to make her feel more like an outsider, or an unwanted guest, than anybody she had ever met. The fact that Shindo wasn’t living at the compound of her own accord made the rejection even worse.

The only place where she felt safe was in the kennel. Set behind the bigger buildings, it was a sturdy structure with a decent roof, more of a cabin than a doghouse. Inside, it was divided into five enclosures, each about seven-foot square, for the Doberman and a few German Shepherds. The cages were locked, and Nishi had the keys, but she could check in on the dogs through the bars.

The Doberman’s name was Shelly. Shindo started spending every spare minute she had before or after driving Shoko somewhere at the kennel, watching her back to make sure Nishi and the other men didn’t spot her. At first the dogs were skittish, but seeing Shindo’s face most every day, they grew accustomed to her presence and came to understand her as another of the people living there, no need to bark.

Crouching in front of the cage, Shindo found Shelly lying on a blanket spread over the concrete floor. Seemed like they fed her pretty well. She was in good shape. Still young. Almost a puppy.

Before Three, who got buried in the avalanche with Grampa, there was Two, who was at the house before Shindo was born. For such a big dog, she lived a pretty long life. Her face was a bit unusual for a dog. She was always smiling. When Shindo mentioned this to Grampa, he scolded her and told her that “dogs don’t know how to smile.” Could this be true? Why wouldn’t a dog smile? If they can feel happy, or angry, or sad, why shouldn’t they be able to smile too? Her grampa knew everything. She trusted what he said. But this was something she had never been able to accept.

“Shelly . . .”

Shindo called the dog’s name in a low voice. Shelly’s ears perked up. The dog stared back at her, cocking her head, full of curiosity, like the puppy that she was. Shindo could detect a sense of apprehension, as if Shelly was unsure if it was okay to play nice. As much as Shindo found this disappointing, she surprised herself by smiling back.

“You really like dogs, huh?”

She spun around. Yanagi was behind her. Dressed in black, as usual, like he was on his way home from another funeral, a rich smell of tobacco clinging to his shadow. Coming closer to the cage, he made a friendly clucking sound between his tongue and teeth. Shelly tucked her tail between her legs like she was scared and slunk off into a corner.

“Damn,” he said. “She hates my guts now. All your fault.”

“I knew you couldn’t bring yourself to kill a dog.”

“Just try to escape. You’ll see. Might not be me, but somebody will kill the dog. In this line of work, a threat is never taken back. We’ll make sure you learn your lesson.”

“Not if I kill you first.”

“You’re impossible. Know that? Pretty strong, though, for a woman. If I’d had a piece on me your first day here, I would’ve shot you dead. Piss off a yakuza, he’s liable to plug you one.”

Yanagi snorted. The sound made Shelly flick her ears.

“Anyway, how’s the job treating you? You and the princess getting along?”

“She’s kind of a pain to lug around, but quiet for a college girl. Makes things easy.”

Yanagi whistled through his teeth, exercising self-control.

“Never, ever talk like that around the other guys. Okay?”

“But it’s okay to talk like that with you?”

“Consider this a grace period. Don’t push your luck.”

Yanagi looked toward the other dogs.

“Look, all you have to do for the time being is take care of Miss Shoko. That is, unless we find ourselves needing an extra set of hands.”

“There’s plenty of hands around. How come they need all these men anyhow?”

Shindo knew that the bulk of the yakuza worked out of regional offices and not at the boss’s private residence. This was definitely Naiki’s house. The white shirts were like young monks. A select few. His disciples.

“Have you seen the guys who come by in those beater trucks?” Yanagi asked.

Shindo nodded. Once or twice a week, the nerdy guys showed up in their white minitrucks and spent the better part of the day shut up in Naiki’s study at the main house, deep in conversation.

“Pops hired them with his own money. Private eyes. They’re tracking down his woman. And her lover.”

Shindo caught herself looking Yanagi in the eye.

“That’s right,” he said. “Shoko’s mom. She ran off with one of Pops’s favorite men. Masa the Dagger, fucking bastard. He’s been on their tail for over ten years now. If you ask me, though, the two of them have either left the country or they’ve killed themselves. Still, Pops won’t quit.”

“Ten years . . .” Shindo said aloud.

“Shoko was still in grade school. I was here. Feels like yesterday. One rainy night, we’re sitting around the table when we hear what sounds like Madam Naiki scream. So we rush into the room and find Pops alone, on the floor, covered in blood. Slashed by a dagger. Masa, he says. It was Masa. Pops had trusted him with everything, which only served to amplify his hatred by a hundred. One extreme to the other. I mean, if I was Masa, on the run, and I knew they were onto me, I’d take my own life like a man. No telling what kind of nasty torture they have planned. Can’t even imagine.”

Shindo swore that she could smell the severed hand among the dog smells of the kennel.

“He’s got a problem, trying to make Shoko look exactly like his wife. It’s not right. That’s why he’s so fanatical about keeping away pests. That guy who got his hand chopped off? What got him that was giving her his hand, right, like a gentleman, to help her out of the car. Don’t think for a second being a woman means you can relax. I wouldn’t lay a finger on her. You’ll wind up doing jump rope with your large intestines.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

Yanagi lit a Peace and blew a lavish cloud of smoke.

“Honestly, I’m sick of this shit. No matter how many hours I put in, all the money gets blown on the PIs, or on Shoko’s cultural enrichment courses. I wish Madam Naiki could’ve taken that poor girl along with her. For her own sake. Honestly. I’ve had it up to here with keeping these punks fed. How long you really think this family can last? It’s grim.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because you’re a stranger. And a meathead. If I complained like this to one of the guys,” he said, pointing up, “this finger would be in the trash.”

“What if I told on you?”

“Who you think is going to believe a word you say? Men in this line of work would trust a beggar or a thief over the Virgin Mary, just because he was another guy.”

Yanagi laughed, cracking himself up. Shindo turned away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Reality too much for you?”

“I’m not a child. Save your breath. Besides, what makes this line of work of yours so special? Life is tough. It doesn’t matter who you are.”

“That’s deep stuff for a kid like you. But yeah, you’re right. This world’s no good. That’s one thing you can count on.”

Yanagi flicked the filter of his Peace at her feet and walked away, taking his time.

__________

1 道産子 dosanko n. [Japanese] 1. horse breed indigenous to Hokkaido 2. person born and raised in Hokkaido

Hearing the rain through the open windows, Yoshiko stepped into her sandals and hopped off of the back deck into the yard, where she pulled tenugui and underwear off of the laundry line and threw the basket back into the house. The sky went dark. In the distance, you could hear the growl of thunder. It was only May, too early for the rainy season to begin.

Luckily, the laundry didn’t get that wet. They could hang it in the living room. Taking a breath, she stepped inside and closed the doors onto the deck. The gust of air that followed her kicked at her floppy ponytail. All those gray hairs made her appear a little older than she was, but she let it go, no interest in dyeing it or cutting it short. She had almost no wrinkles and her posture was superb. She was used to hearing she could look ten years younger, easily, if she only dyed her hair, but at this point, what was looking any younger going to do for her?

“Masa, come on, help with the laundry. Can’t you hear the rain?”

Masaoka was sitting in the next room at a beat-up tea table, reading the newspaper, chin propped in his palm. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut into a squarish flattop, something you don’t see much anymore. With that tenugui tied around his neck, he struck the figure of a working man from way back when. He had put on a little weight, mostly around the belly. Hunched over like that, he looked almost like a Shiba Inu, sitting like a good boy.

“Sorry. Blame my granny ears.”

Always ready with a comeback. In a soft voice at odds with his appearance, Masa pushed his black-rimmed glasses down onto his nose and looked at Yoshiko.

“You’re a lost cause,” said Yoshiko.

Masa had grown softer all around over the years; his voice and body, but most of all his personality, had gone through an incredible transformation. Barely any trace remained of what had been a prickly demeanor, so high-strung as to make him unapproachable. Things had changed. In the old days he had never joked around, but lately it had gotten to the point where he was making lame puns all the time and even humming to himself. If anyone from their past could see Masa now, their jaw would drop.

Masa wasn’t the only one who’d changed. Yoshiko was like a completely different person. Her eyes fell on the garish cat print apron and the mustard-yellow sweater, things she never would have worn back in the day. For a while, they had made an effort not to wear clothes that stood out, but now that they were older, an understated outfit would be dangerously conspicuous. A matter of changing trends. The last few times she took the bus out to the shopping center in the next town to buy clothes, the section for younger women was all about minimalism, while the racks for the old ladies screamed with color.

Masa’s tastes had gone the other way. He used to have exacting style. Then after they went off together, he started wearing leisurewear exclusively. These days, he saw no issue stepping out dressed in a tracksuit blown out at the elbows and the knees.

We’re old, thought Yoshiko. When did that happen? Her eyes traced the lines of Masa’s back. Who could believe that the night they ran away, hand in hand, running through the driving rain, had slipped so deep into the past? She never had imagined they would make it long enough to see each other’s hair turn gray.

Transferring the laundry onto hangers that she hung over the lintels of the sliding paper doors, Yoshiko realized that she still had to go buy groceries for dinner. She sighed and grabbed a cardigan and slung a tote over her shoulder.

“Be right back. Running to the store.”

“Now? Look, the sky’s about to fall.”

“If you’re fine with having plain white rice and umeboshi for supper, I’ll stay home.”

Masa scratched his chin and folded up the newspaper. Took him a second to get up.

“All right. I guess I’ll join you.”

“What? That’s a first.”

“Let’s make a date of it. It’s been too long.”

“Date? Psssh . . .”

Too late. Masa grabbed his navy zip-up and headed for the door. Yoshiko hurried to catch up with him.

The rain wasn’t so heavy after all. The nearest supermarket was three hundred meters down the street. Good exercise for their achy legs. Besides, they weren’t about to share an umbrella in public. Two cheap plastic ones from the convenience store did just fine.

“Looks like the rainy season’s starting early.”

“Spring skipped us again this year.”

They made small talk, chatting about nothing. This was a good town. Not too built up or spread out. Most people ran their errands in their cars, but the two of them didn’t even have bicycles. They took care of their daily business at the stores within walking distance from the house. For anything they couldn’t live without, they rode one of the ten (or fewer) buses per day to the next town. It was a frugal life, but peaceful. They lived within their means.

The town was in a valley surrounded by low hills that stood between them and the sea. The seafood was as tasty as the produce. They lived in public housing, a development. Since the rent was cheap, they were able to eke out a comfortable existence so long as they made no indulgences. Best of all, the town was full of young people who had jobs at the factory, which meant little of the nosey meddling often found in country towns this size. The last place they lived had way too many gossipy and prying types. As new arrivals, Yoshiko and Masa were a favorite topic of conversation. It was hard to take. This place was great. As much peace and quiet as anyone could ask for.

This was not the future Yoshiko had envisioned for herself, however vaguely, in her younger years. She set her eyes on Masa, on his salt-and-pepper hair, a few steps ahead of her. The fact that she was older by a few years made no difference anymore.

“Masa, wait a sec.”

No sooner had she spoken than a huge sound slashed the air in front of them.

They stopped short. Just up the road, a zigzagging white minivan lost control and hopped the curb, plowing into the sign of a funeral home. Airbags puffed across the windshield; smoke billowed from beneath the vehicle.

“Shit, a car crash.”

Masa lost it. People were stuck inside the car. Yoshiko looked around. There was usually a fair amount of traffic on this street. For once, though, it was empty.

“Shit, we gotta call an ambulance.”

“Masa, we . . .”

Neither of them had a phone. To call an ambulance, they would either have to rush home or run down to the supermarket and use the payphone.

“Hey!” Masa screamed. “There’s a kid in there.”

Squinting, they could see a child seated in the car. The smoke was getting darker by the second, as a vile stench of chemicals and burning plastic filled the air. Any moment now, it might burst into flames and explode.

“Fuck, we can’t just leave. We gotta help them!”

Masa tossed his umbrella and sprinted in his sandals toward the car, Yoshiko following close behind.

“Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

Masa banged on the window. A man in his mid-thirties was pinned between the airbag and the front seat, unconscious. In the seat beside him was a young girl with her eyes open wide, in such an advanced state of shock her only movement was the heaving of her shoulders as she breathed.

“Masa, move!”

Yoshiko hit the window with a broken hunk of concrete from the curb; it cracked but didn’t shatter. On the far side of the car, Masa reached through the girl’s window, which had broken in the crash, and unlocked the door with shaky fingers.

“Are you okay? You hurt? Come on, get out!”

The girl was silent. Petrified. Masa unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her from the van, just as a tongue of flame leapt from the trunk.

“Fire, run!” he yelled.

“Just a second!” said Yoshiko, swinging the hunk of concrete. “Almost there!”

She finally broke through the glass and reached through it to open the door. Now that she could reach him, she undid the unconscious man’s safety belt.

“Yoshiko! Run!”

Masa fled, carrying the girl, who was paralyzed with fear. Yoshiko pulled the man from the wreck and dragged him away by the armpits. Seconds later, there was a dizzying boom, and the car was engulfed in flames. Hot wind blew across their cheeks.

They were a second shy of being torched. Red flames and black ribbons of smoke wove through the rainy sky.

Yoshiko was spent. Hugging the man to her chest, she sat down where she was, right on the pavement. Over her shoulder, she saw Masa standing with the girl, holding her hand tight. The girl was small, fair-skinned and slight, two braids over her shoulders, eyes opened as wide as her face muscles would allow. It was hard to look at her.

That’s when they heard the voices. Shouting, oohs and aahs. Yoshiko turned and saw a cluster of young people leaning from the windows of a car, taking photos of them and the burning wreckage with their smartphones.

“Hey, you guys! Call an ambulance! Help!”

Masa ran over to them shouting, but all they did was scream and turn their cameras on him from the safety of their car. The young girl, coming to her senses, started bawling, and the man in Yoshiko’s arms let out a queasy groan.

Another car, from the direction of the ocean, skidded to a stop. Two ladies hopped out, shouting detailed explanations of the accident into their phones. Full reports in high-pitched voices. From the sound of it, they were talking to the fire department and the cops.

A guy stepped out of the first car. Without saying a word, he turned the camera on the man slumped on the ground and then on Yoshiko, holding him up.

“Hey, you!” Masa shouted. “Get out of here!”

Masa windmilled his arms, trying to scare him off. The young guy acted like he couldn’t hear him, although Masa did succeed in putting himself in the spotlight.

“No!” said Yoshiko. “Don’t let him get you!”

It was no use. Masa blocked his face and turned away, but there were people everywhere. The explosion had drawn a crowd, and it was growing. A police siren was approaching.

Yoshiko ran over to Masa and clung to the back of his jacket. She was shaking. Her entire body had been soaked by the cold rain. Until then, she hadn’t even noticed.

“What’s your story?”

After classes, Shoko had hopped into the passenger seat like everything was fine, then dropped this one on Shindo out of nowhere.

“Huh?” asked Shindo. Genuinely confused. Next on the docket for the day was Shoko’s private English lesson. An older lady, the wife of a former diplomat, gave her one-on-one instruction at her baroque mansion in Koenji. That place was special. At most of Shoko’s classes, Shindo parked outside and waited in the car like a detective on a stakeout, but for these lessons she was asked to come into the parlor and was treated to a cup of tea and a nice piece of what tasted like expensive cake. Not bad.

“Don’t give me huh. I want an answer. What’s the deal? How am I supposed to feel safe with a woman for a bodyguard? You can’t be as strong as a man. Why would my father hire a nobody like you to protect me?”

“I should be asking you the same thing. I’m the one who was forced into working for him, without any explanation.” Shindo thought of showing her the nice gash on her crown where they cranked her with the beer bottle.

“ . . . You think you’re tough or something?” Shoko asked.

“Guess so.”

“Give me a break . . . what am I supposed to do if someone tries to kidnap me?”

“Has that sort of thing happened before?”

Shoko bit down on her bottom lip. In the usual way, she was dressed in an old-fashioned silk blouse and long emerald skirt, like she was ready for a choral concert. As much as she did look the part of a sheltered princess, this was complicated by the fact that ninety percent of the words out of her mouth were abusive, to put it lightly.

“. . . Until I’m married, I can’t suffer so much as a scratch. This isn’t just my problem, either. A lady like me has a future husband to consider. Not like you’d understand.”

Wow, thought Shindo. She had figured that a man like Shoko’s father would refuse to let her marry, confining her indefinitely to the house.

“My future husband takes my personal development quite seriously. Customarily, I should have married him right out of high school, but he says that times have changed and let me spend two years in college. In order to repay him, I need to be the best bride humanly possible.”

“Sounds like a tough situation.”

Her response, meant sincerely, set Shoko off.

“What was that? Don’t mock me.”

“I wasn’t—”

Shoko raised her voice, smothering Shindo’s excuse.

“You’re hopeless. Always looking at me like I’m some kind of pathetic wretch, when you’re the one who’s ugly and disgusting. Quit talking like there’s something funny about this.”

Someone was in a bad mood today. Shindo sighed and gave Shoko a long, hard look.

“Listen, I’m just trying to show you some consideration, like you asked. Last thing I want is for that father of yours to make me, uh, do jump rope with my intestines. Having him looming in the background is a real pain in the butt. I couldn’t care less about you, personally. I don’t care. At all. Not even a teensy-weensy bit. Princess, you’re living in your own little world.”

In the wake of this unsparing reprimand, Shoko was quiet. Shindo hit the gas and drove along. A moment later, though, she realized something was amiss.

Shoko was crying, careful not to make a sound, shedding tears into her lap. Instinctively, Shindo touched the brakes and pulled over.

“Miss Shoko, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“This isn’t nothing. Stomach ache? Is it your period? There’s a bathroom by the—”

“Stop it! What’s wrong with you? I’m done with this shit. Go to hell!”

Shoko unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door. Before she could get it open, Shindo grabbed her wrist.

“Let go!” Shoko screamed. “That’s it, you touched me. No one cares if you’re a woman. You’re dead meat now. Hear me?”

Shoko’s teary fit was drowned out by a four-ton truck that trundled past them, laying on the horn.

“Look both ways,” Shindo said sternly. “You’ll get yourself run over.”

Shoko’s lips began to tremble.

“Always look, okay?” said Shindo.

“I hate you! I fucking hate you!”

“Great. Then ask your dad to hire a new driver. You can hang my stuffed head on your bedroom wall as a trophy.”

“Ugh! You make me sick. How can you say a thing like that?”

At this point Shoko was slumped over, sobbing uncontrollably. The wrist in Shindo’s hand went limp.

What was all this crying about? Shindo wondered, staring at the whorl of Shoko’s scalp. What did she have to cry about? Why was she crying? Made no sense. She was like a little kid, throwing a tantrum. What kind of a grownup woman cries like this?

Shindo tried waiting it out. When the girl showed no sign of stopping, she reached into the back seat and grabbed the box of tissues. Shoko took a handful and patted at her eyes, then blew her nose into the wad like a trumpet.

Other cars beeped as they swerved around the Civic. It was in the way, parked on the shoulder. Shoko helped herself to more tissues. Eventually her sobbing petered out.

“Listen, princess,” Shindo said, once Shoko’s breathing had calmed down. “I don’t think you’re in any shape to go to English class today.”

“. . . Who cares what kind of shape I’m in? I have to go.”

“All it takes is a phone call. I’ll say you’re taking the day off.”

“Then what? It’s not like there’s something else I need to do.”

As if to prove a point, Shoko gave her nose another magnificent blow. With those red eyes and reddened nose, she was no longer the picture of a lady.

“Where else would you like to go? I’ll drive you there.”

Through a mask of ravaged tissues, Shoko turned her teary eyes on Shindo.

The place Shoko requested was a café, about five minutes from where they were. It had evidently caught her eye one day on the drive over to her weekly kitsuke class. Classic café exterior, vines climbing up the red brick walls, a sign announcing “Gourmet Coffee” in huge letters, bigger than the name of the establishment.

As they stepped inside, they were enveloped by a rich, nutty aroma. Every breath of air tasted like coffee. There was a large “No Smoking” sign above the counter. It was a small space, seating for five at the tables and four more at the bar. The owner, a man in his mid-fifties, poured every cup by hand with an enameled coffee pot that had a skinny spout. Bombastic classical music played from the speakers. Shindo took a seat at the nearest table and Shoko sat down, fidgeting, across from her.

“Is this place famous or something?” Shindo asked.

Shindo had basically no clue which businesses were popular or held in high regard. She preferred the cheap spots with big portions catering to universities and service personnel. Cautiously examining the menu, she saw that the prices were a bit higher than the places where she usually killed time, though not exorbitantly so.

The menu listed a dizzying variety of coffee beans, along with explanations of their different flavor combinations, which sounded like a recipe for a witch’s brew. Shoko read each line voraciously. Could a woman like her, who could pass for a preteen, secretly be a coffee connoisseur?

When the owner came to take their orders, Shindo asked him for the blend, while Shoko opted for the Sumatra Mandheling. A few minutes later, the man brought them two coffee cups, each with a different elegant design.

Shindo tasted the hot coffee. Yum. Though what did she know? It had a strong aroma. She watched Shoko lift her cup, pinkie extended, looking skeptical, and take a tiny sip of the black coffee . . . only to practically drop the cup and gulp down several mouthfuls of ice water.

“Don’t tell me . . .” Shindo said.

“What?”

“Seriously? Have you never had coffee before?”

Shoko’s cheeks, marked by the tears, turned red.

“. . . Father says that only loose women drink coffee.”

“What the fuck’s his problem?”

Shoko glared at Shindo with red eyes.

Oops. So much for her filter.

“Well . . . how’s the forbidden flavor?”

“It’s too bitter. Bleh. I wish I never tried this stuff.”

From the far end of the counter, the owner gave her a look.

“Add some sugar and milk,” Shindo said. “It’ll go down easier.”

Shindo grabbed the crystal sugar bowl and set it down in front of Shoko. After staring at it for a spell, the princess dished out four spoonfuls of granulated sugar.

“For my twelfth birthday,” Shindo said, “my grampa took me out for coffee. That was my first time in a café. We each had one cup. As a birthday present.”

“. . . Did you live with your grandfather?”

“Yeah. He gave me alcohol when I was fifteen, too. So I’d understand what it could do. Before I knew it, I was puking up a storm. Worst birthday ever.”

As Shindo twirled her red hair with her fingers, Shoko blinked her black eyelashes, confused.

“But fifteen is below the legal drinking age.”

“I know.”

“Seems like you had a weird upbringing.”

“Nothing compared to yours, Miss Shoko.”

“I would be curious to hear.”

“Hear what?”

“What someone has to do for a child to turn out like you.”

Shindo laughed, in spite of herself. If she was curious, why couldn’t she just ask her like a normal person?

“I was raised by my gramma and grampa. I guess my dad lived with us, too, when I was really little, though as far as I’m concerned, I never met him. Grampa was an intimidating guy. Good at cooking, good with his hands. He could do anything. Gramma was the sweetest. Though she mostly kept to herself. Always bundled up from head to toe.”

“Bundled up? Why?”

“It’s cold up north. Gramma’s hometown was even further north, but even so, she couldn’t stand the cold. She was always wrapped up to the eyeballs, all year long, wearing every piece of fabric in the house. Always planted in front of the fire.”

Shindo recalled the image of her gramma seated at the sofa pulled in front of the wood stove, cocooned in festive quilts and housecoats. A wool blanket wrapped over her knit hat like a massive scarf. Multiple pairs of socks, and legwarmers on top of that, so that her legs looked like an elephant’s. What she remembered best, though, was her steely blue eyes, the sole proof her grandmother was actually inside of this monstrosity of cloth.

“Your grandmother sounds weird too.”

“Maybe, looking back. But until I left the house, that was normal life for me. With my gramma always bundled up like that, my grampa had to do all of the chores and errands by himself. It was Gramma’s job to tell me stories. She knew all kinds. Sometimes folk tales, or stories about interesting people that she knew when she was young. Since Grampa wouldn’t let us have a TV in the house, this was basically the only form of entertainment.”

Shoko was enthralled.

“I’m not allowed to watch TV either. Father says that it kills brain cells and would spoil my character.”

“There you have it. You and me, two perfectly elegant characters.”

“. . . You’re the worst.”

Shindo laughed.

“Anyway, Gramma’s stories were way better than anything on TV. She had tons of stories that you’d never find in any kind of book. My favorite was this one about Baba Yaga.”

“Is it scary?”

“Not at all. Baba Yaga lives inside a real cool house. It’s in the middle of the woods, on chicken legs, so it’s super high above the ground. The inside’s all decked out with human bones.”

“Sounds scary.”

“For her, that’s regular decor. She spends her time snatching up people for her supper and casting spells on livestock in the area. She knows everything, can see through any situation, and she’s really good at magic and insanely strong. The villagers are terrified of her, but if a kind, purehearted woman asks her nicely, she’ll give her treasures or help her with her work.”

“Doesn’t that make her bad?”

“She does bad things, but she does good things, too. One day, she might burn a field to ashes, and another day she might help an innocent young maiden find a prince and turn into a princess. You never know what Baba Yaga is gonna do, or whose side she’s on, at least not when she shows up. That’s what makes the stories fun.”

Shindo took a sip of the house blend, lukewarm by now. Following suit, Shoko tried another sip of hers, like a bird testing a puddle with its beak. The flavor made her scowl.

“Baba Yaga does whatever she wants. Her visitors might get obliterated, or they might get welcomed back, but Gramma ended all her Baba Yaga stories with the same moral: ‘If you grow up to be a kind, purehearted woman, even scary people like Baba Yaga will help you out.’ No matter what Baba Yaga did in the story, this was always how she finished it.”

“And you grew up into a kind, purehearted woman?”

“Clearly. But I really wanted to be Baba Yaga. That seemed like way more fun. I could make it rain or thunder, or make the livestock’s balls grow to the size of water balloons. All kinds of fun stuff. I would be so strong and cool. But when I told my gramma that I didn’t want to be a princess, that I wanted to be Baba Yaga instead, she got so mad at me.”

Recalling this made Shindo chuckle.

If anyone was Baba Yaga, it was Gramma.

“If it was up to me,” said Shoko, “I’d want to be Baba Yaga too.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a proper lady who gets married to a prince? Wearing those pretty clothes like that, and all your precious stones.”

“I never liked these clothes,” Shoko said; her face went dark. “I hate these clothes, I hate this haircut, I hate these shoes and handbag.”

“Then why wear them? Can’t a princess like you have whatever clothes she wants?”

“They’re my mother’s.”

Shoko said this in a low voice, looking down.

“My mother doesn’t live with us, not anymore . . . I have to wear the clothes she left behind. It’s all stuff my father bought for her. The department store used to come by with racks and racks of clothes. He only bought the ones he wanted her to wear. There’s pajamas, evening gowns, whole closets full of this stuff.”

The frilled collar of her blouse fluttered in the air conditioning. No wonder Shindo had thought Shoko’s clothes were so old-fashioned.

Not old-fashioned, no.

Just plain old.

“This haircut . . . and how I’m not allowed to put on makeup . . . all this stuff’s because it’s what my mother did. Or what my father wanted her to do. I’m well aware my classmates think I’m lame and out of touch. But it’s no use. Until I’m married, I belong to the Naiki household. Besides, I’m indebted to my father for raising me. It’s only clothes.”

“But you just said you hated them.”

“Once I’m married, I’ll be able to wear different clothes. It won’t be long. It’s fine. I can put up with it.”

“What if your new husband decides to pick your clothes out for you, too?”

Shoko hung her head. With that kiddish face, she could have easily still been in high school. The word “marriage” didn’t fit. More to the point, no amount of character development or etiquette could change a crucial fact: she was the daughter of a yakuza boss. What were the odds her “future husband” was a normal guy?

“I hate this thing the most.”

She hooked her index finger around the golden chain. As far as Shindo could remember, Shoko wore the N pendant every single day.

“Mother left this, too. It was the first present Father gave her after their wedding. He says I’m not allowed to take it off, no matter what, until I’m married.”

Unbelievable. Like a collar for a pet. Shindo felt it tighten around both their necks. She tried to shrug it off.

“I’ve told you not to look at me like that,” Shoko said in a cold tone. “Like I’m pathetic.”

“I wasn’t, it’s just—”

“I’ll have you know that you’re mistaken. You probably think that I’m a sheltered, clueless airhead, but you’re wrong. I know what’s going on. Way more than you. I know exactly what kind of a life I can expect. Spare me your phony sympathy.”

Shindo almost told her she was wrong, that that wasn’t what she meant, but then she started wondering if maybe she was right.

“This stuff is gross . . .”

Watching the princess struggle through the sweetened Mandheling, Shindo let the classical music crash over her, no idea what any of the songs were called.

“MY EYES ARE puffy. This is bad.”

In the car outside the café, Shoko pulled a compact from her handbag and gave her face a serious inspection.

“It’ll be fine in the morning.”

“I know that. But not by dinner. Father will ask what happened to my face. Maybe I should tell him I was bullied by my driver.”

“Go ahead.”

“. . . Would that upset you?”

“If you want me to be upset, then sure.”

“. . . You’re the worst. So twisted.”

Look who’s talking, Shindo almost said. Instead she started up the car.

The last of the daylight was retreating from the streets. Salarymen heading home and students in their uniforms and moms with kids walked through the sunset, each at their own pace. Tokyo was full of people. The thought hit Shindo at least once a day, even after years of living here. So many different kinds of people, doing different things. Different ages, different jobs, faces and bodies, clothes and interests. Living here, Shindo was just another person in a sea of differences.

Ten minutes down the road, Shoko spoke up.

“I can tell him that I saw a dead kitten on the road and cried because I was so sad. Father will believe me. When I was little, on a walk together, we saw a cat that was run over by a car. It made me cry. Father told me I was nice. You’re such a nice girl, Shoko . . .”

It was like she was talking to herself.

Shindo focused on the road.

DINNER WAS TONJIRU soup and rice with takuan. Sitting at the corner of the table in the big room, Shindo ate the first half of her heaping bowl of white rice garnished with the bright yellow pickles, then dumped the other half of the rice in the pork and miso soup, which she sucked down in slurping gulps. She had always been a big eater, but for the past day or so, her appetite had been insatiable. She had a headache and felt spacey, like her period was coming. It’s not like she could borrow pads from the princess. I’ll buy some at the pharmacy tomorrow, she told herself, as she tasted the last grain of broth-soaked rice. Just as she was thinking about grabbing seconds, another bowl of tonjiru appeared in front of her.

“Really? Arigato.”

It was the youngest guy living in the annex. He bowed and shuffled off. Thankful for the gesture, Shindo took big sips of the piping hot pork soup.

After dinner, some of the junior staff tidied up while others played mahjong or watched baseball on TV, and still others took up posts or returned to other tasks. Shindo knew she wasn’t welcome at the mahjong table and couldn’t join the men at the TV, so she went to take a bath. The annex had its own communal bathing area, where the men bathed in groups. Since this was obviously off-limits for her, Shindo was allowed to use the bath in the main house. Shoko took a long bath at the same time every night. Once she was finished, Shindo was next.

In the changing room, she took her clothes off and used the mirror to inspect her back and shoulders. The cuts had healed, the bruises mostly disappeared.

Perhaps she had her youth to thank for this rapid recovery. Her grampa saw things differently. “You have a gift,” he used to say. A person couldn’t get as big and strong as her, or heal as fast, simply by training all the time.

She couldn’t say exactly why her grampa made her train so hard, or why she kept it up. There was a vague memory from early on, a time she asked for his advice. Kids had been bullying her because her hair and eyes were different. How could she make them go away? A normal question, for a kid. That on its own should not have been enough to start a regimen of training so intense it verged on torture.

Shindo touched her bulging arms, her chiseled stomach. Her grampa never told her where he came from. Nobody ever told her. Not even her gramma. As much as she liked to talk, she never even mentioned how the two of them had met. The most Shindo could say about her grampa now was that he showed no mercy. He was dangerously strong. He saw nothing wrong with throwing his own grandchild on the ground or stringing her up by the ankles from a tree so he could whack her with a wooden sword. He used to make her stand out in the snow and practice punches until she nearly froze to death. In sparring matches, he broke her bones on three different occasions. Shindo almost never cried. When her grampa asked her “Wanna stop?” she shook her head.

Because she liked it.

It was fun.

In the heat of it, she could let go of everything. Winning was great, but she also found it thrilling to be up against an overwhelming force. Shindo even liked the pain and bitterness that came with it. They stimulated her. Way more fun than manga, pop music, or clothes. A day came when she realized violence was her only interest.

If she hadn’t been cut out for it, she probably could have bailed and led a different life entirely. But she didn’t, because Shindo had a gift. Or at least her grampa thought so. She was a natural. Born to train. To build muscle. And to use it.

Her grampa knew judo, karate, kenpo, and the fighting styles where you used weapons or equipment. He knew every way there was to win a fight. And he taught her everything. His lessons weren’t based on any school. No bowing or formalities. Every move or method was fair game. The objective was to ruin your opponent. This wasn’t martial arts. It was violence.

At fourteen, one of Shindo’s teachers asked her to try out for kendo. An athlete of her caliber, they said, could easily pick up a scholarship to a top school. She told them college didn’t interest her. The teacher urged her to at least compete, assuring her that she could take a national title, but when Shindo told this to her grampa, he gave her a stern warning.

“Start with the martial arts, and you’ll never fight again.”

Martial artists had to separate themselves from violence. As a discipline. This meant violence was a pleasure saved for people like her and her grampa. People who came from nowhere, who belonged to nothing.

By eighteen, Shindo had lost both of her grandparents. With no one left to fight with but the brown bears, she left home and set off on her own, heading to Tokyo in search of a new fight.

As she stepped into the changing room after her bath, a drowsiness consumed her. Must be her period after all, she thought. Back in her room, however, she collapsed face down on the row of cushions where she slept.

That’s when she burped.

(Huh?)

The burp tasted like chemicals.

(Shit, they got me)

She wasn’t on her period. She’d been drugged. This was bad. Don’t fall asleep, she told herself, as her eyes shut and she fell into a deep sleep, losing consciousness.

SHE HAD A dream. White sky and blue ground stretched out to the horizon. She could hear a child crying. At first it sounded like a sad cry, but with time she realized they were yelling in a voice shaken by distress. A giant bird flew across the blue ground.

They were in their yard at home. Grampa had strung her upside down from the big tree. The white landscape and the blue sky had been flipped. If she stayed like this too long, her blood would pool inside her head, and she would die. If she wanted to survive, she had to use her stomach muscles to sit up and break the knot around her feet herself. No matter how she tried, her stomach wasn’t strong enough and she fell back, upside down and swinging. It was hard to breathe. Was she going to die? Would her own grampa let her die like this? She had to do it, had to push through. Otherwise, it was over. Hard to breathe. Breathe.

HER EYES OPENED. Facing the floor. The room was bright. Lights on above her.

There was something in her mouth. Soft and bunched up, like a wad of cloth. Her whole body was heavy, like her face and chest were sticking to the floor. She couldn’t move. Somebody’s hands were holding down her wrists and ankles. Forked spears pressed their cold metal into the bare skin of her torso and her legs. It was cold. Her lower half was cold. She realized that the thing inside her mouth was her own underwear.

“Come on, stick it in and get the shot.”

She could hear muffled voices. Hear them breathing. There were four . . . five . . . six. Six of them. It was amazing they could fit into a room this small. The smell of ripe sweat, not hers, theirs, clawed at her nose.

“Can’t get hard, this ass is gross.”

“Liar. You’re just scared.”

“How about you get her first, then?”

The men swapped shameful jabs, keeping their voices low.

“Hey, guys, maybe that’s enough, huh? Yanagi-aniki isn’t gonna like this.”

“Fuck Yanagi. He almost killed my dog because of her.”

She could hear Nishi behind her, through the mix. This was his doing. Things couldn’t be worse. She was in trouble. He was actually trying to fuck her, in spite of all the risks, as payback for her making him piss himself in front of everyone.

How was she going to fight back? Ordinarily, she would have thrown him off into a corner, but the drugs were strong and held her down. Sweat beaded at her temples. Don’t freak out. There’s no way you’re losing. Not to punks like them. Yoriko Shindo never loses. She made fists, or she tried to. Nothing. Shit. What now?

“What are you doing?” asked a shrill voice from the hall.

Thwack. Someone threw open the fusuma.

“What are you doing!”

They were screaming. It was Shoko.

“Ah, oh, Miss Shoko, we were just—”

The men on top of her, behind her, panicked. Tripping over one another, they scrambled to their feet. She heard a few of them zip up their pants.

“Do you have any idea what you have done?”

Watch out, stay back, she tried to say, but the underwear was jammed between her teeth. Six men. Six of them. Shoko stood no chance. Run away. Fast.

“You’ve got it wrong, I mean, she asked us to.”

“Let’s go see Father. You can tell him the same thing you just told me.”

Run away, don’t push them, princess, get away.

Shindo’s attempts to speak went nowhere. She couldn’t even lift her head.

“Easy now, Miss Shoko, we can explain,” one of the guys said, trying to sweeten up to her. “This is about grownup men and women—”

Shoko’s screaming voice tore through the air.

“Get out!”

Her hand rattled the fusuma. Like someone scaring off a dog.

“Out! All of you. This instant!”

The men left the room, giggling, as if the whole thing were some kind of prank.

“What’s going on? What happened? Come on, get up.”

As Shoko stepped into the room, Shindo finally spat out the underwear. It was the most that she could do.

“Sleeping pills . . . or pain . . . killers.”

Flat on her stomach, Shindo did her best to turn her head toward the princess. She was livid, shaking visibly, wearing only a pink negligee.

“Unbelievable. How could they?”

Shoko sat down on the tatami and used a floor cushion to cover Shindo’s naked hips.

“You saved . . . me. Thank you . . . so much.”

“Cut it out. How can you mock me at a time like this?”

“I’m not mocking you. I’m serious . . . I’m genuinely appreciative . . . I didn’t realize until now, how much . . . I’ll shut up, if you want me to.”

Shindo reached out through the numbness and touched one of Shoko’s trembling fists.

“Must have been scary for you, too.”

She could feel Shoko’s little fist clench even tighter in her hand.

“It wasn’t scary at all. I’m the daughter of the boss. Those guys all work for Father. I’m not remotely scared.”

She laughed to prove how little it affected her. For a minute, they just sat there.

Shindo wondered if the men might come back. The house was still. The smells of Shoko’s shampoo, her detergent, drove the foul odors from the room. They smelled sweet. Womanly smells. It was getting easier to breathe.

“How did you . . . know they were in here?”

Shoko smiled.

“I guess you learn to sense the footsteps, just before you hear them.”

Shindo stared at her, trying to stay awake. Miss Shoko couldn’t have been older than eighteen. How could her smile be so sad?

THE NEXT MORNING, when she went down to pick up Shoko’s breakfast, nobody was around. A change was evident. As if the air was finally circulating. Or maybe it was just that there were fewer people. They were missing four, five, six . . . six of the men, including Nishi. No sign of them.

Sumida, who she had felt like she’d established a rapport with, didn’t say a word, just gave her a tense look and handed her the tray. The other white shirts acted almost like she wasn’t there. Just like the sentinels had on the first day, posted in each corner of the study, desperately avoiding eye contact with Shoko.

Her schedule for the day was oddly sparse, just table etiquette that afternoon. Shoko should have been at horseback riding for the morning, but her lesson had been canceled on account of rain. This meant Shindo was off, too, for the first half of the day, with no idea of how to use the time. It wasn’t the right weather for a drive. Her only options were to do some sit-ups in the storage room or take a nap.

When she arrived with breakfast, she found Shoko dressed and ready for the day, as usual.

“Good morning,” Shindo said, setting the tray down on the table. “Hungry?”

“. . . Are you doing okay?” Shoko asked her.

Shindo pretended not to notice, but Shoko’s eyes were still a little puffy.

“It’s not like they actually put it in.”

“Enough!”

Shoko slammed the table with her fist. Her face was pale and trembling.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing could be worse. For a woman, this is the worst . . . the worst thing imaginable.”

Shindo wasn’t sure how to react. Her shoulder muscles tensed.

“You stopped them before the worst could happen, though.”

“Unacceptable. I refuse to accept this.”

“It’s not like it happened to you.”

“But I . . .” said Shoko. Her lips opened and closed, like a goldfish robbed of oxygen. It was like watching TV with the sound off. She scowled, making fists, as if her body were communicating something that she couldn’t put in words.

“But I—”

Watching her behave like this was confusing for Shindo. She was the one who’d had a shitty night, while Shoko was the one who saved her, though from the look of things right now, you’d think it was the other way around.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Your kindness means a lot. I owe you one. Okay? Trust me, I’ll make it up to you . . . you have my word.”

Shindo nudged the tray of breakfast an inch closer to Shoko. Cold toast, cold fruit, cold tea. She hurried from the room.

The interaction was unsettling. For a woman her size, like a little bird, Shoko was scary.

ON HER WAY down to the annex for her breakfast, Shindo saw Yanagi’s black Ford pull into the compound.

“This doesn’t look good.”

A minute later, she was standing at the kitchen counter, working on a bowl of rice flooded with miso soup and raw eggs, when Yanagi came in grinning like crazy.

“What’s up?”

“Don’t gimme that. Nothing gets past me. I hear they took a stab at you last night. Everybody’s got a type, I guess. Your ass okay?”

When his hand reached out to touch her waist, she whacked it with the rice paddle. Shindo figured he would punch her back, but Yanagi only rubbed his hand, grinning away.

“Look, I was seriously worried. We can’t tolerate that kind of behavior. Not to mention drugs. You okay physically?”

Shindo dug her spoon into the rice. Yanagi was staring.

“Wow, even your eyelashes are red. Guess you don’t dye your hair. What are you a mix of, anyhow? Bloodwise.”

Her chewing stopped. The look she gave him almost knocked him back.

“Whoa, settle down. Don’t look at me like that. We’re in the same boat. Outsiders. Though in my case, it’s not so obvious.”

Yanagi fixed his precious slicked-back hair. From the pocket of his coat, he pulled out a card and handed it to her. Beneath the grandiose Naiki crest was his full name in splashy characters.

“Eishu Yanagi . . . huh.”

“That’s what I go by, but it isn’t my real name. You curious?”

“Not really.”

“I’ll tell you, though. If you’ll be my girl.”

“Uh, excuse me?” The words jumped out of her. She scowled.

“I’m serious. Be my girl, Yoriko. That way the other guys can never lay a finger on you. Sure, you’re no dazzling beauty, by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s fine. I want a sturdy woman who won’t break if she gets kicked around a little. As long as we’ve got chemistry, I can look past a not-so-pretty face. Besides, taming a maniac like you would boost my standing. You can be ‘my horse, my ass, my ox, my anything.’”

“I’m not a horse.”

“Dumbass. I’m quoting Shakespeare. The Taming of the Shrew. Try reading a book sometime. I may not look it, but I’m pretty well-read.”

“Then why are you stuck in the yakuza?”

“You should know. Nobody cares how much I’ve read, I could never make it into a good school or a good company. Blood doesn’t wash away. A chonko^2 like me is shunned no matter what I do. You must know what that’s like. This line of work is different, though. I’ve got status. The work’s stimulating. I’m respected. It’s all I have. The underworld’s the only place the outcasts and the fuckups can survive.”

Shindo looked at Yanagi for what felt like the first time. Black hair, yellow skin, dark brown eyes. What part of him stood out? Other than standing tall enough he had to duck when he stepped through a door, he looked Japanese to her. Like he said, though, not so obvious.

Her gramma had straw-colored hair and steely blue eyes. Two generations later, Shindo was born with reddish hair and light brown eyes. Her father, based on the photographs she’d seen, looked a lot like his own father, Grampa, straight black hair and Eastern facial features, though one look at Shindo and you’d know that she was mixed. She knew next to nothing about her mom. It’s possible that she was from some other country.

“Look, you need a man. Let me be the one. Those big old hips of yours can handle ten of our kids easy. With our gene pool, no one’ll have a clue what mix they are. Together we can fill the playgrounds of Japan. Sounds fun, huh?”

“It sounds like shit. You’re full of it.”

“Horse and horseshit. We’d make quite the pair. But seriously, once Miss Shoko gets married and moves out, you can say goodbye. If you want to make it out of here alive, you’d better stick with me.”

Shindo slurped down the last of her rice and brought her bowl over to the sink, turning her back on Yanagi.

The thought of being stuck here until Shoko left the house was upended by the fact that Shoko, as a married woman, wouldn’t need her anymore.

If she could’ve walked away in one piece, she would have quit and gone back to her old life right away. She was sure of it. But there was something nagging her, lodged deep, like a fishhook in her heart. She was no good at sorting out confusing situations. Whenever somebody was going on and on about how badly a friend or lover had hurt them, she could never feel their pain, much less attempt to probe the depths of her own heart. That sort of thing felt so unnecessary. Which is why she was hard pressed to name the snag in her own heart this very moment.

A white shirt poked his head into the kitchen.

“Yanagi-aniki, Shindo . . . san, uh, the boss would like to see you.”

Shindo hadn’t spoken face to face with Naiki since day one. She looked over at Yanagi.

“Shindo-san, huh? Sounds like you’ve upped your status, too, Yoriko.”

The dread was palpable, like it was climbing up her neck.

NAIKI’S STUDY SMELLED, again, of incense. Today his desk was cluttered with empty bottles of Lipovitan D and cans of coffee.

“Sorry to drag you in here. How’s the job? Things going okay?”

Shindo nodded.

“Sounds like you’re working hard. Shoko seems to have warmed up to you. Well, then . . . I heard about the incident we had last night. How you were compromised. Any injuries?”

“No . . . sir.”

“Okay. That’s good. What can I say, these young guys have a lot of pent-up energy. Goes to show, you’re one hell of a woman. Glamorous.”

Another fresh start, huh, Shindo thought.

Predictable. Her eyes fixed on the weave of the tatami.

“That said, if someone messes with you, and your job is keeping Shoko safe, that means they’ve put my Shoko in a dangerous situation. All the more, since she’s the one who caught them in the act. When I got the news, I was appalled. Allow me to apologize on their behalf. This one’s on me, Yoriko.”

“Uh . . .”

This was unexpected. It was hard to know how to respond.

“You’re an unbetrothed woman yourself. I can’t just have you getting violated and move on like nothing happened. So let’s make sure that everything is clear. Are you willing to keep working here for Shoko, for the Naiki family?”

The fusuma slid open. Sumida stepped in. Carrying a lacquer box.

Even from this far away, she could tell his face was deathly pale and dripping sweat. There was a painful stench of gore, one step shy of rot.

The box was placed on the tatami mat where Shindo sat in seiza.

“Those are for you to enjoy. Boiled or grilled, however you like.”

Holding her breath, Shindo lifted the lid. Four, five, six . . . six penises, great and small, chopped at the root and packed into the box.

“. . . I can’t accept this.”

“If your boss gives you a knob of shit, you say thank you very much.”

You’re not my boss, she almost said, but suddenly, she sensed a presence behind the fusuma.

Shoko.

She felt a shiver down her spine. Could Shoko have requested this? It was unthinkable, though Shoko must have known her father would take drastic measures.

“. . . Thank you very much.”

She closed the box and bowed her head to the floor.

“All right, then, no hard feelings. Oh, Yanagi. As you can see, I have some vacancies to fill. Pick out a fresh crop of young guys and send them over.”

“Understood. I’ll take care of it today.”

Yanagi looked like he might puke any second.

Shindo grabbed the box and left the room. No one was waiting in the hall.

“What’re you gonna do with . . . those?”

Yanagi had caught up with her. Pale in the face, he pointed at the bento box.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with them?”

“Stop yelling. Let’s get over to the annex.”

Yanagi waved her down the hall.

Back in the kitchen, Shindo thought about it for a second before dropping the whole box into the compost bucket.

“Holy shit, that’s harsh. Damn, woman.”

Yanagi looked like it was his penis that had been chopped off and tossed into the compost. More than once, Shindo had witnessed the remarkable capacity men had for showing empathy when it came to this specific body part, though in her eyes, it was no more than an appendage that the female body did without.

“He’s the one who chopped them off. I didn’t ask for this.”

“Pops doesn’t do the work himself. He said we have a guy who loves that kind of thing, remember? That’s who did it. Bet you anything . . .”

“A friend of yours?”

“We did some time together. Utagawa. He operates a spot in Ikebukuro called Toyoshima Enterprises. I’m actually the one who introduced them, him and Pops. They hit it off so well, at this point, they’re like blood brothers.”

Toyoshima Industries in Ikebukuro rang a bell. They got a lot of orders from them at the flower shop. Pricey arrangements, moth orchids and big wreaths of flowers. They sent flowers to every newly opened hair salon or club or bar, not to mention politicians in the Diet. True to yakuza form, they paid in cash, or sometimes didn’t pay at all. But there was nothing they could do. Her boss said they couldn’t turn them down. They sent over too much business.

“Normally the junior staff takes care of gory jobs like this. Utagawa is a special case, though, for a boss. He loves to do the dirty work himself. A real pervert, that guy. Torture freak. Doesn’t matter if he has no grudge. It makes him happy just to screw around with them.”

“So if I make a mistake, he’s the one who’ll chop me up?”

“Don’t jinx yourself. He messes women up so bad their own parents couldn’t recognize them. Like he’s doing plastic surgery, but without using anesthesia. The guy’s a total nutjob.”

Yanagi pretended to barf.

Shindo looked at the lidded compost bucket. She thought of Naiki’s desperate hunt for Shoko’s mom and Masa, who used to be the boss’s favorite. If the private eyes could track them down, would they get tortured by this sadist too?

“I imagine you’ll meet Utagawa pretty soon. Just play it cool.”

“Why should I have to meet this pervert?”

“Because of Miss Shoko. They’re engaged.”

A drop of water dripped into the sink.

__________

2 チョン公 chonko- n. [Japanese] [offensive] slur for Koreans, especially Zainichi Koreans in Japan

Pushing through the crowd, Yoshiko and Masa somehow got away. They arrived home drenched. Once they got changed, they were so tired they collapsed on the tatami by the tea table without a word. They were going to need a second.

The faces of the crying girl and the pale man haunted Yoshiko. She felt a tightness in her face as the smell of blood transfused her, a sensation that she hadn’t felt or thought about for quite some time—for ages.

She had always been conscious at some level of how thin the wall had been between her quiet life with Masa and a living hell. It was just outside the door. The exploding car, the flames, they may as well have been the flames of hell, lapping at her feet. Maybe they wouldn’t die of old age after all. She was never into fortune telling, but maybe they were born under the wrong star, that kind of thing. Yoshiko leaned into Masa, pressing her forehead to his back. He was asleep, taking even, steady breaths. Yoshiko smiled sadly and let herself drift off.

A few hours later, they opened their eyes at almost the exact same time.

“Shhh.”

Masa held a finger to his lips.

More rain.

The development consisted of five single-story buildings, four units in each. Their place was at the far end of Bldg. #3, by the hillside, where it didn’t get much sun. As a tradeoff, it was also far from the street. The nights were quiet. Peaceful. That was the main goal, peace. It was their sole ambition, how they got this far. And yet, from the moment they decided to escape, they ran the risk of never knowing peace again for the remainder of their lives.

They closed the storm shutters on the front windows and sat facing each other in the dark. Unsafe to turn the lights on.

“Sorry,” Masa said.

“What are you apologizing for?”

“For messing up. I didn’t have to go with you.”

“There’s no use fussing about that.”

“Yeah . . . it’s just a shame, after we found such a nice place to live . . .”

Under the sound of rain, they could hear smallish bursts of thunder.

“No one even died. Small town like this, it might not even make the news—”

A flash came through the window by the sink. No thundercrack. And then another flash, and then another, in the sky.

Bom bom bom.

There was someone at the door. They had no bell.

“Hello? Anybody in there? We’re here from the prefectural news station? Looking to speak with Mr. and Mrs. Masaoka?”

They heard the cars, the voices, flashing cameras. Scrambling, they shut the fusuma so that no light escaped the living room, then turned on the TV.

Breaking news on multiple channels.

“Next up,” a young announcer said, “we have some footage shot today by an eyewitness to the crash. A heroic rescue, in the nick of time, just moments before the explosion. And the heroes were none other than a couple from the area! Here’s a clip of them, risking their lives to save lives.”

The footage introduced by the announcer showed Masa running with the girl in his arms as Yoshiko dragged the man to safety. A clean shot of their faces.

“Hello? Anybody home? Masaoka-san? You in there? Can you spare a moment for the local news?”

There were new voices and new footsteps in the yard behind the house.

“What should we do?”

Yoshiko sighed. Wiped out.

Masa squeezed her hand. “What are you thinking?”

Yoshiko held her breath for a full second. Up until now, they would have ditched everything, moved to a place where no one knew them, and started over from scratch. That was, as it had been, their only choice. But could that go on—forever? Did they have to keep on running, living in a state of fear, for the remainder of their lives?

“Hey, Masa.”

Yoshiko squeezed his hand back.

“I’m getting tired of . . . running all the time.”

She tried to smile for him. It was probably too dark to see. Though not too dark for Yoshiko to see that Masa was about to cry.

At this point, it was raining almost every day. The meteorologists were sorry to report they saw a front of heavy rain pushing up the coast of Japan, in what looked to be the rainy season coming early. Shindo’s job, of course, was unaffected by the rain or any kind of weather. Something had changed, though. She had started to feel like all of this was worth it, as long as she was helping Shoko. Bringing her breakfast, driving her to college, then to classes, then back home. And on occasion, skipping class to have a cup of coffee, just the two of them.

Shoko was curious about Shindo’s life and background, so Shindo told her more about the north country where she was born and raised, about her dogs. She told stories that her gramma told her from the old days, told her stories about her grampa, who was strict and strong, and who never smiled once in front of her. About the white sky and the blue ground that she saw when she was hanging upside down.

How did she ever get down? Every year, on Shindo’s birthday, her grampa strung her up like it was some kind of a birthday ritual. She always thought that it was going to be easy, that she was stronger this year, piece of cake, but growing an inch or two meant she had to sit up that much further, so the challenge was essentially the same. That is, until she turned fourteen, the year that she was able to untie herself and get down the second that her grampa stepped away.

Shoko listened with her eyes wide open, shivering at the idea of a young girl being subjected to this kind of treatment. Though as far as Shindo was concerned, Shoko had it way worse: being forced to wear her mom’s old clothes, forced to marry a sadistic pervert, and above all, having that creepy father hanging around.

Shindo tried to get Shoko to talk about herself. She asked her questions about her mother and her father and her future husband, but she wouldn’t open up. Her answers were glib and rehearsed, like she was reading an official script.

And yet, once they got talking at a café, Shoko became increasingly more comfortable with talking like a normal person. Now and then, Shindo even caught her smiling in a way that wasn’t sad at all, but genuinely amused.

Shindo realized Shoko was an ordinary kid. A normal girl who was unlucky enough to be stuck in this abnormal situation. Had she been more of a wild woman, Shoko might have had an easier time. Fangless as she was, though, her polite speech and bearing, her cultivated character and hobbies, were her only means of self-protection, an armor she had never lived without. Shindo came to realize that their interactions broke off pieces of it, abrading her defenses. Like they were peeling off a scab before it healed. Nevertheless, they couldn’t stop joking around. It was too fun. Like they were friends.

What made this odd was that Shindo had spent most of her life in the company of men. She scared off all potential female friends, as if they smelled the air of violence she exuded without moving a muscle. Somehow this fangless woman was less scared of her than anyone.

“So which class is your favorite? I keep meaning to ask.”

“Maybe riding? The horses are so cute. I’m also into kyudo, though. I find aiming the arrow at the target so relaxing. Like there’s nothing else to think about.”

Shindo was a little surprised. This was exactly how she felt inside when she was doing drills or sparring.

“I’m allowed to do either kyudo or naginata. Kyudo is so fun, I wish I could shoot arrows all the time. But my father says it would be unbecoming for a lady. Aside from training with your grampa, have you done any other martial arts?”

“Not even once. I don’t know any of the rules or proper etiquette.”

“You should take a class! We could go together. Archery is more than hitting targets. From the second you put on your gi and step into the dojo, you need to maintain perfect form. And once you and your opponent are lined up, you turn toward one another and bow.”

“See, that’s exactly what I hate about it.”

“Well, I like it. The formality is like a ritual for me. It clears my mind. That’s why etiquette is so important.”

“There’s no time for etiquette or bowing in a real fight. You just punch the guy and boom, he’s down.”

“So brutal.”

“Exactly. That’s why they put me here to help you, princess.”

“I hate being called that.”

Shoko picked up a cup of hot cocoa topped off with a spiral of whipped cream.

“Princess?”

“Hate it.”

“What about Miss Shoko?”

“Hate it too.”

“So, just Shoko?”

“Umm . . . I guess that’s okay.”

That afternoon, they had taken a stroll around Shinjuku, playing hooky from her cooking class. Shindo told Shoko she would take her to the movies, or department stores, anything she wanted, but Shoko picked a café.

“Once I’m married, I’m sure I’ll be allowed to go shopping and take classes, at least sometimes, but I don’t see myself being able to hang out like this so easily.”

The café was brand new. Shoko sank back into the pristine sofa, looking out the windows at the street.

“I’m going to . . . remember this.”

“Remember what?”

“All of this. The scenery. Forever. Even when I’m an old lady.”

Shindo followed Shoko’s line of sight into the street. Guys with long hair carrying guitars in gig bags. College boys sporting Waseda sweatshirts. Young salarymen puking at the curb in broad daylight. Women in flashy clothes gabbing and yelling in the street. The faces passed the windows, disappearing down the way, without noticing Shoko and Shindo sitting there. It was a normal afternoon in Shinjuku, nothing special, your average crowd. It felt wrong to treat this stereotypical scenery with such exaggerated grandeur, like she was reading from a memoir of her youth. Was she okay? Shindo almost asked her, but held back.

“Let’s get going, huh? I’ll grab the car. Wait here.”

They had to make sure they were home by dinner at all costs. Shoko’s evenings were set aside for private dinners with her father. Family time, nobody else allowed. It was hard for Shindo to imagine what Shoko and her father had to talk about, sitting across from one another at the dinner table. She was hesitant to bring it up. Naiki may have been a heartless sleazebag, but Shoko had respect for him. Or made it seem that way.

Did everybody have a weird relationship with their parents? Shindo had basically no memory of hers, not even what they looked like, so the best she could do was to imagine what it must be like.

Preoccupied by useless thoughts, Shindo pulled the car out of the parking lot and parked it on the street in front of the café.

Shoko wasn’t on the sofa in the window.

Shindo ran out of the car.

“Princess!”

Shindo screamed. A few pedestrians turned their heads.

“Shoko!”

Shindo.

She thought she heard her say her name.

Spinning around, she saw Shoko in front of a bank, on the verge of tears. A stranger had her by the wrist. He wore a suit tailored from sheeny fabric and was grinning through the cigarette between his lips. Average height and average build, but like all the people who had ever picked a fight with Shindo, every inch of him exuded violence.

“Shoko!”

He didn’t know what hit him. Shindo charged, winding up, and drove her fist between his eyes. Between her knuckles, she felt the odd sensation of a nose bone being crushed.

Shoko screeched. The man staggered backward, spitting blood and broken teeth. He was down. Doors opened on a silver Benz. Out came a group of well-built guys. Yakuza. Fuck. Not again. Shindo braced herself.

“Stop . . . no!”

Shoko ran up and grabbed her arm.

Shindo had never seen a face so pale.

“QUITE THE MESS you’ve made. You hear me, Yoriko?”

Breathing through the incense, Shindo stared down at the trim of the tatami.

They were in Naiki’s study—Shindo, Yanagi, and Naiki, with Shoko seated quietly beside him, and a white shirt standing guard in every corner.

“Please forgive me!” Yanagi cried.

His voice was guttural. He sat off to the side, in seiza, on his heels, bowing with both hands pressed to the floor.

“I should’ve warned her . . . how can we ever make this up to Utagawa . . .”

The man whose nose and two front teeth Shindo had busted on the sidewalk was none other than Shoko’s future husband, the head of Toyoshima Enterprises and a blood brother to Genzo Naiki—Tsuyoshi Utagawa. By sheer coincidence, he had spotted Shoko in the café, then dragged her outside asking what she was doing there. By now he had been trucked off to their preferred hospital, where they were doing everything they could to put his face together again.

“Blame it on a lack of supervision. This stinky twat, not knowing who he was, ran up and slugged him in the face. Fucking ape. How can we make this right? The man is boiling mad. I can relate. Yanagi, I’m afraid it’s gonna take more than a finger or two to console him.”

Beads of sweat slipped from Yanagi’s temples and tapped on the tatami. Judging from the horror stories he told Shindo about Utagawa, he surely knew what to expect. Seeing him like this made Shindo feel like it was all her fault. Yanagi had done nothing wrong. Nothing—but that wouldn’t stop the pervert boss from raping him to death. Because of her.

“Who might you say’s to blame here, then, Yanagi?”

Naiki spoke slowly. Toying with him, like a cat flipping a mouse over with its forepaw.

“I suppose—I suppose, I . . . I . . .”

Yanagi’s hands shifted on the floor.

“It’s my fault,” shouted Shindo, cutting him off. “He didn’t do a thing. I’m the one who punched the guy.”

Yanagi gave her a look of warning—Whoa! Cool it—but Shindo broke decorum and sat back with her legs crossed.

“Have you heard of a joint liability?” Naiki asked. “Yanagi’s the one who scooped you up. When a cat or dog makes a mess, you take it up with whoever owns them. So you’ll excuse me while the two of us sort this thing out . . . Well, then, what’s it gonna be, Yanagi? Would you rather plead to Utagawa for forgiveness on your own, or shall I join you, after all we’ve been through?”

Yanagi was quiet, sweat dripping from his brow.

She could hear footsteps plodding down the hall, where a white shirt’s pleading voice stopped short.

“Pardon me for barging in here unannounced.”

The fusuma slid open and a man stepped in, stinking of ointment and obnoxious cologne. His face was wrapped in several yards of bandages, just enough space for him to see and breathe. His pupils were dilated from the drugs, legal or otherwise. He came dancing into Naiki’s study, sallying about, like a man riding on air.

“Whoa, Utagawa! My old friend! Feeling okay? Let you out early, huh.”

Roaring like a fool, Naiki took to his feet to offer him a proper greeting. Utagawa’s eyes found Shindo through the opening in the gauze.

“Nah, those nurses were so ugly that I had to make a run for it. Besides, I was concerned about my dear fiancée.”

Since Utagawa was missing his front teeth, his speech was hard to parse, though he was plenty smug. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit and looked around the room.

“Utagawa, we’re truly sorry for what happened. I’m ready to do anything to make it up to you. Goes without saying, but the two of them are yours to use however you see fit. No need to go easy on them, understand? If you need a space to use, or any gear, just say the word.”

The bandaged man turned to Yanagi, as if just realizing that he was there.

“Brother! Look at you. It’s been too long. You doing alright?”

“. . . Quite well, thank you.”

“Don’t bullshit me. Not after we spent years eating the same dog food behind bars. But here we are. Looks like I’m gonna have to do you in.”

Heeh! Heeh! Heeh!

His giggle had the tang of a convulsion.

“Even so, you’re an old friend. You took the edge off being in the slammer. Don’t want you suffering unnecessarily. How’s an injection sound, Yanagi? Just like drifting off to sleep. Nice and easy. But no, no, for a warrior like you, that would be shameful. So maybe we could shove you in a cage, like with a tiger, have you fight him to the death. And if you take the tiger down, you’ll get away scot-free. Now that’s a fight I’d like to watch! I bet you’d hold your own, too. One strong motherfucker over here!”

Heeh! Heeh! Heeh!

He was excited, twitching as he waltzed around the room. Then he remembered he had cigarettes and lit one with aplomb. Taking a long, decadent rip.

“What’s bugging me . . . is what to do about the lady over here. That big old body is giving me some very big ideas. She’s nothing like the girls you see around Japan these days, skinny as a chicken carcass, am I right? You look like a sturdy woman. Won’t break after the first go-around. Do you like dogs? Love them myself, have several at the house. I hope you do, because I’m going to mix their shit and piss together to make a little ink, which I’ll use to tattoo my name onto your face. Those self-important lips and nose are a bit much, though, so we’ll lop those off. And to make sure you don’t fall asleep, we’ll cut away your eyelids while we’re at it, huh? Ah, which reminds me, I have an extra special treatment for the hand you punched me with. Thinking I’ll prune it back, a half-inch at a time, starting from the fingertips. Making sure, of course, that we don’t bleed you dry. Can’t have you dying right away, oh no. Thank goodness for the miracles of modern medicine. You could have several years ahead of you, as we whittle away at you, piece by piece—”

“Stop!” Shoko screamed. Sniffling through tears, she crawled over to Utagawa and pressed her forehead to the floor by his feet.

“Stop! Please stop. I’ll do anything you ask. Just please don’t do those awful things. Please. Please, I’m begging you . . .”

Looking down into her eyes, Utagawa leaned toward Shoko, who was crying so hard that her shoulders churned the air.

“Gosh, you’re sweet. Isn’t my fiancée the most darling thing there is? But Shoko, let me remind you that you’ve already promised to do anything I ask of you. That’s the arrangement. Because we’re getting married. Hate to disappoint you, but there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“No, no, really. I mean anything. I’ll nurse you back to health. I’ll wait on you, hand and foot. I’ll . . .”

“Whew, this sure is tough. Naiki, my brother, any thoughts? What with Shoko pestering like this, I’m not sure how much more I can resist.”

Taking a cue from Utagawa’s cruel delivery, Naiki scratched his chin for dramatic effect.

“Shoko, don’t be fresh. Give it a rest. You’re making a fool of yourself. This man is going to be your husband . . . in fact, Utagawa. Why wait? Take her away tomorrow. She’ll live with you. And take care of your every need. Least we can do. We want to make sure things are good between us, understand. So take her, please, on behalf of the whole Naiki family. She’ll take good care of you. This is the future she’s been dreaming of.”

“I don’t care if she’s my fiancée, it’s not right for a man to bring a lady into his home out of wedlock. We’ve discussed this, Shoko, haven’t we, my dear? How we’ll consummate our union on our wedding night.”

Bending his lips into a sleazy grin, Utagawa took Shoko in his arm and pet her shoulder. Between his legs, a shameless erection tented the fabric of his suit pants.

“Don’t worry . . . I’ll be gentle. It’s a promise. For the whole month leading up to our first night together, I’m not going to cum even once. Saving all my love for you. So I can fill you to the brim . . .”

Pupils the size of fish eggs, Utagawa stared into her face, like he could gobble her up any second. Shoko’s eyes, so drained of blood the word “pale” fails to capture their transparency, trembled with fear and desperation.

Instinctively, Shindo leaned forward, just enough. Knowing it was wrong, she fed the urge to punch this man again. Punch him so viciously it ended everything. If her fate was to be raped to death, she may as well cut loose and end things here and now.

Just then, the fusuma rolled open.

“Uh, Mr. Naiki?”

A young male voice cracked in the shadows.

“Fuck’s sake, I told you guys to stay out!”

Naiki was furious. The head that poked into the room was not, however, a member of the junior staff, but a young guy with glasses, one of the college kids from the private investigation company.

“What is it? Can’t you see we’re busy?”

The kid went stiff, realizing he had stepped into a serious discussion. He crouched down on all fours and crawled over to Naiki, where he whispered something in his ear.

“No way.”

Naiki’s jowls went flush as his gargoyle face turned into a smile.

“Well now, Yanagi!”

“Y—yes, boss?”

“You’re one lucky son of a bitch!”

Beaming so wide that his eyes were almost swallowed by the creases in his face, Naiki laughed and turned to Shoko.

“Cheer up, Shoko. Found your mom.”

Shoko and Yanagi gasped.

“Would you believe that scumbag is still living with her too?”

Shindo caught herself staring back at Shoko.

“Who the fuck they think they are? Hiding down the road, while I blow a fortune searching for them up and down Japan . . . Fucking weasels. Look who’s laughing now.”

Naiki went over to Yanagi, whose head was bowed to the tatami, and cuffed him on the shoulder.

“Hey, Yanagi, far as I recall, you looked up to Masa a great deal. Is it true he taught you how to use that little sword of yours?”

“Y—yes . . . that is, a couple of times, he gave me pointers . . .”

“Can you beat him? I know we used to call him the Musashi of the Dagger, but that was years and years ago. By now he’s an old man. But you, Yanagi, you’re a gangster in your prime. Sure you can beat that sack of shit.”

Yanagi looked up at Naiki. He was trembling.

“Boss, I’m not sure I . . . understand.”

“Go fetch Masa and that fucking minx. Preferably alive. We have a lot of catching up to do. I’ve waited years to reunite with my dear wife. Understand?”

Naiki was smiling. Placated, for now.

Yanagi worked his lips into a grin.

“There’s just . . . one thing I’d like to ask.”

“What’s that?”

“I was hoping to bring Shindo along. With her help, I’m certain we can bring them back alive. Can’t do the job without her, to be honest.”

Shindo was aghast. What was Yanagi thinking?

Naiki looked at Shindo, then Yanagi, back and forth.

When he finally spoke, his voice was softer.

“Don’t even think of running away. Hear me, Yanagi? If you or that twat over there tries anything funny, you and her, and everyone who works for you, and every person you hold dear, is getting skinned alive and tossed in Tokyo Bay. If you can make it back with Masa and the minx in one piece, though, your lives are spared. Understand?”

Since early morning, the TV had been tuned in to the local news broadcast. Maps of the prefecture filled the screen, with info ribbons at the left and at the bottom forming an L of streaming text about the flood zone and evacuation procedures. The announcers struck a grim tone, saying the same thing in a hundred different ways. Words torn apart by sirens and the rain pounding behind them.

Masa peered outside through a gap in the curtains.

“See anything?” Yoshiko asked.

“Yeah . . . looks like they finally took off.”

Situated at a low point in the valley, overshadowed by the hills, their development was in the middle of the flood zone that had been announced that morning. Water spilling from the roadside gutters hid the ground. It was trickling underneath the floor.

The house was neat and orderly. They owned very little, sticking to the bare essentials so that they could leave at any time. Yoshiko and Masa had changed into sweatshirts and sweatpants for ease of motion and put their sneakers on indoors. At their feet were a backpack and two duffels. Everything. And all of it could be tossed at a moment’s notice. They kept their valuables in pouches at their waists. Across one shoulder, Masa carried a cylindrical tube, the kind used for blueprints.

“Masa.”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking we could move to someplace warmer. This town was nice, but don’t you think the winters were too cold?”

Yoshiko’s question made Masa smile.

“One thing at a time.”

Sirens wailed. A voice blared from a megaphone, calling all remaining residents to seek shelter at the middle school immediately.

For two days now, reporters from the local news and key stations in Tokyo had been monitoring the house. Neither of them set foot outdoors, or turned on any lights. Using the toilet and the bathtub in the dark, they had survived on white rice and a few jars of tsukemono as they waited for an opportunity. The hard rain was a saving grace.

The TV set they shrouded in a blanket played the same disaster clip ad nauseam, interspersed with sound bites from the father and the girl whose lives they saved, acts of valor earning them distinctions like “Hometown Heroes” and “Super Couple.” Some stations had the decency to pixelate their faces, but the first broadcast revealed them unmistakably.

“Could they really . . . still be after us?” asked Yoshiko. “We’re old now. Lots of changes. They might not even recognize us from the clip. Besides, he could’ve given up . . .”

She flicked the flashlight on. It worked.

“I know how those men operate,” said Masa. “They won’t stop until we’re dead, or they die trying. They’ll follow us into the depths of hell. All in the name of saving face.”

Something in the way that Masa clenched his teeth reminded Yoshiko of who they were when they were young. It was a complicated feeling.

“Well, I’m glad we saved them,” Yoshiko said.

Masa nodded.

“Yeah, seriously. So am I.”

The rain showed no sign of letting up. Headlights panned the yard. They were coming up the road. Vans from the city had been driving by all day, announcing the evacuation. This was different. No friendly sirens. No loudspeakers making announcements.

“Masa,” she said. “What do we do?”

Masa squeezed her hand.

“Not quit.”

Not don’t, but not.

Yoshiko nodded, squeezed his hand back, and let it go.

The headlights stopped in front of the development, lighting up the cars abandoned by their neighbors and the prefab storage units in their yards. Then all the lights went out. Darkness returned. Masa switched off the TV. Yoshiko gripped the flashlight.

Seconds and minutes filled the room, piling up like bars of lead.

The window glass behind them broke. Rain and wind blew through the shards.

“Masa!”

Yoshiko spun around and switched the flashlight on. The cool beam lit the leg of a tall man dressed in black, toeing for a foothold.

In his hand, the intruder held a shiny knife.

“Run! Go!”

Masa threw open the door to the back deck and ran. For a second, the man turned to her.

Yoshiko pointed the flashlight—an LED Maglite, made in the USA, three D cell batteries packed into twelve inches of aircraft aluminum—in the man’s face and clicked the button off and on. The strobing white beam made him fumble long enough for Yoshiko to swing the three-pound flashlight at his hand.

He let out a muffled scream. Yoshiko felt his bones crush through the handle of the Maglite. The intruder staggered backwards, knife in hand. Another guy dressed in black broke through the rickety front door. He was shorter than the first guy, but he had a thicker build. Hard to tell if he was carrying a weapon.

Yoshiko switched off the light and backed up to the wall, watching both men.

Crouched down, she held the light backhanded by her face, like a spear.

The shorter one moved first. Yoshiko pointed the light at him and turned it on. People can’t help but guard themselves when faced with a bright light. When he recoiled, she whacked him with the metal handle.

“You bitch!” the tall man shouted, coming at her with the knife in his right hand. His left, the one she had just broken, wiggled at his side. The numb pain must have thrown his balance off, because his knife thrusts missed entirely. Yoshiko dodged him like a bullfighter, then grabbed his wrist and guided the knife into the wood paneling behind her, taking the chance to swing the flashlight at the man’s right elbow, which she popped out of its socket. He cried in pain, both hands now out of service. Yoshiko swung the flashlight like a bat and hit him in the cheekbone. Broken teeth shook from his mouth. What next? Yoshiko shot up and gave the man a front kick to the solar plexus. He toppled back, collapsing on the tea table, then rolled onto the tatami. This all happened in the space of a breath.

The other one yelled something in a garbled voice and charged.

“Gurahh!”

His right leg came at her in a heavy middle kick. Too bad he overshot it. She blocked the kick using the Maglite like a sword. The man’s head came into range.

Whoosh.

Her right knuckles dug into his temple. Bam. The short man tottered back, as if concussed. Yoshiko doubled down.

Whoosh.

Tripled down.

Whoosh.

Four hits. Then five. So strong and fast. You’d never guess her age.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

A body blessed with sensational power.

After all these years, the gift was there.

The short man’s eyes rolled backwards as he fell back on the floor.

Yoshiko heard car doors opening and slamming shut. Headlights bathed the house, lighting up the water covering the yard.

Gripping the light, she went outside.

The door of a gigantic black Toyota Alphard van rolled open. A young man holding an umbrella stepped out, followed by an old man wizened like a dead branch.

One look at him and Yoshiko—or Yoriko, Yoriko Shindo—laughed out loud.

“That who I think it is?”

She raised her voice over the rain and waved hello. Like she had spotted an old friend.

“It’s been, what, forty years?” she shouted. “Don’t tell me you still hate me.”

At the sound of Shindo’s voice, Utagawa’s face creased with satisfaction. Every wrinkly muscle smiled. His hands, like tiny branches, pressed a black device the size of a small water bottle to his throat.

“I’M HERE. TO KILL. YOU.”

Coming out of the electrolarynx, the mechanized voice was atonal.

Shindo laughed.

“Look at us. I’m an old lady, you’re falling apart. Must have been tough after the crackdowns. How’s a boss like you supposed to make a living? It’s not the seventies anymore. We’re antiques. This world, it has no use for you and me. Sorry I broke your nose, okay? Let’s drop this thing already.”

“I’VE. COME. TO. KILL. YOU.”

“Boy, you’re pushy. No wonder your fiancée hated you.”

Utagawa raised his eyebrows; his face was flush with anger.

“WHERE IS SHE. MY WOMAN. MINE.”

“You mean Shoko? She was never yours, and never will be.”

“YOU STOLE. MY PRIVATE PROPERTY. YOU REALIZE. HOW MUCH THAT PUSSY COST ME. THEN BEFORE. I FUCK HER ONCE. YOU SNATCH HER UP. THAT GIRL WAS MINE. HER AND HER LOUSY. DAD’S ENTIRE OPERATION. GIVE ME BACK. MY LIFE. MY LIFE. WHERE IS THAT. SCUMMY BITCH. FUCKING RUNAWAY. WHERE THE FUCK. IS SHE.”

“Too bad you only get reflective when somebody screws you over. Poor guy.”

Red in the face, Utagawa gave a signal. Four . . . five men got out of the minivan. Armed with steel pipes, tackle strung from tow chains, metal bats.

“WHERE IS SHE. IS SHE. ALIVE. TELL ME. WHERE. SHE IS.”

The men closed in on Shindo through the pooling water.

“. . . Wanna know what happened to your long-lost lover? Here’s an update.”

Shindo pointed the Maglite at the sweatpants of the guy holding the steel pipe.

A second later, he was wailing, a black arrow stuck into his thigh.

Inside the storage room, Shindo took off her clothes.

Yanagi said to pack her things, but she had hardly anything to pack. Her only personal effects were a wristwatch, her wallet, and her steel-toed safety shoes.

Their orders were to drive to Takasaki, up in Gunma, where Masa the Dagger putatively ran a soba restaurant, and to capture him and Shoko’s mother, Yukie Naiki, preferably alive. As long as they accomplished this by first light, Yanagi would be spared, while Shindo would get let off for the price of her good arm. Naiki surely knew the risks of sending them on such a mission. They could easily escape, but pride made it impossible. He knew that he could count on Masa, even now, for a good old-fashioned duel, the same as he knew Yanagi was too proud to walk away. He was the only member of the Naiki family with the skill to take on Masa. Guns wouldn’t bring them back alive. Only a blade, his blade, could get the job done. Another reason he was “lucky.”

Shindo knelt in a corner, wearing just her socks and underwear, and opened one of the cardboard boxes of old newspapers. She folded a newspaper the long way, into a kind of obi, and secured it to her stomach using packing tape. She did the same with both her shins, wrapping the tape tight around the newsprint several times. Then she put on her blue suit and stashed five ballpoint pens in each of her jacket pockets. Maybe she should ask Yanagi if he had a tanto she could borrow. If she only had a better weapon . . .

Suddenly, she realized she was taking deep, heavy breaths. Unable to hide her excitement.

This was fun. Preparing for a journey that could end with everybody dead.

She made two fists. Barehanded. That’s how she wanted it. If Masa was as strong as everybody said, she wanted to make contact. She wanted to feel her fists break through his flesh and bones. To feel the terror of a dagger cutting through her skin.

Ah, she was no good . . .

Whenever someone said this about her, which was often, she refused to believe it. But at this moment, Shindo felt it keenly, for the first time in her life. She was no good. There was no room for her in a peaceful world that other, normal humans held together like a bunch of children playing house. Even now, after everything that happened, she chased after the violence. Her muscles twitched with energy more primitive than any ape-man swinging a club in a cave. She had been born too late. Way too late. Shindo could barely look a normal person in the eye. The normal people went about their normal lives, maintaining the peace, a peace she threatened to destroy. People like her were born to die fighting. She had no choice.

Shindo assumed that even if they brought Masa and Yukie back alive, Naiki’s promise would be scrapped, and they would get tossed in with Utagawa anyway. This would be her final battle. She could either fight back now and die fighting, or get raped to death tomorrow. One form of violence clashing with another.

She took a deep breath. Trying to slow her racing heart.

She was not afraid of dying.

She wanted to die fighting. Before he had his way with her.

And yet.

Shindo pressed a hand to her chest. Once she was dead, what would happen to Shoko? Was there any reason to believe she would live happily ever after, as that sicko’s wife? What if Shoko did something to anger him? Or if he and Naiki had a falling out? What would happen then? What would happen if . . .

She heard a sound.

Mostly hampered by the rain, though clear enough to make it out.

It was footsteps. Coming slowly this way, down the hall. Too heavy to hide, the sound of a man walking.

Shindo listened carefully. The footsteps stopped in front of Shoko’s room.

Then Shindo heard the fusuma slide open.

“I guess you learn to sense the footsteps, just before you hear them.”

She could hear Shoko’s voice inside her head. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Before she had a chance to think, her legs were moving. Shindo flew out of the room. Her understanding that the worst was happening and the realization she had overlooked it all along spun through her heart like a tornado.

She threw open the fusuma so hard it whacked the jamb.

“You piece of . . .”

She found Shoko’s slender body on a futon in the middle of the room. Long hair undone, spilling like motor oil over the tatami. Eyes wide open, staring off into the void. Expressionless, as if she didn’t notice Shindo. Her chest had been stripped bare. It was moving up and down, however slightly. She was breathing. Shindo stormed into the room.

Shoko’s arms and legs were helter-skelter, like a broken doll. Naiki was on top of her, smothering her. He lifted the sheer negligee and pulled her underwear down with a finger as unclean as a rotten penis.

“Whoa, Yoriko. Nobody called you in here. If you want company, I’ll stop by afterwards.”

Naiki looked annoyed, as if a fly had buzzed into the room. Not even distantly ashamed.

“What are you doing . . . You’re her father . . .”

Her voice trembled. She had never felt so emotionally reactive, not fighting someone coming at her with a knife, not being clubbed down by a group of thugs.

She had never felt this way inside.

“She’s my daughter. I have the right to fuck her as I please. Gotta get my fill before I send her over to that pervert’s house, or I’ll regret it. It’s your fault we had to speed—aw, fuck, just go, alright, get outta here. You’ve got your orders. Go catch that subeta^3 alive. That way she can watch Shoko’s—”

Naiki’s voice stopped making sound.

His throat, or respiratory tract, had been lanced by a ballpoint pen—black.

Modderfugger!

He looked confused, unable to make sense of what had happened. Shindo hit him with a jump kick that knocked him on his back. He made a gurgling sound like a tea kettle boiling over.

Gobobebego, gaboh

Blood seethed through his plaquey teeth. Bile darkened his complexion. Then in one furious tug, Naiki pulled the pen out of his neck.

Blah, gorh, gizmah

Moving at a speed that was surprising for his size, Naiki shot up and lunged for her. Shindo dodged, but Naiki caught her left bicep. His fingers closed around her upper arm with gruesome strength, tightening like a vise.

“Let go, you scumbag!”

With her free hand, Shindo grabbed another ballpoint pen and drove it into Naiki’s left arm. His reaction was so fierce the pens spilled from her pockets.

Ugh

The giant recoiled, but he still had her left arm. Her muscles tore; she heard the bone creak. Then it broke.

Fuck

The weight difference was too much to shake him off. Wincing at the pain, Shindo kicked him in the balls. He wheezed, loosening his grip, only to clamp his bloody teeth around the base of her left thumb.

She screamed at the infernal pain. It was eating her alive. She kicked him in the balls again, punched at his spongy gut. No use. Naiki would not let up.

She felt the dizzying sensation of teeth grinding through her skin.

“Get off!”

When she punched him in the face, his teeth bit down and made it through her tendon. Shindo beat his stomach. No reaction.

But then she passed a threshold and lost contact with the pain.

It was just a thumb. She had another one. Take him down, or it was over.

Shindo drove her right thumb into Naiki’s left eyeball. The texture was much denser than she would have thought. The globe moved underneath her fingernail.

Gaah

Crying out, Naiki loosened his jaw. Blood dripped from his left eye like tears. He tumbled toward her. Shindo did a backstep, staying clear. Stab his throat? Batter his skull? Another kick? Her legs were doing much better than her arms. Shindo was winding up to kick him when a black branch sprouted from his ribcage.

Naiki shuddered to a halt and collapsed on the tatami.

The black branch in his stomach was an arrow.

Turning around, Shindo saw Shoko, half naked with her bow in hand.

“Princess . . .”

She was like a statue of a legend, long hair draped across her naked chest, longbow sturdy in her grip, eyes fixed on Naiki, on her father, in a quiet gaze, studying her target.

“Shoko!”

Shindo’s voice brought Shoko back into the moment. Her hand released the bow.

“Oh . . . Father . . .”

She looked back and forth from Shindo to Naiki, who was smeared with blood and panting on the floor. Her face was dazed, like someone in a dream, unable to believe her eyes.

No time for thinking. Shindo grabbed her hand.

“Come on!”

They ran. On their way down the hall, Sumida caught up with them. He must have heard what happened.

“Shindo! Princess, what are you—”

Sorry, Sumida, thought Shindo, as she leapt up and dropped her elbow on his temple. His eyes rolled back as he blacked out and crumbled to the floor. The rain must have masked their voices. None of the other white shirts had shown up yet.

No, that wasn’t it. Shindo looked at Shoko. Of course. Naiki had prohibited the junior staff from entering the main house so he could violate his daughter.

“Where are we going?” Shoko whispered.

“Just follow me.”

If they cut through the courtyard and went into the garage complex from the rear, they could reach the car with minimal exposure. Shindo looked at Shoko’s bare feet, thought again, and tossed her over her shoulder.

“Bear with me.”

Walking on the gravel in her socks, careful not to make a sound, she got them to the back door of the garage and went inside. She knew the Civic best, but for the extra horsepower, they might take one of the foreign models or a sports car. Once they were cruising, they could decide where to go. Where to escape. Where to?

“Yoriko? What are you doing out here?”

Yanagi stood beside his black Ford Thunderbird, the hood speckled with rain.

He looked genuinely surprised.

“Don’t tell me you . . .”

He looked at Shoko, slung over her shoulder, then at Shindo’s bloody hands.

“Yanagi . . .”

Shindo lowered Shoko to her feet and cleared her throat. For a moment, her head scrambled for excuses. Nothing came.

Out of options, she braced herself and took position.

Looks like she’d have to fight her way out.

“Wait, seriously?” Yanagi asked.

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Up against Yanagi, she would have had her hands full, even if both arms were fine. This might just be the end. She was ready to die fighting.

Yanagi’s face changed.

“!”4

He threw his jacket on the floor and took position.

“Looks like I was wrong about you all along,” Yanagi said.

If they came to grips, it was over. Yanagi could outreach her, and that meant he could outpunch her. Unless she stopped him with a single blow, she was dead.

What she had on him was weight. With a bit more space, she could have used a flying kick, but the garage space was too cramped for a running start.

Yanagi made the first move. She would’ve guessed he would use judo, but no, he fired off a kick. His patent-leather shoe just missed her cheek.

“Didn’t know you knew karate,” Shindo said.

“Taekwondo. Watch and learn.”

Nimble on his feet and grinning, Yanagi unleashed yet another kick. She blocked it with her right arm, tried to grab his leg, but he was too fast, moving off the rebound into a low kick to the shins.

“What’s wrong, holding back?”

Yanagi scowled and grabbed her by the lapels of her jacket. Her feet lifted off the ground. Just before he threw her down, however, she hopped up and locked her legs around his waist. As he stumbled to regain his balance, Shindo head-butted him between the eyes.

Gah!

Yanagi nearly lost his footing and let go. Shindo jumped down and gave him a stern kick to the solar plexus. Yanagi flew back and landed on the front hood of the Ford, but stood right up again and pulled the tanto, scabbard and all, from his waistband.

“You’ll be the first woman I use this on.”

“And? Is that supposed to scare me?”

She pulled the one remaining ballpoint from her left pocket and switched it over to her right hand, poised just below her jaw.

Yanagi swung his short sword.

Whoosh.

Shindo crouched and blocked her face with her left arm, at this point good for nothing else. Even if it got chopped off, she could fight back with her right. Summoning all of her energy, she thrust the pen in front of her.

She felt the ballpoint wobble in her hand as the plastic entered something soft. Meanwhile, she used her bad arm to fend off a heavy blow. It hurt.

The pain was blunt. Not the pain of being cut down, or the pain of being stabbed.

Shindo jumped back. The pen had driven through Yanagi’s cheek into his mouth.

And the tanto, in Yanagi’s grip, was in its wooden scabbard.

“You . . . ugh, you mean business.”

Yanagi opened wide, showing her how far the pen had gone into his oral cavity.

“But why—”

“Shut up . . . get outta here. You thankless . . . gah, it’s hard to talk.”

With the pen bobbing from his sunken cheek, Yanagi tossed the undrawn short sword at her chest.

“If they catch up with you, use this to cut your throat. I’m not eager to see Utagawa make a plaything outta you.”

“Does this mean . . .”

If word got out that Yanagi let them both escape, his life was on the line. He knew as well as anybody.

“I’m done. Sick of this shit. The boss, this city, this whole game. I’m outta here. Bringing my family, too. First stop, Shimonoseki. Heard there’s a new ferry making trips across the sea. I’m starting over, in the home country.”

Yanagi pulled the pen out. It went pop like a cork.

“Care to join me? We’ll play it off like you’re my sister and my wife.”

Shindo thought about this for a fraction of a second, before shaking her head.

“I’m not going anywhere as anybody’s anything.”

“Idiot. No chance you’ll make it as two women on the run. They’ll snatch you up and chop you into bits. It’d be one thing if they took you down, but the princess, too?” he said, pointing at Shoko. “That’s something I can’t abide.”

Shoko fixed her eyes on Yanagi. Rain dripping from her negligee.

“Do I remind you of my mother?”

The question caught Yanagi off-guard.

“Do I remind you of my mother, Yanagi?” she asked again.

Shoko swayed like an aquatic plant, rooted to the bottom. She gave Yanagi a long look, then turned to Shindo.

Yanagi smiled, a little sheepish.

“. . . No, you don’t. Not even a little bit.”

Hearing this made Shoko giggle like a kid.

THE CIVIC FLOORED it from the compound. Shoko rolled down her window all the way. Her drying hair lashed out in every direction.

“I guess this means we’re going to hell!” she said.

“Going? Fuck no!” Shindo hit the gas and yelled over the wind. “This is it!”

Shoko reached for Shindo’s waist and pulled Eishu Yanagi’s tanto from the scabbard.

“Hell is pretty.”

Without another word, she gathered all her hair into a fist and chopped it off.

Long strands of black hair tumbled from the window. The golden pendant and the chain, cut free with all her hair, fell to the street and broke apart.

__________

3 スベタ subeta n. [from Portuguese espada] 1. insulting term for a woman 2. playing card worth zero points

4 gaesaekki n. [Korean] 1. young dog 2. [slang] insult mostly used toward men, similar to “bastard”

They drove an hour nonstop from the compound before turning down a side street, where they parked the Civic in the shadow of a building. It was raining hard. Shindo glanced at Shoko, who was on the verge of nodding off, then got out of the car.

Rummaging through the trunk, she found a black rubberized raincoat and a kit with tools for changing out a tire. Nothing else remotely useful.

“Let’s go. Here, put this on.”

The passenger door opened. Shindo helped Shoko cover up her negligee with the raincoat. A men’s size large, the black slicker almost reached the ground. It made Shoko look like a black teru teru bozu.

“This smells awful.”

“Too bad. We’re going.”

“What about the car?”

“We’re leaving it.”

She waved for Shoko to come on. They proceeded down the street. The keys were in the car. Within the hour, some local punks would probably steal it for a joyride, sending the white shirts on a wild goose chase. Nice. That bought some time. Though not enough.

“Ow.”

Shindo turned to see what happened. Shoko was standing on one foot. The other one, hovering above the street, was pink with blood.

“Hop on.”

Shindo crouched and reached behind her.

“Hop on . . . what?”

“Piggyback,” Shindo said, losing her patience. “Hurry up.”

The girl weighed next to nothing.

Bits of gravel cut into Shindo’s heels.

“Why did you bother bringing me?” asked Shoko.

“Ask me later. We need to find some shoes and clothes and keep moving.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. Nowhere special. Where do you want to go?”

Her hands closed tighter around Shoko’s wrists.

“Hmm . . . I’m not sure.”

The rain pelted the raincoat with a sound like bouncing marbles.

Shindo walked on. Favoring the quiet roads. She stole a pair of sandals off a low balcony, then took a men’s T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants hanging outside an apartment. She let Shoko down and gave her everything in exchange for the slicker. Walking in the rain, they stood out plenty, but it was better than a negligee and a ragged suit.

“How about Nara, or maybe Kyoto?” Shindo said, a little further down the road. “I’ve always wanted to see both of them.”

“What do you think this is, a field trip?”

“How should I know? They never let me go on one of those. They said it was too dangerous to go that far without protection. I’ve never even been outside of Tokyo.”

Shindo wiped the raindrops from her face. There was a subway entrance up ahead. She had a little money in her wallet. If they ran out, she would have to shake somebody down. This was survival. She’d do anything to keep this girl alive.

“Alright then, let’s go. We’ll take a train to Kyoto first, eat us some yatsuhashi.”

“What flavor?”

“Cinnamon.”

“Yuck. I want matcha.”

“Fine. From there we can ride up to Nara, see the giant buddha. Then after that . . . uh, what else do you want to do?”

“I want new clothes.”

“Okay. Like what?”

“Blue jeans. And sneakers.”

The crowd slipped down into the subway like storm-water rushing down the drain. Shindo held Shoko’s hand.

Their first day on the run.

AT SIX O’CLOCK, an ear-splitting bell rang through the workshop. Shindo and the other workers left their stations and went outside, saying things like “There we go” or “Finally!” to no one in particular. Once her mask and hat were off, she felt a cooling breeze against her sweaty face. Her hands vibrated from the work, sewing aprons all day long in that cramped, muggy room.

“Hey, Mako, you coming to Anba afterwards? Coldest beer in town.”

A woman with a perm who everyone called Yakko clapped Shindo on the back.

“Sorry, can’t today . . .”

“What’s that smirk. You got a man to see?”

“No way, I’ve got plans with my brother.”

“You two aren’t even related. Next time, you better be there.”

“Sure thing, have fun.”

Shindo walked with Yakko for a minute. Keeping a smile on her face. Head down.

For the past two years, Mako Senba was how Shindo introduced herself. Shoko, meanwhile, went by “Makoto.” Almost the same first names, which was confusing, but it gave them both a good excuse; if someone said their name and they failed to react, they could pretend they thought they heard the other one and brush it off.

Once she had changed out of her work clothes, she wiped the dusty fibers from her glasses, fixed her ponytail of dyed black hair, put on some lipstick, and left work.

It had been just over a year since she started at the sewing shop in Higashiosaka. She spent most of the day wearing a mask. Nobody had a problem with it if she didn’t talk at the machines.

This was the perfect line of work for someone on the run. Anywhere you went, you could find factories that needed people right away. They made it easy to get started, no background check required. Fitting in was another thing entirely. Shindo knew that if she tried and failed to sound like somebody from Kansai, they would treat her like an outsider, so she did them a favor, giving them her best rendition of an overblown Hokkaido accent. Playing the part of a bumbling country girl, far from home, made her an easy target, but that made it all the easier to hide in plain sight.

She walked into the café where they planned to meet. Shoko was there already. Hair buzzed short. Wearing chunky glasses, a thick-striped polo shirt. Blue jeans. Unless you paid attention to her Adam’s apple, or lack thereof, you’d have no reason to think that she wasn’t just a young guy, albeit on the shorter side.

“Hey, sis.”

Shoko waved her over. Eating out was rare for them. Today was an exception. Shoko’s birthday.

“Sorry I’m late.”

“No worries. Just sat down.”

Either on account of being younger, or because she had a better ear for things, Shoko could pick up on the speech patterns and vocal rhythms anywhere they went. After three months, even locals couldn’t tell the difference. All those cultural lessons had paid off. Given the chance, she could get good at anything, and surprisingly, she didn’t complain when they had to sleep in tiny, dirty rooms or even sleep outside.

Ever since the night she chopped her hair off, she refused to dress in anything remotely femme. Shindo had worried this would make them stand out more, not less, but the hotel cafeteria where Shoko worked as a dishwasher didn’t seem to care.

One time, Shindo asked her point-blank if she wanted to become a man.

Shoko thought about it for a second.

“I’m not sure,” she said, in a voice that had grown deeper, “but you’re not ever gonna catch me in another skirt or negligee. That’s not my style.”

Shoko picked up a steaming mug of coffee—black, no cream or sugar—and took a sip.

At that point, they’d been on the run for about five years.

CAFÉS WEREN’T WHAT they used to be. One by one, the traditional spots known for their dark, moody interiors were renovated into sterile “café bars” that catered to young clientele with pool tables and cocktails. This one had mirrors everywhere you looked. A place where no sane person could relax. Taking a seat in her plain work clothes, Shindo was clearly not the target audience.

After moving around southwest Honshu for a while, they had posted up in Hiroshima, outside the Naiki family’s sphere of influence, to procure some necessary documents. Shindo was using the name Kaori Haga and worked part-time at an office in the day, doing janitorial at night. Shoko went by Kaoru and worked here in the evenings, making cocktails. It was her English skills that landed her the job, since there were lots of foreign tourists in this part of Japan.

Dressed in a white shirt with a black vest and a bowtie, she made quite the handsome bartender. She stood a couple of inches taller, thanks to a pair of elevator shoes that only Shindo knew about. Ever since they started living together, Shoko had been eating bigger portions, though whether she was taking after Shindo or something else was going on was unclear. She even grew a little, putting on some weight. Funny how things change. Now that Shindo wasn’t working up a sweat by picking fights, she had to scale back on her meals to keep the flab at bay.

She waited at the bar while Shoko closed it down. Then they walked home, side by side, through the city lights. Shoko had layered up with a turtleneck and jacket.

The night life here was getting livelier all the time. With over five hundred thousand people, it was a busy place. Enough people so that a couple like the two of them, a tall woman in work clothes and a handsome younger guy, didn’t stand out.

Shoko, who had started smoking overnight, lit up a cigarette.

“So, everything go okay?” she asked.

“A little too okay. Emptied our savings.”

Shindo held up a paper bag. It contained two short packets of paper. Their job was to memorize each line, word for word, and shred the evidence.

With this info in hand, it would be easier to move around. They could sign leases, search for jobs, even relax a little. Or they could go their separate ways. Easier said than done. Shindo was in it for the long haul, had felt this way for years, just like she knew that Shoko would stay by her side forever.

Up until now, they had posed as sisters, or as siblings, or occasionally as a young husband and wife. People tend to get anxious with a pair of strangers if they don’t know what to call them. That’s part of why they had repeatedly changed names, averting suspicion by adapting to the circumstances.

In private, they had never labeled their relationship. How could they? This wasn’t an employer and employee kind of thing. There was obviously no blood connection, and no other family ties. Lovers didn’t cover it. Neither did friends, though. No, this was something else. Just as their real names were concealed under a slew of aliases, Shindo and Shoko’s private life was known to no one but themselves. They couldn’t name it if they tried.

“They said they couldn’t do two women. One of us has to be a guy.”

“That’s fine,” said Shoko. “I told you that. What are the names?”

“The woman’s named Yoshiko Matsumoto. The guy’s Sho Masaoka.”

“Masa?”

“Yeah . . . look, though, once we’ve started using these, we can’t change them for a while, okay? I should probably be Masaoka, to make things easier.”

“I’ll be Masa.”

“But . . .”

“No. I want to.”

Her face was stern, the face of a completely different person from the princess who had stared down at those fingernails as pink as seashells, resting in her lap.

At this point, they’d spent ten years on the run.

HEARING THE WATER boil, she stood up and shuffled over to the tiny kitchen, just a sink and stove. A tea kettle and a big pot of hot water blew fresh steam into the air.

“Boiling.”

Thanks, she heard her say behind her. In a place this small, just one room off the kitchen, they could say everything they had to say in whispers.

She set the metal basin on a mat of old newspapers they’d pinched from other houses in the neighborhood on garbage day. When she poured the contents of the pot into the basin, the whole room filled with vapor. She brought cold water in another pot to cool the basin down.

“I’ll be right back, okay?”

Shindo grabbed her wallet and stepped outside in sandals.

The sun was going down behind the low apartment buildings. With sunset came the smell of curries, stews, and grilling fish. She had been “Yoshiko” for ages, while Shoko, living as “Masa,” had taken a job in a wood shop, making furniture. She had a knack for finding people who would hire based on technical ability, without asking personal questions. Working her magic, she had helped Shindo find a job at a cosmetics manufacturer where she inspected beauty products. This was a major operation, way too many people at the plant to get caught up in anybody’s business or gossip about who had quit or gone off on vacation. In short, plenty of drifters like the two of them.

When it came to someone unfamiliar, Shindo tended to let Shoko do the talking, whether it be filling out a lease or ordering them food. Her senses were superior.

“I guess you learn to sense the footsteps, just before you hear them.”

The sound of her old voice came back to her. Shoko’s appearance had changed yet again, transforming from the handsome bartender into an older guy, still youthful but feeling the effects of aging. In a town like this, the new persona fit right in—a taciturn, no-nonsense workingman, who made up for his lack of height with his good looks and knew his way around a shop. People naturally assumed that Shindo was a lady friend that he’d been living with for years but never married. Some of Masa’s coworkers even called them “the odd couple.”

If two people their age who can pass for guy and girl are seen together, people assume they’re married. Lucky for them, the more conventional a person is, the easier they are to trick. Shoko and Shindo only had to pose as your average couple when they met somebody new. If they came across as more or less conventional, nobody cared who they really were.

Glancing through the windows of a bookstore or watching TV in a lunch spot, Shindo had been noticing an overuse of phrases like “true self” and “natural you” and “self-discovery.” Listen to this shit, she thought. Shindo and Shoko might be living under fake identities, but they weren’t fake. They were their true selves, through and through, the way they were. What were these lost people trying to find?

Never once had Shindo pushed Shoko to dress or act a certain way. Nor had Shoko ever pushed her to be anybody else. The quarrels and the meltdowns she expected would erupt as a natural result of living on the run turned out to be a rarity. Cheesy as it sounds, they shared a fate, except they saw their roles in that shared fate as separate and distinct. They were not just going about their lives. They were running. Even now. Any arguments they did have were essentially a sign of their connection. If Shoko was tracked down and killed, Shindo would devote the rest of her life to revenge. Shoko would do the same, without a doubt. And yet, they had no name for their emotional attachment. It wasn’t love—not calling it love saved them from resentment, and without resentment, they were free. Free today, free tomorrow, free next year, until the day they died.

Shindo went down to the shopping arcade to pick up groceries for dinner. Shopkeepers hawking vegetables and pickles and fried fish shouted “Okusan! Okusan!” taking for granted she was someone’s wife. Their voices made her think about Yanagi, for the first time in a while. His bright idea to bring them with him to the home country, pretending she and Shoko were his wife and daughter. Rich. Yanagi knew as well as anyone how well convention worked as a disguise. Did he believe in his conventions? Or did he think he was above them?

Done with her shopping, Shindo arrived home to the smells of cooking rice and miso soup, mixed with the last traces of soap smell in the air. She flicked the vent on, knowing it did little good, and looked at Shoko, whose short hair was still damp.

“Hey.”

“Hey, I made the rice and miso soup.”

“Thanks. I bought a couple of fried aji, so we’re set for tonight.”

“Okay, should I cut up some cabbage?”

It was the sort of conversation you might hear in any house. Two ordinary people, standing in a tiny kitchen. Over twenty years together, on the run.

MAY WINDS COMBED through the yard. Hanging the laundry out to dry, Shindo noticed that the dog across the way was looking at her through the fence. The units of the housing development were small, but each one had a yard. Lots of people there had pets.

She clicked her tongue. The brown dog, some kind of a mix, wagged its tail at her and yapped. It was a good dog. If they saw each other on a walk, it usually wagged its tail.

“Maybe we should get one, too,” said Masa.

She turned around and saw him clipping his toenails on the deck.

“Listen to you,” Shindo said.

“What? It’s time we relaxed and settled down.”

“Sho. No way.”

“Come on, you love dogs. Every time we see one, you go running over to pet it.”

Shindo’s face went red.

“Doesn’t matter if I like them. What would we do in an emergency?”

“We’d figure it out. Besides, it’s gonna be, what . . . forty years?”

Forty years. Gone in a flash. Shindo sighed. She took a break from hanging out the laundry to look up at the sky.

It looked like rain.

Forty years.

“FORTY YEARS, UTAGAWA.”

Shindo said it again. In the commotion raised after the guy with the steel pipe went down, Shindo pointed the flashlight at the ass of the guy with the metal bat, then at the foot of the guy with the chain, then at the guy beside him, and at the driver stuck holding the umbrella.

Each spotlight was a bullseye for an arrow.

“WHAT. WHO. ELSE IS. WITH YOU.”

In a matter of seconds, everyone but Utagawa had either collapsed into the water or was clawing through the dark, getting nowhere.

“Hey, Sho, it’s okay to come out now.”

A short, round figure passed into the headlights. Drawing a slender carbon bow, it aimed an arrow straight at Utagawa.

“WHO IS THIS. STOP HIM. STOP.”

“Still can’t tell? What a terrible fiancé . . . Wouldn’t you agree, Sho?”

If Shindo’s gift was power, the archer had the gift of sheer will and endurance. After decades of unrelenting practice, the bow was an extension of his arm. Sho Masaoka—Shoko Naiki—was a natural.

“People change a lot in forty years. I’ve changed, you’ve changed. So has Shoko.”

“DON’T. FUCK WITH ME. NO WAY. THAT’S SHOKO.”

Utagawa’s jaundiced eyes were wide with disbelief. Mouth opening and closing.

“Yes way. It’s me.”

Shoko smirked and aimed the arrow point at Utagawa’s face.

“I wish I could’ve killed you sooner.”

“Don’t blame the girl you used to be. You were eighteen.”

“WAIT. WAIT. GOOD PEOPLE. LIKE YOU TWO. DON’T KILL.”

“Of course I’m not going to kill you. I was thinking I’d just take one of those legs, to make sure you stop chasing us.”

Shindo chimed in.

“Look, Utagawa, I’m tired of running away. We’ve been at this forty years. Give it a rest, huh? Who knows how many years we have left. Any of us.”

Through the rain, Shindo and Utagawa stared each other down. It was apparent that his body, wasted by disease, was not far from the end. He could dress like a smug dandy all he wanted. Utagawa was an old man. Either way, decrepit as he was, he was alive, standing on a mound of tortured corpses he had built himself, living on violence.

Forty years.

“Let’s end it here, okay?” said Shindo. “I know how fixated the yakuza can be on settling a score, but we don’t care. It doesn’t matter.”

The thirst for violence that had once filled Shindo’s body like a lifeforce had retreated to a deep, dark place over these forty years, like the warm blood of a hibernating bear. If word got out that a big woman who could fight was causing trouble, they could expect a mob of townsfolk at the door. So for decades, she’d relaxed her fists and stopped fighting.

Oddly enough, she didn’t miss it. She could have sworn that it was gone. But now, all of a sudden, Shindo felt it coursing through her veins. Her muscles twitched. With joy. Her first good dose of violent energy in forty years. Looking into the eyes of the man who had shown up to kill her, it was like her heart was singing I’m so glad I lived this long. Whether they escaped alive or came to blows and ended things today no longer mattered. The power would sustain her to her dying day—however soon or far away that was.

This was it. They were home. She and Shoko made it. This was home.

“It’s over, Utagawa,” Shindo said. “If you make a stink, you’ll spend the rest of your life in excruciating pain.”

Shoko lowered the arrow from his face to his thighs.

“ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT.”

Utagawa hung his head in dismay.

“Come on,” said Shoko. “Let’s take the van.”

Shindo nodded and reached into the pocket of the fallen driver for the keys.

“WAIT. DON’T LEAVE. ME HERE.”

“Someone from the city will drive by,” said Shindo. “They’ll help you out.”

Shindo waved at Shoko, who was still pointing the bow at Utagawa.

“Hop in,” Shindo said. “We haven’t taken a nice drive in years.”

“Sure you can drive a car this big?”

“Long as my carpal tunnel doesn’t flare up.” Shindo stepped into the van. “Besides—”

“NOT. SO FAST.”

There was a loud pop, like an umbrella bursting open.

“Huh?—”

Shoko looked up at Shindo, eyes wide open.

Blood spread in a dark stain from the leg of Shoko’s sweatpants.

The bow and arrow fell out of her hands. She tumbled to her knees, crashing down into the ankle-deep water.

“Shoko!”

Shindo spun around. There was a pistol in Utagawa’s quivering hand. His mouth opened and closed, mouthing words without a voice.

Huge smile on his face.

“You—!”

Shindo exploded.

Charging toward him, she heard a huge crack overhead, and then another, like the sky was splitting open. Instinctively, she held her breath—but felt no pain in her entire body.

Piling up, the cracking sounds grew louder and more violent.

Everyone looked up: Utagawa, Shindo, Shoko, the men collapsed in the water. They all looked at the cracking sounds, coming from up the hill.

It was a landslide. Snapping trees in half.

A flume of muddy water coming down the hill.

The sky went on forever, the way it does in fall.

No cars were on the road along the shore. Waves crashed into a concrete seawall, shooting mist into the air. The few buildings were deserted. Hard wheels crunched over bits of rock and sand along the sidewalk, up the shore.

“Gonna be a hot one.”

Pushing a big metal shopping cart marked with the logo of the supermarket, Yoriko Shindo looked up at the sky. One step after the other. The salty air blew through her hair in bursts, like sheets of cloud. In front of a ruined pachinko parlor, she took her time crossing the street.

“I haven’t seen the ocean in a while,” said Shoko. She was seated in the cart, sweatpants smeared with mud, left leg splinted using strips of wood and electrical tape.

The gentle sound of waves enclosed the street. They had it to themselves.

“Where are we . . . going?” Shoko asked.

“Heading north,” said Yoriko.

“I thought we were going someplace warm.”

Seabirds made big circles in the blue. Like they weighed nothing, riding on air.

“Sho, remember that old story my gramma used to tell me, about Baba Yaga?”

“Of course I do—of course.”

“I’ve been thinking it’s about time we turned into Baba Yagas. The real thing.”

“That’s why we’re going north?”

“Yeah. We’ll cross the ocean to the place where Gramma was born. Hike through the woods until we find a house on chicken legs. Then cook some mushrooms in a giant pot, pick us some strawberries, and cast spells on the locals and their livestock. Oh, yeah, and we can get a dog. And a cat, too. More the merrier. Anyone without a place to go can live with us.”

Shoko let out a gravelly laugh.

“Sounds fun. I’m excited.”

“So am I. We’re gonna become Baba Yagas. Finally.”

Yoriko pushed the cart ahead. The road was long, stretching off into the distance. Across the water, all that could be seen was the horizon.

“I’ve always wondered why I had to be born with this body, all this energy to burn. I can try to be a normal person, let the years go by, but it never goes away. Burning inside of me. Pushing me to use it. Honestly, I’m a monster. But maybe that explains it. If I was born to be a Baba Yaga, everything makes sense. Trying to live life as a normal person—never worked for me. But this clears everything up. I’ve always been a Baba Yaga. That’s why we made it this far. So that you and me could be the Baba Yagas that we are.”

Shoko was quiet.

“Hey, Sho . . . Shoko . . .”

Yoriko said her name, in a voice muted by the waves.

“Shoko. Hey, princess, did you fall asleep . . . Shoko.”

The bright sun dried the bloody footprints that Yoriko left behind her. The waves crashed and pulled away. Again and again, the waves crashed and pulled away.

Content

Otani Akira The Night of Baba Yaga