YF and Erika rode the lift in silence to the thirty sixth floor. When they arrived, Erika stood to the side while YF hand scanned them into their apartment. She then made her way to the kitchen counter, leaning against it with her back while keeping her hands to her sides.
“Why don’t you start?” he asked.
“It was a long time ago.”
“So were you a part of it or not?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Stop dodging the question!” YF shouted.
“Don’t yell.” Erika crossed her arms. “If it’s just a yes or no question, then yes.”
“And I suppose those lines you told me were burn marks are the result of some shoddy removal work.”
“Mark removal is still a burn.”
“So you didn’t lie, just avoided telling the truth.”
“I was in for a few years in grade school, and the beginning of university,” said Erika. She pushed her hair behind her ear. “I left in the middle of university and never looked back.”
“And the man?”
“I told you I had a few ex-boyfriends.”
“Was he the ‘serious’ one?”
Erika bit her lip. “Yes.”
YF raised his hands over his head. “Great. Great. So I’m married to some sectarian godmother. Maybe I should ask how many of the bombings you were a part of.”
“I didn’t do anything like that,” Erika whispered. “I…”
“Spare me the details.” YF held up his hand. “The real issue here isn’t that you were or weren’t a part of it. The problem is you lied.”
Erika should have known exactly what YF felt about sectarians. A bombing in Itsugo destroyed his father’s appliance shop when he was young. Though YF’s parents made it out unscathed, the business was irrecoverable. His father ran away when he felt the loansharks —also sectarians— were no longer going to just “remind” him of his payments. YF still did not know where his father was. His mother then worked herself to the bone to pay back the debt; to the sharks’ credit, at least they did not hurt or harass her. That little detail did not change YF’s primary goal for joining the ranks of law enforcement, which was to put an end to the sects. It was unfathomable that Erika would not say something sooner.
“Why am I finding out about this now?” YF demanded.
“What should I have said then? Three years ago I was among the people you despise with all your being? What would that have done?”
“You should have trusted me to make the right decision.”
“You’re going to judge me for my past? Don’t you hate people who do that?”
“No, I’m judging you for lying to me,” said YF. But even as he said that, he felt an element of truth in Erika’s assessment.
“Is that all it is?” she asked.
“Did you cut clean from it? Completely? What about after the 222 Incident?”
“I…” Erika looked away. “I contributed a bit after that.”
“Erika!”
“What! The incident proves the Kirga doesn’t care about the unders— ”
“Does being a civil engineer help you figure out where to place the bombs?”
“Yasu...not everything we did involves bombs...countless lives were saved through our—”
“And the one that should be most important to you was destroyed through your work. Or am I just not that important?”
“I didn’t bomb Kamakura Avenue.”
“But your kind did.”
“What do you want me to do then?”
YF could see a few tears rolling down Erika’s cheeks, but she seemed more angry than sad. “I need some fresh air,” he said.
“Go on then!” Erika yelled out. “Go with Eiji and go to your strip clubs or wherever it is you get shitface drunk at together.”
“First.” YF held up one finger. “I do not go to places like that.” Second. “He brought up a second finger. “If anyone is escaping here, it’s you, not me.”
“Tell me how I’m escaping when you won’t tell me what you want. You just want to be angry. You don’t want to deal with the problem.”
“How would I deal with the problem?”
The two of them stared at each other for some time, neither of them wanting to vocalize what the answer to the question would be.
“I’m going for a run. I’ll be back,” said YF.
YF went into their room and slammed the door, unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt and then pulling it off without dealing with the rest. He pulled his belt off and then threw down his pants, reaching into the pile of unfolded clothes for his exercise shorts and shirt, which he hastily put on. He pushed his earbuds into his ears and turned on the soundtrack from an action movie he had seen earlier that month. He tried not to think about the fact that he saw that one with Erika, as he had with any movie in recent memory. When he came out of the room, Erika already had large, over-ear headphones on and was watching TV. YF opened the door to leave their apartment. When he did, he could hear the unmistakable voice of his wife through the music: “come back safely.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
YF did not reply, instead, closing the door and starting off down the hall in a jog. Most residential buildings had multiple floor-spanning tracks, fully insulated from the outside and filled with scented air meant to evoke a feeling of walking or running outside. The smell was much more like a laundry detergent labeled “spring mist” or “clear lake” or some such nonsense; it was not horrible, but definitely did not mask the fact that it was artificial. One of the things YF admittedly liked about visiting Ikusayama was the actual fresh air during his runs. YF sighed. Even in the indoor track, something found a way to remind him of Erika.
He continued running up the ramps until he reached the fortieth floor. He then continued to ascend: fifty, sixty, seventy. By the seventieth his breathing was already heavy, but he decided to push on until he reached the seventy fifth floor, where he would need an ID of the top five floor residents to proceed. But that did not matter. He turned onto a balcony with a decently clear view of Itsugo right before the barrier. A view of Itsugo was not exactly something awe inspiring. YF had gone up to the same balcony a few times when they first moved. After the first year he had grown too lazy to go, even by elevator. On that day, however, the view of Itsugo was more picturesque than usual; the people on the streets below walked with an unexpected spring to their step. A couple held hands and laughed on their way to the ramen shop. YF felt like he could hear their laughter from where he stood.
“Sakai-san?”
YF turned to see Reina descending the ramp toward the seventy fifth floor wearing a large grey T-Shirt with the character “Rise” in the bottom right corner. With every stride, the shirt pulled against her lower body at the same time her flip flops hit the ground.
“Hayashi-san,” he acknowledged with a nod before turning back to the window. He heard a blip from the barrier scanner followed by the sound of her shoes as she shuffled closer toward him. She stopped a few shaku from where he stood, and when he turned to see her, she looked like a long grey rectangle again.
“Isn’t it late Sakai-san? What are you doing all the way up here?”
“I came here a lot when we first moved, haven’t been in a while.”
“When did you move?”
“Five years ago.”
“Oh, so when you two got married.”
YF nodded in acknowledgement.
Reina paused, her eyes moving from one place to the other as if distracted. “You look winded. Do you want something to drink?”
YF’s heart jumped a little. “Uh...no ma’am. I’m fine. I’m just going to rest a bit and go back down. Going down is easier than up, you know.”
Reina smirked. “Uh huh.”
From where he stood he could smell whatever shampoo she used in her hair — and it was a nice smell, something that brought to mind a clear, still body of water. Unlike the scent of the indoor track, this one actually smelled natural; he felt like he could reach out and touch the lake. YF pulled his elbows closer together on the railing.
“I’m not inviting you into my house Sakai-san,” said Reina. “I was just going to go get you some water.”
“That’s too much trouble,” said YF quickly. “Like you said Hayashi-san, it’s late. Tomorrow’s a work day, so you and I will both have to rest soon.”
“You’re making a fuss about nothing. Anyway, I’ll fetch something and come back.”
Reina shuffled back, raising her wrist to the barrier to get through and then going up the ramp toward her apartment. YF looked away again. Time passed quicker than he realized, and before he knew it, he could feel something cold pressed against his skin. YF turned to see Reina holding the glass of water with one hand while she held onto a glass of wine from the very bottom in the other.
“Come on,” said Reina as she pulled the glass back slightly and pushed it against his arm again.
“Thank you,” said YF, taking the water. He swirled the contents gently while continuing to look out the window.
Reina sipped her wine the way YF imagined people of her background would, crossing one arm across her chest and then using it to rest against the same rail YF was using. “Heard you’ve done some detective work recently,” she said.
“It’s not really any different than what it always was. I’m sure Erika told you about it.”
Reina nodded. “But there was a dead person this time.”
YF gulped down half the water. “Itsugo isn’t exactly the safest place in the area.”
“But murder.”
“Unfortunately, people still do that.”
“And without any sort of auxiliary footage.”
“Erika told you a lot, didn’t she.” YF turned to look at her, noticing she was much closer than he realized. The smell of her hair floated through the air to him, mixing with the faint aroma of the wine. YF turned back, finishing his water in a second gulp.
“Mmhmm,” Reina replied.
“Are there any secrets between you two?” he asked.
“A girl never tells.” Reina took another sip of wine. “But I think we’re too old to pretend there are no secrets between people. Only teenagers and outdated songs talk about loving people as they are. Some things only get burned when exposed to the light.” Reina clinked her right fang against the glass.
“Like us,” said YF, motioning with his chin toward the tinted window that shielded them from the sun.
“Yes, like us,” she replied.
“So about the case. You sound like you have an idea of what happened.”
“Case?”
“The murder.”
Reina looked pensive as she lowered the glass, swirled the wine three times, and then took another sip. “Sakai-san.”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever heard of kai?”
“You mean like that ancient magic stuff? Hasn’t everyone read stories about that?”
“No but I mean actually researched into how it worked.”
“I’ve read The Five Forms and The Eight Trigrams like every other Reo boy,” said YF. “But imitating the diagrams didn’t do anything, as expected.”
“All the records about kai — people seemed really serious about it.”
“It’s worth being serious about if it was real.”
“So you think all that ancient writing is bullshit?” asked Reina.
“I think the verdict is still out on what kai actually was. Most scholars think it was just a pseudo-religion and meant to teach good values or some such.”
The concept of kai was always ironically associated with both the nobility and the sectarians, people who could not be any further apart in Reo society. It was not surprising that a pure blood like Reina might have looked more into it, but YF was sure it was not too different from the fortune tellers that lived in every poor neighborhood across the country.
“But theoretically a kainushi could move faster than a camera could catch him,” said Reina. “Maybe the perpetrator is no ordinary criminal.”
“In that show you’re watching with Erika. Were there any kai related deaths?”
Reina nodded. “It’s not one hundred percent certain. But there were a few that strongly suggested kainushi were involved. By the Industrial Age though, there were already too few of them.”
“I…” YF raised his shoulders. “I mean I guess, sure. The national police will be swarming the place at some point because Reoa knows the ward police won’t find jack.” YF shook two ice cubes into his mouth and crunched on them. “Just more paperwork for me, but I’m sure those guys will sort it out.”
“I have something that will help,” said Reina.
She grabbed his left hand, which YF just let go of the glass with, and held the hand palm up. She then let go and reached up to her waist to pull out an oracle card, revealing the fact that she was not wearing any pants. YF looked away quickly, retracting his hand.
“Sorry, I had to put it somewhere while holding the drinks. Anyway, Sakai-san, pay attention, put out your hand again” Reina ordered.
YF nodded, doing as he was told.
Reina slapped the card into his open hand. “Tell me what card this is.”
YF examined the red and brown swirls along with the image of a burly man with his back facing toward the viewer. “Shukuyu, the fire god.”
“Look closer.”
YF brought his face a bit closer to the card. “It...now I can’t really tell. It does still look like Shukuyu. But somehow not.”
Reina downed the rest of her wine. She tapped on the card. “Keep it. I think you’ll need it.”
She smiled a tipsy smile and turned around, walking back past the barrier and up the ramp. “Good night Sakai-san.”
YF looked down at the card, then back to Reina. “Thanks.”