13. SCAR

-

IN MINUTES, REN digs out an old screen from beneath the stack of bedrolls in the closet, moves aside the pot of medicine, and sets it before us on a little table. As blue bleeds into pink outside, he runs a search on Nozomi Abe's death.

"Shibuya suicide of Nozomi Abe..." Ren reads under his breath, scrolling down. The words fly past my vision. "You're right."

I lean close eagerly. "About Abe?"

"Nozomi Abe was working as a brawlery collector for Minami Brawlery before abruptly boarding a train to Tokyo. Sources say she was..." He stops reading.

I try to get a read on his face. "What?"

A new heaviness sinks into the air. "...She was close to Eiji Tanaka," he answers. "He was the bartender, she took the bets. It says she was presumably heartbroken over his death and left to start a new life in Tokyo. The reports say she shot herself in an alley in Shibuya District with an untraceable handgun. Alcohol in her blood. No food or water in her system. She had cuts."

I pause. "Cuts?"

"On her arms, some on her abdomen. They reported them as self-inflicted."

A beat of silence passes between us. I have flashes of myself wading through the chaos of otou-san's crazy brawleries, being jostled back and forth like a twig whipped by wind. Lights melting like neon paint before my eyes. Eye-watering smoke. Sweet alcohol. Somewhere in that blur, I remember the distinct figure of a muscled woman, helping me haul my father out into cold night air when he went too far. She had a plate of notes in one hand and a fire in her eyes.

"I knew her," my mouth says.

Ren stops. The screen flickers dark, and in the haze of dusk I feel his eyes meet mine, startled. "You did?"

I recall pelting rain, bitterness in my mouth, and a voice thick and smooth as oil. Hey, I get it. Even the best men can't help a shitty day. But that's the way of survival, right, Hina? The memory of her voice, low with that sandpaper-scratch, echoes with the weight of an unwavering drum. Nozomi had nerves of steel.

"Daizo killed her." My voice trembles. "I'm sure. Daizo killed her, framed it as suicide, and walked away. Which means," I go on, pulling in a breath, "that Daizo's blood got mixed up in the fight, and the antibiotic compound was his because he survived Red Lung. He was the only survivor. And he's gotta know it. He's gotta know that what everyone's looking for is him, in his body." I think of Daizo's dry sneer. That impatient roll of his eyes. The flip of his knife. "He's confident because he has leverage."

"Himself," finishes Ren.

I nod, my eyes wandering to his. He's close enough for me to see his expression, clear as day. My fear mirrored there.

"He left me an address." Ren tugs out wrinkled paper from his pocket and flattens it for me to see. "Twenty miles north of Kita District. He had me chasing my own tail into a room in the Castle."

I draw close to the paper, squinting to see. Some scrawls are blurred, but the address heading is written in thick, black ink.

WELCOME HOME BROTHER

"Brother," I echo, puzzled. "That's all he left you?"

Ren hesitates. "And a spray of hallucinogen. Enough to leave a nice sting."

His tone doesn't fool me. The beat of hesitation is all it takes for me to remember him trembling in the driver's seat, knuckles white, teeth gritted. Give me a second. "Ren—"

"Don't." He clenches and unclenches his hands as if to remind himself he has control over his body. "It's in the past, anyway." His gaze meets mine, and in them I see guilt, showing itself like film over the storm beneath. "I'm sorry for what happened after."

"Come on, Ren," I say with a short laugh, turning away, "I don't blame you."

Ren frowns as if this doesn't make sense. "You should."

Shame rises up my neck as I remember each time I wavered, allowing myself to wonder, just for a moment, how easier it would have been to turn him over, get my contacts, and return to my old life scot-free. All those temptations, passing just long enough so that I would return to reality, see the faith in Bohai's eyes, and be reminded, again, how wrong he was.

"I'm a bounty hunter, Ren," I say flatly. "You don't know what I'll do."

"Hina."

"You don't know how many times I thought to myself how easy this would be if I turned you in." I don't know why I'm pushing him away. What did I think would come of this confession? Forgiveness? Freedom? My throat closes up, and all of the sudden I feel the weight of all my failures pushing to the surface. I see my mother, wilting away in that bedroll, hacking blood into a metal pail, see the blur of colored walls in the doctor's office as I tried to tune out the desperation in my father's voice. She doesn't need AI. But I did, didn't it? "I lost Bohai, Ren. And I thought without—"

Ren draws closer. "You didn't—"

"—the contacts I was doing better, but I'm not. I can't stop thinking about them. I can't—" I suck in air, eyes stinging, suddenly aware of how empty this room is. "I can't stop thinking about Lin. How it was with her. How I was when she was here. Otou-san gave her to me, and I couldn't even—I can't even—" The world fades to a blur. It becomes difficult to breathe. As if the wound in my side has punctured upward into my lungs. "I can't—"

"Hina."

My side throbs. I can't breathe. I turn away, not sure where to look, not wanting him to see.

"Hina," he says, "look at me."

I can't. The walls blur into sunlit canvas, fading in and out of focus. I pull one breath in and release another. Still, the wound in my side screams protest, as if somehow my body has wound itself up so tight it no longer knows how to relax.

I close my eyes and imagine the lilt of Lin's voice, smooth as honeyed music. The weight of otou-san's hand resting on my shoulder. But even in the dark, I feel my heart break, because they are not here at all. They never will be. And I can do nothing but stare at the space they left behind.

"Before you came, we were about to give up."

My eyes blink open.

Ren lowers his gaze. "Before you came, I had just seen the bounty go up, and Bohai was determined to show me he wasn't sick. He didn't want me to leave, and I was torn between leaving Bohai alone and staying by his side, only to watch his condition get worse. I always suspected Daizo was alive. But I didn't even want to look anymore. I was scared to death, Hina, I..." A grim smile pulls at his lips, the emotion dragging air from his lungs. "Hijacking the medicine shipment...that was our last shot. Our final try. And then you came, determined and stubborn as hell, and after Bohai recognized you, he...something changed. He had hope. I had hope."

My lids flatten warily. "You didn't trust me then."

"No, I did. I always did. That's what terrifies me. How easy it was to trust you. To want to trust you." Ren's gaze searches my face so intently, holding me in such a trance I forget the tears streaking my face. "Bohai told me, before I left for the medicine shipment, that all he wanted was a sign. A sign that we were doing the right thing. That things would work out. And after seeing the way you fought for us, the way you held him up at the village, I realized that the sign he wanted...was you."

I blink, unable to fathom what I'm hearing. A sign.

Somewhere, deep beneath layers of doubt, I find myself believing in it. Somehow, Lin's voice returns not scathingly but teasingly, as if she's known this all along. Not so useless after all, aren't you, Hina?

Ren seems to read the emotions passing through my face. His gaze softens, an edge of amusement on his face as he watches the calm settle back in my lungs. My chest pulls strangely at the way he's studying me. I don't think I've ever felt so safe.

"Ren," I begin.

His attention is unwaveringly warm. "Hm?"

Whatever words I was going to say freeze in my throat. I forget how to speak, forget how to move at all—afraid that I'll break this trance and lose this part of him that has become so warm and trusting. The way all good things seem to fade, floating out of reach.

He lowers his eyes. A soft wind blows through an open tatami door, ruffling the paper bearing Daizo's address.

"I don't want you to get hurt," he says, quietly, "but I also know you're going to follow me if I head to this place alone."

The paper flutters. "What do you think he wants with Bohai?"

"I don't know." He turns away. "I don't want to imagine."

"If Bohai is bait, you know this address is the trap, right?"

"Hina."

"What if—" I hesitate, meeting his eyes. "What if we could get the address to the police somehow, anonymously, and they could investigate for—"

Ren's gaze hardens. "I'm done helping the police."

"Ren—"

"Okazaki has no idea what he's doing," he says. This time, when he looks at me, there's conviction in his eyes. A window to everything haunting him beneath. "This is between Daizo and I. Something that has to be dealt with by ourselves. There's something he wants to tell me, Hina—he wants to express something, and he's—he's trying to find out how. I can feel it. I know him."

He's right. Exchanging information with Kotomi and Okazaki will only blow up newsfeeds. It will send Daizo into hiding and hatred, the way he has been this whole time, murdering in the shadows.

"Okay," I answer. "But I'm coming with you."

-

AFTER A MEAL of rice and herbal soup, we take Ren's borrowed car to Daizo's address.

He downloads the map as we buckle in. I watch as layers of topography overlap, finding color, glowing with the pulse of the navigation system's voice. Allowing it to sink in, the fact that this voice no longer belongs to me.

"Downloading. Forty percent."

Ren catches me watching. "I doubt there's signal in the hills." But his voice tells me we both know that's not what's on my mind.

The highway is a swath of rain-soaked gray. Pockets of white sunlight flare to life through breaks in the clouds, forming puddles of light against the wet floor. My gaze follows a path of mist winding upward, like steam rising from a hot stove.

I close my eyes and imagine I'm home, waiting for okaa-san's soup to reach a full boil.

Time slides past. I have no idea when I fall asleep and how long I'm out for, but the next time I blink open my eyes, we've pulled to a stop in a shroud of mossy green.

"Hina," whispers Ren.

My eyes find his. I straighten, then regret it immediately as pain twists at my side. "Ouch," I mumble.

"You okay?"

"Perfect." I yawn and narrow my eyes. Out the windows, shafts of light illuminate rusted cement grays against the greenery like boats floating in the sea. "Where are we?"

"Beats me." He hesitates. "Do you want to—"

"I'm not staying in the car."

"—drink some water?" As if realizing what I've said, his gaze flattens. I wrinkle my nose at him. "Of course you're not staying in the car," he shoots back. "As if I'd leave you after what happened..."

I have a flash of the breathless worry in his voice this morning, the way he rose from his bedroll without taking his eyes off mine. The memory warms my cheeks, but Ren doesn't seem to notice, passing me a water bottle before stepping out of the car.

The air bites my skin the moment I step out to join him. A feather-light breeze weaves like a sigh through yellowing treetops. The smell of rainwater and peeling wood masks an edge of rotting cement.

I feel the faint heat of sunlight fighting its way toward my skin. It's the only comfort against the hollow air.

A shiver racks my spine. "You think he lives here?"

"He might have." A weight wraps around my shoulders. Ren appears in front of me with a thick bomber jacket and lifts one sleeve for me. "Arm."

I slip it on gratefully, then tuck my chin into my neck as he tugs up my jacket zipper. He presses a thick sliver of metal into my hand.

"Encrypted phone. Works without signal. There's a tracker in it." His voice grows quiet. "In case something happens."

Fear blooms in my chest. "You didn't put a tracker on Bohai?"

Ren shakes his head. "It's turned off. Just..." He studies the path ahead of us—a staircase of cement curling upward into emerald green. "Just stay close to me."

We start the trek up the hill. The stone steps are cushioned by a thick layer of moss, so that my feet sink comfortably with each step. Rainwater splashes onto sleeves as we brush past leaves.

It's not much of a hike—the steps are so thin and so worn down it feels more like a sloped path wrought in pillowed greenery. Eventually, the treetops peel back to reveal a screen of bamboo.

The aroma of jasmine tea and red bean tickles my nose. There's smoke wafting from behind the screen.

"Village house," murmurs Ren.

I narrow my eyes. "Where?"

"Behind the screen. There's a path here." He nudges my arm and turns left.

Confusion grips my chest. "He's home. Shouldn't we...I don't know, not walk to the front door?"

"This isn't Daizo's home." Ren pauses. "I think this is his family's home."

"Family?" I echo. "But he was an orphan."

He shakes his head. Daizo was abandoned."

My mind spins. "Then Bunta—"

"They wound up at Tenshi for different reasons," explains Ren. "Daizo was kicked out of home because his parents couldn't afford to raise second child with a disability. A lot of things happened that night, apparently—but Bunta said he couldn't bear to watch his brother go. So he left, too."

I don't understand what's happening. "But why would Daizo want us here?"

Ren tilts his head, the way he does when a challenge presents himself. "We'll see."

The path is coated by a thin layer of white sand. Past the bamboo screen is a little hut wrought rain-soaked wood and straw nestled against a cradle of mossy logs.

I'm not sure if I'm imagining it, but the closer we get, the more the aroma fades into something hauntingly familiar.

My vision blurs. Okaa-san's soup. Boiling on the stove.

"Wha—" I turn to meet Ren's eyes, expecting to see my confusion mirrored on his face.

But he's not there.

"Ren."

I blink, hard. But his figure is absent. All I see is green.

My blood chills. "Ren?"

No answer. A rush of panic rises in me—an ugly, familiar panic that sucks the air from my lungs and melts my bone to mush. I can't see. I'm floating. I'm lost.

My mouth moves. I realize that Lin's name is on the tip of my tongue. My eyes scour the path behind me, but all I can see is empty white sand.

The greenery wavers. Suddenly, all I can hear is my own panicked breathing.

"Lin," I murmur. Why am I calling for her? I haven't called for her in so long. "Lin?"

Gravel crunches. I twist around.

The wood-wrought hut is gone. Trees flatten into gray cement.

I'm staring at my apartment.

My head hurts. This is a dream, my mind breathes, but even as I think it, the thought slips out of reach. Pedestrian traffic fills my ears—coughing men hawking wares, the stress creases on the skin of cargo workers lumbering by, toddlers with dirt-crusted fingernails giggling on the backs of older schoolchildren.

Familiar buildings stretch as far as I can see. The pharmacy with its cracked green window. Newspaper office. The street winds upward beneath a tangle of cable wires, the old convenience store flickering dutifully at its faithful corner with its red-rimmed vending machine. I smell rice vinegar, preserved fish, the hint of brine winding its way from the waterfront...and soup.

It hits me with dizzying clarity that this isn't just my street. It's my street ten years ago.

I forget how to breathe. Like a camera coming into focus, my vision sharpens, the way my contacts do when they're adjusting to a new light, mapping out new contours.

Lin's voice slides into my ear. "You have arrived at your destination."

A lump fills my throat. There. I see my frost-edged window on the fourth floor of my apartment building. Smoke curling.

The signs of someone to go to home to.

My eyes burn with tears. "Lin?"

"Yes, Hina?"

"How..." I start up the steps into my building. The hall inside smells of candlelight and soup. Winter melons and miso. The elevator number flickers the way it always has. "How is this happening?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, Hina," says Lin. "You have arrived at your destination."

The elevator chimes. I step into fluorescence, and it rattles up to my floor. "And what is my destination?"

"Home."

The elevator doors open. My hall is warm, full of life, the ceiling low. My heart trembles. And then, before I know it, I'm at my door.

The knob is cool. The aroma of miso fills my senses like a balm. My apartment is unlocked, the way it always is during dinner time when we exchanged groceries with the ladies next door. The tang of wasabi touches my nose.

The door gives. I can't breathe.

Inside, everything is as it was. Our mattresses to one corner, shrouded in thick blankets. Our heater with plastic wrapping covering its buttons. The low table, set with chopsticks and a dish of pickled cucumbers. Bowls of steaming rice. The overhead lamp, filling the room with dim warmth.

My mother is standing at the stove with an apron, stirring soup. She turns to me, face alive and full as ever, her short hair pulled into a loosening knot at the nape of her neck. Tears cloud my vision.

I'd forgotten what her face looked like. Its heart shape and small nose. Her almond eyes tilted into a smile of hope and faith. I'd forgotten. I'm sorry.

"Ah, Hina-chan, you're home?" She lifts her wooden spoon with a playful tug of a smile. "I made your favorite soup. Wanna try?"

"You'll want the whole pot after a sip." Otou-san steps out of the bathroom with a stretch of his neck. He's darker than I remember—maybe summer time beat down harder than usual. His rumpled shirt is stained with miso paste—signs he helped make dinner.

I'm stunned. His face is clear of grief. His eyes meet mine, and his face breaks into an eager grin. "Isn't it good?"

I don't remember walking into the kitchen, but okaa-san is so close now, holding the spoon close. "Here," she whispers.

"Don't hold it so close now," grumbles otou-san, approaching, "you'll spill all over her—"

She bumps him away with her hip. "No it won't—here, Hina, take a sip, hm?"

I don't know how to speak. Soup fills my mouth, warms my stomach. Memories rush back. I stare at my mother's eyes, see the excitement shining there, and feel my heart break.

"I—"

"Eoh—" A surprised sound leaves her. She sets aside the spoon as tears run down my face. I try to wipe them away in a rush, but my hands are shaking, I can't move, can't put into words why this hurts so much when this is all I've ever wanted.

Her hands, cool as a breeze, cradle my face. "What's wrong, hm? Is it too hot? Or—"

"I—" My eyes search hers frantically. They're a deep rich brown, the color of tea steeped too long. "I just—" I miss you. I'm sorry. I love you.

Otou-san kneels at my side. I didn't even realize I fell to the floor. His hand grips my shoulder, firm and strong. The way he always did when he guided me through the dark. "Take a deep breath, yeah? Focus on me."

"What's going on?" murmurs my mother.

"Anxiety. She gets attacks sometimes. Hina-chan?"

"Hm?"

"I'm right here." His eyes hold mine with steely resolve. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

My breath catches in my throat. Tears clog my lungs. You're lying, I want to scream. The pain is unbearable, a knife twisting deep in my chest. Because this is all wrong. The love in my mother's full face. The steam curling from the stove.

"You're gone," I choke out. "Stop lying to me."

"What's she talking about? Hina. Hina." Stray hair falls in front of my mother's face as she reaches for me, eyes earnest and afraid. Her hand slides to the back of my neck to pull me close. "Hina, I'm here."

Her voice flickers like static. I flinch, and she pulls away, hurt in her eyes. Otou-san's hand vanishes from my shoulder.

I gasp, scrambling for strength. "Wait—"

"Hina—" The voice deepens. It's not my mother. Where is she? I blink, and the room melts like dripping paint. Rainwater floods my senses.

"Wait—please—" I cling to each detail. The soup steaming on the stove. The coolness of my okaa-san's touch. The glow of the lamp.

I blink my eyes, but no one is there. When I stand, there is no apartment.

I'm in an empty wood-wrought room, curled in a ball on the floor. My hands are in my hair.

"Hina." The voice is belongs to Ren, and I realize his forehead pressed against mine, his hands cooling my cheeks, as if touch will bring me back to him. But the longer I stay there, trembling, the more I realize how shaken he is, as if he is clinging to me as much as I am.

Smoke curls at the edges of my vision. The memories throb in my chest as if they're fresh stab wounds.

It strikes me then, in the dark, that this is exactly what Daizo wanted. To drive his loss home.

And to use this, whatever hallucinogen or smoke lingers in the room, to pretend it never happened.