Tokyo Demons Book 1: Chapter 5

They fed Ayase first. She was starving, something she didn’t realize until Daniel offered her toast. When she practically inhaled it, the priest smiled nervously.

“Er…I’ll make you something more substantial.”

The church had a tiny kitchen. Daniel started going through the cupboards, and Sachi, clearly too nervous to sit still, jumped up to help him. Daniel glanced back at Ayase.

“Sandwiches okay?” he asked.

Ayase sat stiffly in one of the chairs and didn’t reply. She clenched her fists and glared accusingly across the table.

At the giant foreigner who sat opposite her. He clenched his own fists and glared back.

He looked like he’d battled a hornet’s nest and lost. Big, reddish welts stood out on his neck and face–as well as his hands, wrists, and anywhere else not covered by clothing. Ayase knew she’d gotten him under his clothes as well, so he probably had those welts all over his body. It was a satisfying thought.

The priest had his fair share of welts, but they were smaller and sparser. And they didn’t deter him from asking Ayase if she preferred mayo or mustard.

“I don’t care,” she murmured, keeping her attention locked on the foreigner.

The foreigner grunted and scratched at several welts. “Look, girlie,” he snarled. “Like Daniel said, I only took that job in Blue Light because I needed the money. I didn’t even grab that shaggy-haired kid–I surprised him and he hit his head against a wall. I just shoved him into a locker because I didn’t know what else to do. And then you showed up…” He shrugged irritably. “I don’t know. I panicked and my army training kicked in. Since you turned into killer bees and stung the shit out of me, I’d say we’re even.”

“What Nick means to say,” Daniel added sharply, “is that he’s sorry, Ayase-kun. He took an immoral job and he’ll never do it again.” He pointed a butter knife at the man. “Because the protection he’s being offered is contingent on him following the law. Isn’t that right?”

“Quit lecturing me,” Nick snapped. “I get it.”

“Army?” Sachi looked up as he unscrewed a bottle of peanut butter. “Of what country? Where are you from?”

Nick grimaced. “The United States military, originally. Although I deserted years ago, so I’ve had nothing to do with them for years.”

Ayase curled and unfurled her toes inside her shoes. Her mind was racing with questions, but she fought to harness them. She had to work through this logically. She had to stay on the defensive.

A memory suddenly struck her. “Where’s Kadoyuki?” she asked quickly as she looked around. “Is he still here?”

Sachi sighed from behind her. “He took off in the middle of the night,” he murmured. “I’m trying to get ahold of him.”

Ayase sat bolt upright in her chair. “But…he was there when I became the swarm. Will he…”

She trailed off as she saw the look on Sachi’s face. He shook his head.

“He won’t tell anyone, Ayase.” He dug a knife, clearly frustrated, into the peanut butter. “He never talks about his own problems, let alone anyone else’s.”

“But–”

“We’re pretty sure he has a supernatural ability. I can sense it on him. But he won’t tell us what it is and we can’t figure it out.”

Ayase froze. Kadoyuki? Had an ability?

“I think Sachi-kun recommended this place to him years ago…he usually just comes to pray.”

Kadoyuki had stared at her when she’d transformed, whispered her name. She remembered his terrified eyes and her desire to defend him.

And now he’d disappeared again.

But she suddenly saw the parallel between her behavior and his. The isolation, the hints of a paranoia that had risen into a fever pitch. She had assumed no one could help her because of her terrible secret. Maybe he figured the same.

He’d let her in for a moment, during his panic in the hospital bathroom. But his immediate regret, and his behavior now, implied that he didn’t want her help.

Sachi placed a glass in front of Ayase. “I told you,” he said quietly. “There are more of us out there.”

Ayase swallowed. She felt slightly less guilty for telling Daniel about the hospital bathroom. If these people knew Kadoyuki had an ability, the news she brought them was probably harmless in comparison.

She settled her gaze back on the foreigner. She had to focus on what was in front of her.

“The insect in the jar,” she said at last. “How long did you have that?”

Nick’s expression shifted slightly, from resentment to interest. He scratched his buzzed blond hair.

“You must’ve released it in the club. Maybe when I hit you. After I locked you up with your friend, I saw it on the floor of the hallway.” He leaned back in his chair. “Bugs aren’t my specialty, but even I could tell the thing was unusual. It looked dead, so I bagged it and put it in my pocket. I figured I’d take a look at it in the lab.”

Ayase furrowed her eyebrows. He raised a hand at her unasked question.

“Yes,” he said thinly. “I have a lab. But I’m not going into it.”

Daniel rested a plate with a sandwich in front of Ayase. “Nick is an accomplished chemist,” he explained. “He’s researching a very important–”

“Daniel,” Nick interrupted. “Not their business.”

Daniel tapped his mouth. “Sorry.”

Nick crossed his arms. “The bug seemed to come back to life inside my pocket, which was weird. I was so distracted by it that Sachi and your smoker friend got past me. That was when I decided the job was more trouble than it was worth and got out of there.”

Ayase glanced at Sachi. He tensed his jaw as he sliced a sandwich in two.

Good, Ayase thought. I’m not the only one who still hates this guy.

“I got the bug back to my place and tried to examine it, but it was going crazy and I couldn’t get it under my microscope. Then I accidentally squashed it–but it didn’t die. So I tried to squash it again.” He raised an eyebrow at Ayase. “Do you realize how hard it is to destroy those things? I hit that thing repeatedly with a frying pan. It kept getting up, so I eventually decided to lock it in a jar and get other opinions.”

Ayase’s palms began to sweat. “You brought Daniel to look at me,” she said slowly. “And two other Japanese women. And…a man with dark skin and green eyes.”

Nick blinked. Daniel spun around, the bottle of tea in his hands splashing internally.

“What did you just say?” he blurted.

It was all starting to make sense. The stinging little headache, the feeling she was being watched…the dreams. Ayase had imagined herself as a prisoner in a glass cage, being watched by menacing strangers.

She hadn’t been dreaming at all. She’d been seeing the present. Through one set of blurry, compound eyes.

My eyes become the insects’ eyes when I turn into them. I just didn’t know I was a bug somewhere.

The two men still stared at her blankly. She briefly debated whether or not she should explain. Would giving them that detail be a mistake?

“I saw what the bug was seeing,” she finally relented. “But I couldn’t make sense of it. It was only when I was sleeping…or, hmm.” She paused. “I guess…maybe I wasn’t always asleep, but just closing my eyes. If that makes sense.”

Daniel lowered himself into an open chair. “Like you couldn’t see it unless you were blocking out whatever your human eyes were seeing?” he offered.

Ayase stared at him. Actually…yes. Exactly like that.

Nick sat up. “Your bug seemed to go in and out of consciousness,” he continued. “Sometimes I could wake it up, sometimes I couldn’t. The first time it passed out, I thought it was dead because I’d forgotten to poke holes in the jar. But then it woke up in the morning like nothing was wrong. I never poked air holes. And I never put in any food or water…but it still didn’t die.”

Sachi leaned against the counter. “Because Ayase didn’t die,” he finished quietly.

Daniel tapped his chin. “They’re not completely indestructible,” he said. “Nick proved that yesterday, unfortunately. But I suppose it takes a lot to kill them, and they don’t have the requirements of living creatures on their own–if they’re just extensions of Ayase-kun.” He paused to unscrew the bottle of tea. “If you see what they see,” he said as he poured Ayase a glass, “do you feel what they feel? Do you hurt when they hurt?”

She pulled the cup into her hands. “Yes,” she replied coldly.

Nick scratched at his welts. “What happened to you yesterday? You got your arm back. But I destroyed some of the bugs, right? What does that do to you? I obviously didn’t destroy enough to make you lose your arm for good.”

Sachi’s expression darkened. “Watch it,” he warned as he took the seat beside Ayase. “You really hurt her. You’re lucky she’s talking to you.”

Ayase felt a bit of the tension in her chest loosen. Sachi glared at Nick, supplementing her defense.

It was…encouraging. She was glad Sachi had stayed.

Daniel folded his hands upon the table. “We’re just trying to understand her. I know this must be difficult for you to talk about, Ayase-kun. As Sachi told you, there are select people in this world with unusual abilities. The research on these abilities is usually kept out of the public eye. But even within that private body of research, I can safely say I’ve never heard of anyone with a power like yours.”

Ayase’s mouth went dry. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What research?”

Daniel sighed. “It’s very complicated,” he murmured. “But it’s similar to the more public study of very fine athletes. You’ve watched the Olympics before, haven’t you?”

Ayase nodded.

“The men and women competing at that level are heavily trained, but most were also blessed with unusual genetics that put them ahead of their peers. Imagine something simple like greater lung capacity, or something more complicated, like a body fitting the ideal surface-area-to-volume ratio for the bobsled.

“Now take that one step further, and imagine being born with a different surface-area-to-volume ratio of organs or even cells. That could greatly affect the biological processes in the body, couldn’t it? If your cells were very different from an average person’s cells, you might not survive outside of your mother’s womb–or you might be born with an altered biological system that allows you to pass the limits of the average human.”

Ayase paused. “Are you talking about natural selection?” she asked.

Daniel beamed. “Excellent! So you’ve learned about evolution in school.”

Sachi frowned. “This is like that mutation thing you explained to me, right?”

Daniel nodded. “Sachi is a relatively straight-forward case,” he explained. “His ability puts him very clearly in the class of ‘psychics.’ He was born with a neurological mutation that allows his brain to process things differently from you or me. He can read very minute changes in emotion through touch, which probably means his brain is able to process the message he’s getting from the nerve endings on his skin in a very different way.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “Psychic abilities are relatively common among the supernatural, since the mutation can be passed on to offspring if the psychic power doesn’t provide a physical or social barrier to sexual reproduction. In the case of empaths like Sachi, the ability usually boosts sexual reproduction, since emotional insight usually leads to improved social standing and more sexual partners than the average…”

Daniel trailed off, clearly noticing that Sachi had turned very red. He cleared his throat.

“Never mind.”

“I’m not…a psychic, am I?” Ayase asked.

Nick laughed without humor. “Are you kidding? A simple brain mutation wouldn’t explain how you can turn into a swarm of killer insects.” He leveled his gaze at her. “Insects I couldn’t find in any textbook, by the way. And I went through a lot of textbooks.”

Ayase cringed back slightly in her seat. “You only had one bug,” she said sharply. “Right? And you said you didn’t know it came from me. So why were you so obsessed with it?” A memory dawned on her, and she felt a fresh wave of anger and fear clench her stomach. “And did you come to my school for me? The police said they caught you there!”

To her surprise, it was Nick’s turn to pull back. He averted his eyes.

“My curiosity’s gotten me in trouble before,” he muttered. “It was stupid for me to try to find you. Something I realized the minute Nakajima got her slimy claws on me.”

Detective Nakajima. So she hadn’t been lying when she’d called Sachi.

Seeing Nick shrink back gave Ayase newfound confidence. This bizarre conversation was burying her fear–Daniel’s explanation of psychic powers was practically casual. He wasn’t going to hurt her.

But she was still angry, especially at the brooding soldier who kept talking down to her. He was the one who had dragged her into this alternate reality. He had stalked her until she’d gone mad. And all because of his “curiosity.”

Screw him.

“Then why aren’t you in jail?” she snapped. “They arrested those drug dealers you were protecting. And she said you were giving the police trouble before that!”

Nick let out an irritated breath. “She can’t arrest me,” he said. “Putting me in jail is a death sentence.”

Ayase felt a growl starting up in her throat. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she hissed. “You didn’t get punished because you couldn’t handle it?”

“I did get punished!” he hissed back. “She knows how miserable my life is, but she kicked my ass on the roof of your dinky little high school anyway. Just to remind me of how helpless I am against her.”

“How helpless you are?!” Ayase’s emotions exploded. She jumped from her seat; it clattered to the wooden floor behind her. “How miserable your life is?!”

Daniel gently clutched her arm. “You’re right,” he said carefully, gazing up at her from his chair. “You’re right, Ayase-kun. You were the victim in this.”

Ayase jerked out of Daniel’s touch. “Stop apologizing for him.”

Sachi slowly stood at Ayase’s side. His eyes were locked on Nick, his mouth pulled into an uncharacteristically tight line.

“You’ve got some nerve,” Sachi said darkly. “What the hell is your problem?”

Nick snorted at Sachi. “You’re not impressing her, Casanova.”

Sachi reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “Ayase’s not the only one who got hurt in all of this. And I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt because Daniel-san begged me to, but…” Sachi shook his head in disbelief. “This is garbage. You don’t get to drag out all our secrets and then sit on your own. Especially not after what you’ve done.”

Nick’s hazel eyes fell to the cell phone. “What are you doing?”

Sachi flipped open the phone. “Why aren’t you in jail?” he repeated. “Why did Detective Nakajima let you get away with this?”

“I told you–she didn’t let me get away with it. She kicked my ass.”

Sachi rested his thumb on the phone keypad. His voice got very soft.

“Why aren’t you in jail?”

Nick pushed back his chair. “Who exactly do you plan to call?” he growled as he got to his feet.

Sachi shrugged. “Any police officer other than Nakajima. Or I could call the American Embassy. Or a news station.” He put the phone to his ear. “Or anyone I know, really. I don’t mind telling people that an ex-military American is hiding out in a church in Ueno.”

Daniel opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He glanced at Nick.

Nick glared for a minute, his hands clenched into fists atop the table. Then he muttered something in English as he rolled up his long sleeves.

“Fine,” he snapped, turning his wrists toward the ceiling. “Your funeral, you little snot.”

Ayase blinked. The veins along the inside of Nick’s arms stood out against the pale flesh, bulging and dark like tiny rivers of pitch. There were Ayase’s stings scattered over his skin, but there was one welt on each arm, about mid forearm, that definitely hadn’t come from her. The identical welts were like tiny anthills of bruised, purplish flesh with a tiny black scar in the center. The raised veins spread darkest from those welts and faded into their normal color over the elbow, leaving his upper biceps comparatively normal.

It reminded her of a photo she’d seen in a book years before. “Are those…track marks?” she asked after a moment. “From heroin use?”

Nick grunted. “No,” he said as he rolled his sleeves back down. “The stuff that gave me these makes heroin look like fruit juice.”

Sachi paused. “That still doesn’t explain anything,” he murmured.

Nick angrily dropped back into his chair. “The drug that gave me those,” he said through his teeth, “is a substance controlled by the most dangerous people in Japan. If you take it, you’re a part of their organization until you die.” He looked away. “If you somehow escape their organization and the withdrawal doesn’t kill you, then their lackeys will.”

Ayase exchanged glances with Sachi. He frowned at her and closed his phone.

Daniel sighed. “Nick has been hiding from these people for a long time,” he explained. “Those scars are like identification he can never erase. But he’s also the key to learning more about the organization, which is why we need to keep him out of the hands of the connected prisoners in jail. The church and the police are willing to protect him while he and his girlfriend–“

“Jesus Christ, Daniel!” Nick slammed the table with a palm. “Shut your fucking mouth!”

Daniel stopped abruptly. “Lord’s name in vain,” he murmured.

Nick ran a hand through his buzzed hair. “The less you know about me,” he muttered, “the safer you are. The bounty on my head isn’t exactly secret in the criminal underworld, so nobody cares if you ran into me. But if somebody finds out you know details about me, they could come after you.”

Sachi swallowed. He slowly slipped his cell phone back into his pocket.

“It’s okay,” Daniel offered, spreading his hands on the table. “We’ve insulated this situation, so as long as you don’t spread around what you heard here, everything will be fine. And you’re always welcome to come to the church if you don’t feel safe.”

Don’t feel safe?

Like she ever did feel safe. Ayase curled her toes inside her shoes. The panic, the paranoia, were growing inside her again.

These men knew her secret and weren’t going to hurt her for it. Fine. But she hadn’t bargained on other people’s secrets. On an organization’s secrets.

Maybe things weren’t getting better. Maybe they were getting worse.

Sachi’s hand suddenly gripped her own. She turned to him as he pulled her hand close.

“I know,” he murmured, cupping her hand in both of his. “But it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

Ayase wanted to pull away–she meant to, really–but the way Sachi stared at her, his dark eyes gentle but firm, made something in her stop. She lost herself in his gaze.

“You’re not crazy. And you’re not alone.”

Ayase’s heart pounded in her chest. She lowered herself in her chair, but Sachi didn’t let go.

****************

“110 police emergency.”

Jo gripped the phone receiver closer to his mouth. “I-I need to report a kidnapping,” he blurted.

“Please state your name and location.”

Jo swallowed. This is what he’d been afraid of. He jerked his head around to see behind him; a harmless man in shorts jogged by with headphones on. Jo had run a few blocks to a safer street before seeking out a phone.

You’re okay here, he thought in an attempt to calm himself. You’ve left the scene of the crime.

“I’m calling this in anonymously,” he said, immediately cursing how nervous he sounded. “But I saw the kidnapping in S. Park.”

“Your name and location will help us better serve you.”

“This tip is anonymous,” he repeated angrily. “But I just saw a teenager get forced into a car. Can I report this or not?”

He heard the faint clacking of a keyboard on the other end of the line. “You saw this in S. Park?” the receptionist clarified.

Jo ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Near the bear statue at a few minutes past two.”

“Who was kidnapped?”

“A kid…from my school,” he said after a moment, wincing. This information could potentially identify him, but he had to give some specifics. “His name is Kiyoshi Honda. He’s a first-year at Fukuhashi High.”

Clacking of the keyboard. “Can you describe what happened?”

“He was trying to meet another first-year, Mai Endou, but some people ambushed him.” Jo fought to remember the few lines he’d heard in the park. “I think she’s involved in this…one of the kidnappers mentioned her. It sounded like they may have kidnapped her, too. Her friends said she never came home from a party last night.”

“All right. Please describe this ambush.”

“There were six kidnappers. Five of them were older than 20, easy.” Jo quickly described the woman who had called out to Kiyoshi and the men hiding in the trees. “And there was one lady in a trench coat who jumped Kiyoshi first. She sounded a little younger…”

“Can you describe her for me?”

Jo’s stomach sank. “Dressed in black,” he murmured. “She had stringy hair to her shoulders. Some kind of pendant around her neck. She was wearing…sunglasses.”

“Sunglasses?” the receptionist repeated. “At two in the morning?”

“Yeah.” Jo swallowed again. “And she…uh…”

“Yes?”

Jo squeezed shut his eyes. He kept seeing that mouth on Kiyoshi’s neck, those fangs in the moonlight. Every bit of reason in his head told him he’d imagined that part. But his eyes knew the truth. His eyes had soaked in that image and seared it into his brain. He couldn’t unsee it.

“She…licked his blood. She had fangs.” Jo’s voice reduced to a croak. “I think she was a v-vampire.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Excuse me?” the receptionist asked.

“Look, I know that’s hard to believe. But I definitely saw her fangs. She tackled him and then cut him so she could…lick it.”

“A vampire.”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Jo blurted defensively. “But I saw it, all right? She had fangs!”

The receptionist sighed. “Sir,” she said dryly. “Have you been drinking?”

“No! I’m not saying they were all vampires, but the woman in the trench coat had fangs! Although–I don’t know, I didn’t get a good look at the other ones. One of the other men got mad at her for licking–”

“Sir,” the receptionist interrupted. “This line is for emergency use only. Prank calls are a crime.”

Jo grabbed the receiver with both hands. “This isn’t a prank call! A group of people kidnapped Kiyoshi Honda and shoved him into a car! I have a license plate–”

The other end of the phone went dead.

“Shit!” Jo slammed down the receiver. He glanced behind him to make sure no one was nearby–now there was a pair of salarymen who drunkenly argued as they headed for an apartment building–then crammed another coin into the pay phone. He jammed out the number for a taxi service with trembling fingers.

A cab picked him up a few minutes later. Desperate to relocate to a less vulnerable place, he went back to the dorm. To his dismay, the loud crowd of students had cleared out from the entrance–now the outside of the building was quiet and empty, save for the quiet thump of a baseline from a room on the top floor.

Jo’s heart sank. He wished, very uncharacteristically, for a crowd of his aggravating classmates to appear. Their mostly harmless presence would have been comforting.

I wish it was yesterday, he thought as he shoved open the doors. I wish my worst problem was getting jumped by a group of gang rejects.

Because Jo knew. He knew he’d stepped into something more serious than anything he’d gone up against.

He didn’t know why anyone would kidnap Kiyoshi. Based on their few conversations, Jo knew that Kiyoshi came from a middle-class family, his parents were dead, he had an estranged sister floating around somewhere, and he was in the custody of his uncle, who had recently moved to Kyoto for his job. It didn’t sound like the motive was money. There was a chance that the long-lost sister was indebted to the mob or something, but the kidnapping seemed elaborate, even for that–Jo seriously suspected that Mai had been kidnapped first. Was Mai the reason for all this? Was Kiyoshi kidnapped to get Mai to cooperate with something? Jo knew next to nothing about Mai, so that train of reasoning stopped dead.

But he was sure of one thing: his dorm room wasn’t safe. Someone had slid that fateful message under their door. And those fuckers clearly meant business, which meant they could be back.

Jo needed the letter as evidence. He wanted to grab it and quickly go through Kiyoshi’s things in case there were any other clues to be found, but he swore to get in and out as quickly as possible. He would call for help again when he was done. If the police didn’t believe him, he’d have to try someone else.

Jo’s hands shook as he tried to unlock his door. He paused, took a deep breath, then crammed the key into the keyhole.

Keep it together, Jo.

Jo threw open the door to find the room exactly as he’d left it. He ran inside and locked the door behind him. After a second thought, he grabbed the wooden chair at his desk and crammed it under the doorknob in case anyone picked the lock.

For the next several minutes, Jo threw open all of Kiyoshi’s drawers and searched for the letter. When he didn’t find it, he went through the closet, ducked under Kiyoshi’s bed, and even pulled up Kiyoshi’s futon mattress. He found a rather tame porn magazine under there.

“Hasn’t he learned to use the Internet yet?” Jo muttered as he flipped through. There was nothing tucked inside, so he tossed it onto the growing pile of Kiyoshi’s property.

He couldn’t find the letter. Cursing, Jo grabbed a box of cigarettes from his bedside table. He shook a stick free, slid it between his lips, and tried to think.

The cops hadn’t believed his tip. Insisting on anonymity did hurt Jo’s credibility, but Jo had to keep his own safety in mind. If he was honest with the police and they somehow unearthed his pickpocketing habit, that would hurt his credibility just as badly, anyway. No, he could stay anonymous, he just had to try a different reporting tactic.

The letter would’ve helped. Jo cursed his luck–Kiyoshi probably had the letter in his pocket. Would the police believe Jo without it? Maybe if he didn’t mention the…vampire.

Jo shuddered. He lit up his cigarette and took a short, panicked drag. His fingers shook.

A vampire. He dragged again. Hell.

It sounded crazy, even to him. But how could he leave that out of his description of the kidnappers? It was pretty fucking descriptive.

If the police wouldn’t help, who would? Jo briefly considered Miki, but he didn’t have a contact number for him and Jo didn’t have time to chase him down. Mitsuko had the same problem–she had his phone number, but not the other way around. Sachi had forced his contact information on Jo, but this was way out of Sachi’s league, and Sachi was anything but subtle.

Subtle…

Jo balanced the cigarette between his lips and yanked open his sock drawer. He rummaged through his loose change and pocket debris until he found the business card. He pulled it out and tilted it into the light.

Touya Kamishita.

The student advisor. Touya knew Kiyoshi–he’d been sent after Kiyoshi by the sports coaches, right? Maybe he’d taken Kiyoshi on as an advisement case. Maybe he knew something about Kiyoshi that would explain this kidnapping.

And Touya was…tough. Weirdly tough. Jo couldn’t forget the bodies littered around Touya when he’d saved Jo in that alley. He knew about gang symbols and rivalries, which meant Touya had at least a little practical street knowledge.

“Tokyo is what we call a ‘hot spot,’ Jo-kun. It’s very close to reaching its boiling point.”

Jo puffed on his cigarette. Probably more than a little.

The police would prefer a testimony from a student advisor. And although Touya had been strangely pushy with Jo, he’d also implied that he was selective with the information he brought to authorities. He might be exactly what Jo needed to get this case to the police without getting his own ass thrown into juvie.

Jo slowly ground out the cigarette on a nearby ashtray. His eyes lingered on the printed phone number as he slipped a new cigarette between his lips.

Touya had insisted Jo could come to him with anything. Jo had no idea why he’d drawn Touya’s attention, but he swore it had started the minute he and Touya met eyes for the first time. There was something electric between them. Like they’d met before. Like they were…connected somehow.

Jo’s eyes rolled to the phone.

Which was why he was late to notice the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Something scraped in his lock at the same moment his doorknob turned.

Jo whipped around and froze. He stopped breathing as the cigarettes from his box spilled onto the floor.

Someone was outside. And they’d gotten through the lock.

Shit!

The doorknob jammed up against the back of the chair a few times. There was a pause, which became the longest half-second of Jo’s entire life. His heart seized in his chest.

BANG BANG BANG BANG

The pounding on the door sent Jo leaping into survival mode. He grabbed at the nearest potential weapon–his huge biology textbook. He lifted it over his head like a crazed man with a brick.

“Th-the cops are on their way!” he lied desperately.

“Jo? Jo, are you in there?!”

The cigarette fell from Jo’s lips.

It was Kiyoshi.

For a brief moment, Jo thought it was a trap. Mai brought Kiyoshi, Kiyoshi would bring Jo.

But his self-preservation instincts crumbled when he heard Kiyoshi start to sob.

“Jo!” Kiyoshi begged, his voice breaking with despair. “Please let me in!”

Jo ran to the door. He pulled the chair from the doorknob and jumped back, his book still held high. The door swung open.

A disheveled but unharmed Kiyoshi stood in the hallway. His hair was a tangled mess, his clothes and face streaked with dirt. He ran into the room and slammed the door shut behind him.

Jo watched, dazed, as Kiyoshi rubbed a shaking fist into his eye and hiccupped. Jo slowly lowered his weapon.

…?

“K-Kiyoshi,” Jo breathed. “What happened to you?”

Kiyoshi whimpered as tears rolled down his face. They streaked lines down the mud smeared on his cheeks.

“Some…some people kidnapped Mai to get to me,” he blurted. “They said I have two hours to tell my friends and family that I’m moving away forever. There’s a guy waiting in a car outside…th-they’ll kill her if I don’t go back and work for them.”

Kiyoshi broke down into sobs. “Jo!” he wailed as he buried his face in his hands. “Jo, what do I do?!”