Released – Chapter 11

Back at our building, while Jiro and Usagi grab our lunch from Oyama, I stop at Beni and Risa’s apartment and scan my palm at the door. The door opens, and it’s Risa, her hair perfectly curled and falling down around her shoulders, her lips pink, and nails freshly painted. She’s always completely put together.

“Risa, I haven’t seen you since I got back. How are you?” I ask, putting as much enthusiasm into my greeting as possible.

“Can I help you with something?” Risa’s hand rests on her hip, her heart-shaped mouth twisting into a grimace, turning her pretty face wicked with enmity.

I’m not welcome here.

I rock back on my heels. “Is Beni here?”

“Beni is at Mariko’s. She hasn’t been here much.”

Oh no. Maybe she’s not doing as well as I originally thought.

“Okay. Well, I guess I’ll have to go and find her there. Is everything going well with Miko and the wedding?”

“Yes. Everything’s fine. I’m glad to be of help.”

Risa taps her foot and pushes the cuticles back on her left hand, bored of me and our conversation already. She doesn’t want to chat, and I can’t blame her. We haven’t had the best of relationships so far. I chose Beni over Risa for my jihi, dressed her down in front of Beni, and she probably thinks I stole her best chance at marriage and rule over Sakai clan.

“Okay. Thank you, Risa. I’m glad you can. I’m sorry to bother you.” Risa doesn’t even say good-bye. She pushes the door closed, and I hear her groan inside once it’s closed and say, “Stupid bitch.” Her high-pitched voice echoes in the hallway.

Well, she hates me.

The guard at the top of the stairs remains stony-faced though I’m sure he heard Risa. I rub the spot between my eyes and climb up two flights to Mariko’s apartment. When the door opens, my heart sinks and a shock of pain rips through my temples. Mariko’s eyes are red and wet with tears.

“Sanaa, I’m sorry you’ve caught me crying.”

Without waiting for an invitation, I wrap my arms around Mariko’s shoulders and hug her. I haven’t tried to be intimately close with her since she turned me away a few weeks ago. She’s stiff for a long moment, and I think maybe I should pull away. Is it still too soon? Before Koichi died, Mariko said they were happy I was with Jiro. I remember how sweet and kind she was to me when Jiro moved in, how she wanted to plan for our wedding as well.

Now I think her feelings have changed.

Many moments pass, her body finally softens in my embrace, and she cries into my shoulder. Her sobs are so sad, tears start to brew in my eyes too, but I push them back down. I have to be strong for her, for everyone. They need all the love and support I can give right now, and I want to show Mariko she can depend on me.

After a few more sobs, she blows out a big breath and pulls away from me, stiffening back up into formality again.

“Beni is here, and we’ve been talking about her parents… and I’m afraid the two of us are just making it worse for each other.”

I nod my head at her and squeeze her shoulders. Beni’s parents were Mariko’s second cousins. Mariko must feel this pain over and over.

“I came to visit with you and Beni.”

“Good. We could use the company.”

Before letting go, I give her another quick hug and hand her a handkerchief I find on the kitchen table. I wish my schedule weren’t so hectic because I’d like to be here every day.

I’m going to be here more often, I promise myself. I want to be the best almost-daughter-in-law I can be.

Mariko dabs at her eyes and wipes her cheeks before taking a big breath. “Beni’s in the bedroom. Can you go talk to her, please?”

In the bedroom, Beni is sitting on the bed, slumped over and staring at her hands, and my heart aches again.

“Oh, Beni,” I say, going straight to her.

“I miss my parents so much. We were so close and now they’re just gone.”

I don’t know what to say, so I take her hand and let her cry. I miss my parents, too. They’ve been gone for a long time, but I still hurt when I think of them. Beni will hurt for a long time.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around for you, Beni, especially right after the earthquake when I should have been here for you, and Mariko, and Jiro. I’ve been angry with Sakai for sending me away. I thought about you all night and day.”

“Don’t be sorry. It was the right thing to do, to put you someplace safe. This place was crazy after the earthquake,” she says through her tears.

“I just talked with Risa a moment ago. She said you haven’t been home much.”

She nods her head and looks at me. Her face is red, her eyes swollen. Poor Beni.

“Before you came back, I was at my parents’ apartment. I was sleeping there and packing their belongings with Mariko’s help. Then when I came back here, I was too sad to stay in the apartment with Risa, so I’ve been staying here with Mariko.”

The front door squeaks open in the other room. Must be Jiro.

“Well, I think you staying here might be good for both of you,” I say, squeezing her hand. “Mariko’s your, what? Second cousin, once removed, or something?”

Beni laughs, tears bouncing off her chin to her lap.

I squeeze her hand again. “I’m glad you have blood family to help keep you from being alone, but you’re my family now, too. And I want to make sure that you can be happy again. I have some things I could use your help with. Do you want to stay busy or do you need the time to work through this?”

“No,” Beni says, wiping the tears from her face. Unfortunately, that does not make her look any better. Poor Beni. “I would like to be busy, Sanaa. What do you need?”

“A haircut,” I say with a laugh. “Jiro’s handiwork can only go so far.”

From the door, Jiro huffs a laugh, and I turn to find him watching us.

“And I wonder if you’ll go shopping with me to get Miko and Yoichi’s wedding present?”

“I can help you with both.” She blows out a shaky breath, smoothing back her hair and replacing the clip to the side.

“I think I’d like a new yukata for the wedding too.” Beni nods at me. “Beni, we’re going to the temple tomorrow morning to burn incense for Koichi. You should come with us. We’ll pay our respects to your parents as well, okay?”

Beni nods again, and I give her a weak smile and pat her on the back. Hopefully, she can come around when some more time has passed. Time does make the hurt seem less intense.

“Jiro brought lunch. Let’s go eat.”

Jiro puts his hand on her shoulder as she walks by, but then his hand comes to my face. “You’ve been so good for us. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

I sigh and pull my chin from his hand. I don’t want him to see how hard it is for me to be strong when everyone else is so sad.

But he must instinctively know. “It’s okay to be sad. No one wants you to be happy and fake. We just want you to be a part of our lives.”

I swallow my sadness, though. Two crying women in one apartment is enough.

I’ll cry later.

—-

“Here. I made you some genmaicha since you drank it at the okiya the other day,” Sakai says, passing me a hot and steamy mug.

Sakai is relentless about the tea. After the day I’ve had already, I’d like to tell him to take his tea and shove it up his ass, but I’m swallowing my temper before I explode and ruin our entire afternoon together.

Instead, I take the cup and look around. His apartment is pretty spotless, much like the morning I was here. A painted scroll of bright orange koi fish takes up most of one wall. Behind the couch, in a small alcove, a few pieces of beautiful black and red lacquerware sit next to a vase holding an arrangement of dried flowered twigs. They’re really quite pretty for being so dead. I don’t identify anything I would associate with Lucy, though.

Sakai sits to my right on the chair after getting his own tea.

“When is Lucy moving in?”

“After Yoichi’s wedding. It’ll be the first time we’re seen in public together. Then we’ll announce our engagement, and she’ll move in.”

“Seems like a lot of work for something so simple. And I thought I was going to have it hard in the relationship area.” I try to laugh off my situation, my hands instinctively rising to my head to sweep my hair over my shoulder. I stop them halfway and rest my hands in my lap. The only thing I can do is tuck the long strand over my ear, and it’s already clipped back.

“You can see why I never said anything before.” Sakai takes a sip of tea. I always knew he was keeping secrets from me. “How was training with Kentaro this morning?”

“He was fairly respectful and didn’t try to injure me. A blessing.” I turn the mug around on the table and sit back with it, letting the heat warm my cold hands. “Mark, am I a murderer now that I’ve killed two people?”

The events of the past few months feel like they happened to an entirely different person, and I am so detached from them. Did I really kill two men?

Sakai brings his legs up onto the chair and crosses them. “Do you think you’re a murderer?”

“Oddly enough, no. I’m wondering if I should feel more guilty than I do, if there’s something wrong with me because I don’t.”

“You’re not a murderer, Sanaa. You didn’t set out that night to kill people. Tadao did. Miura did. They’re the murderers here. You defended yourself and your family. There’s a big difference between defending yourself and murdering.”

“I know this, I think.” My line of sight falls down on my tea, and I swirl the dark liquid around to mix up the leaves floating at the bottom. “But I wonder what my parents would think of me, if they were here.”

“Your mother struggled with life and death.” Sakai’s voice is soft, and his eyes unfocused, looking way back in time to when they were all young. “She agonized over every decision, and the anxiety made her sick, made Max depressed, and Kimie angry. She’d probably think she was to blame for all of this.” He pulls back to the present and puts his hand on my knee. “I’ve been worried that you would either be anxious and obsessive like your mother or depressed like your father, but I think you have Kimie’s fire and temper, actually.”

He laughs and I shake my head. Once Kimie gets upset, there’s no stopping her. We’re a lot alike. I press my lips together and keep silent. I don’t want to tell Sakai about my obsessive tendencies or how, sometimes, I’m depressed about my situation.

“I’ve seen you anxious, though, and the pacing helps?” I nod. It does. Physical exercise always helps. “Then keep doing that. Nothing ever helped your mother.”

We take a moment to be quiet and think, and I bet we’re both thinking of my mother.

“Anyway, business,” he says, nodding and moving on. “We should talk about ways in which spies learn to control themselves so they don’t get caught doing their jobs.”

“My poker face?”

“Or lack thereof. We have to work on that and your blush response.”

I have yet to control my blush response. Every time I have told it to go away, the blush comes on even stronger.

“In my head, I call what you do your ‘passive face.’ You become like a statue and impossible to read when you do it. Jiro does it, too.”

“Good,” he says, clapping his hands with a laugh. “That’s the intention. I’ve never taught anyone else how to do it so no one else has commented on it before.”

“You didn’t teach Jiro?”

“No. He learned that on his own, probably by watching me.”

Why am I not surprised?

“Do you do that to Lucy, too?” I ask. I wonder how unguarded Sakai and Lucy are in private.

“Of course. She’s a politician. She’s just as skilled at it as I am. Sanaa, this is a learned skill and will take a lot of practice. One of the core tenants to being a ninja is to rid yourself of your own ego. You must become impartial and free of your emotions, even when you are angry, even when you are devastatingly sad, even when you are head over heels in love. You cannot perform your duties if you are overcome with your own feelings. When I put on my ‘passive face,’ I’m not covering up my emotions, I’m ridding myself of them so I can concentrate on the emotions I’m interpreting from others.”

“Wow. How do you do that?”

How does anyone control themselves so fully?

“Me, personally? I become passive by thinking as logically as possible. When a situation presents itself, instead of reacting, I step back in my head and think through all options. This will probably work for you, too, since you’re already very logical, but…” Sakai’s eyes immediately go to my neck which has started to blush. “We have to do something about your blush. Try putting on the passive face now. Look me in the eye.”

I sit up and look him straight in the eye. His face softens, his cheeks drop and relax, and his mouth comes into a straight line across his face. I think about those areas of my face and instruct the muscles there to conform to the same expression. I rid my brain of thoughts of my parents, Jiro, Mariko, or the men I killed and think as bleak and blank as possible. Blank like the dunes stretching for kilometers from the house. Blank like the deep blue sky of early morning I glimpsed while sleeping under the window.

“Good, Sanaa. That was quick! I’ve never seen you control your own blush response.”

I grab my cup of tea and take a sip. “Sometimes I don’t want to. Other times it annoys me and gets worse.”

“You’re bad at taking compliments,” he says, and this alone is enough for the blush to start up again.

Dunes. Deep, blue sky. Passive face.

He nods his head at me. “Good, good. Now I’d like to see you stop a blush when Jiro says something.”

“You know me too well.” I sit back on the couch and bring my feet and knees up. I’m comfortable here in his apartment. “Do you go into meetings and negotiations already having rid yourself of emotions? Is it not sometimes better to go in and be passionate about whatever it is that you want or need?”

“I always go in dispassionate and void of emotions and always get my way. It works every time.”

Even the time that I hit him in the dōjō and he apologized, he still managed to not tell me anything. This is a skill that makes him stronger than anyone else I know, and one I’ll need to rule, to spy, or to keep on living. This emotionless state of mind, this passivity, is another thing I must have and will obsess over until it’s mine.