Released – Chapter 27

“Mark! Yoichi!”

Jumping over the mess on the floor, I dive straight for Miko. She’s breathing, and when I shake her, she moans. Oh, thank the gods! Her restaurant terminal, where she handles all the izakaya’s transactions and correspondence, is open and on, so I navigate to the home screen and tap the emergency button. Ugh, second time in one year.

“What is the nature of your emergency?” A voice comes out of the speakers.

“Medical. Poisoning.”

“I’m dispatching an ambulance to your location now. Estimated time of arrival is two minutes.”

“Miko!” Yoichi bolts into the office, straight over the mess, and I press myself against the wall, out of the way. This little office is too small for three people. “Is she breathing? Did you call an ambulance?”

“Yes. I think she’s just sick. Let’s get her out of here and out the door. The medics will arrive any minute.”

Miko lifts her head a little and groans, squinting her eyes at Yoichi. “Pickles,” she whispers before laying her head down again.

A plate of pale yellow pickles sits next to her, several gone and one half-eaten. These are definitely not Miko’s usual pickles. Hers are always bright green with pepper flakes. The pickles were probably in the onigiri, too.

Yoichi props Miko up, I duck under her arm on the other side, and we carry her out to the main restaurant as an ambulance pulls up outside. Beni takes my place as Sakai and Jiro exit the kitchen.

“Oyama was in the back store room, completely unconscious, and one of the new chefs is gone,” Jiro reports, scanning the rest of the restaurant for suspicious activity. “They must have used chloroform on him and a lot too. Oyama’s hard to knock out.”

“I’m going to get in a taxi and follow the ambulance to Ku 2,” Mariko says, grabbing her bag.

“I’ll go, too.” Lucy is right behind her.

“Is Oyama he going to be all right?” My heart flutters with anxiety and panic; I can barely catch my breath.

“He’ll be fine. He’s half-conscious now.” Jiro wraps his arms around my neck and squeezes. “Good job, Sanaa. If you had just eaten those onigiri, we’d all be sick or dead right now.”

Once he lets go, I pull out a chair from the table next to me and quickly sit down, putting my head between my knees. “I think I am going to be sick. Someone needs to clean up the mess in Miko’s office.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything, and we’ll close the place up early.” Sono’s hand lands on my back before I watch his shoes walk away towards the office.

“Up, Sanaa. We need to act fast.” Sakai grabs me under my arm and hauls me up even though I waver and my head spins. Too much stress. Too much saké.

“Okay, okay.” I take a cleansing, centering breath and let it out slowly through my mouth. “That waitress has been working here since Tanabata, probably not as much in the intervening months with the weather being so hot and the place being closed for summer vacation.”

“I thought she looked familiar, but I can’t place her,” Kentaro says, rubbing his chin. “I originally thought she was someone I went to school with.”

“So whoever’s in the business of hurting us is at it again,” Sakai says, scanning the restaurant again for strangers. “They knew to infiltrate Izakaya Tanaka and have probably been planning this for months waiting for us to show up. Okay, this is what we do.” He rubs his hands together, taking charge of the situation. “Usagi, you watch Risa. Kentaro, I’m going to give you the same access to video that Sanaa has. Can I trust you?”

“Yes!” His face lights up in genuine happiness. “I promise nothing we do will ever make it back to my father.”

“Tomorrow I’ll take you to Ku 1 in the morning to get your tablet setup. You’ll access the video feeds for this area and track the waitress. Sanaa and Jiro, after you’re done attending to Miko and Oyama, you’ll track the chef who also went missing. We’ll all meet tomorrow at lunch in my apartment.”

We all have our missions, and if I just concentrate on the work, I won’t be able to feel scared out of my mind.

—-

“I’m fine. Really. You can go home now.” Miko pats my head which is resting on the edge of her bed in her apartment. She was discharged after spending only two hours at the hospital. The doctors purged her stomach and hooked her up to an IV for meds and fluids, and she improved immediately. Maybe the poison wasn’t strong because these assassins wanted to weaken us before moving in for the kill.

I’m beginning to think we dodged a bigger bullet, and someone is going to be very angry about it.

“Okay.” I look over at the clock. “Gods, it’s three in the morning. Sorry I’m still here.” But we both hear Jiro and Yoichi talking out on the couch, so it’s not like I’ve kept them up. I squeeze Miko’s foot under the covers, and she pulls them up and lies down as I head for the door.

“This is getting way too dangerous, Jiro.” I stop with my hand on the doorjamb, not wanting to intrude in this conversation. Yoichi’s voice is tense with anger. “I don’t know what you and Mark got us into when you hooked up with Sanaa, but I can’t let them hurt my wife and family. I told our father ages ago I wanted no part of this clan nonsense. Now we’re right in the middle of a big mess because of her.”

My heart stops and tears jump to my eyes. When I glance back at Miko, she’s already asleep.

“Be careful, Yoichi. I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“You married her against our wishes. What about our mother? And the rest of our family? Our cousins? Do they deserve the kind of danger that she puts us all in?”

This is almost exactly what Risa said and hearing the same words come out of Yoichi’s mouth is even worse. I love Yoichi as much as one can love their brother-in-law and best friend’s husband. What he’s saying betrays my love for him and hurts so badly, his words sit in my chest like a cancerous lump.

No. I’m a cancer that has laid dormant in this family and is unexpectedly consuming them all one by one.

On Tanabata, I thought everyone in this family wanted me in their lives. Now I see the real truth. I remember the way Yoichi pulled Miko towards him when I almost interrupted their lunch plans. Cautious and protective. Mariko is not the only person who regrets me being here. It’s better I’m constantly in my apartment. I can only imagine what kind of damage I would do if I spent more time with them all. How will I ever make it up to them?

I force my feet to walk from the bedroom, past both silent brothers, straight to the door. “Jiro, I’m tired. Can we go home now?” I keep my eyes low and don’t look at either of them as I open the door and pick up my shoes.

“Yes, of course. Let’s go home and get some sleep.” Jiro’s hand pushes me lightly on the small of my back, and I make the three steps over to our apartment without saying good night to Yoichi.

Jiro and I remain silent while we brush our teeth, grab glasses of water, and get ready for bed, and the whole time I can’t make eye contact with him. I’m so ashamed of what my presence has done to this family, to my friends.

“He didn’t mean it,” Jiro says, once we’re in our bedroom. “He’s just upset and tomorrow he’ll regret saying anything.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I strip down to my underwear and finally look at him. Mistake. Seeing his concern for me makes the tears come fast and furious, plopping down on our hard floor so loud I can hear them splash.

Jiro takes two swift steps and pulls my face into his hands, looking me right in the eyes. “Not your fault.”

“How many times have you said that since we’ve met? How many more times will my very presence bring danger to your family and friends? Yoichi is right. It was all a big mistake to get hooked up with me, a mistake to marry me and be linked with me forever.”

“No.” He shakes his head and presses my face even more. “No. I will never feel that way. And Yoichi gets no say in the matter.”

“I do nothing but bring death to your family, to your poor father.” I sink down in agony, but he pulls me back up.

“This is ridiculous. Don’t you remember the innocent girl you were before all of this? I do.” He smiles into my teary face. “It’s not as if you planned to hurt people.”

“I’m as good as the harbinger of death.”

“Someone as cute and wonderful as you could not be the harbinger of death. Anyway, isn’t that usually a guy in a black robe with a huge sickle-like weapon?”

My sobs turn into a big guffaw of laughter, and Jiro hugs me. “No, that’s the Grim Reaper. Get your facts straight.”

Seriously, I have no idea how he always manages to make me laugh and cry at the same time. It’s a gift.

All of my protests die in his arms. Who’s to say that if I left them now they would be safe? The damage is done. It’s beyond done.

Jiro’s head relaxes, and he breathes into my neck, his arms in a vise grip around my shoulders.

“Jiro, the only way I can live with myself now and know I’ve done my best to protect you all is to do everything I can to stop them from hurting us again.”

He squeezes me and picks me up off the ground. “That’s my girl.”