“What do you mean, ‘you brought it with you’?” Keishin’s throat constricted.
“I told you, Kei…” Hana pulled out her mother’s glasses and a small mirror from her bag and offered them to Keishin with her head bowed.
This was not how she had planned to tell Keishin the truth. She had thought about what this day would be like since he showed up at the pawnshop, and nothing she had imagined came close to the reality unraveling in front of her. She had hoped that she would be more composed, that she would havethe right words to explain exactly why she had done what she did. The only image she had gotten right was what Keishin’s face would look like when she told him. All warmth had fled his eyes, replaced by sadness and rage. “Nothing here is as it seems.”
Chapter Fifty-three
A Bird and a Bus
A few days prior
Toshio could have chosen any of the birds from the vault, but it was the brightest one that caught his eye. He unhooked its cage from the chain dangling from the ceiling, opened it, and carefully took the bird out. Takeda Izumi’s glowing choice tilted its head as though asking where it was going. Toshio set it on his shoulder. It looked around nervously, refusing to join the other birds in song.
“Do not worry.” Toshio stroked the bird’s head. “Everything will be okay.”
Toshio threw the empty cage on the floor. The birds fell silent. Takeda Izumi’s choice trembled on Toshio’s shoulder. Toshio raised his foot over the cage and smashed it to pieces.
—
Toshio gripped the front door’s knob and looked over his shoulder. Shards of glass glinted among the chaos he had left for Hana to find. He had given Hana a story to tell the Shiikuin, astory that would free her from any blame when they discovered that he was missing. He drew a deep breath, twisted the doorknob, and pulled the door open. A dark Tokyo street slept on the other side. Toshio took the bird from his shoulder and let it perch on his finger. He extended his hand outside the doorand set the choice free. It flew into the autumn sky without looking back.
Twenty-eight years before. Or after.
A seventeen-year-old Izumi stood at a bus stop, waiting for the bus that would take her to the ramen shop where Junichiro worked. There were still a few more minutes before the bus arrived, enough time to buy her favorite sweets from the store across the street. The store owner’s son was a pleasant boy witha kind face who always put an extra treat in her bag whenever she dropped by. It was probably one of the last few times she was going to be able to go to the store while hiding her growing belly. Soon, she was no longer going to have clothes that were large enough to keep her secret. She had not yet told Junichiro that he was going to be a father, but she did not doubt that he was going to do the honorable thing. He loved her, and she loved him. He was going to take care of their little family as well as an apprentice cook at a ramen restaurant could.
Izumi held her stomach, thinking of everything she would have to let go of to hold a baby in her arms instead. She had hoped to open a flower shop one day and never have to worry about having enough money for bus fare or sweets. A friend in school had told her that there was one way to keep her dreams. All that was needed was a wire coat hanger.
Izumi glanced down the empty street. The single straight road to the ramen restaurant forked in her mind. Down one path, she watched the bus drive away, leaving her with a life without the boy she loved or the baby in her womb. Down the second, she got on the bus and paid the driver to take her to a life that had an equal chance of being happy as hard. Tearswelled in her eyes. She turned on her heel and ran from the bus stop.
A blindingly bright blue bird flew past her. Izumi nearly tripped over her feet. The bird darted back and circled around her. Izumi shielded her eyes. Metal clattered over the pavement. Izumi peeked out from half-open lids and looked around. The bird was gone, and on the ground, glittering in the sun, was the exact amount of coins she needed to take the bus to meet Junichiro. She glanced back at the bus stop. She picked up the coins and stuffed them into her pocket. She walked back to the bus stop, the coins jingling with every step. Their tinkling reminded her of a song that was both happy and sad. The bus came to a stop in front of her. Izumi stared at the open door.
“Are you getting on?” the driver asked.
“Yes, yes. Sorry,” she said, hurrying on board.
Izumi sat at the back of the bus and looked out the window. She rubbed her belly and thought about the choice she had just made, the flower shop she was never going to open, and the secret that she and Junichiro were now going to share. She tucked a loose silver lock of hair behind her ear and wondered if their child would take after her or him.
Chapter Fifty-four
The Reflection in the Mirror
The mirror shattered on the pawnshop’s floor, scattering jagged pieces of the truth in every direction. Keishin stared at the shards. It was almost funny how his strange adventure with Hana began and ended with broken glass. When they met, Hana had cut her foot on one of the broken pieces littered across the pawnshop. Now she had stabbed him with the sharpest of them in his back. He looked down, expecting to see it poking out of his chest, but it had lodged in his heart, shredding him from the inside with every breath he took.
He finally understood why the weather had never liked him. He had always lived in a world that didn’t want him there. He pulled Chiyo’s glasses from his face. “When did you know?” he said, unable to look at Hana.
“The second I opened the pawnshop’s front door and saw you,” Hana said. “My mother’s glasses revealed who you were: the brightest choice I had ever seen.”
“You knew who I was all this time and you didn’t say anything?” Keishin balled his hands into fists.
“I told you when we met that the only answers I could ever give were lies. But I gave you every chance to walk away. I…pushed you away.”
“So you’ve been planning to hand me over to the Shiikuin all this time? Why didn’t you just do it when they first showed upat the pawnshop? Why run? Why go through all of the trouble of keeping up this charade?”
“Because I did not know what had happened to my father. You were the only thing that I could use to bargain with the Shiikuin. I could not deliver you to them if I did not know what I was even negotiating for.”
“And now you do.”
Hana dropped her eyes.
