Chapter Fifty-five
Hana’s Choice
There is a river that runs between knowing and understanding. Tonight, inside an illusion of her home, Hana crossed it. Though she had long known about how the Shiikuin experienced time differently, it wasn’t until she stood between Keishin and the door the Shiikuin were battering down that she glimpsed a fraction of its meaning. Her mother’s screams and the Shiikuin’s shrieks evaporated the seconds around her, but within the walls of her mind, time slowed to a stop. Hana wondered if this reprieve was a kindness given to those who hovered close to danger or death, a moment to sift clarity from chaos or make peace with their end. In this brief eternity, Hana found herself standing in a place that was as familiar as it was not. The pawnshop she had grown up in looked different from the opposite side of the counter.
“Thank you for choosing to visit us today.” A woman who was Hana’s mirror image smiled. “I am certain that you will find that we make very fair, if not generous, offers at this pawnshop. What choice would you like to pawn?”
Hana inhaled sharply, taking a step back. Her father had trained her to handle every possible scenario as the pawnshop’s new owner but neglected to provide any instruction on how to be her own client. “No. This is a mistake. I…I have nothing.”
“You would not be here if you had no need of our services.”
Hana shook her head. “I do not have any regrets.”
The woman with Hana’s face leaned forward and looked into her eyes as though reading the pages of a book. “Ah. I was mistaken.” She bowed. “You have nothing to exchange. Please forgive me.”
“You do not have to apologize. I understand. This is your first day.” Had the woman behind the counter been real, Hana might have bothered to tell her that a choice worth more than all the pawnshop’s silk-wrapped boxes of green tea waited to be made at the end of this imagined respite. Collecting a choice this rare would have made the woman’s father beyond proud. There was nothing more valuable than a choice that honored one’s duty. But as this conversation was nothing more than wisps of fancy, Hana settled on being polite. “Perhaps I will return when I have something for you.”
“You won’t,” her other self said with a well-rehearsed smile.
Hana wrinkled her brow. “Why not?”
“Because a decision worth trading,” the woman said, “requires being able to tell the difference between a real choice and cowardice in a clever disguise.”
—
“Hana!” a ragged voice ruptured Hana’s thoughts.
Hana jolted. Time resumed its course, sweeping everything in its current.
“Trade me now,” Keishin pleaded. “Before it’s too late.”
“You are right, Kei. You are your mother’s regret.” The Shiikuin shrieked over her words, but Hana did not hear them. She dried her tears and pulled her shoulders back as she had been trained to do in front of clients. The view from the other side of the counter had reminded her of who she was. She was the pawnshop’s new owner and her job was to collect regrets, not make them. She glanced at her father, her bleary eyes passing a message she was confident that he would understand. Silencehad always been their language, and Hana had never needed words less. Toshio nodded back, a tear finding his small smile. She grabbed Keishin’s hand. “But you will not be mine.”
—
The young girl who had warned them about the Shiikuin led Hana and Keishin through the garden to a shortcut into the tunnels. Hana sprinted, trying to outrun her thoughts. They gave chase faster than the Shiikuin did, trying to drag her back to the pawnshop and her parents. Her mother’s last words to her echoed louder, screaming for her to run.
The girl pushed a bush aside, revealing a small hole in the cavern’s wall. “The tunnels are through here.”
“Thank you.” Hana hugged her. “I never got to ask you your name.”
“Hana.” The child smiled up at her. “Okaa-san calls all of us by your name.”
—
Hana and Keishin felt their way through the dark, through a tunnel that was narrow and barely high enough to stand in. Hana was grateful that the darkness hid his face. She couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. “Kei…” she said when she found the courage to speak.
“Don’t, Hana. Just don’t.”
“There were so many times that I wanted to tell you the truth.”
“But you didn’t. Our entire time together was a lie.”
“My feelings for you were real. I know that now. It is true that in the beginning, I had every intention of handing you to the Shiikuin. When I first saw you through my mother’s glasses, all I saw was a chance to end the nightmare I had woken up to. By some incredible miracle, Takeda Izumi’s missing choice hadwalked through my front door. Every lesson my father had instilled in me about dealing with our clients…manipulating them…making them feel at ease…making them feel like the decisions they were making at the pawnshop were entirely their own…they came alive like instinct.”
“That’s bullshit, Hana.” Keishin twisted around, his voice quivering with tears. “That’s bullshit and you know it. It wasn’t instinct. It was a choice. You keep saying that the map on your skin keeps you from making decisions of your own, but that’s exactly what you did when you chose to lie to me. You strung me along, letting me care for you, letting me believe that you cared for me too.”
Keishin’s words struck Hana harder than any fist, hitting a spot north of her diaphragm just below her lungs, in the exact square inch where the softest part of her soul lived. Tears boiled behind her eyelids. “I do care for you, Kei. More than I planned and more than I wanted. Despite convincing myself that I had to turn you over to the Shiikuin, I could not bring myself to do it because…”
