“Because what, Hana? Because you realized that I wasn’t a good enough bargaining chip to get your family back into the good graces of the Shiikuin? Because you got cold feet? I’m all ears. I’m looking forward to hearing something out of your mouth that isn’t a lie.”
“I deserve your anger. Your hate. I know that there is nothing that I can say that will ever make you want to forgive me, but I want you to know that I chose you over bargaining for the safety of my father, my mother, and myself not because I was scared I was going to fail, but because I was certain that I was going to succeed.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Shiikuin would have spared my life for the same reason that they had spared Haruto’s. No one else can run the pawnshop. No one else can collect souls for our world. The Shiikuin would have made me suffer to make an example out of me, but they would let me live.”
“If you knew this, then why didn’t you hand me over to them?”
“Because in a vault full of choices, you were blinding. You are meant to do great things, Kei. Not for your mother. Not for revenge. For yourself. You will find answers to all of your questions, and those answers will change your world. You have no reason to trust me, but I swear to you that I will do whatever it takes to get you safely back home.”
—
The empty Indonesian restaurant was as dark as the tunnel he and Hana were groping their way through. Keishin had never seen it this way. He blindly shoved away tables and chairs, searching for his old friend. “Ramesh? Are you in here? Ramesh?”
The echo of Keishin’s own voice answered him. He slumped on the floor next to a toppled chair and screamed at the ceiling. “Where are you?”
A firm hand squeezed Kei’s shoulder. “Get up.”
“Ramesh!” Keishin jumped to his feet and threw his arms around him. “You’re still here.”
“Where else would I be? I live here, remember?”
“Here.”Keishin spat the word out. “What does that even mean? In my head? My memories? I just found out that up until a few days ago, I was a glowing bird in a cage.”
Ramesh frowned, leaning heavily on his walking stick. “Nonsense. Nothing has changed. You’re still you. This is still yourmind. And for god’s sake, please switch the lights on. I nearly walked into a wall.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Understand what? What’s real and what isn’t? I think that more than anyone, I know the difference between the two. I am imaginary. You are not. I cannot exist outside of you. You, meanwhile, are in a tunnel, running for your life.”
“Hana lied to me, Ramesh. Everything was a lie.”
“If that were the case, then you wouldn’t have come rushing in here, overturning tables and chairs, shouting for me like some kind of madman,” Ramesh said. “You turned off all the lights because you didn’t want to see the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Switch the lights on and see for yourself.”
—
Moonlight washed over the wildflowers, making them almost seem to glow. Keishin and Hana climbed out of the tunnel and collapsed onto the field. Hana rubbed the bruise on her head.
“How’s your head?” Keishin asked softly.
“You do not need to be polite or talk to me,” Hana said. “You can pretend that I am not here.”
“I think that’s going to be rather difficult to do considering that there are only two of us here. Running for our lives might be more efficient if we coordinate. That’s just a theory, of course. I could be wrong.”
“I cannot tell if you have forgiven me or if you just hate me even more.”
Keishin pretended to scan the field. He had reluctantly done as Ramesh had asked and faced what he had hidden in the dark.
At the edges of the familiar dining room’s warm lights, giant steel bars surrounded him. What he had thought had been arefuge was a cage no different from those that hung inside Hana’s vault. Keishin stood next to Ramesh, his mouth agape. “Has…it always been this way?”
A sad smile settled on Ramesh’s lips. “You’ve spent your life observing the world from a distance. Always objective, always detached. Science was the cage you chose to live in when your mother abandoned you, a place where nothing could hurt you like she did. Within the confines of its laws, you felt safe.”
He pointed to a gap in the bars where the cage’s door was wide open. Across from it, Hana stood at a pawnshop’s doorway. “But now you are not bound by its rules. You are free, Kei. To forgive. To hate. To love a woman who betrayed you…and sacrificed her family to save your life.”
