Nothing in Keishin’s lifetime of experiences could offer him any assurance that he had not just jumped to his death. He crashed into the icy water feetfirst but was too busy being terrified to feel cold. He sank into the darkness, repeating Hana’s instructions like a prayer. She had asked him to think of a place where they could hide, a refuge only he would know. It would be harder for the Shiikuin to find them if he led the way.
Safe. Far. Secret.
Safe. Far. Secret.
Safe. Far. Secret.
Lights shimmered above him. The surface of the water was close. Keishin glanced over his shoulder. Hana was nowhere in sight.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Spicy Pork or Chicken?
College. Marriage. Kids. These were the big decisions that people believed mattered. They were wrong, of course. In reality, it was the choices that people didn’t even realize they were making that set the course of their lives. The shifts were small, even minute, but, by the tiniest of angles, they pointed one in the direction of what was going to happen next.
In Keishin’s case, everything that was going to define the rest of his life was decided the second his eyes shifted from the instant spicy pork ramen to the chicken-flavored one, then back to the pork. He reached for the bright red pack and dropped it into a green plastic basket. This was not the time to experiment with new flavors. His long-haul flight to Tokyo was the next day, and the last thing he needed was an upset stomach during his trip.
He wrinkled his nose at his instant ramen dinner and swore to get himself some real ramen as soon as he landed in Japan. He took a step back from the ramen shelf, planting the thick heel of his boot squarely on top of something that was clearly too soft to be the convenience store’s tiled floor. A sharp yelp shattered any hope that he’d wronged a wayward pastry instead of a stranger’s foot. He twisted around, an apology tumbling from his tongue ahead of him. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”
“Where are we?” the woman said in Japanese.
“Oh…hello…” he said, shifting to Japanese. He scoured her small, heart-shaped face, searching for anything that might tell him who she was. He had never been good at names, but he doubted that he would have forgotten hers. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
Hana frowned. “It’s me. Hana.”
“Were you in one of my classes?”
“What? No. Don’t you remember? We jumped into a well and I asked you to find a safe place for us to hide.”
“Right…” He backed away from her. “I’m sorry, but I need to go,” he said, heading to the cashier.
“Wait.” Hana grabbed his arm. “I know you and you know me. Your name is Keishin. You are a physicist, and you have accepted a job at the Super-Kamiokande detector. You are trying to find neutrinos.”
“Everyone at the university knows why I’m moving to Japan.”
“You were abandoned by your mother, and all your life, every achievement and discovery you have chased after has been about trying to find something that will make you feel worthy of her love.”
Keishin’s basket slipped from his hand, scattering his dinner over the floor. “Who told you that?”
“You did. You told me about how your mother left you when you were a young boy. The rest…I saw for myself.”
“Who put you up to this? Is this some kind of prank? Because if it is, I’m not laughing.”
“Keishin…Kei…” Hana approached him slowly. “You need to listen to me very carefully. You did as I asked. You found a safe place for us to hide. We are in a moment in your mind so insignificant and small that no one would think to look for youin it. But you have hidden yourself too well, you have gone too deep.”
“This is insane.” He marched to the exit.
“Where will you go? To your apartment? To sit on a leather couch while listening to a song that will take you to a little boat floating on a quiet lake beneath the ground? Your beautiful trap?”
“How did you…”
“You took me there. We were on the boat at the Super-Kamiokande.”
“But that’s just a—”
“A memory you borrowed from someone else.” Hana looked around the convenience store. “But this memory is your own, a fragment from a time before you stepped through a pawnshop’s door.”
“The pawnshop…” Keishin squeezed his eyes shut. “It…it was ransacked.”
