“You wanted to talk about Hideo?” I ask.
He nods, then sits down and spins around once in his chair. He loops his gold headphones around his neck. “Yeah. When we first met, you mentioned that you’ve listened to my music before, right?”
I nod. “I was a fan of your music when you first came on the scene in France.”
“Wow.” He gives me a smile that I can’t quite tell is genuine, and then plays with a few of the bars on his board. “I didn’t know you knew about me that early on.”
I didn’t know you knew about me that early on.Immediately, a warning bell goes off in my head. “You kept yourself pretty niche,” I answer, carefully now. “Like you didn’t want to be discovered yet.”
Ren leans back in his chair and props his feet up on the desk.“All of my early work was in French. I didn’t know you spoke my language.”
I watch him as he pulls his headphones on, my heart beginning to beat faster.I didn’t know you spoke my language.Is he talking about French, or is he talking about the language of hacking? “What does this have to do with Hideo?” I ask, trying to bring it back to his original topic. “Is he a fan of yours, too?”
“I’ve been composing a track for him as a gift, after everything’s over,” Ren goes on, his voice lighthearted. “To thank him for entering me in the Wardraft. I wanted to get some feedback on it from someone who knows Hideo well and also knows my music. You know, to see if it’s something he’d like.” And at that, he looks expectantly at me. “You seem pretty friendly with him.”
He knows.Doeshe know?I force my smile to stay intact as I give him a shrug. “Do I?” I say, just as lighthearted.
“At least, that’s what the tabloids are all whispering about.”
“Well,” I reply, keeping my eyes level with his. “We all have friends in high places, don’t we?”
Ren returns the look for a moment, unrelenting, and then finally glances away. “Here. Have a listen. I could use the help.”
Ren had once said in an interview that he doesn’t appreciate outside input on his work. Now here he is, offering me his headphones, and I don’t know what to make of it. When he gives me an encouraging smile, I reach out and accept the headphones, then slip them on.
It’s a deep bass, all alone with a smooth, beautiful violin above it and something that sounds like chimes. A female vocal starts on the track. “Let’s tear through Tokyo from zero to sixty / yeah, like we’re running out of time in this city,” she croons. As I listen, I glance at Ren. A track about Tokyo.
Then, I hear a line that sends a jolt through me. “Let’s go out with a bang / yeah, it’s time to go out with a bang.”
It’s the same track that had played for a second in the Pirate’s Den.
He’s setting me up.I look quickly at Ren and notice him watching my face with a thoughtful expression. He composed the track that had played during the Darkcross game—and now he’s making me listen to it to see if I find it familiar. Judging from the way he’s looking at me right now, he can tell that I’ve heard this song before. And that means he knows I must have been there at the Pirate’s Den at the same time he was.
He knows I’m following him. He knows I’m watching Zero.
Ren takes his headphones back. His eyes never leave me. “Do you think Hideo will like it?”
His words are ominous to me now, and I fight to look unaffected. “It’s good. Maybe he’ll even add it to the tournaments next year.”
“Maybe he’ll even add it to the final tournamentthisyear,” Ren says, giving me a smile. He leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees, and traps me with an unblinking stare. “We have to go out with a bang, right?”
I smile and nod along with his statement, but it sounds like a thinly veiled threat. My heart beats faster.Let’s go out with a bang.Now Ren has repeated the same line from the Pirate’s Den—and even though it couldstillmean nothing at all, my mind jumps to a different conclusion. Whatever it is that Zero’s group is trying to do—involving so many international cities, involving Hideo’s life—it’s going to happen on the day of the final tournament.
And now he knows I’m involved.
23
A couple ofhours later, as I meet Hideo in a private car, I still haven’t shaken off my conversation with Ren.He could’ve been speaking literally.But that music track was no accident. He knows I was in the Dark World tracking him—or, at the very least, he knows I was also there in the Pirate’s Den during the same time.
If Hideo notices my troubled thoughts, he doesn’t mention it. He seems distracted, too. Even without our Links connected, I sense a certain unease in him, something that turns his eyes distant, the same thing that made him break away from me that night at his home. I debate telling him about my conversation with Ren, but then decide against it. It’s too vague. I need to dig deeper.
It’s a slow drive through the rain. A couple of hours later, we arrive in the wooded outskirts of Tokyo, where the city gives way to gently rolling hills and narrow streets of neat, three-story buildings, their elegantly curved roofs painted black and red. Pines line both sides of the road. A single pedestrian wandersdown the sidewalk, and a gardener is carefully trimming a nearby hedge—but aside from the faintclip-clip-clipsound of his shears, it’s quiet. The car finally pulls up to a house at the end of a street, where round bushes and rocks adorn the front path. Pots of flowers line the pathway in neat rows. The porch light is on, even though it’s still late afternoon.
Hideo rings the doorbell. Someone’s voice comes from the other side, muffled and female. A moment later, the door opens to reveal a woman dressed in a tidy sweater, pants, and slippers. She blinks up at us through glasses that magnify her eyes. Then her face crinkles in delight at the sight of Hideo—she utters a small laugh, calls out to someone over her shoulder in Japanese, and then holds her arms out at him.
Hideo bows, lower than I’ve seen him bow to anyone. “Oka-san,” he says, before wrapping her in a warm hug. He gives me a sheepish smile as she stretches up to pat both his cheeks like he’s a small boy. “This is my mother.”
His mother! A warm feeling overwhelms me, bringing with it a flutter of emotions. I blush and follow Hideo’s example, bowing as low as I can. Hideo nods at me. “Oka-san,” he says to his mother. “Kochira wa Emika-san desu.”
