Sharp Shooter Tokyoite Page 2

  "Okay, that's enough." I fired two rounds at the ceiling.

  The boys shrieked and cowered on the ground. I watched the rubber bullets bounce off the floor, wondering if the boys had noticed they weren't live rounds. Taka glanced over his shoulder and then returned to the shelves.

  "Back to stun, Spockie," Taka said.

  I clicked it back to taser and huffed.

  "Easy, babe," Taka soothed. "Almost there." He pulled one DVD off the shelf and checked it and then put it back.

  Finding contraband videos was hard because with nerds like this it was like fishing for a minnow in the ocean. I thought I heard mumbling. Stepping to the side of the blue-haired boy, I saw the boy in the doorway talking into his phone.

  I switched to rubber bullets and took aim.

  "Don't shoot!"

  I fired rounds near all the boys, just one each to scare them a little, not actually hurt them.

  "We gotta go!" I shouted. "That kid made a phone call." Either the police or the mafia was on their way here soon. The police would ultimately be fine—we'd just have to explain our operation and get in trouble with our chief for letting our discreet work draw so much attention. The yakuza we wanted no part of.

  "Every time you shoot someone I have to file a report," Taka grumbled as we sprinted to the train station.

  I panted into the oxygen mask, unable to speak. We got to the platform just as the train rolled away from us.

  Taka checked the train schedule. "That was the last one."

  "Guess we're here for the night," I wheezed. "Unless you want to pay for a cab."

  "The cab fare would be more than a hotel," Taka said with a sigh.

  I put a hand on the back of his neck and massaged it gently, my wheezy breath finally calming down.

  Taka melted at my touch, gracing me with a soft smile. "Good job tonight. I got enough to file a detainment order so the department can search everything and question them on sources."

  The great thing about Taka was I could completely screw things up and he'd still tell me I'd done a good job.

  I nodded my head at the DVD case in Taka's hand. "What is it?"

  "If the title proves correct, then it's one of the ones on my tracking list," Taka said. "Kiddie porn."

  Bile rose in my throat. "Ugh."

  We reserved a capsule for the night, the cheap option, so we could still have money for the maid café in the morning.

  "We could have gotten one on the bottom level," I said, counting up to the sixth row.

  Taka rubbed small circles on my back. "Everything okay?"

  I rubbed my eyes. "Just dizzy from the tank."

  I grabbed the ladder and hauled myself up. Taka stopped me to turn off and unplug my oxygen tank before I continued up the ladder. Once I slithered into the capsule, Taka climbed in after, carrying my tank. He settled in behind, spooning me, and draped an arm around my hips, nuzzling his face against the side of my neck. These capsules were so small you had to get into a position and stay there, especially with two adults and an oxygen tank. At least the capsules used filtered air so I could leave the oxygen mask off for the night. I'd need the rest of the tank for the next day.

  "Can we pop into a love hotel in the morning?" he asked.

  "We'll lose our money for the maids," I said.

  "But we haven't bumped in so long," he whined.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and told myself not to tense up and give myself away. "We'll bump later, promise."

  Taka sighed and kissed the back of my neck. I held still while his breathing evened out in sleep.

  Though I was exhausted, I lay awake for some time, hearing my new boyfriend's voice in my head.

  "Why can't we sleep together before you go?" Patrick said. "You'll be gone a whole month."

  "I'm stressed about the trip," I lied. "We'll do it when I get back. Okay?"

  "Is it that you don't want to ever do it with me?" he asked.

  "Of course not," I said with more confidence than I felt.

  "Okay," Patrick said with a smile. "After you get back."

  Unable to bear the months without Taka, just working as a campus police officer in Vancouver and going nowhere, I had jumped into the dating scene again and found a software engineer with a cute smile. Now I actually had someone wanting to be with me at home instead of the mysterious lover across the ocean who paid for me to fly out three or so times a year to help him with investigations. My friends joked that Taka didn't exist. Patrick definitely did. I'd avoided sleeping with him before the trip because I didn't want to two-time Taka when I didn't know his feelings. After years, I still didn't know how he thought these small trips comprised a relationship. With the long distance—literally the Pacific Ocean—I was emotionally and physically starved.

  I kept telling myself that on this trip I would end whatever lingering thing I had with Taka and make sure we were just friends so I could go back to Patrick with an open heart. But just like always, I found myself falling for Taka even though he strings me along so much. Even though I had someone waiting at home for me now, I was back to my old ways, following Taka around like a lovesick puppy. And I'd applied to a research fellowship that would allow me to stay in Japan for an entire year. Taka and I both knew it was a long shot that I'd get it, but until I knew, it was hard to have the conversation I'd planned to have.

  Taka shifted against me and exhaled into my short hair. I clenched my fists. Before, it hadn't mattered whether Taka and I were in an actual relationship or just playing around, because I didn't have anything. But after so long, I was tired of waiting to see if Taka truly cared.

  *~*~*

  The next day, Taka and I walked hand in hand to Dreamy Fairy Land on the corner by the Akihabara station exit. We went through the motions at the entrance like seasoned pros: stripping off our smart watches, phones and sunglasses, anything they suspected might carry a photo-taking device. A trainee held out a small wicker basket for our tech, then escorted us into the elevator and up three floors.

  When the door opened, we were in Dreamy Fairy Land.

  Pink and purple adorned the walls, all glitter and sequins. Little disco balls did what the dark cloudy day outside couldn't and lit up the room with beams of electrical light bouncing off the walls. A tinny voice tittered a song from the speakers overhead, and I recognized it as Tsukimi Yuka, the newest digital girl. Nothing like the voice of a holographic popstar to characterize a maid café.

  "Would you like to check-in?" A maid bowed and reached for a clipboard behind the counter.

  "Takahashi Masamune," Taka said, leaning over to look at the reservations on the clipboard.

  "And you?" the maid prompted.

  I was about to say my name when she looked at me. She'd somehow managed to get a hold of kaleidoscopic contacts that made her pupils look like pink sakura blossoms were falling down like at the Hanami festival. I gawked at her and she smiled with adorably crooked teeth, clearly relishing my surprise.

  "Kei Sumisu," Taka supplied for me.

  The maid finally broke eye contact and checked my name off. "Two guests!" she called into the café.

  "Welcome!" the call resounded through the tiny space.

  Taka and I were led through the café to a table lined with pink frills. Taka, ever the composed one, took time to strip his jacket off and place it on the back of the chair. I pulled the tank off my back, slunk into my chair and got a look at everything. It had been too long since my last trip here.

  Amidst the too-bright décor, the Japanese servers weaved through the tables dressed in plain black and white French maid outfits. Most of them deftly ran from the tables back and forth to the kitchen and bar, where the butler served up dishes and mixed drinks, chest bound tight as to be flat, vest and bowtie starched to strict perfection. Other maids lingered at their tables, one playing a board game with a customer at his expensive request, tittering every time he won their little challenge, another up on the stage singing a heavily-choreographed karaoke piece with a c
ustomer, two more maids taking a photo with a group of customers. Each of these activities was definitely pricey, but everything and everyone was so cute I often blew my budget here.

  I pored over the menu that doubled as a place mat, determined to choose the cutest seasonal parfait, this one apparently ice cream bunnies with jeweled gummy bites adorning the ears. It would be enough sugar to put us both in a sugar coma, but for the maids it was worth it. Even just sitting here, my heart raced and my feet bounced in anticipation. I adored everything kawaii—the Japanese celebration of cuteness—and didn't get much of a chance to appreciate it in Vancouver. That was why Taka always indulged me when I came to Tokyo.

  "I want a photo, and the bunny parfait, and maybe a game we could ask the butler to play with us?" I gushed.

  "The butler's too busy for games," Taka said. "Our maid can take care of us."

  A young maid with high pigtails spiraling past her shoulders approached our table with a small white box. Taka always chose the mystery package when making reservations here, because he got to leave our activities up to fate, whereas I always knew what I wanted. The maid sang a jingle, like an actual toy box, bobbing her head side to side and swishing those pigtails while Taka reached into the box and tried to choose the best little slip of paper. He finally pulled one out and the maid read it.

  "One spaghetti coming right up!" She bustled off to deliver our order to the butler.

  "The spaghetti?" I asked. "Not a game?"

  Taka shrugged at me, clearly enjoying this. "That spaghetti's eight thousand yen."

  I sighed. Of all the things to choose with the maids, we'd be eating expensive spaghetti served in the shape of a teddy bear. But the afternoon wasn't over yet, and the maids were just getting started.

  *~*~*

  After the maids, we delivered the DVD to the central headquarters and filed all the paperwork necessary for detainment and a complete search of the apartment. Taka also submitted the report stating that I shot people. Worth it.

  Taka's coworkers were professional as always, but I sensed another tone underneath the surface. They thought of him as an anomaly, in terms of police investigators. He hunted pornographers—I guessed that did make him strange. It made me proud of him.

  We didn't go after the licensed adult filmmakers with certified actors holding contracts stipulating wages and permitted acts. Those we left alone. The ones Taka searched out and found were the ones who couldn't produce paperwork that proved their actors were of age, who utilized actors who couldn't speak Japanese and therefore gave only dubious consent. The lost children, the trafficked. And every four months or so, Taka compiled all his leads and then flew me out to Tokyo.

  I used to live in Japan with my mom, after my parents' divorce, but eventually the air quality forced me to move to Colorado with my dad. I came back to study abroad, but instead of going to my mom's hometown I'd applied to a tiny mountain college with the cleanest air in Japan. Severe asthma required nothing less. Even downtown Vancouver was getting to me these days. But in Yonezura, I'd met the vice captain in the archery team, and after a year of nightly missions dealing with the local crow problem, Taka asked me out.

  After we graduated college, and then the police academy, Taka and I looked for work. No one really wanted an asthmatic and a geeky film school grad to do police work for them. Taka finally got hired with the Tokyo Police Force's new film division and insisted I be hired to protect him while he sniffed out illicit filmmakers one by one. I didn't do much better on the physical tests than Taka, but I never missed a single shot at the range. Despite my asthma, sharp shooting qualified me to be the muscle for Taka. We started with pornography fans and traced back to the source of the DVD, then busted the illegal filmmakers and placed the actors in protective custody. Police headquarters then evaluated whether or not the actors had been trafficked or were just trying to work an "entertainment" job and ended up with a skeevy boss and way more than they'd expected in their line of work.

  "That took forever." Taka stretched his arms up high and yawned hugely as we left headquarters. It was such an American thing to do, I smiled thinking he probably picked it up from me. "Want to go for karaoke?"

  I put my mask back on, adjusting the straps. "Dinner first."

  We found a conveyor belt sushi place where we could eat for 150 yen a plate. In 2025, the oceans died as scientists had predicted for years due to overfishing. Japan kept eating fish—it's a diet staple—but the price of sushi skyrocketed, even when it was farm-grown. Thus, the market of synthetic sushi was born—plant-based synthetic meats with colors and textures just like the real thing. Taka special-ordered all the strangest creatures of the sea while I picked the salmon and tuna off the revolving belt, content to eat big (plant) fish that didn't grow up in toxic waste beds. Old habits died hard.

  Taka raised his sake glass. "To us."

  "To us." I clinked his glass and knocked mine back.

  "And to you staying in Tokyo with me." Taka drank.

  I choked. Hot sake burned my windpipe. Taka laughed and pounded my back.

  "Dude," I said between hacking spells. "Are you trying to kill me?"

  Even the fumes of the sake scalded me. I wheezed, grabbing my chest and forcing myself to breathe in slowly. Calm down, Kei. Don't let alarm open the door for asthma to take over.

  Hands rifled through my pants pockets. Taka shook my inhaler and pushed it into my mouth. I sucked, and sucked again. My throat and lungs relaxed, but my hands shook. I shut my eyes and tried to quell the anxiety rushing through me.

  "Thank you," I whispered.

  "You're welcome," Taka said. He rubbed gentle circles on the small of my back.

  He didn't apologize for being the catalyst of my asthma attack. After years together he had finally gotten it through his head that he didn't need to feel guilty.

  I heard the sushi chef ask if I was all right. Taka assured him that I was.

  "I can't stay in Japan," I said once I found enough breath.

  This was the thousandth time we'd had this discussion. I picked up my mask from the table, oxygen canister and all, and held it in front of him as explanation.

  I couldn't stay here because I couldn't breathe here, and that was no way to live.

  Yet even as I shoved my excuses in his face, I saw the blatant sign on the front window of the sushi shop. No smoking. Tokyoites puffed like chimneys, but Taka had searched until he found a place where I could safely take my mask off and enjoy a meal. He'd conveniently led me straight to it today like it was nothing, so maybe I wouldn't notice all the effort he'd put in.

  "I know," Taka said, his eyes somber, staring off to somewhere else. He spun his chopsticks around his fingertips. "I applied in Yonezura, thinking you could get some crisp mountain air, but no precinct except Tokyo has my position."

  That made sense. As far as we knew, our boss at Tokyo headquarters had created the film division for Taka, the film-school graduate who passed the cop-school written test with flying colors, but barely squeaked by on the physical. Who better to do the job we were doing? It also made it look like the Tokyo police force was taking illegal pornography seriously, but that meant we had to work in Tokyo. The town where we'd met, Yonezura, was high enough in elevation that it was probably the only place in Japan where I could breathe, but, being tiny, Yonezura held no jobs.

  "I could be a cop in Vancouver," Taka tossed out.

  I popped a tuna in my mouth and tried to picture Taka as a beat cop. I couldn't do it.

  "I miss pizza," Taka said.

  I remembered the times he'd visited me over the years and we'd eaten like it was the end of the world.

  "Yeah," I agreed. "Corn-and-lobster mayonnaise pizza doesn't really cut it, huh?" The Western-style food in convenience stores in Japan just made me want to go back home.

  Taka snorted. "But Vancouver... I just don't want to have to drive."

  I shook my head. "You know how I feel about cars." Toxic air-belching machines, basically, and the ba
ne of my existence while at my job at UBC.

  "So how's work going?" Taka asked between bites of ika.

  Even though I passed cop school, no one would hire me because of my asthma. I'd had to work for campus police in Vancouver. Proximity to the ocean meant the air was breathable—or it had been. Even Vancouver these days was getting toxic: cars mostly idled their way through the crawling traffic, so even cycling on the streets could agitate my asthma. I gave a shrug in response.

  "We make such a good team," Taka said wistfully. "With your language skills, we could make this transnational. Hunt filmmakers from Japan who set up shop elsewhere in Asia to avoid the law."

  I turned toward him. That did sound like fun. I'd studied Korean and Mandarin while in college. I could bust my ass in Thai or Cantonese or something else if I needed to.

  "I've been doing some research," Taka continued. "If I can track down enough hits, the Tokyo office might give us funding."

  I pulled a kampyo roll off the conveyor belt. Taka snickered as he always did. Forget the synthetic fish—I would eat gourd root even in the most expensive sushi restaurant in the world. The Tsukiji synthetic fish market had better watch out.

  "It would be a fun job," I conceded, "but it's not sustainable for the long run. The only reason I'm able to come over at all is because the campus police can get coverage for me." If I were in an actual management position, I'd never be allowed to go.

  "I just miss you." Taka's face grew dark. "I can't handle having you so far away for so long. How are we supposed to be partners when we only get to see each other like this?"

  Partners? I wondered what he meant by that. Taka ran our investigations, and I covered him while he searched the area for contraband. No lie, I liked having free range with a supremely high-tech laser gun under my Japanese license. It relieved my stress.

  But I didn't think that was what Taka had meant by using the word partners. Patrick's goodbye at Vancouver International Airport flashed in my mind's eye. I hadn't texted him since arriving, but he had told me he would diligently wait for my return, and for my decision to enter into an official relationship with him. Not for the first time, I wondered why he considered sex to be the beginning of an official relationship like it was some kind of checkered flag waving.