He had everything to gain by listening to her. He had everything to lose if he strayed even an inch from her instructions. Yet he knew why he must leave. He had known since he was sixteen that she would strip him of himself and reforge him into a shape that could fit inside the box she had folded a long time ago. But he was too young then, too unlearned in the ways of the world, and far too self-aware to know that he would have nothing to his name if he threw it all away. He didn’t want to end up cold and hungry and desolate. Only people who had no choice wound up in unmarked ditches.

  Eizo had choices. He was patient. He would bide his time and use the resources available to him to mold the person he was to become. And in time, the wizard would give him what he wanted. After all, he was going up against his mother, a woman capable of reversing her fate, beating out thousands to become Saiji Group’s first-ever female C-suite leader.

  He didn’t have to be smarter than her; he just needed to outfox her until his time came. He would shatter his inevitable transformation into a shape meant for the box, a process driven by two reasons.

  One, he looked like her.

  Two, he was all she had left.

  21

  “Why don’t you just move back already?” Mrs. Yasuda teased good-naturedly when she entered the penthouse for daily housekeeping.

  Stifling an enormous yawn that creaked his jaws, Eizo checked the clock on his laptop. It was already seven-thirty in the morning. Mrs. Yasuda rolled up the window blinds, temporarily blinding him as sunlight streamed in. He hit save on his documents and closed his laptop. He had been working at the dining table since two a.m., waiting for Mrs. Yasuda to arrive and hand over her master key to unlock the study shelf.

  The next meeting with Suigetsu was a week away, where he was to deliver a revised concept with the story hook. He’d wasted too much time on petty vengeance, ignoring the mammoth task that lay ahead of him: connect the dots between the disparate plot elements he’d cobbled together in the hopes of creating a fantasy serial so unbelievably inventive and clever that Miyamoto Ran would leave the meeting with his head drooping in shame, admit before the entire office that he wasn’t fit to lead New World, and call it quits then and there.

  A pipe dream, indeed, one that sustained him through endless rounds of drafting and revision.

  “Let me fix something up for you,” the housekeeper offered.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Yasuda. A coffee will do,” Eizo replied as he handed an empty mug to her.

  She clucked her tongue in disdain. “Did you drink only this all night?”

  Eizo nodded sheepishly.

  She poured him a glass of water and continued, “One last cup of coffee. And then rice, soup, and fish. I’ve got your favorite pickled seaweed in the fridge. You want some?”

  “I had a sandwich earlier.”

  Mrs. Yasuda shot him a disapproving look. “Are you even eating well?” She drew a circular motion around his cheeks. “You’re looking gaunt here.”

  “It’s called losing baby fat.”

  Before the housekeeper could comment further on his appearance, Eizo quickly asked, “Do you have the key to the third shelf in the study? Mom said she has something for me.”

  Mrs. Yasuda was retrieving the French press and a packet of coffee beans from the cabinet when she paused, as if trying to recall something. At Eizo’s urging, she reached into the pockets of her apron and fished out a bundle of keys attached to a thick string, unhooked one from the bunch, and handed it to Eizo.

  He started for the stairs when the housekeeper suddenly asked, “It must have slipped my mind before, but have you received the parcel?”

  “You sent me something?”

  “Your textbooks from junior high.”

  “Textbooks?”

  “From your cram school. It’s a big stack. Twenty to thirty books, I think?”

  Eizo froze. It took him a while to digest what she’d just said.

  “What color are the covers?”

  “Some white, some brown. A couple of yellow too?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose in consternation. What kind of question was that? Just ask for the name right away—the name.

  “Name?” Mrs. Yasuda echoed.

  “The cram school name.”

  “Kujo Juku.” The housekeeper patted her hands dry on her apron and looked at him. “The one you attended, remember?”

  Numbness began to wrap around his fingertips. “Where did you send them?”

  “Your new apartment.”

  Every word he heard was foreign to his ears.

  “When was that?”

  “After you gave me your address.”

  Eizo squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to remember when that was. He’d met Mrs. Yasuda at her favorite tendon restaurant in Asakusa to celebrate her birthday at the end of June. When she asked if he needed a change of curtains to refresh his room, he’d revealed that he was renting a studio in Kichijoji. At her persistence, he’d scribbled his new address on the back of a napkin, telling her to let him know if she was in the area.

  “Are you sure you sent it to me?” Eizo asked.

  “Of course. Where else would I send it to?”

  “Why would you do that? Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  Eizo caught the tension in his voice as it rose. Easy, he told himself. Don’t panic. He tried again, this time deliberately pacing his words so he sounded like he always did—collected, cheerful, with a shade of mischief. Mrs. Yasuda never touched their things without permission. It had to be his mother issuing the instructions. But why would she do that if no one had told her he had moved out?

  Calmly, Mrs. Yasuda weighed the beans on the scale and poured the recommended amount for two cups into the grinder. The mechanical hum of the electric mill filled the house.

  “Mrs. Kamada called me three months ago, instructing me to tidy her bookshelf. She does that once a year. The same time every year.” Her voice dropped, then picked up again. “I suppose since she’s returning, she wanted me to freshen it a little and make space for the new books she’s bringing home. Your mother’s such a bookworm, too. I repacked the section of the shelf she asked for, organized the books I cleared into two stacks, and asked what she wanted to do with them. One stack was on global financial markets or something. Those were quite old.” Mrs. Yasuda appeared a little uneasy at the recollection. “The other was your Kujo Juku textbooks.”

  The numbness in his fingers crept into his palms. He could lose all sensation in his hands if he continued to stand still. He clenched and unclenched his fists, a clone of his quickening heartbeat, to force himself into motion.

  “She said to keep your books and pass them to you when you were back,” said Mrs. Yasuda. She pressed the digital mill again to grind the beans more finely.

  It took a few moments before Eizo found his voice again. “She said to keep them,” he repeated. Again, words foreign to his ears tumbled out of his mouth, as if by speaking them aloud he could make sense of what was happening.

  “Remember how you used to scrawl those funny little tales in the corner of your notepad when you were bored?” Mrs. Yasuda’s voice carried a hint of nostalgia. “You were always such a gifted writer, Little Quill.”

  The frigid sensation traveled up his neck, spreading across his face until it reached the back of his eyes.

  “She threw them away,” Eizo said. “You saw it too.”

  Still turned away from him, the housekeeper stopped the mill and, with a light knock on the glass canister, loosened the ground coffee onto the filter paper lining inside the French press.

  “Those were not yours,” she mumbled.

  Eizo closed his eyes. He could see the waves cresting toward him.

  Those were his.

  He was the one who went to Kujo Juku. The books that were taken from him were from Kujo Juku. Kamada Kiko had taken them from him before and told him repeatedly to stop looking. She knew what lay within the pages of the textbooks. Sheets from the notepad, which she had shredded and tossed onto the table in the middle of dinner, a show of force in a household where her word and only her word reigned. With Mrs. Yasuda’s help, he’d gathered back the torn sheets and hid them in his textbooks. And yet in no time, Kamada Kiko found them again in his room, tossing out the scraps he had painstakingly pieced back together with the rest of his books.

  Within the penthouse walls, her voice echoed around him.

  What happened has happened. You must accept it. We must accept it. Everyone is just waiting for us to fail. But we won’t. So, we must accept it.

  “Your mother always treasured your belongings, your books, everything. She kept them on the shelf for a long time. I always found it endearing—among those rows of serious books that she reads for work are your little kiddie textbooks. She placed the books in the top right corner, so I had to use a ladder to reach them.”

  Eizo stirred into life at the last part—the top right corner.

  Mrs. Yasuda had gotten it wrong.

  Dead wrong.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that.

  In her eyes, Kamada Kiko was the perfect employer. Other than the note-passing she had to do at home, she paid Mrs. Yasuda well for her work, giving her ample paid time off and covering the costs of Green Class Shinkansen tickets and hotel accommodations when Mrs. Yasuda brought her parents to Tokyo for sightseeing. While Mrs. Yasuda was dear to him—dear enough for him to reveal his Oakwood address—she was, after all, in his mother’s employment.

  His mother knew exactly what those books contained. Why else would she make Mrs. Yasuda return them to Eizo? She took them away. She made him believe they were gone forever. Now she gave them back. What message was she trying to send? Had she somehow found out that he was writing again? Who could have told her? He had only told Hayato, who, despite them being former neighbors, had spoken to his mother only once, at their high school graduation ceremony. Not even Mrs. Yasuda knew.

  Combinations and permutations raced through his mind. The numbness now spread to the top of his head, forcing his field of vision to close into a white circle. He gripped the brass cap of the newel post, refusing to let his knees buckle.

  Mrs. Yasuda pressed the plunger down. A hissing sound escaped the canister as the last bit of brew passed through the grounds and into the mug underneath.

  He snapped back to reality. Now was not the time to ask why.

  “Do you still have the delivery slip?”

  Mrs. Yasuda shook her head. “I copied down what you wrote. Kichijoji, Oakwood Apartments, Unit Number 525.”

  “525?”

  “525,” she affirmed.

  He recalled a steady stream of messages and occasional missed calls from an unknown number at various times of day, even at night.

  “I wanted it to be a surprise. It’s always lovely to fill your own space with the things you cherish.” The housekeeper’s voice sounded like false cheer, unaware of the waves crashing in Eizo’s mind. “Coffee?” she asked, holding out a mug to Eizo.

  For once, coffee was the last thing on his mind.

  Without a word, Eizo grabbed his backpack and dashed out of the house. He hopped on a bicycle at a rental kiosk nearby and pedaled as fast as he could.

  He had only one place to be.

  Suigetsu.

  * * *

  “I’m sorry, but you’re out of luck,” Reika said. “Mr. Miyamoto’s on leave this week.”

  The editorial assistant’s eyes were soft with concern as she handed him a tissue pack. Eizo accepted it with a quick bow of his head, catching his reflection in the glass panel: low ponytail pushed askew to the side, hair matted to his neck with perspiration, the back of his t-shirt clung to his skin. He surely stank. He hadn’t even brushed his teeth. Eizo pulled out a tissue and covered his mouth as he spoke.

  “Is he overseas?”

  Reika shook her head. “I don’t think so. Mr. Miyamoto doesn’t like to travel.” Then, in a smaller voice, she said, “It’s my second year here, but I hear from my seniors that he always takes this time of the year off.”

  “Is there any way to reach him?”

  Just then, a petite woman in a black linen dress approached them. The first thing Eizo noticed about her was the beaded red earrings swinging imperiously as she walked.

  “It’s impossible to contact Ran when he’s on leave, not that he takes it often.” She checked her watch before looking back up at Eizo. “I’m Ando Misaki,” she said, extending her hand toward him. “Senior editor, same as Ran. I’m covering for him while he’s away.”

  Eizo shook her hand and introduced himself.

  “How can I help?” Misaki nodded at Reika, who took it as a cue for her to leave the conversation. “You came all the way here after all.”

  Eizo remembered Kisuke had wanted to keep the project team small for a reason. He wasn’t sure how hush-hush New World was in the Suigetsu office and decided to keep mum for now.

  “We are working together on a new project, so I thought I’d swing by and see if he’s around. Grab breakfast or something.”

  “I’ve seen you at the office,” Misaki said. “Thrice, if I recall correctly.”

  “Should have said hello earlier.”

  “Believe me, I’d have tried. But your discussions with Ran always seem so…” Misaki trailed off, searching for a word. “Intense? Like you’re working on something important, but can’t agree on what to do.”

  “He’s a tough nut to crack.”

  “Ran has his own style of doing things. That punk can be curt, but he means nothing bad by it.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ve known him for five years. That’s just the way he is.”

  “Speaking of which, how can I contact him? We never exchanged numbers.”

  Misaki retrieved her phone from her dress pocket and flashed Ran’s number—the same one that had called and texted him multiple times in July, and then in August, before Eizo had had enough and blocked it. Eizo saved Ran’s number on his phone and thanked her.

  “He doesn’t answer his phone or reply to texts or emails until he returns to the office. I mean, it’s perfectly fine, since he’s on leave after all. Probably back at his hometown.” She shrugged. “It’s just that when he returns, he brings back this ominous cloud that looms above him. The kind that threatens to pour but doesn’t, if you get me.”

  It wasn’t what Eizo had wanted to hear. Still, he nodded, remembering to smile and do his best to appear charming, as he always had. He was in the Suigetsu office, and if people didn’t know him now, they would soon.

  “His mood gets better with time, but when we say typhoon season around here, we’re talking about a different force of nature as well.”

  Eizo dabbed away at his perspiration. “Force of nature?”

  “What I’m saying is, if you reach him this week, remember he might not be in the best of moods. Don’t take it personally. If it’s not urgent, I suggest you wait for a while before contacting him.”

  “It’s nothing. I can wait.” Despite his unease, he spoke evenly. “Thanks for the tip on handling Ran—I mean, Mr. Miyamoto.”

  Misaki laughed. “You two must be really chummy to be on a first-name basis. Ran is such a stickler for manners. Anyway, if you need a listening ear or advice on your project, I’ll be glad to help. I’m not spying on your project with Ran, okay?”

  22

  Ran didn’t return to Oakwood for a week.

  Eizo’s stakeout proved futile in the end. He’d expected Ran to hide at home and languish away, the antisocial grump he was. If Ran were in his hometown, he seemed like the sort to return before his vacation leave ended. By all means, Ran should be back home soon. Eizo even fought wave after wave of humiliation to text Ran, and when he decided he had had enough of waiting, he pressed the dial button. The call went through the first time, then beeped. Subsequent calls went to voicemail, which Eizo was certain would go unanswered.

  Mrs. Yasuda had texted him after he left in a hurry, asking if he’d found what he was looking for. Eizo then remembered that he was supposed to retrieve a document from his mother’s study. He considered asking the housekeeper to switch places with him for half a day, so that one of them could catch Ran the moment he returned, but decided that it would take too much effort to explain his current situation. It was also his fault to begin with, if he must pinpoint a cause for the mess. His handwriting was never his best trait, and it was made worse by scribbling his address on the back of a soggy napkin. He could have texted his address to Mrs. Yasuda, but he’d resented the idea of leaving a digital trail.

  As he waited for Ran, he continued where he left off that morning at the penthouse, pen in hand, the nib scratching across empty sheets. Words were written and then struck through. First a line, straight and neat, then several, before erupting into a mess of circles that buried ideas before they even had a chance to breathe.

  This continued for a week. He’d try again, and the mess of circles expanded from a page to many more. Soon, they found their way to the front and back cover of his notebook, where the only course of action was to throw it away. There was no way anyone could understand what he was writing. Even he couldn’t understand it.

  He had questions. So many. Too many of them. But he couldn’t answer any.

  Why was the Baku shaped like a dumpling?

  The Baku were a venerable monster in Japanese and Chinese mythology, a chimera with the body of a bear, the nose of an elephant, the feet of a tiger, the tail of an ox, and the eyes of a rhinoceros. Legend had it that when the gods finished creating the animals, they took the leftovers and combined them to form the Baku. In New World, his first act was to desecrate the Baku’s known monstrous form without a logical explanation.

  Suddenly, Ran’s criticism in the first meeting made sense.

  A Baku wasn’t just a nightmare-eating beast. Like all monsters, they came in various shapes and sizes. So did their hunger. Children, scared after waking up from a nightmare, called on the Baku to suck their bad dreams away. If you called upon one with an insatiable appetite, it could absorb your hopes and dreams along with your nightmares.