The summer heat was more oppressive than ever, but Ran swore he could have felt a breeze. A sense of lightness filled him as he watched the tall coward run off to the police station, tail between his legs.

  Ran unbuttoned his blazer to cool off, running his palms down the front of his shirt to smooth out any creases. So what if Little Quill got away? He had his number. He renamed it from ‘Little Asswipe’ to ‘Little Fucker’ and placed his phone back in the front slot of his briefcase.

  For the first time in three weeks, Ran felt like he could brew a pot of tea again.

  5

  Eizo exchanged his name and contact number for a temporary pass to access Suigetsu’s office on the thirty-fourth floor of a business tower in Akasaka. The publisher must be flush with cash, because leasing a prime spot like this wasn’t cheap, Eizo had thought the first time he visited the office to sign the contract.

  July 12th. He had just turned twenty-four. After months of searching for a place to rent, he’d grown familiar with prices in the megacity.

  Come to think of it, the timing was impeccable. It started with a call from Ishimura Goro of the Marui Literary Agency four months ago, leading to a series of decisions he had made on his own for the first time. Then, in June, when he had just paid the deposit for his Oakwood studio and was figuring out the rent until next summer, Goro texted that Suigetsu wanted him to be their flagship writer, sending him into a brief state of shock.

  Just like how he felt when he glimpsed a low-styled pompadour entering the office, bobbing above the soft-sided dividing walls as its owner paced back and forth.

  Alarms blared in his head. How did the wolf get in here?

  He’d thought that by appearing to head for the police station, the wolf would catch a hint and leave him alone. After all, he knew what the wolf looked like. If he were to reappear, Eizo would file a police report. Eizo believed he had this morning’s problem solved until the universe conspired against him.

  By the time he saw the wolf again, it was too late. He was at the door with a gray mug in hand.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” the wolf spoke—or rather, snarled. He set his mug on the table with a resounding clang, announcing his arrival.

  Eizo instinctively wrapped his hands around his own mug, offered by a staff member as he waited in the room. Why was this yakuza so persistent? Was he a debt collector? Had someone impersonated Eizo and borrowed money from the syndicate? But this was an office. Surely he wasn’t so audacious as to batter Eizo in front of everyone?

  Wait—he had done nothing wrong. He’d never borrowed money. His friends never needed to borrow any money either. He broke no laws. He never bumped into anyone on the street without apologizing with a friendly smile.

  Why was the wolf picking on him?

  How did he even get into the office?

  Whose mug was he using?

  “Whose mug are you using?” the wolf demanded before he could voice any of those questions.

  “I could ask the same of you,” said Eizo.

  “I asked first.”

  Eizo held up his pass, then flipped it back down on the table. “I’m here for a reason, if that isn’t obvious enough.”

  The wolf’s glare intensified as he likewise flashed his pass in Eizo’s face. Before Eizo could catch his name, the wolf mimicked his action and slapped the pass down on the table, louder.

  He worked at Suigetsu?

  Eizo’s mind immediately spun through all options. No more yakuza—thank goodness. Then he worried. Did the wolf, like others before him, want to know if he was single?

  Eizo shook his head. He must be going insane.

  The wolf pulled out a rolling chair next to Eizo and sat down. “This is my meeting room. Get out.”

  “You must be confused.” Eizo returned his animosity with a smile. Smiling was vital when dealing with pests like this. It unnerved them. “I was told to be here by nine.”

  “By the kind officers at Kichijoji Police Station?”

  Eizo flinched, then quickly recovered. “Did the summer heat make you see things?” he began. “Next time, don’t exhaust your little hind legs trying to keep pace with someone you can never catch.”

  “Why do I need to follow a coward to the police station? Or are you going there to drop off more parcels like Santa fucking Claus?”

  Eizo grew annoyed. Parcels?

  This was an office, a place where people behaved like professionals, like adults who understood civility. He didn’t need to work in one to know this was the most basic of all manners: no cussing, no throwing baseless allegations at people you were meeting for the first time.

  The wolf appeared older than him by a few years. When he shut his mouth, he looked somewhat poised, with his crisp dressing and sharp appearance. If Eizo had looked for a fraction longer, he might have been fooled into thinking he was dealing with a fellow citizen who obeyed the rules of decorum in a public space such as this. But, as he’d realized, this was an untamed beast that had no place in civilization. And certainly not one who had witnessed his brisk walk of shame from earlier.

  “You get off on that?” The wolf raised his voice as if on cue. A few heads from outside the meeting room swerved in their direction. “Dropping off anonymous shit and then ghosting people?”

  A vein throbbed in Eizo’s head. He tried to remain calm, but something about the wolf intimidated him. As though he knew something about Eizo. He closed his eyes and willed the sensation to dissipate.

  It was going well until the wolf spoke again. “I take that back. You can’t get off because you have no balls.”

  Eizo’s eyes flew open. The wolf folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in the chair, his snarl unfurling into a self-satisfied smirk. Eizo wanted to sock him in the jaw, to wipe the smirk clean off his face. He didn’t realize he was leaning toward the wolf, their faces mere inches apart, when he heard a knock on the glass door.

  It was Ishimura Goro, whom he had last met in July when signing the contract. The literary agent beamed at them, his long monolid eyes melting into small rainbows on his heart-shaped face. With his eyebrows delicately tweezed at the arches and thin lips curving up at the corners, Eizo thought he looked like a fox poking his head into the room.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Goro asked, rolling up the sleeves of his navy business shirt to his elbows. “It’s hot in here,” he said, fanning himself. “Is the air conditioning even on?”

  Eizo straightened and sat back down in his chair.

  “It’s on. Your brain’s not,” the wolf snapped.

  Goro grinned at the scowling man, then looked at Eizo. “You’re early. Which is good, because someone here is extremely finicky about punctuality.”

  “Your timing is shit,” the wolf cut in. “I was about to find out if a man with no balls can land a punch.”

  Eizo’s hands curled into fists under the table.

  Goro pulled up a chair and wedged himself between the two men. Unlike the wolf, who didn’t budge, Eizo shuffled aside to make space for him.

  “Have you introduced yourselves?” Goro asked.

  “No—” Eizo began, only for the wolf to interject.

  “Not interested.”

  Goro tapped Eizo on the elbow. “That’s Ran for you. We’ve known each other since high school. We’re practically best friends,” he said with a short laugh. “Mr. Konishi will do the honors soon. Don’t worry, despite how this chap looks, he does listen to his boss.”

  Eizo forced a smile in reply. What was this brouhaha between a wolf, a fox, and a man who wanted the meeting to end before it even started?

  Konishi Kisuke entered the meeting room five minutes after nine. With his crew cut that parted three-quarters left, orange t-shirt and black jogger pants, he looked every bit like the boss of a mid-sized publisher and simultaneously unlike one.

  Two staff members, a man and a woman who appeared to be in their early to mid-twenties, joined him. Probably fresh out of college like Eizo. They looked friendly and flashed him genial smiles, reminding him of his coursemates in Keio, and didn’t seem like they’d make his life difficult.

  They bowed slightly to the wolf called Ran before sitting opposite him. Ran’s brows furrowed together in displeasure.

  Kisuke took his seat at the head of the table. “Great, everyone’s here.”

  “Everything’s fucking great to you, latecomer,” Ran muttered under his breath.

  Eizo looked around the room, astonished by what he’d heard. No one else seemed to bat an eyelid. Had only Eizo heard him?

  He glanced at Ran just as Ran looked back at him, as though daring him to speak. Goro coughed, breaking their eye contact.

  “I’m sure we’re all aware by now that we have a very popular author joining our ranks,” Kisuke said. “I’ve purposely kept the team small because this is a significant project to Suigetsu. Unveiling him and his new project is a major part of our launch strategy in June. Do you all know what this means?”

  The Suigetsu CEO scanned the room, ensuring all eyes were on him, understanding. Everything discussed from now on would be confidential.

  He stopped at Eizo, making him feel slightly self-conscious. Even when seated, Eizo’s height gave him the most distinctive physique in the room. The next tallest was probably Goro, who seemed to reach his eyes. Kisuke was around Goro’s height. Apart from the young lady seated across from him, the shortest among them must be Ran.

  Ran the Runt.

  Eizo bit back a laugh, then grew embarrassed once more for feeling intimidated by Ran in that split second when their eyes had met at the traffic junction. The sudden appearance of a wolf would shock anyone.

  “We are counting on this to drive traction ahead of launching our subscription platform next year, at the start of summer break. Think of it as a Shonen Jump manga site, but for serialized fiction.” Kisuke paused for emphasis. The two young staff sat up in anticipation as the Suigetsu founder rolled out his vision for the project. “We’re looking for high-quality novels that lend well to media licensing, which Goro will help us with. We are talking animated or even live adaptations that our audiences never knew they needed until we show up. We need to start our new venture with an absolute bang, to announce to the world that Suigetsu, the naughty child of the industry, have well and truly arrived.”

  Eizo felt Ran’s eyes on him the whole time.

  “Eizo, are you ready?” Kisuke asked.

  The writer took it as his cue to introduce himself. “Pleased to meet everyone. I’m Kamada Eizo. You may know me as Baka Nori, author of the LitRPG web novel with fifty million reads in three years.”

  The room clapped, except for one person.

  “Stupid,” Ran piped up with a touch of condescension. “Seaweed.”

  Eizo shifted in his seat, resisting the urge to reach over Goro and haul Ran to his feet by the collar.

  “Eizo won’t be using that name anymore,” Goro said with the cheer of a seasoned salesman. “We will come up with something new that will still drive association with Baka Nori, so his readers know it’s him writing under another name.”

  “Ran, will you help Eizo think of something?” Kisuke added.

  “Isn’t that a job for Marketing?”

  “Your work has already started,” Kisuke said. “Eizo, meet the lead editor for your project. Ran, meet your new author. You will work together closely for the next ten months, along with Reika and Takeru, who will provide editorial support.”

  Horikita Reika and Yamano Takeru beamed at Eizo as they introduced themselves. Eizo uttered a response—he didn’t know what he said—and felt something akin to a smile reflexively plastered on his face.

  “You’re in good hands. Mr. Miyamoto’s a fantastic editor,” Takeru said. “We’ve been learning so much from him.”

  Miyamoto?

  The ceiling shifted in dizzying angles. Eizo might have heard a voice that sounded like his, saying something incredibly cursed aloud.

  “You left out a Mister,” Ran said, curt as ever. Before the meeting could continue, he stood up abruptly with his mug. The contents sloshed dangerously around the rim, threatening to spill onto the table. “I need to take a shit. You guys go ahead with what you need to tell him.”

  “We can wait,” Kisuke said. “My next meeting isn’t until ten-thirty.”

  “Don’t bother. It’s a big one. I’ll be gone for a while.”

  Eizo had learned today that wolves had names, such as Miyamoto Ran.

  Miyamoto, who lived in Kichijoji, Oakwood Apartments, Unit 525.

  His neighbor, Miyamoto.

  Was Eizo still smiling, or had the smile finally left his face?

  No, he was staring at the door, where Ran had just walked out.

  “Don’t worry,” Goro said for the second time that day. “Defecating is Ran’s coping mechanism.”

  6

  Eizo had barely been in his new place for two nights when he heard that his mother, Kamada Kiko, was returning home.

  At once, he packed the necessities into his backpack and took the first train back to Hiro-o Station, then walked fifteen minutes to Minami-Azabu.

  His family lived just south of Azabudai Hills, near a new, luxurious mixed-use complex with shops on the lower floors and offices on the upper levels. To the east was Tokyo Tower. A few degrees north of his home was Akasaka, where Suigetsu was.

  As the Chief Investment Strategist of the Saiji Group, Kamada Kiko had been based in Europe for five years—first in Geneva and then in London—to lead the restructuring of their global portfolio. A leading voice in Japan’s premier financial circles, she frequently delivered keynote speeches at industry conferences and shared her insights in business interviews. She was supposed to stay in Europe until next summer. He knew why she had returned early, even if it turned out to be only for a week.

  Because Eizo was due to move back home in June.

  That had been their agreement five years ago, after he received Keio’s letter of acceptance and the results of the baseball tryouts. Keio University had Tokyo’s premier college baseball team, its crowning glory in an expanse of talented students and influential alumni.

  “The team trains very hard.” Eizo picked out the exact words he needed from Keio to fend off his mother’s resistance to his moving out of Azabudai. “They recommend student athletes stay in the dorm, so they can manage our meals and plan a detailed training schedule around coursework.”

  When she’d remained unconvinced, Eizo had unveiled the stake he had been clutching behind his back.

  “Dad is coaching at Waseda.”

  He didn’t need to look at her to know how she felt about the news. Of the many things Kamada Kiko knew, staying apprised of her ex-husband’s career was not one of them.

  Eizo aimed the stake at his mother’s heart. “Keio will play Waseda in the first game of the fall league.”

  Nothing was more glorious to Keio than beating their bitter rivals, another private university famed across Tokyo: Waseda.

  “How guaranteed is your spot on the first team?” his mother, a Keio alumnus, asked with faint interest.

  “They’ve been looking for a shortstop with a long reach who can steal bases,” he said. “Someone like me.”

  “Only one outcome for you then.”

  “I never play to lose,” Eizo replied.

  It was Eizo’s first victory over his mother. It was his only victory to date.

  * * *

  Kamada Kiko was a woman whose star had never stopped shining since the day she was born. Her light was so bright, so scorching, that it engulfed everything around her and left in her wake shadows of what once was.

  When Eizo graduated and had to move out of the dorms, he’d enlisted his coach’s backing to stay for another six weeks so he could help his juniors prepare for the intercollegiate league. Coach Ito, who was from Keio and had played for the Chunichi Dragons, wielded considerable sway over player matters, including their accommodation on the dorm-scarce campus. In exchange, the team must consistently perform at a high level. That meant winning the Tokyo Big 6 Baseball League.

  He’d used every reason he could to delay his inevitable return—that he was an influential member of the baseball team, one that made careers and connections among its members long after they had graduated; that Coach Ito needed him to train the infielders. With Waseda emerging stronger than ever, Keio had an uphill task for September. It had been two years since they’d last won the tournament, beating out Waseda for their 40th title in the fall of 2023.

  Always carefully worded to convey what his mother wanted to hear, Eizo would pick out keywords and emphasize them like highlights on a page, so she would recall the broad strokes of what he said and realize she had no choice but to cede to him.

  “You think you may have it tough, but it doesn’t compare to how harsh it is to be a woman,” his mother once said to him. “Especially in Japan.”

  Eizo hadn’t replied. He couldn’t. He wasn’t a woman; he wasn’t his mother; he didn’t know of a life beyond the country he grew up in. He could claim to understand how she felt, but he knew his words would come out like a husk, hollow in meaning simply because he wasn’t her. That was how Eizo felt whenever she spoke.

  Kamada Kiko held the supreme right to her beliefs because she was her. She’d gone through everything a woman must before she was deemed to have earned her stripes.

  The only daughter in a family of three sons, she completed the traditional trifecta of marriage, childbirth, and motherhood by the time she turned thirty, clearing each stage with graceful ease that would later make her a role model for every young mother with professional aspirations in the Minato ward. She’d even been a housewife for ten years before emerging from the ashes of forced mediocrity, her star too bright to be smothered. She’d pushed aside her doubters to succeed, and because she had, her words became the absolute truth, a decree to forge allegiance and follow her charge down the battlefield.

  “Everyone is waiting to see me fail,” she said. “But I won’t.”