Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

MADDOX

We stand back as the paramedics work and the police apprehend the man before the officer who’d spoken English comes over to us with another officer.

“I’m Officer Nakamura,” the man who’d talked to me earlier says. “Your names?”

“I’m Maddox Booker and this is Hiro Moore.”

“Are either of you hurt?” Officer Nakamura asks as he eyes Hiro, who looks to be struggling a bit. I can tell his head is killing him, and it doesn’t help that his hands appear to have been dipped in blood.

“I believe we’re both fine, thank you,” I say.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks Hiro. “You look like you’ve seen better days.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Hiro says. “I just get headaches.”

“Do you need to sit down? We definitely don’t need another one bleeding everywhere. I’ll never hear the end of it if you’re hurt on my watch.”

“No, I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt. This is something… chronic.”

“Okay. Can you explain what happened?” he asks.

I nod and start going through it in the best way that I can without drawing attention to Hiro’s ability. “Hikaru is the boyfriend of Hiro’s cousin. He… acted a bit off earlier today. Paranoid, almost. When we reached the edge of the park, I noticed blood.”

“Hold on… were you with him when you reached the park?” the officer asks.

“No… we were coming from Hiro’s aunt’s house.”

“Okay, please continue.”

“As we reached the park, we noticed a cell phone there that Yumi, Hiro’s cousin, nudged, thinking it was Hikaru’s, but it wasn’t. She stated that there was a text on it that said something like ‘Have you done it yet?’ Knowing Hikaru was likely hurt because of the blood we’d seen, we headed deeper into the park. I moved that way, where I saw blood on a door before eventually finding Hikaru under the bell. The attacker must have been looking for Hikaru and saw me because he promptly came up behind me and tried hitting me with the baseball bat. He would have if I hadn’t noticed him and avoided the hit. You’ll likely see marks in the pillar there. When I turned to face him, I noticed that he had the baseball bat in his right hand and the knife in his left. I informed him that the police had been called and asked him to drop his weapons. Instead, he proceeded to attack me.

“Hiro distracted him by coming up behind him and startling him, which allowed me to disarm him and put him on the ground where we waited for you,” I finish.

“How did you know Hikaru had been attacked?” he asks. “According to the operator, the woman who called us didn’t know how either of you knew what was going on.”

This is the very question I’m reluctant to answer. If I tell him it was a text, he’d be able to see from Hikaru’s call log that he doesn’t have any way to even contact either of us and that he never contacted Yumi.

Noticing my hesitation, Hiro speaks up. “You don’t have to believe me, but I got a bad feeling. That was it. If my feeling was wrong, then it was wrong, but it proved to be right.”

“I get bad feelings when my mother shows up with a random woman she’s convinced is my soulmate. Not when there’s a possible attack ten minutes across town,” Nakamura says with an arched eyebrow.

“Like Maddox said, Hikaru had been acting paranoid earlier today. He was doing things like looking behind him… like he thought someone was following him. And then he had a heated phone call during lunch. I guess working with homicide, I started to suspect something was going on and began to wonder if he knew he was being followed or knew that someone was after him. When I heard that he would be walking alone after class… I just had a bad feeling. I thought at the very least he shouldn’t be walking alone,” Hiro says.

Officer Nakamura seems skeptical, but he nods. “Okay. There are cameras in the park, so we should be able to verify what happened before you arrived. Can I get your contact information?”

“Of course,” I say. “Anything you need, we’re happy to give it.”

“You both look a bit… red. Let me get someone to help you get cleaned up,” he says as he waves someone over and says something to them in Japanese. “She’ll get you cleaned up in a minute.”

I see Yumi inching closer to us as soon as she escapes talking to an officer, but the moment she sees the blood on our hands, she looks a bit faint.

“It’s okay,” Hiro says. “He’s getting medical treatment now.”

“What the hell happened?” she asks, so I give her a condensed version of it. “Why would someone attack him?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. A woman comes up and speaks to her in Japanese before Yumi turns to us.

“They’ve informed me what hospital they’re taking him to. I’m going now.”

“Want us to come with you when we’re done here?” I ask.

“No, it’s okay. My mom will go with me.”

“Okay. Let me know what you hear,” Hiro says.

She nods and rushes off.

After we’ve given the officers everything they need as well as future hotels and ways to contact us since we’re foreigners who could be traveling, we are finally let free.

By then, Hiro is clearly struggling because of his headache. And I’m positive it’s worse than he’s letting on because he’s trying his hardest to pretend to be fine in front of the police. I’m sure it’s taken a lot out of him today between trying to keep Hikaru’s ghosts from bumping into him and pushing them away from Hikaru when he fell as well as helping Reggie choke the attacker. I sure wonder what their videos will be like as they question why a tree started shaking and the man suddenly began choking.

Ah well.

“Come on, let’s get you back,” I say.

“Yes, please,” he mumbles as he slowly starts walking after me.

Officer Nakamura must notice because he comes back over. “You sure you’re okay?”

Hiro forces out a smile. “Yeah, thank you. Just the headache which makes me nauseous.”

“One of my officers will drive you back,” he says, which I’m thankful for since we ran a pretty good distance. While there might have been a bus or a subway stop that would have gotten us home faster than walking, we would have been stuck figuring out where to get on and off while looking like we’d stepped out of a horror movie. The wipes they’d provided us had helped some but did nothing for our stained clothes. “And tourists generally come over for some sushi… maybe a stroll through a shrine or temple. May I recommend you two stick to those activities?”

“It’d be preferable,” Hiro says as the officer snorts.

“At least neither of you were hurt.”

The drive is pretty quick, and when we arrive, Hiro’s grandma is there to open the door for us. She takes a good look at us. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Hiro says. “Have you heard anything about Hikaru?”

“No.”

I guide Hiro to the bathroom and scrub my arms and hands, which removes any of the blood that the wipes they’d given us had missed. “Hiro, head into the shower. I’ll go up and get you some clothes and set them out here.” I wave toward the vanity that’s in the washroom but separated by a sliding door that leads to the tub and shower area.

“Okay,” he says.

His grandma is hovering outside the room when I come out. She holds her phone out to me, and when I glance down to see what’s on it, I realize she’s using a translation app to ask me what happened.

I quickly type up a condensed version that translates it out loud as I type it. She hesitates before taking the phone from me and typing: But how did Hiro know? And who was he talking to?

I stare at it for a long moment, honestly unsure of what to even say. I can’t give away Hiro’s secret, but what is a good excuse? She has to take note of my hesitation as I slowly type out: Hiro had a bad feeling and Hikaru had been acting paranoid.

I hope that’s it, but she types out: But who was he talking to? He was talking to someone at the table.

Fucking hell.

I hand her the phone back without typing anything more and give her a smile. “I’m sorry, I need to get Hiro some clothes.”

She steps back so I can go, and I find myself feeling guilty, but what else do I say? I hurry upstairs to find clothes for Hiro and myself before returning to the bathroom. The sliding glass door leading into the shower area is shut, so I set his clothes on the counter before knocking gently on the door. “Hiro?”

The water shuts off and he slides the door open just enough to see me. He looks rough, and I notice that he hasn’t even fully washed the soap off his arm, so I turn the water back on and spray it off as he quietly watches.

“Your grandma is… very curious who you were talking to. Just to warn you. I’ll see if she has some medication for your head and let her know you aren’t feeling well. And we’ll try to get you upstairs with the least possible amount of questions.”

“Mkay. I feel sick,” he says as he squats down.

“Do you need a trash can?”

“No… It was just a long day,” he responds as I grab the towel and gently start drying his hair as he remains on the ground, dripping water.

Once his hair is dried enough, I rub the towel down his chest and across his back as he leans into me, eyes half closed. I want to gather him into my arms and carry him upstairs, but I know he’d fight me on that and assure me that he was fine. So instead, I pull him to his feet, hooking an arm around his waist to help steady him so I can dry the rest of him. He’s leaving a wet spot on my clothes, but I don’t care as I reach over to the counter to grab the clothes I’d just brought. I pull the shirt over his head as he closes his eyes and returns to leaning against me, half-heartedly helping when I try to guide his arms through the sleeves.

I grab his underwear and guide his legs into them before doing the same with his sweats. Draping the towel over a rack, I assist him to the door that I push open. “You sure you’re not going to throw up?”

“Semi-sure,” he mutters as I lead him toward the stairs, but before we go up, his grandma comes over and holds a glass of water and some pills out.

“His head,” she says as she points to her own head.

“Oh. Thank you,” he replies as he takes them. He swallows the pills and downs the glass, which she takes when he’s done.

Did I tell her he had a headache?

Hiro is already starting up the stairs, so I hurry after him so he doesn’t fall. Maybe she saw him rubbing his head when he came in.

I guide him up to his room where the futons are out and ready. I help him down onto one, pulling the blanket back so I can spread it out over him once he’s lain down. “I can wait until you’re feeling better to take a shower.”

“No, no, go get cleaned up. You were out brawling and you’re dirty.”

“Okay,” I say as I pull the covers over him. “You need anything before I go?” I set the trash can next to him since I know that when he gets like this, he often throws up.

“No. Thank you, though.”

“Your phone is in your hand . Call me if you need me. I’ll run right up.”

“So set the phone down in a different room, got it,” Hiro says, referring to all the times the ghosts have had to alert me for him.

I head downstairs but don’t see his grandma, so I walk into the bathroom to get cleaned up. I take a fast shower and hurry back upstairs, but I didn’t need to worry because his grandma had been warming him up something to eat and is keeping a close eye on him. She motions to a second plate, and I remember that we never did actually get to eat.

“Thank you,” I say as I sit down at the desk.

She retrieves the phone and types into it before it says, “Do you need anything else?”

Hiro must have pulled up his own app because it says something in Japanese. She seems satisfied but doesn’t choose to leave. Instead, she keeps fussing over him, whisking the plates away the moment Hiro’s done, refilling his water, and making sure everything is set. Once it is, she turns the light out and quietly shuts the door, taking all the plates with her.

“It seems like they feel guilty but I’m not sure why,” Hiro says.

“They are free to have their own feelings as long as you’re not feeling guilty in correlation,” I tell him.

“Hmm…” he mutters, which means that he’s not listening to my advice.

I lie down next to him and pull him in close, tucking him between my arms and against my chest where I want to hold him and always keep him safe. “Sorry your head hurts.”

“Hmm.”

“Try to sleep a little.”

“I can’t sleep… we don’t know what’s going on.”

“I will wake you up when I hear.”

Hiro seems to find that tempting because he goes, “Promise?”

“Yeah.”

I kiss the side of his forehead as his eyes flutter closed. He’s too tense to be asleep, making me afraid the headache is keeping him from sleeping, so I gently rub his back as the evening stretches on.