School Girls' Stories - Year 3

Chapter 9 – Phone Calls

“Hi, you’ve reached Shinwa Kiseki,” it seems he had taken up the English way of saying his name while in London, “I’m not around to answer the phone right now, so please leave a message and I will call you back as soon as possible.” The entire message was in English, and Yuki understood none of it, but she knew what the beep at the end of the message meant.

“Shinwa, it’s Yuki,” she said into the phone, cradling it closer to her, trying to wrap herself around the memory of the sound of his voice. “I don’t know what time it is there, but I thought I would call you and tell you that Kaori had her baby. It’s a little girl she named Bliss. Shai may be adopting it, which I think is best, but I don’t know how-”

“To send this message, please press pound…” Yuki did not understand the English words coming out of the phone. She just hung up, knowing that her message had been cut off for being too lengthy. She sighed and put the phone back in its cradle and just stared for a few moments. She looked to the phone number on a sticky note beside the telephone she was supposed to be calling. Why did her parents leave this to her to make this phone call? She could not call this man and just suddenly start prattling along in Japanese. Did he even understand Japanese? Was this not her parents’ job to call the husband and let them know that his wife was dying?

Yuki picked up the phone and began to dial slowly. On the first ring she nearly hung up the phone, but something kept her on the line. When a male voice picked up and said gruffly, “Hello,” she wondered what time of day it was in Canada, she had never stopped to find out.

Yuki took a deep breath and began, slowly, in the only English she knew, “M…may I… speak to… James Grant?” There, that did not sound too badly, did it?

Suddenly the person who answered the phone on the other end was much more alert. “Yuki?” a thick Japanese accent answered her.

Yuki nearly dropped the phone from her ear. She had not recognized his voice in English, and she had not even thought about whether he would answer the phone or not, she almost forgot that he lived there too. Yet, there was the sound of her brother’s voice, all concern now that he has heard his baby sister’s voice on the other end.

“Nakago?” she asked incredulously. “Nakago, I can’t believe it’s you.”

“How is Kaori?” were the first words out of his mouth. Yuki did not hate him for his lack of interest in her. For some reason it warmed her heart that there he was, waiting by the phone, hoping for information on the woman he loved. Yes, there relationship was sick and twisted, but if someone called Shinwa, say Shai or Fuji, would he have reacted the same way?

“Nakago, she’s not well,” Yuki admitted. “She lost a lot of blood and she does not seem to be pulling through. The doctors aren’t really telling us what happened, but she is now in a coma.”

“And… the baby?” Nakago asked. His hesitation told Yuki that he knew it was his.

Yuki told him what she thought a new dad would want to hear. “Healthy and beautiful,” she said as wistfully as possible, though her heart was pounding at one hundred times a second. “She has all ten fingers and toes, and a full head of black hair already. She was born with blue eyes, but my mom told me that all babies’ eyes are blue when born. I bet she has the grey that is traditional to our family.”

“Thank God,” he mumbled quietly. Was he worried that with that close of a blood relation it would be deformed? Yuki had been worried, even now she was worried about the type of defects that might happen in Bliss’s future.

“Kaori… wanted Shai to adopt her,” Yuki said, not knowing why she felt this urge to tell Nakago everything. It had been so long since she had talked to her big brother, and Kaori had told her things… things she wanted to know for certain.

Nakago was silent for a few moments, then he seemed to come back to life. “I need to call Jimmy, let him know that his wife is in pain,” he changed the subject with such ease. Yuki could not tell if he thought this was a good idea, knew this idea all along, or wanted to come and kidnap his own child to keep it out of the clutches of some other teen mother.

“Before you go,” Yuki began, not knowing how to word what she wanted to ask.

“Yuki, just ask,” Nakago said, his voice started to regain some of his old cool and gruff. “You know I can’t remain patient for long.”

“Nakago, what happened the night Kago was killed? I want to hear it from you,” Yuki blurted out, it was the only way she could force the words from her mouth.

“That…” Nakago said with a small laugh in his malevolent voice, “that is what I thought you would ask.” He went on to tell her what Yuki had been afraid to hear all along, and Amatsu had never been sure of. Shoushin had come to kill Amatsu for breaking Shinwa. Shoushin blamed Amatsu for Shinwa’s lack of interest in the band and wanted to have the band back together, permanently. Unfortunately Amatsu had already been running after Kago, and Nakago had also been in hot pursuit of Kyoei. If Shoushin had not appeared, and shot Kago, Nakago had every intention of doing it himself.

Nakago, doing one of his only noble deeds in life, knew that if Shoushin lived he would come after Amatsu again, and who would believe a man who was angry that he was truly innocent, or that another man tried to kill him? Nakago was prepared to take the blame, it was a crime he had intended to commit, protecting his family, even if he had thought little of Yuki. Now, with Shoushin alive and still bloodthirsty Nakago had followed him, and had made sure it looked like a regular suicide. Without stopping Nakago had taken the blame, and easily escaped, and then run to the fishing boats and asked them to take him as close to America as they could.

“You already knew Shoushin?” Yuki confirmed.

“It is hard not to know the small amount of people who do drugs in this community when you are a top runner in that ring,” Nakago admitted, his patience now gone. “Yuki, I have to call Jimmy, or else he might lose his wife without knowing the pains he is in.”

“What about you?” Yuki asked quietly. “Are you going to come for her?”

“I’m a wanted man in Japan,” Nakago said fiercely, “as much as I want to see her, it would cause more pain for me to show up.”

“Nakago… thank you.”

“Bye Yuki,” and he hung up the phone before she could respond. For a moment she cradled that phone to her chest, her brother’s voice in her head, floating there. He may have been cruel, but he was her brother, and he had done a good deed in his life… to protect her. He may have been sinful in so many ways, but there was something in him that made him human.

Perhaps there was hope for Bliss yet.

“How did it go with James?” Mrs. Oshidori popped her head into the small room that Yuki had holed herself in. Yuki looked up at her mom and did not have the heart to tell her she had spoken to her brother, not the husband of the dying daughter.

“He will be here soon,” Yuki lied, and hoped against hope that lie would become a reality.