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Hiromi is aware that removing his make-up is no easy task. Regardless, he’d rather wrestle around his steering wheel, scrubbing his face until it stings than drive home looking like the angriest clown in the clown car. Removing the tape over the shop’s logo is the last step, bringing his late night shenanigans to an end. Shadow retires for the night, Hiromi resuming his place as the quiet and unassuming young man he is inside.
He’s driving home late, twenty-eight in a thirty mile an hour zone. He could be doing thirty, but he doesn’t. He never does. Better safe than sorry. It’s the same reason that he takes off his make-up in the car before he leaves Crazy Rock.
Today, he’s grateful he’s done both.
The police car has its lights on, red and blue hurt his eyes enough that he has to squint a little to pull over. At least there are no sirens, not that he would have heard them over the blare of his radio anyway. It’s set to the heavy metal channel and cranked to eleven, just as god intended.
He isn’t in trouble, he can’t be, but his heart thunders in his chest as he scrambles to find his licence before the cop approaches.
‘Good evening, officer,’ he says as he opens the window, because that’s what they say on television. Despite the illegal trespassing and gratuitous movie pirating, Hiromi has spent twenty-four blissful years out of the eyes of the law. He doesn’t know the procedure for these things.
‘Inspector,’ she corrects, clipped but not angry. She flashes a badge, slow enough that he can see the photo and name, but it doesn’t linger in his mind as well as it should.
‘I’m sober,’ he says before he cringes inwardly.
‘I should hope so,’ she says dryly. ‘You’re not in trouble, relax.’
Easier said than done. Someone has replaced Hiromi’s spine with iron, ramrod straight and achingly stiff. He dons a forced smile and at least tries to make a show of relaxing. That being said, there is little about the inspector that makes relaxing a simple task.
‘We’re patrolling the area tonight. We’ve heard some reports of suspicious activity.’
Delightfully vague.
Regardless, he can make an educated guess. What isn’t suspicious about a madman jumping from a helicopter and flying down into an abandoned-mine turned teenage-rebellion-dream-playground? A personalised parachute, a big screen and projection lamps. High budget, high octane, low subtlety. There’s no way it passed under the radar. Abandoned mine or not, they’re still in a busy city.
Hiromi shakes his head.
‘I’m sorry. I’m just driving through.’
Pay no attention to the skateboard and cape in the backseat.
She nods.
‘Do you live in the area?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Are you around often?’
‘Often enough,’ he admits. ‘I probably drive this way a few times a week making deliveries.’
She nods again, but there’s a little interest in her eyes now.
‘Have you ever seen this man or this vehicle before?’ she asks. Her nails are painted neater than Hiromi’s and filed to an oval tip. It detracts his attention from the image for just a moment. A silly thought in his mind registers she’s likely not a skater. No one could grab a board and survive with nails like that. Griptape is the great equaliser.
‘Well?’ she asks and Hiromi is startled back to the moment.
What the hell is he doing?
He squints.
It’s a surveillance image, low quality, grainy but faintly recognisable. It’s monochrome but Hiromi’s mind supplies its own colours. Blue hair someone more poetic might find sapphire. Red eyes, sharp and intimidating.
He looks different in the image, less polished, more human. He’s standing beside a car, black, sleek, expensive, a cigarette in one hand, the other running through his hair.
What is it that finally connected the dots?
The slight tousle to his usually perfect hair? The stance of complete and utter confidence? The broad and powerful shoulders that seem to bear an impossible weight?
‘He’s that politician right?’ Hiromi says. ‘I’ve seen him on posters, billboards, and stuff.’
It’s much easier than saying, yes, I think I watched him sky-diving dressed as a matador not even two hours ago.
‘Have you seen him in the area? Or do you think you’ve seen this car?’ She flips open a notebook she pulled from her pocket. ‘Recognise the registration?’
God help him. Yes, he had seen him in the area. Yes, he had seen the car. Yes, he did recognise the registration.
Hiromi swallows, finding his throat tight.
Ainosuke Shindo, politician, healing the world with love.
Adam, with love that was nothing more than thinly veiled cruelty.
In this grainy photo he stood alone.
One and the same.
‘Take a good look.’ She produces a second candid photo. All it serves to do is confirm Hiromi’s suspicion. ‘Are you sure you haven’t seen him around?’
But what should he do with the information? It’s clear this inspector is on the hunt for Ainosuke Shindo. All he needs to do is point her to Adam and his empire would topple like a house of cards.
Yet he pauses. The words stick in his throat, clench tightly around his heart, constricting him from the inside out.
People came to Crazy Rock to skate, the beef, to party and importantly, to forget who they were for just a few hours every week.
Who’s to say Adam—no— Ainosuke Shindo was any different?
‘No, I can’t say that I have. Sorry, inspector.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure. He’s like a celebrity isn’t he?’
She doesn’t look pleased, but Hiromi’s customer service smile is impenetrable. He could hide an entire shift’s worth of pent up fury—lying is child’s play.
‘Sorry I can’t be more help.’
She pulls a card out of her pocket, and Hiromi takes it.
Kiriko Kamata.
‘Call this number if you think of anything.’
‘I will,’ he says earnestly. ‘You have a good night now.’
He for one will not.
---
‘Hiromi-chan you’re going to cut the stem too sho—oops.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry!’
Tell that to the rose he just decimated with his overly enthusiastic pruning. It’s looking rather sorry for itself as it joins a dozen of its brethren hacked by distracted hands, now unsalvageable and unsellable.
‘Why don’t you go work at the counter for a little while?’ his manager suggests politely.
For the sake of the flowers, Hiromi thinks that would be best. He trudges from the worktable, allowing her to take over fulfilling bouquet orders.
‘Two dozen red roses please,’ a calm voice requests, shocking Hiromi from his melancholy. His smile is mechanical and probably a little too manic to look truly genuine but he attempts it nevertheless.
‘Of course!’
‘And a moment of your time, too, if you will.’
Hiromi looks at him; unassuming, grey hair and grey suit. He half expects grey eyes too, so he’s shocked to find a quiet intensity of green, a jewel where there should have been stone. In a bid to look anywhere else, his eyes glance around the shop. His manager is arranging the requested flowers, paying little heed.
Is this some kind of yakuza protection money shake down? Hiromi wonders. He’d drop the smile if it is, but he’d have to make sure it was out of sight of the manager.
‘Let me ring up your purchase and we can talk outside for a moment.’
Where there are witnesses . Hospitalised by thugs once this year, he’s in no hurry for it to happen again.
A black card is his answer. Hiromi’s almost sure he’s too poor to touch such an expense, but he rings up the purchase with a robotic grin.
‘I’ll be just a moment!’ he says to his manager.
She nods, but looks a little confused. Normally, if anyone interrupts Hiromi during work time it’s Reki, Langa, or Miya. He smiles away her concern and smooths down his apron because it prevents his hands from clenching into fists.
‘How can I help?’ he says once the door to the flower shop is closed. He’s too nervous for preamble. Besides, the man before him doesn’t seem the conversational type.
He reaches into his jacket pocket, and for a single, insane second, Hiromi wonders if he’s going to pull out a gun. Instead, he pulls out an envelope and hands it to Hiromi.
‘Do I… open it?’ he asks.
He nods and Hiromi thinks there might have been a momentary blip of complete exasperation across his expressionless face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. It must just have been his imagination.
A blank cheque.
‘People still use cheques?’
‘My employer uses cheques. He hopes this will be a message to you.’
‘A threat?’ Hiromi balks, horrified.
He’s gonna take all my money? I don’t have any money?! What do I do if I have no money. I knew this was a racket scheme. Dammit.
‘No,’ the man says quickly. ‘It’s a… bargain. He has had some unsavoury people on his trail for a while now. He would appreciate it if you played your part by not indulging idle curiosity.’
Oh.
‘This is a bribe.’ He says it flatly because the realisation is a startling one.
‘It is a token of appreciation.’
Unlikely. This is just the rich people equivalent of snitches get stitches .
‘I know how to keep my mouth shut,’ he growls, and there’s no trace of his workplace charm to be found. He passes the cheque back like it’s disdainful. ‘Tell Ainosuke Shindo I don’t know anything about what’s going on near the old mine, and even if I did, it’s none of my business. I’m not interested in politics.’
The grey man does not seem satisfied. He moves as though to pass the cheque to Hiromi once more, but Hiromi’s firm palm stops him.
‘I want no part of this nonsense.’
‘I really must insist—‘
‘I really must insist you shove it up your ass.’ Shadow always lingers at the surface of Hiromi’s self-control, freedom that only anger would allow him to express. ‘No one is gonna bribe me, not you, not Adam—‘
The world around him freezes.
Shit.
The grey man’s eyes widen. He isn’t quick enough to hide it.
Shit shit shit shit shit.
‘Your bouquet is ready, Tadashi-san!’ a chipper voice announces as the manager sticks her head around the doorway, bouquet in hand.
‘Thank you,’ the grey man—Tadashi—says stiffly. He places the envelope back into his pocket and takes the flowers.
His look towards Hiromi is nothing short of murderous and he wonders if it’s possible to die from your own big fat mouth. He thinks it might be.
---
‘Got something on your mind, Hiromi-chan?’ a playful voice called from the doorway.
Hiromi holds the counter in a death-grip as none other than Ainosuke Shindo strolled into his small flower store.
He looks around, as if amused at the quaintness of the shop, of the manager, and of Hiromi himself. The height difference between them is nominal but right now, Hiromi feels miniscule, a cornered mouse right under the paw of the smiling and hungry cat.
‘Do you seriously think I don’t do a background check for every member of S, Hiromi-chan?’ His voice is playful, his eyes are dangerous. ‘A yappy little police dog was on your heels last night. Seems like you’ve learned something you shouldn’t have.’
Hiromi didn’t need that spiel to know he had been right. The moment he saw blood red irises on the smiling face of Ainosuke Shindo, he knew he and Adam were one and the same.
‘I meant it when I said I wouldn’t say anything,’ Hiromi says firmly. Hiromi was only ever a pushover for his friends.
‘Why?’ Ainosuke asks, seeming genuinely amused at the thought.
‘Don’t you go there to escape? Isn’t that what you’re hiding there? S?’
Red eyes bore holes into his, he knows Ainosuke is only human but it feels like he’s looking into his very soul. It’s unnerving, but there’s little about the man that isn’t.
‘Fine,’ he says after a beat too long. ‘It shouldn’t matter much now. I won’t be around much anyway. And that pretty but determined inspector is halfway back to Tokyo now.’
‘You’re leaving S again?’ The words slipped out before he thought them through fully.
The funeral beef between Langa and Adam had been harrowing, but intense. How could one ascend to the very peaks of talent then disappear like a ghost?
A look flickers over Ainosuke’s expression, suppressed but not fully. Hiromi knows it well. The humiliation of a fresh defeat, powerful enough that it overrides the enjoyment of the beef. A bruised ego is usually a wound one nurses for a long time.
There’s a hurt in there. The look of the man used to life at the top, whose tower has crumbled.
He should hate Ainosuke for all he did. A dagger in their side, he was a very real threat to his friends both in and out of Crazy Rock.
But when all’s said and done, there’s something in Ainosuke he relates to. The desire to escape, to be something, someone else, for just a while. The need for excitement, adrenaline, challenge. He didn’t come to S to win, or to brag and posture, though it was certainly part of the experience. He came to push himself, and he can tell Ainosuke did too.
‘Won’t you miss it?’
‘Miss what?’
‘Skating? The beefs, the adrenaline, the fun?’
‘Fun?’
He says it like he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
‘You telling me you jump from helicopters and dress like a matador and you aren’t having fun?’
Ainsouke pauses.
‘It was a little fun in the end,’ he admits, as if unsure.
A smile plays on Hiromi’s lips, the kind he usually suppressed in the flower store, all teeth and malice.
‘Hell yeah, it is. You can’t just walk away from that.’
‘I might not have much choice.’
‘So the great Adam was defeated. So what? The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Besides… no one knows you’re Adam. Other than me, and that guy Tadashi.’
‘What are you getting at, Hiromi-chan ?’
‘I’m saying, I have an extra cape and enough greasepaint to go around. Why don’t you give Adam a break for a while? Be someone new, let go, live a little. Isn’t that the point of S?’
The pause is heavy and thoughtful in the air. Intelligent though he clearly is, it appears to be something Ainosuke hasn’t pondered before. When Hiromi becomes Shadow, it’s an affirmation that the unsavoury sides of himself are still worthy. He doesn’t need to smile when he can grimace. Why speak sweetly when a litany of curses will work twice as fast?
He loves it.
Perhaps Ainosuke can remember how to love it too.
‘Join you and your band of—’
‘You probably don’t want to finish that,’ Hiromi says quickly.
A true smile dances on Aionsuke’s lips.
‘Fine, Shadow: Anti-hero of S. You might have a new anti-hero to add to your crew. For one night, at least. But I have to make one thing clear.’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t wear black.’
Hiromi slaps a hand on Ainosuke’s back with a laugh that sounds more like a bark.
‘We’ll see about that.’