JE-united surprise fic for xdestroying 2/9

[ch3ryll]

Mita Palace
Keio, Workers’ Republic of Minato

Nino’s voice was muffled, since he’d covered his nose and mouth with his scarf in an attempt to avoid the stench inside the palace. “Getting sentimental yet?”

“No,” Jun replied, holding the lantern out before them. They’d gone to a few parks on the north side of the city, but the homeless men and women who lived there were very protective of their space, of each other. Nobody had wanted to speak with them at all. The palace had been Jun’s idea, if only because they could walk around inside and not freeze, could get out of the wind. Could avoid the secret police who walked the streets of Keio at night, looking for people to arrest for no good reason.

He had to be up in maybe five or six hours, back in the truck with the morning deliveries, but Nino was determined to find someone tonight. They’d been at it for nearly a week now, looking for men between the ages of about thirty and thirty-five that might be able to pass for Crown Prince Sho, the deceased heir of the Sakurai family. Nino figured they had an advantage over most people who were scheming to trick Chiba’s royal family - they actually knew what Sakurai Sho had looked like and would be able to identify the best doppelganger.

“They” actually meant Jun, and with each person they assessed and quickly rejected, Jun’s heart ached more and more. None of them were even close. Their eyes weren’t large enough, their faces weren’t round enough. The teeth were wrong. He was taller. He was shorter. Each rejection just served to remind Jun of what the real deal had looked like, had been like. And it hurt so badly that he was just about ready to give up and tell Nino that they were better off looking for an Eriko or a Ryota. Little Prince Ryota had been five years old when he’d died, so they could pick anyone and nobody would really know the difference.

Sho…Sho had been eighteen. With that arrogant princely smile, with his whole life ahead of him.

“Helloooooooo!” Nino shouted into the cavernous empty space that Jun had known as the palace ballroom.

Jun elbowed him, holding the lantern aloft. “Shut up. There could be criminals in here.”

“We’re the ones they ought to be afraid of,” Nino teased, holding up his pistol. Someone in a dangerous line of work like Nino was always carrying a gun, and Jun didn’t like it. He’d seen enough guns in his life.

They’d gone upstairs first, though pickings had been slim. They’d found a group of people in the old library, roasting a rat over a fire like it was gourmet cuisine. It had nearly turned Jun’s stomach. There’d been a group of four men in what had been the nursery, all of them too old to pass for Sho. Jun thought there’d have been more squatters, given how massive the palace was, but the building had long since served its purpose. There were few corners that hadn’t been used and abused, few rooms that had anything to offer the temporary resident aside from a hardwood floor or scattered pages from the books that had been in the library.

He shivered. Half the windows in the ballroom were gone, and it was horribly cold. They ought to just go back. Nino skipped ahead, dodging broken glass to hop up the handful of stairs to the platform where the throne had been. Where Sho’s father had presided over court for years, never truly believing the whispers that the people, his own generals, would rise up against him. It was a throne that would have been Sho’s, if things had been different.

Nino stood, looking out over the empty expanse. “Was it nice, back then?”

He was always so curious about life before. Nino’s parents owned an inn a few miles from the border with Chiba to the east. He’d been poor, achingly so since few travelers passed through town in the years before and after the Glorious Revolt. Nobody had the money to travel. His parents had sent him to Keio at thirteen, where he’d moved in with a candlemaking uncle to learn the trade. The uncle, debt-ridden, skipped town a short time later, the bank snatching up the property and leaving Nino homeless. Instead of going home, though, Nino had stayed in Keio, gotten himself mixed up in thievery and forgery, meeting up with and working for the people who’d driven his uncle into bankruptcy.

Mita Palace, the royal family, these were abstract concepts to a boy who’d grown up so far from the capital, who’d then spent most of his time in train stations learning to slice open pockets or cause a distraction so a comrade might succeed in the endeavor. But for Jun, he’d lived it. Sneaking to the kitchens to steal leftover sweet pastries from fetes and grand parties. Walking the servants’ corridors, the narrow passages and steep steps out of sight. Envying the large, beautiful rooms of the palace that merely existed to house more of the royal family’s art.

“It was nice, yeah,” Jun replied honestly.

They’d passed through the servants’ halls, which had been just as thoroughly ruined as the rest of the palace. The dining table where Jun had shared meals with footmen and scullery maids alike was gone, probably chopped up into firewood over a decade earlier. Nino had asked where his bedroom had been, and Jun had lied, saying he couldn’t quite remember. He simply didn’t want to see it, the room he’d shared with his mother since his birth. The room with the bell that went off at all hours of the day, calling his mother on Queen Kanako’s every whim. No, he didn’t need to see that room again, to see what people had done to it.

Nino nodded, shivering a little. “Just a few more rooms off this way, right?”

Before Jun could answer, a scream pierced the silent, heavy air, and Jun nearly pissed himself in fright. Nino whirled, pistol at the ready. It was a man’s voice, a sorrowful, gut-wrenching scream that Jun felt all the way to the marrow of his bones.

“Fighting over a bedroll, you think?” Nino asked, trying to sound nonchalant but failing. The tremor in his voice gave him away.

“Not really interested in finding out. We should go.”

There was another loud scream, and though Nino seemed to tighten his grip on his pistol, there was a peculiar look on his face. “That’s no fight,” Nino decided. “That’s just one person.”

“And you think we ought to see what’s making him holler like that?” Jun asked, shaking his head. “Probably just some nut.” When another shout broke the silence of the palace, he shut his eyes. He knew better than Nino what kind of shouts they were. Jun had heard them, so many times, at the front. Nightmares.

“Could be a nut between the ages of thirty and thirty-five,” Nino teased, lifting his coat and shoving his gun back in his waistband. “Hell, I’d settle for a forty year old uncle with a youthful face at this point.”

“Nino,” Jun protested, but there was no arguing with him.

He followed Nino out of the ballroom and down another hallway. The screams had stopped, but Nino proceeded cautiously, jiggling doorknobs and making plenty of noise so whoever might be behind the closed doors would know someone was out here, on to them. The first two rooms were empty and smelled worse than death to Jun, but the third had an occupant.

It was pitch black, but Jun could hear heaving sobs coming from one corner. “Let’s have a look,” Nino said, and Jun obeyed, holding the lantern aloft.

Amidst the garbage-strewn floor, there was a man sitting up on a cardboard mat, his whole body shaking. Even though Jun and Nino had opened the door, the man hadn’t seemed to notice or care. He was clad in a large wool coat that looked worn, but decently warm. A red scarf was tucked around his neck, and a brown leather bag was behind him, probably serving as some sort of pillow. His face was mostly hidden under messy black hair that hung about his face in greasy clumps. But if he’d been homeless, he hadn’t been for long. His clothes, his boots, they were too well-maintained.

It was Nino who decided to make introductions. “You alright, friend?”

When the man looked up, seeming surprised that he’d been addressed, Jun nearly dropped the lantern when he saw the man’s face. He’d probably gone a week or so without a shave and maybe a few months without a decent meal, considering his sunken cheeks, but upon seeing the man’s frightened eyes, Jun was astonished.

“Sho-kun?” he whispered, wondering if it was a trick of the light.

The man looked away. “Have I disturbed you? I apologize.” He plucked nervously at the scarf around his neck. “I have trouble sleeping.”

Jun was trembling now, and not from the cold. The resemblance, even fifteen years gone, was uncanny. Though there was none of Sho’s youthful vigor, his prideful bearing, this man could have been his double. Nino poked him. “What’s wrong?”

Jun shook his head, unable to speak. He was seeing what he wanted to see. All these years, he’d known. He’d known in his heart that Sho was gone, that they were all gone. The rumors, about Eriko, about all the Sakurai children, they’d broken him again and again. They were dead. They were still dead, and no wishful thinking or longing could return any of them. This man just had the unfortunate privilege of looking like a Sakurai, that was all.

Nino took the lantern from Jun’s fingers and walked over. Perhaps Nino had already interpreted his reaction favorably, knew that they’d found their man. Despite the smell and the debris, Nino set the lantern down and sat a few feet from the homeless man, the picture of caring concern.

“How long you been here?”

The man looked as though he wanted to shrink himself, to hide away. He probably assumed they were here to rob him of whatever he had left and was considering his options. “Few days. I’m not from Keio.”

Nino lifted his knee, resting a gloved hand atop it. “Got a job?”

“Not yet. I’ve been looking, but it’s an unfortunate time of year.”

“That’s a year-round phenomenon in Keio, you’ll find,” Nino said. He was using casual speech with this stranger, his most charming tones. Yeah, Nino had found his target and was ready to pounce. Jun, still a bit dazed from their surprising discovery, hovered in the doorway feeling like nothing more than Nino’s thug.

“I’ll try again come morning,” the man said, and the more Jun listened to him speak, the more he wondered if it was Sho’s voice he was hearing or if he was merely replacing his memories with this man’s voice and lying to himself. They’d been teenagers. This was a man grown. Jun’s own voice had changed and deepened, over time.

“I’m Ninomiya,” Nino said easily, even as the stranger seemed exhausted and desperate for them to leave him be. His politeness was more than Jun and Nino deserved. “What about you?”

“Yoshimoto. I’m Yoshimoto, recently of Takanawa.” There, Jun thought, it’s not him. But there was such hesitance in the way the man said his own name, like the syllables were heavy and foreign on his tongue.

“Your age?” Nino pressed.

“Thirty-three,” Yoshimoto replied, but he was as unsure about that answer as he’d been about his name.

“Yoshimoto-san, I’ve got a proposition for you, if you’d like to hear it,” Nino said.

Obviously Yoshimoto had little choice but to hear him out, with Nino so cozy beside him and Jun blocking his only exit. Jun took a step forward, if only to satisfy his painful curiosity. The lantern light cast shadows on Yoshimoto’s face, but despite the haunted look in his eyes, so many of his features reminded Jun of Sho. His brow, the shape of his nose, his mouth.

“Matsumoto-kun and I are looking for a friend for a new business venture.” Jun didn’t see any reaction from Yoshimoto upon hearing his name, which ought to have reassured him that this person wasn’t Sho. But Matsumoto was a fairly common surname, so what did it matter? And why did he care?

“Employment?” Yoshimoto asked, and for the first time Jun heard the slightest amount of hope in his voice.

“Not in the way you’ve probably known it,” Nino admitted. “We hope to undertake a journey from Keio to Chiba. We’re still in the process of procuring transport and travel visas, but we anticipate leaving before the winter is over.”

“Traveling salesmen?” Yoshimoto asked curiously. “I’ve no experience with such things but…”

Nino leaned over, patting the man on the shin. Jun was surprised the man didn’t back away, but since he was unemployed and homeless, his options were slim already. “Not quite, but we’d ask only that you work hard and be discreet.”

Yoshimoto’s face fell. “Is it unlawful?”

Nino waved a hand. “What’s unlawful, Yoshimoto-san, is the way this country runs. You can’t find a job, thousands can’t find jobs. People are starving. Minato, it’s a lost cause, wouldn’t you agree? It’s why we’re going to try our luck in Chiba.”

“What do I bring to the venture? I don’t know you and you don’t know me, and grateful as I am for your…offer, it’s a bit odd that you’ve come to a place like this looking for a business partner.”

“Nino,” Jun said sharply, finally interrupting. He stepped into the hall without looking back, hearing Nino offer Yoshimoto a smarmy apology before joining him there in the darkened corridor.

“He’s the spitting image, I saw it in your face,” Nino pointed out as soon as they were alone again.

“We should leave him be,” Jun found himself saying, even as he wanted to go back in and ask him questions, ask him about the Sakurai family or if he was lying. King Hiroki had been many things, but he hadn’t been unfaithful to the Queen as far as he knew. The servants always knew such things, and if the King had had a secret bastard son, it would have been known to them. And yet…

“Jun-kun,” Nino said, shaking his arm, “this is the closest we’ve come. I’ve never seen you look so spooked in your life. He obviously must look like Sakurai Sho, he’s the right age…”

“We only found him because he was screaming in his sleep. Something’s not right,” Jun protested.

“He doesn’t seem crazy to me,” Nino said. “I’ve seen crazy and that’s not it. I’d bet a week’s rice ration that he’s not even carrying a knife in that bag of his to defend himself. Another few days in Keio and he’ll be dead, from trying to steal or from one of the actual crazies in this palace.”

“He’s a stranger.”

“And so was I, when you met me.”

He stared at Nino’s dark shape before him, knowing Nino was staring right back. Nino had an innate sense about people, he always had. He could read someone, know that they were liable to short him on money for one of his forgeries. He knew exactly how to talk the grandmas at the market snack stalls into giving him a few more roasted nuts or sweets. Nino understood people far better than Jun ever would, and it seemed he’d only needed a few minutes with the nightmare-having stranger to be assured that he was worth the investment.

“It’s a risk,” Jun said.

“It’s free money, calling our names. This man, he’s our ticket out.”

“And who’s going to tell him that? You?”

He could just sense that Nino was smirking. “A man desperate for employment will do just about anything. He’ll come around, once we tell him about the reward.” Nino paused, and this time Jun felt Nino’s fingers brush against his cheek. “He really does look like him?”

Jun shut his eyes. “Yes.”

“Buck up, then. Because he’s going to make us filthy rich.”

-then-

“They’re not all here,” says the angry voice. “They’re not all here.”

Ah, it must be roll call. He’s stuck, he struggles, but he’s slower than he ought to be. Something in his drink. Something in his drink! His brain and his limbs have shut off communication. His signals are being ignored, and he can hear them lining up on the other side of the wall. It must be Headmaster Joshima. It must be roll call.

“Doesn’t matter. Get this over with,” says another angry voice. “Do this and we’ll take care of him when we find him.”

A woman’s voice. “Please, not the children. I beg of you. Not the children.”

The signal from his brain to his arm takes ages, but he manages to press his hand to the wall, the closest to her voice. Why is she here? It’s a boys’ school. He’s in his room under the stairwell, isn’t he, so why is he hearing a woman? Again and again she begs for the children. This is a very strange roll call today.

“Where is he? Tear this place apart!” Angry Voice demands, and there’s a boy who’s crying and a girl who’s crying. Again and again the woman begs for the children. Why is there a woman? Why is there a girl? Why is he on the other side?

“I’m here, Headmaster, I’m present,” he wants to shout from behind the wall. He wants to shout to the people lining up. “I’m right here, by your side. I wouldn’t leave you, not now. I would never, ever leave you.”

He looks at his hand, pressed to the wall. This passageway, it’s hidden. But no, it’s under the stairwell. No, it’s not. Cherry blossoms falling. Cherry blossoms falling. They used to play here. They used to hide here. But the angry voices don’t know that, do they? Where is he? Where is he? He wonders how many boys are still in the courtyard, shooting marbles. They’re going to miss the roll call.

“Not the children, please!”

“Step away!”

“Mama!”

He looks at his hand, pressed to the wall, and before he can raise it, before he can knock, before he can make himself known, before he can come to the roll call, the man’s grip on him tightens. Oh, it’s him. It’s him. “I’m here!” he wants to shout, but then the man’s hand is covering his mouth. “I’m here! I would never, ever leave you.”

There’s another man on the other side of the wall, they’ve just brought him in. He sounds surprised. He’s been surprised for years now. He’s still so surprised. “Must it be this way? Must it be this way for my children?”

I would never, ever leave you. I would never, ever leave you. Do they know this? Do they know this? He can hear the fear in their voices. There are four. There are four on the other side of the wall. The man won’t let him raise his hand. The man won’t let him raise his hand to be counted.

Bang.

Bang.

The wall splinters. Screams. Screams. Bang. Bang. The wall splinters. I’m here, I’m here to be counted! He hears them fall, one after another. Why is he on the other side?

Then it comes through the wall, like a marble skittering fast across the ice. It comes through the wall, it’s so fast, and it slams into him. Into him, tearing. Into him, burning. He can’t scream because the hand is still over his mouth. He’s dragged, he’s dragged through the passageway because they’re still firing and it’s loud enough that they won’t hear the footsteps now.

He hears them fall, one after another. I would never, ever leave you. I would never, ever leave you.

The roll call is finished.

-now-

Takamatsu Residence Block 9
Keio, Workers’ Republic of Minato

He woke to the smell of fresh, hot coffee and thankfully not to a nightmare. They barely had enough blankets for themselves, but they’d cobbled some things together and let him stay in the main room of their apartment. He’d been half asleep last night, following them to their residence block. Before they’d let him inside, the little guy had dragged him into one of the public bath houses a few buildings over. It had been closed for the night, but the man, Ninomiya, he’d woken the old woman who ran the place, shoved some coins in her hand so she’d let them through.

“Sorry, friend,” Ninomiya had told him, shoving him inside. “That palace is a nasty place. We can’t afford to have any fleas or lice coming along with you.”

He’d wanted to protest that he didn’t have any lice, but after a few nights barely sleeping in Mita Palace, he couldn’t actually confirm that. Thankfully, they’d let him strip down without watching him, had let him wash up with a scrub brush they bought from the old woman before he eased his exhausted body into a lukewarm pool of water. He didn’t want to have to explain his wounds to these men. If they saw them, maybe they’d abandon him for their venture, whatever it was. It was the best bath he’d had in ages, and he nearly cried in gratitude, sloughing off the dirt, the dried sweat he’d been carrying the last several days.

When he’d come out, toweling off, he’d found new clothes waiting for him in the changing room. A long-sleeved shirt and trousers that were a little big, but they’d left him an old leather belt. Even a new coat. Clean underwear. He didn’t ask questions, not after they went to all the trouble on his behalf. He was only sad about losing his scarf.

Ninomiya-san was in the room with him now, setting down a mug of coffee and half a biscuit for him. “You snore.”

“I’m sorry,” Koya said quietly. At least he hadn’t screamed.

“Jun-kun’s at work,” Ninomiya said, settling down with his own coffee and some newspapers. “He comes back in the afternoon. He delivers fish, so he might smell bad. He’s a bit sensitive about it, it’s cute.”

This Jun-kun, Matsumoto-san, had barely uttered a sentence in Koya’s presence since they’d met. Ninomiya was the chatty one, but it was Matsumoto that had held his attention. He’d looked at Koya with astonishingly intense focus the night before. Koya had looked away quickly when their eyes had met, a strange feeling twisting in his gut. If Koya didn’t know any better, he’d be convinced Matsumoto Jun knew him. Had they known each other? If they had, it was before Koya had ended up in the hospital. Awake again, he felt a strange sort of guilt. All these years nobody had come for him, nobody had looked at him the way Matsumoto-san had. But to Koya, Matsumoto was a stranger.

He sat up, body still wrapped up in his blankets. The biscuit was a bit dry, but he’d barely eaten the last few days and he was grateful for anything at all. For a room with heat, for clean clothes, for a future.

Ninomiya sipped his coffee. “Sleep okay?”

Koya nodded.

“Suppose you’ll be wanting an explanation sooner or later, huh?”

He couldn’t help grinning at Ninomiya’s straightforward manner of speaking. “You haven’t harmed me so far. And you’ve already been very generous. I get the impression you’ve some need of me, or you wouldn’t be so…pampering.”

“It’s entirely self-serving, our venture,” Ninomiya continued. “Ever been to Chiba?”

Yes, his mind immediately answered, but Koya ignored it. He’d been feeling strange ever since he’d arrived in Keio, but he wanted so badly to be needed, to be useful, that he didn’t dare let his new comrades learn of his distress. He had no money to return to Takanawa, nor any confidence that he could find employment here. Their arrival the night before had been a sign he couldn’t ignore. He’d do whatever they asked. “Not that I can remember, no.” That, at least, was the truth.

Ninomiya raised an eyebrow at his answer but turned to the stack of papers on the table before him. “I’ll tell it to you straight, Yoshimoto-san. The King and Queen of Chiba are offering a monetary reward for proof that any members of their family survived what happened years ago.”

“The royal family?” Koya asked. By the time he’d been released from the hospital, it had been more than a year since the Sakurai family’s assassination. The Loyalist uprising had been nearly at its end, and General Kitagawa had conquered Keio. In Takanawa, they’d been nothing but an afterthought. A cautionary tale of excess.

“Matsumoto and I intend to make our way to Chiba and present the King with his nephew. In order to collect that reward.”

“His nephew?” Koya mumbled.

“Yep.” Ninomiya deftly took apart the pen he was using, refilling it with ink. “Problem we’ve been having is that Matsumoto and I don’t have the right look. You do.”

“What do you mean?”

Ninomiya looked up, smiling. “Congratulations, Yoshimoto-san. You look just like Sakurai Sho, the Crown Prince of Minato.”

He was quiet for a while, taking in what Ninomiya was telling him. All these years, Koya had lived quietly. He’d kept out of the way, enduring the pain in his shoulder in order to earn his place at Gyoranzaka. He’d been nobody special, and for that matter, nobody worth remembering.

“I’m no prince,” he replied.

“That doesn’t matter,” Ninomiya said, waving off his doubts. “It’s your face that will get you in the door. Jun-kun can fill in the blanks.”

That twisting in his gut returned. “The blanks?”

“His mother was the Queen’s maid. He grew up in the palace, knew Sakurai Sho and his family. So it’s my job to get us to Chiba.” He gestured to the pile of papers before him. “Travel visas, my contribution. Jun-kun will be your acting coach. And you, Yoshimoto-san, you just have to smile and answer whatever questions the Aiba family throws at you.”

The Aiba family, who’d ruled Chiba for years and had managed to keep their country neutral even as Minato’s years of civil war endured. Ninomiya and Matsumoto actually thought this plan would work?

“Your goal is to deceive these people?”

Ninomiya chuckled. “Think of how happy they’ll be, knowing at least one of their kin survived that slaughter. We’re doing them a favor.”

“But it’s a lie,” Koya said, his head aching. “And a pretty big one, at that. You’re asking me to lie to a King and a Queen and…”

“Well, mainly it’s the Prince you have to convince,” Ninomiya interrupted. “Officially, it’s the King and Queen putting money on the table, but it’s only to keep their son happy. Their heir, Prince Masaki, he’s a bit of a…how should I put it, a conspiracy theorist? He’s the one who’s believed the rumors from day one, that someone lived. You can’t blame the guy. Sakurai Sho and his siblings were his first cousins. He and Crown Prince Sho were even born in the same year, and they were apparently close as kids so…”

Koya nearly tipped his mug, feeling the throb in his head as the coffee sloshed around. “I’m sorry.”

Ninomiya was eyeing him carefully. “You alright?”

Chiba, the King, the Queen. He’d had no reaction. But the phrase “Prince Masaki,” it took the knot in Koya’s stomach, the knot that had already formed when he’d met Matsumoto Jun, and twisted it tighter. Prince Masaki. Prince Masaki, the heir of the nation to the east.

“I’m fine,” he lied, clearing his throat and trying to ignore the growing pain. Was he this exhausted from his days in Mita Palace, shivering in the cold? “So I’d be lying to this Prince? I’d be pretending I was the cousin he grew up with? What if he asks something I couldn’t answer, not even with Matsumoto-san’s help?”

“It’s going to take a while to get to Maku-Harihongo. If you haven’t noticed, it’s not exactly easy to leave Minato these days. By the time we arrive, you’ll have even convinced yourself that you’re the Crown Prince, I have no doubt. You wanna know how much money they’re prepared to shower you with?”

Ninomiya offered Koya a rough outline of their plan. They would be taking the train to the border with Chiba - only one train left each day for the border town of Funabori. Tickets for that route were outrageously expensive and difficult to obtain. Upon arrival there, they’d have to pass a checkpoint to enter Chiba through Funabori’s neighboring town, Urayasu. The train tracks in Chiba were built on a narrower gauge, so they’d have to board a new train from Urayasu to the capital city of Maku-Harihongo, where Prince Masaki and his parents ruled. Ninomiya would break a dozen laws, if not more, by forging their travel visas and creating fake identity cards. Given the price of transport (and the superiority of Chiba’s currency), Matsumoto and Ninomiya would be selling everything they owned for ticket money and for accommodations upon arrival. Apparently they had no plans to return to Minato.

It was a huge risk they were taking. Breaking laws. Giving up everything they had, just for a shot at the money. Giving up everything, and lying and cheating at every turn. Because it was their idea, the “reward” money from Prince Masaki and his parents would be split three ways, even if it was on Koya’s shoulders entirely to be convincing. Their “finder’s fee,” Ninomiya explained to him. But before any of that, they had to get there.

As Koya had recently experienced, taking the train from Takanawa to Keio, transportation in Minato was hazardous at the best of times and almost deadly at the worst. Though the country was more stable than it had been in recent years, emigration was discouraged. In the countryside, many farmers were increasingly tied down to their farms, expected to meet government quotas. Moving elsewhere was out of the question. Even as families without quotas to meet arrived in the capital in droves, Koya had seen the prices here for basic foodstuffs, for a place to stay even for just one night.

Headmaster Joshima had gotten Koya to Keio with the help of his friend, a railway employee named Kokubun. It was Kokubun who’d ensured that a ticket and visa had arrived in Takanawa, his own personal stamp that had kept the guards on the train from harassing him. As he’d sat, watching the snowy countryside go by, he’d seen others removed from the train. Those who’d been unable to pay the full fare, only because a “price increase” had just been enacted (which was really just the train guards banding together to extort money from vulnerable passengers). Those who had visas with the wrong stamps (because the stamps sometimes changed after they’d already been sold, the passengers receiving no notice). They’d been kicked out with no remorse, and not always at a station. Koya had shuddered when the train had screeched to a halt, a family of six booted off into the snow with only the clothes on their backs.

“Do you really believe it’s better to risk so much than to stay here?” Koya asked. “If we’re discovered at any point, at least in Minato, we’d be executed.”

“You’re the one who left that palace with two strangers, Yoshimoto-san,” Ninomiya replied. There was an odd sort of calm in his face, as though he’d almost prefer execution to spending the rest of his life in Minato. He wondered what had made him this way. “You took a chance. You heard opportunity calling.”

“To be fair, Ninomiya-san, you described this as a business venture.”

“Oh, it’s business all right. Strictly business. The business of prying a few thousand gold coins from the coffers of some sentimental, fancy pants prince who refuses to accept that fifteen years ago his beloved, equally fancy pants cousin took a bullet to the head.”

Koya winced, his shoulder throbbing.

Ninomiya continued, ignoring his distress. “You just have to smile and give the poor sap a reason to believe.”

“And then what?” Koya asked. “You think the ruling regime in Minato will sit idly by when Chiba announces the Sakurai heir survived the assassination?”

He received a rather dismissive shrug in response, Ninomiya shuffling his papers. Other forgeries, Koya suspected. The man was a criminal, through and through. “I’m not in this for the political message it may send,” Ninomiya explained. “I just want their money.”

-

Ohno Fishmongers
Keio, Workers’ Republic of Minato

He’d finished stacking the empty crates in the warehouse, heading back to clock out for the day. He paused when he passed by the metal staircase. It led up to the second floor, where his boss’ office and small apartment were. He wondered if the man was asleep already.

“You coming for drinks tonight?” Shun asked, surprising Jun from behind and jabbing at the ticklish spot in his side. Back at the front, Jun would have treated a tickler to a glimpse of his bayonet, but those days were long gone.

He groaned, hearing Shun cackle and come around to face him. “What can you even order these days?”

Shun rolled his eyes. “Not that expensive for a pint at Vermilion, but that’s probably because they water it down so much.”

“No money tonight, have fun,” Jun replied.

Shun and a few of the other guys who worked in the warehouse headed off, waving. Jun had no intention of setting foot in a bar, at least a Keio bar, ever again. Every single yen he had was going towards Chiba, save for what he and Nino paid each month in rent. They were going to have to break their lease and pay the difference, a steep financial setback given their already precarious situation. Finding Yoshimoto-san had spurred Nino into action, and Jun hadn’t exactly been prepared for how quickly Nino intended to set their plan in motion.

They would leave Keio once Nino had all their papers in order. It was dangerous work, but Nino didn’t seem too bothered. In order to best emulate the current stamps for his usual forgeries, he bribed employees at government bureaus with alcohol, with cigarettes, with cash. But with documents for the three of them, for the documents that would get them out of the country, Nino wasn’t going to risk bribes. Any man could be persuaded to talk, to give Nino away. Instead Nino planned to lurk around the train station, observe ticket prices and other passengers. He also planned to sneak into government offices, risking capture to go through the desks and file cabinets of the people he usually just plied with tobacco.

Jun had offered to go with him, keep a lookout, but Nino had refused. “You need to keep an eye on our new friend,” Nino had said the night before while Yoshimoto Koya had been in the baths. Not knowing the man, Nino had decided that one of them always had to be with him, in case he was more sinister than he appeared. Jun wasn’t looking forward to being alone with him, with a man who looked so much like Sho. A complete stranger with his friend’s face.

Work complete for the day, he took the stairs two at a time. Any day now, he’d have to climb these stairs and say that he was quitting. Much as Jun was committed to the plan with Nino, to getting out of Minato and finding a better life, he wasn’t looking forward to inconveniencing his employer. Any of the warehouse guys could probably fill his place, driving the truck, but Jun had forged close relationships with so many restaurants and grocers. He was going to leave abruptly, without introducing his replacement to their usual customers. He feared that Ohno Fishmongers would lose business, and that would be entirely his fault.

He’d worked for Ohno Satoshi since they’d been discharged twelve years ago. Back then, Ohno’s father had still been running the business, their fleet of fishing boats that went out in the wee hours of the morning from Keio Bay’s North Harbor. Ohno himself had captained his own boat since leaving school at fifteen, and nobody knew the waters like he did. Now at 35, Ohno only went out on the water once a week, and Jun could see how much it bothered him. In charge of the entire enterprise, Ohno stayed back at the warehouse, overseeing each morning’s catch, ordering his employees around in his soft, but firm voice. Instead of his rod and reel, or even his fillet knife, most of Ohno’s days were spent with his ledgers, grumbling under his breath when he found errors from his own hasty math.

“I was a really bad student,” Ohno often admitted, erasing and erasing with a scowl on his face.

Jun had been a poor employee, those first years. At first, Ohno’s father had put him on his son’s boat, a true kindness, but Jun was a lousy fisherman, lacking the focus and patience required, complaining about the calluses on his hands when they’d haul up a net full of shrimp. Despite his uncooperative, spoiled beginnings, the Ohno family kept him on, shifting him to the warehouse and then to the deliveries. When they could have let him go to hire someone better, they’d kept him. Jun owed his livelihood to Ohno Satoshi and his family. He’d never had to stand in an employment line. He’d never gone hungry, all these years.

Because of the secrecy of their plan and their departure, he couldn’t tell anyone about what he and Nino were doing. So he was just going to up and leave. A poor employee to the end.

By the time Jun left most days, Ohno was usually dozing on the couch in his office. He’d made few changes since his father had retired, save for the massive taxidermied amberjacks mounted on the wall that he’d caught himself. Today he was still awake, sketching without a care in the world. There were government forms to be filled out, since many of the businesses Ohno Fishmongers sold to were grocers under partial or total goverment oversight. With the high cost of procuring red meat and pork, the continued operation of businesses like Ohno’s were deemed “government essential.” For the owner, however, it meant constant auditing. It meant keeping their books clean, even though everyone in the warehouse knew Ohno slipped food to shelters and beggars all the time.

Ohno hated paperwork, to the point that he’d almost begged his father to leave his sister in charge of the company when he retired so he could stay on his boat. Ohno’s father hadn’t agreed. The work always got done, even if Ohno had to forego sleep to fill out the stacks of forms. He procrastinated instead by sketching fish, drawing doodles of boats and even his employees. Ohno had made the mistake of drawing Jun only once, sketching him with eyebrows so thick that Jun had torn it to pieces in embarrassment.

He tapped his fingers on the door, and Ohno looked up, waving him inside. He was a small man, not someone you’d immediately pick out of a line-up as a boss of any sort, but he commanded enormous respect both among his employees and within the community. So long as some of the “not quite up to standards” shellfish secretly found its way into stew pots that helped the less fortunate, Ohno Fishmongers wasn’t going anywhere. Jun peered over his boss’ shoulder, the privilege of being the man’s friend, grinning at the day’s current drawing. It was the government man, from the Food and Agriculture Bureau. For some reason, Ohno-san had drawn the man’s head on top of a donkey’s body. Ohno had no love for the current government.

“If Nagano-san ever catches you, they’ll string you up in the square.”

Ohno set down his pencil and smiled. “I don’t know, I think it’s a pretty good likeness.”

“I’m heading out,” Jun announced, flipping through the paperwork Ohno was working on. All he’d completed so far was filling in the company’s address and his own name. They were due in the morning.

Ohno eyed him curiously. “Something the matter, Jun-kun?”

Was he that transparent? He ached to tell Ohno about Yoshimoto Koya. Aside from Nino, Ohno was the only person who knew about Jun’s life before the army. He was the only one who’d understand what was wrong. But he couldn’t say a word. And he couldn’t even drop a hint that their friendship was nearing its end. Jun doubted he’d be able to get a letter through once they reached Chiba, not without the government opening his letter and censoring it until the remaining words held no meaning. Jun wanted to be near his friend, even if it was a bother. He was going to miss him terribly.

“Long day.”

“Better a long day of hard work than one without,” Ohno said, offering a rather silly impersonation of his father.

It made Jun smile. There was little to smile about in Keio these days, but somehow Ohno could always produce results. “You going to finish those on time?” Jun teased.

“Don’t I always?” Ohno shot back.

Jun gripped the older man by his shoulders, giving him a shake. Another thing he got away with, another thing he’d miss. “Stop procrastinating, Boss Man.”

Ohno shoved him away, chuckling. “I’ll dock your pay, you rascal.”

“No you won’t,” Jun said, buttoning his coat. “See you tomorrow.”

His smile quickly faded once he was on the street, bundled up and heading for home. When Jun had nothing, Ohno had been there. And because of Yoshimoto Koya, because they’d found someone so perfect, Jun would throw it all away. He’d made Nino a promise, that if they ever left Keio they’d leave together. He just hadn’t realized the opportunity would arrive so quickly.

Nino was overjoyed by Jun’s return, putting on his coat and boots before Jun had even taken off his own coat. Nino had an important date with himself at Aoyama Station. The train for Funabori, an overnight route, left Aoyama at 9:00 PM every day. He was going to loiter at the station the rest of the afternoon and throughout the evening, eyeballing the train to determine which car would be the best one to reserve a compartment. He was going to check what passengers were wearing, the luggage they were bringing. He was also planning to observe security, the degree to which visas and tickets were looked at before passengers boarded. Nino had moved up the pickpocket racket as a teenager, knew Aoyama Station like the back of his hand. He assured Jun that he’d be safe, that he’d come home, patting his arm and heading out into the night.

Jun went to his room to change, acknowledging Yoshimoto-san with a quick nod. He wondered if he could get away with telling the stranger that he was tired, having his dinner and going straight to bed. But no, Jun knew he couldn’t do that. If Nino was doing his part, doing recon work at the station, then Jun had to hold up his own end of things. He knew specifics that were going to get Yoshimoto in the door in Maku-Harihongo. Of the servants that had lived at Mita Palace with the royal family, Jun knew he was likely the only one left alive. Many others had been executed as Loyalists whether they had been or not. It was Jun’s responsibility to turn Yoshimoto Koya, the homeless man from the palace into Sakurai Sho, the person who’d lived there before it had been turned into a ruin.

He cleaned his glasses with a cloth, emerging back into the sitting room in a shirt and slacks. Yoshimoto had cleaned up nicely, Jun had to admit. Clean-shaven, hair combed neatly. He was sitting with his legs under the kotatsu, paging through the newspapers Nino had delivered every morning to check if anyone was placing secret messages in Help Wanted ads. From the ink-blackened state of Yoshimoto’s fingertips, the man had been reading non-stop for quite some time.

“According to the law, we have freedom of the press in Keio,” Jun said to break the silence, moving around Yoshimoto to the kitchen. “What do you think, Yoshimoto-san?”

He heard the man chuckle quietly, a warm sound that put Jun at ease. A day spent in Nino’s company had softened him already. He still seemed a bit stiff, his shoulders hunched, but he didn’t seem quite like the frightened rabbit caught in a trap that he’d been the night before.

Yoshimoto folded the paper in half, gesturing to a photograph in the Business section. “Highest production at this factory in a decade, it says,” Yoshimoto said cheerily, tapping with his finger. “Funny, I walked past it the other day and saw workers picketing, protesting about unpaid wages. Needless to say, they weren’t hiring.”

“The newspaper would have you believe we live in a paradise,” Jun said. “I don’t read them. If I want to read a fictional story, I’ll pick up a novel. Tea?”

“Please.”

Jun put the kettle on, busying himself in the kitchen to avoid making any further small talk. There was plenty of that to come, he was sure of it. He listened to the sound of the newspaper rustling, getting out cups, saucers, and spoons. Rummaging through their sad, thrumming little icebox, he took a whiff of the milk bottle and deemed it still okay to consume. Before he realized it, he’d poured two cups of tea, one for himself that he took with a cube of sugar and one for Sho with milk the way he always liked it.

He paused, about to stir the tea with the spoon. He shut his eyes. In trying to shut out Yoshimoto, he’d only reopened wounds that had never fully closed. He’d made tea for Sakurai Sho. Exhaling slowly, he set down the teaspoon. “How do you take yours?” he called into the other room. Say sugar, he prayed. Say sugar and I can breathe. Say sugar so you aren’t him.

“With milk, if you have it.”

He set the saucers on a small tray, brought them into the sitting room. It was a coincidence. Lots of people liked milk in their tea.

“Thanks very much, Matsumoto-san.”

Jun drank his tea slowly, a bit stunned with how quickly Yoshimoto had made himself comfortable in their apartment. Though he supposed that if he’d spent a few nights sleeping in Mita Palace as it was now, a dark, drafty place like theirs might seem a luxury. “Nino told you everything?”

Yoshimoto nodded, looking up from the papers. “I find it to be a very risky plan.”

“You want to back out?”

Yoshimoto was unable to meet his eyes. Jun wanted to take his glasses off, turn the man into a blur. He didn’t want to stare at the shape of his brown eyes, the fullness of his lips, all the little bits and pieces that were Sho, but on the wrong person’s face. “I have very few options. Few skills. Before I came here, I worked at a boys’ home, an orphanage I mean to say. I did groundskeeping work, odd jobs.”

“And before that job?”

“It was the only one I had,” Yoshimoto admitted. “Before that I…I can’t quite recall.”

“What do you mean?”

He lifted his teacup and drank, and Jun saw him make a strange face, a crinkling of his nose. Had he added too much milk? Yoshimoto took another sip, this time keeping his face neutral. When he set the cup back in the saucer, he looked forlorn. “I don’t remember. I really don’t. I was a soldier, I woke up in a hospital one day, but I had no memories. I only had my name.”

Jun had seen plenty of men like this when he’d been in the army, with personality and vigor one day and emptiness the next. Sometimes it was an explosion that knocked them off their feet, their head hitting the ground. Other times it was seeing a comrade pumped full of bullets beside them. “You told us last night you have trouble sleeping. We heard you crying out.”

Yoshimoto looked increasingly uncomfortable. “I have nightmares, more than I’d care to admit. If it happens when I’m under your care, please wake me. If it becomes too burdensome, I already told Ninomiya-san that you can find someone else for your venture. I don’t wish to cause any trouble.”

He didn’t know Yoshimoto Koya, but it was hard not to pity him. Partly it was his face, the too-familiar face grown to an adulthood that had been stolen from Sho. And partly it was Jun himself, who knew what it was like to wake in the night, short of breath, wishing it would all just stop. “You slept soundly last night.”

“They don’t come on a set schedule,” Yoshimoto said, offering a weak grin. “I have headaches sometimes as well. The doctors from the hospital, all those years back, they told me it was my memories struggling to surface. That one day it’ll all just flood back. I don’t like that prognosis much. The uncertainty. Fifteen years of it and how many more to come? I kept mostly to myself, Matsumoto-san, back at the boys’ home. My nightmares did a good job segregating me from the rest anyhow.”

“Nobody came to the hospital looking for you?”

Yoshimoto shook his head. “No, never. I’ve always assumed I was an orphan, drafted into service. It was what happened to a lot of boys at the home. They made up so much of the infantry, the people without families, the boys who wouldn’t be missed.”

Jun looked down, trembling slightly. He’d been an orphan soldier himself. “Maybe it’s a good thing, that you don’t know.”

Yoshimoto looked at him, his expression darkening.

“It’s my job to turn you into Sakurai Sho, the Crown Prince of Minato,” Jun said, feeling a little awkward. “If you don’t have any memories, it’ll be easier for me to teach you. If I tell you something that contradicts your own childhood experience, you wouldn’t know. You’ll have only the memories I give you.”

“Perhaps,” Yoshimoto said quietly.

Jun gestured to Yoshimoto’s teacup. “But I guess some things will come more naturally. For example, it just so happens that Sho-kun always took his tea with milk.”

Yoshimoto froze. A too long silence descended on their sitting room, and Jun didn’t know what he’d done wrong. He didn’t know until Yoshimoto finally regained his composure, scratching the back of his neck.

“The prince, you…you addressed him so informally?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘Sho-kun always took his tea with milk.’ Matsumoto-san, didn’t you notice?”

“No.” Now it was Jun’s turn to be quiet. “But I…I did. I did call him Sho-kun.”

Yoshimoto’s eyes were surprisingly kind then. “Why?”

Jun allowed himself a sad smile. “Because we were friends.”

Part Three