Aboard the Great Eastern Express (Keio-Funabori)
Near Shirokanedai, Workers’ Republic of Minato

“We’ve been here too long,” Nino declared, two days into their journey. The train had made one of its stops as usual, a fueling stop at one of the small mining towns. According to the timetable, they should have been in Shirokanedai three hours ago, but they’d been stopped for almost four. The conductor had visited their compartment with apologies an hour earlier, thanking them for their patience and offering them free snacks from the dining car.

Night was falling, the sky turning bruise blue as Jun looked out at the same scenery that had greeted them for the last several hours. Rolling hills, a muddy river winding off into the distance. They were still a good hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty miles from Funabori and its sister town Urayasu across the border.

A few minutes passed and then Koya spoke up. “Maybe the train’s broken down and they’re waiting for someone to repair it.”

“They’d have announced that if it was the case,” Nino said, fidgeting in a way Jun recognized. Nino never liked to be without all the information available.

“Do you think they’re checking visas?” Jun asked, patting his pocket absent-mindedly. The longer they sat here, exposed, the easier it would be for a guard to scrutinize their visas and false identity cards.

Nino got to his feet. “I’ll find out.”

“They told us to stay put,” Jun said, raising an eyebrow. His anger toward Nino was more of a simmer than a boil now, but every time he opened his mouth, Jun wanted to shut it for him. It was hard to look at him and not remember how easily he’d asked Jun to betray Ohno, as if breaking into the man’s business and stealing from him was as easily accomplished as counting to ten or tying his shoe.

“The conductor’s my buddy now,” Nino said, ignoring Jun’s warning and opening the door of their compartment. He disappeared down the corridor, probably preparing to make up some bullshit lie about a clog in the washroom or ask if the dining car could fix him a stiff drink.

“He makes friends fast,” Koya noted, and Jun rolled his eyes.

Since they’d stopped, Koya-san had been very quiet. He’d been fairly quiet for most of their journey, though Jun had assumed it was because his fight with Nino had made the man uncomfortable. But now, with Koya sitting across from him, Jun could sense true fear radiating from him in waves. In Keio, he’d spent most of his time in the apartment. And before he’d come to Keio, he’d been sheltered, out in the country, away from secret police, away from soldiers walking the train with guns. Jun felt horrible for him. It was a lot for him to deal with, but they’d just told him to suck it up, to memorize people and dates and facts, to board the train and pretend he was someone else when he was already grappling with amnesia, with all he had to learn.

He leaned forward. “Need a drink?”

Koya was startled, and Jun felt guilty. After fifteen years and a quiet life, he and Nino had pulled Yoshimoto Koya into a dangerous world, all for the shot at some gold. And of course there was the undercurrent of every conversation Jun had with him, every word spoken and every word left unsaid. Every glance where Jun wondered who it was looking back at him — Yoshimoto Koya, the amnesiac groundskeeper or Sakurai Sho, whose life had been torn to pieces. Whose life Jun was trying to put back together for him, bit by bit and piece by shattered piece, whether he was ready and able to handle it or not.

When Koya didn’t respond, Jun got up, reaching for Nino’s suit jacket he’d left behind. As expected, he found Nino’s silver flask in an inside pocket. He was happy to find that, a gift from one of his criminal mentors, and not the pistol he’d always carried in Keio. It had broken Nino’s heart to sell the thing, but there was no way they’d have been able to sneak it onto the train or into Chiba with them.

He unscrewed the cap and took a sip. It burned going down, and he winced, wondering how Nino could drink this black market shit. He held it out to Koya just the same. Their fingers brushed briefly as Jun passed the flask, and he tried to ignore how it made him feel. Koya sniffed the flask and gave Jun a rather adorable, if irritated look.

“You can’t be serious. How does Nino still have a functioning liver?” Koya complained.

“Drink.”

Koya sighed and took a long sip of the stuff, coughing a little as he screwed the cap back on. “That’s horrible,” he said, still coughing.

“We’ll have better, in Chiba,” Jun reassured him, seeing a good-humored look of disbelief cross Koya’s face. At the very least, he wasn’t suffering in silence now.

A few minutes later, he heard commotion in the hall. He went to the compartment entrance, lifting one of the shades to the side of the door, the only privacy afforded to second class passengers. He saw people hurrying down the passageway, a few at first, wealthy-looking types in furs and dinner jackets. The noise increased, from worrying murmurs to panicky shouts. People were hurrying from the first class cars, going through second on their way to third. Jun yanked the shade back down in surprise, turning around.

“Something’s wrong.”

Koya was backed against the opposite wall, eyes wide, his whole body trembling. “What…what are they running from?”

The train car, parked along the fueling station platform, swayed a little as passengers came running through. Before Jun could move over, assure Koya that things were going to be okay (even if he didn’t necessarily believe it), Nino came hurrying in the door.

“Pack your things. Now.”

“What’s happening?” Jun asked, but Nino was already moving around him, grabbing him by the shoulders to slip past and make his way to the window.

He pointed out into the growing darkness. “You can see it. It’s happening right now.”

Jun moved, watching over Nino’s shoulder, Koya beside him. “Who is that?”

Eight men were being marched away from the train, their hands behind their heads as they stumbled through the grass and mud. It was the guards from the train forcing them forward, guns drawn. “General Higashiyama’s Minister of Labor and his staff. The ones who bought up the first class car.”

When the first shot rang out, there were screams from one end of the train to the other. Koya clung to Jun’s arm after the first shot, then harder as each subsequent one broke the silence of the evening outside. Jun hurriedly pulled down the window shade. They didn’t need to see what happened next. Nino already had their bags down from the racks, was shoving everything into them.

“Now. Come on, we have to go now!”

Jun turned, trying to detach Koya from his arm. One look into the man’s eyes, and Jun knew he was somewhere else. All it had taken was one gunshot. Nino was at the door, holding both his own suitcase and Koya’s satchel. “Jun! We have to go! They won’t leave witnesses!”

And then Nino left them, bags in hand and off into the corridor, hurrying toward third class. There was so much screaming, people banging against the glass as they tried to find a door in one of the carriages that would let them out. He heard glass breaking in one of the compartments not far from their own. But all he could do was look at Yoshimoto Koya, who was only upright because Jun was holding onto him. His breaths were coming in gasps, his eyes blinking and blinking but not seeing.

“Koya-san,” Jun said, shaking him. “Koya-san, please, we can’t stay here.”

Jun tried to drag him, and that was when the poor man started to scream, agonizing screams that shook Jun to the core. And then they weren’t just screams, they were words. They were pleas. “I’m here!” came Sakurai Sho’s voice from Yoshimoto Koya’s throat. “I’m right here. Don’t shoot them. Please! Don’t shoot them, I’m right here!”

He was stunned, hearing the confusion and the hurt and the sheer agony in the other man’s voice. He would scream his throat raw at this point. Finally, as the door to their compartment was thrown wide, as people fled the train, as shots continued to ring out in the distance, Jun took Koya’s face in his hands.

Terrified, but all too familiar brown eyes looked back at him. “Jun?”

Jun took a breath, hands shaking as he spoke. “Look at me. Sho-kun, look at me.”

“They’re right on the other side, Jun,” Koya was muttering, tears in his eyes. “They’re right on the other side.”

He wasn’t sure what the man was talking about, but there was no time to think about it now. “Sho-kun. We have to go. Right now.”

“Jun, why are you here? You aren’t here when they’re on the other side. You’re not here…they’ll kill you, too. You can’t die too, you can’t!”

“I need you to trust me.” Jun took one hand away from Koya’s face, taking his hand and squeezing it. “I need you to be quiet and not let go. Can you hold my hand, Sho-kun? Just pretend we’re in Mita, okay?” Jun was having trouble holding back tears of his own. “Remember the servants’ passage? When we were little, you always held my hand.”

“I did,” he said, squeezing Jun’s hand in return. “You always got scared in the dark, like a baby.”

He couldn’t help smiling sadly at the memory. “We have to go. Don’t let go of me, and we’ll be okay.”

Jun didn’t stop to bring his own suitcase, leaving his hat and just grabbing his overcoat from the seat. He led Sakurai Sho by the hand, pulling him down the corridor. There was no sign of the conductor, of anyone who worked for the railway. By the time they got to the third class carriages, they’d been emptied out, suitcases and luggage strewn every which way. He didn’t let Sho go, assuring him over and over that they were going to be safe, that they were going to be okay. He was reassuring himself at the same time.

One of the doors in the third class carriage had been broken, the locks smashed as passengers had escaped, and Jun tugged Sho down the steps and onto the edge of the platform. There were still shots being fired, on the other side of the train, down in the fields where the Minister of Labor and his staff were falling. There was chaos on the platform, children screaming for their parents, people shoving and not knowing where to go in the dark. He heard a woman shout that someone had stolen her pearls right off her neck.

Jun ignored it all, tugging Sho along, moving in the direction most of the passengers weren’t. It was what Nino would do, and he was proven right. At the bottom of a stairwell, around the corner, he found Nino.

Jun stopped, barely able to see his friend in the dark. “They’re going to try and find all of us, and when they run out of bullets, they’ll hit us with their rifles,” Nino said, sounding too confident about the outcome. He pressed a hand to Jun’s shoulder. “Is he going to be able to walk?”

Since they’d left the second class compartment, Sho hadn’t said a word. After what had just happened, there was no way Jun was going to be able to think of the man as Yoshimoto Koya again.

“Yoshimo-chan?” Nino asked, patting Sho’s arm. “We’ve had a change of plans, I hope you don’t mind.”

Sho said nothing, and Jun couldn’t see his face. All he knew was that Sho was still holding his hand, squeezing so hard Jun thought his fingers might break any moment. “What do we do?” Jun asked instead. “Where do we go?”

“Everyone’s scattering. Everyone getting off the train, they’re going west. We go east.”

“Which way is that?” Jun asked.

Nino sighed. “The one way we don’t want to go.”

The direction the guards had taken the minister and his staff. It had all happened so quickly. Quickly and with barely a warning.

Jun felt horrible letting go of Sho, but it was cold and he pulled on his coat, buttoning it quickly. He held out his hand, and Nino passed over Sho’s satchel for him to carry. Jun realized at that moment the extent of what he’d just done. “Nino, I left my bag on the train.” Nino carried half the money, and the other half had been split between him and Sho.

“It’s okay,” Nino said without complaint. “We can’t just stand around here. They’ll get their body count and go back to the train. From there, they’ll go west because they’ll assume we all fled that way. They’ll leave one, maybe two on the other side. We have the advantage.”

“They have rifles,” Jun pointed out.

“And we have the cover of darkness. Come on.”

Nino set off, moving back toward the train, walking along the tracks beside the first class cars. Without having to say anything, without having to take his hand again, Sho followed along. He said nothing, even as Jun knew that he would struggle to walk, that he was probably in enormous pain from his limp, from whatever part of him was hurt, but he didn’t complain.

Past the train they continued following along the tracks, the sounds of gunfire and screams and panic gradually receding. With their train halted behind them, they doubted any others would be coming this way. Their shoes crunched against stone as they hurried along, over bridges and through the Minato countryside.

They moved without resting, barely speaking, moving in the direction of Shirokanedai. Chiba, a hundred miles to the east, never seemed so far away.

—then—

“Why aren’t you packing?”

A motorcar is coming to take them to the station in half an hour. Their own car was taken, weeks ago. The decision came very suddenly, just that morning. The household is in chaos. Soldiers have been coming in and out all day. He watched them take furniture. He doesn’t know where they’re taking it.

His father, dressed in a fine kimono like he still matters, takes him by the shoulders, gives him a shake. “Go to your room and pack what you need. I won’t tell you again.”

He rolls his eyes, stomps off like he’s far younger than he actually is. Everything out of that man’s mouth is so infuriating. When he gets to his bedchamber, he’s not alone. Jun’s here, going through his armoire and taking out his clothes.

“I don’t want all that.”

Jun blinks at him. “Your mother asked me to help.”

“My mother doesn’t get it.”

Jun brings the pile of clothes over, drops them in a heap on the bed. He sits on the mattress and just stares at him. “What are you going to wear?”

“We have clothes there already,” he snits, grabbing the suitcase Jun’s been packing and slamming the top down. There’s more than enough crammed into it already, and the soldiers’ orders were perfectly clear. Take only what you can carry. His sister’s been crying all day because his mother made her give her little dogs away, the now jobless butler taking them home for his wife to care for.

Jun’s voice is small, even with all the noise in the halls, servants running to and fro trying to steal the candlesticks and the fine china. “This is bad, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he says angrily. “So bad I could scream.”

They’re being moved to Sakura House because it’s too strange for them to still be living in the palace. They’ve been like a zoo exhibit the last few weeks, generals and staffers coming in and assessing the place, taking photographs of the rooms. For weeks, he’s been writing, and he knows the letters are getting through because he’s already gotten replies. “I’ve spoken with my father,” his cousin has written back. “He won’t listen to me. I’ll keep trying, I promise.”

He’s written to his cousin because there’s no reason Eriko and Ryota need to go to Sakura House. He’s written to his cousin, begging for his aunt and uncle to let Eriko and Ryota go to Keikarou Palace to stay with them. They’re young, his sister and brother. They have no idea how bad it is in Minato. It will be safer for them, staying with family, getting out of the country, than being shipped off to the summer house and out of the way. He’s asked if they’ll take his mother as well. Queen Yuko is her sister, surely she isn’t so heartless to turn away her own sister.

When his father discovered the letters he’d sent, he’d taken away his ink and pen and paper. “You put us all in danger with your foolishness. We are already on precarious ground!”

“I’m trying to keep them safe!” he yelled back. “What are you even doing to help them?”

For the first time in his life, his father slapped him across the face. They’ve barely spoken since.

Sakura House is on the other side of the mountain range, the quiet country estate with the vast fields of flowers, with the pond where he learned how to swim. Most of the staff there have been dismissed, but he’s been told that some have stayed around anyway, even without pay. They’ve sent word along that Yama and the family’s other horses are still being cared for. General Kitagawa hasn’t taken them away yet.

He looks over. Jun’s still watching him. “You don’t have to come,” he says.

Jun shakes his head. “Your mother asked mine to come with her. They’re letting her have one maid.”

“But Jun, you don’t have to…”

“I’m coming with you,” he says, and despite the fear in his eyes, his determination is unshakeable. “You always say it’s boring there so at least you’ll have me.” Jun takes a breath. “The soldiers even said it was okay. One maid, one cook, and one valet can come with from Mita. Nobody else wanted the valet job, so I’ve been promoted.”

He sighs, sitting beside Jun on the bed. They both lie back, staring at the canopy of his bed. Jun doesn’t shy away when he twines their fingers together. He hates how much he wants Jun to come with them. He remembers a time when he’d have gone crazy at the thought of Jun leaving him, but those circumstances were different. Now he should want Jun far, far away. He should want Jun to take his mother and sister and brother and escort them to Keikarou Palace. Then Jun would be safe too.

But Sakurai Sho’s always been selfish.

“Once we’re there, maybe they’ll just forget about us,” he says, the lies bitter on his tongue.

“I’m sure Chiba will change their mind and let you all go there. If Minato doesn’t want a king anymore, they should just let you all go.”

He shuts his eyes. He can’t bear to tell Jun that it doesn’t work that way.

There’s a knock at the door. “Your Highness, it’s time to leave.”

He sits up again, Jun with him. He refuses to cry, even when Jun’s arms wrap around him, holding tight. He’s responsible for him now, too, isn’t he?

“Go get your own stuff,” he says. “I’ll meet you at the car.”

—now—

Eastern Foothills
Near Shirokanedai, Workers’ Republic of Minato

All he knew was how to put one foot in front of the other. He’d tripped, nearly fallen onto the train tracks in the dark, but again and again, Jun or Nino helped him to keep moving.

Shortly after dawn, they needed rest. They needed time to regroup, to think. Given what had happened on the train, given that the Minister of Labor had been headed to Shirokanedai, Nino decided it was too risky to enter the town. They’d left the train tracks an hour earlier heading north, up and around Shirokanedai.

In a week or two it would be time to plant, and they passed a few farms with signs of life, workers already in the fields attending to the soil. It almost felt like his foot was about to fall off, but then they came to a farm with signs posted along the fence. Sold. The two-story farmhouse was boarded up, but they went around back. Jun set down the satchel he’d carried without complaint all night, slipping his fingers between the boards on the rear door and tugging.

He stood there at Nino’s side, feeling empty, numb from the cold air they’d walked through for hours, as Jun pried the boards free. Eventually Nino helped him. There was a musty smell inside, old food rotting in the cupboards. A meal was still on the table in the kitchen, half devoured by rats weeks earlier. The family who lived here had been chased out with alarming quickness.

Nino pushed open one of the doors to check inside for rats and vermin, returning and gently putting his hand on his back. “Here, Yoshimo-chan. You can stay down here so you don’t have to climb the stairs.” He pushed the satchel into his arms. “You have enough cream?”

He nodded.

Nino offered him a weak smile. “Good, good. I’m glad. Get some rest. If it stays quiet, we’ll wait it out here tonight. Start fresh tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he said, his own voice sounding foreign.

Jun, because he wasn’t “Matsumoto-san” anymore, not now, not ever again…Jun stood in the doorway for a few moments, watching him before heading after Nino. They both headed upstairs, their steps heavy. He stood there in the middle of the room, holding his bag while he listened to their noise on the second floor. Nino complaining when there was no running water in the bathroom, Jun arguing that he was taller and that somehow entitled him to the room with the biggest bed.

Their bickering was almost soothing, and he wondered if they were being deliberately noisy to put him at ease. Finally he shut the door, taking a look around. The room was covered in dust, but once he tore the quilt off of the bed, it took a lot of dust with it. Beneath it the sheets and mattress smelled like old sweat, but it was cleaner and more comfortable than sleeping outside on the ground, he supposed.

He stripped out of his clothes, barely able to keep his eyes open as he hurriedly rubbed cream onto his chest, rubbing some into his maimed foot. He stared for a few moments at the empty spaces on his foot, where toes stopped and the gaps began. This part…this was still unclear. His mind was flooding, again and again. The train had woken him from his slumber, memories steadily unlocking with each shot that had been fired. He’d seen them again. He’d seen them. He’d been there, at Sakura House. Again.

But whatever happened between Sakura House and the empty spaces on his foot, that was still a blur.

He lay down, pulling the blankets over himself. Shivering, but not from cold. At some point in the night, walking along the train tracks, Yoshimoto Koya had died. Mimura Takuya, he’d probably died back on the train, along with Tokita Shuntaro and Wakui Takuro. The false identities, they were still carrying them in their pockets, but they were all but useless now. Those names were on the train’s passenger manifest, and those names would be hunted down. Nino had said that they wouldn’t want to leave witnesses.

He could no longer pretend. He could no longer shove it away. He could no longer indulge in the fantasy that was Yoshimoto Koya. There’d been a real one once, a real Yoshimoto, he suspected, but his name had been stolen just like the names Nino had taken for their identity cards. Sakurai Sho had buried himself, forgotten himself, and even though a false name had probably been given to him deliberately, he’d managed to wear it like the truth all these years. A shield, a barrier he could put up to block reality. He couldn’t be Sakurai Sho because he was Yoshimoto Koya.

He knew too much now. He remembered too much now.

Somehow, despite everything, he slept. When he woke, it was dark again. He pulled some thick wool socks from his bag, put them on his feet and emerged from his little cocoon. Nino and Jun looked up from the sofa in the farmhouse’s living room. They’d managed to find some candles, had them lit and scattered around the room because nobody was coming back for them, so why not use them all?

“There’s a few cans of green beans and peas,” Nino said. He and Jun were eating them out of some ceramic bowls. “On the stove if you want to warm them up.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Anything else?”

“Eat your vegetables,” Nino ordered, and he allowed himself a quick chuckle.

Once he’d helped himself to the only bounty the farmhouse pantry had in store for them, he joined them. The pair of them looked exhausted, weary and uncertain in a way they hadn’t before. Before, there’d always been a plan, there’d always been a next step. But Chiba was far, and Minato was in trouble yet again.

“Jun-kun and I did a bit of recon before the sun set. There’s the next farm over,” Nino said while he ate. “They’ve got a truck.”

“No,” he said firmly, and Jun and Nino exchanged a look.

“We haven’t even told you we’re stealing it yet,” Nino complained, laughing. “Borrowing is more accurate though.”

“It’s not borrowing if we have no intention of returning it,” he replied. He’d already come so far on the stolen money from Ohno-san, from Nino’s deception in forging their false papers. Sakurai Sho would show up in Chiba to announce that he was alive. But was it worth stealing from his own people to get there? Why was his survival more important than the survival of the people being left behind in Minato?

Jun leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You want to walk a hundred miles to the border?”

He looked down at the mostly flavorless peas in his bowl. “We take that truck, they can’t get their goods to market. We take that truck, and they can’t make a living. You can live with that?”

“We’ll take it til the petrol runs out, and we’ll leave it in the middle of the road,” Nino said. “They’ll be able to come claim it.” Even Nino with his talented means of persuasion couldn’t sell that line of bullshit. The truck would be claimed by the first person who came up to it with a full petrol can.

“We could ask them to drive us,” he offered, and Jun and Nino sighed in unison. Their fight had apparently been postponed for the time being so that all three of them might survive.

“How about this?” Jun proposed. “We leave half the money behind for them.”

“Half?” Nino cried, setting his bowl down on the coffee table with a noisy thump. “Half? Jun-kun, no…”

But Jun looked at him only. “How about it? We take the truck, but we do what we can to make it up to them.”

Jun knew. He wasn’t sure how long Jun had known, but whatever happened on the train had confirmed it for him. Yoshimoto Koya, nobody really knew how far he’d go to achieve his ends. But Sakurai Sho, the Crown Prince of Minato, the person Jun had grown up with…Sakurai Sho wouldn’t screw over his own people. Even when the people rejected the Sakurai family, Sakurai Sho still felt responsible for them.

He felt responsible for them.

“Do we leave tonight?”

Nino gave up, shaking his head. “No, we’ll stay here another night. Tomorrow is Saturday and they’ll be in the fields, but they’ll sleep in for Sunday morning. We take the truck during the night tomorrow, and we’ll be halfway to the border by the time they wake up.”

“And we leave money,” he said.

Nino agreed. “We leave money.”

They did rock, paper, scissors for clean-up duty. Even in an abandoned house, they refused to add to the existing mess. Nino lost, rinsing the bowls and pots with water he and Jun had gotten from a well around back during the day. Though the pipes in the house weren’t functioning, they could still wash up a little. He held a lantern from the house, following Jun back out to the well. Back and forth they went, carrying in buckets and pots and setting them to boil on the stove. Nino then carried the hot water to the tub upstairs.

It took almost an hour, but they had enough to get clean. Another round of rock, paper, scissors and Jun won first dibs on the hot water. Nino then spent time wandering from room to room of the farmhouse, searching for something they could take with as they continued their journey. Old coins and jewelry they could barter. He even found some spare clothes that weren’t moth eaten for Jun, who’d left everything on the train but the clothes he’d already had on.

When Jun was done, it was Nino’s turn. And then finally it was his. They’d found some rags to wipe themselves down, and he scrubbed himself as best he could before getting in the tub. It was more lukewarm than hot by now, but he didn’t care, relaxing as best he could. They’d been fortunate, finding this farmhouse. He still didn’t like the thought of stealing the neighbors’ truck, but the cost of this journey had already been very high. To give up now would be irresponsible, especially since they owed Ohno-san so much for the help he’d provided. Since they’d found the farmhouse, had taken from it what they needed to get through another day.

The bedroom Nino had claimed had its door closed when he padded down the hallway, but Jun’s was empty. Gently, he eased himself down the stairs, his feet still sore from their long walk from the train. Without asking, he sat down on the sofa beside Jun, who was curled up with a book.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jun murmured, turning the page.

“Shouldn’t I?”

Jun turned, looking up over the frames of his glasses. “I wouldn’t force it. Take your time.”

He sat back, grabbing a cushion and hugging it against himself. “I don’t remember it all yet. But I think the train, I…I think what happened there…”

“It brought it back.”

He nodded. The doctors said that if his memories came back at all, they’d come back in a sudden rush. Unfortunately, the timing hadn’t been ideal. “Most of it. It’s a lot. It’s just…a lot.”

Jun closed the book, setting it in his lap. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. “Not really. Not just yet.”

“I understand.”

“But I will, in time,” he said quietly. He lifted his arm, let it rest on the back of the sofa. His hand was inches away from Jun’s shoulder. “I can’t imagine this is easy for you either.”

Jun slipped his glasses off, holding them in his hand. “Yes and no. Sho-kun…” He paused, looking afraid. “I can say it now, can’t I?”

He nodded.

“Sho-kun, I’ve spent half my life thinking you were dead. Sitting here right now, with you…knowing it’s really you, I can’t even describe what I’m feeling.” Jun cocked his head a little, smiling shyly. “It’s strange, but it’s a good kind of strange.”

“I can’t believe I forgot you,” he whispered.

“You didn’t forget me. Not on purpose,” Jun assured him. “What happened…what happened that night, I wish I could have blocked it too.”

They were silent for a while, Jun on his side and Sho on his. He wasn’t a firm believer in fate or that things were destined to happen. He refused to think that what had happened to his family was destiny, an unavoidable loss. But what if he hadn’t taken the path set for him? What if he’d declined Headmaster Joshima’s offer for the passage to Keio? What if he hadn’t woken up that night at Mita Palace, bringing Jun and Nino into his life? He’d still be Yoshimoto Koya, who might have never learned who he truly was.

“It’s funny,” he said, looking to Jun and smiling. “The whole point of this venture was based on a lie. We were going to lie to him. To Masaki. For money. Just because we could.”

Jun said nothing, a gentle smile offered in return.

“I don’t feel so bad now, I guess,” he admitted. “He’s my cousin, and I’ll be telling him the truth. And I suppose Nino won’t mind because whether I’m lying or not, he wins.”

Jun got to his feet. “He’s the one who wanted to go find you. When we heard you that night at the palace, he was the one who said we ought to check in on the screaming guy.”

“This doesn’t mean he gets a bigger share of the reward,” Sho teased, and Jun laughed, a sound that had always felt strangely familiar to Yoshimoto Koya. But to Sakurai Sho, Matsumoto Jun’s laughter was the sound of home, the sound of a different time. He was grateful, so profoundly grateful, that they’d somehow found their way back to each other. He wasn’t going to forget him, or “block” him, ever again.

“Go to sleep, Sho-kun. We’re not in Chiba yet.”

With that Jun headed for the stairs, fluttering his fingers as a good night as he ascended up and out of sight. Sho stayed there, sitting in the candle-lit living room until some of them went out of their own volition. He blew out the rest with the oddest joy in his heart. Sakurai Sho, he’d lost so much. But he hadn’t lost everything, and that was a reason to keep living. To keep moving forward.

—

Eastern Foothills
Near Shibaura, Workers’ Republic of Minato

Sho had wanted to leave more money, but Nino had managed to win the argument. He’d found a jewelry box in the farmhouse the night before, an astonishing treasure left behind. Pearl earrings, a ruby necklace with only a few missing that could be sold piece by piece. They left a stack of cash inside the jewelry box, Sho hurrying it over to the porch of the house while Nino got into the truck, putting it in neutral so they could push it a bit further away from the barn. Turning the truck on would have easily woken the cows, which would have woken the farmer, losing them the head start they needed. The trusting farmer had even left the key in the ignition, saving them even more time.

They pushed it until the barn was mostly out of sight, whispering commands back and forth. Then they’d clambered inside the truck cab, Jun at the wheel, Nino and an old map in the middle, and Sho by the window. They’d already made it thirty miles in about four hours, a remarkable feat given how crappy the truck was. It sputtered worse than the truck Jun had driven all those years for Ohno, and they hadn’t pushed it to its limits on account of the late hour. Out here in farm country, sound could travel a long way. Not that the thing could move very fast anyhow. It was built for hauling, not for quickness.

Nino had Sho holding his cigarette lighter and together the two of them were trying to figure out the map. It had been a lot easier back at the farmhouse where they’d found it, inside a battered atlas and guidebook to the Chiba borderlands. The thing was severely out of date, and they’d already had to double back when a road on the map had suddenly stopped, most likely destroyed during some general’s campaign to delay his enemy.

There were main roads between towns, some of them even paved, but those were liable to have checkpoints, guards, and guns. And who knew if anyone out there was looking for three men traveling together from Keio. Instead they had to stick to backroads, winding dirt roads that bumped and jostled them the whole way. They heard thunder behind them, and the journey east was becoming a race against the storm clouds, a spring thunderstorm that might turn the already treacherous roads into a muddy mess. Jun wasn’t quite in the mood to get out and push if they got stuck.

Jun was far happier later on when the storm system veered south. Soon after that dawn broke, and they came to a crossroads. Nearby was a bridge over the Shibaura River, just as the map had said. Aside from the spinal readjustment the trip in the truck had provided, they’d made it halfway unscathed. Fifty miles closer than they’d been the day before.

They pulled over to piss and switch drivers. Nino opted to have a cigarette for breakfast, stretching as he walked for a short while down the gravel road. Jun waited with the truck, digging through one of the bags they’d taken from the farmhouse. A tin of kidney beans would have to suffice for now, until they were over the border and could have a proper meal without fear of arrest or execution. He held the tin out and Sho took some, sighing at the considerable downgrade from the second class dining car. Being royal, Sho had always had expensive tastes, Jun thought, smiling at the memory. He watched Sho chew on the uncooked beans with an ugly scowl on his face.

They had enough petrol, Jun estimated, to get them halfway to the small Chiba border town of Hanamigawa. Passing through Funabori and Urayasu seemed too risky now. The checkpoints would be swarming with soldiers, and Hanamigawa was well-known among people of Nino’s profession as an easier point of entry to Chiba. The town was the safest river crossing in ten miles whether you walked across the bridge or tried to swim for it. With their money and baggage, they aimed for the Hanamigawa Bridge.

He watched Nino wander off into the woods to relieve himself, and he turned aside, stretching. When he turned back, glancing through the truck cab and through the window to the other side, he saw Sho leaning against the truck with such a grimace of pain on his face that Jun feared he was having some sort of waking nightmare. He hurried around, setting a hand on his shoulder.

“Sho-kun, are you…”

Sho pulled back from the contact with a soft moan. “Don’t. Please.”

He held his hands up, confused. “You looked…you looked hurt. I’m just trying to help.”

Sho shook his head. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

Sho finally met his eyes, exasperated. “It’s been a bumpy day.”

“Not much I can do about that.”

“I know!” Sho snapped at him before pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t mean to be short with you.”

Jun rolled his eyes. “But you’re in pain and you’re going to lash out whether I like it or not. Look, Nino told me he bought you some salve or something. It’s your shoulder right? Do you still have some with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why aren’t you using it?”

Sho looked the other way.

“You’re embarrassed,” Jun said bluntly. It was a quality that had always annoyed Sho, and now all these years later, he knew it hadn’t changed. Jun pointed to the trees. “Then go put some on. If it helps you, then put it on. Don’t be stupid. If you need us to turn around and not watch, we will.”

Sho opened the truck door in a huff, digging around in his bag for a small metal jar. He stormed off with it, and Jun just laughed. The Crown Prince of Minato wasn’t supposed to show weakness. At least that was what Sho had been told his entire childhood. He tended to save those moments of weakness for Jun, whining about piano practice, about a difficult lesson, about the way his teething baby brother had used the soft flesh of his forearm to ease his suffering when his molars were growing in.

Nino returned with a bounce to his step. “Yoshimo-chan putting on his happy cream?”

“It’s been implied that we’re not to intrude.” Jun couldn’t help asking. “What’s wrong with him, really? Something with his shoulder?”

Nino shook his head. “I never asked him. It’s not my business.”

“He shouldn’t have to hide it from us. If he’s in pain and he has something to relieve that pain, then he should use it.”

“Jun-kun, let the poor guy have at least one secret from you. We’re not in the palace now, and he doesn’t need you to be his sounding board for every little thing…” Nino offered a lazy smile. “Oh, were you hoping things would go right back to how they were? To Crown Prince Sho and his dutiful servant boy hanging on his every word?”

“Shut up,” Jun grumbled, looking away even though it only further proved Nino’s point. “It wasn’t like that.”

Except that it was. It had been that way entirely. And nothing had made Jun happier than being the person Sho came to. That feeling of being needed, even if it had been one-sided for so long, it had all been worth it. It was a feeling Jun hadn’t experienced in all these years. He was friends with Nino, but Nino didn’t exactly need him. At work, he’d been part of the crew, but he could be replaced. The only person who had ever needed him, who had ever needed Jun specifically, was Sho.

“Someone’s coming. Multiple someones,” Nino remarked sharply, opening the door of the truck. It was then that Jun heard it too, the rumbling of engines in the distance. Around the curve, maybe a mile off down the flat road came a handful of trucks. From this distance, they had no way of knowing if it was friendly or not. Nino was already putting the truck in gear.

“Go around, take that last route we were on…232, 233…”

“223,” Nino said, moving swiftly from teasing jackass to focused getaway driver in seconds. “I’ll do a loop.”

“We’ll stay in the woods until we see you come back,” Jun said, already jogging toward the trees. “Be careful!”

“You be careful!” Nino said, thumping the side of the truck with his fist before pulling away and back onto the gravel road.

Jun stayed low, cutting through the grass, his shoes squelching in a mud puddle as he headed for the safety of the trees. “Sho-kun!” he called out as loud as he dared. “Sho-kun, someone’s coming down the road, no idea if it’s army or not. Nino’s going to circle around until it’s all clear. We have to stay here until he gets back.”

He heard a noise from behind a tree, seeing Sho’s head poke out. “You said you wouldn’t come here!”

He turned his back, shaking his head. “Oh, excuse me, Your Highness, I was only attempting to save you from potential danger. I won’t make that mistake again!”

As the rumble of the other trucks came closer, Jun ducked further into the forest, keeping just in sight of the road but crouching down behind a fallen log. Sho, once he heard the noise, was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Jun watched as three, five, seven troop transport trucks passed by on the road they were all set to take to Hanamigawa.

Minato wasn’t stupid enough to declare war on a neutral Chiba, which despite its lack of interest in martial matters had quite the cache of weapons, a powerful navy, and aeroplanes that could easily outnumber and crush Minato’s army. No, these troops weren’t on a course to invade. They were off to secure the border. Whatever happened on the train had not been an end but a beginning.

The last time Minato’s borders had been closed or restricted this much had been during the last coup d’etat. With the assassination of the government minister, the uprisings in Shirokanedai that the minister had been off to examine, Jun wondered if General Higashiyama’s government was gasping its final breaths. Things had seemed stable though, for so many months. But secret police and a propaganda machine like Higashiyama’s could send any message it wanted.

The message being sent now had Jun sick to his stomach. If even the Minato side of the Hanamigawa Bridge would be heavily guarded, then how the hell were they going to get into Chiba? They were fifty miles from the border, and the entire border in this part of the east was one long, snaking river. Hanamigawa was the best crossing, Urayasu mere steps behind. They didn’t have enough petrol to go somewhere else, and with the trucks going by, getting into a town to refuel would be impossible.

When they’d parked at the crossroads, they’d had petrol to get them another twenty-five miles, but now Nino was driving in circles, waiting for the coast to clear. What would they do? Where would they go?

When the road was clear again, Jun got to his feet. Sticks broke under his feet as he moved through the woods, heading back for Sho’s tree. He saw Sho’s button down shirt hanging precariously on a branch sticking out of a bush, and Sho a few steps away.

Sho hadn’t heard him coming, and Jun stopped in his tracks. Sho was reaching back over his shoulder, some white cream on his fingers. Jun couldn’t help watching as he tried to reach a spot further down, a harsh red patch of scarred tissue on the lower edge of his left shoulder blade. He tried and tried, fingers stretching and giving up, rubbing the cream into skin he could actually reach. The soft, pained noises of exertion he was making ate away at Jun. Nino had been right. He should have let Sho keep this secret for as long as he liked.

Sho stopped, seeming to sense he was being watched. He turned a bit awkwardly, an arm instinctively trying to come across and cover his bared upper body. Jun bit his lip, seeing that the wound on Sho’s back had a twin on the front, a smaller red scar. He’d been shot. Through his shoulder, through the front and out the back. Sho had been shot.

“You said you wouldn’t look.” There was a defeated sound to Sho’s voice, and he eventually just let his hand drop, no longer caring about modesty.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“It’s part of what I don’t remember, although with some of the dreams I’ve had, I’ve got a couple ideas,” Sho admitted, looking anywhere but at Jun. His shirt was still on the bush, out of his reach unless he walked up next to Jun. “It was infected by the time I was brought to a hospital. It never healed right. It hurts like a bitch.”

“That stuff actually works?” Jun asked, gesturing to the jar in Sho’s hand.

“Yeah.”

“But you can’t reach it. On your back.”

“The whole side can get inflamed if I overwork the muscles back there,” Sho admitted. “Even if I can’t reach the scar, it helps the parts that I can get to.”

Jun took a breath and a step forward. “I could help you.”

Sho looked up at the trees, the canopy overhead. Sho was so embarrassed, Jun thought he might burst into tears at any moment. This was Jun’s fault. Sho was so exposed, so vulnerable. All these weeks he’d done everything he could to act like nothing was wrong at all. But it was clear now, it was obvious, that Sho had been suffering silently, day after day after day.

He took another step, and Sho didn’t move. “Sho-kun,” he said, holding out his hand. “Let me help. Please.”

Sho took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling. Jun could see goosebumps up and down his arms, across his chest and flat stomach. From the cold or from fright, Jun couldn’t be sure. Then Sho turned around, trusting enough to turn his back. He held his arm out to the side, holding up the jar of cream.

Jun stepped forward quietly, taking it from his hand. Sho’s arm hung there in the air for another few brief moments before dropping back to his side. “How much?”

“100 yen piece. That should do it.”

There was a bitter medicinal smell to it as Jun stuck his index and middle fingers into the jar. He put the jar down on the ground beside them and inhaled, exhaled as he took hold of Sho’s shoulder with one hand, holding him steady and pressing the dollop of cream on his fingers against his scar. Unable to run away, unable to do anything but trust him, Sho’s breaths came in shallow, nervous gasps.

“Your hands are cold,” Sho complained quietly.

“Sorry,” Jun murmured in reply before getting to work. He moved his fingers in a circular motion, rubbing the cream into Sho’s skin. Up this close, the angry red skin was warm to the touch despite how cold Sho otherwise seemed. Standing this close, he could see a few beads of sweat dripping down Sho’s neck, probably from his earlier efforts to put the cream on his back.

Sho had always smelled like the heavy soap he’d used when bathing. One time Eriko had swapped out his usual soap for one of hers, a girlish lavender. Sho had been too ashamed to admit how much he’d liked it, washing up again and again with the lavender until the entire bar was used up, not once saying a word to his sister about it in hopes of ruining her fun. Sho didn’t smell like lavender or the fancy, fresh-scented soaps of Mita Palace now.

There was the harshness of the cream as Jun rubbed it into his skin, the musky smell of his sweat. The soap in the farmhouse had been stale, all the scent long lost. He wasn’t the Sho of his childhood and he never would be again. The Sho under his fingertips had filled out over the years. He’d grown taller, and all of the work he’d done at the boys’ home, all the hours toiling outside had left him with muscular arms, a steady solidness that wasn’t at all like the softer, pampered boy Jun had grown up with. But Jun supposed he was different too. They weren’t those boys any more.

Sho groaned a little, and Jun mumbled an apology for rubbing a little too hard. He backed away unsteadily when he was finished, Sho’s fingers moving to his shoulder where Jun’s had just been. He turned, the look in his eyes difficult to read. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Since the hospital,” Sho admitted, crouching down to retrieve the jar and twisting the lid back on, “I haven’t shown anyone. They knew at the school that I had a bad shoulder, but I didn’t say what had caused it. They knew I was a veteran so they didn’t ask and…” Sho paused, a peculiar look in his eyes.

“What is it?”

Sho looked up, a bit of surprise in his face. “I wasn’t actually a veteran. I believed it with everything I had, but it was just another lie. Wasn’t it?”

Jun didn’t have an answer for him, letting Sho move past him to retrieve his shirt. He buttoned it up quickly, hiding his scars away once more. By the time Sho was buttoning the last one near his collar, there was a noisy honking, four in a row.

“Nino?” Sho asked, seeming far more comfortable with his shirt back on, with nobody able to detect what he was hiding.

“I doubt an army transport would honk like that.”

Without another word, Sho headed back through the forest and Jun followed a few paces behind, wondering how Sho had managed to escape from Sakura House and at what cost.

Part Six