Kusa pushed herself into the crush of people inside Kōrakuen Station. She picked the train at random, simply because it was about to leave, but the choice turned out to be nearly perfect. Kōrakuen, in Bunkyo Ward, was situated right next to Tokyo Dome, the giant baseball stadium, and smack in the middle of a busy shopping district. Even late in the afternoon, thousands of people clogged the sidewalks. There weren’t many better places to lose her pursuers. The fact that they found her in a shopping district to begin with didn’t matter. What mattered was what she did now. Hoodie up and drawn low over her eyes, shoulders hunched and hands in her pocket, she tried to disappear.

“Hey! Wait up!”

Einosuke juked around an elderly couple, holding hands as they slowly made their way out of the station, and jogged up to Kusa. His breathing came in shudders, but it wasn’t the exercise; that much, he was used to. It was the fear, the excitement – the fact that he had no idea what he got himself into. He didn’t even know the girl’s name.

No, wait, he thought. One of those guys called her “Kusa”, didn’t he? Was it actually her name, though? Who was named “grass”? He made a mental note to formally introduce himself as soon as possible and get her name when he did.

After exiting the train, the pair ran down and across the tracks towards the far side of the station, Einosuke praying no trains would sweep through and crush them into paste. The two burly men gave chase, alternately shouting threats and demanding that they stop running. Einosuke following Kusa’s lead, they doubled back and ran around the far side of the train, then doubled back again, where Kusa scrambled up onto one of the train platforms with monkey-like speed and agility, helping Einosuke up after her. Somehow, they lost their pursuers after that. They were hot on Einosuke’s heels and then they were just gone. It couldn’t really be that easy, though.

“Wait, I said!” Einosuke reached for the girl’s shoulder, but she surprised him, her hand flicking out to grab his without her even turning in his direction. She lowered her hand to her side, still holding his, as if they were a couple out on an afternoon date, and said, low-voiced, “Shut up, walk fast and try not to draw attention.” She threw a little glance over her shoulder and hurried her pace. The grip she had on his hand was so tight it hurt. He had no option but to go along, trying to match her step.

They walked in silence for several minutes, Kusa keeping up her surreptitious surveillance. Einosuke, too, did his best to keep a look out, but saw no sign of the men from the train. He had no way of knowing if they were the only ones after this girl, but they were the only people he knew by sight, so he kept an eye open for them.

He wondered again who they were, who the girl was and why she was running. He wondered, and not for the first time, if he chose wrong in helping her. Maybe those two guys were police. Maybe he was now an accomplice to some crime. The girl was young, probably a couple of years younger than himself—if he had to guess, he’d have said she was high-school age—and very cute, but neither of those things meant she wasn’t some kind of criminal. Kids were into all sorts of things these days. Without realizing it, he chuckled. He was starting to sound like Kuregawa, the old man who lived in the apartment next to his.

Thinking of home made him think of Himari, his sister, and a little burst of pain—a mixture of guilt and fear—spread through his gut. Suddenly, for some reason he couldn’t have explained, he wanted to see his sister again very badly.

Einosuke looked over at Kusa as they walked, doubting his decision again. She came to an abrupt halt at the mouth of an alleyway, peered down it, then crinkled her brow in thought. “If we…” she trailed off, muttering to herself, then out loud said, “Okay,” and yanked Einosuke into the alley after her.

“Hey! Wait a sec—“

Off-balance from being yanked, Einosuke stumbled as he followed into the alley. It was plain that they wouldn’t be going far, though: the narrow pathway deadended in a chain-link fence about halfway down. On the far side, another street could be seen, people coming and going, cars passing by in both directions, but the fence was a good four meters high. There was no way they were going over it.

“Just shut up and climb!” Kusa ordered, as if sensing his thoughts, then released his hand and picked up her pace. For a second, he was sure she was going to run face-first into the fence, but at the last instant, she leapt sideways towards the wall of the alley, using it as kind of springboard to redirect her momentum and bring her to the top of the fence. She sat astride it for a moment, motioned for Einosuke to hurry, then dropped down to the other side.

“Seriously?” Einosuke sighed. There was no way he could do that. He looked up at the fence, then began to climb laboriously hand over hand, the tips of his sneakers wedged into the tiny holes. It was doable, despite his first assessment, but it wasn’t easy and his exhausted body protested every inch of the way. Who the hell was this girl that made it look so easy?