“Hey, Mako, you coming to Anba afterwards? Coldest beer in town.”
A woman with a perm who everyone called Yakko clapped Shindo on the back.
“Sorry, can’t today . . .”
“What’s that smirk. You got a man to see?”
“No way, I’ve got plans with my brother.”
“You two aren’t even related. Next time, you better be there.”
“Sure thing, have fun.”
Shindo walked with Yakko for a minute. Keeping a smile on her face. Head down.
For the past two years, Mako Senba was how Shindo introduced herself. Shoko, meanwhile, went by “Makoto.” Almost the same first names, which was confusing, but it gave them both a good excuse; if someone said their name and they failed to react, they could pretend they thought they heard the other one and brush it off.
Once she had changed out of her work clothes, she wiped the dusty fibers from her glasses, fixed her ponytail of dyed black hair, put on some lipstick, and left work.
It had been just over a year since she started at the sewing shop in Higashiosaka. She spent most of the day wearing a mask. Nobody had a problem with it if she didn’t talk at the machines.
This was the perfect line of work for someone on the run. Anywhere you went, you could find factories that needed people right away. They made it easy to get started, no background check required. Fitting in was another thing entirely. Shindo knew that if she tried and failed to sound like somebody from Kansai, they would treat her like an outsider, so she did them a favor, giving them her best rendition of an overblown Hokkaido accent. Playing the part of a bumbling country girl, far from home, made her an easy target, but that made it all the easier to hide in plain sight.
She walked into the café where they planned to meet. Shoko was there already. Hair buzzed short. Wearing chunky glasses, a thick-striped polo shirt. Blue jeans. Unless you paid attention to her Adam’s apple, or lack thereof, you’d have no reason to think that she wasn’t just a young guy, albeit on the shorter side.
“Hey, sis.”
Shoko waved her over. Eating out was rare for them. Today was an exception. Shoko’s birthday.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“No worries. Just sat down.”
Either on account of being younger, or because she had a better ear for things, Shoko could pick up on the speech patterns and vocal rhythms anywhere they went. After three months, even locals couldn’t tell the difference. All those cultural lessons had paid off. Given the chance, she could get good at anything, and surprisingly, she didn’t complain when they had to sleep in tiny, dirty rooms or even sleep outside.
Ever since the night she chopped her hair off, she refused to dress in anything remotely femme. Shindo had worried this would make them stand out more, not less, but the hotel cafeteria where Shoko worked as a dishwasher didn’t seem to care.
One time, Shindo asked her point-blank if she wanted to become a man.
Shoko thought about it for a second.
“I’m not sure,” she said, in a voice that had grown deeper, “but you’re not ever gonna catch me in another skirt or negligee. That’s not my style.”
Shoko picked up a steaming mug of coffee—black, no cream or sugar—and took a sip.
At that point, they’d been on the run for about five years.
CAFÉS WEREN’T WHAT they used to be. One by one, the traditional spots known for their dark, moody interiors were renovated into sterile “café bars” that catered to young clientele with pool tables and cocktails. This one had mirrors everywhere you looked. A place where no sane person could relax. Taking a seat in her plain work clothes, Shindo was clearly not the target audience.
After moving around southwest Honshu for a while, they had posted up in Hiroshima, outside the Naiki family’s sphere of influence, to procure some necessary documents. Shindo was using the name Kaori Haga and worked part-time at an office in the day, doing janitorial at night. Shoko went by Kaoru and worked here in the evenings, making cocktails. It was her English skills that landed her the job, since there were lots of foreign tourists in this part of Japan.
Dressed in a white shirt with a black vest and a bowtie, she made quite the handsome bartender. She stood a couple of inches taller, thanks to a pair of elevator shoes that only Shindo knew about. Ever since they started living together, Shoko had been eating bigger portions, though whether she was taking after Shindo or something else was going on was unclear. She even grew a little, putting on some weight. Funny how things change. Now that Shindo wasn’t working up a sweat by picking fights, she had to scale back on her meals to keep the flab at bay.
She waited at the bar while Shoko closed it down. Then they walked home, side by side, through the city lights. Shoko had layered up with a turtleneck and jacket.
The night life here was getting livelier all the time. With over five hundred thousand people, it was a busy place. Enough people so that a couple like the two of them, a tall woman in work clothes and a handsome younger guy, didn’t stand out.
Shoko, who had started smoking overnight, lit up a cigarette.
“So, everything go okay?” she asked.
“A little too okay. Emptied our savings.”
Shindo held up a paper bag. It contained two short packets of paper. Their job was to memorize each line, word for word, and shred the evidence.
With this info in hand, it would be easier to move around. They could sign leases, search for jobs, even relax a little. Or they could go their separate ways. Easier said than done. Shindo was in it for the long haul, had felt this way for years, just like she knew that Shoko would stay by her side forever.
Up until now, they had posed as sisters, or as siblings, or occasionally as a young husband and wife. People tend to get anxious with a pair of strangers if they don’t know what to call them. That’s part of why they had repeatedly changed names, averting suspicion by adapting to the circumstances.
In private, they had never labeled their relationship. How could they? This wasn’t an employer and employee kind of thing. There was obviously no blood connection, and no other family ties. Lovers didn’t cover it. Neither did friends, though. No, this was something else. Just as their real names were concealed under a slew of aliases, Shindo and Shoko’s private life was known to no one but themselves. They couldn’t name it if they tried.
“They said they couldn’t do two women. One of us has to be a guy.”
“That’s fine,” said Shoko. “I told you that. What are the names?”
“The woman’s named Yoshiko Matsumoto. The guy’s Sho Masaoka.”
“Masa?”
