More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
He’s more than a fling or a bounty or a mark. He’s forever bound to my history. The Hideo who has stolen the world’s free will is still the same Hideo who grieved his brother so deeply that it left a permanent thread of silver in his dark hair. The same Hideo who loves his mother and father. The same Hideo who once lifted me out of my darkness and dared me to dream of better things.
I refuse to believe that he’s nothing more than a monster. I can’t watch him sink like this. I keep going because I need to find that boy again, the beating heart buried underneath his lie. I have to stop him in order to save him.
But you know why I’m doing this, Emika. I opened my heart to you.”
Life is always like that—you don’t know when you’ll suddenly claw your way out of your circumstances, or when you’ll go crashing back down into them. “I’m not going to tell you it’s never too late,” I reply. “But, in my experience, it’s always the not doing that I regret more.”
“I’m not the one who broke our trust,” I go on, more softly now. “I always told you the truth. I worked faithfully for you. And you lied to me.”
But that day, when you were just a boy being interviewed on the radio, hiding your broken heart, you reached a girl searching for something to hold on to. She found you, and you helped her pull herself up.”
“You are forever a piece of my story. I couldn’t turn my back on you without turning my back on myself. I had to try.” My quiet words hang in the air. “I had to hold out my hand to you.”
“You told me you never wanted to see me again,” I manage to say. His voice is low and raw. “Because every time I see you, it takes everything in me to turn away.”
“We were never well matched, were we? There’s no version of our story that wouldn’t have been doomed from the start.”
“You once said that you were tired of the horror in the world,” I say. “Well, so am I. We can still find a way to fight it, the right way. We can find a way to do this together.”
“So, I have a job offer for you,” I say to him. “Would you like to hear more?”
Chen was seen holding hands with Hideo Tanaka as they left a local restaurant early last week, fueling speculation on their relationship.
