Shadow Shinjuku E-Book

Ryu Takeshi

• Herausgeber: URBIS
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Shadow Shinjuku
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 534

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The streets of Tokyo are different at night. There is darkness behind the glitter and the neon lights, and people who prefer to stay in the shadows, to dwell in the underworld – whores, gangsters, the homeless, the lost. People like Sato. He’s part of this world, he always has been, but a feeling of change is lingering in the heavy air of the bustling city. A feeling brought to life by fateful encounters of solitary souls.

Shadow Shinjuku is a dark, yet magical journey into the depths of Tokyo’s nightlife and the depths of the human soul. Ryu Takeshi’s first novel is both a noir crime thriller and urban fantasy. It's a unique and mesmerizing blend of the imagery of Japanese animation and film, the colors and details of street photography, and the mystical lyricism of soulful music. But above everything, it is a gripping story that doesn’t let go.

What readers are saying:

***** - "Shadow Shinjuku thrilled me from start to finish and as I read the book I couldn’t help but get lost in its pages and the world of Tokyo.”

***** - "This book completely absorbed every bit of me. You realise pretty quickly that to every light there’s a dark place that contains a variety of wrong people. People who struggle, get by and are just ignored. The adventure that Sato goes on is incredible, you get the excitement and intensity that all great thrillers give you. However, this was incredibly unique with the modern fantasy style taking over. The combination of the two worked perfectly. I was so quickly gripped by the plot of the story it shocked me. This is a quite big read too so for it to keep my interest throughout was amazing.”

***** - "Shadow Shinjuku is very entertaining, but also deep and emotional at the same time. Its strength is its impeccable pace, but also the captivating story, and the atmosphere the author managed to create and sustain throughout the book."

***** - "Let Ryu Takeshi take you on a ride in his mystical, yet so relatable world, where one seeks to find the answer to the human psyche, and if we really are masters of our own destiny."

***** - "The mystery here is very subtle, however for me it was a very thrilling driver and made me flip pages twice as fast as normal to uncover the solution."

**** - "Shadow Shinjuku is an atmospheric, gritty, gripping noir thriller and urban fantasy mash-up with a distinctly Japanese feel that easily drew me into its dark streets and neon lights"

**** - "This book slowly but relentlessly pulled me in as I’d never read anything like this before.”

**** - "It is the kind of crime thriller that grabs hold of you and doesn't let you go. I have read a lot of crime thrillers and this is one that stands out by miles! It is beautifully written , the illustrations are amazing . To say that it is the authors first book....wow it is an absolute triumph!”

**** - "This is one of those books where the setting is detailed enough that you feel amongst the world, it not only reminded me of being in Tokyo all those years ago but made me crave going back even more!! Whilst I mentioned the urban fantasy, don’t doubt that this mystery is packed with lots of action and won’t leave you once you finish the book. Overall, this was a great read!! I enjoyed the characters, the setting is honestly one of my favourites and the plot was brilliant!!"

**** - "I thoroughly enjoyed the world building, we get to see the dark, gritty, underbelly of Tokyo and I felt like I was there. The world building, plot line and characters all add up to an intriguing fantasy/crime thriller that is very different and fun as well.”

**** - "What a highly original almost unique debut!"

**** - "Secret scrolls, duels, and a mystical world make “Shadow Shinjuku” a memorable read!”

Leseprobe

Hundred-yen coin

Every time I look at Tokyo’s lights from above, loneliness engulfs me. I see life resisting darkness down there, but I can’t feel it. It’s too far away. Even the sounds are muffled, and an endless sea rumbles between me and the ground below. Sometimes, I can see it, its shallow waves steadily rising and falling, and no reflections escaping the murky surface.

That night was no different, and after a few seconds, I had to turn away from the window. I wanted to light up, but I couldn’t. New rules. I clenched my fists, and I looked around. Everything was made of concrete. Grey and cold. Only the dark green of the carpet struggled against the emptiness of the space. There was no light, just what leaked in through the windows, and the pallid red of the “EXIT” sign at the end of the corridor.

My watch showed half-past midnight. I had been waiting for nearly half an hour to see the boss. He liked to make people wait. Uncertainty was his favorite weapon, or rather the fear it created, and he used it with everyone, in every possible way. Like the desolate corridors in front of his office.

Finally, the door swung open:

‘Please, come in,’ Kobayashi-san said.

I put my hands in my pockets and walked in. I had a hundred-yen coin in my right pocket. I took it between my thumb and index finger and rubbed it gently.

As I reached the door, I stopped to look at the nameplate. “Akira Yamaguchi”. Most people knew the name, and most people feared it. Even Kobayashi-san. I was one of the few who didn’t. I feared something else.

‘Come in, please,’ Kobayashi-san told me again.

I looked at Yamaguchi’s aging assistant, and our eyes met. He was in his eighties, but still lively and full of energy. We stood with our gazes fixed on each other for a while. The only sound I heard was the whirring of the aircon somewhere in the depths of the darkness. I felt as if I had already experienced those same eyes staring at me, with those same feelings flowing around us, within us. It felt familiar.

‘Be careful,’ Kobayashi-san said, shaking his head. I didn’t respond. I just put my hand on his shoulder, squeezed it a little, and entered the room. Kobayashi-san closed the door behind me.

The office was bigger than my studio apartment, yet it somehow seemed vacant. Not the way it was or wasn’t furnished, but rather how it felt. Actually, there was nothing to feel, and this nothingness soaked the floor, the ceiling, the walls, even the boss himself.

Boss Yamaguchi liked the traditional and the old. He had never truly accepted the modern age and its “things”, and this was something we shared. He drove a black, ‘71 Nissan Skyline GT-R, he used a not-so-smart cellphone with buttons, and he had never had a computer. Whenever he could, he’d flee the city and spend time in the mountains. His grandfather was of samurai descent, both in spirit and behavior, and everything the boss knew and stood for he had learned from his grandfather – martial arts, inner balance, distance from others, discipline. He hated mistakes of any kind, he despised waste, and he expected perfection in all things.

His office reflected his personality. On one wall he had a single scroll with a lonely kanji which meant “loyalty”. Underneath it, a long sword and a short sword lay on a stand. The opposite wall was bare, and in front, an evergreen bonsai stood in the middle of a small, round table. Black pine, I think. The floor was covered with tatami, and in the back, a large window offered an imposing view of the Emperor’s palace.

The boss was sitting behind his desk, facing the window. He was watching the city. He was watching it live and breathe and die each night, only to be reborn the next morning. I couldn’t see him, only the smoke of his cigarette as it kept climbing higher and higher.

‘Too much light down there,’ he said in his raspy voice. ‘It confuses me.’

‘Confuses?’ I asked.

‘It hides the true face of this world.’

He turned around and looked me in the eye. His eyes were as stern as ever. I had never seen a sign of weakness in them.

‘Take one,’ he said, holding out a box of cigarettes. He smoked red Marlboros.

‘Thanks,’ I replied, shaking my head. I took a small, golden case from my pocket with cigarettes I had rolled myself. They were the only cigarettes I smoked. I had one left, and I put it in my mouth.

Yamaguchi flicked his lighter, and I leaned forward and let him light my cigarette.

I took a deep drag, closed my eyes, kept the smoke in my lungs for a long time, and let it out as slowly as I could.

‘Thanks,’ I said again.

‘Let’s sit down,’ he replied.

I took two pillows from the corner of the office, put them on the tatami, and we sat down, facing each other. He always sat so that the two swords were right behind him. He put the ashtray on the floor between us.

‘Won’t the alarm go off?’ I asked.

‘I had it turned off,’ he replied.

‘I see.’ We both took another drag.

Yamaguchi pulled out an envelope from the inner pocket of his suit, took out the letter inside it, and unfolded it. His eyes moved from one kanji to the next as if he were reading them for the first time. He took another drag, looked at me, let the smoke out into my face and read the letter aloud:

‘I want to be your personal bodyguard. Sato.’

He looked at me again, and I stared back at him. I didn’t blink. I was looking for something in his eyes. Some sort of clue or sign. I didn’t quite know what, I just sensed that there was something I needed to discover and understand. I often had this feeling. A sense that I know that there is a deeper layer of truth and meaning, and from time to time, it reveals itself in the form of an image coming seemingly out of nowhere or a dream I wake up from, not knowing whether it was really a dream, but as soon as I reach out to touch it, it evaporates into thin air. Not a single piece of information, only a strange feeling of emptiness.

We finished our cigarettes and put the stubs in the ashtray. Yamaguchi immediately lit another one.

‘Why?’ he asked as he exhaled the smoke from his first drag.

‘Money,’ I said.

‘Bullshit.’

I just kept staring at him without saying a word.

‘You’re a bad liar. You should know better.’

I took my tobacco kit from the back pocket of my jeans and started to roll a cigarette.

‘The thing I like the most about you is your honesty,’ he said. ‘You always give me a straight answer, no matter what. The other thing I appreciate is your total lack of interest in money. So, don’t bullshit me. I know you better than anyone in this fucking world.’

I licked the paper of the cigarette, finished rolling it, and leaned forward so he could light it.

‘I need this. I can’t tell you why. I don’t even know. It’s just a feeling.’

‘A feeling.’

‘Yes, a feeling. I’ve had it for a while.’

‘Hm.’

‘Give me a chance,’ I said.

He put his cigarette in the ashtray, turned around, took the long sword from the stand, and turned back towards me. He let the sword rest in his palms, and he let his gaze wander all over it. They glowed, and it seemed like dozens of stories of old were taking shape within his eyes.

The sword was beautiful. Its case had a dark, shimmering lacquer with an intricate engraving of a golden dragon whose tail coiled around the full length of the blade. The “tsuba” was golden as well, and it had several little cherry flowers on top, colored in black. The handle was a simple combination of black and gold again.

Yamaguchi pulled the sword halfway from its sheath, and the blade caught the light, blinding me for a moment.

He then slid the sword back into its sheath and put it on the tatami.

‘Do you still have it?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘Tomorrow evening, ten o’clock, Aoyama-cemetery. Bring it.’

I nodded again and then bowed so low my forehead almost touched the tatami.

‘Remember what I taught you,’ he said, as I was about to leave. We looked each other in the eye again.

‘I will.’

***

I took the elevator to the ground floor, rubbing the hundred-yen coin between my fingers in my pocket all the while. It was a strange elevator, with mirrors on all six sides – on the door, on the back panel, to the right, to the left, on the ceiling and on the floor. Every time I was in it, I felt like all my other selves in the mirrors, the endless rows, were not really me in the here and now, but me somewhere else, in some other time, maybe a different dimension. As if the elevator made it possible for all of us, for all of me to come together and face ourselves, face how close we were to one another, and yet how distant at the same time. It always made me realize I was this tiny little particle of barely visible dust covering a completely negligible piece of an infinite universe. I was nothing, a half-scribble in a footnote in a never-ending story, and though I was surrounded by the totality of everything which existed, I was still alone.

The hundred-yen coin was my magic tool; my way of pulling myself back into a state of mind where I felt I was worth something. I remember well the day I received it.

***

It was the 4th of July 1993. On the other side of the globe, people were waking up to a day when they would go on to eat millions of hamburgers and drink gallons of Coke in the name of independence. “The Firm” was finally dethroning “Jurassic Park” in the cinemas; Janet Jackson’s “That’s the way love goes” topped the Billboard 100; and Pete Sampras won his first ever Wimbledon title, beating Jim Courier in the final round. It must have been a beautiful Sunday for many people. For me... For me, it was just another day on the streets of Tokyo, with nowhere to sleep. The rain kept falling, people kept walking by without even sparing a look, and my head hurt like hell. At least it made me forget how hungry I was.

It’s not entirely true that I didn’t have anywhere to sleep. I did have my cardboard box, like all the other homeless people in the vicinity of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building in Shinjuku. Mine was the average size, I would say, but as I was only ten, it looked like I had more living space than the others. You could say I was well off. It’s all relative, right?

I was sitting in my box, the lid open, waiting for the rain to stop so that I could go look for some food. There was a broad road running above our heads, and it gave us protection from rain, snow, and all that stuff. I hated sitting in that box and waiting. I hated the uselessness of the moment, the time passing, going to waste forever. I felt robbed.

I was staring silently at nothing, letting my misery gradually crush my will to bother, when I suddenly heard footsteps behind me. Not the usual sound of footsteps that I heard all the time as people trundled past. They had depth. Each time the sole of the shoes touched the ground, I felt a wave of energy hit me, and a chill went down my spine. I was hesitant to turn and look, but my curiosity got the better of my fear.

I saw two men. One in his early forties, the other maybe some fifteen years older. They walked slowly, as if they had the time on their side, unlike me. The older man had a large, black umbrella, which he was holding above their heads. The younger man was walking next to him with his hands in his pockets, and I immediately knew that the footsteps I had heard belonged to him.

When they reached my box, I looked up at them, and suddenly I could hardly breathe. Time seemed to have stopped. Even the raindrops seemed suspended in the air as if attached to invisible strings; the wind had gone silent, staring at us with wide-open eyes; and the street, which a moment earlier, had been humming with the drone of a car or two, was empty.

Each of the two men was dressed in a black suit. Their perfectly ironed shirts were of the whitest of whites, a stark contrast with the grey of the gloomy day. The guy with the umbrella was wearing a striped, grey tie and a black waistcoat, while the other had the top button of his shirt undone. I could smell their fine leather shoes. Leather that has been soaked in rain has a distinctive scent, a scent I’ve always adored. It’s raw and natural.

The younger man didn’t even seem to notice me, and he probably would’ve continued walking, his universe never colliding with the one I was living in. His companion, however, stopped, turned his head, and looked me straight in the eyes. The look on his face is engraved in my memory. It penetrated all my defenses, into the inner depths of my soul, and it turned something on. Like a switch. Something which had been off for years, I didn’t even know it had existed, and now it was on. Just like that.

At that moment, time started to flow again.

‘A child,’ the older man said in a gentle voice. The younger one stopped and turned his head to look at me. Several seconds passed, and strong gusts of wind kept slapping my cheek. He then took a step closer, and I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. The hairs on my forearms stood up like little needles.

‘How old are you?’ the man with the umbrella asked.

I struggled to find my voice. I wasn’t used to being asked questions.

‘It’s ok, you can tell us.’

‘Ten, I think,’ I murmured.

The younger man narrowed his eyes. The older one looked at him and then turned back to me again:

‘You think?’

‘I’m not sure. No one ever told me.’

‘Your parents never told you how old you are?’

‘No one at the orphanage did.’

‘What are you doing out here?’ the younger man asked, but in a voice that seemed to belong to someone much older than him. It was a voice unlike any I had ever heard. Wise, firm, and deep. Like a mountain.

‘I escaped.’

‘So?’

‘So what?’ I asked back.

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

I was confused and didn’t know what to say.

‘You escaped what, a month ago? Maybe even a year, or two years ago? It doesn’t matter. What matters is why you are sitting in a cardboard box doing nothing and wasting your time. Did you escape from the orphanage so you could sit around like some homeless kid without even a glint of determination in your eyes?’

He had me there. My heart was pounding.

‘Do you like this?’ he asked, pointing at all the boxes and homeless people around us.

I shook my head.

‘Do you want to change it? To get out of here?’

I nodded.

‘Then, do something,’ he said.

I looked up. His eyes were sharp. As if he were holding a sword to my throat, and depending on how I reacted, my head would either roll off my shoulders or stay put, albeit with a scar to remind me of this moment forever. I chose the scar.

‘Help me,’ I whispered. ‘Please.’

Even as a child, I thought of myself as someone who controlled his emotions rather well. Yet there I was, with tears in my eyes, scared and trembling. Like any ten-year-old when his little world has been shattered.

The man took another step closer, bent over, and looked straight into my eyes from point-blank range. I could feel his breath on my skin. It was calm and balanced. Not a trace of excitement.

I didn’t know what to expect next. I had never experienced a hug, a kiss, a caressing hand on top of my head, or any other form of affection or love. I didn’t know how a parent treated a child in such a situation. I only knew that whatever was coming, I craved it.

He slapped me as hard as he could.

I fell over, and for a few seconds I was lying in my little box like an abandoned puppy, but I pulled myself together, stood up, wiped my tears away, and looked him in the eye. My whole body was shaking.

‘Finally,’ he said. ‘Now we can introduce ourselves. Akira Yamaguchi.’

I looked at the older man next.

‘Kazu Kobayashi. Please, call me Kobayashi-san.’

‘Sato,’ I told them, and I bowed as low as possible. Kobayashi-san returned the bow, and as he was straightening up, I caught the slightest of smiles on his face. Yamaguchi only nodded.

‘I’ll give you an assignment,’ Yamaguchi said. ‘Kobayashi-san will buy you a meal now, so that you have energy for the task ahead, and I’ll give you this hundred-yen coin as your first real money earned. It’s not much, but it will remind you of this day.’

He extended his right arm and opened his palm, in which a hundred-yen coin lay. As I reached for it, he suddenly closed his fist again.

‘It’s on you now to do this right. This is the only chance you’ll get from me. Kobayashi-san will give you the details.’

I nodded.

‘The Fushimi brothers,’ he said, turning to Kobayashi-san.

‘I understand,’ Kobayashi-san replied.

Yamaguchi opened his hand again. I took the coin and took a good look at it. It looked brand new, fresh out of the bank, or wherever Yamaguchi had gotten it from. All bright and shiny. I was certain no one had ever used it before. I can’t say for sure, of course, but that’s what I thought then, and it’s what I think now too. It was the first time I had ever earned money and the first time I felt I had gotten something new. I put the coin in my pocket, but I didn’t let go of it for at least another hour or so. I held it tight between my thumb and my index finger.

***

The strange, mirrored elevator finally got to the ground floor, and the doors opened. I walked out, still holding the coin between my fingers. The lobby area was almost as desolate as the upper floors, especially so late at night. The only difference being the presence of three men – two guards and a receptionist. All three heads turned in my direction.

I nodded. They nodded back.

We spoke little in this world of ours. Or rather, there were those who spoke little, and there were those who spoke all the time. No middle ground. You were in either one group or the other. I belonged to the silent group, of course. I barely ever spoke to my colleagues – only to a handful of people, at most, or when I needed to.

Some found me arrogant and thought I was being disrespectful with this silence of mine. Most, however, got used to it and accepted it. They were probably even glad not to have to talk to or have anything to do with me. The more distance from me, the better. I felt as if I were some lonely internal audit guy who did all the dirty work and, in exchange, was being hated and reviled. And I was fine with that.

The atmosphere grew tense, and I felt their eyes on me as I was leaving the building. I knew all three had short swords, and they were ready to draw them in an instant and cut me down if necessary. I also knew they would prefer not to. Not that it would have bothered them to hurt me. It wouldn’t have. On the contrary. But they also feared me.

I reached the revolving door and stopped. They must have thought I would turn around and look at them one more time, but I didn’t. I just stood there, looking at the door, breathing as slowly as possible.

Then, I closed my eyes.

***

Seven seconds passed, or eight, or maybe even nine. I felt as if I were in some no man’s land. I always get this feeling when I’m about to enter or leave a building. It’s like stepping out of one world to enter a different one. Like changing realities. There’s the reality of the outside and the completely different reality of the inside, and they rarely mix. You can hear or see or smell the other reality through doors and windows, but you can seldom be part of both at the same time. Most people have no trouble making this transition from one reality to the other. It’s like changing clothes or eating different food. Nothing in particular, just another layer of diversity in life. But for me, it’s a process of change for which I need to prepare. Like a snake shedding its skin. I need my time. I need to leave behind what was and accept what will be. And in this moment of limbo, I feel vulnerable.

There’s only one place where I’m able to escape both kinds of reality: the balcony. My favorite place. Wherever I live, I have to have a balcony. A covered one, so that I can spend time on it even if it’s raining or snowing. It’s one of the few places where I feel at peace. I often close my eyes in these moments of limbo, when I’m about to enter or leave a place, and I try picturing myself on a balcony. It helps me make this leap across the boundary between realities.

***

I opened my eyes again and stepped outside.

As soon as the fresh air hit me, everything that had happened inside the building instantly seemed as distant as the stars above Tokyo. I looked up and tried to find the star of the reality I had just left. I searched the sky, but the city lights made it impossible to see anything apart from the constant, shimmering glow. My recent reality was up there somewhere, like all the other ones, but I had to let go of it.

It was one o’clock. Most people were at home, sleeping, watching television, browsing the internet on their tablets and mobile phones, having sex. I could’ve been at home, too, like everyone else, but I wasn’t. My place was on the streets, and the darker the night became, the more I felt at ease.

I parked my motorbike in front of the entrance. An old Kawasaki Zephyr 750. All black, with classic lines, fine curves, and the soul of a wild mustang. I called her Eleanor. Like the car in the Nicolas Cage movie.

I put my helmet on, sat on the bike, and turned her engine on. I revved her a couple of times, just to hear the sound. It was our way of greeting each other, I guess. She never failed to impress me.

I put her in first gear and headed off to Golden Gai.

Room fifty-five

I only visit Golden Gai once the sun has set. Otherwise, it’s full of tourists taking pics and selfies and then going to a nearby Starbucks or whatever coffee shop they find, connecting to the free wi-fi, and posting the pics on Facebook or Instagram and tweeting something like “Golden Gai Rulez! #tokyounderground #yakuzaheaven #dreamcometrue”.

I only go after midnight.

There is a secret to Golden Gai, you see.

Every night, exactly at midnight, a portal opens. It’s hidden in a narrow alley between two small houses, and it resembles a large mirror. They say only those who can’t see their reflection in it can enter. If you can, it’s just a mirror, like any other mirror, and you can straighten your hair, check to see if there’s anything between your teeth, and mourn over the wrinkles on your face. If you can’t, you’re like me. You go there, you see it’s a mirror, but the only thing staring back at you is a dark, empty alley with a blinking neon light somewhere in the background. You’re scared at first, borderline panicking, but then your curiosity prevails, and you touch it. It’s fluid, or at least that’s the best way to describe it. It’s not wet, but it moves and swirls around your fingers, then your arms, then your legs, and your whole body as you enter.

It pulls you in.

***

I got there around half past one in the night. I would have gotten there sooner, but I had had to stop at a convenience store to grab something to eat.

I parked Eleanor near the entrance to Golden Gai, and I began to walk towards the portal. I took my time, as I was in no rush. This short walk was one of the few things I genuinely enjoyed. I don’t know why. There was no particular reason. None that I was aware of, at least. I just had this feeling of completeness whenever I took those few steps. Nothing was missing, nothing was bothering me, nothing was weighed on my shoulders or my mind. It didn’t matter if it was raining or if the winds were howling or if the heat was making me sweat like crazy. I wasn’t even aware of the world around me. Or rather I was, but everything felt just right, just as it should in that particular moment.

On my way to the portal, I saw a drunk salaryman. He could hardly walk, and he was using his plastic umbrella in one hand and his bag in the other to keep his balance, though he seemed perpetually on the brink of falling over. He was this picture-perfect example of an average salaryman in his forties, in a cheap, striped, dark blue suit, one size larger than it should’ve been. He wore a pink tie with grey, white, and black stripes, and his shoes had yet to see a cleaner or even just a brush. His wristwatch looked like a very simple Citizen with a metal bracelet – it was obviously oversized as well, and the number plate hung on the inside of his wrist.

As we passed each other, he looked at me, and suddenly he started shouting:

‘Idiot! You’re an idiot! You-you-you-,’ he kept pointing at me with his umbrella, but every time he lifted it, he almost stumbled. ‘I hate you! I’ll kill you! I really will!’ He was spitting all over the place while berating me with every possible thing that came to his mind. ‘Bastard! Son of a... lady of the night! Penis wanker! Disgusting... cucumber! Yes, cucumber! Cucumber with a huge nose! A carrot-nose! Yes, you ugly... you... you... crab-eating little mermaid!’ Not that he was any good at cursing. ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll... I’ll... Aaaaa!’

He charged forward with the umbrella and took a wild swing. I moved back slightly, just a quick step to one side. He missed, spun around, and fell to his knees.

He then started to sob like a baby.

I stood there for a while, confused. Like a... well, a cucumber. Maybe this odd little man was right.

He cried for at least two minutes, then his tears slowly dried up and he began to mutter.

‘I can’t even curse. I’m a weak... pussy. I’m... I’m... useless.’

Another few sobs rose from his throat.

‘Hey, come on,’ I said, taking a step or two towards him. ‘Come on, get up. Pull yourself together.’ I grabbed his forearm and pulled him up. ‘There you go.’

He wiped away his tears and blew his nose.

‘Are you alright?’ I asked.

He straightened his suit first and then his small, round glasses and then the little hair he had remaining, which he wiped from one side of his bald pate across to the other.

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘Are you sure?’

He nodded.

‘What was that all about, by the way?’

He almost started to cry again, but I stopped him: ‘Hey, hey, come on. Don’t do that. Enough. You’re a man, aren’t you?’

He nodded.

‘What just happened? A cucumber? With a carrot-nose? Really?’

‘I’m sorry. I... I lost it. And I’m a little...’

‘Drunk. I can see that.’

‘I... I lost my job today. And my girlfriend. Yesterday.’

‘Your girlfriend.’

‘Yes. Yesterday. My girlfriend. My love. My one and only... Oh, I’m gonna cry again!’

And so he did. A little less than before, but he still managed to shed an impressive number of tears. It helped him sober up a little more. Again, I didn’t really know what to do. I’m not good with people. From not having parents or friends when I was growing up, I guess. Later, it’s like a curse. So, I just stood there and rolled a cigarette.

‘Are you done?’ I asked when he had run out of tears. ‘Here,’ I said, and I gave him the cigarette. ‘It’ll help you calm down a little.’

He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his suit and took it.

‘Thank you.’

I lit it for him and rolled another one.

‘Look,’ I said, after taking a puff, ‘I don’t know what’s going, and I don’t really care. It’s none of my business.’ I took another drag. ‘But you should get your shit together. Crying won’t help, cursing won’t either. Beating other people up... It might, but only if you beat up the right ones.’

He looked at me and then turned his head to one side and continued smoking. His hands were shaking.

‘We all have our demons,’ I said. ‘Believe me. So, do something about them. Whatever it takes.’

I put my hand on his shoulder.

‘Good luck,’ I said, and I left.

I don’t remember him saying anything in reply.

As I continued my short stroll towards the portal, I suddenly felt strange. I think I was still processing what had happened somewhere in the back of my mind, and I didn’t really know what to do with it, but for some reason, I felt excited. Gone was the calmness I usually experienced when walking that walk. I kept thinking of the odd little man. I even stopped for a moment and considered looking back.

But I didn’t.

***

I soon reached the portal. The alley was as narrow and dark as ever, and it took the most trained pair of eyes to spot the mirror. Trained in seeing Tokyo’s streets at night, I mean. Like mine. I’m convinced that people of the night have different eyes than people of the day. I don’t know how people of the day see things, but we nightcrawlers can penetrate the darkness and see all the lines, shapes, and depths hiding in it. And the mirror was one such shape, one such depth.

I went as close as I could without touching it. I stood in front of it, then I closed my eyes for a few seconds. My heart began to beat faster, and my palms started to sweat. I had done this countless times before, always with the same outcome, yet I still hoped something would be different when I opened them again. I hoped I would see my long hair tied up in a knot, my big nose resembling a bird’s beak, my dense beard with its patches of grey, the scar I had on my left cheek, my skinny but strong body, and my deep, dark eyes. But the hope would evaporate as soon as I opened my eyes just enough to see that the mirror was reflecting only an empty alley, nothing else.

It’s strange to stand in front of a mirror and not see yourself. Like being a ghost. First, you wonder if it’s real. Then, you wonder if you’re real. “Does anyone see me? Do I exist? Am I here?” These kinds of questions.

So, I stood there, looking into the mirror, asking myself these same questions. It took me a couple of minutes. It used to take longer, but I guess it didn’t surprise me as much anymore.

After I was done with my self-questioning, I raised my right arm and touched the surface of the mirror. It felt warm. It always did. Like putting a finger in a warm cup of milk. Silky and smooth. I loved the feeling.

As soon as my fingertips reached it, the strange, fluid surface began swirling around and gently pulling me in. Like a living creature looking to embrace another living thing. I felt as if I were being welcomed – a sensation I have only rarely experienced. So, I let it do it. I let it take me by my hand and lead me to the other side.

***

In the space beyond, you find yourself in a corridor. The carpet is red and old, the walls are yellowish, probably a permanent layer of dust. Light comes from fake, electric candles spread evenly both right and left, and between every two candles, there is a door. An endless number of doors, in a seemingly endless corridor.

The corridor probably has many different entrances. I’d always enter between doors number fifty-one to the right and fifty-two to the left. But the only door I’d open was fifty-five.

There’s something about the number five that attracts me. It’s like a perfectly shaped dancer, gracefully making a leap from the past into the future, yet the largest impact it makes is in the present. I like to think of it as a symbol of balance.

The first time that I found myself in the corridor, I knew I had to enter room fifty-five. The door was exactly like all the other doors, but the number fifty-five felt warmer than the rest. I had the sense that the other rooms were not meant for me, and I wasn’t even allowed to enter them. So, I never really bothered. I always went straight to fifty-five.

***

I entered, and I closed the door behind me.

Soft music was playing, as usual. Low-key, instrumental electronic music. I went straight to the bar.

‘The usual, Kei.’

‘A scotch with a huuuge chunk of ice coming up! Yep, maaan!’

‘Thanks, Kei.’

‘Sure, maaan! Here you go!’ The bartender poured me a glass and another one for himself. ‘Cheers, maaan!’

‘Cheers, Kei,’ I said, and we both took a sip.

I liked Kei. He was strange, sure, especially the way he talked. But there was not even a trace of role-playing, of phoniness in anything he did. He was one hundred percent Kei, all natural and himself. A good listener, too. Most bartenders are, I guess. The good ones, at least. They make you want to talk. He definitely made me talk. Not necessarily a lot, but he made me talk about things worth talking about.

‘You look great, Kei. As always.’

‘Oh, thanks maaan! It’s funky, yeah?! My first time wearing it,’ he said, looking down at his pink shirt, which had colorful images of cats all over it. Funny, hand-drawn cats, like from a cartoon. ‘Cats are coool, maaan!’

‘Cool they are, Kei. Cool they are,’ I said, and then I turned, resting my elbows on the bar.

I looked around. Kei’s place was enormous. Lots of tables and chairs, several separate, quiet sections, even some rooms to relax. The main room had a single source of light – a huge chandelier right in the middle, with more than a hundred candles and even more crystals decorating it. The crystals had a cold, blue glint, and as they shimmered with the yellowish shine of the flames, they painted the whole bar in a tremulous green. The walls, the furniture, the glasses on the shelves all looked green. Even Kei looked green.

The walls were bare, with no windows, just a hole in one of them. A round hole the size of a large pumpkin. One of the shadows was standing there and looking through it.

‘Is that a new one?’ I asked.

‘The one at the hooole, you mean? Yeah, maaan. A new one.’

‘I see. How many of them are here right now?’

‘One hundred.’

‘So, a hundred shadows.’

‘Not shadows, maaan. I keep telling you. It’s peeeople.’

‘I know, but you’re the only one who can see them in their true form, as people. To me, they are only shadows. Formless lumps of darkness.’

‘That’s true. But they are still peeeople. I can see all of them. And I can talk to them.’

‘How many of them are you talking to right now?’ I asked.

‘Oh, to aaall of them.’

‘At the same time?’

‘Yep!’

‘But how does that work? I just can’t imagine it. Not when my reality is you talking to me, and all these other shadows, all one hundred of them just silently hanging around like ghosts.’

‘Well, realities overlap, maaan. But they don’t necessarily penetrate one another. Mostly, they baaarely connect on the surface.’

‘But you can see all of them.’

‘Yep!’

‘And you can be in all of them, at the same time, like here and now with me.’

‘Yep!’

‘You’re crazy,’ I said, shaking my head.

‘Maybe I am, maaan. But so are you,’ he replied, and he smiled.

I picked up my glass of scotch and walked around. Some of the shadows were moving, some were still, either sitting or standing. Whenever I got near one, I felt a strange mix of energy and emotions, and it was slightly different with each of them, both the sensation and the intensity. A few felt cold and made me sad, a few others felt warmer and brought a smile to my face. Some were distant and estranged, some I wanted to punch in the face, and some I just felt pity for.

I got to the hole in the wall. The new shadow standing in front of it immediately felt annoying, but at the same time, I somehow liked it. Like a little brother, I thought.

We kind of looked at each other, then he left. Or she. I couldn’t tell. I think it kept staring at me and never really stopped. I stared back for a while, but then I turned away and looked through the hole.

‘What do you see, maaan?’ Kei asked from behind the counter.

‘Just the usual.’

‘Meeeaning?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, trying to find the right words. ‘I see darkness, and within, several layers of thick, impenetrable clouds. They seem to be moving, but no opening appears. Not even a single crack where at least a tiny bit of light could shine through. Nothing. It’s just darkness.’

‘Hm. I see. That sucks, maaan.’

I turned around and looked at him.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Should I be seeing something else?’

‘I don’t know. Should you?’ His eyes changed as soon as he asked me. His voice, too. He suddenly appeared more serious.

‘Come on, Kei. Tell me,’ I begged.

He just shook his head and sighed.

‘I’ve told you already, maaan. I’m not here to give you aaanswers.’

‘Then, why are you here?’

‘Well, you tell me. Why am I here?’ I looked him straight in the eyes, frustrated. ‘Why are you here, Sato-kun? Hm?’

‘Go to hell’, I replied, and I finished my scotch. ‘Pour me another one, will you?’

‘That I can certainly do, maaan! Give me your glass!’

I put my glass on the bar.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

I took a deep breath, then I let it all out, like an old train releasing steam. I sat down.

‘Tell me, what’s bothering you, maaan?’

I looked at him, then I turned away and took a sip.

‘There’s fear in your eyes, maaan. I can tell.’

I took another sip.

‘You in some kind of daaanger?’

‘I’m not afraid of danger, Kei.’

‘Then what is it, Sato-kun?’

‘I don’t know. Something else.’

‘I see. It’s always something else.’

We looked at each other and both took a sip.

‘Can I roll one?’ I asked.

‘Oh, you can indeed roll it, maaan. Feel free.’

I took out my tobacco and started making a cigarette.

‘But you’re still not allowed to smoke in here, maaan.’

‘Come on, Kei. Please.’

‘Rules are rules, maaan,’ he shrugged.

‘You’re cruel.’

‘Am I?’ he asked. ‘And yooou? Are yooou not cruel?’

‘Fuck you, Kei.’

‘With pleasure, maaan,’ he replied, bowing.

The moment he got up and I saw that funny smile on his funny face under that thin, Salvador Dali-like mustache, I started to laugh. He laughed back, of course, and soon we were both laughing hard, to the point where tears began to flow.

‘Ha-ha-ha!’

‘Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, maaan!’

‘I hate you, ha-ha-ha!’

‘The same, maaan! Ha-ha-ha! The same!’

‘Ah, anyway,’ I said, wiping away the tears, and trying to calm myself down. ‘I’ll have this thing tomorrow evening.’

‘You mean, tonight, right?’

‘What?’

‘It’s waaay past midnight, maaan. It’s already tomorrow.’

‘Oh, yeah, right. Tonight. Whatever.’

‘So, a “thing”, Sato-kun?’

‘Yeah, a “thing”.’

‘Will you have to do it? Agaaain?’ he asked.

‘I will,’ I replied, putting my hand in my pocket to hold onto the hundred-yen coin.

‘What for, Sato-kun?’

‘I don’t know, Kei. Not yet.’

I finished the second scotch and stood up.

‘Are you leeeaving already?’

I nodded.

He took my empty glass to wash it.

‘Next time, Sato-kun.’

‘Next time, Kei.’

***

I found myself in the dark alley again. I glanced at my watch – only five minutes had gone by. Time passed differently in there.

I looked back. The mirror was still there, and my reflection still wasn’t.

It’s hard to describe my relationship with the mirror and everything beyond it. I think I both hate it and love it. Or, to be more precise, I’m drawn to it. No one was making me go there over and over again, and I could’ve easily stayed away from that strange little alley. I could’ve avoided seeing that I wasn’t there to see, and I could’ve avoided all those complicated emotions I always felt when returning from that place.

But I didn’t.

I guess darkness can be quite irresistible at times. When you’re like me, when you’ve lived most of your life in the shadows of existence, far away from light, the darkness feels like home. And with it comes everything and everyone else living in the same darkness. The weird, the outcast, the forgotten. These things, these creatures become the only ones you can relate to. They were the only ones I could relate to.

After leaving the room, I’d always have this huge emptiness inside me. I’d imagine having a dry, seemingly bottomless well at the center of my heart, and from time to time, like when leaving the room, my heart would merge with the well. I’d become the well.

I looked at the mirror one more time, and then I left. I walked to the corner of the alley and turned right to go back to Eleanor. But after I had taken a few steps, I heard something, so I stopped. The sound had come from behind me. I knew someone was there. I was about to turn around when suddenly I felt something pressed against my spine.

I slowly raised my arms.

‘Where were you?’

Killing a piglet

I immediately recognized the voice and turned around, lowering my arms.

‘You again.’

‘Where did you go?’ the funny little man from earlier asked, pointing at the mirror with his plastic umbrella.

‘None of your business,’ I replied.

‘There’s... There’s something strange going on! I can tell! There’s definitely something strange going on!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I... I saw you go in there! Yes! You walked in there, and... and you disappeared!’

I looked at the mirror, then at him again.

‘I saw you! I saw the whole thing!’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes! Yes, I did! You won’t fool me!’

‘I see,’ I sighed. ‘Come with me, then’ I told him.

‘Where? What will you do to me?’ he asked with fear in his voice.

‘Just come, will you? I won’t hurt you. I’m actually going out of my way here, so at least appreciate it.’

He gulped.

‘Now, come,’ I said, beckoning him forward.

We went back to the mirror and stood in front of it. We could see the whole alley in it – the graffiti on the walls, a sealed iron door, the dirty, red bricks, a neon sign, and even a dark piss stain. But we couldn’t see ourselves. Not me, not him. We weren’t there.

‘What’s this?’ he asked, pointing at the mirror with his umbrella again.

‘What does it look like to you?

‘Well... a mirror?’

I nodded.

‘A mirror?! But... but... I can’t see myself! I can’t see you! Where are you?! Where am I?! What the hell is this thing?!’ He took a few steps back.

‘A mirror, of sorts,’ I replied. ‘But don’t worry, it won’t harm you. Don’t be scared.’

‘Scared?! I’m freaking terrified! I’m gonna start screaming or crying! Or both!’

‘Please don’t cry, ok? I’ve heard enough of that for tonight. Come on, come closer.’ I took his arm and pulled him next to me. ‘Look,’ I said, and I slowly raised my right index finger to touch, gently, the surface of the mirror.

It began to move and swirl like it usually did. It wrapped my finger in its grip and began pulling it in.

‘Whoa! What’s this?! I’m freaking out!’ the man screamed, and as he took a few steps back, stumbled, and fell on his ass. ‘Ouch!’

‘It’s ok. It’s harmless. See?’ I let it swallow my whole forearm.

‘What the hell is this thing?!’ he asked, standing up. He put his glasses back in place and stepped closer.

‘I don’t know, to be honest. I only know that some people see their reflection in it, and for them, it’s just an ordinary mirror, but some people can’t, like you and me, and for us, it works as some kind of gate. A portal.’

‘A portal? So, you can go through it?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And where does it lead?’

‘It’s hard to tell, and hard to describe. You’d better see it for yourself.’

‘Me? Go in there? Are you crazy?! No way!’

‘Well, it’s entirely up to you. I don’t care, honestly. You asked, so I showed you. But you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to do anything. You’re a free man, aren’t you? No job, no woman, no kids, I guess. Not so bad! You can do whatever you want.’

He looked at me with a blank stare for a while. Then, he turned his head to look into the mirror.

‘You’re interested. I can tell. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have stayed and asked questions and bothered me with your shit,’ I told him.

He raised his umbrella and touched the mirror with it. As the mirror began pulling it in, he immediately took a step back.

‘Leave the umbrella, and put down your bag. You don’t need them,’ I said. ‘Try touching it with your fingers.’

He put his stuff on the ground. Both the umbrella and the bag at once appeared in the mirror, retrieving their reflection.

‘Touch it,’ I said.

He again went close, this time raising his empty right hand. He spread his fingers wide and let the surface of the mirror clasp them in its embrace.

‘It feels warm,’ he whispered.

‘I know.’

‘Like...’

‘A warm cup of milk?’ I asked.

‘Like ash in a slumbering fire.’

‘Very poetic,’ I said.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he let the mirror swallow his whole arm, and then, slowly, he followed it. As he was about to cross to the other side completely, I said: ‘I’ll wait for you here.’ He probably didn’t hear me.

While he was gone, I sat on the doorstep of one of the houses – the one with the sealed iron door. I rolled several cigarettes, lit one of them, and tucked the rest in my special little case. I was about to put the case into my shirt pocket when I stopped for some reason and took a good look at it.

The case was made of pure gold and had a crane engraved on top. Very Japanese. The crane was flying upwards, into the sky, its beak pointing towards the sun. Its head was missing, however. Only a small hole, or rather an indentation stood in its place, a bit more than a centimeter wide. I touched it with my thumb, and suddenly images of old emerged.

***

I remember waiting patiently the whole night, sitting behind a big tree. I held a handmade knife in my left hand, while with my right hand I fidgeted with the hundred-yen coin in my pocket. I was waiting for the light in the top right corner of the house to go out.

The room went dark around one o’clock. I waited for another half an hour, then I came out of hiding. I approached the sliding door with care and slowly opened it. Before entering, I closed my eyes and prepared to make another leap between realities. This turned out to be a particularly difficult leap, and I think I spent almost a minute just breathing in and out, trying to keep my emotions in check. I then opened my eyes again, went inside, and closed the door.

My eyes needed a little time to adjust to the darkness, but luckily the moon was shining through the windows and the thin rice paper covering the sliding door. The silence was overwhelming. I could hear the loud beating of my heart. My palms were sweating, and my breathing was heavy. I felt like a cornered, hunted animal, with nowhere to escape.

I had to go to the upper floor, but when I got to the stairs, I started to shake. There was a little table next to me, and I grabbed its edge. When I looked down, I saw a golden cigarette case next to my trembling hand. It, too, was shaking.

I picked it up and gave it a look. I instantly liked the crane and the way it left the ground to soar into the skies with resolve, and without the slightest sign of regret. It looked like it knew it was leaving one place for a much better place, and it couldn’t care less what the world thought of its decision. It just flew away, and in doing so, found peace.

As I thought about this, I found a little peace myself, and my body stopped shaking. I took a few deep breaths, looked up, and slowly started to walk. I took the case with me and put it in my shirt pocket.

I climbed the stairs and looked around. The bedroom was to the left, and there was another small room in front of me. I went into the room in front of me.

I sat on the floor with my back against the wall separating the two rooms, I put the knife on the tatami, and I tried to relax.

After a couple of minutes had passed, I managed to loosen my muscles and calm my breathing. I used an exercise I had learned from Kobayashi-san. I focused my eyes on a single point somewhere in front of me, and I imagined the one place where I felt the most at ease. In my case, a balcony. As I let my imagination take over, the image of the balcony appeared from that single point. Then, it grew, slowly swallowing up my reality and eventually replacing the room I was sitting in.

My imaginary balcony was no particular balcony, nothing I had seen somewhere before, but rather a unique place hidden in the deepest of layers of my consciousness. I think we all have this unique, special place within us, and it’s a place to which our souls can retreat. What makes it special is its ability to draw in all kinds of energies and, at the same time, protect our souls from them. It’s a place from which we can observe the skies, the fields, the mountains, the seas, and all the lights and shadows, yet we remain sane and unhurt.

I spent several minutes on my inner balcony. I leaned against the railing and gazed at the stars. I tried counting them, from left to right, and I got to one hundred. Number one hundred and one would’ve been a particularly large and shiny star, but I wasn’t able to count it. I kept staring at it with wide-open eyes, but somehow the words, the number wouldn’t come. I had it on the tip of my tongue, but it stayed there.

The stars then slowly faded away, and the balcony turned back into the small room in which I was sitting.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the room or its contents when I arrived, but as my mind returned from the balcony, I saw a desk in the corner and an old typewriter on top of it. I stood up and went to check it out.

I had never seen an actual typewriter before, only in old tv shows. I stood there for a while, mesmerized, and I let my eyes wander all over it. To me, it looked like a miniature piano, with its thick, black body, the many buttons, and the long typebars, which reminded me of strings. The small, round buttons were inviting me, whispering in my ear to sit down, rest my fingers on them, and let whatever was in me come out.

I allowed them to sway me, like a sailor giving in to a mermaid’s song, so I sat down. A stack of white paper lay on the desk. I took one from the top, gently put it in the machine, and wound it.

It felt strange, sitting there at someone else’s desk, in an unfamiliar house, staring at a blank sheet of paper in a typewriter. Yet it also felt familiar, like something I was meant to do. So, I put my fingers on the buttons. I just kept them there, without pressing anything.

I hesitated. Should I fill the page with letters or not? Perhaps I would do better to leave it pure and innocent instead of getting it mixed up with me and my world. I feared I would ruin something pure and leave a permanent stain. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want it to experience the pain I was experiencing. But the buttons kept telling me to use them. They kept telling me to let it all out, whatever it was. They encouraged me to write.

But I couldn’t.

I took out the blank piece of paper, folded it, and put it in the back pocket of my jeans. I then went back into the hallway and closed the sliding door to the room.

I stopped to listen.

Nothing came from the bedroom. No snoring, no squeaking noise of a body tossing or turning in the bed, no sound of the pages of a book being turned.

I hoped I would hear something. Anything. The smallest of sounds would’ve made me turn around, go down the stairs, back to the garden, and disappear in the darkness of the night without a trace. And maybe, just maybe, it would’ve made me think things through one more time. I can’t tell if it would’ve changed anything, but still, at least I would’ve had another chance.

But I didn’t.

I heard no sounds coming from the room, so I went ahead. First, I opened the door a crack, as slowly and quietly as I could. Then, I peeked inside.

The room was sixteen tatamis big, and it had a pretty simple layout: a small drawer to the left with a white orchid on top, a mirror on the back wall, and a window to the right. Light came in just at the right angle to paint the middle of the room in a cold, blue color, separating it from the rest of the space. Like a stage light in a small theater. And on the stage, lying on his back, with his belly rising from the surface like the pitching mound of a baseball field, there he was. The Professor.

I took a deep, silent breath, held it in, and carefully entered the room. I don’t know how much time it took me to open the door and walk inside, but the word eternity definitely comes to mind. It felt like someone could have written a book, published it, and become rich in the time it took me to make those few steps and end up a couple of feet away from the Professor, looking down on him.

He looked older in the pictures I had been given. I remembered gray hair and a goatee, but the man in front of me was cleanly shaven and had pitch-black hair. I took out a photo from the pocket of my jacket. I looked at the photo, then at the sleeping man, and again at the picture. The features were the same. There was no doubt. Fluffy, reddish cheeks, thinning eyebrows, and a disproportionately large, round nose which reminded me of a piglet. I knew everyone called him the Professor, and I also knew why, but as I was looking at him and preparing to do what I had been sent to do, my inner voice started calling him Mr. Piglet. “Mr. Piglet... I came for you, Mr. Piglet,” I thought to myself, and as soon as I started thinking of him in this way, his body began to change from that of a rather fat man into an oversized piglet.

I think my mind played this little trick on me because it thought it would be easier to kill a piglet than a man. Especially since I was doing it for the first time.

But it wasn’t.

I had seen pigs being slaughtered to process their meat, but now that I imagined myself slicing the throat of the piglet in front of me, my whole body felt numb, and I started trembling again. I imagined it squealing, I imagined tears flowing down its face, I imagined its piglet soul leaving its piglet body and hovering in the air frantically, not knowing what had hit it. I saw the blood shooting out the moment I made the slit, splashing the whole room with red splotches, including the orchid, which would have blood dripping from its leaves and petals.

I felt dizzy, so I closed my eyes for a few seconds and tried to shake it off. I hoped the darkness would wipe away the vision of piglet blood and all the other visions.

Then, from somewhere in that darkness, somewhere deep down, a loud bang made its way through to me. The sound seemed to come from very far away, but it reached me in an instant, and everything shook, like when an earthquake hits.

I opened my eyes. Mr. Piglet was pointing a gun at me. Smoke was coming from its barrel. I looked at my chest, then I looked up again and put my left hand over my heart.

Then, I fell to the ground.

I can’t tell for sure how long I lay there motionless, my left hand pressed against my heart, my right hand still holding the knife. Everything went blank for a while. What I do remember is the moment I came to my senses. It happened when Mr. Piglet touched me a few times with his feet. I think he was checking to make sure I was dead.

I don’t know why he didn’t put more rounds in me. He must have been in a state of shock himself. Though he had a gun, I doubt he had ever used it before. Hitting me exactly in the heart with a single shot was pure luck. At least, that’s what he must have thought.