Asura Girl

way down the aisle, checking out the other passengers—mostly parents with really noisy kids. The train started up before I could find a seat, and as I staggered through the car I wondered whether I should have stayed home to wait for my brother. Then for some reason it occurred to me that this might be some sort of special refugee train and that my brother might even be on it. But as I looked around almost expecting to see him, a woman’s voice came on the loudspeaker. “This is the 5:30 p.m. Hikari Express No. 336, bound for Tottori Prefecture,” she said. Shit! Somehow I’d got on the wrong train. This was a bullet train, heading west—the exact opposite direction from the commuter line that should have been taking me into town. Why hadn’t I realized right away? No Keio Line train has seats that face each other. But now what was I going to do? I’d have to get off at the next stop—though they might make me pay anyway. Did I have enough money if they did? I stopped in the aisle and took out my wallet—two thousand yen. Was that enough? Of course it wasn’t! This was no joke. I decided I needed to find the conductor and explain what had happened. Could I promise I’d send him the money later? Outside the window, the city was disappearing and we were racing through fields and rice paddies at bullet train speed. Shit, shit, SHIT! Had we already left Tokyo? Where were we? I reached the end of the aisle, slid open the door, and stood for a moment looking out the window in the compartment between cars. The cluster of skyscrapers in West Shinjuku was barely visible in the distance, across a wide expanse of fields. What the fuck? Whatever. I should at least try to reach my brother. He was probably home by now, waiting for me. I took out my phone and called him. He picked up right away. “Where are you?” he asked as soon as he heard my voice. “Sorry!” I yelled into the phone. “It’s AWFUL!” “What’s awful?” “I got on the wrong train!” “What do you mean? What train?” “I don’t know. I think we’re headed for Tottori!” “Tottori? Why are you going to Tottori? Do you have the money for the ticket?” “I don’t know! No! I’ve only got two thousand yen!” “Then how are you going to get back?” “I’m not GOING all the way to Tottori!” “Okay, but make sure they don’t catch you at the station. It could get pretty scary.” “What do you mean?” “A friend of mine got way out somewhere without a ticket and when they caught him they made him pay big time.” “You’re kidding. How much?” “You know how much they collect from the family when some suicide case throws himself in front of the train? Well, more than that!” “No shit?” “No shit! Two, three hundred million, at least.” I was starting to feel faint. But hold on a minute. My dad was Yuzo Gucci, right? A guy as famous as Gucci must have that kind of money stashed away somewhere. Or maybe not? Maybe not. Maybe we’d have to sell our house to cover the ticket. Whoa! “Whoa!” I said out loud. “You said it. So whatever you do, don’t let them catch you at the station!” “Okay, but what about the conductor on the train?” “That’s even worse. You’d better lock yourself in the toilet and wait until you get to the next stop.” “Okay, I’ll try that,” I told him. Three hundred million was no laughing matter. I didn’t see how my brother or even Gucci himself could help me out of a jam like this. As I headed for the bathroom, I glanced back into the car. The conductor was stopped in the aisle talking to a girl—really more like an anime character than any girl I’d ever seen—and then she stood up and pointed in my direction. Shit, shit, SHIT! Shitty anime girl! Remind me to deal with her later. “Yes, Mr. Conductor, sir, I remember seeing somebody like that. She went that way…!” Fuck! And now Mr. Conductor, sir, was heading in my direction. Too late to hide in the bathroom here. I’d have to run through the next car and find another one. When I looked back to see if he was coming, I realized the conductor wasn’t really a conductor—now he looked more like a Mafia don, and he seemed to have a bunch of his boys following him through the car. Whoa! Maybe this was no ordinary Bullet train after all—it was starting to seem more like a trap, laid especially to catch…me! I ran through the door into the next car. Halfway down the aisle, I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the don and his muscle coming through the door. They were wearing flashy suits—Italian probably—and they were giving me the evil eye. When the don’s jacket fell open, I caught a glimpse of a gun strapped to his chest. Shit! If they catch me, I’m toast! At this point I realized I no longer cared what the people around me thought—and I was just noticing they were all foreigners, anyway. So I started screaming in English. “Help! Somebody help me! They’re trying to kill me! Call the police!” I thought my English was pretty good, but they just sat there staring at me like I was some geeky inscrutable Japanese person. Pretty cold. “Help! Please help me!” Still nothing, despite my best pronunciation. Were they just going to sit there and watch me get shot? I bolted down the aisle, through the door and the compartment between the cars, and into the next one beyond. But as I started down this new aisle, I realized there was another group of Mafioso coming at me from the other direction. I stopped and held up my