At a low table in Haru’s dining room, the three of them sat on cushions with their legs under the table. The young woman who answered the door ceremonially poured them all cold sake in little cups. She set down the tokkuri carafe, and then bowed and walked out of the room.

            “You like this nihonshu? Sake?” Haru asked both of them, having translated the specific word for this type of drink in Japanese.

Both Kip and Charlene nodded and Kip said, “Delicious.”

            “I’m glad you approve,” said Haru. “I brew it myself here on my property. And I grow the rice too. Very good rice. Big and strong saka mai--shuzoh kohtekimai. 75% polished. You know what that mean?”

            “Is that like cocoa percentage? Higher the number, the darker the chocolate?” asked Kip.

            “Something like this, in terms of quality. Less bran, more white rice, more sweet, more pure,” said Haru. “You have good taste, like Chazz here.”

Charlene smiled, almost blushing.

            “You know how I find Chazz?” Haru quipped.

Kip shook his head in the negative.

            “I surprised you not tell him this story,” said Haru to Charlene. “She try to kill a guy with butter knife about six years ago. I was at party for my friend O’Malley at the pub where I first see you,” he said to Kip. “She was meeting Vin for the first time for a job. Someone called her a weird Amazon chick and she freaked out.”

Kip looked at Charlene who definitely was now blushing.

            “I didn’t ‘freak out’,” she said embarrassedly. 

            “Detarame,” said Haru and then translated “Bullshit! You followed him to the bathroom with the butter knife on the table I saw you palm and shove up your sleeve. When you came back, the knife was missing and I saw a spot of blood on your white collar.”

            “Did you kill him?” Kip asked Charlene, staring at her incredulously.

            “Hey, you killed guys over name calling,” she replied.

            “I went into the bathroom to check a few minute later,” said Haru, the accent showing. “She knocked him unconscious somehow, but I couldn’t find a mark on him. That was when I knew.”

            “Knew what?” asked Kip.

            “That this would be my new pupil. That Chazz would be my son.”

Kip was surprised by the masculine noun. He’d toyed with the idea of being called “she” or “her” but never wore fake breasts or demanded the respect he probably deserved of female pronouns for feeling that he was a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. But then, he didn’t want to lose his package just yet and wondered if he ever would.

            “Yes, I said, ‘son’,” Haru reiterated. “Taught him everything I know.”

            “It shows,” said Kip and nodded approvingly first to Haru and then to Charlene. Kip was, however, confused that earlier Haru had referred to Chazz as her. But then, things were complicated with him as well, and Kip was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind being called his opposite “her” either. Kip was smart and knew how to deactivate mines, but he made the mistake of pulling a grenade pin when he asked, “What about your other son? Is he okay with Chazz being your son too?” He then took a sip of his sake.

Charlene looked visibly upset and Kip could see in her eyes that he had stepped in it and couldn’t course correct when Haru’s face turned red faster than the sake was going to his head.

            “Dead!” screamed Haru. “He is dead to me. Dishonorable!” Kip was surprised Haru didn’t rise and storm out, but instead he said, “I’m sorry.” Haru’s face went a paler shade as he calmed down. “He disappointed me.”

            “Did he not become a hitman like you?”

            “Hitman? Did you know hitmen were actually invented in Japan? Their clients were called okuri and sometimes there is a go-between from the okuri and assassins and they are called motomijes. But hitman, as you call it, is the original ninja.”

            “I actually didn’t know that,” said Kip, impressed. “And your son didn’t want to…?”

            “No, the exact opposite. I make my fortune. I build my shiro,” Haru said, waving his hand to indicate the castle. “I give him best education in world. He go to Cornell and become doctor and he give it all up. He move to Japan and become Yakuza assassin.”

            “Woah,” said Kip with obvious surprise.

            “I know, right?” said Haru, shocking both Kip and Charlene with his modern colloquialism.

They both stifled a laugh.

            “I’m sorry,” said Kip with a somber empathy.

            “It’s not alright, but I understand. He thought following in my footsteps was the honorable path. But it dishonors me and I am his father. That is what matters. Chazz here, is very honorable. She seeks revenge for her mother and together we will find that bastard who so cowardly took her life.”

            “Wait a minute,” said Kip, as if putting something together in his mind. “What if the same person who tried to kill me, also killed your mom?” Kip said to Charlene.

            “Who would do such a thing? Who would hate you both enough to go after family members?” asked Haru.

            “I don’t know,” said Kip. “Chazz. What did we both do that someone would hate?”

            “What if it was the L.A. incident?” Charlene said with a look of worry in her face.

            “But Lucy died two years before L.A.,” said Kip.

            “True, so, how would someone hate me and be trying to kill you, then?” Charlene asked, puzzled.

            “What if they had me marked first, then came after you to draw me out?” asked Kip.

            “Who would hate you before L.A.?”

            “Hey, I did nothing wrong in L.A. If anything, it was you…”

            “We’re getting nowhere with this again,” said Charlene with more than a touch of anger.

            “Okay, okay. There are a couple of things I’ve done that I’m not exactly proud of. Some before I was even an adult. I don’t know how or why they would wait so long, but, I may have broken some teeth and some legs in middle school,” said Kip.

            “Nothing since then?” asked Charlene.

            “Yeah, but nothing that could be traced to me, except for maybe that one hit with the bus.”

            “The bus?” asked Haru, seemingly rematerializing into the room. They both stared at him like he was a magical unicorn and he said, “What?”

            “Oh, sorry. Yes, the bus,” said Kip. “I might have killed a guy after he was dead.”

            “What guy, after he was dead?” said Charlene.

            “My first paid hit. I’d been following him around for weeks when he, sort of…fell in front of a bus.”

            “Fell into?” asked Charlene skeptically.

            “Yeah, he was my hit and he got himself killed right before I killed him,” said Kip.

            “Which was it? You killed him or the bus?” asked Charlene.

Haru was following the pair back and forth, his head ping-ponging from one to the other as the quibbled.

            “Both of us. Well, the bus first.”

            “And you took the money,” said Charlene.

            “Yes, I took the money,” said Kip. “I needed it. I was still a nightclub bouncer. Hard to make a living…”

            “Very dishonorable,” said Haru.

            “I know, but he was dead and I was there. I made sure he was really dead when I shot him,” said Kip.

            “But after a bus ran over him,” said Charlene.

            “Yeah, a little,” said Kip.

            “A little dead or a little run over?” asked Charlene.

            “Okay, very dead and very run over. But no one saw me shoot him afterward. The coroner said he died of a gunshot wound. Exonerated the bus driver. Everyone was happy. Including my client,” Kip said definitively, as if he’d successfully made his case to a jury.

            “And you’re sure about that,” said Charlene.

            “Yes. My client didn’t have a booming voice like your…okuri,” Kip translated for Haru, as if to bring him into their little squabble.

            “Okay, so maybe it was someone who knew you earlier,” said Charlene.

Kip paused, considering what he would say next, for their very lives could depend on it.