“Don’t laugh. It’s true. The shakuhachi sounds like it is coming from inside the walls. From inside the floor. From somewhere beneath the island itself.”
“Alright. No more joint for my brother.”
Nyomi chuckled. “I thought I was bugging but. . .yeah it sounds like the music is playing on my skin.”
“And no more joint for the Tiger either.”
We laughed together.
I opened my eyes and put my view back on the cherry blossom and watched a single petal detach from a low branch and drift to the tatami.
There and then gone.
Hiro spoke, "Do you remember the Korean meeting, brother?"
“I do.”
"Do you think Reo took that cheese?"
I sank in utter comfort. "No one can prove it."
"Nyomi, you should have been there. At the end of the meeting, we all stood next to the table. The entire cheese wheel was there. Then it wasn't. Reo was the last one near the table."
"He was greeting the delegation."
"He was stealing cheese."
Nyomi looked at me. "How fast would he have had to move?"
“Pretty fast, Tora.”
Hiro dotted the air with the joint, making the smoke rise in waves. "That's what I'm saying. An entire wheel of cheese vanished in the time it took Kim to turn around and bow. Reo is either the fastest man alive or he has a portal to a cheese dimension. Either way, I want answers."
Nyomi chuckled. “I love his obsession with cheese. It’s everything.”
Hiro passed the joint to her. “That missing cheese wheel almost started a war between us and the Jeonha."
Nyomi took a drag, exhaled, and gave it to me. "What’s the Jeonha?"
Hiro replied, "South Korean syndicate, but not the kind you're thinking. Most syndicates want money, territory, and power."
"What do they want?"
"Punishment." I exhaled smoke at the ceiling. "They were founded on a specific ideology. The wealthy destroyed their families. So they sought to destroy the wealthy back. Ritually."
Nyomi went still. "What does ritualistic mean in that context."
Hiro and I exchanged a glance.
"It means they don't just kill their enemies." I looked at the joint. "They consume them."
Her lips parted. "Consume? Like. . .they eat them?"
"Exactly.”
The koto played three notes into the silence.
She widened her eyes. "They're cannibals."
