Xu was already at the café when Misaki arrived, stirring a coffee and looking anxious. Misaki slid into the booth across from her with a friendly smile, and passed over the young woman's cell phone. Like Matsumoto had said, the phone was a bright purple. What he hadn't mentioned was the small charm tied to it: a plastic jade dragon.
"Thank you!" Xu took the phone and immediately started scrolling through messages.
"I hope you didn't miss anything important. Tea, please," she said to the waitress.
"No. Just my roommate wondering where I was all night." Xu dropped the phone into her book bag, which was on the bench beside her. Her grammar could use some work, and her accent had been especially difficult to understand over the phone, but Misaki was relieved to find that now that she was no longer in shock, Xu's Japanese was passable.
"You didn't go home?"
Xu shook her head. "I was too upset, so my cousin took me back to his apartment."
That made sense, Misaki supposed. Hei would want to keep an eye on her until he was sure that she wouldn't talk to anyone she shouldn't. Still, she was surprised that he hadn't erased Xu's memory yet; was it just not convenient, or had he actually listened to her advice to wait?
"It must have been nice to have a family member with you - that was a lucky coincidence, him working so close to the park."
"Yeah. I still can't believe it's really him," Xu said, stirring her coffee absently.
"I take it you didn't know he was in Tokyo?"
Xu stared into her coffee. "He told me not to tell anyone I met him…but you obviously already know…" She looked up at Misaki. "So it should be ok to talk to you, right?"
The waitress brought Misaki her tea. She thanked the woman, and blew on it before taking a sip. "I would think so."
The other woman continued to stare into her cup. "I haven't seen him in ten years - I thought he was dead, our whole family did. Then I run into him in Tokyo of all places, and he acts like he wants as little to do with me as possible."
"I'm sure that's not true," Misaki lied. "It must have been a shock, running into you out of the blue like that." A small voice in the back of her mind was warning her to step carefully, but she managed to ignore it. "Why…why did you think he was dead?"
"His parents died, and he and Xing disappeared. The government told us they were dead too."
"Xing?"
"His little sister. She's a year younger than me," Xu explained.
"I remember he told me he had a sister." Misaki hadn't thought much about the conversation she'd had with Hei the night he made her dinner, before she found out he was BK-201. She'd assumed the whole thing had been an act. She remembered the look of sadness he'd worn briefly when he mentioned his sister; had he actually told her some true things that night?
Xu leaned forward intently. "Really? Did he say where she is?"
Misaki shook her head.
"Oh." Xu sat back again. "He won't tell me anything about her…he got almost angry every time I asked. Tian never used to get angry."
"People change," Misaki told her gently. "I'm sure he's been through a lot in the past ten years, especially after losing his parents. Do you mind me asking how they died?" She was pretty sure she already knew the answer. New contractors no longer felt any attachments to other people; close friends and family members were usually their first victims.
Xu stirred her coffee again, clearly wrestling with something in her mind. Misaki waited. Finally, the other woman shrugged. "I don't know. The doctors and police couldn't figure it out. And Tian won't talk about it, even though I'm sure he knows. I just don't understand why he never came home."
"Maybe it's still too painful?"
Xu gave another shrug. "I guess. He still has the rest of us. I don't think I could spend ten years all alone, without any of my family. I don't see how he can do it." She rubbed her eye angrily; Misaki could see a tear threatening to fall. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't talk about such personal things. You said you had some more questions for me, about last night?"
"I just need some clarification on a couple of things," Misaki assured her, a little disappointed that they'd moved off the subject of Hei so soon. "We're still trying to make sense of exactly what the men you saw were doing in the park last night. Were you able to remember anything more regarding what you heard them saying?"
Xu shook her head, and looked a little guilty. "I've been trying to forget as much of last night as I can. Did you find out who they were?"
"We have some leads," Misaki said vaguely. "It's alright if you don't remember; I just want to make sure we have as much information as possible." Having asked a legitimate question about the case, she gave herself permission to move on to the topic that she'd really driven all the way out to the university to discuss. "You remember that I recorded our conversation? We had a transcript of the recording made this morning, and there was something I think the translator might have gotten wrong; at least, it doesn't make any sense to me."
She pulled out her copy of the transcript, and flipped to the last page. "Here," she said, turning the paper and pointing so that Xu could see both the Chinese and Japanese script. "What do these last lines mean?"
Xu ran her finger along the Japanese characters. "It looks like the translator got it right. It doesn't really mean anything," she said.
"Why is Li talking about dragons?" Misaki pressed. If Xu was involved with the MSS, then Misaki was tipping her hand; but she found that she really didn't care. Belatedly, she realized that she shouldn't have used the name 'Li'; she didn't know if Hei's family name was 'Xu' or something else. But his cousin didn't seem to notice anything odd about it.
"He's not talking about dragons; he's just telling me everyone feels afraid."
Misaki frowned. "I don't see the connection."
"You know, uh…" Xu stared up at the ceiling, searching for the right words. "Horoscopes. Chinese horoscopes?"
"You mean the new year animals?"
Xu nodded, looking embarrassed. "I was supposed to be born right after the new year - a dragon year. But my mother thinks dragons are animals for boys, not girls. So when her doctor asked when she wanted me to be born - because she was going to have, um, what is it, the surgery, instead of natural - she did it at the end of the old year, which was a, uh…" Xu looked at the transcript again to find the word. "A rabbit year. Girls make good rabbits," she said, rolling her eyes a little. "So my birthday says I'm a rabbit, but really I should have been born as a dragon."
"And that's what Li was talking about?" Misaki asked, still confused.
Xu idly stirred her coffee, chin resting in her other hand. "My brother used to tease me about being a rabbit all the time, asking if I needed to eat more carrots, that sort of thing. Well, he still does that. I used to always say I wished I was a dragon instead of a rabbit. Then one day Tian told me that if I wanted to be a dragon, I should just be a dragon." She smiled, reminding Misaki strongly of Li. "He always knew the right thing to say. Ever since then, whenever I'm afraid, I tell myself I'm a dragon, not a rabbit. It helps me feel better."
Misaki smiled. "It sounds like you two were very close growing up."
"Mm-hm. All four of us were. Do you want to see something?" Without waiting for Misaki's answer, Xu pulled a binder out of her bag. She opened it to retrieve a worn photo, which she placed on the table and turned so Misaki could see. "Don't tell Tian I showed you this, I don't think he'd like it."
"I won't," Misaki promised, and looked at the photo with interest. It was a family photo, taken in front of a city river during what looked like some sort of summer festival. Misaki recognized the older man from the pictures on Xu's phone, standing in the center with a woman who was probably his wife. Two younger couples stood on either side of them, and clustered in the front were four children, two boys and two girls. The boys were dressed in the same black martial arts uniforms that Misaki had noticed in the other picture, while the girls wore white sundresses.
"That's me and Jiang, my brother." Xu used the swizzle stick from her coffee to point at a scowling girl and one of the boys. "And that's Tian and Xing." The other boy was a little taller than Jiang. He had a big grin on his face and stood with his arms around his laughing sister.
"This was the last time we were all together," Xu said sadly. "The Gates appeared a week later, and a few days after that, Xing and Tian were gone, and my aunt and uncle were dead. That's them." She pointed at the couple standing behind her cousins. "Xu An and Li Xinkun."
Misaki blinked. Hei was using his father's name for his alias? His name really was Li? She wondered if he had chosen that, or if it had been assigned to him. Li was one of the most common family names in China, she knew.
"Why do you look so unhappy in this?" she asked Xu, trying not to appear too interested in the young Li.
Xu shrugged. "I don't even remember. Probably I was upset that I had to be in the dance with Xing, instead of the kung fu demonstration with Jiang and Tian. Even though I was terrible at both."
"I bet Li was good in martial arts," Misaki said, smiling in spite of herself.
The other woman laughed. "No! Well, sort of. He was really good at the individual demonstrations, but he never won any fights."
"Never?" That surprised her.
Xu shook her head, still smiling. "Either he would lose, or his matches ended in, uh, what's the word? Where there's no winner or loser?"
"A draw?"
"Yes, a draw. He wouldn't attack his opponent, only defend. Grandfather used to always push him to fight harder - Grandfather runs the school they trained at - but he never would. Finally he and Grandfather had a talk; I don't know what they said, but Grandfather stopped making him spar in tournaments after that, just in training. And even in training, Tian never tried to beat anyone. I think it was because he didn't want to hurt somebody, even by accident. My brother's won some national awards, and even now he says it's because sparring with Tian made him have to fight harder to win, instead of just, um, draw."
That sounded like Li. Misaki looked down at the smiling faces in the photo, a close-knit family who didn't know their lives were about to be destroyed. And really, Li was just as much a casualty as his parents: the cheerful young boy who didn't want to hurt anyone was gone, replaced by a cold, unfeeling killer. She didn't want to know what had happened to his sister.
Xu chewed on the end of her swizzle stick and regarded Misaki thoughtfully. The expression reminded her uncomfortably of Kanami. "So, how well do you know Tian?"
"We're acquaintances." Misaki passed the photo back to Xu and focused on sipping her tea.
"Oh. That's what he said too, when I asked him about you, but he wouldn't say anything else. Well, one thing - he said that he thinks you're beautiful."
Misaki almost dropped her teacup. "He said what?"
Xu smiled innocently. "Not in those words, exactly. I just said that I thought you would look beautiful in a nice dress, and he said that you do, but he prefers the way you look in a suit."
Misaki did her best to ignore the tingling in her spine. It didn't matter what he told his cousin; contractor were liars, she couldn't forget that.
"Where did he see you in a dress?" Xu's smile definitely reminded her of Kanami.
"We first met at a party a friend of mine was throwing; Li was working on the catering staff, and my friend made me wear a dress I would never have picked out in a million years." Misaki tried to sound casual. "We're really just acquaintances, nothing more; try not to tease him about it too much."
Xu sighed. "I won't. He used to be so much fun to tease about girls, but not anymore."
"Maybe he'll start to be his old self again after you've spent some more time together."
"If we spend more time together." Xu stared down into her coffee. "He said he's too busy with work today and tomorrow to see me. That's ok, I guess; I have an exam tomorrow I have to study for anyway. Mei-li and I are going to be at the library all night tonight. He did promise to come over on Saturday, when I Skype with my parents. He wouldn't let me call Grandfather this morning, but he said that by Saturday he'll be ready to talk to everyone. I can wait two days," she sighed glumly.
Saturday's when he'll erase her memory, then. The thought didn't make Misaki as sad as she thought it should; it didn't sound like either Hei or Xu were getting any real happiness out of seeing each other again. It would probably be in Xu's best interest to forget that her cousin was still alive. Great, now I'm starting to think like a contractor.