Chapter 19: Shadows of Ginza
The office hummed with fluorescent stillness when Shangguan Zhi's call shattered the silence. "Yuki, are you at the office?" His voice carried the tinny echo of champagne flutes and forced laughter. Before I could fabricate an excuse: "I need the teal folder from my desk."
My knuckles whitened around the phone. Corporate protocol screamed warnings about classified documents, but his tone brooked no refusal. "Meet me outside," I insisted, already envisioning Ginza's neon-lit pitfalls.
The night air reeked of spilled whiskey and desperation. Salarymen weaved through the district like dying moths, their ties loosened around swollen necks. Three figures materialized from the shadows - their whiskey-glazed eyes tracking my every step.
"Price?" slurred the ringleader, breath sour with decades of bad decisions.
My heels clicked faster. "I'm waiting for someone."
His belt clattered to the pavement. "Let's play undress roulette." Time fractured. The stench of urinal cakes and cheap cologne flooded my senses as calloused fingers grabbed—
A black blur intercepted. Bone cracked against pavement. Shangguan Zhi's Armani-clad arm wrapped around me, trembling not from exertion, but white-knuckled rage. Behind him, Kei from the tennis club gathered my scattered belongings with practiced grace, her kimono sleeves swallowing the evidence.
"Police are coming," Kei murmured, steering us toward elevators smelling of jasmine and regret. The penthouse revealed itself in layers - silk screens hiding surveillance monitors, a wet bar stocked with Yamazaki 50-year. Shangguan's brother Akira materialized, all sharp angles and sharper suits.
"Press charges," Akira commanded the arriving detective, a man whose smile didn't reach his eyes. "We'll crucify them."
But the real battle raged in the bathroom where I retched up terror and expensive green tea. Kei's reflection watched impassively as I scrubbed phantom fingerprints away. "First time?" Her question hung between designer hand towels.
When Zhongjing arrived, her hug cracked my last defenses. "Don't tell my mother," I begged into her shoulder, the lie tasting of bile and shochu. Outside, Ginza's neon continued its electric waltz, indifferent to the war raging in one gilded cage.