A ding from the shop’s motion sensor doorbell made Ruse glance up mid-message. Kevin was standing frozen halfway between his car and the shop’s entry door.

What more strongly caught Ruse’s eye, however, was the person standing in the doorway. Fortunately for her, it wasn’t Henry. It was a girl, white, young-looking, possibly a teenager. She had long straw blonde hair in a high ponytail, and was tall, skinny, and kind of dirty. She was golden-tan in a way that made her look homeless. There was an army green pin-speckled backpack hanging over her shoulder, and it looked pretty full, most probably with snacks from inside the shop. Her eyes were blue, and she was staring at Kevin, plainly shocked.

Ruse put her phone back into her bag so the light of the screen wouldn’t give away her position…and so she could stop fussing over Breanna or Henry so the tension she felt all throughout her muscles would finally ease up. Her ever-increasing blood pressure deserved a break from all that. Sure, she would miss the opportunity to seek help from Breanna now, but there would be a next time. She promised herself that. Besides, this girl in the shop doorway was kind of cute for a dirty thief, and Ruse welcomed this new distraction with pleasure.

“I’m sorry—I can pay for this!” shouted the blonde, breaking the silence. She slid her backpack down off of her shoulder and held it in front of herself like a shield. “I won a singing contest at that anime convention and I have some money! Please, I just got kicked out! I don’t have any friends or family that’ll take me in!”

Her voice was somewhat deep and gritty, but still powerfully feminine, and she had the practiced projection volume of somebody who had been trained to belt songs. And for that, Ruse felt a mixture of impressed and jealous. She yearned to just drop her trauma like a sack of potatoes and pick up singing again. She wanted to sound like that. Maybe this was her sign that it was possible...that the healing that was rightfully due to her was on the horizon.

Kevin lowered his weaponized instrument and glared at the girl.

Ruse had finally registered what the girl had said though, and her plea gave a tug at Ruse’s heartstrings, as she had suffered a similar fate when she was kicked out of her own home. And without even realizing it herself, Ruse had already made her way out of Kevin’s car to a spot behind him so she could get a closer look at what was happening. From over Kevin’s shoulder, she made a quick visual scan of this thief, which revealed to her that the girl’s green backpack was adorned with many a colorful pride button.

Ruse’s mixed emotions bubbled over. “Hi!” she spluttered. “Konbanwa, I’m Ruse.”

Kevin jumped at Ruse’s sudden appearance, which she ignored as if he was the one being weird. She stepped out from behind him and stood at his side, a look on her face like there was a conflict between awkwardness and confidence going on in her head. “It’s like Rose,” she continued addressing the thief, “but my mom can’t spell.”

Kevin squinted angrily at her.

“…And this is Kevin,” she added, hoping her forced playfulness would cut through the very tangible stiff, heavy air. The soft sounds of crickets and vehicles on the nearby street accented the situation in an almost comical way.

“What are you doing? How do you know she’s not dangerous? You heard her say she doesn’t have friends — there’s gotta be a fucking reason,” Kevin grunted at Ruse while elbowing her in the ribs.

These were excellent points, but, “what are the odds I’d find another queer girl in the wild?!” she grunted right back. “C’mon, you can back off for two seconds; I’ll even pay for her stuff. You can play battle bard some other time.”

The two were a good ten or fifteen feet away from the thief, but there was no doubt the girl could easily hear them. Ruse was doing all of this on purpose to get her attention, after all.

Kevin rolled his eyes and sighed. Ruse knew he wanted to remain her only friend in the world, but this was too good of an opportunity for her to just let slip through her fingers. Ruse had made no friends besides him since her arrival in Japantown, not even though her business of selling hand-sewn cosplay costumes, and she was very ready to finally acquire that new lady friend she had hoped for so many years ago. Kevin’s protests be damned.

The thief girl had been staring at both of them from the doorway for a solid minute, confused. There was a look in her eye like she was about ready to dart off with her newly looted goods at any second. As if she was thinking, what the hell have I gotten myself into?!

Ruse noticed this and took as non-threatening of a pace towards her as possible, giving her a look she hoped read ‘please don’t go, I could really use a friend’. But she was too excited, and instantly she found herself at the bottom of the curb ramp right in front of the shop, while the girl was at the top, only about three feet away. Ruse couldn’t help it, it was like she was magnetized to this cute stranger.

“Oh, also, I’m single,” Ruse said to her, breathing heavily.

Kevin’s jaw dropped. How dare Ruse reveal to him just earlier that day that she had the capacity to be straight, only for her to have the audacity to continue to pursue women?! Sure, this one looked like a boy with a ponytail, but that was besides the point.

Somehow, Ruse’s bizarre behavior didn’t scare the thief off. The girl relaxed her posture a bit and finally smiled. The reflecting rise of the moon glowed softly in her blue eyes. “I’m Astra.”

“Wanna come with us, Astra?” Ruse asked, moving ever closer to her magnetic new friend. “I mean, since you said you don’t have a place to stay…?”

Kevin redirected his indignant squint toward the back of Ruse’s head. She had no right to offer any transportation services he was providing her with to any other person, especially not somebody who was actively stealing from his shop!

Astra raised an eyebrow. “Come with you guys where?”

Ruse opened her mouth to speak but paused. She could have phrased that better. Police asked that to criminals. ‘Wanna come with us…’ No wonder Astra looked apprehensive. But she had posed a good question. Ruse hadn’t thought of where they would go next. She and Kevin both had no friends or local connections to turn to. Ruse’s closest family member, her homophobic mother, was several cities away, and Kevin had a knack of making even his best customers too uncomfortable to spend more than just a handful of minutes in his shop. Even the few people he had lured in to play Dungeons and Dragons with him on weekends had dissipated over time, which Ruse assumed was because of his smell.

The embarrassment over asking a complete stranger to go on the run with them started to set in. “Well…not to the police station if that’s what you’re thinking…” Ruse grabbed her right wrist with her left hand and glanced off into the ornamental jasmine shrubs surrounding the shop. “My ex-boyfriend is hunting me down.”

The look Astra gave her at that left hook of a sentence…

Ruse laughed nervously. “We can’t really go to the cops because my ex is the cops. And he’s nuts. With the way this dude is acting, you’d think I did something but I never did anything to his ass. He’s just messing with us because he thinks it’s fun.” She just had to get that out of the way. Henry had always made her feel like any bad thing that happened to her was her own fault. And now it was programmed into her speech mannerisms. “And I’m pretty sure he only lives a couple cities away. He could be here by now, for all we know…I mean, we thought you were him for a sec…I guess the fact that there’s no police cars around might’ve been a clue that you weren’t…” She clenched her jaw and leaned to the side. “He already proved he can track me, so, I dunno…I could be attacked any minute.”

She hoped her sudden information dump on this poor girl was pitiable enough.

Astra nodded in response to Ruse’s spiel. “I see, I see…well, why don’t you just stay with him?” she asked, referring to Kevin. “He looks like a tough guy.”

Yeah, Kevin acted tough, but he was the human version of a rounded corner. He probably couldn’t even take Astra in a fight, and he was at least three times her size. “My ex has been tracking him too…” Ruse had to unfortunately let Astra know. “That, and he lives in the backroom of the store you just burgled.” And she definitely wouldn’t want to stay there alone with him for any extended period of time even if she wasn’t being stalked. They were close, but they weren’t that close. “Kawasaki’s is his shop…we’re both pretty sure my ex knows that information...”

Kevin huffed.

“I said I’m sorry! How could I possibly have made that connection? White people aren’t really common around here, I didn’t assume—” She noticed Kevin was not buying anything she was saying, so she changed her approach to putting the blame for her own actions on him: “you should consider installing an alarm.” And with that, she averted her eyes like she was done explaining herself.

“People don’t typically steal from others here, so I figured one wouldn’t be needed,” Kevin retorted with a grumble. That was common knowledge, too! Japantown was a true homage to the real Japan. People respected the property of others here just like they did across the sea! Apparently this dumb tomboy thought she was the exception. And why did it matter what color his skin was? Was she totally okay with stealing from an ethnically Japanese shop owner? This had to have been her first time getting caught stealing, because she was a mess.

There was another bristly silence, after which Kevin stepped toward the door and reached into his shorts pocket for the shop keys.

Prompted by the jingling, Astra moved out of the way. Then she blurted out an offering: “I know a place where you guys can hide out if you need.”

Kevin knew she wasn’t done yapping… This dumb girl was probably so intent on avoiding feeling actual shame that she’d say any old thing!

Astra continued, “but you gotta ditch the car if this dude’s tracking you. He can probably look up the license plate or put out a search for it. Plus there’s that huge sticker on the side and that’s an identifier if I ever saw one.”

Kevin stopped mid-step and mouthed a Japanese swear word, having not thought of that. He would have to leave his precious Vocaloid-themed vehicle behind…

“I’ve been camping out at that abandoned courthouse on Fukuda ever since my parents kicked me out,” Astra extrapolated. Then she aimed some spicy words at Kevin, “by the way, the reason I don’t have friends is because I asked people I thought were my friends if they could take me in, and they all refused on the grounds that I’m gay. I’m still kinda burnt by it, not that you asked… Anyways, there’s enough room for two more at the courthouse, easily… I mean, it’s the least I could offer if you’re letting me get away with stealing…” She slung the backpack of things she was referring to back over her shoulder.

“You mean the one just a couple streets over?” Ruse asked.

“Speak for yourself!” Kevin pouted, “without a car, that’s at least a couple’a hours worth of walking!”

“Well what’s your plan?” Astra retorted, absolutely matching his energy. “This ex guy sounds dangerous and Ruse really needs shelter right now.”

Disrespected, Kevin shut his mouth and crossed his arms, his banjo nestled tight against his belly. He didn’t have a better plan, but this girl didn’t need to be so bossy and rude right off the bat. Beside him, Ruse looked dumbly enamored by Astra’s immediate desire to protect her. As if she had forgotten he already had provided that for her for years!

“Nobody will suspect you’re there,” Astra went on about the old abandoned courthouse.

And Ruse believed her. Nobody would assume she would purposely take her cutesy little self to some abandoned old place just for shelter from an abusive ex. And with some homeless degenerate teenager she didn’t even know if she could trust? That was the cherry on top of a great hideout plan.

“You better be right, because we thought the same thing about the hotel we just came from, and he found out we were there,” Kevin countered.

But Ruse had tuned him out in favor of Astra’s idea. Henry for sure wouldn’t think they’d try their first idea again but in another location, right? That’d certainly throw him off. “That’s a great idea, thank you, Astra,” she said, reaching out her hand to touch Astra’s.

The two girls grinned as their skin touched for the first time.

Wow, Ruse thought, has it always been this easy to flirt as a lesbian? She had thought for so long it would be crazy difficult. All she had to do was say she was gay and single and…bam?! A cute girl would just fall into her lap?! She excused herself to go grab her things from Kevin’s car while Kevin begrudgingly pulled his keys back out to finally lock up shop.