“OW!” Akki goes down clutching himself, looking hurt and confused. “What the hell was that for?!” He staggers to his feet and stands upright. I brace for another attack.

“Akki!” I hear Zaniel’s voice behind the large man. He turns just in time to catch the end of a four-litre shochu bottle square in the face with a splintering glassy sound. He spins 270 degrees, staggers backward, and flips right over the railing. Zaniel doesn’t lower the remains of the bottle neck until we all hear him crashing onto a table a few floors below, followed by the screams of whomever he almost crushed.

All I can do is stand here with my hands on my head. “Shit,” I say. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, you killed him. You killed him!”

“If only it were that easy,” is all Zaniel says. He tosses the broken glass aside like he smacks people with giant liquor bottles every day and takes me by the hand. “This is the part where we run.”

“Run?! Run where? There’s like a hundred cameras and witnesses in this place! We aren’t running anywhere! Holy crap, my whole life is over. My family won’t even cross the ocean to visit me — they’re not going to come bail me out of Japanese jail!”

He points to the emergency exit he’s dragging me toward. “No, we’re not going on the run, we just have to —”

“Let go of me! You fucking killed someone! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

He smiles. “Oh, how the tables have turned. But seriously, we really should get going before he does.”

I didn’t think my jaw could drop any lower. I don’t know how much time passes with me standing there, covering my mouth like an idiot while Zaniel pulls at me, before the whole room shakes with the scariest noise I’ve ever heard. It sounds like a pig squealing, but much louder — angrier, too — and it seems to be coming from below us. From what I can see over the railing, everyone on the lower floor is screaming and shoving each other out of the way. Something large and heavy flies into the air and slams into the railing, right where our booth is: an angry, ravenous animal is scrambling, clawing its way back up to the seventh floor. It’s hard to see because the restaurant is so dark, but if it wasn’t for all those drinks I’d say it was a shadow with neon-green teeth. No, not teeth. Tusks.