by Amanda Sun
“Explain, Hiro,” Tomo’s dad said sharply.
“I don’t know, Tousan,” Tomo answered. “I bike home through that castle gate all the time. It must’ve fallen out of my sports bag.”
“The boys face each other often in the kendo ring,” his father added. “They even recently went on a kendo retreat together. It’s very possible the source is from a sports encounter.”
I heard a rustle of paper and the creak of the floorboards. “If it fell out of your bag, that’s most unfortunate, Tomohiro-kun,” the policeman said. “Tell me, did you attend Abekawa Hanabi this weekend?”
The memory of the policeman grabbing his radio flashed through my mind.
“One of our officers is an avid kendo fan and recognized Takahashi. And he overheard you threaten to break his other wrist.”
Want to sign my cast?
If you don’t get out of here, I’ll give you another to match.
Tousan’s voice rose. “Tomohiro!”
I waited, the silence thick as he hesitated. “It was just talk. We’re kendo rivals. I didn’t mean it.”
Suzuki sighed. “Threatening someone must be taken seriously. And after talking to the teachers at your school yesterday, we know you have a history of getting into fights.”
Oh god. The world around me stopped.
“That was after his mother died,” Tousan broke in. “It was hard on him. He’s come a long way since then. My boy isn’t someone who would do this.”
“We can’t ignore this link, Yuu-san—we have to do our job, you understand.” There was a creak that sounded like someone lifting himself off a couch, the click of something plastic. “Tomohiro-kun, if you remember any more details about Ishikawa or Takahashi, could you let us know? You can reach me at this number.”
“Thank you for coming out of your way,” Tomo’s dad said.
There was another creak as Suzuki lowered himself into his shoes by the genkan.
The door snicked shut, and Tomo’s dad grunted. “Stay away from those boys, got it? The last thing I need is you causing me more trouble.”
He meant the accident with Koji, when Tomo’s drawings had almost scratched out his classmate’s eye and brought on a lawsuit.
Footsteps thumped against the stairs and I retreated into Tomo’s room so I wouldn’t look like I’d been eavesdropping.
“Hiro! Are you listening?”
“I’m listening!” Tomo shouted back. The door creaked open.
“Tomo,” I said. “Are you okay?”
He slumped on the floor beside me, dropping his kanji-printed headband onto the hardwood. A faint trail of blood sprayed across the white cotton. Tomo combed a hand through his bangs and sighed. “How much did you understand?”
I stretched out my legs. “Enough.”
“He thinks I had something to do with it,” he said. “They found a spray of blood in Sunpu Castle. Takahashi’s...on my tenugui. And they heard us at the festival this weekend.”
“I know.” I rested a hand on his arm.
“If it was just the Takahashi thing, I could’ve admitted to it. I could pass it off as a rivalry taken too far. Guys being stupid, right?” He leaned his head back against the frame of his bed.
“Except now they think Takahashi and Ishikawa are linked,” I filled in.
“Takahashi’s going to use this. If he talks, I’m done. I’ll have to join his Kami cult.”
“We’ll find another way,” I said. But everything was crumbling around us.
I had to talk to Jun. I didn’t have a choice, even if Tomohiro wanted me to stay away from him. I had to get this under control fast, for both of us.
I waited almost an hour outside of Shizuoka Station for him. I checked my watch so many times I started to know what time it would be before I even glanced down. Tea Ceremony Club had made me later than usual, but I was pretty sure Jun still had the same cram-school schedule as the first term. I couldn’t have missed him.
Every nerve in my body pulsed as I waited. Maybe my thoughts were running away with me, but the possibilities seemed endless and terrifying. Things had felt almost normal on my first day back to school—how had I not realized that the past would blow up in our faces?
A group of guys joked to each other and walked past me into the station. They wore the same Katakou School uniforms as Jun’s—navy pants, white short-sleeved shirt, navy blazer and a striped blue-and-green tie. Almost identical to Suntaba’s uniform except for the green stripes instead of red. The group of guys must have just gotten out of an after-school activity, so it was possible Jun could be arriving soon, too. They probably had a ton of different clubs at school. I might have missed him.
Another ten minutes, and I was about ready to give up. I didn’t want to face going home with all these questions in my head. How could I sleep knowing one word from Jun would get Tomohiro in trouble? Tomo could act all sly with the Yakuza, but what would he do once the police were involved? They didn’t care if he made ink move—they cared if he shot one boy and hit another.
As I shifted my weight to leave, Jun rounded the corner toward the station. He had his leather book bag slung over his shoulder with his left hand, while his right hand swung awkwardly away from his side because of the bulky cast. The blond streaks in his hair clung to his face because he didn’t have a free hand to tuck them back. A girl walked beside him, the two of them lost in conversation. Maybe she went to the same cram school, I thought. She had a green-and-navy pleated skirt, kind of like mine, and the handkerchief around her neck was green—also from Katakou School, then.
She turned as she laughed about something Jun said, and I hesitated.
I knew her. Ikeda, the girl on the motorbike.
Great. Two Kami to deal with. But I didn’t have a choice. I needed to talk to him, whether she was there or not.
“Jun,” I blurted out, approaching them. Jun stopped mid-sentence, startled. Ikeda’s fingers wrapped quietly around Jun’s arm. Oh, I thought. She’s either scared I’ll hurt him again, or she didn’t like me using his first name. Or both.
“Katie,” Jun said, lowering his book bag to his side. “Is everything all right?”
“Um.” I stared at the two of them. A few weeks ago I would’ve been running from them, and now I was seeking them out? Jun tossed his head to try to get the black-and-blond hair out of his eyes. I sighed. I didn’t have a choice, and anyway, he looked pretty harmless at the moment. Except for his eyes, which always looked too cold. “Can I—can I talk to you?”
Jun’s mouth opened but he didn’t say anything. Ikeda didn’t look pleased.
“Oh,” he said finally. “Of course. Mochiron. Here, or do you want to go somewhere?” He smiled pleasantly but my nerves buzzed louder. At least he looked more like the guy who’d gently plucked petals out of my hair than the guy who’d carved kanji into his own skin. I could see the corner of the scab where his blazer sleeve lifted up.
“Jun,” Ikeda said, and her sharp voice startled me. “We’ll be late.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“But—”
“Ikeda, this is important. Go without me.”
Ikeda glared at me, and I felt itchy all over.
I blurted, “If you need to go...” What was I even saying? I needed to talk to him now.
“I don’t,” Jun said, his eyes gleaming. “Let’s get coffee.” He lifted his left arm slowly until the handles of his book bag slid up to his elbow. Then he stepped toward me and offered his open hand with a smile.
My face flushed. I still remembered the day he’d walked to school with me, the day my uniform had been totaled by the storm and I’d had to spend the night at Tomo’s. Jun had given me his keitai number in case the Yakuza bothered me, and then he’d wrapped his warm fingers around mine. I think you have someone you
like, he’d said. But if things change, would you consider me? I’d really like to get to know you better.
Did he still feel that way? Even after Tomo and I had bashed his wrist in with a shinai?
I didn’t take his hand. How could he expect me to, after everything that had happened? And anyway, it didn’t matter if he did feel that way. Tomo and I were together. Things hadn’t changed. Instead, I squeezed the handles of my own bag with both hands and turned toward the coffee shop in the station. Jun followed close beside me.
I could feel Ikeda’s eyes bore into me as we left.
“Is everything okay?” Jun asked as we walked.
“Not really.”
“Is it Yuu? Did something happen to him?”
“It’s not Tomohiro. I mean it’s kind of him. But no.”
We went into the kissaten and Jun ordered an iced coffee. I opted for melon soda and we sat in a corner where the leather booth nearly engulfed us.
“De?” Jun urged quietly, resting his good hand on the table. His eyes looked so earnest, even if they were cold. It was like his kendo matches—you could see him thinking out his every move. I guess if you were a Kami you’d have to have control over the situation all the time.
I decided to plunge right in. “Why didn’t you tell me the police were questioning you?”
He said nothing for a minute, then reclined and took a sip of his coffee. “I haven’t exactly seen you around lately. The festival seemed a poor place to bring it up. You were already scared of me.”
I pressed my hands against the cool tabletop. “With good reason. You were being creepy. And your wrist—we were defending ourselves. What exactly did you tell the police? I thought you wanted Tomo to have a choice. Why are you pressuring him to join your Kami?”
“Whoa, matte yo,” he said, lifting his left hand to tuck a blond highlight behind his ear. “I didn’t press any charges. The police were at the hospital that night because of Ishikawa, and when I went in they recognized me. They wanted to know what had happened. But I swear I told them it was an accident, that I fell on my wrist and broke it.”
“Well they don’t believe you,” I said. “They said the bone fracture showed it was an assault.” I shuddered at the term. Is that what we’d done to him? But we’d had to fight back that night. Jun hadn’t left us a choice. The bubbles in my melon soda swarmed my straw and it started to tilt over the side of my glass. I pressed it back down with a shaky hand. “And now because you and Ishikawa both went to Kenritsu Hospital the same night and wouldn’t talk, they think the two incidents are related.”
Jun leaned in, toying absentmindedly with his silver earring. “They are related.”
“I know, but it has nothing to do with this whole gambling-on-kendo-results theory they have.”
“Gambling?” Jun frowned. “Two of the prefecture’s most promising kendouka injured and out of commission on the same night, a few weeks before the tournament.” My straw made a second bubbly escape, but before I could reach for it, Jun grabbed for it and pressed it down. “Yeah, I guess that looks suspicious.”
“I know. I hadn’t even thought of that before, but it does. But that’s not even close to what happened. It had nothing to do with the tournament.” I rested my head on my arm. “And they...they think Tomo’s involved. They found his tenugui at Sunpu Castle, and they overheard you two butting horns at the festival. You can’t let us get pulled into this, Jun. It’ll be bad for all of us. Please.”
Jun frowned. “I can keep denying everything, but it’s not like they’re going to believe me when Ishikawa is being silent, too. It just makes it look gang related if we won’t talk. I mean, what if they get video of us or something? We were all in the same places that night. Che! What a mess. If only I’d made it there before the Yakuza shot Ishikawa.”
“They didn’t,” I said. “Wait, you didn’t know that?”
“What do you mean they didn’t?”
Crap. Crap, crap, crap! Of course Jun didn’t know. He hadn’t arrived until after the gun went off. Now I’d run off to the enemy and given him all our secrets. Now he had all kinds of info to blackmail us into joining his Kami cult. Stupid!
“Katie?” Jun asked gently. “Who shot Ishikawa?”
“Never mind.”
“You can trust me,” he said. “I’m not going to tell the police anything, and I’m not going to force Yuu to join me, either. Right now I just want to help you, but I can’t unless you let me.” My straw made another jump for the table and we caught it at the same time, our fingertips touching as they wrapped around the slippery plastic. His fingers were soft and warm, slender the way Tomohiro’s were. I pulled my hand back but Jun didn’t, holding the straw in place as he smiled at me. “Ano saa,” he said, “you really need to drink some of this before your straw leaps to its bubbly death.”
In spite of everything, I felt a grin curl its way onto my lips. It seemed so ridiculous, the two conversations side by side. I took a huge sip of melon soda and the straw sank down.
I looked at Jun carefully. He seemed so normal sitting here. He sat forward, shrugging his blazer off in the booth. He looked a little flushed, his cheeks pink.
“It’s hot in here,” he laughed, but I wondered. Was it because of me? Did he— No, it didn’t matter. Why did I keep thinking about it? He had way too many screws loose up there.
“Um,” he said, “I have a problem.”
“What?”
He grinned and rose to his feet, taking slow steps toward my side of the booth. His blazer was half off, half on, crumpled around his elbows like he was chained.
“The cast,” he said, and I could see where the jacket had snagged on the thick white bandage. “Could you...?”
“Oh.” I paled. “Um, sure.” I lifted my hands to his sleeve, the weave of the fabric soft under my fingertips. I carefully unhooked the edge of the cuff from the cast, my fingers brushing over the hard bandaged shell as I worked the sleeve down.
My heart pulsed faster. Shut up, shut up, I told it. I wished I could shut off my shallow brain. Sure, Jun looked like a poster boy for the next TV drama series, but couldn’t I look past that to the fact that he had some serious issues?
The sleeve slipped off his arm and I watched the jacket collapse into folds of fabric as it fell. Jun caught the blazer with his good hand, throwing it onto the bench beside him and sitting again.
“Thanks,” he said, reaching for his iced coffee with his now-bare arm. I could see the welts of the snake kanji he’d carved into his skin, faint and scabbing.
“It’s the least I could do,” I said. “I guess the cast is kind of my fault.”
His smile disappeared. “No, it’s not. It’s my fault—I came on too strong about the Kami. I should’ve given you more time to think about it. It’s just—I’ve been alone with my secret for so long. None of the other Kami can do anything close to what Yuu can do. And when I realized there was ink in you, too—I was just so happy not to be alone. I got carried away. I’m sorry, Katie. I’m sorry for frightening you.”
I didn’t know what to say. He’d put his life in danger to rescue all of us. And the words he spoke now, they were genuine. He meant them.
“It was a sketch,” I whispered. God, I hoped I was making the right choice.
“A sketch?”
“The gun,” I said, my voice dry.
“A sketched gun?”
I nodded.
“Shit. Is that what they asked Yuu to do?”
“And money. Sketching money.”
“Bastards.” Jun’s eyes shone like hard marbles. It frightened me, the way he looked. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him after all. “They never learn.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just old business. What matters is that the police don’t suspect Yuu. I won’t say a wor
d, and if Ishikawa’s any kind of friend he won’t, either. It’ll blow over soon enough.”
My thoughts raced. This is why I’d met with him—to save us, and he was willing to do it. “Why are you protecting Tomo?” I said. “So the police don’t learn about the Kami?”
“I’m sure the police know about the Kami, conspiracy-style,” Jun smirked. “Some of them probably are Kami. But no, that’s not why. First, I’m worried the stress of being arrested for assault would make Yuu more dangerous. Second, I’m not joking when I say I’m on your side. If Yuu can learn to control his power—if you can learn to control the ink—we’d be able to do anything.”
“Like kill the Yakuza?” I said, rolling my eyes. I felt like I should be frightened, but sitting here in our school uniforms sipping soda and iced coffee somehow muted the terror.
“That’s not fair,” said Jun. “I don’t really want to kill anyone, if I can help it. I just want to save the world from crime, poverty, famine—everything. Wouldn’t you? There’s so much these powers can be used for, but until Yuu knows how, he’s just a mine in a field waiting to blow up the innocent. He’s stronger than me, Katie. Two weeks ago he proved that. I can’t do it alone—I need you two.”
So the goal of the creepy goth cult was to save the world, feed the hungry, clothe the poor? That didn’t sound so bad.
“That’s it? You don’t want to take over the world or something?”
Jun grinned. “Do I look like some crazy dictator?”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“Hey! That hurts.” He spun his straw around his now-empty glass in slow circles. “I don’t expect you to trust me. I know this Kami stuff is scary. But I hope you will. I want to help you.”
“So we can help you.”
“That’s one of the reasons.”
“The others?”
“Katie,” he said, his voice velvet and smooth. He reached his left hand up to his earring, rubbing it gently as he looked at me. “There’s only one other reason.”
I turned all shades of red and stared down at my soda, my heart pounding.