by Amanda Sun
“I’m sorry I can’t help more,” Niichan said. “I don’t know enough about how this all ties in.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m really glad you called me back, Niichan. You’ve helped, really.” At least I understood the stories a little better. The Imperial Treasures had been handed down through the line of Kami. They had to be linked. If only one of them had been a paintbrush or something. That would’ve made a lot more sense as a starting point.
“Katie? Be careful, okay? For your sake and Yuki’s, too. There have been powerful Kami in Japan’s history, and they always changed the landscape. I don’t know what Takahashi is up to, but stay back. At the kind of power level you’re suggesting, the ink is uncontrollable. He may just burn himself out.”
I took a sip of my tea; it had gone cold as we’d talked. “I hope so.”
But somehow, I didn’t think it would be that easy.
Yuki and I sat with our backs straight and our knees folded underneath us, our hands barely touching the tatami of the school’s traditional room. It was our weekly Tea Ceremony Club meeting, and we sat in a row along the wall while Yuki’s friend Ayako whirred the bamboo whisk through the milky green tea.
It was getting harder to go through the motions of everyday life when I felt like the world hung in the balance. Diane had passed me the newspaper that morning to practice reading my kanji, and I’d pushed it away, too frightened to see another headline about dead Yakuza. It was almost impossible not to hear about it, since it was the most sensational thing that had happened in Shizuoka City in a long time. Theories abounded among my classmates before homeroom had started; what did the ink snake mean? Was it a rival gang, or a Yakuza civil war?
I wondered if Jun would reveal himself or his motive at some point. What was the point of a revolution if no one knew it was happening?
Ayako shuffled toward me and placed a chawan of matcha tea on the tatami in front of me. I bowed gently, my face to the floor. “O temae choudai itashimasu,” I recited from memory, reaching for the teacup and placing it on my palm to admire the cherry blossoms drifting around its ceramic surface.
I thought of Tomo in Sunpu Park, the cherry blossoms swirling around him.
The tea was always more bitter than it looked. The taste of it surprised me every time.
“So?” Yuki whispered next to me. I looked at her with warning—we weren’t supposed to talk while receiving tea—but she looked straight ahead, as if she hadn’t spoken. Ayako was serving the next girl in line, and the teacher hadn’t seemed to notice us talking.
“So what?” I whispered back, tilting the chawan toward my mouth to take another sip.
“Did you and Tomohiro do it yet?”
I choked on the tea, coughing and sputtering as I clunked the cup down on the floor. Ayako looked over with wide eyes, and the teacher shook her head disapprovingly. Yuki pulled out her hand towel and passed it to me. I wiped up the tea spatter on my chin.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Yuki said. “What’s taking you so long?”
I could feel the heat as it spread across my face. I guess saving the world had taken priority over other thoughts, for once. I see you finally have your priorities straight, Greene. Better late than never. “I’m just... I’m not ready yet.”
Yuki frowned, reaching for her kuromoji, a tiny bamboo stick she used to carve a bite off of the pink bean cake in front of her. “You’re thinking about it too much. You’re not in America anymore, Katie. It’s not such a big deal here. Just go for it.”
The heat spread down my neck. I was in Japan, yeah, but I was still myself.
“You like him, right?”
I stared at her like she was from another planet. “Yeah.”
“Then just do it already.”
“You say it like it’s such a casual thing,” I said. I lifted the chawan up to my lips so I could hide behind it. The other girls had to have heard her. Whispering or not, there’s no way they wouldn’t hear her.
“Yeah, but you two make a cute couple,” she said. “Tan-kun tells me Tomohiro’s a good guy. So what’s to think about?”
“I don’t know,” I said, spearing a piece of my pink flower cake with the kuromoji. It wasn’t really the thought of it that was tripping me up. It was the way Yuki could talk about it like it was no big deal. To me, it felt like something that should live in the quiet shadows of conversations with Tomo, not in a sunlit tea ceremony room at school surrounded by other students.
Of course I’d thought about it, but I didn’t trust my own judgment. My heart and my mind couldn’t agree. What did I really want? Would I regret it? Would I regret not doing it? What exactly was I waiting for, and why? It was so hard to know what was true when I was already drowning in an ocean of ink, when the waves were already thrashing us against a nightmare shore.
“The first time’s the hardest,” she said. “After that, it’s easy. Anyway, I’m sure Tomohiro’s done it before. Lots.”
“Oh my god. Do you listen to the words that come out of your mouth?”
“What?” Yuki said. The teacher glared at us and we looked straight forward, not speaking for a minute. Then Yuki added in a whisper, “He’s a Third Year.”
“Yuki!” The last thing I wanted to picture was Tomo with another girl. It was embarrassing enough to think about him with me. Had he really done it before? Had he done it with Myu? Great, so if we did go through with it, he’d be all experienced and I would completely humiliate myself. Anyway, the fact that I couldn’t even think about it without choking on my tea just reinforced that I wasn’t ready, right? It was easy to put off the idea back in New York, when the dates I’d gone on hadn’t been serious, when nothing had sparked for me. But Tomo was made of sparks and embers, every touch of his skin against mine burning away thought and reason, lighting the darkness with stars.
No, I knew how hard it was to stop with Tomo—how hard it was to think straight when he was all warmth and softness and sound. God, that sound he made in his throat when we kissed. And the tickle of his spiked hair on my neck. Being with him always felt right. Maybe Yuki was right. I was overthinking it.
Yuki leaned toward me, her shoulder bumping mine. “You’re imagining it right now, aren’t you?”
“Stop.” I giggled, shoving her with my shoulder. She pressed her lips in a tight line as Ayako shuffled in front of us to receive our teacups. She eyed us suspiciously as we shook with the effort not to laugh. The chawan rocked on my palm a little as Ayako took the cup from me, and then from Yuki. The minute she turned her back, we burst into laughter.
Under the glare of the teacher, Yuki and I helped collect the washi papers, oily from the imprints of the flower-shaped bean cakes. “Do you think Tan-kun’s done it before?” Yuki asked.
“Ew,” I blurted out. She raised an eyebrow. “It’s not that he’s gross,” I clarified, tossing the washi in the garbage bin. “It’s just that I don’t want to think about my friend like that.”
“Well,” Yuki said, “I don’t mind if he hasn’t.”
I turned to look at her; her cheeks looked a little pink, but not much. I admired how she could talk about all this without getting as flustered as I did.
“Yuki, are you and Tanaka going to...?”
“Probably not in this lifetime.” She sighed. “He has yet to ask me out on a real date.”
We walked down the hallway together. She and Tan-kun had always been a unit, although when I thought about it, I’d never asked her to clarify exactly what that unit was. Best friends? Couple? Unrequited love? No, that couldn’t be it. Yuki was awesome, and Tanaka spent all his time with her. He had to feel the same, so why hadn’t he made a move?
“Love is way too complicated,” Yuki said.
That was the truth.
Yuki slid open the door to the genkan and jumped down all three step
s in one go. “Ne, did you fill out your Future Plan assignment yet?”
I followed her over to our cubbies; they were on opposite sides of the aisle, but close enough that we could still chat while changing shoes. “Not yet,” I said, holding the wall to keep from falling over as I slid the slipper off. “I don’t even know where to start.” It was an assessment they did with all First Year students at Suntaba. They wanted to make sure you stayed focused on an end goal, that you thought about where you were headed after high school. So much of our time was focused on entrance exams that you needed to have a plan early so you could have enough time to prepare.
“You don’t know what you want to do?” Yuki said, blinking at me.
There was so much to face in my life right now that I couldn’t think so far ahead. “Well, I’d always thought about journalism. My mom did that.”
“Hey, you could be the first blonde reporter on NHK News!” Yuki giggled. “Or maybe you can play the token blonde extra in every café scene in the dramas.”
“There isn’t always a token blonde,” I said, tapping my toes against the floor to hammer on my black loafers.
“Well, the airport scenes, then. Or if they do a scene where the main characters travel abroad. I saw this one that was supposed to be set in France, but I could tell it was Tokyo.”
I shook my head. “I don’t really want to write ‘Professional Token Blonde’ on my Future Plan assignment.”
Yuki smiled again. She always seemed so cheerful, so full of energy. I smiled back; I couldn’t remember ever having such a best friend in Albany. I’d had some close friends, but they hadn’t stuck by me when I was depressed after Mom died. I didn’t blame them, of course—they had their own stuff to deal with, and I couldn’t pull myself out of my despair—but one of the things I loved about Yuki was how she just accepted me as I was. Who I was and how I was feeling was always okay with her.
“I put down ‘Fashion Designer,’” Yuki said. “I really want to own my own shop and work on my designs at night, when the store closes.”
“Fashion?” I said. Yuki had told me before, but I hadn’t really mulled it over as a viable option. “Can you go to university for that?”
“Sure you can. One university in Osaka even has a specialization in textiles.”
Osaka. The name hit me with more finality than I could have imagined. This life I was living would change so dramatically in two years. Everyone would go their own direction, and I’d have to start all over again. And Tomo? Where would he be, even next year? He’d pass his entrance exams, and would he go to Osaka, too, or to Tokyo? Wherever he went, he’d leave me behind.
Too far ahead, I reminded myself. Right now I just had to make sure he wouldn’t get hurt. After Tsukiyomi was put to sleep forever, then I could worry about long-distance relationships and where my future was headed.
We stepped into the courtyard, and he was there, suddenly, like a dream. He wasn’t supposed to be at school for a month, and yet he leaned against the school wall near the gate, his copper hair pressed in spikes against the cool stone, his arms folded and his head bowed. He stood out from the rest of us, not dressed in his school uniform but instead in black jeans and a deep crimson coat. The memory of the nightmare flashed back to me, the dark black liquid pooling on Tomo’s skin. I shook the thought away. He was here, and alive. It was just a stupid dream.
“Tomo,” I said quietly, and Yuki looked over.
She frowned. “He’ll get in trouble if he’s seen. He’s not supposed to be on school grounds for a month.”
I walked toward him, Yuki trailing behind me while cautiously peeking for teachers. A stray maple leaf fell from the momiji tree in the courtyard, spiraling on the wind as it floated toward Tomo and smacked into the stone wall at his feet.
“Tomo,” I said as I reached him, and he looked up, his arms still folded.
“O,” he said, a casual Japanese hello.
“O?” I repeated. “All you can say is ‘O’? You’ll get in trouble if the teachers notice you.” I grabbed his arm to pull him through the nearby gate, but he didn’t budge.
“Yuuto!” Ishikawa shouted across the courtyard, and Yuki turned to shush him. He shrugged, his green coat pressed up against his mop of white hair. He leaned his shoulder against the wall beside his friend. “Did you come to flaunt your suspension at us? Strike a little fear into our hearts?”
Tomo didn’t say anything, but he smirked. He was putting on his school act again, I could see that. Ishikawa had hit on the reason right away. He probably knew Tomo better than anyone.
“Yuu Tomohiro!” The voice startled me, and the smirks slid off Tomo’s and Ishikawa’s faces. Yuki and I turned to see Headmaster Yoshinoma across the courtyard, a hand on the still-open door to the school. He stuck his jaw out, his face filled with resolve. He was trying to look dignified, like he had authority, but he just looked super angry to me. He let go of the door and walked briskly toward us.
This couldn’t be good.
“Tomo, go,” I urged, pulling on his arm again. “Quick.” He didn’t move, his eyes meeting Yoshinoma’s.
“You are not allowed on school grounds,” the headmaster barked.
I looked at Tomo pleadingly. He pressed his heel against the stone wall, pushing himself upright from the slouch, rising to his full height. Relief flooded the pit of my stomach. I don’t know what dumb scheme he’d been up to, but he was going to leave now.
But Tomo didn’t turn toward the gate. He leaned forward until he collapsed into me, wrapping his arms around me and pressing his lips against mine.
I froze, shocked, his grip holding me tightly to him. Yuki gasped—public displays like this weren’t the norm here, and Tomo hadn’t even been one to hold my hand on the way to class. I could only see Yoshinoma out of the corner of my eye. The headmaster turned a deep red, the veins in his forehead looking like they would pop.
How was this even happening? This was the worst decision ever. I wasn’t sure what Tomo was trying to prove, but he was only going to earn himself more suspension time. But there was something in his eyes, something that pleaded with me to let him do this. What was he thinking?
I pulled back just as Yoshinoma began to shout. “Yamenasai! Stop it right now!”
Tomo narrowed his eyes like he was ready for a fight.
“Tomo, what are you doing?” Was he a total idiot? He had to know he’d get in more trouble for this.
Tomo stepped toward the headmaster; he was slightly taller than the man, and leaner from his kendo training. Yoshinoma wasn’t all that old or heavy, but compared to Tomo, he looked insignificant, already defeated.
The headmaster wagged his finger in Tomo’s face. “Do you want another month’s suspension, Yuu? This is absolutely unacceptable!”
Tomo looked straight at him, unmoved. “Kouchou, being accused of something I didn’t do is what’s unacceptable. I didn’t write those kanji on the blackboards. I didn’t spill ink in the change room. It wasn’t me.”
I frowned. Technically it was him, though, wasn’t it? Tomo’s abilities to control the ink had spun out of control. We were responsible, but we hadn’t meant for it to happen. Tomo hadn’t done it as a prank; it was an accident, and punishment was unjust.
“You think I don’t know the style of your calligraphy, Yuu? If you didn’t do it, name one student in this school who could have painted kanji like that.”
Tomo’s face flushed red, his hands curling into fists.
“Get off school grounds, and use this time to prepare for your entrance exams, and to think properly about your actions.” He pointed at me, the severity of the action knocking me back a step. “And no more displays like this. You’ve only proven to me how childish you’re being. Put some distance between the two of you. You can’t fight your way out of this one, not with me. It’s time you start t
aking responsibility.”
“You can’t bully students into doing what you want,” Tomo snapped. Yuki looked like she was ready to pass out; only Ishikawa had an amused smirk on his face.
Yoshinoma looked confused, like he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. “What?”
“You can’t stop us,” Tomo said, reaching for my hand. “A month isn’t going to change what we are. She’s not distracting me. For the first time in my life I know exactly where I want to go, and who I want to be.” He took a slow breath, his fists trembling, just a little. “I know what’s important to me. And I’m not going to let you change that.” He lowered his voice, his eyes cast down to the courtyard. “It’s my choice.”
Tomo. I wanted to reach out to him, but I didn’t want to make things worse.
The headmaster sighed again, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “I’m not trying to change anything,” he said. “Only giving you time to calm down. So go home. And calm down. Stop setting a bad example for your kouhai.”
Tomo flinched, his eyes meeting Yoshinoma’s. Because no matter how hard he tried to be badass without a care in the world, it wasn’t who he really was. He cared a lot. Too much.
He stepped back, lowering his eyes to the courtyard, walking slowly through the gate and disappearing onto the street.
“Insolent,” Yoshinoma muttered, and turned on his heel toward the school. The students in the courtyard let out an audible breath as the genkan door swung shut.
“Kuse, what the hell got into him?” Ishikawa said. “He used to like skulking in the shadows at school. Now he’s the fucking center of attention all the time.”
I ran through the gate and alongside the school wall. Tomo had his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, his eyes cast to the ground. I stopped in front of him and he looked up, his eyes searching mine from under the fan of his copper bangs. “Care to tell me what the hell that was about?”