by Amanda Sun
He reached slowly for the sleeve of his coat, lifting the shirt underneath with it as he scrunched it up his arm.
I gasped.
The hundreds of old scars that trailed up his skin—they had torn open, bleeding trails of black ink that dripped and crisscrossed as they made their way down.
“What...?” I pressed my fingers against one of the welts. It was warm to the touch, the ink slippery on my fingertips. I looked at the ground around him and saw the tiny droplets of black, like darkened stars on the pavement, pinprick constellations that foretold his doomed fate.
“I don’t have much time left to be me,” Tomo said. “So I want to spend it doing the right thing.” He shoved the sleeve down, the ink dripping to the pavement in tiny beads that splattered with puffs of golden dust. “I want to be with you. I don’t want to hide anymore. And I don’t want to be in trouble for things I didn’t do.”
“I get it,” I said, “but you can’t fight Tsukiyomi from the detention hall.”
“Katie, do you know where I woke up this morning? Here’s a hint—not my own house.”
The wind held a sharp bite, and I buttoned my coat around me. “You’re sleepwalking again?”
He nodded. “This time to Toro Iseki. By the museum and the rice field they’ve planted, the one with the black rice.” He opened his right palm again, and now I saw the faint red marks all over his skin. “There was a Magatama jewel in the water. It shattered in my hand before I woke.”
The museum had a ton of magatama-shaped jewels found at the site, but I knew the jewel Tomo meant. The one I’d seen in my nightmares. The Yasakani no Magatama, the one that had tricked Amaterasu out of the cave in the eclipse myth.
“Do you want to get a drink or something?”
He shook his head, but I gently took his wounded hand in mine. “We should at least get out of here before any more students peek around the edge of the gate.” He attempted a smile, and I pulled him forward, leaving behind the galaxy of ink droplets. Hopefully no one else would notice them or figure out what they were.
“The Magatama has to mean something,” I said. “Tomo, I talked to Yuki’s brother last night, about the Imperial Treasures.”
I saw the anxious look on Tomo’s face. “It’s too dangerous to get anyone else involved.”
“I just asked about mythology stuff,” I reassured him. “Anyway, who cares who knows now? We need help. Amaterasu gave the treasures to the first emperor, Jimmu. Each had a meaning attached to it. The mirror’s was honesty. And we saw how her mirror showed Jun his true lineage and power, right? It’s connected to the ink.”
“Probably,” he said. “The imperial family are directly descended from Amaterasu. There’s no reason to doubt she gave Jimmu the treasures herself, one Kami to another.”
“Right. So, the Magatama’s meaning is love.”
Tomo stopped walking, and tilted his head at me. “But it’s always shattered. That’s not a good sign, Katie.”
My enthusiasm plummeted like the wagtail he’d drawn that day long ago. Of course it wasn’t a good sign. The jewel shattered; love smashed into pieces. It could mean we’d be torn apart, or it could mean...
You know what it means, a voice whispered in my head. There is no escape from fate. You will betray him.
“She wasn’t giving him treasures,” Tomo said. “She was weighing him down with his fate. Ever since the first Kami, we’ve been doomed.”
I walked in silence, completely deflated. So much for my brilliant idea.
Tomo must have felt guilty, because he asked gently, “What does the sword stand for?”
“Bravery,” I said.
“That one I like. I need bravery now.”
I pressed my fingers against his elbow. “You are brave, Tomo.” He needed to believe me. Navigating the world with such a dark secret, always fighting against it to be a better person—wasn’t that the definition of brave? “Heck, even your last name comes from the kanji for courage.”
He paused, like he hadn’t considered that. “Sou ka?” he mused. “Yeah, isami. Courage. And it’s the first kanji in yuuki, bravery. I didn’t know you’d noticed.” Kanji had multiple readings depending on what other kanji they were paired with, but every word I’d ever seen that included “yuu” had a similar meaning—bravery; courage; valor.
“So you have courage,” I said, squeezing his arm with my fingers.
“This courage thing is overrated, then.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Why am I bleeding ink?”
I hesitated. “Do you need to see a doctor?”
“You know I don’t have that option.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then same plan as always. Stop Tsukiyomi from poisoning your bloodstream. Talk about uninvited guests.” I looked down the unfamiliar road ahead of us. “Wait, where are we going, anyway? We should’ve turned back there for Otamachi.”
“I don’t suppose you want to be an uninvited guest yourself?” Tomo ran a hand through his hair, and then pulled his phone out to show me a text. “Shiori had the baby.”
My jaw dropped. “Today?”
“Last night,” he said. “After what she did, I didn’t want to go, but...bleeding ink made me think about a lot of things. She’s the little sister I never had, and I promised my mom I’d take care of her. I can’t leave her alone, no matter how I feel about her.”
I paused. Shiori had tried to blackmail me and take Tomo for herself. She’d said I wasn’t good enough for him, that I didn’t know how to be a girlfriend to a Japanese guy. She’d taken and emailed to Tomo a video of me kissing Jun, for god’s sake. She was kind of crazy.
But I couldn’t entirely blame her. She hadn’t forced me to kiss Jun—that was my own stupid lapse in judgment. And I had sort of swooped in and taken Tomo from her, even if I hadn’t meant to. When I thought about the vicious bullying she’d endured, that in the middle of it I had separated her from her only friend, one she cared for on a deeper level...well, no wonder she’d felt desperate. I would’ve, too.
I took a deep breath. “Do you think she’d be mad if I come, too?”
Tomo grinned. “I need you, Katie,” he said, his fingers tucking my hair behind my ear. “You make me brave.”
“Likewise.”
We sat in the stiff, uncomfortable chairs as we waited for the nurse to return. Tomo kept lifting his sleeve to sneak glances at the condition of his arm.
“You should get it looked at,” I whispered. “We’re here, anyway.”
“I already told you I can’t,” he said. “Bleeding ink? They won’t know what to do with that.”
I frowned. “I know, but the skin looks so inflamed. It can’t be a good thing. At least it’s stopped dripping.” I ran my finger along the wound. The ink stuck to my fingers, but it didn’t drip off his arm.
The automatic doors in front of us slid open and the nurse reappeared. Tomo rose to his feet.
The nurse’s voice was quiet and gentle, her hands clutching a clipboard. “I’m so sorry, but there have been complications with delivery. At the moment, she can’t have any guests outside of family.”
“Complications?” Tomo said, his eyes wide. Oh god. Was Shiori okay? Was...was the baby okay?
“Not to worry,” the nurse said quickly with a forced smile. “Both she and the baby are all right, but it’s better for only family to go right now.”
“He is family,” said a voice, and I turned to see an older woman standing there, her hair pulled into a messy bun and a soft pink scarf wrapped around her beige coat.
“Yamada-san,” Tomo said to the woman. Oh, I thought. Shiori’s mother. It wasn’t hard to tell, really. They had the same eyes, and who else could it be, anyway, here at the hospital?
“Tomohiro,” she said, pulling him into her embrace. I felt out of place as I watched
them. Why had I agreed to come, again? But I put on a big smile when Shiori’s mother turned to look at me.
“My girlfriend, Katie,” Tomo said, and Shiori’s mom held out her hand as she bowed forward slightly. I took it and bobbed my head at her.
“Oh,” she said, an unsure smile on her face. “How nice. I didn’t realize you had a girlfriend, Tomohiro.”
“Nice to meet you,” I mumbled, feeling so awkward. The look on her face made it obvious she’d been hoping for a spark between Tomo and Shiori.
“Shiori will be so glad you’ve come to see her,” Yamada said. She looked at the nurse, who stepped back and motioned at the doors. We followed Yamada through the Plexiglas entrance into a maze of white hallways.
“Is she okay?” Tomo asked. “The nurse said...”
“She’s all right,” Yamada said, leading us through the labyrinth. The corridors smelled like cleaning chemicals, strong and unnatural, and the beeping of machines sounded over one another as we walked through. “But the baby is in a bit more trouble.” That’s where I lost the conversation, the terms getting too specialized for me to understand in Japanese. I assumed the baby was in some kind of intensive care unit or something. The mom didn’t sound too worried, so probably it wasn’t anything life-threatening. I hated being left in the dark, though. Another channel of Japanese life I couldn’t navigate. What if I fell off Diane’s bike one day and broke a rib? I wouldn’t even be able to explain myself to a doctor, or understand her questions.
We stopped outside a door and Yamada slid it open.
“Shiori-chan, look who’s here.” She smiled, and Tomo stepped in.
I stood at the edge of the door, uncertain what to do. The room was bathed in afternoon light, the bedsheets almost glowing from the sun-filled windows beside them. Shiori sat up in her white nightgown, which shone just as brightly. She looked angelic somehow, peaceful. Her black hair curled around her shoulders in tangles. I didn’t see the baby anywhere, though.
“Tomo-kun,” Shiori said. Her eyes widened and her knuckles clutched the sheets.
“How are you feeling?” he said, but I could see the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. She’d texted him, but I could see the uncertainty on her face if he would come, the relief that he had.
“Go ahead,” Shiori’s mom said close to my ear, and the words prodded me forward. Shiori noticed me, her cheeks flushing. Was she irritated or embarrassed? Maybe she just felt awkward like me.
“Hi,” I said. “I... I just wanted to wish you, um, congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Shiori said, nodding her head at me just enough that I could catch the movement.
“Your mom didn’t tell me,” Tomo said. “Girl or boy?”
Shiori’s anxiety melted away then, a bright smile overcoming her face. “A girl,” she said. “She’s beautiful, Tomo-kun.”
Tomo grinned and reached a hand to ruffle Shiori’s hair. “You did it, huh? Good job.” She beamed from the attention.
“Can we meet her?” I asked.
The smile fell from Shiori’s face, but it was her mother who spoke up. “Ah, right now it isn’t possible. She has haiketsushou.”
The smile froze on my face. I had no idea what that meant.
“She needs extra care for a while,” Tomo said. “But it will give you time to rest up, ne, Shiori-mama?” He said it so tenderly, with a cheerfulness that lit up Shiori’s face. I loved him more than ever then, seeing his kindness. The boy that had challenged the headmaster melted away. This was the boy I loved.
Monsters can smile, too. And this is the monster who longed to be human.
The words hovered in my thoughts, Jun’s words from before weaving through them. This is the monster who wished to be a man. I tried to shake the voice away, but it unfurled in my mind, taking over my thoughts. The room started to spin; I felt so hot, too hot.
I dropped to my knees. I could hear Tomo calling out, could feel him as he pulled me up from the floor into his arms, but it was hazy. The dream was clearer than the reality. The voices took over everything I could imagine.
Mukashi, mukashi, they whispered, the traditional opening to a Japanese fairy tale. Once upon a time, long ago, there was a monster who longed to be a man. And so he took the form of a man, but his mind stayed that of a demon. And one day the demon broke free and gobbled the man up. He cracked open the world and consumed it whole. This was not enough to sate his hunger, so he spat it up again and lured it back. He is still hungry, always, always.
“Katie!”
I blinked slowly, the vision of the room becoming clearer. Shiori’s mouth was open in a delicate O, while her mother helped Tomo lift me from the ground to a chair by the bed.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I...I must have fainted.”
“It’s warm in here,” Shiori said, and I didn’t know why she was covering for me, but I was grateful. “Okaasan, could you get her some water?”
“Of course,” her mom said, stepping toward a sink in the corner of the room.
“You’re okay now,” Tomo said, but he looked different to me somehow, like I could see the horns and wings on him that weren’t there, the trails of ink dripping down his hidden scars, the shards of the Magatama piercing the palms of his hands. “Your eyes,” he whispered as a warning, but I already knew it. The ink had taken me over. And that didn’t scare me half as much as he did right now, in his gentleness.
For the first time, I could see the ancient hunger in his eyes.
I tapped my fingers on the small purple couch in our living room. I had my legs curled up tight against me, the TV blaring the latest drama, something about a doctor who had a terminal illness but didn’t want to tell anyone. Not exactly uplifting to my mood, but to get to the other channels I had to pass at least one news hour, and I was afraid to watch. Another Yakuza leader had died, this time in Kobe. The mob families were getting paranoid, turning on each other and on smaller rival gangs. At least, that’s what the news was reporting. The Yakuza weren’t dumb. They probably knew a Kami was hunting them. And they’d fight back.
I watched the two love interests in the drama chase after the doctor for a while. One was a girl from his past who’d rejected him in medical school; the other was another doctor at the hospital, one he’d grown close to over the past few years.
“Doesn’t matter,” I mumbled out loud. “He’s going to die in a few episodes.” I watched him stumble in the hospital hallway. The music swelled as he clutched the side railing, as he pressed his head against the wall and cried, as he forced himself one step after another to get to the patient’s room. I felt the tears well up in my eyes, too. It was melodramatic, sure, but it still got to me.
The house phone rang, which jarred me out of it. Diane walked in front of the TV toward the headset. She took a glance at me and tossed me the tissue box, which I caught with a loud thunk. I dabbed at my eyes. I wasn’t made of stone.
“Moshi moshi,” Diane answered cheerfully, while she rolled her eyes dramatically at me. I stuck my tongue out in response, and she grinned; she loved Japanese dramas as much as I did.
The smile dropped from her face, though. “I thought I told you that we’ll call you,” she said, her tone serious. She paused, looking at me, and then shuffled into her room, closing the door behind her.
My dad. It had to be.
I padded down the hallway in my socks and pressed my ear against the door.
“I know you’re only there for another week,” Diane said. “But if she hasn’t called, it means she’s not ready to see you, okay?...No, I know there won’t be another chance for a while. Steven...” Her voice started out calm, but grew frustrated. “Steven. Listen. I hear you, okay? But that’s the choice you made seventeen years ago. You had the chance...No, I’m not saying you don’t deserve—I know people change, but...Steven, you have to
think of what’s best for her now.”
I listened to Diane struggle, to try and stand up for me, but my heart sank. He wanted a second chance. He regretted what he’d done. I hated him for leaving us, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was telling the truth. Did he really regret it? Did he really want to meet me? He must have, to keep calling.
I heard the phone beep as Diane turned it off, but I made no motion to hide that I’d been eavesdropping. Diane must have known, too, because she opened her door and showed no surprise at all to see me there.
“Sorry, kiddo,” she said.
“He’s in Japan now?” I said, and she nodded.
“In Tokyo until next Wednesday. I don’t know. He sounds so sincere.”
I couldn’t believe I was saying this. “Maybe...maybe I should meet him.”
Diane wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a tight hug. “That’s for you to decide,” she said. “Whatever you choose, I’m here for you, okay?”
“I love you,” I said. The words just burst out; they felt right.
She hugged me tighter. “I love you, too, hon.”
I could face anything with Diane at my side. Even my dad.
“Think about it, okay?” she said, and I nodded, heading for my room. No point catching the end of the drama. I could hear the credits song playing.
I sat down at my desk and my Future Plan assignment stared back at me. I had to focus to read the instructions for each section. Would I ever look at Japanese writing and not have to concentrate to understand it? I’d always taken it for granted in my old life that I could just glance at English and understand without trying.
Future plans. I tapped my pen against the paper. Stop Jun from taking over the world. Stop the Kami power from destroying Tomo. Learn all my kanji perfectly so I don’t have to fail the school year and transfer to an international school in English. Confront my dad about how he could’ve left Mom and me.
I sighed, folding my arms across the paper and resting my head on my hands. It was overwhelming. I lifted my head slightly and scribbled my name in the corner.