So her secret was not what he’d wondered…but hadn’t dared to hope. His heart vibrated, not knowing whether to sink or settle.
But he took the portfolio and opened it up to be polite.
The artwork he found inside impressed him more than he expected. A sketch of three girls in uniform, walking home from school. Only two of the girls were talking. The other was taking a shot of herself with her camera phone.
Next came a watercolor of a neighborhood from the view of someone emerging from a station. Tonight was the closest he’d ever come to traveling to Adachi-ku, but he assumed this was a rendering of the ward where she lived. It was painted with the warm colors of someone coming home. He was no expert, and maybe he was biased, but as he flipped through the portfolio, it struck him as quite good. There were even a few comics—little slice-of-life stories about being a Black American in Japan.
“I'm not done with the full portfolio yet,” she said when he made it to a sepia portrait of the Shibuya Crossing.
Shibuya was one of the most famously busy intersections in Japan. But she’d drawn each person scrambling to cross with the four-way light with care as if each of them mattered.
“Rhode Island School of Design—that’s the art school I’m secretly applying to—but the kids that go there call it RhIDS.” She leaned forward as she told him this as if this was the biggest secret she’d ever spilled. “They’ve got this new animation program, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. I mean, how cool would it be to tell moving stories through art? Anyway, they want personal work, but they have these assignments you have to do, too. So I’ve got a whole bunch of things I still need to get done over the holiday break. But the one after Shibuya Cross, that’s for you.”
She dipped her head and pushed the errant curl behind her ear again. “I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me—even if you didn’t know ‘til now that you’d done it.”
As fascinating as her interpretation of the Shibuya Crossing picture was, Victor immediately flipped to the last piece in the portfolio to see what she had made for him.
It was a picture of him and Han fighting with axes rendered with markers. There were mirrors in his suite's gym area so that he and Han could mind their technique. But he'd never seen himself reflected as he was in this painting. Han was on the defensive, which made him look particularly dashing. Heroic even. Like a kung fu movie come to life. Was that…?
Was that how she saw him?
He gripped the sides of the portfolio. The words he’d wanted to say to her since September stuck in his fingers.
He was so strong. All the other Red Diamond praised him for this. Before Dawn, he’d thought these accolades were his rightful due. After all, he’d been working for over a decade to achieve his level of strength and martial arts prowess. All because he’d wanted to be a future dragonhead his triad could be proud of despite his defects.
But at that moment, he felt weak. Weak for all the things he hadn't said to her. Weak for all the things he still couldn't say.
He took out the picture of him and Han and handed the rest of the portfolio back to her.
Then he set his new, precious gift down on the table so that he could sign, “I like it very much. I am sorry I did not get a present for you.”
She waved a dismissive hand at his apology. “It's just a picture. And you're easy to draw. I mean, look at you.”
He crooked his head to the side, not understanding. “What do you mean?”
Somehow. she managed to tuck her head even further into her chest. “Oh, you know. It’s like I blabbed the first time we met. You’re so stupid hot. It was easy to draw you. Art loves beautiful things…and people.”
Everything screeched to a halt inside of Victor’s head. What she’d said to him that first day…had she been trying to say she thought he was too attractive? Not too repulsive as he’d assumed?
A moment passed between them, electric and bright.
But then a knock sounded on the door.
“Neih hou!” Han called out, even though Dawn didn't speak Cantonese.
“Gei hou!” Dawn answered, nonetheless. Someone, possibly Donny, must have taught her how to say “I’m good” in Cantonese.
Victor watched them exchange pleasantries in Japanese after that small bit of Cantonese. Han told her he was happy to be returning to Hong Kong the next day for the winter break and asked her about her plans. She answered with a cute little pout that she was trying to convince her family to go to Hello Kitty Land for the fourth time in three years but doubted it would work out.
Victor couldn't help but notice how much more comfortably she talked with Han than him. It was not merely that no sign language was required for them to communicate.
She smiled up at him in a friendly manner and easily met Han’s eyes. She never did that with Victor. They both laughed and seemed to understand each other well, even though they were speaking in a language that wasn't native to either of them.
“You should come to visit us in Hong Kong,” Han said in his terrible Japanese, leaning a little further down as he often did with shorter girls. “We just got a Disneyland in Hong Kong. We could take you.”
“I wish!” Dawn said with another pretty laugh.
It made Victor want to take his ax off the wall and throw it straight at Han’s chest.
“Stop flirting, and tell Donny to take her home,” Victor signed to Han behind Dawn’s back.
His brother gave no indication of seeing Victor's message. But as soon as Dawn was done laughing, Han wished her good holidays and told her she should probably get going.
“If your father sends you back, text me,” she signed to Victor in ASL before she left.
Victor signed back a stiff goodbye in ASL without making any promises.
And then she was gone.
“What was that about?” Han signed to Victor as soon as she left.
Unlike Dawn, he didn’t bother to speak along with his signs. They’d been conversing with just their hands for so long. It probably had never occurred to him.
“Her time was done, and I was thinking of asking Ayane if she could still come over.”
Han raised both eyebrows at Victor’s blatant lie. Then he signed. “If you wanted to fuck her, you should have told her that in the three months you had with her before you decided to act like a jealous cunt.”
Han’s face might be elegant, but his rough language gave away his real background.
Victor looked at him for a long hard moment before signing. “You can get away with saying many things to me, Brother. Not this.”
Han looked back at him, his eyes just as hard.
“I apologize,” he signed after a long while. Then he gave Victor a bow so low and formal, it verged on mocking.
This was his chosen brother’s way of highlighting what he couldn’t say out loud. That Victor was abusing their power dynamic.
Over a girl.
A girl who only came to visit him every week because he paid her.
“I’ve changed my mind about Ayane,” Victor signed. “We should go out. Enjoy our Roppongi club here one last time before we leave.”
Fortunately, Han was not one to hold a grudge. “Yes! Perhaps we can find girls while we’re out.”
Victor partied like the triad prince he was that night. VIP and champagne that never stopped flowing. A few members of the Japanese branch of their gang came up to say goodbye. Victor would turn eighteen in January, and many assumed that he wouldn’t be returning to Tokyo.
Women also showed up like magic to their section. Quality beauties. Victor was certain they weren’t from one of the Red Diamond’s thinly disguised brothels. The downstairs manager knew better than to send up any professionals when Han was on the premises.
Han’s mother had been the mistress of one of Red Diamond’s former rivals before she died. But she had started out as a small-town girl who had fallen for the wrong big city job scam. So Han was one of the rare Red Diamond members who
refused to sleep with pros.
Not that Han ever needed to be that guy, especially tonight. A steady stream of beautiful women came through, naturally wanting to have a good time with the two young men ordering endless bottles of champagne and their friends.
Still…
Victor shook his head when Han asked him if he’d be taking any of them back to their apartment. There was a strange ache in his stomach. Too much champagne, maybe.
Or maybe something else.
“I’ll take two home to make up for you not doing your job,” Han signed.
Victor grinned and wished him well. Then he continued drinking with the other Red Diamond, long after his chosen brother left, even though all of their conversations were one-sided.
Victor kept an emergency scratchpad in the inside pocket of his blazer. But his father had instructed him never to bother with communication when it came to the other Red Diamonds.
“You will be a silent leader,” he’d vowed to his only son the one time the subject had come up. “And they will bend to your will. No words will be necessary.”
Victor played the part that night. Acted the silent prince. Drank his weight in alcohol. Tried to forget and let go.
But the words he’d written on that piece of paper continued to swirl around his mind. “Not sister's job to protect brother.”
And eventually, Han showed back up to the club in the wee hours of the morning.
“It’s time to get you cleaned up for the plane ride home,” he told Victor.
After his return to Hong Kong, his father kept him by his side for all business negotiations. He’d only done this once before. The night of their meeting with the Nakamura-gumi, a very old yakuza syndicate who was rumored to be tied to the Nakamura auto family. But in Hong Kong, Victor was called upon daily to accompany his father to meetings and negotiations all over the city.
“The time to protect you will soon be over,” Raymond explained at the colossal party he threw to celebrate Victor’s birthday at their gated estate in the Jardine’s Lookout area of Hong Kong. “And the time for you to prove yourself will soon be upon us.”
His father had never been a great signer. But Victor had noticed that his hands appeared shaky as he told his son this.
“Father? Are you in good health?” Victor asked.
“Do not worry about me,” his father answered out loud. “Worry only about your future. These next few years will not be easy, I’m afraid.”
Victor could almost see the ghost of his mother standing behind Raymond as he spoke. It was a warning, but to Victor, it sounded like an opportunity. He was tired of hiding and ready to prove himself, as his father said.
Yet, those words continued to swirl in his head….
Not sister’s job to protect brother.
He worked hard every day to forget them, but whenever his mind quieted, it seemed they were always there.
“You nervous?” Han asked out loud two weeks after Victor’s birthday party.
He couldn’t sign as he was currently driving them through Hong Kong’s busy streets to one of the Red Diamond’s massage parlors in the Kowloon district. Technically, the Lamborghini Han drove was Victor’s. His father had given it to him for his birthday. But since Victor didn’t know how to drive, Han had been ferrying him around the city.
Victor was grateful. He appreciated Donny’s service, but he knew his specially assigned guard reported everything he did back to his father. He could trust Han to keep all his secrets, and that was becoming increasingly important.
Especially tonight.
That afternoon at lunch, Victor’s father asked them to meet him at a Red Diamond massage parlor Victor had never been to before. He’d also told them to wear white. That could only mean one thing.
Someone would be initiated into the Red Diamond tonight.
Most likely him.
Victor adjusted the sleeve on his white suit, prolonging his answer. He was nervous. But not for the reason Han would assume.
Not sister’s job to protect brother.
They came to a stoplight, and Han looked over at him. Probably mistaking Victor’s lack of answer as concern that Han wouldn’t be able to see his signs while driving.
But now was as good a time as any to make his announcement, Victor supposed. “Han, we are friends.”
“Brothers,” Han insisted, as Victor would have if Han asked him the same thing.
“We are brothers,” Victor duly edited. “Brother, I need your help. Again.”
The light turned green, and Han shifted into drive to move forward. But as soon as he saw an empty spot, he pulled over and put the car in park.
Han turned in his seat to face him and signed, “Anything. You know this.”
And Victor raised his own hands to tell his chosen brother about his decision.
One their father would not like.
7
DAWN
I didn’t hear from Victor during the winter break, so I guess that meant he wasn’t coming back to Japan.
I tried not to feel too disappointed. I had better things to do than miss a boy who was way out of my league anyway.
Things like my secret application to RhIDS.
I spent most of the break working on it, which was more challenging than it should have been. I couldn’t risk completing the RhIDS special assignments in the apartment with my mom. She never knocked when she came into my room. And the few times I had tried to ask her to, she’d grilled me about what I was doing in there that required she alert me before coming in.
That question was diabolical on a couple of levels. One, I couldn’t answer it without lying because, two, she was right. As far as Mom knew, I was only applying to a couple of state schools back in Jersey and a few East Coast women’s colleges with great scholarship programs.
My mom would flip if she knew I was spending most of my free time working on the portfolio I hoped would get me into RhIDS.
So the library it was. I didn’t lie exactly. But I also didn’t correct my mother when she congratulated me on spending so much time attending to my studies.
I mean, who was I hurting? I was still going to apply to all those other schools. And the chances of me getting into RhIDS’ new animation program were pretty much zero. I figured what my mother didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her…or make her flip out so bad she set all my art supplies on fire.
So yeah, I missed Victor. But I kept myself pretty occupied without having our Thursday tutoring sessions to look forward to every week.
Still, the thought of never seeing him again made me a little sad when we returned to school after the big break.
There were a few new students in our classes. Mostly the progeny of fathers who had transferred to the Japan flagships of their international corporations. Their parents had moved them here without regard to disrupting their kid’s school year by putting them into a school system that ran from April to March instead of September to May.
New blood happened at the beginning of every third term, but Byron was even more excited than me.
“There’s a new international kid in my deaf studies class,” he told me when we met at the fence for lunch, the first Monday of the third term. We’d been eating outside ever since Byron became persona non grata in the school cafeteria. It had been a little cold since winter set in, but whatever. Better than having to sit by while Jake and his friends bullied Byron.
I was glad to hear my brother had made a new friend after a whole term of having nobody to talk to but me.
“He knows ASL too,” Byron added. “So the teacher said we could be classroom assignment partners, even though he’s in your year.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, happy for Byron. He was the only American in his Deaf Studies program. So the classes were conducted all in JSL, which made it hard for him to keep up. It also meant he was the last pick when people paired off for in-class assignments. “Is he from the States?”
“Not sure. He’s Asian, but I don’t think
he’s from Japan,” Byron answered. “He knows JSL too, but he told the teacher he preferred ASL. And he doesn’t speak when he signs, so I’m thinking he probably has a serious deaf voice. But he’s pretty tall, and he told me he signed up for the basketball team.”
“Deaf voice” referred to how people talked when they had trouble forming words due to never having heard them. Byron had zero deaf voice since his hearing had only started gradually declining right before we moved to Japan. But the people in his class fit in a whole range from hard of hearing like Byron to completely deaf.
“How did he learn ASL if he’s not from America?” I asked Byron.
Byron shrugged. “I dunno. After he said he was into basketball, that’s all we talked about. He’s joining the team. Even got his uniform and everything.”
I paused before taking another bite of the curry rice Mom made us for lunch to ask, “Do you like him-like him?”
Byron shook his head. “Nah, he’s just cool. It’s nice to have a friend at school again, you know. Somebody to talk to other than you. Too bad Jake will probably mess it up for me.”
Byron slumped his shoulders, and some of the excitement faded from his expression. “The new guy won’t want to be my partner when he finds out I’m a homo.”
“Don’t call yourself that.” I still wasn’t sure if homo was considered a derogatory term for gay people in Japan. Either way, I hated Jake and his friends for using it on Byron like it was.
I put down my bento box and rubbed his shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with liking girls and guys. You just have to make it to college back in the States. Two more years.”
“Yeah, two more years,” Byron agreed. But the way he said it made two more years sound like twenty. He replaced the lid on his bento box and threw it into his backpack with the curry rice only half-eaten. “See you after practice.”
That useless feeling I hadn’t had to think about over winter break came roaring right on back as I watched him walk away. Basketball practice was every Monday and Thursday, and there would be even more games with tournament season was coming up. How was Byron going to get through this?
Victor: Her Ruthless Crush Page 6