“Sounds fine,” I said.

“Good. I just worry, Katie, you know? I’m just not used to this whole being a—” She stopped just short of saying it.

A mom.

“I know,” I said, my throat dry.

“Your mom’s counting on me.”

I saw the sadness then in her eyes, the way her brows knit together the way Mom’s always did. The same creases on her face, the small bridge of her nose, the thin lips that curved into a worried frown. She was like her somehow, an older vision of the same spirit.

I felt the hot tears well up in my eyes and I blinked them back.

“You’re doing great,” I said, squeezing her arm. I breathed slowly as I passed her, walking toward my bedroom and sliding the door shut.

I turned off the light and lay on my bed. I let my breath escape, and then I let the tears come, the ones I’d been holding in since Toro Iseki. I could be angry if I wanted. I could be changed. I could be myself.

What would Mom have said about him? I felt like the real Tomohiro was tangled in this other personality that wasn’t his. How could he be gentle, understanding, beautiful like that, and still treat Myu with such cruelty? I was sure now that the cold badass at school wasn’t who he really was. But why all the lies? What was he hiding?

I grabbed another tissue, trying to cry quietly. I didn’t want Diane to hear, even though I bet she knew and was giving me space. She was doing her best. I knew it. But this just wasn’t home, and she’d never be my mom.

There would always be a void. And my shoulders shook with relief that I didn’t have to fill it.

Friday morning the clouds gathered over Shizuoka, and by the time I reached the school, the rain had drenched the city in the way that only a spring rain can.

I could barely focus on the equations Suzuki-sensei scribbled onto the board in last class. When the bell chimed and students began gathering up their books, I got to my feet and packed up my book bag, then stuffed it into my desk. I wiped off the blackboards and mopped the classroom floor while Tanaka lifted the chairs and flipped them upside down onto the desks, pushing the units against the walls.

By the time we’d scrubbed the classroom spotless, sweat was dripping down my forehead.

“We’re going for okonomiyaki, ” Yuki said. “Can you come?”

I shook my head. “I have kendo,” I said.

Yuki nearly dropped her mop. “Kendo?”

Naaa, Katie-chan.” Tanaka sighed.

“What?” But I knew what.

“Tan-kun, is she—?”

“It’s true,” he said, shaking his head.

“Guys, can you not talk about me like I’m not here?”

“You like Yuu Tomohiro.” Yuki sighed.

“That’s not true,” I lied. I mean, I didn’t want it to be true, but…

“Katie, if you like him, then go for it,” Tanaka said.

“What?”

“What?” Yuki echoed.

“That’s not what you said last time.”

“Last time?” Yuki said.

Tanaka grinned. “You’re not going to listen to us anyway, right? And I know he’s become a little lost—”

“A little!” Yuki said, but Tanaka glared at her.

“—but I’ve known Tomo-kun a long time. He’s nice. He didn’t even make us call him senpai, even though he’s older.

He treated us equally. Just be careful, that’s all. He’s mixed up in stuff.”

“I know,” I said, and Yuki and Tanaka exchanged a glance.

“You don’t know,” Yuki said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tanaka said. “If you want this, go for it with your whole heart, okay?”

“When did you become so inspirational?” I laughed, leaning my mop against the wall, and Tanaka shrugged.

“I read a lot of manga,” he admitted with a goofy grin.

“Life doesn’t work like that!” Yuki sighed, smacking Tanaka on the arm.

Tanaka laughed and shook his fist in the air. “Faito, ne?”

Like Yuki had said to me when I went into the genkan to get my shoes. Fight. I nodded at him and went into the hallway, and the minute I was out, Yuki started whispering harshly at him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he kept telling her. What doesn’t matter? The girlfriend? The fights he gets into?

I wove through the hallways and entered the gym, where the Kendo Club members— kendouka—circled the floor with cloths, cleaning up the gym before practice. Other students buckled armor around themselves, slipping out of the change rooms in their gray hakama skirts and fitting the dou plates on their chests. I scanned the group for Tomohiro and Bleached Hair, but no luck. They were probably still in the change room putting on their hakama.

Watanabe-sensei looked way too pleased that I’d actually shown up, and sent some of the senior girls to help me put on the armor.

When we slipped out of the change room, the class was already forming into lines, so I hurried into place. Nakamura-sensei shouted out something and all the students knelt, placing their bamboo shinai swords on their left sides.

Crap. I didn’t have one.

A shadow draped over my head, blotting out the gym lights that beamed down on us from the ceiling. I looked up, straight into the face of Yuu Tomohiro, and the sudden closeness of him shuddered through me like a shock. He was in my space again, his face way too close to mine. He knelt and the bright lights beamed over his shoulders. He placed a shinai at my side, lining the hilt up carefully with my knees.

“Thanks,” I whispered, while Watanabe-sensei shouted and all the other students bowed, hands down on the floor.

Tomohiro nodded and strode slowly to a break in the line where I saw Bleached Hair waiting for him. He eyed me suspiciously, looking from me to Tomohiro, and then he stared with outright hatred. I looked away, my pulse buzzing in my ears.

We did twenty-five push-ups to warm up, and as I stared at my little square of varnished gym floor, I couldn’t stop thinking about Bleached Hair’s glare. He’d stared at me like I’d destroyed something, invaded where I shouldn’t have. And maybe that was the truth, because I didn’t belong in the world of someone like Yuu Tomohiro, and he didn’t belong in mine.

After the exercises, the students fell into a drill, and Watanabe-sensei helped me hold my shinai properly while he taught me the basic stances.

There was a lot of yelling involved in kendo. Sometimes the kiai shrieks broke through my concentration and I looked up to watch two students advancing on each other in more and more complex drills. They slipped the men helmets into place, the metal bars caging their faces in shadow, and swung at each other, the crack of the shinai rattling through my thoughts.

I practiced with the junior kendouka, learning to control the shinai with my right hand but power my hits from the left. It took more concentration than I had expected, and after fifteen minutes my shoulder throbbed. It was a relief when Watanabe-sensei ordered us to take a break and observe the senior students, and we knelt in a line, shinai placed neatly by our sides, to watch.

Вы читаете Ink
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

1

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату