Ink

Tomohiro rose to his feet, and Bleached Hair was called on to spar with him. Tomohiro swung his men in his hand as he approached the lines of kendouka. He hoisted the mask over his face, jostling it until it fell snug on his shoulders. The straps flared out and bounced as he walked into place, bowing to Bleached Hair, who slipped behind his own mask. They looked like two mysterious samurai now as they crouched down, their hakama skirts draped across the floor.

As they lifted, they drew their shinai, and a kiai erupted from Tomohiro, a terrifying sound in the silence of the gym.

The wildness of it drove fear into my heart, as if I didn’t really know him at all—and maybe I didn’t. The kindness of bringing the shinai to my side and lining it up carefully was lost with the ferocious shriek as he moved forward and cracked his shinai against Bleached Hair’s, as he swung again and again.

Maybe Yuki and Tanaka were right. Maybe Tomohiro was more dangerous than I realized.

Bleached Hair growled back, and the sound of them fighting was like wild animals. No lie. They struck over and over, keeping each other at sword’s length. Bleached Hair slammed his foot down as he swung at Tomohiro’s dou—a hit, a point.

Some of the older students murmured to each other, studying their form. All I could do was watch, the shouts echoing in my ears. Tomohiro whacked Bleached Hair on the right side of the men near his neck, their shinai looking as if they would splinter as they cracked together.

As they fought, I noticed a splash of color on Bleached Hair’s arm. At first it moved like a blur, but from his kote glove to the sleeve of the keigoki, I was certain I’d seen the broad outlines of a tattoo.

I watched the rest of the match with my mind occupied.

Tattoos weren’t as big a deal in New York—rebellious, maybe, and sometimes beautiful. But in Japan, tattoos were linked to gangsters and the Yakuza. I stared at Bleached Hair in a new way. Impossible, I thought. He’s only in high school like us. But the more I tried to convince myself, the more the suspicions loomed over me. Was this what Yuki and Tanaka had meant when they said Tomohiro was mixed up in things?

The match finished and Nakamura-sensei dismissed us.

Tomohiro and Bleached Hair swung their masks off, sweat dripping down their faces. Bleached Hair jabbed Tomohiro in the arm and they laughed, walking past like they didn’t even see me. I stared at them as they disappeared into the change room. Did Tomohiro really keep such dangerous company?

Is that why he’d wanted me to stay away?

And if they were both in the Yakuza, then I’d already delved too deep into that dangerous world.

But it was just a tattoo. It didn’t have to mean that. And why would Bleached Hair be so careless to get one where it would be seen?

Did Tomohiro have one, too?

The senior girls helped me unbuckle my armor. The rain outside was so heavy it pounded against the roof of the gym, echoing with the sour sound of aluminum.

When I came out of the change room, Tomohiro and Bleached Hair had already left, and there was nothing for me to do but head home.

I walked slowly to the genkan, dreading the drenching ride home. I’d brought Diane’s bike again today, in some feeble hope that Tomohiro might head for Toro Iseki again.

When I slid open the door to the torrent of rain, Tomohiro’s bike wasn’t in the racks with the abandoned ones, slick with rain.

I couldn’t leave the bike at school; Diane needed it for Monday. Taking a breath and lifting my book bag over my head, I stepped out into the coolness of the spring rain, soaking in the thick raindrops that pelted from the gray sky.

I reached the bike, but it took me a moment to realize it was mine.

Someone had hooked a clear plastic umbrella to the handlebars.

The rain slicked down the sides as I lowered my book bag.

I stood there a long time, staring at the umbrella in the rain.

On Wednesday I went to school with the umbrella under my arm. The rain lasted all weekend and knocked what was left of the cherry petals out of the trees into soggy piles all over the city. The beauty of hanami now lay as a shriveled ugliness on the ground. The trees still towered above in bright late-spring greens, and the heavy rains sprouted lots of new flower stalks from the dank earth. I sneezed the whole way to school.

It smelled of spring—or would’ve, if my nose wasn’t plugged from allergies—even if there were no petals to catch in my hair, no shower of blossoms on my walk to and from Suntaba.

When I saw Tomohiro’s bike in the racks, I hooked the umbrella over the handlebars. Then I hurried into the genkan, slid on my school slippers and raced down the hallway to homeroom.

At the end of the day, he was waiting for me at the bike racks, straddling his seat with his foot on the pedal. He checked his watch as I approached and narrowed his eyes.

“You’re late,” he said.

We never talked about the umbrella.

Tomohiro headed out first, twisting north out of the Suntaba gate to throw everyone off. “I don’t need any more stalkers,” he said. “One’s enough.” I rolled my eyes, until he added,

“At least she’s a cute one.” He grinned and set off.

Oh, jeez. I was definitely in trouble.

We met up near Shizuoka Station and twisted past the underground walkways. We took turns leading the way through the crowds, but Tomohiro was much more at ease with the task. He cut razor-sharp lines through the traffic, so following him was terrifying and thrilling at the same time.

We laid our bikes down in the curtain of forest and sat down by a Yayoi-period hut. Tomohiro had said the houses were almost two thousand years old, and I stared at them, terrified to touch them in case they crumbled to dust or something. The rain had let up the day before, but the grass was still a little soggy. Tomohiro didn’t seem to care. He leaned back into the hut and let the tall grasses soak into the back of his school blazer.

I spread my blazer on the ground and sat down in the middle of it. That should help keep me at least a little dry from the dewy grass. I took out the book I’d brought with me and some strawberry-cream sandwiches I’d saved from lunch, my favorite of the ones Diane made. I hesitated, then passed one to him.

He eyed it suspiciously.

“What?”

“Is it poisoned?”

“Hey, you’re the creepy one, not me,” I said.

He grinned and took a bite, crumbs dropping onto his sketch of a horse.

“You’re good at the anatomy,” I said.

“The proportions are all off,” he said. “I’ve never seen a real horse.”

I stopped eating.

“Never?”

“There aren’t many horses in Shizuoka, Greene.”

“Well, haven’t you traveled around Japan or outside the country?”

“My father took us on a business trip once to Paris, in the days when he was happier.”

“Paris?”

“Mais bien sur, mademoiselle.” The French rolled off his tongue, and every nerve in my body tingled. This was a bad idea, spending more time with him. I should be at home, trying to forget him, falling for Tanaka, or maybe Jun. Tomo hiro didn’t notice that I was silently falling apart beside him; he was lost in the memory. “I disappeared and he and my mom panicked. They looked everywhere for me, even called the police. I was about six, I think.”

“So where were you?” It was hard to conjure up an image of a six-year-old Tomohiro, lost and crying somewhere for his mommy.