I hopped on my bike and followed him.
Chapter 6
Tomohiro coasted south for a while, until the streets became narrow and crowded, and he walked alongside his bike. I followed him at a distance, finding it easier to hide in the crowds. My phone went off, and since it was so new, it took me a minute to realize it was mine. I pressed it to my ear.
“Katie!” Tanaka’s voice rang out.
“Tanaka?”
“And Yuki. She’s done with Sewing Club, and we want to hang out. So…coffee?”
“Oh. Um.”
“I told you” came Yuki’s slightly muff led voice. “She’s busy flirting with Yuu Tomohiro.”
“I’m not—Tanaka, put Yuki on the phone.”
“And let you yell at each other? No way. Have fun, Katie-chan. We’ll talk later.”
“I’ll call you!” shouted Yuki from the background. “I want all the details!” So did I. The more Tomohiro didn’t want me to delve into his past, the more I needed to.
“Wait!” I said, and for a minute I was worried Tanaka had hung up.
“Hmm?” he said. I veered my bike around the thinning crowd, trying not to lose sight of Tomohiro.
“Koji,” I said quietly. “What happened to him, Tanaka?”
“I don’t think you should ask him about it.”
“Fine, but just tell me. Please.”
“His dad was going to file assault charges. I think he got paid off or something.”
“Tomohiro said it was an accident,” I said, watching the copper spikes bob a few yards ahead of me.
Tanaka let out a long sigh. “I always thought that, too. I want to think it, because that’s not who Tomo-kun is. But…
that’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Katie.” I could tell Tanaka had cupped his hand around the phone, his voice quiet and serious. “Three long slices to the eye with a blade. Multiple stab wounds on his arms. He almost lost his eye. There’s no way all that was an accident.”
“Holy shit.” I felt like I was going to be sick.
“Except,” Tanaka said, “there was a lot of talk that it was an animal, you know, not a knife that—”
There was the muffled sound of Yuki grabbing the phone.
“Katie, I didn’t know that before. Tanaka, are you stupid?
Telling her to go for a guy like that? Get out of there, Katie.
Don’t speak to him again. Please.”
I was crumbling to pieces. Parts of me were blowing away on the wind.
The one person who understood me, and he goes at his best friend with a knife. No, I still believed Tomohiro. It was an accident, somehow, wasn’t what it looked like. But if it was an animal, why not just say so?
Multiple stab wounds…
“Katie?” Tanaka said. “I’m not sure it’s true. Koji always said it didn’t happen like that. Katie—”
I closed the phone and put it in my pocket. There wasn’t enough of a crowd around to blend in, to forget what I’d heard. I didn’t want to follow Tomohiro anymore. It didn’t matter what Koji had said. How could Tomohiro explain away those kinds of wounds as accidental?
More puzzle pieces adding up to nothing.
I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, and in front of me Tomohiro had met up with Ishikawa. I stopped abruptly. Another few minutes and I would’ve crashed into them.
I stared at Tomohiro as he greeted Ishikawa, as they smacked hands and Ishikawa pointed at a guy with a knit hat pulled over his head, as Tomohiro grabbed hold of the guy’s shirt collar and shoved him back a foot while Ishikawa laughed. The guy approached and Tomohiro leaned his face in close to the other guy, forcing him to walk back a few steps before shoving him again. Ishikawa reached out his palm, coaxing the hat guy to either fight back or give them something, I couldn’t tell.
And then I saw the backs of Tomohiro’s fists, drenched in black ink, dripping onto the ground.
Only, the others didn’t seem to notice it, and when he pushed the knit hat guy again, none of it came off on his shirt. It dripped, thick as blood. I blinked and it was gone.
Was that how his hands had looked when he attacked Koji?
I backed up quickly, the warmth of Tomohiro’s words to me turning cold and slick like sweat. I was seeing things again.
It couldn’t be true. I’d told him I believed him that it was an accident. He’d seemed so genuine, filled with regret, but it wasn’t the kind of event I could ignore. How dangerous was Tomohiro? It was starting to give me a headache.
I turned and walked away, but it was a bad neighborhood, and the roads were too crowded to bike.
“Hello,” said a creepy voice in English, and it was like a warning shot going off into the air. I was too terrified to look.
A tough-looking guy, grubby and smelling of thick smoke, started walking alongside me. He was in bad need of a haircut, and bright tattoos circled his beefy arms. “Hello, pretty girl. You American?”
I walked faster, but he kept pace with me. For a minute I considered going back to Tomohiro. Which was safer, going forward or going back? I didn’t know.
“You lost?” the guy said in English.
Like I would ever tell him in a million years. “I’m fine,”
I said, my voice shaky.
And suddenly someone wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into his warmth, away from the guy. My body went rigid, ready to kick away whoever this new threat was. And then I saw a flash of blond tucked behind his ear.
“She’s not lost,” Jun said. And then to me, “Sorry I made you wait. Shall we go?”
I nodded numbly, pushing the bike forward, letting my body lean into Jun as he pulled me closer.
The angular guy grunted and fell back, and for a few minutes it was the sound of my heartbeat in my ears, the warmth of Jun and the slightly sweet smell of his hair gel.
“You okay?” he said quietly, and my eyes filled with grateful tears. “What are you doing down here anyway?”
“I could ask you the same,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. In a fluid movement, Jun whisked my bike to the other side so he could push it and I could freely dab at my eyes.
“There’s a great pasta place near here,” he said. “I used to live in Ishida and I crave the manicotti sometimes. Lucky for you.”
“Thank you,” I said. We seemed far enough away, but Jun didn’t drop his arm from my shoulder. He had a black wristband around his wrist, and then his muscular arm disappeared into the sleeve of his school blazer. When he saw me staring, he smiled, pulling his arm away.
“Glad I could help. Shizuoka’s a pretty safe city, but it’s still better to stick to main routes, okay?” I just nodded. Between following Tomohiro and being on the phone with Tanaka and Yuki, I hadn’t paid any attention to the maze I’d stumbled through.
“We keep running into each other.” He smiled. “Are you an exchange student? Or have you moved here?”
“Moved here,” I said. “I’m living with my aunt. She’s an English teacher.”
“Ah.” He smiled again. “Maybe you can teach me sometime. My English isn’t that great. But your Japanese is really good. I’m envious.” He talked easily, like we were old friends.
