Ink

There were only a couple of doors upstairs and only one was ajar, so I slipped inside. A simple bookshelf and desk sat on one side of his room, his bed across from them with a blue plaid duvet strewn across it at an angle. I felt guilty somehow, like I was trespassing in his room; the feeling thrilled me at the same time it filled me with embarrassment.

I sat on his bed, looking around the room. There were some cute trinkets—a miniature Eiffel Tower, a few plush animals that I wondered with sudden urgency if other girls had given to him. But what really caught my eye were the posters, almost twenty of them plastered on the walls. Rembrandt, Rubens, Monet, Michelangelo—all of them represented. Most of the paintings featured angels trampling demons, judgment dealt out at the end of time. The rain pelted against the roof, and the raindrops running down the windows spread creepy gray blotches of light on the paintings.

I heard the spray of the shower downstairs.

There were other paintings, too, white and black and gray like Tomohiro’s sketches. Ghostly images of forests and landscapes, tossing oceans and cherry blossoms floating through the air. Ink-wash paintings, the traditional kind you saw in shrines or tatami rooms. The shadows that fell on them in the silence of his room made the landscapes seem so far away, distant worlds that almost came alive when I stared at them long enough. I wondered if they’d been drawn by Kami, too, but I realized I must be wrong. It would be too dangerous to display works like that.

Still, maybe all the creepy posters were the reason Tomohiro had nightmares. I’m not sure I could sleep with all these angels and demons ripping each other to pieces around me.

I took a deep breath and reached into my bag for my phone.

The ring echoed in my ear as I waited, still wondering what exactly I was going to say.

The phone clicked on the other end.

“Moshi moshi, Greene residence.”

“Diane—”

“Katie!” she burst out. “Thank god. Where are you? I called so many times.”

“I’m so sorry. I got caught in the rain. I didn’t hear the ring.”

“It’s a mess out there. It’s like typhoon season early or something. Where are you?”

“I’m at Yuki’s,” I lied. “We got totally soaked, so she let me come in and have a bath and put some clean clothes on.”

A sigh of relief. “Good thing you girls had common sense.

What about Tanaka?”

“Tanaka?”

“Don’t you spend every Wednesday together?”

“Oh. Today it was just Yuki and me. After Sewing Club, I mean.”

“I’ll borrow Morimoto’s car and pick you up.”

“No!” I shouted. “I mean, um, I was hoping I could stay over. My clothes are going through her laundry anyway, and she has pajamas I can borrow.”

A pause. “But you and Yuki aren’t the same size.”

“It’s just for sleeping, Diane. I’ll make do.”

“I still think you should come home.” Her voice sounded off, somehow. Was she onto me? Was I that obvious? I needed to change tactics, and fast.

“Diane,” I said. “Look. Moving to Japan has been hard for me, and I’m really starting to make good friends, you know?”

I could hear her breathing on the line. “Please let me stay over,” I said. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped the sympa-thy card would pull through.

It did. I heard a sigh of defeat.

“Okay,” Diane said. “As long as you’re safe and dry, and as long as Yuki’s mom doesn’t mind.”

“It’s fine with her,” I said and quickly said my goodbyes before she could change her mind. As much as Diane had protested, I was more interested in what she hadn’t said. For example, that there were giant inky dragons floating through the sky.

I dialed Yuki’s keitai and waited for the tinny ring.

“Katie?” she said when she answered.

“Yuki-chan, I need a favor,” I said, wincing as the words came out of my mouth. God, I sounded thirteen or something. “If Diane calls, can you cover for me?”

“What?”

“I got caught in the rain and my seifuku is a mess. If I go home like this, Diane is going to seriously question where I was.”

“And where were you?”

“On a bike ride with Tomohiro,” I said. “But we fell off the bike into the mud.”

She squealed. “And now you’re staying at his house?” I gritted my teeth, but there was no way around it. I needed her help.

“It’s not like that. His dad’s here, too. Look, please cover for me, okay? Please?”

“Katie, try to be careful, okay? You don’t know for sure that those were all rumors.”

“They were,” I said. “Promise.” I mean, except the attack on Koji, which, when you thought about it, was very much Tomohiro’s fault. And had almost happened to me.

“Okay, got it. No problem,” Yuki said, like she was in on the secret. I could almost imagine her winking, throwing her fingers up in the peace sign. It’s what she would do at school, but at the same time she had no idea what the secret really was, how deep and dark it ran. I closed my keitai and shoved it back into my bag.

Safe, for now.

The water shut off downstairs, and a minute later Tomohiro padded up the stairs, toweling his copper hair.

“Ah.” He sighed as he came in wearing a gray T-shirt and red plaid pajama bottoms. “Feels good to be dry and out of the rain.” He sat down beside me without thinking, and suddenly we were there, sitting on the side of his bed. His cheeks turned a deep red and he stood up.

“C’mon,” he said and led me downstairs to the living room.

He flipped on the TV and started switching channels. A fresh bandage was knotted around his wrist, and the tails of it hung down his arm. I clued in suddenly about what he was looking for. He was studying every news report before switching to the next.

“You’re looking for the dragon.”

“There’s no way nobody saw it,” he said, and the fear started to sink back into me, colder than the damp rain outside. But he clicked and clicked, and it was nowhere on the news. He sank back into his white couch and sighed.

“Looks like we were lucky,” I said.

I jumped when a cheerful chime rang through the room.

Tomohiro narrowed his eyes and sat up, padding across the room to his book bag. He pulled out his keitai, his tiny kendouka charm dangling across the back of his hand.

He stared at the ID on the phone as it rang, rainbow colors spreading across the metal edge where he’d flipped it open.

“Shit,” he said. “Can’t he leave me alone?”

“Ishikawa?” I said.

“Probably needs backup again.” He sighed. “I’m tired of saving his ass every time things go wrong, but he doesn’t have anyone else to help him. I’m it. I don’t wanna see him get thrashed.”

“You better go, then,” I said.

“I’m not leaving you,” he said, his eyes searching my face.

“Anyway, I’m pretty sure he’d notice that my wrist is sliced open.”

He clicked the cell phone shut, and the phone stopped ringing, the colors fading away. Then it rang again. When that died down, a text chimed in.