Ink

“What’s his problem?” Tomohiro said, opening the phone again. “He usually gets the message if I don’t answer.” He opened the text and his eyes widened, his face turning pale.

“What is it?” I asked. My throat felt thick and dry.

Tomohiro didn’t answer, just stood there and stared, his face frozen in horror.

“What? Is the text from someone else? Who’s it from, Tomo?”

With a dry voice, he whispered the name.

“Satoshi.”

Relief surged through me momentarily. “Ishikawa again?”

I said. “Jeez, you scared the crap out of me.”

“He saw it.”

My blood ran cold. “What?”

“He saw it. I know it.”

“Ishikawa—”

“He saw the dragon.”

He turned the keitai to show me the text scrawled across the screen.

?? I saw it. So simple, and so terrifying.

Suddenly the phone was alive again, swirling with color, chiming cheerfully in Tomohiro’s hand. His palm opened slowly and the keitai dropped to the floor, slamming against the hardwood and skidding a little ways, still chiming.

“How do you know that’s what he means?” I said. “There’s no way—he doesn’t even know about Toro Iseki.”

“He knows I go there to draw,” Tomohiro said.

Panic coursed through me, turning my limbs to jelly. “You told him?”

He shook his head. “You’re not the first to think of following me,” he said. “He came once, watched me draw, got bored.”

The phone stopped ringing. “But how could he have seen?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped. “I don’t know how. But he’s kept a close eye on me since that ink puddle in the kendo match. He knows what Kami are because the Yakuza know about them, and he’s tried to get me to admit it before. He thinks I have some stupid destiny as a Yakuza weapon or something.” You’re keeping him from his destiny. Oh. “I convinced him the last couple times he was wrong, that I don’t even know what Kami are, but lately I’ve been losing control.”

Because of me. Cue the stifling guilt. “But he’s your friend.

He’d keep your secret, right?”

“There are more powerful things than friendship that would sway him.” His eyes had gone dark, and he sat down on the floor, tucking his knees up to his chin. “Koji defended me until the end. He almost lost his eye and still protected my secret.

Sato won’t do that. He’s in too much trouble to think of anything but protecting himself.” It was true. I knew it. Ishikawa was drowning and he’d pull Tomohiro down with him.

“What are we going to do?” Tears welled up in my eyes.

I didn’t want to run from the Yakuza.

“We’re going to deny it,” Tomohiro said, pressing his head into his hands. The tails of the bandage splayed across his knees. “You can’t let anyone know we were together today.”

My stomach flopped as I thought of Yuki. She wouldn’t tell anyone, right? She’d keep my secret.

Who was I kidding? She couldn’t keep it to herself for five minutes. She was probably on the phone to Tanaka right now.

But it was too late, and his eyes were so sincere. I didn’t want to let him down.

“I won’t,” I said. He nodded. His phone rang again and his eyes glazed over.

“I’ve lied to him before,” he said, but he sounded like he was convincing himself. “I’ll do it again. Shit. He must have been doing deals in Ishida again. That’s how he saw it.”

Ishida. Where they’d cornered the guy in the knit hat, where Jun had rescued me from the hairy, tattooed creep. It was close to Toro Iseki. He could easily have had a view of it from there.

“Tomo,” I squeaked out. He looked up, and I must have looked like crap because he snapped out of his mood and strode over, sitting down on the couch with me.

“Don’t worry,” he said, taking my hands in his. “We’ll be okay.”

I nodded, but my stomach ached. I blinked back tears and one rolled down my cheek. He reached for it, the tiny drop catching the light on his slender fingers, and then all I could see was the gleaming hazel of his eyes as they searched mine.

I tensed, and he leaned in. I could smell the shampoo in his still-damp hair.

I felt his breath against my mouth, and then he pressed his lips against mine, his hand still on my cheek. The heat sent a shock through me, melted away any other thoughts but this, that Yuu Tomohiro was kissing me.

He pulled back then, suddenly. His cheeks flushed red, his eyes round and surprised. He bobbed his head in apology.

“Sorry,” he said. “You must be thirsty. I’ll get you a drink.”

He excused himself and practically ran to the kitchen, where I heard way more clatter than necessary to get a glass.

I touched my lips with my fingers, pressed them against each other, feeling the way they’d swelled when he kissed me. I didn’t think my face could get any redder; thank god he was taking so long in the kitchen.

Then his keitai rang again, spewing rainbow colors across the floor.

“Iced tea okay?” he shouted over it, his voice way too en-ergetic. “I’ve only got oolong and lemon.”

“Sure,” I said, staring at the phone.

He returned, putting the cold glass into my hands. He clicked the phone off and threw it onto a side table before sitting beside me. I took a sip of the bitter tea, resting the cup on the coffee table. His eyes never left me.

“Are you okay?” he said. I couldn’t help it—a laugh came out.

“Are you kidding?” I said. “We were nearly ripped to shreds by a dragon, and now Ishikawa’s going to blurt your secret to his little Yakuza friends. I’m just peachy.” But all I could do was stare at his soft lips, wanting to press mine against them. Stupid, stupid.

“They don’t know what they’re dealing with,” Tomohiro said, his eyes dark. “You think they’re scary?”

“Um, they’re gangsters.”

“And I’m the shadow lurking around the corner. I’m the youkai demon dragging them screaming into the night.”

“One, that’s creepy. Two, stop with the monster business.

You’re not evil, Tomo. You were there when I needed you.

You saved me from the dragon, but you also saved me when I couldn’t be myself, when everyone else told me to heal and get over it. You’re risking everything to be with me, everything to help me. You’re…you’re—” I could barely speak with him staring at me like that. He put his oolong tea down gently on the coffee table, his eyes never moving from my face.

“O-re sa,” he whispered, leaning closer. I, you know… I remembered the first time he’d started to confess those words to me, in the lush green of Toro Iseki.

His fingers slid along my jaw, each like a spark on my skin.

“Kimi no koto ga…” About you, I… And he rested his lips on my jaw, where his fingers had been. The warmth of it pulsed through me.

His lips were so close to mine, grazing along my skin to my mouth. “Suki,” he breathed, I love you, and then the softness of his lips pressed against mine and the world caught fire, everything light and flame and burning.

His fingers wound in my hair, the cloth wrapped around his wrist sliding along my collarbone as he moved. I reached for him, letting my hands trail along his jaw and around his neck, twisting the spikes of his hair flat between my fingers.