Ink

“Leave me alone,” I said quietly, but Ishikawa’s head bobbed down in front of me. A half bow, an apology.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about what happened. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear.”

“What happened?” Tomohiro said, walking over.

“Nothing,” I said. “Ishikawa’s mobsters just decided they’d have a go at me.”

Tomohiro looked at Ishikawa, his face darkening.

“You pulled that shit in front of Katie?” he said.

I watched the plan disintegrating in front of my face.

“Katie-chan!” Yuki cried as she joined our group. She saw Tanaka’s confused face and added, “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t know your friend would be provoked by that,”

Ishikawa said. “Sugi shouldn’t have done it, but your friend could’ve turned away.”

“What friend?” Tomohiro said.

“Takahashi,” Ishikawa said, and Tomohiro looked at me funny.

“I ran into him on the way to school,” I said. The sun felt too warm, and I wanted to leave.

“He said you’re friends,” Ishikawa said.

Crap. I couldn’t deny it or Ishikawa would know I’d been lying, and that would put me in more trouble. I looked at Tomo hiro and bit my lip. But so what if I had other guy friends? He wouldn’t take it that way, would he?

“Yeah,” I said quietly, “we’re friends.”

“Katie, everything okay?” said Tanaka.

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Let’s go.” Tanaka nodded, and we started to leave.

That wasn’t so awful, I thought. It could’ve been worse.

“I hope you took care of Katie last night, Yuu-san,” Yuki blurted out with a wicked smile, and my heart stopped.

Tomo hiro opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His face started to pale.

“So you were together last night?” said Ishikawa.

“Yuki!” I hissed.

“We weren’t,” Tomohiro said.

Yuki looked confused. “But…”

“We weren’t,” I echoed. “I was helping my aunt with papers all night. Really boring. Listen, I’m going to be late for cram school. I’m—I’m sorry.”

I did the only thing I could do in that situation. I ran. Yuki and Tanaka followed as I tried to lose myself in Sunpu Park, but I couldn’t. I knew the park too well now. The bells by the central fountain chimed beside me as I slowed to catch my breath.

“Katie, wait up!” Yuki called. She and Tanaka were at my side a minute later.

“What happened to not telling anyone?” I said.

“I’m so sorry! I thought you just didn’t want your aunt to know!”

“Wait, why is this a secret?” said Tanaka.

“It isn’t,” I said, running my fingers through the tangles in my hair. “It’s just…” How much did I want to involve them?

The less they knew, the better. “I just don’t want Ishikawa to know anything about us. He’s creepy.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuki said again. “I’ll buy the ice cream. My treat.”

What could I do? It was done.

Tanaka chatted about cakes and drinks as we walked, and I forced myself to look down, to not look back. I squeezed my hands into fists as we walked. I tried to focus on the beauty of Sunpu Park, but the greenery had faded to the brown of a too-hot summer. I hoped Tomohiro was a smooth liar. I guess he’d had a lot of practice.

We bought extravagant ice creams from the stall at Shizuoka Station, warm waffle cones dripping with green-tea ice cream and sweet-bean topping, vanilla-and-strawberry swirl with melon and mango sauce drizzled on top. I tried to forget everything at that moment, to just enjoy the normalcy of it.

How much had changed that eating sweet beans in a waffle cone at a bullet-train station had become normal?

At the last kendo practice, Ishikawa tried again. I was drinking from my water bottle, and when I tilted my head down and pulled the bottle from my lips, he was there, standing too close. I almost spat the water out into his face.

“Greene,” he said quietly. “Yuuto is my friend. I don’t understand why he’s keeping this from me.”

“What do you mean?” I said as casually as I could. Ishikawa stared at me. I hadn’t noticed before how deep his eyes were, how they drew you in like prey.

“Listen,” he said, wrapping his wrist around my arm gently.

“Has Yuuto told you about the Kami?”

“You mean Shinto gods?” I said. Ishikawa swore under his breath. Behind us, the clack of shinai hitting against each other and the kiai shouts of opponents filled the gym.

“Look, pretend all you want. The Kami were scattered at the end of the war. But they’re uniting now, in secrecy.

They have been for the last ten, twenty years. And not all the Kami are gentle or good-hearted, or naive, like Yuuto.”

He leaned in closer, his voice a hot whisper crawling on my skin. “Yakuza aren’t the most dangerous people in Japan. Do you have any idea what these Kami will do to claim Yuuto as their own?”

I was silent. Was he making it all up? Tomohiro hadn’t mentioned some secret society of others like him. It’s not like I saw strange creatures made of ink floating through the sky every day. People would pick up on that sort of thing.

I’d hesitated, and Ishikawa’s eyes gleamed. A smile hovered on his lips, like he’d convinced me to admit the truth. I didn’t know if he was lying about the other Kami, but I knew I had to protect Tomohiro. “Ishikawa, I have no clue what you’re talking about. Maybe it’s my poor Japanese.”

The light blinked out of his eyes and he screamed right in my face, shaking his head from side to side. “Don’t talk shit!”

“Hey, hey!” called out Watanabe-sensei. “Ishikawa, Greene, back to your kiri- kaeshi now!” Ishikawa sighed, his shoulders hunching as he tried to calm down. His grip tightened around my wrist.

“Do you think I’m the only one who saw the dragon?”

he whispered roughly. “You’re sorely mistaken. Yuuto won’t admit it, but you can save him, Greene. Let me help him.

Let us protect him from them. ” He let go of my wrist then, slamming his men over his head, and fell back into line before I could respond.

My whole body shook and I felt like I was going to throw up. I pushed in the door of the girls’ change room and shrank to the floor, tears trailing down my cheeks. What was the truth? What was going on? It was probably all lies, spun by Ishikawa to get me to spill what had happened. I rocked on my heels, crying and crying, and then slipped out of the gym before the girls came in from Kendo Club, before Ishikawa could confront me again. I hurried along the edge of the gym, and I could feel Tomohiro’s eyes on me as I slipped out of sight.

Chapter 13

Yuki’s mother picked me up at seven the next morning and drove us to Shizuoka Station. Diane was busy packing for a teacher’s conference in Osaka, so it was a quick hug and goodbyes, and off we went. The Shinkansen train sped across Honshu, the mainland of Japan. I stared out the window at rice fields and hundreds