Ink

Niichan moved forward, resting his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t tell anyone, Katie. Not even Yuki. She’s a good friend, but she has a big mouth.” I nodded and he dropped his hands, stepping out of the room as I followed behind. I felt nothing but ice and numbness as he slid the door shut and locked up the room of treasures, the room of the flickering fire. It occurred to me the room was fireproof to keep the painting from burning down the rest of the shrine, not to protect the treasures inside.

I walked in silence as we scaled the mountain, toward the wafting smell of Yuki’s curry bubbling.

I wasn’t a Kami, but I was tied to the ink somehow. And if I stayed with Tomohiro, we could lose everything.

I wondered what hope there was for him, what hope there was for me.

As I stood on the ferry waving goodbye to Niichan, Miyajima and the giant o-Torii gate dropped from sight. We sped through Hiroshima on the bullet train, through Osaka and Kyoto, moving closer and closer to Shizuoka. My mind was buzzing, despite the earache the train gave me. Could I really be connected to the Kami? I didn’t like the thought that whatever haunted Tomohiro was in my veins, too. The text from Tomohiro had been the only one I’d received, and after sending two or three unanswered, I’d stopped. I didn’t want to look desperate, and anyway, he must have a good reason for not replying. Or at least he better. Maybe Ishikawa had been looming over his shoulder all the time. And maybe he was actually getting some kendo training done.

Diane was still away for another week, and I was supposed to stay with Yuki’s family until she came back, so naturally I didn’t breathe a word of it to Yuki and came home to an empty mansion, mine alone for a whole week.

I dropped onto the couch and surfed through TV channels, mindlessly watching variety shows for a while. I tried to ignore the possibility that Niichan was right, but how could he be wrong? Though he’d admitted he didn’t have all the answers. Maybe I wasn’t tied to the Kami. Maybe the painting reacted to me because of my time with Tomohiro or something like that.

I sighed. I didn’t want to deal with this, especially on an empty stomach. I searched the kitchen cupboards but only came up with shrimp chips and bitter oolong tea.

I sat down with a bowl of the shrimp chips and flipped open my keitai. Still no messages. I phoned Tomohiro’s keitai, but it was off. I dialed his home phone, but it rang and rang.

When I got the answering machine, I hung up.

The panic was creeping through me, but I hadn’t wanted to admit it, not in Miyajima. But now, alone in my thoughts and alone in Shizuoka, I couldn’t put it off any longer.

What if the Yakuza got to him while I was away? What if something had happened to him?

No, it was ridiculous. He was probably just busy. And what were they going to do with him anyway? Just how dangerous could a paintbrush be?

The image of Tomohiro’s slashed wrist jumped to the front of my mind, all the cuts up and down his arm.

I phoned again, but still no answer. I watched the variety shows a little longer.

When I couldn’t stand the thoughts flashing through my head, I pulled on a light sweater and headed out to the conbini store to get some dinner.

I walked farther than I needed to, the cool night air calm-ing me down. In the mansion, the thoughts seemed to bounce off the walls and come back at me again, but out here they lifted into the air like clouds of glittering ink.

The doors of the conbini slid open as I approached, and I dropped my eyes from the teen clerk, heading straight to the refrigerated aisle. My eyes fell on the desserts, then the bentous.

I picked out unagi with rice and gyoza on the side, and then chose a purin pudding for dessert. Then I stared at the drinks for a while, trying with effort to read all the different choices.

“Katie?” My body froze, but my thoughts took off at top speed, rattling around in my head until I didn’t know whether to run or face the voice. I turned, slowly, and saw a familiar face tilting at me, eyes filled with curiosity. The lick of blond at his ears. The glint of his silver earring.

“Jun,” I said, the panic reining itself in. He smiled at me, and I realized I’d probably looked like a nervous idiot the way I’d jumped.

“What a coincidence,” he said. Then, deciding it wasn’t too rude to comment on my jitters, he added, “Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I mumbled. “Just getting some dinner.” I motioned at him with the eel dinner box.

“Ah,” he said, smiling broadly again. He looked different out of his school uniform, all casual flare with a white T-shirt, jeans and a short-sleeved black jacket draped over his broad shoulders. He wore one of those thick black bracelets around his wrist, the kind with silver spikes on it. It looked ridiculous.

“Um,” I said, because he was still smiling and waiting for me to say something. “How was the kendo retreat?”

“Tough, but we learned a lot. It was great to get to know Yuu and Ishikawa better.”

“Oh,” I said, and relief flooded through me. So nothing weird had happened.

“I thought you’d have heard from Yuu by now,” he said, and I felt the heat rise up my neck.

“What do you mean?” I said. He looked down at the floor with a grin and bobbed his head, like he was apologizing for bringing it up.

“Because you and Yuu are friends,” he said. Which was all he needed to say, really. I hoped Tomohiro wasn’t going around bragging like a jerk. It would definitely line up with the idiot who looked up my skirt. But then I dismissed it. I knew he wasn’t really like that at all.

“Anyway,” Jun continued, “I learned a lot training with them. It turns out we have some things in common.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering why Yuu hadn’t called me if things were all fine. It didn’t even sound like Ishikawa had pestered him much about the dragon. “That’s nice.”

“You know, I knew from the way Yuu held his shinai the first time that he’d done calligraphy.”

My blood ran cold. “Calligraphy?” I choked out, but Jun looked unfazed. Of course he did. There wasn’t anything weird about calligraphy. Usually.

He nodded. “There’s something artistic about the way he moves. I’ve been in the Calligraphy Club since junior high, and I can see it in his swordsmanship. You know, they have a lot in common.”

“Who does?”

“I mean calligraphy and kendo.” He smiled patiently.

I felt stupid suddenly, hot and itchy and wishing I could just go up to the bored clerk and pay for my bentou so I could get out of there. Instead I asked, “They do?”

“They’re both Zen traditions,” Jun said. “Calming your mind, looking within yourself for beauty and inspiration.”

“Uh-huh.”

Jun smiled yet again. “I guess I’m talking too much. Anyway, I tried to get Yuu to draw with me, but he wouldn’t do it. You’ll have to convince him to show me his work sometime.”

I paled. “Sure thing.”

“Well…” he said, bobbing his head and lifting up a bottle of cold tea. He went to the front to pay and I stared down at my bentou, waiting for him to vanish. But just as he was ready to walk through the open doors, he turned and walked back to me.

“I forgot to ask you,” he said, his face twisting with concern. “How is Yuu’s wrist doing?”

The shelves in the conbini seemed to blur out of focus. I opened my mouth, but only an awful squeaking sound came out.

“Didn’t…didn’t he tell you?” Jun said, his face full of surprise. “On the first day of training, he brought his shinai down hard on Ishikawa’s men and his wrist split open. Must have been an earlier injury he didn’t take care of. He had to go to the hospital for stitches.”

I just stared at him with my mouth open. Ishikawa would’ve seen it, then. The truth, on display in front of