Ink

around me like an origami dress. Pink sakura blossoms floated down the woven material, which Yuki had complemented by lending me her pink obi to tie around my waist.

“Dou? How is it?”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Thank you.”

She grinned, smoothing her own soft blue yukata with her hands.

“Yuu is a jerk for not calling,” she said. “But let’s forget about it for now. It’s Shizuoka Matsuri, and you’re still here with us. So let’s go celebrate!”

Was he being a jerk? I hadn’t been able to get ahold of him since deciding to stay in Japan. It didn’t make sense, unless he was in trouble. Or avoiding me, in which case he’d clearly learned nothing from the first attempt and I would pound the lesson into him tomorrow when school started again.

It didn’t matter if he was avoiding me. Sooner or later, I’d have to get in touch with him. Because as much as I’d wanted to stay in Japan to be with him, I’d also had no choice. If Jun was right, Tomohiro was a ticking time bomb, and I was the only one who could defuse him.

Diane entered my room carrying a tray of glasses filled with cold black-bean tea. The ice clinked against the sides of the cups as she set them down. A pink spray of flowers unfurled in a corner of the tray.

“Don’t you girls look beautiful,” she said. “Katie, I picked this up for you on my way home.” She lifted the spray of pink flowers off the tray, the little plastic buds swaying back and forth on pink strings. She tucked it into the twist Yuki had pulled my hair into.

“Kawaii.” Yuki grinned. “You look so cute!” I turned a little red as Yuki stood next to Diane, both of them with their hands on their hips as they looked me up and down. They were starting to fuss a little too much.

“Thanks,” I said. “Um. We should get going.”

“Yes, I think Tanaka’s starting to sweat a little out there,”

Diane said.

Yuki took a gulp of tea and slid the door to my room open, where Tanaka was waiting in jeans and a T- shirt.

“You guys are taking forever,” he said. “Can we go now?”

“Let’s go,” I said, the long yellow yukata sleeves tangling around my wrists as I slipped on my flip-flops and shoved my keitai into a pink drawstring bag I’d bought at the depato store.

“You look cute,” Tanaka said to us with a smile.

“So do you,” Yuki said. She stuck her tongue out at him as he turned red. She grabbed my hand and we headed out the door.

“Itterasshai!” Diane called after us.

Go and come back safely.

The only word Tomohiro had written on his letter, the word that had sent me running from the airport, that had me tripping over my own feet to catch Diane at the Narita Express platform on the way back to Shizuoka.

Tanaka pushed the button for the elevator.

We’ll find out together, Tomohiro had said to Jun. Tomohiro and I would find out what the ink wanted and how to control it together, without the help of his society of Kami who wanted to overthrow the government and kill off anyone who stood in their way.

It didn’t make sense. Why would Tomohiro push me away again now, when I was so determined to help?

The light was fading outside as we stepped into the heat. It was the last week of summer holidays, before school started for the second semester, and the hot weather wasn’t going to give up easily. We clattered down the street in our zori, or in my case flip-flops, hopping onto the local train for Abekawa Station.

“We’re gonna be late,” whined Tanaka.

“It’s fine,” Yuki said. “We’ll still be in good time for the fireworks.”

The train lurched around the corner and I tried not to press into Tanaka’s side.

“If the takoyaki’ s all gone by the time we get there, I’ll blame you.”

“How would that even happen?” I said. “They won’t run out.”

“Right?” Yuki agreed. “Tan-kun, you and your stomach.”

By the time the train pulled into Abekawa the sun had blinked below the horizon. We stumbled through the musty train air toward the music and sounds of crowds.

It felt like all of Shizuoka was here, the sidewalks packed with festivalgoers while dancers in happi coats paraded down the street. Lanterns swung from floats and street signs glowed, and above everything, we could hear about three different songs competing for attention above the crowded roads. It was a little claustrophobic, sure, but filled with life.

“What should we do first?” Yuki shouted, but I could barely hear her. She grabbed my hand and we pressed through the thick crowd toward a takoyaki stand. Tanaka rubbed his hands together as the vendor squeezed mayonnaise over the bite-size batter stuffed with octopus.

“Anything’s fine with me,” I said. Translation: no idea.

“I’m good, too, now that I have my takoyaki, ” Tanaka said.

“Want one?” The bonito fish flakes on the hot batter shriveled as if they were alive.

“Um, maybe later.”

“We should try to get a good spot for fireworks soon, though,” Yuki said. “Near the Abe River bridge would be best.”

“What’s the big deal about the fireworks?” I said. “You keep bringing it up.” I mean, I loved fireworks as much as anyone, but she seemed a little fixated on it.

Yuki pulled me over, whispering in my ear. Her voice was hot and smelled of the fishy batter.

“Because,” she hissed, “if you watch the fireworks with someone special, you’re destined to be with them forever.”

“Oh.” Jeez, I could be so stupid. So this was some big scheme for her and Tanaka. “Do you want space or something?”

“No, no!” She waved her hand frantically. “Not like that.

Let’s stick together, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. As if she’d tell me if that was the plan anyway.

We rounded the corner to two rows of brightly lit tents.

All the thick, fatty smells of festival foods filled the air. Fried chicken, fried squid, steaming sweet-potato fries, roasted corn, strawberry and melon kakigori ice. My stomach rumbled and I moved forward, heading for the baked sweet potatoes. I handed over the yen and pocketed the change. Then I pulled back the aluminum foil to take a bite, the steam flooding my mouth. Beside me, kids dipped red plastic ladles into a water table while an old motor whirred little plastic toys round and round. The toys bobbed in and out of the ladles while the kids shrieked with excitement.

A flash of color caught my eye, and I turned. I strained to hear the sound above the music and chatter of the crowd, but it was there—faintly. The tinkle of the colorful furin, the delicate glass wind chimes like the ones Tomohiro had sketched into the tree in Toro Iseki.

Across from me, the furin booth glowed with electric light, catching on the gleaming chimes as they twirled in the night breeze.

“Hello!” The vendor greeted me in English, but his welcome barely registered as I stepped into the tent. Almost a hundred of the chimes hung suspended around me in a rainbow of glittering colors, spinning above my head in neat rows.

Tomo’s furin had been black-and-white, like all his sketches, but they’d held the same magic, the same chorus together that my ears could never forget.

“You like the furin? ” The vendor smiled. He had a kind, worn face and the early startings of a gray beard.

“They’re beautiful.”

“The sound of summer, ne? The sound of possibility.”