The rage that was rising up inside of me morphs into a small, hard knot in my stomach.
This is the third day this week I’ve managed to make a complete spectacle of myself—all while I’m trying to discreetly find my mother and keep my Aunties from learning about my quest and—
I’m jolted out of my thoughts by an earsplitting scream from the street. Auntie Och instantly snaps to attention, narrowing her eyes at the increasingly unruly line outside.
The thing is, that didn’t sound like a scream of distress, it sounded more like . . . excitement? Like—
“Sorry, no, I’m just trying to get inside, I—”
Suddenly, Henry Chen is . . . well, some combination of falling and being shoved through Katsu That’s front door. His face is flushed, his expression flustered. His incognito baseball cap has been knocked askew and is doing nothing to hide his too-cute face.
A scandalized murmur runs through the crowd. The bad orderers at table four actually gasp. And the line out front—which is very quickly turning into a mob—presses itself up against the window, snapping pictures and screaming for Hank Chen.
Auntie Och plants herself in front of Henry, hands on her hips.
“Hey! You! Gotta wait in line like everyone else, ne?” she barks, making a shooing motion. “No cuts.”
“Auntie Och!” Rory waves her spindly arms around, her face lit with more excitement than I’ve ever seen on her. “No! He’s, like . . . he’s . . .”
“He’s coming with me,” I blurt out, finally unfreezing from the temporary spell the sheer absurdity of this situation has cast over me and marching authoritatively to the front of the restaurant. I try to block out all the whispers, all the stares. All the attention that’s pressing down on me, making me feel like the walls are closing in.
I find myself focusing on Henry—his perplexed dark eyes, his flop of mussed hair, his terribly interesting mouth, now quirked into an expression of total confusion. Focusing on him and only him . . . it grounds me in a weird way. Makes me feel like nothing else matters.
This is not something the nure-onna approves of, but it works for now.
I reach him, grab his hand, and tow him toward the kitchen.
“Hey, waitress—red-haired waitress!” one of the girls from table four yells. “You didn’t finish taking our order!”
“I’ll take your order when you stop whispering about me and taking my picture and figure out which kind of freaking chicken you want!” I snarl, dragging Henry through the kitchen doors. “There are only three kinds—it’s not. That. Hard!”
“Wow, rude!” one of them calls after me.
“There you are,” Belle says, as I storm back into the kitchen. “I was starting to wonder if the Beckys had managed to take you down, but to be honest, I can imagine no possible scenario where that . . . happens . . .”
Her mouth falls open as she zeroes in on the boy I’ve dragged in behind me.
And, for perhaps the first time in the seventeen years she’s been on this planet, Belle Rakuyama is rendered speechless.
Auntie Och and Rory bustle in after us, talking over each other.
“Rika-chan, why you insult customers like that? We cannot afford—”
“Hank. Chen. The Hank Chen?! God, I have so many questions—”
“Everyone stop talking!” I yell, waving my hands around.
Surprisingly, they listen. The kitchen goes absolutely quiet—which only makes it easier to hear the chaos from the dining room.
I take a deep breath. Look at each of them in turn. Try to think of what comes next.
I finally settle for: “This is Henry. Henry Chen. And he’s kind of famous.”
Auntie Och’s eyes narrow as she steps closer to Henry, sizing him up. To his credit, he doesn’t flinch.
“You’re that boy from the other day,” she says slowly, like she’s some kind of TV detective putting all the pieces together. “The one doing extra credit with Rika.”
“No, Ma Och,” Rory hisses through gritted teeth. Her little face has gone all red and she looks like she’s about ready to die of embarrassment. “He was on Dance! Off!, remember? He won!”
Henry gives Rory a small smile—and she looks like she’s about to disintegrate into a pile of heart emojis. Something about his smile tugs at my heart, too—and I realize it’s because the primary feeling he’s beaming out is grateful. Like he’s thanking Rory for saving him from Auntie Och, even though he doesn’t exactly need anyone to save him here, especially not a moony-eyed twelve-year-old.
“Um, yes,” I say hastily, snapping myself back to the present. “I mean. Both of those things are true. Henry just moved here for an acting gig, and he’s going to be starting school with us in the fall, so he asked me to, um, tutor him.”
I studiously avoid Henry’s gaze, because I just know he’s looking at me with one of his smiles. I don’t know which one—smug? Earnest? Thankful?—and if I look at him, I’ll get too caught up in deciphering that, which is 100 percent not productive right now.
“And then I guess some people saw us in the library while we were, um, studying, and they figured out where I work and . . . well . . .” I gesture toward the dining room.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Rory sidling up to Belle and showing her the phone screen, the picture of Henry and me.
“Rika went viral,” Rory murmurs, her voice full of awe. “Twice if you count the Grace photo, but no one was really focusing so much on Rika-chan in that one.”
“Wow, you guys are studying really hard,” Belle says, arching an eyebrow as she looks at the picture. I can practically see the gears in her brain turning—remembering how I was so flushed and out of it earlier, trying to speculate on the reason for
