He rolled his head back to look up at the tree. A crow near the top cawed at us. “To get us out of situations like collapsing at shrines?” He laughed and shook his head, the ink loosening from his hair like fine golden dust.
I didn’t believe him. Without a word, I reached into the satchel on his lap, my fingers grazing the curve of his hip bone through the fabric.
“Oi,” he protested, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “If you’re going to violate me, I’d appreciate if you wait till I’m na**d.”
Heat raced up the back of my neck at the thought of it. “You definitely hit your head too hard,” I stammered, but he saw how flustered I was and grinned. And then my finger sliced alongside the edge of a paper. I winced at the cut and pulled the black notebook from the satchel. “Explain this,” I said, letting the notebook drop on the ground.
Tomohiro grabbed it and shoved it back in the bag. “If Yakuza and Kami were after you, would you go out unarmed?”
It was a pretty good point, really.
“So what the hell happened back there?” I brushed the golden ink dust off his shoulders.
“It was like the nightmares,” he said, lying back in the grass. The giant bonsai tree made splotchy patterns of sunlight down his body. Damn it. I was still thinking about what he’d said, about him being na**d. I remembered the feel of his skin when we’d been alone in his house that night, the way he made my fingertips pulse with heat.
Still working on those priorities, Greene.
He sighed. “I couldn’t pass through the roumon.”
“Why, though? Why couldn’t you go through the gate?”
He shook his head. “Because I’m Kami, I guess,” he said. “Because I’m evil. The shrine probably protects Tokugawa from others who might’ve harmed him. Like me.”
I stared at him. “You’re not evil,” I said quietly. “And I thought you said Tokugawa had his own issues. He killed them all when his powers showed up, right?”
Tomohiro snorted. “Yeah, but most who died either kidnapped or betrayed him. Isn’t that kind of justice? I mean, back then it would’ve been. But it still doesn’t make sense. I’ve never had a problem entering a shrine before.”
“Maybe this one was booby-trapped or something? Being abducted would’ve made him paranoid.”
“Or maybe I’m losing myself,” Tomo said, sitting up and gazing across the bay to Mount Fuji. “Maybe I’m more demon than human now.”
My throat was dry. “That’s not true.” But I thought about what Jun had said, that the ink in Tomo was taking over. That the ink in me would make it happen faster. I shook my head. “I mean, I made it through the gate, but I saw the painted dog on the shrine move. So it must not take much Kami power to make it happen, right? Or something.”
“Wait, you saw the inugami move?” He looked at me, his eyes wide.
“Inugami?” It was a Japanese word I didn’t know.
“Dog demons,” he said. “Bigger than dogs, sloping ears, demonic eyes. Tokugawa had inugami painted on the shrine wall. And one moved?”
“Well, it didn’t move, exactly,” I said. “But he did open his mouth to growl. It was kind of like when the painting moved at Itsukushima Shrine.”
Tomohiro rested his head in his hands. “It was a mistake to come here. I never should have brought you to the shrine.”
“It’s fine,” I said, rocking onto my knees to be closer to him. “You’re okay now, and that’s what matters.”
“It’s worse than I thought. Moving sketches is one thing, but the inugami...”
“Like I said,” I tried again. “It was probably just some kind of alarm system Tokugawa had.” I rested a hand on Tomo’s shoulder.
He shook it off and I moved my hand back, surprised.
“Yeah,” he snapped, “and why do you think the alarm went off? Me, Katie. The inugami fear me. This is all wrong. Just like I thought—you shouldn’t have stayed in Japan.” He rose to his feet, storming toward the bus stop.
I followed behind, feeling like I’d been stung. “Jeez, what’s your problem? What was all that before about solving this ourselves, huh? About not needing anyone else?”
He stopped in his tracks, his hand clenched into a fist. He looked down at the ground, his copper spiked hair gusting in the wind.
“I was wrong,” he said. “An inugami is what got Koji, you know? You saw me back there. I lost control.”
“And together we got out of it,” I said. “I want to help.”
Tomo turned slowly, his eyes glistening with the tears he held back.
“We’ll beat this,” I said.
He pulled me toward him and held me tightly.
We didn’t speak much on the bus. Everything was unraveling.
* * *
I sat at a deserted table, tracing kanji strokes with my pencil. No one ate lunch in the school library when the weather was this nice outside. Most of the kids were out in the courtyard or up on the fenced-in roof. But then, most kids weren’t going to fail because they couldn’t read and write Japanese.
One more stroke and then another. I leaned back to study my handiwork.
“Only fourteen-hundred kanji to go.” I moaned, flipping the page of my cram-school textbook. It wasn’t just learning the characters that was tough. They all had multiple ways of being read depending on which kanji they were paired with, or on the word origin, or other inconsistent reasons that just added up to me being illiterate.
I couldn’t go to international school. My life was here, at Suntaba. If Tomohiro had really stopped drawing, maybe we could enjoy a normal school life without having to worry about exploding pens for once.
I smiled. When had school in Japan become normal? But it was, and I wanted to belong. I had Yuki and Tanaka, and a million kanji to learn so I wouldn’t flunk out. That wasn’t the only problem I wanted to deal with. I was ready to conquer this Kami thing. I hoped Jun—Takahashi, I corrected myself—could give me some answers after school.
The library door creaked and I looked up.
“There you are,” said Yuki, and she turned, motioning into the hallway. Tanaka followed her in, both of them carrying furoshiki—wrapped bentou boxes. They put them down on the desk with a clatter and pulled up two squeaky chairs to join me. “How come you weren’t on the roof?”
“Ugh,” I said, pressing my forehead onto the desk. “Because I’m going to flunk out of Suntaba?”
“Extra kanji practice, huh?” said Tanaka.
I mumbled into the paper, “Any wisdom you’d like to impart?”
“Let me see,” Yuki said, pulling the book toward her.
“Hey,” Tanaka said, pointing at the character I’d just drawn. “I learned that one in third grade.”
“Seriously, Tan-kun, you’re not helping,” I said.
Yuki smiled. “You’ll get it, Katie.”
“There are just too many,” I said. I reached across the notebook for my chopsticks and yanked off a piece of the cold sweet egg Diane had rolled in the corner of my lunchbox.
Tanaka shook his head as he untied his blue furoshiki cloth. He lifted the lid off his bentou and shoved half a strawberry-cream sandwich into his mouth. “You’ll get it,” he said, his mouth full. “Faito, ne?”
“Exactly,” Yuki said. “Keep fighting, Katie. We won’t let them send you to another school. Let me look at this page, and then we’ll quiz you.”
I looked gratefully at them—Tanaka with his mouthful of cream and his glasses sliding down his nose, and Yuki with her nails painted in pink sparkles as she pulled my textbook toward her.
I couldn’t leave them for some other school. I belonged here.
“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks so much.”
Yuki smiled. “Atarimae jan,” she droned. “Of course we’d help you. We’re best friends.” She raised her hand in front of herself and clenched it into a fist. “Okay, Tan-kun, this is our new lunch spot. Every day we’ll help Katie until she can read kanji better than you.”
There are friendships you know will last for the rest of your life. It was like Yuki and Tanaka and my life in Japan had always been waiting for me, like I was always meant to come here. Even if Tomohiro might regret me coming back, I didn’t.
I loved my life here. And I would do anything to protect it from the ink.
* * *
Yuki and I stayed behind after class to wipe down the chalkboards. I dipped my cloth in a bucket of water and wrung it out, the drips trailing up my wrists as I cleaned.
“Yuki,” I said. It was just the two of us left, a chance to talk alone.
“Hmm?” She swished her rag around the other side of the board as we each got closer to the middle.
“Do Japanese girls usually cook for their boyfriends?” I felt stupid bringing it up, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Shiori had said. Maybe dating a guy from another culture had its own set of problems.
“Are you thinking of cooking for Yuu?” she said. “I bet he’d like cookies or maybe a jelly roll. No...that doesn’t sound right. Maybe something more traditional?” She clapped her hands together. “Wagashi! Japanese sweets.”
“I’m just wondering,” I said, leaning against Suzuki’s desk. “What kind of...expectations do Japanese guys have?”
Yuki scrunched her face up as she thought, twisting from side to side. “Well...I don’t think being able to cook is so important. Yuu cooks anyway, right? I think the main thing is not to hurt his pride.”
“His pride?”
“Yeah.” She squeezed out her cloth with her sparkly fingernails. “Guys care a lot about their pride. Dumb stuff like wanting to be taller than their girlfriends and stronger, too, and they care about their fashion and hair color because they want to look cool, right?”
“Tomo asked me to call Jun by his last name. That’s a pride thing, right?”
Yuki raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that would be bad. I bet he was jealous. But, Katie, Yuu’s already kind of different. Some Japanese guys are too shy to date a foreigner for very long. They get nervous about their English, or they want a wife who will stay home. It’s confusing with a foreigner because you don’t know what to expect.”
She was listing all the things Shiori had said. Long-term, Tomo and I would have problems.
Yuki saw my expression and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, okay? You and Yuu have something special. I can see it. Just go day by day and you’ll be okay. Not all Japanese guys are the same, ne?”
“Thanks, Yuki.”
Yuki smiled. “Just be the strong woman you are, like me. If the guys can’t handle us, it’s their problem.” She was right, of course. I didn’t have to overthink this. And yet, everything Shiori had said echoed in my ears. Tomo and I had both lost our mothers; that and the ink bound us together. I thought he understood me better than anyone, but maybe we didn’t really know each other at all.
I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. Right now I had to focus on what had happened at Tokugawa’s shrine. I had to figure out what had happened, and for that, I needed someone who knew more than Tomo and I did.
After waving goodbye to Yuki, I headed toward Katakou School. I hadn’t exactly told Jun I was coming, but I hoped he was still on the same cram-school schedule as me. And since I was free, I crossed my fingers he would be, too.
I avoided the shortcut through Sunpu Castle. I was just too creeped out to go there, knowing the Kami met up there, adorned in their all-black outfits. Instead I took the street, walking along the other side of the Sunpu Park moat teeming with dark koi that lurched through the sluggish waters. Jun’s—Takahashi’s school was east of mine, but I’d had to map it to make sure I was going in the right direction. It also helped to make my way upstream of the mass of green-and-navy-uniformed students.
I slowed as I reached the iron gates of the school.
“Holy crap,” I said. The school was seven stories high, no lie, taller than the bare sakura trees in the courtyard. This school had money, no question about it. I mean, Suntaba was well-off, too, but this was a more impressive school than our students gave it credit for. A thick wall ran around the school boundary, and there was a brass plaque secured to the smooth white tiles. It read, .
Okay, Katie. Let’s see how well you’ve studied, I thought. This had to be Katakou, but I didn’t want to barge in without being sure. The last two kanji I knew from way back in my Japanese class in Albany, the one I took after Mom died. They read school. Well, that narrows it down. The first four I couldn’t read.
Damn! Why couldn’t I be fluent already? It was so frustrating.
A girl passed by in a navy blazer. She saw me staring at the sign and paused.
“Can I help you?” she asked in English.
I stared at her for a minute. Hearing English felt so foreign, and my tongue tripped over the once-familiar sounds. It was amazing how quickly you could forget who you used to be.
“I’m looking for Katakou School,” I answered in English. “Only I’m having kanji issues.”
The girl smiled. “This is Katakou,” she said, running her finger along the raised kanji on the brass sign. “Kataba Koutou Gakkou. Or Katakou for short.”
“Thanks,” I said. I’d heard the full name of the school before, in the change room at Kendo Club. The word kataba meant the edge of a sword, something strong and focused, dangerous when applied. But the first kanji alone, kata, meant fragment, broken, imperfect. Suntaba students liked to use it to poke fun at their kendo rivals. But I knew Katakou students commonly used another kanji for kata—strength. It was their response to all the jeering from schools like ours. They wrote it differently on the banners they brought into the kendo tournaments.
I didn’t believe him. Without a word, I reached into the satchel on his lap, my fingers grazing the curve of his hip bone through the fabric.
“Oi,” he protested, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “If you’re going to violate me, I’d appreciate if you wait till I’m na**d.”
Heat raced up the back of my neck at the thought of it. “You definitely hit your head too hard,” I stammered, but he saw how flustered I was and grinned. And then my finger sliced alongside the edge of a paper. I winced at the cut and pulled the black notebook from the satchel. “Explain this,” I said, letting the notebook drop on the ground.
Tomohiro grabbed it and shoved it back in the bag. “If Yakuza and Kami were after you, would you go out unarmed?”
It was a pretty good point, really.
“So what the hell happened back there?” I brushed the golden ink dust off his shoulders.
“It was like the nightmares,” he said, lying back in the grass. The giant bonsai tree made splotchy patterns of sunlight down his body. Damn it. I was still thinking about what he’d said, about him being na**d. I remembered the feel of his skin when we’d been alone in his house that night, the way he made my fingertips pulse with heat.
Still working on those priorities, Greene.
He sighed. “I couldn’t pass through the roumon.”
“Why, though? Why couldn’t you go through the gate?”
He shook his head. “Because I’m Kami, I guess,” he said. “Because I’m evil. The shrine probably protects Tokugawa from others who might’ve harmed him. Like me.”
I stared at him. “You’re not evil,” I said quietly. “And I thought you said Tokugawa had his own issues. He killed them all when his powers showed up, right?”
Tomohiro snorted. “Yeah, but most who died either kidnapped or betrayed him. Isn’t that kind of justice? I mean, back then it would’ve been. But it still doesn’t make sense. I’ve never had a problem entering a shrine before.”
“Maybe this one was booby-trapped or something? Being abducted would’ve made him paranoid.”
“Or maybe I’m losing myself,” Tomo said, sitting up and gazing across the bay to Mount Fuji. “Maybe I’m more demon than human now.”
My throat was dry. “That’s not true.” But I thought about what Jun had said, that the ink in Tomo was taking over. That the ink in me would make it happen faster. I shook my head. “I mean, I made it through the gate, but I saw the painted dog on the shrine move. So it must not take much Kami power to make it happen, right? Or something.”
“Wait, you saw the inugami move?” He looked at me, his eyes wide.
“Inugami?” It was a Japanese word I didn’t know.
“Dog demons,” he said. “Bigger than dogs, sloping ears, demonic eyes. Tokugawa had inugami painted on the shrine wall. And one moved?”
“Well, it didn’t move, exactly,” I said. “But he did open his mouth to growl. It was kind of like when the painting moved at Itsukushima Shrine.”
Tomohiro rested his head in his hands. “It was a mistake to come here. I never should have brought you to the shrine.”
“It’s fine,” I said, rocking onto my knees to be closer to him. “You’re okay now, and that’s what matters.”
“It’s worse than I thought. Moving sketches is one thing, but the inugami...”
“Like I said,” I tried again. “It was probably just some kind of alarm system Tokugawa had.” I rested a hand on Tomo’s shoulder.
He shook it off and I moved my hand back, surprised.
“Yeah,” he snapped, “and why do you think the alarm went off? Me, Katie. The inugami fear me. This is all wrong. Just like I thought—you shouldn’t have stayed in Japan.” He rose to his feet, storming toward the bus stop.
I followed behind, feeling like I’d been stung. “Jeez, what’s your problem? What was all that before about solving this ourselves, huh? About not needing anyone else?”
He stopped in his tracks, his hand clenched into a fist. He looked down at the ground, his copper spiked hair gusting in the wind.
“I was wrong,” he said. “An inugami is what got Koji, you know? You saw me back there. I lost control.”
“And together we got out of it,” I said. “I want to help.”
Tomo turned slowly, his eyes glistening with the tears he held back.
“We’ll beat this,” I said.
He pulled me toward him and held me tightly.
We didn’t speak much on the bus. Everything was unraveling.
* * *
I sat at a deserted table, tracing kanji strokes with my pencil. No one ate lunch in the school library when the weather was this nice outside. Most of the kids were out in the courtyard or up on the fenced-in roof. But then, most kids weren’t going to fail because they couldn’t read and write Japanese.
One more stroke and then another. I leaned back to study my handiwork.
“Only fourteen-hundred kanji to go.” I moaned, flipping the page of my cram-school textbook. It wasn’t just learning the characters that was tough. They all had multiple ways of being read depending on which kanji they were paired with, or on the word origin, or other inconsistent reasons that just added up to me being illiterate.
I couldn’t go to international school. My life was here, at Suntaba. If Tomohiro had really stopped drawing, maybe we could enjoy a normal school life without having to worry about exploding pens for once.
I smiled. When had school in Japan become normal? But it was, and I wanted to belong. I had Yuki and Tanaka, and a million kanji to learn so I wouldn’t flunk out. That wasn’t the only problem I wanted to deal with. I was ready to conquer this Kami thing. I hoped Jun—Takahashi, I corrected myself—could give me some answers after school.
The library door creaked and I looked up.
“There you are,” said Yuki, and she turned, motioning into the hallway. Tanaka followed her in, both of them carrying furoshiki—wrapped bentou boxes. They put them down on the desk with a clatter and pulled up two squeaky chairs to join me. “How come you weren’t on the roof?”
“Ugh,” I said, pressing my forehead onto the desk. “Because I’m going to flunk out of Suntaba?”
“Extra kanji practice, huh?” said Tanaka.
I mumbled into the paper, “Any wisdom you’d like to impart?”
“Let me see,” Yuki said, pulling the book toward her.
“Hey,” Tanaka said, pointing at the character I’d just drawn. “I learned that one in third grade.”
“Seriously, Tan-kun, you’re not helping,” I said.
Yuki smiled. “You’ll get it, Katie.”
“There are just too many,” I said. I reached across the notebook for my chopsticks and yanked off a piece of the cold sweet egg Diane had rolled in the corner of my lunchbox.
Tanaka shook his head as he untied his blue furoshiki cloth. He lifted the lid off his bentou and shoved half a strawberry-cream sandwich into his mouth. “You’ll get it,” he said, his mouth full. “Faito, ne?”
“Exactly,” Yuki said. “Keep fighting, Katie. We won’t let them send you to another school. Let me look at this page, and then we’ll quiz you.”
I looked gratefully at them—Tanaka with his mouthful of cream and his glasses sliding down his nose, and Yuki with her nails painted in pink sparkles as she pulled my textbook toward her.
I couldn’t leave them for some other school. I belonged here.
“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks so much.”
Yuki smiled. “Atarimae jan,” she droned. “Of course we’d help you. We’re best friends.” She raised her hand in front of herself and clenched it into a fist. “Okay, Tan-kun, this is our new lunch spot. Every day we’ll help Katie until she can read kanji better than you.”
There are friendships you know will last for the rest of your life. It was like Yuki and Tanaka and my life in Japan had always been waiting for me, like I was always meant to come here. Even if Tomohiro might regret me coming back, I didn’t.
I loved my life here. And I would do anything to protect it from the ink.
* * *
Yuki and I stayed behind after class to wipe down the chalkboards. I dipped my cloth in a bucket of water and wrung it out, the drips trailing up my wrists as I cleaned.
“Yuki,” I said. It was just the two of us left, a chance to talk alone.
“Hmm?” She swished her rag around the other side of the board as we each got closer to the middle.
“Do Japanese girls usually cook for their boyfriends?” I felt stupid bringing it up, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Shiori had said. Maybe dating a guy from another culture had its own set of problems.
“Are you thinking of cooking for Yuu?” she said. “I bet he’d like cookies or maybe a jelly roll. No...that doesn’t sound right. Maybe something more traditional?” She clapped her hands together. “Wagashi! Japanese sweets.”
“I’m just wondering,” I said, leaning against Suzuki’s desk. “What kind of...expectations do Japanese guys have?”
Yuki scrunched her face up as she thought, twisting from side to side. “Well...I don’t think being able to cook is so important. Yuu cooks anyway, right? I think the main thing is not to hurt his pride.”
“His pride?”
“Yeah.” She squeezed out her cloth with her sparkly fingernails. “Guys care a lot about their pride. Dumb stuff like wanting to be taller than their girlfriends and stronger, too, and they care about their fashion and hair color because they want to look cool, right?”
“Tomo asked me to call Jun by his last name. That’s a pride thing, right?”
Yuki raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, that would be bad. I bet he was jealous. But, Katie, Yuu’s already kind of different. Some Japanese guys are too shy to date a foreigner for very long. They get nervous about their English, or they want a wife who will stay home. It’s confusing with a foreigner because you don’t know what to expect.”
She was listing all the things Shiori had said. Long-term, Tomo and I would have problems.
Yuki saw my expression and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, okay? You and Yuu have something special. I can see it. Just go day by day and you’ll be okay. Not all Japanese guys are the same, ne?”
“Thanks, Yuki.”
Yuki smiled. “Just be the strong woman you are, like me. If the guys can’t handle us, it’s their problem.” She was right, of course. I didn’t have to overthink this. And yet, everything Shiori had said echoed in my ears. Tomo and I had both lost our mothers; that and the ink bound us together. I thought he understood me better than anyone, but maybe we didn’t really know each other at all.
I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. Right now I had to focus on what had happened at Tokugawa’s shrine. I had to figure out what had happened, and for that, I needed someone who knew more than Tomo and I did.
After waving goodbye to Yuki, I headed toward Katakou School. I hadn’t exactly told Jun I was coming, but I hoped he was still on the same cram-school schedule as me. And since I was free, I crossed my fingers he would be, too.
I avoided the shortcut through Sunpu Castle. I was just too creeped out to go there, knowing the Kami met up there, adorned in their all-black outfits. Instead I took the street, walking along the other side of the Sunpu Park moat teeming with dark koi that lurched through the sluggish waters. Jun’s—Takahashi’s school was east of mine, but I’d had to map it to make sure I was going in the right direction. It also helped to make my way upstream of the mass of green-and-navy-uniformed students.
I slowed as I reached the iron gates of the school.
“Holy crap,” I said. The school was seven stories high, no lie, taller than the bare sakura trees in the courtyard. This school had money, no question about it. I mean, Suntaba was well-off, too, but this was a more impressive school than our students gave it credit for. A thick wall ran around the school boundary, and there was a brass plaque secured to the smooth white tiles. It read, .
Okay, Katie. Let’s see how well you’ve studied, I thought. This had to be Katakou, but I didn’t want to barge in without being sure. The last two kanji I knew from way back in my Japanese class in Albany, the one I took after Mom died. They read school. Well, that narrows it down. The first four I couldn’t read.
Damn! Why couldn’t I be fluent already? It was so frustrating.
A girl passed by in a navy blazer. She saw me staring at the sign and paused.
“Can I help you?” she asked in English.
I stared at her for a minute. Hearing English felt so foreign, and my tongue tripped over the once-familiar sounds. It was amazing how quickly you could forget who you used to be.
“I’m looking for Katakou School,” I answered in English. “Only I’m having kanji issues.”
The girl smiled. “This is Katakou,” she said, running her finger along the raised kanji on the brass sign. “Kataba Koutou Gakkou. Or Katakou for short.”
“Thanks,” I said. I’d heard the full name of the school before, in the change room at Kendo Club. The word kataba meant the edge of a sword, something strong and focused, dangerous when applied. But the first kanji alone, kata, meant fragment, broken, imperfect. Suntaba students liked to use it to poke fun at their kendo rivals. But I knew Katakou students commonly used another kanji for kata—strength. It was their response to all the jeering from schools like ours. They wrote it differently on the banners they brought into the kendo tournaments.
