Ink

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 of low buildings, built with earth-quakes in mind. Yuki chattered excitedly about how we were going almost two hundred miles per hour, but it just made my ears pop and ache the whole way.

Yuki and I got off the bullet train in Hiroshima and switched to the local trains for the big red-and-white ferry to Miyajima. We saw the giant o-Torii gate in the distance, an archway of bright orange reflected in the deep blue water.

Itsukushima Shrine splayed out on its stilt legs above the tide, which swelled around the barnacle-encrusted base of the snaking orange hallways. Against the blue of the sky and the dark green forested mountains, the sight took my breath away.

Yuki squeezed my arm. “It’s beautiful, right? It’s the one thing I like about visiting my brother.”

I grinned. “Is he that awful?”

“Worse,” she said, and we laughed. I breathed in the smell of the sea, the motor of the ferry whirring in my ears. And in the back of my mind, I felt the happy thrill of a summer vacation with friends.

But whenever I closed my eyes, the imprint of the ink dragon leaped at me, Ishikawa’s words filling me with doubt and dread. What sort of world was Tomohiro walking into at his kendo training retreat? Could he hold out against Ishikawa?

And if there really was a secret society of Kami—a dangerous one at that—why the hell didn’t he tell me? Did he really not know? So how come Ishikawa did? As if the Yakuza were really the good guys, and I was supposed to fall for that.

But no matter how I played the scene out in my head, I was never fully convinced that I’d figured it out. It didn’t add up.

The ferry docked and Yuki’s brother was there, waving wildly at us.

“Niichan!” Yuki shouted.

“Yuki!” he shouted back.

Niichan was short and slender, and looked an awful lot like Yuki. They had the same round, warm face, and the same willowy fingers.

“So good to see you,” he said, when we’d finally docked at the Miyajima Terminal. “And this is your friend Katie?”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, and we bowed to each other.

“I’m Watabe Sousuke,” Niichan said. “But you can call me Niichan, too, if you like.”

“Thanks.” I smiled. I’d never had any siblings, and it was nice to have a brother, even if he was a surrogate.

He took our suitcases, one in each hand, and loaded them into his white three-wheeled truck. We puttered up a few side streets and then scaled the side of the mountain.

He pulled into a narrow driveway and there it was, a little two-room house halfway up the mountainside and out of the way of the tourists. The view was amazing, the ocean stretching out to tiny islands that rose from its depths. From the inside of the house, the roar of the waves was a gentle lapping, a pleasant sound that filled the house.

Niichan put our suitcases in the corner of the main room and then walked over to the little stove to boil some water.

He made us each a cup of tea, and we sat down together on the tatami floor.

“Yuki’s glad you could come this year,” he said, passing a plate of cookies. I sat up straight on my knees, ready to put into practice what I’d learned at Tea Ceremony Club. But Yuki sat with her legs sprawled to the side, so I collapsed, too, relieved but a little deflated. So much for tea-ceremony stud-ies. “She always complains about how bored she is.”

“How could you be bored here? It’s beautiful!”

Yuki groaned. “It’s beautiful,” she said, “and tiny. Once you’ve been here every summer for the last four years, it starts to wear on you.”

“Well, at least you can show Katie around this time, ne? ”

Niichan said, and I blushed at the familiarity of hearing my first name from a stranger. I guess I’d been in Japan long enough for it to affect me like that. “Listen, Katie, if you’re interested, I can show you around Itsukushima Shrine.”

“Isn’t that the one we saw from the ferry?”

Yuki nodded. “Niichan works there.”

My eyes almost popped out of my head. “You’re a monk?”

He laughed. “No, no,” he said. “Just a caretaker. I main-tain the website for the priests, clean the grounds, lead tours, that sort of thing.”

“Oh.” But my heart was still pounding. If he worked at a Shinto shrine, wouldn’t he know a lot about Kami?

After the tea, we took a walk along the shoreline of Miyajima, the giant orange arch of Itsukushima in the distance. We had dinner at a café, and on the way home, Niichan bought us each a maple leaf–shaped custard cake, the pastry warm in our hands. He laid out futons for us in the living room, which was also the kitchen, and was now a bedroom. He slept in the other room, which was his bedroom and had a Western-style bed in it. Diane’s mansion had Western beds, too, and I wasn’t used to the tatami pressing against my spine through the thin futon as I tried to sleep. Yuki and I whispered for a while, but when she fell asleep I stared into the darkness, listening to the lapping of the ocean outside the window.

Suntaba School and my life there felt so far away, the happiness and the danger Tomohiro brought into my world. I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to get mixed in with gangsters and secret societies. I wished I’d fallen for Tanaka, that I’d called Tomohiro on the jerk he was and just stayed away from him. But I’d seen the real him, that he was deeper and different and changed. Now I couldn’t imagine a world without him in it. My heart was glass—easy to see through, simple to break.

I wondered if this was how Mom had felt after Dad. It was enough to make me swear off boys forever.

The ocean breeze blew in through the window, the rich, salty smell of the sea pressing against my face. I thought of riding the horse through Toro Iseki, galloping freely through the clearing and laughing until tears swelled at the corners of our eyes and our stomachs ached.

A buzzing noise sounded in my purse. My keitai. I pulled back the futon duvet and crawled over the scratchy tatami, fumbling around in the bag until my fingers touched the cool metal. The darkness flooded with rainbow colors as I flipped open the top.

A text from Tomohiro. Of course.

How is Miyajima? Training started today. Katakou’s sensei is tough. Sato thinks you and I are spending too much time together. He’s joking that you’re seeing Takahashi on the side. —Tomo

I read the message again, scouring it for the messages hidden underneath. If Ishikawa thought we were spending too much time together, it must mean he was pestering Tomohiro about the Kami thing. My cheeks flushed when I read about Jun. Was he actually worried about it? I didn’t want to explain myself and come off looking dumb. Or worse, defensive.

I thought carefully, then typed a response.

Miyajima is beautiful, more fun than a sweaty old kendo summer. I only saw Takahashi at Sunpu when Ishikawa was being a—I deleted what I’d originally put, and tried again—

jerk.

I stared at it for a while, then clicked Send. I couldn’t risk any hidden messages of my own, anything that might give him away. I hoped my concern went with the message, because I was out of my mind over here on this tranquil island, unable to do anything to help.

In the morning, we took the ropeway up the mountain and searched for monkeys with Niichan’s binoculars. When the afternoon got too hot, we had plenty of summer homework to keep us occupied in the little house while we blasted the air-con.

Niichan and I went for a walk while Yuki perfected her chicken curry for dinner. We talked about the weather, the sights in Miyajima, about New York and Canada, and my life straddled between the two. When we reached Itsukushima Shrine, we wandered straight in, walking along the boardwalk planks above the water, through the long tunnels of orange and white that snaked along the building.

“Niichan,” I said, looking down at the big koi circling the stilts of the shrine.

“Hmm?”

“Could you tell me about the kami? ”

“There are so many.” He laughed. “Here at Itsukushima the principal kami are the three daughters of Susanou.”

“Susanou,” I said. The name sounded familiar.

Niichan nodded. “The god of storms,” he said. “Amaterasu’s brother.”

My blood froze, but I forced my feet on so Niichan wouldn’t notice. Amaterasu was the source of power, Tomohiro had said. All the Kami’s abilities came from her.

“Do you—do you think,” I stuttered, hoping I wouldn’t sound ridiculous. I squeezed my eyes shut. “Do you think the kami were real?”

Niichan’s footsteps stopped. I opened my eyes and saw his face creased in all sorts of worry lines. I’d gone too far now, I thought, but then he smiled. “All I know is that there is a lot of power in the shrines,” he said. “If you pray, you get your wish, you know? I’ve seen it happen many times.”

“But what about… I mean, what about the ink-wash drawings some of the priests do? Do you think there’s power in those?”

I’d overdone it; he was looking at me funny. We reached the other end of the boardwalk and turned toward the main shrine in the center.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that there are those who have great talents in this world. And surely these talents are given for a purpose.”

I wondered what purpose Tomohiro’s ability had, what this dark curse on him could be for.

“Listen, there’s something I think you’d be interested to see,” he said as we neared the main shrine. Past the slotted wooden box for tithes was an old wooden door, and Niichan stopped outside it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small ring of keys, then unlocked the door and slid it to the side, revealing a dark, dusty room. He flicked on the light switch as we stepped inside.

“These are some of the national treasures we keep here at the shrine,” he said. “Some of them are very old, so we rotate the collection and keep them in this fireproof room.”

The room smelled of antiques, ancient wood and lacquer, dust and straw tatami on the floor. In the middle of the ceiling hung a square lamp, which cast shadows on the statues and paintings covering the walls. Fierce dogs of stone, teeth bared; bronze statues of bald-headed, chubby priests or princes or who knew what. Colorful woodblock paintings and several ink-wash landscapes.

“They’re beautiful,” I said. It was strange to think of all the history silently locked away in this room, half-forgotten.

“I thought you’d be interested because of the paintings you mentioned.” He smiled. “Many of these pieces are hundreds of years old, saved from the various fires Itsukushima Shrine went through. Some are more recent, of course.”

I approached one of the woodblocks, a painting in three panels shadowed by the square lamp above. A man stretched backward in agony, women and what might be diplomats in bright kimonos in desperate prayer beside him. Around him swirled horrible green-skinned demons and red-faced monsters, hands reaching for him and flames spiraling into inky darkness. The chaos in it unnerved me.

“That’s one of the most priceless in our collection,” Niichan said behind me. “One of the last woodblocks by Yoshitoshi.”

“Who’s the man?” I said, pointing to the arch of his back as he recoiled from the apparitions. The room felt stuffy, too warm for my liking.

“Taira no Kiyomori,” Niichan said. “A powerful leader in older times. He funded the restoration of this shrine in the twelfth century, which is why we have so many pieces relating to him. He was vicious at times, merciful at others, but very ambitious. He controlled Japanese politics by force for many years, creating ranks of samurai in the government.

He even forced the emperor to abdicate so he could place his own son on the throne.”

“Is that why all the demons?” I said, staring at the painting. I felt ill just looking at it, and yet I couldn’t look away.

A bead of sweat rolled down my face.

“Ah.” Niichan nodded. “When Taira was older, he fell into a horrible fever. Vivid nightmares every night, demons approaching him, shadow monsters whispering horrible things.

His fever burned everyone who touched him, they say. Eventually it killed him.”

My heart pounded in my ears. A powerful man with ties to the imperial family, hunted by nightmares until they killed him. Could he be a Kami, too?

And suddenly I saw that the flames in the picture were moving, f lickering back and forth in the inky darkness. I jumped back.

“Daijoubu?” Niichan asked.

“I’m not okay,” I whispered. “I thought I saw… There!

Did you see it?”

“What?”

Of course he’d think I was crazy. But I knew I’d seen it.

“Never mind,” I said, backing away from the woodblock. “It must be the heat. Do you guys keep this room so warm to preserve the treasures or something?”

“Katie,” Niichan said, and I looked at him. Suddenly the room was freezing.

“What’s going on?” I said, and Niichan’s face twisted with confusion.

“You saw the flames move, didn’t you?”

“What do you mean? That’s impossible,” I lied. Niichan shook his head.

“You felt the fire. Taira was a Kami, Katie, and so was Yoshitoshi, who painted this piece. But if you saw it move—

I don’t understand.” He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know how, Katie, but I think you’re a Kami.”

Reality shattered, everything around me slowing. “Me?”

“If you weren’t, the flames wouldn’t have danced for you.

Yoshitoshi’s Kami bloodline was faint. His ink only reacts to those whose Kami blood has been awakened.”

“I’m…I’m not…”

“You know what a Kami is,” Niichan said, and shocked by his words, I nodded. There was no sense denying it. “You’d have to know, to ask me the questions you did. Your drawings move, don’t they?”

“They don’t.” Except one time, but Tomohiro had been there. “And I couldn’t be a Kami.” I lifted a tangle of blond hair in my hand.

“That’s true,” Niichan said. “It shouldn’t be reacting to you, but it is. You must be tied to the Kami somehow. Why?”

I don’t know. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? That’s why Tomohiro’s drawings are going haywire. “Niichan,” I said, nervous to spill the secret. “I know someone who—whose drawings move. But it’s worse when I’m around. The ink jumps off the page.”

Niichan’s eyebrows shot up. “You know such a powerful Kami? Be careful, Katie. Most aren’t capable of such things.

And if you’re influencing the ink, then it might be best if you don’t go near this Kami. Who knows what could happen?”

Like a dragon lifting into the sky? Too late.

“How do you know about Kami anyway?” I said. “You’re…

you’re not one, are you?”

He shook his head. “You just hear things when you work at a shrine, especially one with ancient connections like Itsukushima. Most people have forgotten about Kami. I shouldn’t even let on that I know, but you’re Yuki’s friend.

I was worried when you started asking about drawings having power.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s hard to find anything out about the Kami. I guess it’s a big secret to keep.”

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 the one person it shouldn’t be. Ishikawa would put it together, the strange jagged wound on Tomohiro’s wrist appearing on the same day a dragon lifted into the sky.

“Oh,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “I’m sorry you heard from me. He probably didn’t want to worry you.

Training was okay after that, don’t worry, but it just seemed like an awfully deep wound. It’s a shame, with the tournament coming up. And Ishikawa said Yuu is so good at calligraphy, so he’ll have to take a break from that, too. I hope it heals up.”

“Oh,” I finally squeaked out.

“Give him my regards, okay? Hope he is all healed up for the prefecture finals.” He gave a friendly wave and curved out the door.

As soon as I paid for my unagi and purin, I bolted out the door and down the dark streets. I turned down the alleyways, not even thinking of my own safety. I almost crashed into a boy on a bike as I twisted through the streets, until the houses got bigger and the crowds got smaller.

I didn’t stop until the iron gate was in sight. My lungs burned as I hunched over, panting, the crinkle of my conbini bag the only other sound in the thick night air. I pressed my hand against the cold metal nameplate above the intercom button. Once I’d caught my breath, I pushed the button in.

The metal gate was closed.

“Yes?” came a tinny voice across the intercom, and a thought fired through my brain.

Tomohiro.

But a moment later I realized it wasn’t Tomohiro but an older, rougher version of his voice. His dad.

“I’m looking for Yuu Tomohiro,” I said.

“He’s out” came the reply.

“I really need to talk to him,” I said, because really, what else could I say?

“Sorry.” The voice vibrated through the speaker. “I don’t know where he is. You could try his keitai. ”

Because that had worked so well over the past week.

“Thank you,” I said and turned down the street, wondering where to go next.

Toro Iseki, obviously, but as soon as I started sprinting down the street, I slowed down. There’s no way he’d be there, not this late. Would he?

I imagined his drawings fluttering through the darkness, as white as ghosts.

I flipped open my keitai, staring at his phone number on the bright screen. My finger circled the send button, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it again. It started to dawn on me, the only things I knew for sure: Yuu Tomohiro was not kidnapped by the Yakuza (yes, I had been worried about this).

Yuu Tomohiro’s wrist was seriously injured, more than he’d let on. And Ishikawa had seen it.

Yuu Tomohiro was avoiding me.

My heart felt like it had collapsed in on itself. Was that last one really true? Was it all in my head? There was this nagging unsettled feeling, like the balance of the world was tipping.

I twisted through the streets, not sure where to go. Toro Iseki was a long way to go if I was wrong, and I felt like I was. With his wrist that damaged, could he really draw anything? And would he want to draw anymore, after what had happened?

It’s worth my life, but it isn’t worth yours.

Was my life for sure at risk?

I had to find him. I stared down the street, the lights of Shizuoka blurring as I spun my head around. He was somewhere. I just had to figure it out.

I walked back to Shizuoka Station; it wasn’t like I had a better idea, and the station was the central nerve of the city.

On a board in the station, tourist flyers splayed out of little cubbyholes. Most of them had majestic views of Fuji or Shizuoka tea fields sprawled across them, but one was for Toro Iseki. I flipped the brochure open and saw the open hours.

Definitely closed by now, but that wouldn’t stop Tomohiro anyway. I debated about the twenty-minute bus ride, the long walk back if I was wrong. And if I was wrong, I sure didn’t want to break into Toro Iseki at dark. I shuddered, imagining my hand touching the wet snakeskin of the dragon, though of course his body was long gone by now.

Some places in the city didn’t close when the sun set.

Ramen-noodle-house signs gleamed in the darkness. Conbini stores glowed with their shiny mopped floors. I snuck a peek at the café where we’d had dinner together, but no luck.

What else might be open?

And what was Tomohiro thinking anyway, running off to places at night where I couldn’t find him? Didn’t he have entrance exams to worry about? And didn’t he need every spare moment of study time in between all those practices for the kendo tournament?

I stopped dead in the whirlwind of travelers that pulsed around the station.

Kendo.

I ran through Sunpu Park under the dim lamplight and the bare sakura branches, past lovers and friends strolling through, salarymen stumbling home from nights of drinking with coworkers. I ran until my lungs burned, until the roof of Sunpu Castle gleamed in the distant moonlight, and then I crossed the northern bridge toward Suntaba School.

I had to make sure Tomohiro was okay. Had Ishikawa backed off? No more swarming with creepy Yakuza members? After talking to Jun, I had to know. I had to know if everything was all right.

Most of the lights in the school had blinked out and it looked deserted, empty, like the shell of a distant memory.

Deserted except for the bright f luorescent lights that gleamed from the gym doorway.

I ran toward the door, my lungs about to burst and my legs about to give way. The warm light from the gym spread across the shadows of the rear courtyard, lighting up the tennis-court lines in a ghostly shade of yellow.

I stopped as I reached the open door, pressing myself against the frame as I peered in.

Tomohiro was inside, alone and decked out in kendo armor, swinging his shinai through the air. He turned, moving through the katas and kiri-kaeshis like a dancer in slow motion, silently at first, then with shouts of determination.

Even from here I could see how unsatisfied he was with the movements. He’d swipe through the air, curse as he walked back into place, then strike again. The shinai shook in his hands; he lost his grip and the sword fell an inch—not at lot, but enough to distinguish a point from a miss.

It wasn’t like him to struggle with the easier movements.

It took me five seconds to realize it was his wrist, because although the strength in a shinai swing comes from the left hand, it’s the right that guides the hit. And Tomohiro’s was going all over the place.

He swore and got back into place, shaking his head, clearing his thoughts. He thrust again, swung for a hit. He got it, but then the shinai fell again; better than I could do, but not like him at all.

I watched him struggle. I wasn’t sure what to do, whether I should let him know I was there. But why did I go all the way to Suntaba if I wasn’t even going to talk to him?

I stepped into the splash of artificial lights and walked toward him. He noticed me after a moment, lowering the shinai and pulling the men off his shoulders. I tried not to notice the way he stared at me, surprised and silent. I tried to stay focused on the fact that he was possibly avoiding me, and not to let on that I knew. Or to come off all mad at him. Something like that.

“You’re back,” he said, advancing toward me across the gym floor.

I squeezed the grain of annoyance in my mind as it struggled to get away.

“We got back this morning,” I said.

“Okaeri.” His voice was too gentle, passive almost. The whole thing felt off.

“Thanks. How about you? You’re hard at work, I see.”

“Yeah, well…” And he looked away. Was he avoiding me because he was embarrassed about his wrist? Or maybe the kissing in his living room? Now that I thought about it, it was kind of awkward.

“Um…so how was the training retreat?” I said. I’m connected to the Kami, I wanted to blurt out, but everything about him felt weird. He started to unbuckle the armor and reached for his water bottle on the bench nearby.

“Fine,” he said. “I might have learned enough of Takahashi’s moves to beat him next time.”

“Great,” I said. “And Ishikawa?”

“Ishikawa’s fast,” he said, chugging down the water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and screwed the lid back onto the bottle. “But there’s a good chance we won’t be paired in the tournament. Usually they don’t pit team members against each other.”

“Oh.” Pause. “So, um, how is your wrist doing?”

He hesitated and stopped pulling off his glove so it sat there half on, half off, the laces dangling down.

“I mean because of before,” I said. His eyes were glaring, like I’d hit a sore spot. But he didn’t know Jun had told me about it, right? I could just be innocently asking.

“It’s fine,” he said, grabbing the fingers of the glove and yanking it off, dropping his arm down before I could see.

Jeez, touchy much?

“That’s great,” I said. “So Ishikawa…?”

Another pause. “We’re getting along fine.”

I felt like I was standing in the middle of a quiet street, just waiting to get run over. Why was his voice so cold?

Then, as he looked into my eyes, his voice softened. He untied the tare around his waist and placed it with the rest of the armor. I noticed the new headband in his hair, not a bloodstain on it. He pulled it backward off his head, and his copper hair flopped down around his ears.

“Did you have fun in Miyajima?”

“Yeah, it was okay.” I might be a Kami. I couldn’t say it. It felt wrong, like I was intruding on the pain he suffered. But Niichan’s alternative, keeping my distance from Tomohiro—it scared me more. “I…I went to a Shinto shrine. I think maybe I learned why the ink moves.”

“What?”

I swallowed. “What if I’m a Kami, Tomo?”

He stared at me for a moment.

“You can’t be,” he said.

“What if there’s some other way, though? What if I’m connected somehow?”

“Do you have nightmares?” he said. “Like the ones I told you about?”

“What? No.”

“Then you’re not. All Kami have nightmares.” I thought of the painting of Taira no Kiyomori, the demons and shadows encircling him. “Not all Kami’s drawings move, right?

But all Kami have the nightmares.”

“Oh.” Niichan hadn’t said that.

“There’s some other reason you’re moving the ink. I’m not sure why. But don’t worry about it, okay? You’re not a monster, not like me. Ii ka? ”

“O-okay.”

“Good.” He stooped down and packed his shinai, gloves and hakama into his navy sports bag, carrying the rest to the storage room at the back of the gym. “So…want to go for some ramen?”

Not really. Why was it so awkward?

“Sure.”

When I got home, the phone was ringing. I hurried over to pick it up, but when I heard the voice on the other end, my mistake occurred to me.

“How’d you know I’d be here?” I said, scrambling for an excuse. Diane did half a laugh on the phone.

“I’d be more surprised if you weren’t,” she said. “C’mon, what teenager doesn’t want the house to herself for a week?”

“Diane, I promise, I’ll be really careful and take good care of myself.”

“I know,” she said. “If I thought you’d throw a house party, I’d have confiscated your key.”

“Does that mean—?”

“Yes, yes.” She sighed. “You can stay. But if anything happens, you call Yuki’s mom, okay?”

“I will,” I promised.

“So how was Miyajima?”

“Really nice.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I brought some manju home. You know, those cakes with custard in them.”

“Oh, that’s even better. Try and save some until I get home.”

“I will.”

“What did you have for dinner tonight?”

I stared at the unagi bentou, still in the bag. I wondered if it was ruined by now.

“Unagi,” I said. She didn’t say anything for a minute. “Diane?”

“I’m here,” she said. “It’s just, you’re sounding…well, not so much like a gaijin anymore.” Diane laughed, and even though I felt like I should be annoyed, I felt kind of proud. “Just like Nan,” she said. “You could be planted anywhere and bloom.”

“Comes with the genes,” I said. “Well, I mean, for you and me.” Mom had only wanted to bloom in familiar ter-ritory. I don’t think she would have gone for shrimp chips and seaweed.

“I’m in Osaka for a few more days and then I’ll be back, okay? Call me if you need anything.”

“I will.”

“Love you,” Diane said, and before I could answer, she hung up.

“Love you, too,” I said to the dial tone.

I put the unagi in the fridge and went into my room to pull on my pajamas. I sprawled out on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

I thought about how dim Tomohiro’s eyes had been, not lit up the way they were when he was happy or even when he was delighting in being a jerk. Was he really so upset about his wrist?

I rolled onto my side and curled up. It made sense when I thought about it. He’d had to quit calligraphy, the one thing he loved, because of this dark ability. And now the other passion in his life, kendo, was tainted, too. He couldn’t get away from this power, a dark inkblot on his life that controlled him unless he could find a way to control it.

So far, the ink was winning.