The waiter brought the drinks in, and my heart froze when I saw him.
Ishikawa.
He stood there in his white apron, lowering the tray of drinks slowly onto our table.
“
Oi,
Tomo-kun’s friend, right?” Tanaka waved. “He’s from our school,” he told his cram-school buddies. “Sorry, I don’t know your name.…”
“Ishikawa-senpai,” Yuki supplied. “From the kendo team.”
Trust her to know everyone at school.
Ishikawa bowed swiftly, avoiding my gaze, and hurried back out the door, clicking our room shut.
The sight of him sent my thoughts racing again, back to the kendo match, the poison words that had soaked into me. What sort of things lurked in Tomohiro’s dark destiny?
Tanaka’s boisterous voice blurred into background noise while my thoughts swelled in my head. I couldn’t block them out.
“Katie?” Yuki said. I couldn’t breathe.
“I just need a sec,” I said and bolted past Tanaka into the hallway. In the bathroom I took out my
keitai
and dialed. I lifted it to my ear, listening to the tinny ring. It rang once, and I breathed. Again. It was only after a click and the recorded voice that I started to feel embarrassed, not even that I was running to him, but the reason why. Ishikawa hadn’t even said anything, and I was already running to Tomohiro for help, when he had one hundred times the burden to carry that I did and more to lose from dropping it.
He’d carried this frightening knowledge with him since elementary school, and I couldn’t even carry it through an evening.
I sighed and slipped my
keitai
into my purse, pushed the bathroom door open and headed down the hall to our karaoke room.
I crashed into Ishikawa in the hallway.
“Sorry!” I said out of instinct, before I saw his white-blond hair and his stark-white apron.
He smirked. “Yuuto know you’re on a date with Tanaka?”
“Get a life,” I said and tried to push past him. But then I saw the switchblade in his hand. He snicked it shut and shoved it into his pocket. “What the hell?” I said.
“You didn’t see anything,” he said, but I saw how his hand was shaking, just a little bit. He kept checking over his shoulder.
“Ishikawa—”
“Just get back in your karaoke room, okay?” He pushed my shoulder in the direction of the door.
“Watch it!” I said, startled.
He breathed out slowly through his teeth, the sigh sounding like
sssssss.
Then he said quietly, “I’m waiting for someone. So could you just get inside?” The edge of his tattoo was startling against the white of his uniform.
“You’re going to attack someone?” I whispered.
Ishikawa stared at me, annoyed. “No, stupid. It’s just, you know, in case.”
“Yuu doesn’t know, does he?” I said. “How far in you’re getting.”
He didn’t answer me. After a moment he glanced down the empty hall again, his fingers curling into a loose fist.
“Ishikawa.”
His eyes snapped to mine, and in them I saw the fear he was trying to hide. “Look, it’s too late to worry about that now. It would be a lot easier if he’d admit what he was and help me.”
I paled. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind,” he said, but I already knew what he meant.
Tomohiro was right—Ishikawa
was
suspicious he was a Kami.
“Just get in there.”
“Fine,” I said, but my heart was pounding. I opened the door of our room to the sound of Tanaka’s tone-deaf singing. I tried to shake off the icy reality that froze my thoughts solid. I couldn’t let on to Ishikawa that I knew—ever. And yet I couldn’t think about anything else, the wagtail falling in my thoughts over and over, filling me with cold dread.
“Maybe we should go,” I told Tanaka.
“One more song,” begged Yuki.
“Listen, Ishikawa is…” But no one was listening to me over the loud music. I opened the door a crack and peered down the hallway. Ishikawa had vanished.
The song finished up and after I pleaded with them, we finally packed up to go. I saw Ishikawa walking down the far end of the hallway, a tray of drinks balanced on his arm.
I guess whatever meeting it was had gone well and without puncture wounds.
But what about the meetings that didn’t?
On our way home, we passed a shrine in Mabuchi. The gate was locked, but floodlights illuminated the orange-and-green arch on the other side.
“Oh!” Tanaka said. “We should pray for the midterms coming up.”
“It’s closed,” Yuki said, motioning at the gate.
“You going to let a gate stand in the way of good marks?
Come on!” He started toward the stone wall.
“Count me out.” Yuki giggled, holding her hand over her mouth.
“Katie, you coming?”
“I’m fine.”
“You can pray for your kendo tournament.”
“I’ll stay here with Yuki,” I said. I didn’t mention that I would feel like a hypocrite breaking into a shrine to pray.
“Fine,” Tanaka said. His friend lifted him over the wall and we stood on our toes to watch him over the top of the gate. He bobbed down the gravel path toward the shrine, where a rope thicker than his fist hung down from a giant rusty bell. Tanaka dug in his pockets for change, and the coins rattled as they spilled into the big wooden tithe box.
He grabbed hold of the fat, braided rope and swung it violently from side to side, until the bell jingled and clanged.
He clapped his hands twice and bowed his head, but then a light flicked on from an adjacent building and he raced for the gate, laughing and gasping as his friends pulled him back over. We took off, thundering down the streets to outrun the robed, groggy priest.
“You rang it too loudly!” Yuki shrieked between terrified giggles.
“That’s so the
kami
will hear me!” Tanaka shouted back, and I wondered if anyone would want to get their attention if they knew the truth, what they were capable of. What had really happened to Koji.
What could happen to me.
I wasn’t sure I could ever go back to Toro Iseki again, knowing Tomohiro’s drawings really were alive and possibly wanted me dead, or at least maimed by pointy teeth.
On top of that, as dumb as it seemed in comparison, I was afraid of seeing him after he’d held me. Even if I’d felt the shift from rivalry to friendship, opening like
sakura
buds on the trees, it didn’t make it any easier to face the blossom it had become. We felt the same before and the same after, but something had changed, so that when I thought about him my arms prickled with goose bumps.
I watched the senior kendo drills in the last practice before the ward tournament, Tomohiro and Ishikawa moving in unison through the practice katas. I wondered how they could claim to be best friends when there was so much darkness between them; I wondered if Tomohiro would be pissed at Ishikawa for the you’re-weak speech he’d given me.
He’d better be.
Saturday finally arrived, and despite my pestering not to, Diane came to watch the tournament. She probably thought it was what mothers did, but she looked too genuine to just be filling a role. Anyway, she made a better aunt than a mother.
Maybe the pieces were starting to fit after all.
I knelt in
seiza
with the other juniors, waiting for our turn to present katas. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t the most elegant
kendouka
out there, but I was proud that I’d come from unknowing to knowing, and I performed every move carefully.
I stepped with calculation, striking my
shinai
with loud cracks of bamboo. I stared down my opponent from behind the bars of my
men
and felt alive. I saw Diane’s jaw drop in the stands, but it only made me scream harder.
In the corner of my eye, I saw the senior match unfolding across the host gym; the way the student moved, I knew it was Tomohiro. A red scarf dangled from the back of his
men,
but the referees moved their red-and-white flags so quickly that before I could see whether he’d made a hit, my eyes flickered back to my own opponent.
Seeing Tomohiro brought everything back, and my heart raced under the hard shell of the
dou
laced around my chest.
The secret, so dangerous I could never share it with anyone, had left me with nightmares about the Yakuza kidnapping my mom—until I woke drenched in sweat and remembered she was already gone.
I couldn’t stand it anymore—feeling helpless, useless, trapped in the bars of my
men
cage. Knowing the ink was after me, knowing that one wrong word could put the Yakuza on my tail. I shrieked at the top of my lungs and cracked the
shinai
down on my opponent.
“Point!” the referees shouted, and three white flags lifted from their sides. The match ended; I lost, but damn that point felt good. Now I knew why Tomohiro had taken ref-uge in kendo.
My set completed, I untied my helmet. Sweat trickled down my neck from under my headband, so I pulled that off as well and wiped at my face.
I heard a familiar
kiai
shout. Tomohiro.
I moved quietly along the lines of watching students. Watanabe saw me and motioned at an empty spot where I knelt to watch the match, my
shinai
lined up at my side.
The guy fighting Tomohiro, a white ribbon tied to his back, was about half a foot taller and his shoulders broader.
His footwork was tidy and fast, and he dodged attacks as if Tomohiro were stuck to the floor.
The guy’s
kiai
rattled through my rib cage and turned my insides to jelly. I’d heard lots of different shouts in practice, and they came in all kinds; Ishikawa’s was one of the worst, the way it shook around in my head. But this guy’s was controlled, less ruthless than Ishikawa’s. It was chilling, although it was hard to put my finger on exactly why. Maybe because it was so cold, so emotionally vacant, like this match wasn’t even an effort for him. Like he would snap you in two without a second thought.
“Point!” the referee shouted. My eyes flicked over to see the white flags rise. I wondered if the humidity in the gym had finally gotten to Tomohiro. The only opponent who ever gave him trouble was Ishikawa. But Watanabe had warned us about the caliber of the Katakou School team, and I watched with dread as the match ended.
Tomohiro missed a final
tsuki
hit and lost the match.
He pulled the
men
from his shoulders, and Ishikawa handed him a bottle of water. He gulped it down, the sweat rolling down his neck, spikes of copper hair poking out of his headband.
There was a final match—Ishikawa against the guy Tomohiro couldn’t beat. Tomohiro walked over and knelt beside me, resting his
shinai
on the floor with a clack.
“He’s tough,” he whispered, and I felt the heat of his breath on my ear. He said it just like that, as if nothing else had happened between us. I hated him for the way he could be so casual. I also hated him for making my insides melt just by sitting next to me.
“He’s from Katakou, right?” I asked, pretending I didn’t feel awkward.
He nodded. “Their star
kendouka.
He placed sixth in the nationals last year. Takahashi.”
So this was the famous Takahashi. “Doesn’t look that special.”
Tomohiro snorted. “I think that’s part of the act.”
Ishikawa and Takahashi were circling each other now.
They held each other at sword’s length,
shinai
clacking against each other as they stepped round and round.
Ishikawa lunged. It was a move that had scored a point against me in practice, but Takahashi parried and struck for the
men.
Ishikawa slipped out of the way, retreating across the arena until they were apart again.
“Okay, so maybe he’s good,” I admitted.
Tomohiro sat forward, eyes narrowed. I knew he was looking at the way Takahashi moved, the mistakes Tomohiro had made that had led to his defeat.
But Takahashi seemed f lawless as he parried Ishikawa’s next hit, and the next, and the time ticked by without either having a single point.
Ishikawa stumbled, wavering from foot to foot.
“It’s the heat,” Tomohiro murmured. Takahashi noticed, too, and lunged, swinging from the right.
“Point!” shouted the referees, lifting three white flags.
“Shit.” Tomohiro cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Sato!
Ganbare!
”
Takahashi sprung forward. He leaned a little too far and Ishikawa smacked his
shinai
into the
dou.
“Point!” Three red flags flashed upward.
“Yes!” Watanabe-sensei clapped from the sidelines.
Takahashi shifted to the left and then struck to the right, but Ishikawa blocked just in time. The loud crack echoed to the rafters.
Takahashi didn’t let up. He lunged over and over, forcing Ishikawa into a corner.
Crack, crack,
crack.
The jarring
kiais
and the pounding of feet on the floor.
Takahashi swung; Ishikawa sidestepped and brought his
shinai
down hard. This was his chance.
The sword exploded on impact, huge splinters of wood spraying across the floor. The leather binding the slats together unraveled as what was left of the
shinai
connected with Takahashi’s head.
The shards clattered onto the f loor, into a tiny pool of dark blood.
The match stopped instantly. A tournament medic ran forward to check the two were all right and to find the source of the blood.
Only it wasn’t blood. I could see that, even if they couldn’t.
Because it was like my pen all over again.
I glared at Tomohiro. He only shook his head like it wasn’t his fault.
I started making a mental list of schools I could transfer to.
Ishikawa stooped to the tiny puddle and ran his fingers through. He looked over at Tomohiro. Takahashi followed his gaze and looked at us.
My heart almost burst from my chest. Could they tell I knew something? Did they know it was us? If they did, Ishikawa was going to have a
lot
of questions.