But it was hard to believe in dumplings over flowers when I reached the southern moat and stepped onto the arch of the Sunpu bridge. The beauty took my breath away, and for a minute I believed I could live off the flowers alone.
The entire park was bathed in pink, thousands of petals floating on the breeze as if it were raining
sakura.
The papery petals caught in my hair, on my uniform and on the leather of my book bag. Cherry blossoms littered the gravel paths, the bright green grass and the sluggish moats that pulled the petals from the park.
I walked slowly toward the castle, watching the petals falling. It was like an alien rain, something I had never experienced before. The crowds in the park were huge, salarymen, families and friends all gathered on tarps at the base of the cherry trees. They shared food as they laughed, beer cans and tea bottles lining the edges of the blankets. I closed my eyes, walking slowly, feeling the petals as they grazed my skin and floated downward. For the first time, I felt truly happy in Shizuoka, carrying my special
bentou
in a forest of pink under the clear sky.
I rounded the corner to shouts and howling laughter. Three guys—younger than me, probably thirteen or so—and one girl, who dabbed at her eyes with her
seifuku
sleeve. One of the boys chugged away at a can of something or other I couldn’t read, and another held the girl’s book bag up in the air, laughing.
“Give it back!” she begged, but the boys snorted and passed the can back and forth, tossing the book bag out of her reach to each other.
I stood there frozen. No way could I take on three punks, even if they were younger than me, but I had to do something.
I stepped forward, taking a deep breath.
A voice echoed through the park.
“
Oi!
Leave her alone.”
The boys looked up as a student from Suntaba stepped forward, petals clinging to the buttons of his open blazer.
My mind churned—Tomohiro. The boys swore at him, and I secretly hoped he’d back off. They looked like seriously bad news.
But he swore back, apparently with a worse word, because one of the guys threw his can down and started rolling up his sleeves. They dropped the book bag, forgotten, and the girl raced over to pick it up. She darted away, running past me so fast that the breeze rushed against my face. The three came at him, shouting. Tomohiro lifted his hands slowly, and panic shot through me.
There’s no way he can handle three of them, even if he does get
into a lot of fights.
The boy with the rolled-up sleeves swung at Tomohiro, but he ducked and pulled the guy’s arm so hard that I thought it might rip from the socket. The second guy lunged and clipped Tomohiro’s face, but Tomohiro swung his leg around and kicked the guy at the back of his knees. He stumbled forward and Tomohiro punched him in the back, shoving him into the third guy.
Rolled Sleeves was up again, and he kicked hard. With three of them, there was no way Tomohiro could avoid all the blows. The blood trickled down his face.
And just when his bruise from Myu was fading.
Then Tomohiro took hold of one of the wiry boys and threw him through the air. The boy’s awkward body arced, suspended for a minute among the falling petals, and then thudded hard against the sharp gravel. In a minute he was up again, running across the park followed by the second guy.
Tomohiro grabbed Rolled Sleeves’ collar and walked him backward, shoving him against the fence that overlooked the deep, cold moat. Tomohiro muttered something and Rolled Sleeves flinched. Tomohiro dropped him, wiping at the blood dripping from his nose.
But as Tomohiro walked away, the boy stood up slowly and pulled out a switchblade.
Oh my god.
My legs started moving before I could think. “Watch out!”
I screamed, running at Tomohiro. He looked up in surprise and then saw the boy behind him. He caught the boy’s arm as it swung down, squeezing his wrist hard until he dropped the blade. I grabbed it from the ground and threw it into the river, where it was sucked into the water with a sploosh.
“Teme!”
the boy shrieked at me.
“You need some manners!” Tomohiro shouted and punched the boy so hard I could hear the crack of his nose as it snapped.
Rolled Sleeves felt around his nose as the blood soaked his chin. He stumbled to his feet and took off, swearing at Tomohiro. Tomohiro swore back and the boy sped up.
The blood trickled down Tomohiro’s face as he heaved in every breath.
“Are you—are you okay?” I said.
Tomohiro nodded, his shoulders moving up and down as he panted. “You?” he said.
“I’m fine.”
He wiped at his nose with the back of his arm, and as he dropped it down again, I saw a gash across the skin.
“He cut you.” I panicked.
“What?”
“On your wrist!”
He looked down, then quickly pushed the cuff of his sleeve down.
“Just an old injury. It’s nothing,” he said.
It didn’t look like nothing.
“Thanks,” he said finally. “For the warning.”
“Um, no problem,” I said.
He paused. “But just for your own safety, maybe you shouldn’t run toward boys with knives. You know, in the future.” The corner of his mouth lifted as he tried to keep the grin off his face.
I found myself grinning back. “I’m sorry, are you insult-ing me after I saved your butt?”
He laughed, and the warmth of the sound spread through me.
“I’m just saying you should avoid running toward sharp objects and dangerous guys.”
“Like you,” I said. It just popped out—I didn’t mean it to.
The grin faded, and he was serious again. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Like me.” He kicked the toe of his shoe into the gravel. “
Che!
What the hell am I doing?” He turned, his shoulders lifting with a breath, and then he ran.
“Wait,” I said. “I just wanted to—”
The gravel sprayed across the grass, tiny drops of blood clinging to the stones. Except, some of the drops didn’t look like blood. They oozed like…like black ink.
The shower of pink petals rained down.
I stepped forward, one foot, then the other, numb to the beauty of the park. I bent down and lifted one of the stones.
The droplet of ink spilled onto the side of my finger before dripping back to the ground.
He’d been warm, laughing, the weight of something lifted.
And then he’d stopped.
What the hell am I doing?
he’d said.
What are you doing, Yuu?
He was keeping something secret, something about the ink. He wanted me to stay away. But he’d forgotten.
And it was nice.
The castle rose as I neared the picnic site, and I saw the classes spread out under the branches laden with hundreds of pink-and-white blooms. I spotted the Class 1-D tarp, and Yuki waved wildly at me.
“Hey, slowpoke, what took you so long?” she said.
“Yuu Tomohiro,” I said. “Where’s 3-C?”
“They’re not coming until this afternoon,” she said. “They have class.”
I said nothing. It was still early enough that he could have been on his way to school through the park. With no book bag. Maybe. Or maybe he was headed somewhere else.
More drops of ink where they shouldn’t be. And all I could think about was his face lighting up with that laugh.
We ate our lunch amid the excited chatter of first-year senior high students. Yuki’s friends sat with us and shyly exchanged a few pink, white and green
dango
sticks with me for some of Diane’s
karaage.
The
dango
looked like pastel traffic lights and tasted overwhelmingly sweet.
After the picnic, I helped fold up the tarp and carry it back to the school with Tanaka. We resumed our afternoon classes, but no one’s heart was really in it, even the teachers’.
I had cleaning duty—the bathrooms—and I wrinkled up my nose when I heard it. I headed toward the ones by the gym, armed with my brush, my apron, my hair tie and my gloves. Not the most fun task, but I scrubbed away anyway.
Making students clean the school toilets would never fly in my school back home, but here it was just expected. When everything was clean, I washed my hands in the sink and opened the bathroom door.
Shouts erupted from the gym, a chorus of tired voices yelling in unison and the clatter of wood hitting wood. I walked toward the sound, carrying my toilet brush with me, and pulled the gym door open a fraction.
About forty students were decked out in black armor, masks of screen mesh covering their faces. They wore long black skirts down to their ankles and stepped barefoot across the gym in pairs. Each student held a long bamboo stick with both hands, and at the shout of the teacher, they clashed them against each other. The noise echoed to the rafters of the gym and rang in my ears.
One of the teachers, chemistry, I think, saw me peeking and hurried over.
“I see you’re interested in kendo,” he said in English. He had a broad smile and a towel scrunched around his neck. The veins almost popped out from his head, and thick-rimmed glasses hunched over his nose.
“Kendo,” I said. So this was what Tomohiro and Bleached Hair were always running off to. “Japanese fencing, right?”
“Yes,” the teacher said. “We’re practicing for the ward competition coming up.”
I’d wanted to take karate in New York but always chickened out at the last minute. I couldn’t bring myself to willingly sign up for something that involved sparring.
The students moved in unison, like ghostly visions of samurai dancing. They swung their bamboo swords in the air, each movement timed to the other teacher’s strained voice.
The students lined up along the edge of the gym, called forward in pairs to challenge each other.
“You want to try?” the chemistry teacher asked.
My eyes popped. “Me?”
He nodded.
“No. No, I mean, I…” I trailed off. It’s pretty rude to flat-out refuse something in Japanese, so I decided to find a more subtle way out. “I’m already in a few different clubs, so…”
The chemistry teacher looked crestfallen.
“Sou ka…”
he mused. Then he shook his head. “Well, never mind. Come in and watch for a bit,
ne?
” I couldn’t think of a way to refuse, so I shuffled into the gym, slumping down against the wall where the students waited for their turn to duel.
“Okay, next pair!” the other teacher shouted. The chemistry teacher nodded at me with a smile and started across the floor. Throaty shouts echoed through the gym as the pair came at each other. They pressed their swords against each other’s, circling at arm’s length. With lightning speed, one approached and smacked his sword on the other’s helmet.
“Point!” the chemistry teacher yelled. I stared wide-eyed.
It had happened so fast it was almost a blur. The skirts of the fencers swayed as they moved back and forth, coming at each other and drawing back.
Another pair was called forward, and another. I watched in amazement until I’d lost track of time.
“See you next week!” the teacher called, and I stared down at my watch. Really?
The students untied their helmets and wiped the sweat off their foreheads with their arms. There were a few girls, but mostly guys. I scanned the group as they walked toward the change rooms.
And then Bleached Hair strode past me, followed by Tomohiro.
So. This was why he could take care of that fight. Next to this, the fight with three thirteen-year-old morons was probably nothing to him.
“What did you think?” came an English voice beside me.
I looked over, startled, into the glowing face of the chemistry teacher.
“Oh,” I stuttered. “It was, um, great.” The other teacher had walked over now, another senior-level sensei that I didn’t know.
“This is the foreign student at Suntaba,” said the chemistry teacher.
Thanks, real subtle.
The man arched his eyebrows.
“You going to join our club?” he asked. I began to protest, unsure how to word it. I looked over at Bleached Hair and Tomohiro rubbing their faces with towels and chugging water bottles. Tomohiro had a white-and-navy sports bag strapped over his shoulder and he grinned as he chatted with his friend. He glanced over, and I couldn’t tell if he was smirking or actually smiling.
“Well? What do you think?” said the teacher. “Give it a try?”
I stared at Tomohiro. I wanted to figure out why he’d ditched calligraphy for kendo and what that glimpse of him in the park had meant. And anyway, the way he stared at me felt like a challenge. Like I had to prove that I could do it, too.
“Sure,” I said, glancing at Tomohiro. “I want to try.” The teachers smiled, sputtering about how wonderful it was, while the grin slipped from Tomohiro’s face. He looked away, turning toward the end of the empty gym.
“I joined the Kendo Club at school,” I said to Diane over dinner. She went bug-eyed and just about dropped the shrimp straddled between her chopsticks.
“You what?”
“I joined the Kendo Club.”
“I thought you hated contact sports.”
I shoved in a forkful of salad. “I do.”
“
Kendo
does not translate to ‘ballet,’ Katie.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know. I sat in on a practice today. And anyway? Ballet isn’t easy, either, thanks very much.”
“It’s dangerous. You could get hurt,” Diane said, but I shrugged.
“You could get hurt crossing the street.”
“Katie, I’m serious. Are you really sure you want to do kendo? Did the teacher talk you into it?”
“No, I want to do it.” I poured my cup of green tea over my rice and mashed it in.
Diane sighed. “I don’t know about this. What would your mom say if I let you try it? And don’t pour your tea in your rice, Katie. You’ll ruin it.”
“Tanaka said it tastes better this way,” I said. “And don’t worry. Mom would say, ‘Good for you, Katie! Japan needs more girls taking kendo!’”
I could almost hear her voice when I said it. Mom had always been like that, making sure I knew girls could take on anything. If Mom couldn’t be here to say it, then I would say it for her. I swallowed the sadness back, biting my lip. I could keep her alive, just a little bit. I wouldn’t have to let go. Not entirely.