Ink (24 page)

“Sugi, we’re going. Right now.” Sugi raised a fist and lunged at Jun, but Jun sidestepped and pulled on the goon’s arm, spinning him around in a circle so he nearly lost his balance.

“Call your friend off, Ishikawa,” Jun warned.

And then Ishikawa pulled his closed knife out, tracing his fingers over it like he was reassuring himself he was in control. Except we all knew he wasn’t. His hands were shaking.

“Sugi! Leave them alone, damn it!” Sugi’s whole face was red, and he lunged toward Ishikawa, grabbing the knife out of his hands and snicking it open.
Oh god.
A scream died in my throat as he thrust the weapon toward Jun.

Jun stepped away, grabbing hold of Sugi’s shirt with one hand. In a fluid movement, he detangled the knife from the thug’s hand and pressed it against his throat. Sugi took a sharp breath, his skin touching the blade.

“Don’t ever threaten us again, got it?” Jun said coolly.

“Damn it, Sugi! I’m sorry,” Ishikawa said, his eyes flicking between Jun and me. “I just wanted to talk to her. I swear.”

“I don’t care,” Jun said. “If you can’t control your thugs, then leave them at home.” His eyes f licked to Ishikawa.

“Now, get out of here.” He closed the knife, dropping it into Ishikawa’s hand.

Ishikawa stared at me, a cross between horror and embarrassment. Then he and the two guys took off running.

I realized I was holding my breath and I let it out in a gasp.

“Close one, yes?” said Jun, bending forward and pressing his hands against his knees. “Are you okay?”

I didn’t know what to say.

He looked at me, smiling kindly.

“Jun, what the hell was that?”

“Ah,” he said. “I don’t like gangsters. And he threatened you.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You have to mean business with them,” he said, “or they won’t leave you alone.” His piercing eyes stared back as he smoothed a blond highlight behind his ear. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said. “You can’t take them lightly, Katie.

Those guys are dangerous.”

“If you hadn’t been here—”

“Don’t worry,” Jun said. “You’re Yuu’s friend, right? And Ishikawa and Yuu are friends. So he wouldn’t hurt you. And now that I’ve shown him his goons don’t listen, hopefully he’ll distance himself from them.”

“Maybe.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten you. Listen, could I give you my
keitai
number?” I opened my mouth, but he held up a hand. “I know. I’m not going to ask you for coffee again.”

He smiled. “But I’d just feel a lot better if I knew you could get ahold of me.”

He was himself again, gentle and calm and gorgeous. I wished he hadn’t let Sugi get to him with the whole bumping-into-his-shoulder thing. But it did feel nice that he’d defended me and that I could count on him.

“Okay,” I said, pulling out my
keitai.
He smiled, pushing a button on his phone to send through his number. My
keitai
beeped with his info.

And suddenly his warm fingers wrapped around my hand, which sent a shock through me.

“I think you have someone you like,” he said. “But if things change, would you consider me? I’d really like to get to know you better.”

My heart felt like it stopped.

Then he scratched the back of his head, laughing. “I’m sorry.
Hazui,
I’m so awkward sometimes. Forget I said it. I go this way now, so…”

“Oh. Oh, okay. Thanks.”

“Bai bai,”
he said, the same as the English
goodbye,
and he actually winked, shaking a thumbs-up at me. Yes, really. He turned and I watched his tall frame walk around the outskirts of Sunpu Park. He walked gracefully, not the swagger Ishikawa and Tomohiro sometimes tried when others were watching, and he swung his book bag back and forth alongside him. I watched him for another minute, then raced through Sunpu Park to class.

My mind fell apart as I listened to the gravel crunch beneath my feet. I just wanted a day where no one pulled a knife or released an ancient dragon into the sky. Too much to ask, apparently.

Ishikawa had seen the dragon after all. It was harder to deny than I’d thought. I was a bad actor. Good thing school was ending for summer break soon. I wouldn’t be able to make it much longer.

Ishikawa was waiting in the courtyard after school, but it wasn’t for me. I saw him standing among the clutter of bikes, his arms folded across his chest and the sun shining off his shock of white hair. He leaned against the metal bar, eyes narrowed, watching the door of the
genkan
as students filed past him.

I backed up to the cubby where I’d placed my slippers and waited. I had to get to cram school, but there was no way I could go out there now.

The door to the school hallway slid open and the scraping noise made me jump. I looked over my shoulder and saw Tomohiro there. He gave me a small nod, eyes scanning over the students in the
genkan.
When he saw Ishikawa outside, he grimaced. He shook the slippers off his feet and shoved them into his cubby on the other side of the room. Then, without looking back, he left the school.
Deny everything.

Ishikawa spotted him and walked halfway over. I watched, holding my breath. Tomohiro was acting casual, slouching over and running his hand through his hair. Ishikawa looked a little calmer than the morning, too, but he wasn’t smiling.

“Hey!” Someone clapped me on the back and I jumped a mile. Tanaka stood there grinning at me.

“Don’t do that,” I hissed.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m just… Never mind.”

“Hey, should we go for ramen together?”

“I have cram school.”

“So skip,” he said. “It’s almost summer break. Let’s go for ice cream at least, okay? Make memories to carry us through the lonely summer, stuff like that.”

“What?”

“Come on, come on,” Tanaka said, pushing me out the door. “Yuki’s waiting outside.” The wave of afternoon humidity pressed against my face, like walking into an oven.

Tomohiro would definitely be sweltering in his blazer, just to cover up his wrist. Ishikawa looked over as I stepped out, his face pale. He put his hand on Tomohiro’s arm, pushing him away gently as he approached me.

“Greene,” he said, and I didn’t want to stop walking, but Tanaka had no idea and stopped, looking around the courtyard for Yuki. He saw her by the tennis court with her friends and waved her over. Ishikawa was in front of me now, Tomohiro a step or two behind.

“Leave me alone,” I said quietly, but Ishikawa’s head bobbed down in front of me. A half bow, an apology.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about what happened. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I swear.”

“What happened?” Tomohiro said, walking over.

“Nothing,” I said. “Ishikawa’s mobsters just decided they’d have a go at me.”

Tomohiro looked at Ishikawa, his face darkening.

“You pulled that shit in front of Katie?” he said.

I watched the plan disintegrating in front of my face.

“Katie-chan!” Yuki cried as she joined our group. She saw Tanaka’s confused face and added, “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t know your friend would be provoked by that,”

Ishikawa said. “Sugi shouldn’t have done it, but your friend could’ve turned away.”

“What friend?” Tomohiro said.

“Takahashi,” Ishikawa said, and Tomohiro looked at me funny.

“I ran into him on the way to school,” I said. The sun felt too warm, and I wanted to leave.

“He said you’re friends,” Ishikawa said.

Crap.
I couldn’t deny it or Ishikawa would know I’d been lying, and that would put me in more trouble. I looked at Tomo hiro and bit my lip. But so what if I had other guy friends? He wouldn’t take it that way, would he?

“Yeah,” I said quietly, “we’re friends.”

“Katie, everything okay?” said Tanaka.

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Let’s go.” Tanaka nodded, and we started to leave.

That wasn’t so awful,
I thought. It could’ve been worse.

“I hope you took care of Katie last night, Yuu-san,” Yuki blurted out with a wicked smile, and my heart stopped.

Tomo hiro opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His face started to pale.

“So you
were
together last night?” said Ishikawa.

“Yuki!” I hissed.

“We weren’t,” Tomohiro said.

Yuki looked confused. “But…”

“We weren’t,” I echoed. “I was helping my aunt with papers all night. Really boring. Listen, I’m going to be late for cram school. I’m—I’m sorry.”

I did the only thing I could do in that situation. I ran. Yuki and Tanaka followed as I tried to lose myself in Sunpu Park, but I couldn’t. I knew the park too well now. The bells by the central fountain chimed beside me as I slowed to catch my breath.

“Katie, wait up!” Yuki called. She and Tanaka were at my side a minute later.

“What happened to not telling anyone?” I said.

“I’m so sorry! I thought you just didn’t want your aunt to know!”

“Wait, why is this a secret?” said Tanaka.

“It isn’t,” I said, running my fingers through the tangles in my hair. “It’s just…” How much did I want to involve them?

The less they knew, the better. “I just don’t want Ishikawa to know anything about us. He’s creepy.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuki said again. “I’ll buy the ice cream. My treat.”

What could I do? It was done.

Tanaka chatted about cakes and drinks as we walked, and I forced myself to look down, to not look back. I squeezed my hands into fists as we walked. I tried to focus on the beauty of Sunpu Park, but the greenery had faded to the brown of a too-hot summer. I hoped Tomohiro was a smooth liar. I guess he’d had a lot of practice.

We bought extravagant ice creams from the stall at Shizuoka Station, warm waffle cones dripping with green-tea ice cream and sweet-bean topping, vanilla-and-strawberry swirl with melon and mango sauce drizzled on top. I tried to forget everything at that moment, to just enjoy the normalcy of it.

How much had changed that eating sweet beans in a waffle cone at a bullet-train station had become normal?

At the last kendo practice, Ishikawa tried again. I was drinking from my water bottle, and when I tilted my head down and pulled the bottle from my lips, he was there, standing too close. I almost spat the water out into his face.

“Greene,” he said quietly. “Yuuto is my friend. I don’t understand why he’s keeping this from me.”

“What do you mean?” I said as casually as I could. Ishikawa stared at me. I hadn’t noticed before how deep his eyes were, how they drew you in like prey.

“Listen,” he said, wrapping his wrist around my arm gently.

“Has Yuuto told you about the Kami?”

“You mean Shinto gods?” I said. Ishikawa swore under his breath. Behind us, the clack of
shinai
hitting against each other and the
kiai
shouts of opponents filled the gym.

“Look, pretend all you want. The Kami were scattered at the end of the war. But they’re uniting now, in secrecy.

They have been for the last ten, twenty years. And not all the Kami are gentle or good-hearted, or naïve, like Yuuto.”

He leaned in closer, his voice a hot whisper crawling on my skin. “Yakuza aren’t the most dangerous people in Japan. Do you have any idea what these Kami will do to claim Yuuto as their own?”

I was silent. Was he making it all up? Tomohiro hadn’t mentioned some secret society of others like him. It’s not like I saw strange creatures made of ink floating through the sky every day. People would pick up on that sort of thing.

I’d hesitated, and Ishikawa’s eyes gleamed. A smile hovered on his lips, like he’d convinced me to admit the truth. I didn’t know if he was lying about the other Kami, but I knew I had to protect Tomohiro. “Ishikawa, I have no clue what you’re talking about. Maybe it’s my poor Japanese.”

The light blinked out of his eyes and he screamed right in my face, shaking his head from side to side. “Don’t talk shit!”

“Hey, hey!” called out Watanabe-sensei. “Ishikawa, Greene, back to your
kiri-kaeshi
now!” Ishikawa sighed, his shoulders hunching as he tried to calm down. His grip tightened around my wrist.

“Do you think I’m the only one who saw the dragon?”

he whispered roughly. “You’re sorely mistaken. Yuuto won’t admit it, but you can save him, Greene. Let me help him.

Let us protect him from
them.
” He let go of my wrist then, slamming his
men
over his head, and fell back into line before I could respond.

My whole body shook and I felt like I was going to throw up. I pushed in the door of the girls’ change room and shrank to the floor, tears trailing down my cheeks. What was the truth? What was going on? It was probably all lies, spun by Ishikawa to get me to spill what had happened. I rocked on my heels, crying and crying, and then slipped out of the gym before the girls came in from Kendo Club, before Ishikawa could confront me again. I hurried along the edge of the gym, and I could feel Tomohiro’s eyes on me as I slipped out of sight.

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.