by Kat Cotton
A cold sweat broke out over my body.
That couldn’t be happening.
The box had risen off the coffee table and floated in the air.
I screamed. “Yuki, do something!”
The other intruder obviously controlled it. He’d made it to his feet and reached out his hand toward the box like some kind of damn magician. His hecking hand even glowed.
I turned to Yuki for confirmation.
The dude could float the box? No way.
Shun tried to tackle him but that dude had like a super glowy protection around him. Shun’s punches didn’t even touch him. Was he Harry freakin’ Potter or something?
If he got the box through the smashed doors, we’d be totally screwed. He could take it anywhere.
The other intruder groaned, still on the ground, and Yuki kicked him for good measure. This whole not wearing shoes indoors thing made her kick a lot less effective than it could’ve been. Even with one down, we had no way of stopping them. Not with them magicking the box.
Shun couldn’t do a thing and the situation had gone way beyond Yuki’s powers. And me, I had nothing.
Wait.
I had something.
It was a long shot but...
“Kami, stop them. Stop the box moving,” I screamed, not caring if they all thought I was crazy.
Could he stop them, though? I had no idea what he could do.
“I’ll give you chocolate,” I added. A bribe never hurt.
The box wavered as though it’d become much heavier.
Was this working?
The guy screwed up his face and his glow faded a little. He needed to concentrate to keep it levitating. That was clear.
“More, kami, more.”
The box jerked around. I backed away. If that box jerked in my direction, it’d wipe me out.
“Delicious chocolate,” I added.
The box dipped, dropping lower to the ground.
The guy’s glow had almost gone out. Shun moved behind him. I lowered my eyes, not wanting to look at Shun and give the game away. When I looked up again, Shun kicked out, knocking the intruder off his feet.
Bingo!
The intruder hit the ground. Then the box crashed to the floor. The whole building shook from the weight of it. I inhaled, balancing my hand on the wall.
The two intruders jumped to their feet and rushed out the broken doors, scaling the wall outside like monkeys, not even their robes slowing them down.
Yuki and Shun rushed to the box. They knelt on the ground beside it. I squatted down near them.
“Is he okay?” Yuki asked, trying to get the lid off the box.
“How would I know?” Shun replied. “Even if we open the box, we won’t know.”
They exchanged looks.
“If we’ve hurt him, Yamaguchi will kill us.” From the way Yuki said that, I knew she wasn’t kidding.
“Where’s my chocolate?” the kami yelled.
I sat back on my heels. “He’s fine.”
Both Yuki and Shun turned to me, raising their eyebrows.
“He wants chocolate,” I said. “Do you have any?”
“How did you do that?” Shun asked.
“I told the kami not to let them take him. I promised him chocolate.” Hadn’t they heard all that?
“Yeah, but I just thought you were being crazy,” Yuki said. “Then the box fell. You actually talked to him?”
She believed me now? She stared at me all wide eyed.
“Yes, but he’s going to be really shitty if you don’t get him chocolate.”
“Chocolate?” she said.
“He loves it.”
She shook her head as though she didn’t believe me.
“Yes, chocolate,” the kami said. “Now.”
I laughed. That guy sure had a taste for chocolate.
“Why aren’t we chasing those guys anyway?” I asked. “They wanted to steal the kami. They’re dangerous.”
“Protecting the kami is the most important thing,” Shun said. “Yuki, do you have any chocolate? Let’s try this.”
Yuki went into the kitchen and returned with a block of chocolate while Shun and I pried the lid off the box as carefully as we could.
I broke off a tiny corner of the chocolate. Even that seemed too much so I got a crumb off the wrapper.
The little kami stuck his hand out of the box. I put the tiniest chocolate crumb on his finger. Then he made that weird sucking sound. That noise kind of disgusted me but there was nothing I could do about it.
Both of them leaned forward, watching what I did.
“The chocolate disappeared,” Yuki said in an awed whisper. “It disappeared.”
She stared at me, not her usual hostile stare but like she was almost afraid of me.
“I know why Yamaguchi was so insistent about you working with us now,” Shun said. “The only way you can talk directly to a kami is if you’re a god yourself.”
I laughed so much that I fell back onto Yuki’s futon. Right. I was a god. That explained so much. Like why my life was so awesome, filled with riches and people worshiping me.
“He’s right,” the kami said. “Karasu-sama.”
“What does karasu-sama mean anyway?”
“Crow?” Shun stared at me. “You’re a crow god?”
I sat up. “There’s a logical explanation for this, right? I’m still drunk and you’re all in on a stupid joke.”
Chapter 19
A little while later, Shun left saying he had to get something. I didn’t want to be left alone with Yuki. She kept staring at me in a creepy way. It made me miss her usual hostile glare.
“More chocolate,” the kami said.
“No more. No one likes a fat kami,” I said. “Sorry. I’m not trying to fat shame you or anything but you’re a tiny little guy and you’ve had enough chocolate for one day. You’ll get a sugar rush and go nutso.”
“Are you talking to him now?” Yuki asked.
“Yes. Do you have any idea if he should be eating chocolate?”
Yuki shrugged. “No one has seen kami for many centuries, except the priests. I don’t know if they actually see them or just communicate with them. And we can’t ask a priest because we can’t tell them you can see him.”
“They don’t see me,” the kami said. “They can’t even talk to me, they just sense what I feel. But they’d let me eat chocolate, lots of it.”
“I can give him some anmitsu,” Yuki said.
“I don’t want her lousy red beans,” the kami said. “Give me the good stuff.”
“He says he’s fine,” I told Yuki.
Maybe there was a good reason most people couldn’t hear kami. This guy had no manners at all.
I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. The wind whistled through Yuki’s apartment with that door broken. She’d shut the curtains to stop the worst of it but we still had little protection. I wondered if we should pin up a blanket or something to block the breeze but maybe she had it under control. She’d need to get the glass replaced at the very least.
“Aren’t you worried about the attackers?” I asked. “I mean, two guys just broke into your apartment.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea who they were.”
She didn’t say anything but a musky smell lingered in the air. Maybe she could smell them out.
Shun returned with a pile of books.
“We need to find out what sort of god you are,” he said, settling the books on the coffee table with a thud.
“God of klutziness, maybe. That’s the kind of god I am.”
“You said you don’t have any kind of powers, right? But he called you karasu-sama. We need somewhere to start. Is there anything strange you’ve noticed? Some clue?”
“I do have this thing with crows,” I said. “But it only started recently. It’s not like I’ve been Crow Girl all my life. Something got stolen from my parents and then the crows started appearing.”
“Crows? At
least we have a start.” Shun picked up one of the books and handed another to Yuki.
“It’s weird, right? That Yamaguchi calls you the Harajuku Crows and then I have this crow thing.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Shun said. “That guy isn’t as clueless as he acts. When he seems like he’s just rambling on, he’s really testing you.”
I remembered how I’d been bored and uninterested when he’d explained how to separate my garbage. Had he been testing me then? What had the testing proved? That I hated having garbage mansplained to me?
At least I didn’t have to read those dusty books since they were in Japanese. Then I thought of a better way to get this information. I rolled over and grabbed my phone and held it up.
“The Internet isn’t such a good source,” Shun said. “Most of the information is from games or movies.”
“Ha, I wasn’t going to do an Internet research. I’m going to ring my parents. If anyone knows about this, surely it’s them.”
I grinned at Shun, proud of my cunning.
“But they’d have told you before now if they knew anything. That would be the responsible thing to do, for them to train you in your powers.”
Since they hadn’t even told me about this super important stone until it got stolen, I doubted that.
“You don’t know my parents.”
I got on Skype, hoping they’d answer. You never knew with them. Luckily, Mum picked up.
“Mum, it’s me,” I said.
She asked me how things were then started telling me some local gossip.
“I don’t have time for that now, Mum. I need to know something...” How do you ask your mother if you’re a god? It’s not something you could just blurt out, surely. But there was no other way. “You need to tell me. Am I a god?”
That felt so stupid to say out loud. I waited for her to laugh.
“Well, about that... we were meaning to tell you but since you never showed any sign of being special, we figured it wasn’t necessary,”
Wow, way to make me feel good.
“But you always said I was special. Like the time I played a cow in the school play and when I came third in the egg and spoon race and all those awesome paintings I did that you stuck on the fridge. What do you mean I’m not special?”
Mum laughed. “Of course we told you you’re special. That’s just something parents say. You’re not meant to take it literally. But we watched you for any abilities, waiting for the right time to tell you things, and that moment never happened.”
“Well, now would be a good time to start,” I said. “Weird things have been happening. Really weird things.”
“You’re not a god.”
I thought as much. I mean that whole idea was just ridiculous. Still, it was a little bit disappointing. I’d been planning really cool business cards and maybe a whole online business based on me worship. Like #Im_a_god. Not going to be a thing.
“But you are descended from one,” she added.
Yikes. That idea seemed too big to comprehend.
She went on to tell me all about this Irish goddess so I indicated for Shun to pass me a pen and paper. I needed to take notes to get this all sorted out. Half of what Mum said made no sense but I wasn’t really clear on which half. At least if I took notes, I could go through them later and research to make sense of it. She wasn’t really good at keeping on point.
“Chocolate!” the kami yelled.
“No more chocolate.” I didn’t say that out loud.
“Who’s asking for chocolate?” Mum asked.
She could hear that? Over the phone even? Could she read my thoughts? That would be super embarrassing. She knew I was the one who’d broken that vase she loved? And ate all the chocolate pudding, every time. And, holy heckings, she’d know... that. All those things I’d imagined doing with Billy Hopkins and Red Taylor and Angie Wilson... and all the others. Oh no.
“She can’t hear you, she can hear me,” the kami said.
Thank heckings for that.
“You should stop thinking about sex so much. It’s perverted,” the kami added.
Yikes. He knew everything I’d thought about doing with Shun and Hokuto. That made me blush but the kami chuckled. I bet that guy loved spying on my sex thoughts.
“Ask her if you can shape shift?” Shun wrote on my notepad.
I shook myself, clearing my thoughts. I was pretty sure the answer would be no but I asked her anyway. While I did that, Yuki swept up the glass from the floor.
“How would I know?” Mum said. “Have you ever shape shifted? You’ve never showed any sign of it in your life.”
She seemed irritated that I even asked. Then she gave a little yelp.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Can you shape shift?” I asked.
Did my mother have this whole side to her that I didn’t know about? Since finding out about my parents’ secret life, I’d believe anything was possible. They could’ve been running around as wolves or dingoes or owls while I slept in my bed totally unaware.
“No. No one in the family has had that ability for a long time.”
“But you’re the one with the powers, right? It’s from your side of the family?”
I doodled a spiral on the pad in front of me.
“A bit of both,” Mum said.
I almost dropped my pen. That wasn’t something I wanted to hear.
“Huh? What? Are you telling me I’m inbred on top of everything else?”
“It’s not that bad. We’re barely related. It goes back generations.”
I sighed. I guess it wasn’t like they were first cousins or anything creepy but it still didn’t sound good.
Yuki had gone outside to speak to someone on the phone. I had to talk louder because she’d started yelling.
“Do you have any powers?” I asked Mum.
“You know my powers. I work with herbs.” She yelped again. “That was nothing, just a mosquito.”
I’d always thought the herbs was just some hippy crap but it seemed my mother was a witch.
“And Dad?”
“He works with magic objects. He can wield them.”
How did my mother make that sound so dirty? I didn’t want to know more about Dad wielding magic objects although she sounded like she wanted to tell me more. I had to cut to the chase.
“There’s this kami, spirit, whatever guy here and I can talk to him,” I told her. “No one else can.”
“That’s interesting,” she said. “I guess that would be possible. Your father and I keep to ourselves. Communicating with other gods can get complicated. You get all kinds of weird jealousies and things going on. But if he’s nice, it should be okay to be friends with him.”
I think Mum wasn’t really getting what was going on here. I wasn’t asking if I should hang out with him since I didn’t really have much choice in that, I wanted to know what the hell was going on.
“Is there anything useful I can do? I mean apart from talking to this kami guy and having weird shit happening with crows?”
She sighed, a loud and exaggerated sigh.
“I don’t know, dear. Best thing you can do is test things for yourself. It’s not an exact science, you know. And I can’t manage your life for you.”
I inhaled. She could defer me from uni just fine, that was managing my life. Telling me useful, and potentially life-saving information, that was just being responsible.
“And what about the crows?”
“They’ll help you but don’t mess with them. Keep on their good side. Now I’ve got to run. I’ve got something on the stove.”
“Is everything okay, Mum?”
“It’s fine, just fine. But anything you can find out about the stone would be really useful.”
She hung up before I asked her any more. She obviously wasn’t fine but the only thing I could do was get this job finished and get the information I needed from Yamaguchi.
I
looked down at the scribblings I’d one. It’d been less than helpful but I guess it gave us a starting point. I had names and vague details at least.
“You’re a god,” Yuki said.
She kept saying that, as though the idea blew her mind. I didn’t think it was that much different to being a kitsune but she obviously did.
“Not fully,” I said.
“Now you’ve got that sorted out, more chocolate?”
This god thing wasn’t all roses, that’s for sure.
“No more chocolate until tomorrow,” I said.
“They can’t replace the glass until tomorrow,” Yuki said. “We can’t stay here.”
“Apartment three?” Shun asked.
“It’ll have to be,” Yuki said. “Since you two have the upstairs apartments. Number one is too damp.”
So Yamaguchi did own the whole building. And Shun lived next door to me? He’d never told me that. There were three upstairs apartments, though.
Yuki jumped up. “I’ll pack my stuff but I can’t move the box. We’ll have to get the old man to send someone to move it for us.”
Shun grimaced. “It’d be better if we didn’t tell him for now.”
“Yuki’s right, we can’t move that box ourselves. It took that buff guy all his efforts.”
“You could take me out of the box,” the kami said. “That’d be the best way.”
I wasn’t sure if that would be wise. Could we trust him?
“Could we take him out of the box?” I asked. “Do we have something else to put him in?”
Yuki clicked her tongue then looked around. “Will he be safe?”
“I don’t trust him one bit.”
“I’m sure between the three of us, we’ll be able to move the box,” Shun said.
Since I could barely open the lid, I doubted that. We needed some kind of pulley system or maybe that guy who levitated things.
As we waited for Yuki to pack up her stuff, I uploaded my photos from last night. There were a few I didn’t even remember taking. How much had I drunk?
“Do you want any of this stuff you left in my fridge?” Yuki asked.
I jumped up to check what was there but I’d eaten all the good stuff. She had a ton of those red beans. She really did love them. She put them in a bag.
“Do you want me to take out the rubbish for you?” I asked, noticing the full bag by the door.
