by Amanda Sun
Tomohiro dashed to his notebook, grabbing the pen and flipping the pages. He scribbled over the fish, slicing lines of ink through their necks and fins. One by one, the paper fish floated belly-up in the water, until it was nothing but a graveyard of drifting koi lanterns.
They melted into pools of black, swirling around the inky blood as they disintegrated into nothing. The ink caught on the wind and lifted like dull gold, glimmering among the silver firefly light.
“Kuse-yo,” Tomo swore in a hiss behind me. “Can’t anything ever go right?”
That’s when I felt the first bite.
“Ouch,” I said, swiping at my neck. My fingers crumpled the firefly’s wings and he tumbled into the grass below, his light dim as he struggled to flicker.
Another bite. “Ow!” Tomohiro still didn’t look up. “What the hell?” I snapped, and then he looked.
“Doushita?” he asked. What’s wrong?
That’s when I realized, yet again, the language gap held me back, even from getting help. Ow and ouch wouldn’t cut it in Japanese—he had no idea what they meant.
“Itai!” I said, swiping at the fireflies on my leg. Tomo looked at me with panic in his eyes.
The fireflies began to gather again, a massive silvery cloud hanging above us. They swarmed like a plague, their lights flashing in unison. The throng buzzed toward me and I screamed, ducking to the ground.
“Katie!” His pen swiped through the drawings in his notebook.
There was a sound like an explosion, hundreds of tiny lives shattered at once.
The firefly stars rained down around me, falling like a firework in slow motion.
The sadness was overwhelming, watching the cloud of lights drop. I reached out my palm and caught the bodies in my hand. They felt lighter than air, empty. Nothing.
I felt faint as I watched them, as their lights blinked out one after another. I didn’t feel right at all.
The world spiraled and I heard Tomohiro shout. Things were moving sideways, like I was dreaming.
I was falling, the dark tree branches rising above me.
I heard the loud thump as Tomohiro caught me, as his arms hooked under my shoulders and grabbed me, lowering me softly under the huge bonsai.
“Katie,” he said, but his words echoed. Above me the stars blinked in and out, floating down.
“The stars are sharp,” I heard myself say. I could feel them cutting into my wrists.
Tomohiro swore and lifted the waistband of his shirt, shrugging it over his head and tucking it around me to cover my bare arms. Then he was gone, and I was left to stare upward at the raining fireflies. Above them, dark clouds rolled slowly toward Mount Fuji’s shadow.
The last of the lights blinked out, and the field was dark again. I breathed in and out slowly—something was wrong with me. I brushed the grass with my fingers, trying to hold on to concrete feelings, to pull myself back from wherever I was.
“Katie,” Tomohiro said, his warm hands smoothing my hair out of my face. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I feel weird.”
He reached out for a can of milk tea and pulled the tab back with a crack. He pressed against my back as I lifted my head a little. The sweetness of the cold drink trickled down my throat.
He put the can aside and leaned over me, trying to lift me onto his lap. His stomach was warm against my cheek, his upper body lean and muscled from kendo training. The moonlight danced along the multitude of scars down his right arm. I reached up and traced along the edges of them, some smooth, others jagged.
It was when my hand pressed against his upper arm that we both saw the blood trickling down my wrist.
The shock of seeing it brought me back from everything.
“What happened?” I said, blinking. I sat up, but dizziness ripped through my head and I leaned back into the warmth of Tomohiro’s skin.
“The fireflies bit you,” he said. “I’m sorry, Katie. Che, I screw up everything.”
“I’m bleeding,” I said, but already Tomo was rustling in his pocket for his handkerchief. The poor cartoon elephant, who’d been drenched in the ink fireworks at Abekawa Hanabi, now sopped up my blood as Tomo gently wiped at my wrists.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “The bites aren’t deeper than papercuts. They’ll sting, but they shouldn’t be serious. Maybe you’re allergic or something.”
He hesitated, his eyes wide.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said, wiping at my arm again.
I snatched the handkerchief from him.
“Katie,” he said, trying to pull it back.
My body froze.
I was bleeding ink.
My heart raced. What was going on? I threw the handkerchief as far as I could. “I’m bleeding ink, Tomo. Why am I bleeding ink?” I looked at the bites on my arms, and each one had a tiny trickle of black spilling out of it.
“Katie, it’s okay, don’t worry. Has this ever happened before?”
“Of course not,” I said, my voice wavering. Tears blurred my vision. “What’s happening to me?”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s just stop the bleeding first, and then we’ll figure it out, okay?”
I was shaking. I’d seen ink trail down Tomo’s arms, but I’d never seen him bleed ink. Why the hell would I bleed ink? Why now?
And I couldn’t pretend anymore that I was normal. Jun’s theory was right. There was ink in me.
Tomo used his shirt to mop at each of the bites, pressing until they stopped. He was quiet while he dabbed at them, gentle and careful, deep in thought. The last two bites had actual blood on them instead of ink, which was little comfort, but still.
“Looks like they stopped,” he said.
“Has that ever happened to you?” I asked quietly. “Did you ever bleed ink?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
“Great,” I said. “Fantastic.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been such an asshole. Asking you to come with me while I dealt with a buildup of power. What did I think was going to happen? Stupid.”
“It’s too late for that kind of thinking, Tomo. And in case you didn’t notice, you’re not the only one with Kami abilities.”
“But how could you be a Kami? I don’t get it,” Tomo said.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my cheeks flushing with guilt. There had to be a way to tell him what Jun had told me, without letting him know I’d gone to him for help, right?
“Niichan—Yuki’s brother—he called me a manufactured Kami,” I lied. Better to say Niichan than Jun.
Tomohiro’s eyes widened. “A what?”
“I wasn’t born Kami,” I said. “Well, I was, but...by accident. My mom ingested the ink when she was pregnant, and somehow it got into my system. I asked Diane, and she confirmed it. I mean, that my mom had eaten something sketched and gotten really sick.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he whispered. He looked ghostly pale, like the koi.
“I tried,” I said. “But you were sure I wasn’t a Kami.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never heard of that before. A man-made Kami, I mean.”
“It’s weird,” I said, “but I guess bleeding ink proves it. So what do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” Tomo said. “But I’ll protect you. I promise. I know I keep screwing it up, but I’ll figure out how to control it.” He pounded the bottom of his fist into the earth. “Shit! Nothing works the way it’s supposed to. I lose control when I draw, I lose control when I don’t—what the hell am I supposed to do to protect you?” His eyes flickered in the moonlight. They looked dark and glossy, like he was going to start crying. He looked frantic, filled with frustration. It broke my heart.
“You will,” I said, reac
hing my arm up to his cheek. “And I’ll protect you, Tomo. Once we find a way.”
He looked down at me, his eyes glimmering with the tears he held back. They were going cold again, certain. I knew that look. He was closing down, separating himself from me.
“We’re dancing around in a minefield, Katie,” he said. “If I care about you, how can I keep hurting you like this?”
I wondered the same thing about myself. Didn’t I have the strength to stay away from him?
“We’ll find another way,” I said. “I don’t want you to stay away.”
He pressed his hand on top of mine. “I don’t want to,” he said. “I don’t. I can’t.”
I wrapped my other arm around his shoulder, pulling myself up. He rested his arm on my back, lowering himself to meet me halfway. “Yabai,” he whispered, We’re screwed, and then his lips were on mine, and my thoughts shattered.
He collapsed on top of me, his warm chest pressed against mine. I ran my fingers along his scars and he shuddered, making a soft noise deep in his throat. The spikes of his copper hair tickled against my jaw as he kissed my neck. His back felt like fire as my fingertips moved across it.
Any attempt at thinking straight was consumed. This was probably why Diane didn’t want me in empty fields with gorgeous boys, but I didn’t care. I wanted everything to spark around me, everything to glow.
Glow. There was a weird glow in the distance.
“Tomo,” I said, and the tone of my voice stopped his trail of kisses. He looked up, his spiky hair prickling my neck gently as he turned to see what I saw.
The ink that had caught on the wind like glowing embers had drifted to Mount Kuno, the one at the top of the ropeway. The ink dust held in the air there like a glimmering cloud, right over Tokugawa’s shrine.
Every time the dust drifted down to the visible roof of the roumon gateway, there was a flash like lightning.
“Kuse,” Tomo whispered.
“It’s like a giant bug zapper,” I said, watching the lightning flash.
“I don’t get it,” he said, running a hand through his bangs. “What’s the link with Taira and Tokugawa? I have nightmares about them all the time, I couldn’t enter that gateway—and now the ink is being pulled over there? What the hell does it mean?”
“Taira and Tokugawa were both Samurai Kami,” I said. “That’s gotta be it.”
“Samurai Kami?” Tomo said, looking at me funny. “What are you talking about?”
Oops. Guilt-trip two for talking to Jun.
“Niichan said,” I tried, “there are different kinds of Kami. Imperial Kami, descended from the emperor, and Samurai Kami, from the clan families. They started out from the same ancestors, but they were kind of at war with each other. Maybe you’re related to Taira and Tokugawa.”
Tomo looked skeptical. “I’ve never heard of that. And if I was related to Tokugawa, why did the gateway take me out and the inugami try to leap off the wall?”
“Maybe you’re descended from his enemy, then?”
“A demon, as always,” he sighed.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said. “You could be from a different samurai family.”
“If there is such a thing as Samurai Kami. Katie, can we tell each other everything from now on? I don’t get why you wouldn’t tell me all this stuff Niichan told you.”
He was right, and I panicked, looking for an escape out of my nest of lies.
“You weren’t exactly nice to me when I came back from Miyajima,” I said, deciding to lay the guilt on thick. “Remember the love hotel and a certain plot to push me away?”
He looked like a wounded puppy, and then I felt bad for using it against him.
“Fine,” he said. “But no more secrets, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. We watched the dust flash against the gateway until the glow of the ink was gone. “Let’s hope someone will think it was some kind of freak storm,” I said. “No one’s really up here but us anyway.”
“Katie,” Tomo said, resting his hand on top of mine on the ground, “maybe we can try it again. You know, when you’re ready.”
“The shrine gateway?” I said, and Tomo flushed a little pink.
“I meant the love hotel.” He stared at me through his bangs, his eyes intense.
Oh. My whole face flooded with heat. “Um, uh...”
He burst out laughing. “Flustered again, Greene,” he said, ruffling my hair as he stood up. “I have that effect on girls.”
“Shut up,” I said, throwing his shirt at his face. “And put some clothes on. No one needs to see that.” He grinned and caught the shirt, pulling it over his torso. He grabbed his notebook and shoved it into his satchel, and I reached for my bag from school. He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek as we headed toward the bus in the darkness of night.
“You know what, Katie? You’re just as dangerous as me.”
I wondered just how true that was.
* * *
My keitai went off just after I’d pulled on my fuzzy pink pj’s. I’d spent too long soaking in the bath, thinking how everywhere he’d touched tingled with the memory of it. He must have been thinking the same. I grabbed the phone and pressed the green talk button.
“Got your clothes on this time?” I said.
“Uh...Katie?”
Oh god. The color drained from my face.
“Jun?”
“Sorry, I... Were you expecting another call?” I could practically hear the blushing across the phone.
“No! No.” So awkward. “It’s just a dumb joke. Never mind. What’s up?” Wait. He hadn’t seen the dust clouds on top of Nihondaira, had he? We should have been more careful with Kami and Yakuza all over the place.
“I was just calling to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Thanks for the other day.” I sat down on the edge of my bed, flipping through the leftover homework on my comforter.
“Of course,” he said. “How...how is Yuu doing?”
“Oh. Are you calling me to recruit him for your cult, Jun?”
“Itai,” he said with a gentle laugh. His voice was charming on the phone. I could almost forget the cold look that sometimes glazed over his eyes. Now he sounded warm and pleasant. “That hurts. I thought we’d moved past that.”
“Well, some of us have,” I said. “Tomohiro is still worried about you, Jun.”
“And I’m worried about him,” he said. “Are things still under control? He seemed pretty...unstable that night.”
“I don’t know,” I said. Having Jun help me with my connection to the ink was one thing, but talking to him about Tomohiro felt weird. “He’s okay. He was kind of having issues because he stopped drawing, but it’s taken care of now.”
“So he is still drawing,” Jun said quietly.
“It’s fine,” I said defensively. “It’s under control.” Except that it wasn’t really.
“A talent like Yuu’s? I doubt it. He was powerful enough for the Yakuza to reach out. I saw what he was capable of that night—that’s why I’m so worried.”
“But you said he can learn not to be dangerous, right? To control the ink?”
Jun hesitated. “Those aren’t the same thing. He’ll always be dangerous. Stable powers just make him more interesting to the Yakuza.”
“Is that what happened to your dad? He had stable powers?”
Jun went silent for a minute. I could almost feel the chill. When he spoke again, his voice took on a dark edge. “His control of the ink was stable, yes. But it was pathetic compared to Yuu’s power. He used to draw money for them, and some weapons. Mostly they had him draw drugs, because the people who took them got too messed up to complain whether my dad had screwed it up or not.”
I almost didn’t want to know
. It seemed too dark a world to even peer over the edge at.
“Yuu can’t control the ink until he accepts what he is. Then the ink will stop fighting him; if he can embrace his ability—his destiny—and not run from it, he will be dangerous, but in control.”
Now I was silent. I knew Tomo would never stop fighting the destiny Jun was talking about.
“Anyway, I wanted to make sure you were okay. We talked about a lot. I was worried I freaked you out.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “And it’s true, Jun. You were right. I talked to my aunt, and there was a weird incident. My mom ate a sketched dragon fruit. She almost died.”
“Hontou ka?” Jun said. “Really?”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me, and stretched out on my bed, on top of my homework. I stared at the little bites on my arms and legs from the fireflies.
“And another thing,” I said. “Jun, I got a bugbite tonight. It’s dumb but...I’m kind of scared.”
“Scared?” his voice jumped, louder in the receiver. I felt a little surge of warmth to know he was so worried about me.
“Where it bit me on my leg, I...I bled ink. What does it mean?”
There was silence. Had I said something wrong?
His voice was cold, determined. “What bit you?”
“A firefly,” I said, my heart starting to race. Why was he acting like that? Was it something bad? Oh god...was something seriously wrong with me?
“He drew it, didn’t he?” he said sharply. He took a deep breath. “The firefly. You were with him while he was drawing.”
It felt invasive. Why did I have to report to him? He sounded jealous, really.
“You know what?” I said, shaking. “It’s not your business. Forget I said anything.”
His voice boiled over. “Do you think this is a game?”
The words startled me. “I don’t have to answer to you, Jun.”
“This isn’t about me,” he said. “Every minute you spend with Yuu, you put both of your lives in danger. You put the whole world in danger. Did you forget what I said about him being a time bomb? Why are you playing with matches, Katie?”
