by Amanda Sun
“They’re creeping me out.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I was scared to destroy them. In case...something happened to you. So I collected them and tried to keep them safe.”
Why would he draw me as Amaterasu?
The idea jolted through me like electricity.
“Tomo,” I said. “I’m a manufactured Kami.”
“I still don’t like that term.”
“Fine, but who are most Kami descended from? Amaterasu, right?”
He blinked, and then he got it, too.
“You’re descended from Amaterasu,” he said.
“The ink in me makes you stronger because it’s more power to add to yours,” I said. He was standing so close now that I could feel the warmth of his body as it protected me from the cold wind around us. “But you’re descended from Susanou.”
“Which means we’re enemies,” Tomo said. “And that’s why the ink’s attacking you.”
“And why we can’t be together,” I said. “Oh my god, Tomo.”
“It can’t be,” he whispered. He dropped the stack of drawings and they took to the wind again, scattering across the field. He fell to his knees, his hands pressed against the cool grass.
I fell to my knees, too, placing the drawings I’d collected in the notebook and closing the cover. I couldn’t believe it—after all this, after everything we’d vowed to change. We couldn’t take our lives into our own hands. We’d never had a chance to be together.
The silence of the clearing suddenly filled with the revving of a motorbike. It got louder as it approached, and then the headlight beamed against us, blindingly bright. Tomo looked up, surprised.
What the hell was Jun doing? He’d promised to stay away.
But there were two people on the bike, and the bike wasn’t Jun’s. It was black with a blue stripe along the side, not quite as sleek in its build.
A second bike, Jun’s, throttled around the curve of the road.
“Katie!” he called out, but I could barely hear him over the rumbling of the idling motors. Both bikes shut off, and the driver and passenger of the first one got to their feet, lifting the helmets from their heads. The passenger rested a hand on her swollen, pregnant belly.
Shiori and...and Ikeda.
“Shiori?” Tomo said, staring at them. “What the hell is going on? Did they hurt you?”
Of course. He’d think Jun and Ikeda had brought her as some kind of bargaining tool for him to join the Kami.
But I knew better. I knew why she was here.
Jun slammed his helmet against the ground as he stormed forward. “Ikeda, what’s going on?”
“Katie’s been keeping something from you, Tomo-kun,” Shiori said.
“Stop it!” I shouted. She had no idea what she was doing, the damage she could cause.
Jun grabbed Ikeda’s arm and swung her around to face him. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
“I went looking and found her in Sunpu Park,” Ikeda said. “She was having a crisis of ethics, you could say. I thought it would be better to bring her face-to-face with Yuu, to make sure she wouldn’t chicken out.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jun snapped.
“She’s not the only one suffering,” Ikeda said quietly, looking at me. “Go on, Shiori. Set this straight. We haven’t done anything wrong. We don’t have anything to hide.”
Shiori pulled out her phone, her buttons beeping as she sorted through her files. So she hadn’t texted him after all.
“What’s going on?” Tomo asked me, rising to his feet.
“Tomo, it’s not what you think.” My pulse drummed in my ears.
Shiori threw her phone in the air, and it came down like a shining, falling star. Tomo caught it, turning it to face him.
“There,” Shiori said, her voice quivering as she held back the tears. “This is what you gave up everything for, Tomo-kun.”
I watched the pain carve its way onto his face as he stared at the photo of me kissing Jun. I wanted to look away. He crouched down slowly, pressing his knees into the grass. The LCD screen cast an eerie light on his face, bathing him in light and shadows as his eyes filled with angst.
“Yuu, it’s not Katie’s fault,” Jun said. “You pushed her away. You made her cry.”
I felt ill. Jun was not helping.
The look on his face broke my heart in two. I wanted to take him in my arms, but I was scared he’d push me away. “Tomo, I swear, it’s not what it looks like.”
“Don’t try to talk your way out of it,” Shiori smirked. “I didn’t send him the photo.” She paused, stepping closer to Tomohiro. “I sent the video.”
Oh god. “You took a video? What kind of twisted person are you?”
“You’re one to talk, aren’t you, Katie?” she said. “You kissed for eleven seconds, if you look at the video clock. It’s not exactly like you tried to stop it.” Shiori leaned over Tomohiro, resting a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t shrug it off, but sat there looking numb. She reached out to press the play button on the screen, to put Tomo through all of it again. She tilted her head to the side. “From the looks of it, you were quite enjoying yourself.”
“You don’t know anything!” I screamed. I stepped forward, too scared to reach out for him. “Tomo, let me explain. Please. Look at me.” But he wouldn’t look up. He tilted his face forward and his copper bangs fanned over his eyes, hiding them from me.
He flipped the phone shut, pressing it into Shiori’s hands. A flash of lightning lit up the sky, and a distant thunder rumbled.
“Betsu ni,” he said, looking disinterested. “No big deal.”
I froze, my pulse in my ears. Shiori looked stunned.
“What?” she breathed.
“I said it doesn’t matter,” Tomohiro said.
“But, Tomo-kun. Katie cheated on you with your kendo rival. You’re telling me it doesn’t matter?”
“Sou,” he said. He raised himself to one knee and then stood, towering over her. “It doesn’t.”
I glanced at Jun, who looked as puzzled as I was. Ikeda sat down sideways on her bike, her fingers tapping on the handlebars.
“Katie doesn’t belong to me, Shiori,” Tomo said quietly. “She’s free to choose her own life and who she wants to be with. If Takahashi makes her happy...then I’m happy.”
“Oh, what a load of crap,” I said. The adrenaline coursing through my body made me feel woozy. “Like you’d be happy if I was with Takahashi. And you know I’m not with him. Why are you spouting this kind of philosophical garbage?”
Shiori took a step toward Tomo, taking his hand with hers. “Tomo-kun, come back with me. I would never put you through any of this.” She looked down at her stomach, the bulge of it. “We can be happy.”
“I don’t want to be happy, Shiori,” Tomo said. He pulled his hand from hers, his eyes burning into me. “I love Katie. And if that means I have to suffer to keep her safe, then that’s what I’ll do. If it means I have to stand aside so someone else can take care of her because I can’t...I will stand aside. That’s what love is.”
“Tomo,” I whispered. I felt fluttery and barely there, a mixture of guilt and shame and bliss.
His voice turned dark and mean. “I’m not interested in someone who would blackmail and betray her way into a relationship. That’s ugly, Shiori.”
The tears brimmed in her eyes.
“Tomo-kun, I just—”
“Don’t call me that,” he said. “Yuu will do.”
The tears spilled over and she ran from the clearing, tipping from side to side with her heavy belly as she went.
“Hidoi,” Jun said, turning his head to watch Shiori go. I agreed—that was cold of Tomo to do. But I couldn’t blame him. The pain on his face was ho
rrible, but I was scared to reach out to him. What if he refused?
“Get out of here, Takahashi,” Tomo warned. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“I came to make sure you’re okay,” Jun said. “Katie told me about the ink on the chalkboards this morning. Anything you want to tell me?”
“Like?”
“Blackouts? Weird drawings you can’t explain? Nightmares getting worse?”
Tomo’s voice was like stone. “No.” He was lying, but I didn’t blame him. After seeing Jun and me kiss, he hated him even more.
“Denial won’t help, Yuu.”
“I’m not going to join you, so fuck off.”
Jun shifted his weight as he looked at me, his eyes cold and gleaming. “Right now my concern is Katie. You’re putting her in danger.”
Tomo narrowed his eyes. “I never asked her to come here.” The words stung, even though I knew he meant it as a way to protect me. I wanted to be here with him. I should’ve come by myself right away. “You might not be past using her to get to me, but I would never hurt her, so you can piss off.”
“Using her!” Jun laughed. “Is that what you think? No, Yuu, you wouldn’t knowingly hurt her. But you can’t ignore the warnings written on the chalkboards. What if you kill her?”
“They’re just threats!” Tomo shouted, rising to his feet. He curled his hands into fists at his sides. “Just nightmares.”
Jun’s voice thundered, “They’re not. We both know that. You’re a weapon, Tomo. You were created for a single purpose. Judgment. Retribution. That is all.”
Tomo shook his head. “I won’t accept your lies.” He uncurled his hands and looked up, his eyes lit with flame. “I. Won’t. Kill.”
Ikeda spoke up. “That’s what Jun said, too.”
I whirled around to face her, and so did Jun.
Ikeda looked down at the ground, her eyes soft. “He knows, don’t you, Jun? Why don’t you tell Katie how you know so much about what Kami can do?”
“Ikeda,” Jun said. “Not now.”
“No,” Ikeda said, balling her hands into fists. “I think Katie should know what happened, don’t you?”
The blood in my ears hummed. What the hell was going on here? More secrets?
“Why don’t you ask him, Katie? What happened to his dad? Then we’ll see where your loyalties lie.”
“That doesn’t matter right now!” barked Takahashi.
“They need to know,” Ikeda shouted. “I have stood by you through everything, Jun. I can’t stand by anymore and watch everything fall apart. Yuu needs to know what the ink can do to those you love.”
“What happened, Jun?” I said. Tomo flinched beside me, but said nothing.
Jun stood, heaving deep breaths into his lungs. His blond highlights almost glowed in the darkened clearing. His eyes were cold and distant. He was remembering something awful. I almost didn’t want to know.
“My dad was bringing in a lot of money from his Yakuza work,” Jun said, his voice soft, younger somehow. “Until the accident. One of the guys they sold guns to didn’t like the merchandise, so he came to get his money back. There was a struggle...my dad was shot.” He ran a hand through his hair and leaned against his motorbike. “They didn’t want to send him to a hospital because the police would get involved...so they assigned him private care from within the Yakuza chapter. A nurse. She took care of him, came into our house while Mom was at work and I was at school.” His hand balled into a fist and his eyes flashed with...sadness? Anger? I backed up a step. I didn’t like where this was going.
He stood up and walked past Tomo and me, standing at the edge of the little bridge over the two pools of water. Mount Fuji gleamed in the distance.
“She fell for him,” Jun said at last. “And that bastard snuck around with her for months before we found out. I came home from school early one day...I’d found out that I’d passed my entrance exams for junior high.” He lowered his head and then crouched down in the grasses beside the water. He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of the memory.
“Shortly after, his father ran off with her,” Ikeda said.
Jun grabbed a stone from the side of the pool, flipping it over and over between his fingers. “Mom cried for months. We didn’t have enough money because he spent it all on that bitch while we scrounged for bills. Do you know what it’s like to try to study for exams while your mom is sobbing in the next room? Do you know what it’s like to consider working for the Yakuza just to pay for your school fees?” He whipped the stone at the water and it splashed loudly. The water sprayed around him, beads of it catching in his bangs. He stood, turning to face us.
This was the worst part. I knew it.
“What did you do?” I whispered.
Jun’s shoulders hunched over as he stared at the water. “It was an accident.”
“Thought you didn’t have accidents,” Tomo said. “So I’m not the only unstable Kami after all.”
Ikeda sat on the edge of her bike. “He was doing his homework. His mom was wailing in her bedroom. And everything boiled over. I’ve seen the notebook, Katie. It’s still in his room. Pages and pages of scribbled kanji in every direction. Scrawls and torn paper. Everything underlined, smudges in dark black ink and pencil.”
Jun’s voice shook. “I couldn’t take it anymore. What he’d put Mom and me through.”
My throat was dry. I didn’t like this story. I didn’t like it at all. “What did he write, Ikeda?”
“‘Bastard. I hate you. I want you to die. DIE. DIE. DIE.’”
“And he died,” I whispered.
Jun was silent, so Ikeda spoke up. “He collapsed while shopping in Ginza in Tokyo. When the police came they recognized the nurse and arrested her for past Yakuza crimes.”
“It was the Yakuza who did it,” Jun growled. “If he hadn’t got involved with them, he’d still be alive.”
“Oh god, Jun,” I said, shaking. “You...you killed your own father.”
He looked at me, his eyes cold and his fists at his sides.
“They did,” he said. “I wasn’t responsible. How would I know writing a word in my own notebook would kill him? He drove me to that point!”
I raised my hand to my mouth.
“You need to know,” Ikeda said, “what Kami are capable of. Go back to America, Katie. There are dark places here where you don’t belong.”
“You’re wrong.” I shook my head. “I belong here. I’m part Kami. This is my world, too.”
“No, she’s right,” Tomo said, and I glared at him. “My drawings could kill you. Even my words.”
“Did you forget Ikeda is on their side?” I said. “Of course she’s going to say that. This whole story is to drive me away from you.” No, I realized as I said it. Her story was to keep me away from Jun. It was her own form of manipulation, just like Shiori had done with Tomo. Ikeda wanted Jun to herself; that was all. She wanted to scare me off him.
It was working.
“Katie,” Jun said, turning to face me. His eyes were warm, his hand outstretched. I could barely look at him; I was terrified. He’d killed someone. He’d killed his own dad. “Please don’t be afraid of me,” he said. “I would never hurt you. I’m not the same as I was then. I’ve learned to control the ink better.”
He took a step toward me, and my stomach twisted. “Stay back.”
The warmth in his eyes blinked out. He stood for a moment, saying nothing. Then he threw out an accusatory hand at Tomohiro.
“This is your fault,” Jun snarled. The wind gusted around us, his blond-and-black hair tangling around him.
“It’s always someone’s fault but yours, isn’t it, Takahashi?” Tomo said.
Jun’s face darkened. “You know nothing. Don’t you dare bring judgment on me. You killed your mo
ther, too.”
Tomo look like he’d been slapped, his eyes filling with pain.
Jun laughed. “Oh, yes, you think I didn’t look up your history, Yuu? You blame yourself, don’t you? She was bringing you your lunch. If you hadn’t forgotten it, she wouldn’t have crossed when the truck pulled out. You’re just as guilty. And you nearly murdered your friend Koji by summoning inugami. And now your next victim.” He raised his hand to me, and I shivered. “She chooses a demon over me. A dirty bastard child of Susanou’s.”
Tomo shook with every breath; he was pain, he was fury. “You’re crazy,” he whispered.
“Everything in my life has always been taken from me,” Jun said. “I won’t let you take Katie, too.”
“She’s not a thing to be taken,” Tomo said. “She makes her own choices.”
“You can’t deny your attraction to her,” Jun said. “I felt it, too. The ink flowing in her veins.”
I pressed my lips together, narrowing my eyes.
“That’s why you pursued her, isn’t it?” Jun continued.
Conflicted expressions flashed on Tomo’s face. I knew that had been a part of it, at first. The Kami blood calling out to itself. But we were more than that now. Trying to turn us against each other wouldn’t work.
“She’s an amplifier to the power,” Jun said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it.”
My heart nearly stopped. The cold way he talked about me, like I was just an object. It started to make horrible sense—he barely even knew me. Why would he ask me out for coffee over and over? What made him so interested in me when he had someone like Ikeda who worshipped the ground he walked on?
My lips trembled as I spoke. “You didn’t care about me at all, did you? You only cared about the ink in me.”
“You can’t be blind to the power you radiate,” Jun said.
Nerves fluttered and clawed at my sides. “You used me.”
Jun shook his head. “Every prince is adorned with a crown jewel. We need each other.”
“I don’t need you,” I spat.
Jun smiled darkly. “You’re wrong. You’ll see when Yuu finally submits to his true lineage. It’s time to face your destiny.”
