Ink

by Amanda Sun

  “Paris?”

  “Mais bien sûr, mademoiselle.” The French rolled off his tongue, and every nerve in my body tingled. This was a bad idea, spending more time with him. I should be at home, trying to forget him, falling for Tanaka, or maybe Jun. Tomo hiro didn’t notice that I was silently falling apart beside him; he was lost in the memory. “I disappeared and he and my mom panicked. They looked everywhere for me, even called the police. I was about six, I think.”

  “So where were you?” It was hard to conjure up an image of a six-year-old Tomohiro, lost and crying somewhere for his mommy.

  Tomohiro smirked. “I was drawing pictures in my sketchbook inside the Louvre.”

  Of course he was.

  “You really love art, don’t you?”

  “I can’t explain it,” he said, curving around the tail of the horse with his pen. “It’s not really a love of art. I have to draw. It’s…a compulsion.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Sou da na…” he mused.

  “Yuu?”

  “Hmm?” He drew gentle strokes to build the horse a wild mane, and it looked so lifelike I could almost smell the dank locks, feel them tangled between my fingers.

  “Your friend from Kendo Club, the one with the…” I wasn’t sure of the term in Japanese, so I switched to English.

  “You know, with the bleached hair…”

  “Bleached?” he repeated in English. I wasn’t sure how to translate.

  “Lighter than blond hair,” I said. “Almost white.”

  Tomohiro scoffed. “Sato?” he said. “Ishikawa Satoshi?”

  So he had a name.

  “Does he draw, too?”

  Tomohiro laughed, and the sound rang in my ears.

  “Zenzen,” he said. “He can barely draw a straight line.”

  “I was curious,” I said, biting my lip and taking a breath,

  “because I thought it looked like he had a tattoo.”

  Tomohiro dropped his pen. It rolled across the page and fell with a gentle thud into the long, dewy grass. A moment later he wrapped his fingers around the black cover of his notebook and closed it. The drawing of the horse flashed out of sight, but I swore he’d drawn the head curving down, not over the shoulder like it was now.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything,” I said. “It just looked like he had a tattoo.”

  He breathed slowly, hunched over his notebook.

  “Yes,” he said. “He has a tattoo.”

  The truth screamed out inside my head. It’s all true. Why else would he act like this?

  “Ishikawa…is he—”

  “Does it really concern you?” he said in a sharp voice. I felt the shame burning up my neck, but it only made me angry.

  I hadn’t said anything wrong.

  “He’s your best friend,” I said. “It kind of concerns me if he’s into dangerous stuff.”

  “I told you to stay away, didn’t I?” he snapped.

  “Would you cool it already?” I said, but the expression was lost in the translation and he looked puzzled. His eyes clouded over, and his head hung lower and lower until he rested his chin on his notebook. Then I saw the dark ooze dripping out from between the pages.

  “Yuu!” I said. “Are you bleeding?”

  Tomohiro shot up, stared at his hand and then the dripping liquid. His hand was fine, but he grabbed the pen, opened up the notebook a sliver and scribbled over the horse drawing.

  “The ink blots sometimes,” he said. “It’s from the pen.”

  I stared with wide eyes at the bloodlike liquid, how it shimmered as it pooled on the grass. “What the hell kind of ink are you using?”

  “Look,” Tomohiro said. His tone was even now, and he looked up at me. I was suddenly aware that I was sitting too close to him, but I couldn’t back up without looking like I was recoiling. “Sato is mixed up in some things that are no good. He gets me into a lot of fights, but I’m not into that stuff, okay?”

  The unasked question hung in the silence of Toro Iseki. I could barely form the words, but Tomohiro’s eyes told me I didn’t need to.

  “Yuu,” I said, my throat thick and dry.

  “Yes,” he said, but he didn’t raise his voice like a question.

  He knew what I was going to say, and he was ready to answer.

  “Is Ishikawa in the Yakuza?”

  Tomohiro stared straight at me, and I could already see the answer.

  “Yuu, you have to stop hanging out with him.”

  “We’ve been best friends since elementary school,” he said.

  “He was the only one who was my friend after…”

  “After what?” I whispered.

  “After I—switched schools.” Koji. After Koji. What the hell happened, Yuu? “I can’t abandon him. Anyway, I can take care of myself. And he’s not that involved. He hasn’t taken a sake oath or anything. He just does…odd tasks.”

  Fear coursed through me slowly, nerves prickling with the information I didn’t want to know.

  “When you were warning me to stay away…I had no idea.”

  Tomohiro snorted and his eyes fell to the cover of his notebook.

  “You have no idea,” he said.

  A surge of panic cut through the pins and needles prickling down my spine.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “You won’t have to worry about it.”

  “You’re scaring me,” I said. He looked up and smiled warmly, like that would melt the fear in my heart.

  “Daijoubu,” he said. It’s okay. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Just like—” He stopped.

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’ll watch out for you.”

  “I don’t need your protection,” I said. “I just don’t want ties to the Yakuza.”

  “Greene, I’m not in the Yakuza. I’ve made my intentions clear to them. You don’t have to worry. Sato doesn’t bring it up and I don’t ask.”

  Tomohiro opened up his book bag and pulled out two cans of sweet milk tea. He pressed the cold drink into my hands and we said nothing, listening to the wagtails sing, their tails bobbing up and down like they were sketching, too. Tomohiro opened up his notebook to a fresh page and started drawing.

  Ishikawa was his only friend after the fight with Koji.

  After he cut himself on the calligraphy project. I felt like I was standing too close to a painting, like I couldn’t see the whole picture or put the fragments together. None of it made sense on its own. I couldn’t piece him together.

  “Yuu?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ve got to know. About the drawings. And don’t tell me they’re animated. My own doodles came at me with pointy teeth.”

  “I didn’t do that,” he said.

  “So you’re saying I’m doing it?”

  “I’m not. I’m saying I didn’t do that.”

  “Which means you did some of it, just not that.”

  Silence.

  Bingo.

  “I’m going to figure it out,” I said.

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “Yuu—I’m serious.” I reached for his arm so he would look at me, but stopped. The cold way he’d told me to stay away from him the last time I touched him—I pulled my hand back. “Why did you transfer schools?”

  “You ask too many questions, Greene.” His pen traced the edge of the horse’s leg.

  “Katie.”

  “What?”

  “My name is Katie.”

  Tomohiro’s hand froze, and his cheeks started to turn a deep crimson. I’d been in Japan long enough to know what I was saying. A first-name basis was a step up the relationship ladder. “I’m a gaijin, remember?” I added quickly. “I’m not used to being called my last name. Don’t you usually call gaijin by their first name anyway?”

  He paused a moment, and I realized I shouldn’t have said it. I was moving too fast—jus
t because I felt something for him didn’t mean he felt something for me, right? But then his hand began to move again, drawing the lines slowly as if he feared they would jump off in directions he couldn’t control.

  “All right, Katie,” he said, and for the first time I relished the sound of my name on his lips. So rich, so lovely, so safe.

  He didn’t sound dangerous, not here. I leaned back on the grass, watching the clouds float over the ancient city, wondering what tangled mess I’d gotten myself into.

  “So you’re not going to tell me what happened?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “Then because it’s not your business.”

  “You always say that.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Because it’s true,” he said. And then he closed the book and lay down beside me in the soggy grass. Every breath became shallow as I focused on the fact that he was right beside me. His knee pressed against mine by accident and I pulled away. A moment later I sat up.

  “A-re?” he said in surprise. Then he sat up with a wolfish grin on his face. “Are you scared of me, Katie?” He rolled onto his knees and pressed his hands into the grass, leaning forward so his face almost reached mine. I could feel his warm breath on my skin. My stomach grew wings and battered around my insides. He wasn’t going to… I mean, he wouldn’t try to kiss me, would he?

  I didn’t want him to.

  I wanted him to.

  God he was beautiful. Dangerous things usually are. What the heck was I playing around with?

  “Who’s Koji?” I blurted out. Tomohiro froze, his eyes gleaming from behind his bright copper bangs. And then he pressed backward with the palms of his hands and stood up.

  “Fuck,” he said, walking a few steps away.

  I got to my feet, my legs shaking. Tomohiro ran his hand through his hair.

  “Who told you about him? Ichirou?” His voice was like stone.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Tanaka did.”

  A long pause.

  “Koji was my best friend,” Tomohiro said. “I didn’t mean to… God, there was so much blood.”

  “How could you do that to your best friend?” I asked quietly. Tomohiro spun around, a wild look on his face. He was frightening again, like he’d been at kendo.

  “It’s not like that!” he shouted. “It’s not what everybody thinks.” He fell to his knees, folding his head into his hands.

  “They don’t know what happened,” he said quietly.

  “Then tell me,” I whispered. “I’ll listen.”

  He didn’t say anything. Then, “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t, okay?” he snapped. “We were messing around, and he got hurt.”

  “But Tanaka said—”

  “Tanaka knows shit!”

  “If it was an accident, why didn’t Koji say so?”

  “He did, but they didn’t believe him. No one would.”

  I took a breath. “Okay, so it was an accident. I believe you.

  Chill out, okay?”

  Tomohiro looked over at me, then pressed his palm against his forehead. “I’m gonna kill Ichirou for telling you.”

  I smirked. “I would’ve found out from someone else eventually.”

  “Ha.” Tomohiro laughed, and then he grinned. “I wouldn’t expect less from you. I just wish you wouldn’t think about all that too much. You know, my past and stuff. Can’t you just forget it?”

  “What do you mean?” I said. That glossing over the past meant there was some bad stuff there.

  “I mean can’t I just like a girl without it getting so complicated?” He raked another hand through his hair, shaking his head a few times, but all I could hear was my own heartbeat in my ears. Then he turned to look at me, his brown eyes deep and unafraid. The breeze was chilly against my dew-soaked back, but all I felt was warmth. I wanted to ask what he’d said, to hear it again, but the words lodged in my throat.

  “You mean Myu?” was what escaped. Tomohiro didn’t even grin. He just moved forward, looking intense.

  “What I mean is…” he said. “Ore sa.” His voice was made of honey. “Kimi no koto ga…” About you, it meant. I, you know, I…

  And his keitai phone went off, and we both jumped away from each other. He flipped it open, cursing under his breath.

  He stared at the name, his finger hovering over the button.

  “I… Sorry, I have to…”

  “It’s okay,” I said, and he pushed the button. I felt like I was floating. This couldn’t be real. My mind repeated over and over what he’d said. Can’t I just like a girl? About you, I, you know…

  He clicked the phone closed, his bangs sweeping over his eyes. “I have to go,” he said.

  “Your dad?”

  “No, it’s nothing,” he said. “I just have to go.”

  “Some girl?” I joked, only I wasn’t joking.

  “Maji de,” he said. “Are you the jealous type?” He flashed a mean grin.

  “Shut up. I don’t care.”

  “It’s Sato,” he said. “He’s in a situation.”

  “Oh.” And it hit me yet again that I had fallen for the wrong guy. A dangerous guy, going to help his gangster friend.

  “I’ll— Listen, give me your keitai number.” And he held up his phone and flipped it open. “Please?”

  I reached for mine, pretty sure this wasn’t what Diane had in mind when she got it for me. I pushed a few buttons and the infrared sent my number over to his phone with a beep.

  Another beep, and I had his.

  “Yosh,” he said, clicking it shut and shoving it into his pocket. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” I nodded, and he nodded, and then I nodded again. “Okay, jaa, ” he said, and then he headed toward our bikes. He only got about five steps before he tripped, but he kept going, cursing under his breath.

  Well, at least we were both feeling awkward. I’d thought he only had one mode, and it was suave.

  I ducked under the fence and grabbed my bike, walking alongside it as I watched Tomohiro cycle out of sight. If he was so dangerous, why did I feel like I might float away?

  Too late to step away now. I wanted to see what was going on.

  I hopped on my bike and followed him.

  Chapter 6

  Tomohiro coasted south for a while, until the streets became narrow and crowded, and he walked alongside his bike. I followed him at a distance, finding it easier to hide in the crowds. My phone went off, and since it was so new, it took me a minute to realize it was mine. I pressed it to my ear.

  “Moshi mosh?” I said.

  “Katie!” Tanaka’s voice rang out.

  “Tanaka?”

  “And Yuki. She’s done with Sewing Club, and we want to hang out. So…coffee?”

  “Oh. Um.”

  “I told you” came Yuki’s slightly muff led voice. “She’s busy flirting with Yuu Tomohiro.”

  “I’m not—Tanaka, put Yuki on the phone.”

  “And let you yell at each other? No way. Have fun, Katie-chan. We’ll talk later.”

  “I’ll call you!” shouted Yuki from the background. “I want all the details!” So did I. The more Tomohiro didn’t want me to delve into his past, the more I needed to.

  “Wait!” I said, and for a minute I was worried Tanaka had hung up.

  “Hmm?” he said. I veered my bike around the thinning crowd, trying not to lose sight of Tomohiro.

  “Koji,” I said quietly. “What happened to him, Tanaka?”

  “I don’t think you should ask him about it.”

  “Fine, but just tell me. Please.”

  “His dad was going to file assault charges. I think he got paid off or something.”

  “Tomohiro said it was an accident,” I said, watching the copper spikes bob a few yards ahead of me.

  Tanaka let out a long sigh. “I always thought that, too. I want to think it, because that’
s not who Tomo-kun is. But…

  that’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Katie.” I could tell Tanaka had cupped his hand around the phone, his voice quiet and serious. “Three long slices to the eye with a blade. Multiple stab wounds on his arms. He almost lost his eye. There’s no way all that was an accident.”

  “Holy shit.” I felt like I was going to be sick.

  “Except,” Tanaka said, “there was a lot of talk that it was an animal, you know, not a knife that—”

  There was the muffled sound of Yuki grabbing the phone.

  “Katie, I didn’t know that before. Tanaka, are you stupid?

  Telling her to go for a guy like that? Get out of there, Katie.

  Don’t speak to him again. Please.”

  I was crumbling to pieces. Parts of me were blowing away on the wind.

  The one person who understood me, and he goes at his best friend with a knife. No, I still believed Tomohiro. It was an accident, somehow, wasn’t what it looked like. But if it was an animal, why not just say so?

  Multiple stab wounds…

  “Katie?” Tanaka said. “I’m not sure it’s true. Koji always said it didn’t happen like that. Katie—”

  I closed the phone and put it in my pocket. There wasn’t enough of a crowd around to blend in, to forget what I’d heard. I didn’t want to follow Tomohiro anymore. It didn’t matter what Koji had said. How could Tomohiro explain away those kinds of wounds as accidental? I can’t, he’d said.

  More puzzle pieces adding up to nothing.

  I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, and in front of me Tomohiro had met up with Ishikawa. I stopped abruptly. Another few minutes and I would’ve crashed into them.

  I stared at Tomohiro as he greeted Ishikawa, as they smacked hands and Ishikawa pointed at a guy with a knit hat pulled over his head, as Tomohiro grabbed hold of the guy’s shirt collar and shoved him back a foot while Ishikawa laughed. The guy approached and Tomohiro leaned his face in close to the other guy, forcing him to walk back a few steps before shoving him again. Ishikawa reached out his palm, coaxing the hat guy to either fight back or give them something, I couldn’t tell.

  And then I saw the backs of Tomohiro’s fists, drenched in black ink, dripping onto the ground.

  Only, the others didn’t seem to notice it, and when he pushed the knit hat guy again, none of it came off on his shirt. It dripped, thick as blood. I blinked and it was gone.