Storm

by Amanda Sun

  My dad jumped to his feet, his chair pushing back with a loud screech. His hand knocked the plastic specials sign off the table and it clattered on the floor. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled in English as he reached down for the sign. The restaurant guy politely motioned him away and replaced the sign on the table before returning to the front of the restaurant. “Thanks,” my dad shouted after him. “Uh, arigatou.” He sounded strange, like he was trying to speak Japanese with a New York accent. When Diane spoke Japanese, she used the same intonations they did, and I tried to do the same.

  I guess I’d been here too long—judging another gaijin, like I wasn’t one myself.

  “Kate,” he said, sidestepping around the table toward me. Was he going to hug me? He held out one hand, and then both, nervously smiling as his lab coat swished around him. “Uh,” he said, like he wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t sure, either. But then he wrapped his arms around me and held me in an awkward hug. It felt strange; not awful, but just strange and unfamiliar. The thought made me sad. I didn’t know what it was like to hug my own father.

  We separated, and I forced a smile onto my face.

  “Look at you,” he said, holding both my hands as he stepped back and studied me. “Just like your mother. My god, I thought it was her walking in here for a minute.”

  “Um,” I said, noticing the Japanese in the restaurant who were politely ignoring us. “We should sit down.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” he said, going around the table to his chair. He hesitated and came back around to put a hand on my chair.

  “That’s okay,” I said, wishing he would stop. “I can do it.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  We sat, and I opened the menu, wanting to escape. He wasn’t threatening or cold like I’d expected. He was flustered, like he wanted to make a good impression. For his benefit or mine? I wasn’t sure.

  “I want to thank you for coming, Kate,” he said, his eyes scanning the menu. “I’m really glad you decided to come.”

  “Me, too,” I said, because it was what I thought I should say. The waiter arrived and bobbed his head at us, ready to take our order. “Go ahead, first,” I told my dad.

  Dad pointed to a photo in the menu of a katsu curry don, a bowl of rice with vegetables and breaded pork drenched in sauce. He used his English-accented Japanese again to order. Ko-ray o koo-da-sigh. It wasn’t awful, it just didn’t sound like it fit. At least he was trying. I ordered my meal next, a chicken curry set that came with a melon soda.

  “Kashikomarimashita.” The waiter nodded, and then he was gone toward the kitchen.

  My dad stared at me, his eyes wide. “Listen to you,” he said. “You’re fluent. Amazing!”

  “I’m not fluent,” I said, taking a sip of the water the waiter had brought. “Not at all.”

  “You sound like it, though,” he said. “Wow.”

  I struggled for things to say. “So...what’s with the lab coat?”

  He looked down and tugged at the side of it. “This? I’m an oncologist. Didn’t you...? Well, I guess no one would’ve told you. I’m on my lunch break actually. I’m in Japan working on an experiment with Tokyo University.”

  “Oh,” I said. I knew my dad was some kind of doctor, but I hadn’t really thought about it much. Mostly I just thought about his other role: abandoning jerk.

  There was a silence, then. I wasn’t sure what to talk about. Was he impressed by my Japanese because I was supposed to be brain damaged? Mom had been deathly ill from the ink dragon fruit she’d eaten while pregnant with me. That had been Dad’s fault, indirectly. He’d brought it home from Japan as a souvenir, one that nearly claimed my life.

  Dad let out a slow sigh that sounded like a hiss between his clenched teeth. “I bet you have a lot of questions for me,” he said.

  I did. “Not really.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I... I made a huge mistake, and I’m so sorry. I want you to know that, Kate. If I could go back...”

  “It’s fine,” I said. It felt too hot, and my appetite was gone. I wanted to leave. “And it’s Katie, not Kate.”

  “Katie,” he repeated. “It’s not fine. Hell, it’s terrible, really. I don’t deserve your forgiveness. But you’re here, and I’m so, so glad.”

  I shifted in my chair, looking into my glass of water. Now that he was here, the questions I’d had felt dry and useless, stuck in my throat. Who cared why he abandoned us? He did. There weren’t any answers that would make up for it.

  The waiter brought my melon soda, and then our curries. I dipped my fork into the sauce and watched it drip off the tines.

  “I love this place,” my dad said, putting his napkin on his lap. “I come here for lunch every time I’m in Tokyo. Which isn’t that often, I guess, but a few times. I never thought Japanese food would include curry. Most people think of sushi, right?”

  I sipped at the melon soda, and it was like the fizz sent my thoughts bubbling up. “You know it was the dragon fruit that made her sick. The one you brought back from Japan.”

  He hesitated, his spoon drowning in the runny curry.

  “It was your fault that we both nearly died.”

  “I know,” he said, lowering his head. “I... I’m so sorry.”

  “You can’t just come in after seventeen years and apologize,” I said. I bit into a piece of chicken, the spices of the curry flooding my mouth with familiarity. Japan and Diane gave me roots, gave me courage to speak up for myself, even if I was shaking as I did. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I hated conflict.

  “You’re right, Kate,” he said.

  “Why’d you do it?”

  He opened his mouth and closed it, staring down at his curry. After a moment, he said quietly, “It was my fault, and I couldn’t face what I’d done to you both.”

  “So you just abandoned us? Because that’s so much better.”

  “I know,” he said. “If I could go back, I’d build up the courage to stay.”

  “Courage? What, because I’m brain damaged?” I was getting too loud, and I lowered my voice. I didn’t want to cause a scene.

  Dad looked horrified. “You’re not brain damaged. And I wouldn’t care if you were in a wheelchair your whole life and you didn’t talk or walk or eat goddamn curry. You’d still be my daughter.”

  “But you left,” I said. “You can’t say you wouldn’t do that, because you did.”

  “Not for that reason,” he said, and the way his eyes looked, I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  I wanted to get out of here. The curry was sour on my tongue. I wanted to run into Tomo’s arms, to forget all this. It was better when I’d been an orphan. “Your reasons don’t matter,” I said, placing my napkin on the table. “Your actions matter.” I stood to leave.

  “Kate, wait,” he said, reaching an arm out toward me. “Please don’t go. You have every right to be angry, but I want to make it up to you. Please. Please stay.”

  I stopped, looking at the concerned faces around me. Creating a scene was one of the worst things you could do in Japan. I was involving the people around me who didn’t want to be part of this. I flushed pink, humiliated to once again break the social code here. I sat back down, and as I did, the paper Tomo had folded up fluttered out of my pocket and onto the side of my chair. I grasped it with nervous fingers, my palms sweating. You’re not alone, he’d said. I grasped his words with all my might.

  “Thank you,” Steven said quietly. “Thank you for staying.”

  I opened the paper slowly, the first fold, and then the second. It wasn’t a drawing, but a couple sentences Tomo had written in his elegant hand.

  Hitori ja nai yo. Kimi ha ai ni tsumareteiru yo.

  You’re not alone, it said. Love envelops you. I could feel it, like a warmth circling me, engulfing me in vani
lla-and-miso-scented peace. He’d sent me the strength I’d needed. Tomo, I thought. Thank you.

  “What’s that?” my dad asked, looking at the paper.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. I quickly crumpled the note toward the lip of my pocket, but a sharp pain stung my finger and I dropped the paper in surprise. Seriously? A paper cut? The paper floated down to the floor, and I ducked under the table to reach for it. My dad did the same.

  When the paper hit the ground, a flurry of snowflakes lifted from the page, ghostly white with crisp black edges. It was like a tiny snow globe under the table, the flakes whirling in a spiral as they drifted back to the page. The paper soaked through where they touched, the kanji going limp and transparent as the snow melted into water.

  “Oh my god,” my dad whispered, and I froze, horrified at his discovery.

  I grabbed the note, the paper cold as ice as I put it in my pocket. I looked down at my curry, unsure what to say. Laugh it off? Pretend I didn’t see anything? Blame it on the weather outside? Maybe someone had opened the door and...and it had snowed only in the small space below our table. I’d waited too long to speak now.

  I opened my mouth. “I...”

  My dad’s eyes took up half his face. “Kate, was that... Did those come off the paper?”

  I didn’t understand it. Tomo hadn’t even drawn anything. Why had it happened? “I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “That was weird, but...it wasn’t...”

  My dad leaned into the table, his voice hushed. “Have the Kami come after you?” he said.

  The world around me stopped. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t see.

  My dad knew about the Kami.

  * * *

  I breathed in the fresh air of Yoyogi Park, glad to be out of the curry restaurant. My dad sat on the bench beside me, watching as a group of teens walked by in a mismatch of rainbows and high-heeled combat boots. We’d sat for a few minutes, with neither of us saying anything.

  At last, I spoke. “How did you know about them?” I was too shocked to make up stories to deny it.

  “Are you safe?” he asked. “Do they know you’re my daughter?”

  I blinked. “What? No. What are you talking about?”

  He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I wanted to protect you from this.”

  The autumn breeze blew past us, and I felt cold, colder than I’d ever been. I pressed my hands against my legs, my scarf tied tightly around my neck, its fuzziness soft against my lips. I wanted Tomo here with me to face this, but instead I had to face it alone.

  Hitori ja nai yo. You’re not alone. I remembered the thought gently, like I could hear the words on Tomo’s lips.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  My dad pursed his lips, readying himself for whatever it was that he was going to say. “Almost seventeen years ago, I came to Japan for the first time,” he said. “They called me in because of some research I’d been working on. I was still pretty green out of residency. I was just a kid then...damn. But they were dealing with a stomach cancer patient with a really strange strain of bacteria.”

  “Strange?”

  He waved his hand around as he spoke. “Yeah, you know how the bacteria interact with...” He stopped, seeing the confused look on my face. “Well, anyway, it doesn’t matter—something wasn’t right with her tumors. I’d published a paper on the behavior of long-term infections, and they asked if I could come and take a look. It was stupid, you know. I didn’t know anything back then. There’s still so much we don’t know about it. But they were desperate because of the patient.” He put his head in his hands. “Lovely girl. She was only twenty-one, far too young to have to deal with cancer.”

  I shifted in my seat, tucking my legs under the bench and crossing my ankles. I felt bad for this girl I didn’t know, but I didn’t understand what it had to do with Kami. The cold breeze blew again and I reached my hand into my pocket for my gloves. The lining was damp from Tomo’s snow globe note.

  “I looked at the cancer cells for a whole week trying to gather the courage to share my findings with the other oncologists,” he said. “They...they looked like congealed ink.”

  I stared at him, narrowing my eyes. Tomo had been bleeding ink lately, yes, but it’s not like he had actual physical ink sloshing around his veins all the time. Kami born with the power could make drawings come to life. They held the power in their ancestry, not in physically black blood or anything like that. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know,” he said. “And her fiancé looked so nervous that I started to suspect he’d had something to do with it. I confronted him first before I told the other doctors. And he burst into tears and told me about the Kami. I didn’t believe it, at first, but how else could I explain this strange ink? So he showed me. He sketched a dog and I saw it running on the page.” He put a hand on his head. “I thought I’d lost my mind. He said he was a Kami, and that she’d ingested the ink.”

  Like Mom. I shuddered. “Ingested it?”

  “He’d drawn a plum,” he said. “He was working on his paintings. But she hadn’t realized. She’d seen the fruit bowl and picked the plum out to eat.”

  “Wouldn’t she realize it was painted?” I said. “Black and white, right?”

  He shook his head. “But she didn’t notice. Maybe it was dark, maybe she was distracted. The fact remains that she ate it.”

  But she should’ve been all right. Mom had survived. Jun had said someone who swallows the ink would probably be okay after a while, right?

  But it had stayed trapped in me. Who knew what it would do to someone else?

  “As far as I could tell, the ink swarmed her body and attacked. It turned into aggressive tumorlike inkblots, infecting her in a way the doctors had never seen before, leading them to believe it was gastric cancer. Her fiancé begged me not to tell, but to hell with that. I had to save her life, even if he got in trouble with the law, even if this Kami secret came to light. I tried telling the oncologists, but they thought I’d lost my mind. They insisted it was cancer. I didn’t know what to recommend. How do you heal someone from some kind of ancient magic attack?”

  The thought of what might have happened to her knotted in my throat. This couldn’t be good.

  “When she died, her fiancé brought me some fancy packaged souvenirs as a thank-you. All tied up with ribbon. Fruit from Hokkaido, he said, in appreciation for keeping his secret and for trying to save her. I was heartbroken, but I brought the fruit back with me. How could I refuse?”

  The dragon fruit. Oh god.

  “Mom,” I said. “Mom ate it.”

  “Yeah,” he said, a hollow, heartbroken word. I looked over at him as he seemed to crumple into himself. Tears streaked down his cheeks, and he wiped at them with the sleeve of his lab coat. “‘Here,’ he’d said to me. ‘Let me share how I feel with you.’ I thought he meant he was grateful. I thought he knew how much I’d wanted to save her.”

  I paused, my hands gripping the side of the bench. “You mean...he did it on purpose? To Mom?”

  Dad didn’t look up, merely wiped at his tears again. “He wasn’t grateful,” he whispered. “He wanted revenge.”

  The tears flowed from my eyes. I didn’t even try to stop them. Mom had been poisoned on purpose, so Dad could share what that guy had gone through.

  Dad’s voice was raw, cracked. “I heard he jumped off a building the week after.”

  More deaths from the ink, a power humans were never meant to possess.

  You survived, a voice whispered in my head. And now you have to complete the cycle.

  I shook the voice away. I had my own life to worry about right now, not the desires of some stupid destructive power that was ripping my world apart.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dad sobbed. “I didn’t want to abandon you. I left because I cou
ldn’t stand what I’d done to you. I panicked. I was too young. I knew there was no cure, nothing I could do. It was all my fault. If I could’ve saved the girl...if I’d listened to myself about the odd glint in the boy’s eyes...” He pressed his forehead into his hands and shook.

  I reached into my pocket for a tissue, handing it to him silently. “Mom always said you’d run off with someone else.”

  He shook his head. “I only said that when Diane cornered me on the phone after. I wanted to make it all go away. I couldn’t face you after.”

  He’d left us out of guilt, a secret we’d never believe. It didn’t make it less pathetic, though. “We didn’t care about all that, Dad,” I said, trying to blink back my own tears. “We just needed you.”

  “I know that,” he managed, dabbing at his eyes. “I know that now. If I could go back... I’d do it all differently. I would.”

  My phone buzzed in my purse, the sound of it breaking me out of the moment. Crap. What time was it? The text message was from Tomo, letting me know he was waiting for me at Otemachi Station near the Imperial Palace. I texted back that I’d be there soon.

  “Is it Diane?” Dad asked, and I shook my head.

  “A friend.”

  “So things here are okay for you? How is that you have a Kami paper?”

  “Things here are great,” I said, but he could see the worry in my eyes. “The Kami...it’s complicated, but it’ll be sorted out soon. Don’t worry.” Which is why I had to go see Tomo now, to stop all this before the ink caused any more grief.

  Dad nodded slowly. “Stay away from them,” he added. “I don’t know much about it, but I know they’re dangerous. They took you from me once—well, no, it was my fault but—listen. I know we’re just meeting, and I don’t want to rush anything, but...if you want to leave Japan, Kate—Katie—you can come stay with us, you know?”

  “I can stay with Nan and Gramps,” I said.

  Dad smiled weakly. “I know. But, I mean, even for a summer vacation.” He twisted on the bench and reached for my hands, clutching them in his, loosely, so I could let go if I wanted to.