Ink

“But I saw you in the hallway,” I said, “when my pen—I know you’re trying to freak me out with all your ink stuff.”

Tomohiro stepped toward me, his eyes studying mine. He was a little taller than me, and his bangs feathered around his eyes like the hairs of a painter’s fan brush. My stomach twisted and I focused hard on hating him.

“Why would I want to freak you out?” he said in a smooth voice.

“I don’t know,” I said. I could hear my pulse in my ears. Tomohiro smiled, his eyes gleaming from behind his bangs. So he could look normal after all, I thought. Okay, more than normal. Damn it! Focus!

“Greene-san,” he said in accented English, giving me just about the politest suffix he could, “I assure you, I don’t have the time or the intention to scare you. I’m third year, yes? I have two cram schools to go to and I have university entrance exams to take. If you don’t want to see me, then don’t look for me at the school gate every morning.”

English. He was speaking English. Not only that, but calling me by my last name like I wasn’t some outsider, as if I belonged. I felt off balance, like he’d rolled a single marble to my side of a plank and the sudden change of weight might cause me to topple over. He’d turned this into a game, and he was winning.

Bleached Hair grinned. “I didn’t know you spoke English so well, Yuuto.”

“You understood me that day, in the genkan,” I whispered. I felt nauseous and wished he would stop looking at me and turn away. “You told me you didn’t speak English.”

He smirked, but his face was pale. “And you told me you didn’t speak Japanese,” he said. “So we’re even.”

“I don’t—” Wait, was he complimenting my Japanese?

“Look, we’re already late for kendo practice.” He turned to his friend and snapped, “Ikuzo.” Let’s go, trying to sound like a tough guy. He took off toward the genkan, followed by Bleached Hair.

There was more to it all—I knew it. How could he hate something that had made him come alive? I saw the way his arm arced through the air, the graceful way he moved, the look in his eyes and the softness of his voice as he sketched the kanji with his fingers. And he hadn’t denied the ink moving. He hadn’t said no.

My head flooded with questions, too many to handle. I wanted him to leave me alone—didn’t I? I never wanted to see him again—right? I just wanted things the way they were before. My whole world was shaken up. I didn’t want to see things that weren’t there. I didn’t want to lose whatever it was I had left without Mom. And every step he took away from me was a step away from normal. I needed answers and I needed them now.

I panicked and grabbed his left wrist with my hand. He turned, his eyes wide with surprise.

His skin felt warm beneath the shirt cuff, and time felt like it stopped.

“Katie,” Yuki whispered. Tanaka’s mouth was half open, half shut. I guess you didn’t just grab someone in Japan. I was making a spectacle of myself again—but it was too late. I clung to the softness of his skin, unsure what to do next or what I had been thinking.

“Oi,” Bleached Hair said, annoyed. The whole courtyard was staring at me. Again. Tomohiro looked at me, face flushing pink, his eyes wide and gleaming. He even looked a little frightened. I opened my fingers and let his wrist slip away.

“I—”

“Stay away from me,” Tomohiro said, but his voice wavered, and his cheeks blazed red as he turned and took off. I looked down at my hands.

Stay away from me.

Isn’t that my line?

And then I saw the pads of my fingers, covered in dark ink.

I screamed and wiped them on my jeans. But when I lifted them to look, the ink was gone. There was nothing on my jeans, either.

“Katie.” Yuki, looking worried, grabbed my arm and steered me away from the scene I was making. “Let’s go, okay?”

I followed, my mind racing.

I hated myself for the heat that flushed through me when I thought of the warmth of his wrist against my fingers. I tried to crumple up the feeling and toss it away like I had with Tanaka, but when I thought I’d crushed it, it dripped back into my thoughts like black, sluggish ink.

I walked silently through Sunpu Park, Yuki with a sympathetic arm around me.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not like everyone saw. I mean…um.”

“You okay?” Tanaka said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t like how he was talking to you. He said he’s your friend, and then he goes all crazy when you ask him about calligraphy. I just feel like he’s hiding something. Sometimes he looks so pissed, and other times he looks worried or like I’m in on some kind of secret. I don’t get it—I want to know what’s going on.”

“Katie,” Yuki said, squeezing my arm. “That’s just how Yuu is. I’ve been talking to the second years, and he’s just touchy like that.”

“Right,” said Tanaka. “He likes his space. My sister told me he’s always disappearing somewhere—a loner or something, right? I know he’s cold, but don’t take it personally.”

Disappearing somewhere? So he is up to something.

Yuki flipped her phone open to check the time. “Listen, I have to go. They’ll kick me out of cram school if I’m late again. Later, okay?”

We waved as she took off ahead of us.

“Tanaka,” I said quietly as we walked.

“Hmm?” he said, tilting his head to the side.

“Why did Yuu quit Calligraphy Club?”

“MEh? Oh,” Tanaka said, looking a little embarrassed. Maybe I’d hit a sore spot. “He was getting into a lot of fights, and sensei warned him he’d have to quit the club if it continued.”

“So he got kicked out.”

Tanaka shook his head. “He was doing all right for a while. We had a big show coming up, our winter exhibit. Tomo-kun was working so hard on his painting. He chose the kanji for sword, and it was supposed to be our feature piece. Anyway, he practiced so many times and then went to paint the one for the display.”

“And?”

“Somehow he cut himself on it. Some sharp nail in the back of the frame or something. It was a deep cut, and he bled across the canvas. After all his hard work, his painting was ruined.”

I struggled to imagine it, Yuu Tomohiro throwing himself into creating a work of art. It didn’t mesh with his tough image, that was for sure.

“So, what, he just quit?”

“When I came into the arts room the next day, his canvas was ripped in two in the garbage. I still remember the sound of the ink dripping into the trash can.”

I stopped walking. “Ink dripping…”

Tanaka nodded. “He must have used a lot of pigment. It was really thick. I remember how weird it looked, kind of an oily sheen with dust or something. He never came back to Calligraphy Club. And shortly after he switched schools.”

“Switched schools? Isn’t that a little drastic?”

Tanaka laughed. “Different reason,” he said.