Ink

The gravel sprayed across the grass, tiny drops of blood clinging to the stones. Except, some of the drops didn’t look like blood. They oozed like…like black ink.

The shower of pink petals rained down.

I stepped forward, one foot, then the other, numb to the beauty of the park. I bent down and lifted one of the stones. The droplet of ink spilled onto the side of my finger before dripping back to the ground.

He’d been warm, laughing, the weight of something lifted. And then he’d stopped. What the hell am I doing? he’d said. What are you doing, Yuu? He was keeping something secret, something about the ink. He wanted me to stay away. But he’d forgotten.

And it was nice.

The castle rose as I neared the picnic site, and I saw the classes spread out under the branches laden with hundreds of pink-and-white blooms. I spotted the Class 1-D tarp, and Yuki waved wildly at me.

“Hey, slowpoke, what took you so long?” she said.

“Yuu Tomohiro,” I said. “Where’s 3-C?”

“They’re not coming until this afternoon,” she said. “They have class.”

I said nothing. It was still early enough that he could have been on his way to school through the park. With no book bag. Maybe. Or maybe he was headed somewhere else.

More drops of ink where they shouldn’t be. And all I could think about was his face lighting up with that laugh.

We ate our lunch amid the excited chatter of first-year senior high students. Yuki’s friends sat with us and shyly exchanged a few pink, white and green dango sticks with me for some of Diane’s karaage. The dango looked like pastel traffic lights and tasted overwhelmingly sweet.

After the picnic, I helped fold up the tarp and carry it back to the school with Tanaka. We resumed our afternoon classes, but no one’s heart was really in it, even the teachers’.

I had cleaning duty—the bathrooms—and I wrinkled up my nose when I heard it. I headed toward the ones by the gym, armed with my brush, my apron, my hair tie and my gloves. Not the most fun task, but I scrubbed away anyway. Making students clean the school toilets would never fly in my school back home, but here it was just expected. When everything was clean, I washed my hands in the sink and opened the bathroom door.

Shouts erupted from the gym, a chorus of tired voices yelling in unison and the clatter of wood hitting wood. I walked toward the sound, carrying my toilet brush with me, and pulled the gym door open a fraction.

About forty students were decked out in black armor, masks of screen mesh covering their faces. They wore long black skirts down to their ankles and stepped barefoot across the gym in pairs. Each student held a long bamboo stick with both hands, and at the shout of the teacher, they clashed them against each other. The noise echoed to the rafters of the gym and rang in my ears.

One of the teachers, chemistry, I think, saw me peeking and hurried over.

“I see you’re interested in kendo,” he said in English. He had a broad smile and a towel scrunched around his neck. The veins almost popped out from his head, and thick-rimmed glasses hunched over his nose.

“Kendo,” I said. So this was what Tomohiro and Bleached Hair were always running off to. “Japanese fencing, right?”

“Yes,” the teacher said. “We’re practising for the ward competition coming up.”

I’d wanted to take karate in New York but always chickened out at the last minute. I couldn’t bring myself to willingly sign up for something that involved sparring.

The students moved in unison, like ghostly visions of samurai dancing. They swung their bamboo swords in the air, each movement timed to the other teacher’s strained voice. The students lined up along the edge of the gym, called forward in pairs to challenge each other.

“You want to try?” the chemistry teacher asked.

My eyes popped. “Me?”

He nodded.

“No. No, I mean, I…” I trailed off. It’s pretty rude to flat out refuse something in Japanese, so I decided to find a more subtle way out. “I’m already in a few different clubs, so…” The chemistry teacher looked crestfallen.

“Sou ka…” he mused. Then he shook his head. “Well, never mind. Come in and watch for a bit, ne?” I couldn’t think of a way to refuse, so I shuffled into the gym, slumping down against the wall where the students waited for their turn to duel.

“Okay, next pair!” the other teacher shouted. The chemistry teacher nodded at me with a smile and started across the floor. Throaty shouts echoed through the gym as the pair came at each other. They pressed their swords against each other’s, circling at arm’s length. With lightning speed, one approached and smacked his sword on the other’s helmet.

“Point!” the chemistry teacher yelled. I stared wide-eyed. It had happened so fast it was almost a blur. The skirts of the fencers swayed as they moved back and forth, coming at each other and drawing back.

Another pair was called forward, and another. I watched in amazement until I’d lost track of time.

“See you next week!” the teacher called, and I stared down at my watch. Really?

The students untied their helmets and wiped the sweat off their foreheads with their arms. There were a few girls, but mostly guys. I scanned the group as they walked toward the change rooms.

And then Bleached Hair strode past me, followed by Tomohiro.

So. This was why he could take care of that fight. Next to this, the fight with three thirteen-year-old morons was probably nothing to him.

“What did you think?” came an English voice beside me. I looked over, startled, into the glowing face of the chemistry teacher.

“Oh,” I stuttered. “It was, um, great.” The other teacher had walked over now, another senior-level sensei that I didn’t know.

“This is the foreign student at Suntaba,” said the chemistry teacher. Thanks, real subtle. The man arched his eyebrows.

“You going to join our club?” he asked. I began to protest, unsure how to word it. I looked over at Bleached Hair and Tomohiro rubbing their faces with towels and chugging water bottles. Tomohiro had a white-and-navy sports bag strapped over his shoulder and he grinned as he chatted with his friend. He glanced over, and I couldn’t tell if he was smirking or actually smiling.

“Well? What do you think?” said the teacher. “Give it a try?”

I stared at Tomohiro. I wanted to figure out why he’d ditched calligraphy for kendo and what that glimpse of him in the park had meant. And anyway, the way he stared at me felt like a challenge. Like I had to prove that I could do it, too.

“Sure,” I said, glancing at Tomohiro. “I want to try.” The teachers smiled, sputtering about how wonderful it was, while the grin slipped from Tomohiro’s face. He looked away, turning toward the end of the empty gym.

“I joined the Kendo Club at school,” I said to Diane over dinner. She went bug-eyed and just about dropped the shrimp straddled between her chopsticks.

“You what?”

“I joined the Kendo Club.”

“I thought you hated contact sports.”

I shoved in a forkful of salad. “I do.”

“Kendo does not translate to ‘ballet,’ Katie.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know. I sat in on a practice today. And anyway? Ballet isn’t easy, either, thanks very much.”

“It’s dangerous. You could get hurt,” Diane said, but I shrugged.

“You could get hurt crossing the street.”