Rain

The policeman straightened, his fingers pressed against his radio as he listened. Things were escalating, and I felt powerless to stop it. So much for controlling my link to the Kami. I couldn’t even handle two idiot guys tripped out on testosterone.

“Tomo—” I warned, moving toward him.

“No, it’s okay,” Jun said. “I’ll leave.”

And then boom!

I jumped a mile, terrified. Did Jun shoot him? Did the cop?

Another boom, and the sky flooded with light.

The fireworks. I breathed out shakily.

We all stared into the sky, the fight momentarily dropped, as bursts of color spread across the city. The crowd around us swelled, pressing the three of us close together against the railings. I became the barrier between Tomo and Jun, and it was not comfortable. Not at all.

And then I remembered Yuki’s words, that whoever I watched the fireworks with would be there for me forever.

Could I really trust Jun? Even Tomohiro was unpredictable. He’d abandoned Shiori tonight. What if he did that to me—again? Who was really telling the truth here? I needed a better hand of cards to compete. I had to learn what it really meant to have ink trapped inside me, to be connected to the Kami.

Another burst of sound in the sky, but no color, just a brief oily shimmer as it splayed across the sky. And then suddenly everyone was screaming and scattering across the road.

Ink descended like a dark rain, warm as the drops splattered down my face and stained the sleeves of my yukata.

Another firework burst, all ink instead of color, raining down on the crowd with a faint sheen. The cop had forgotten us now, pressing his radio to his ear as he called for backup to get the area under control. A woman ran past, covering her head with her hands. She bumped me into the railing and I fell forward. I dropped the milk tea, trying to grab at the railing before I fell headfirst into the sharp gravel below. And then two sets of strong hands grabbed me, pulling me back.

Tomo. And Jun. Saving me together.

“Let’s get out of here,” Tomohiro shouted. I nodded and he grabbed my wrist, pushing his way through the crowd. I turned to look at Jun, who stood silently watching me leave, the ink dripping down his cast, running down his skin in trails of black. When I looked back again he was gone, lost in the frantic swarm of people.

I wound through the crowd, staying close to Tomo. “Was it you?” I shouted, but he didn’t answer. I couldn’t have heard him over the screams anyway. The inky rain splashed down as we ran for the train station, as we were soaked by the very truth of it.

Nothing was normal, and I’d known it, deep down. It wasn’t something I could run from. The ink hadn’t forgotten me.

My fate was raining down from the sky.

(#ulink_f5a7df1c-46f2-5a9f-a7a2-317e8c547d36)

We burst into the train station and pushed our way along the platform, stopping near the lines for Shin-shizuoka Station. The travelers stared at us as we stood there drenched in ink, but their eyes fell from us as more and more ink-stained festivalgoers flooded the station. It was already blaring on the news from the televisions perched above the platforms. They were calling it some sort of prank.

I wish.

Tomohiro swore under his breath and flipped his keitai open to turn it on.

“You need a new phone,” I said, trying to keep things light. “If you had one with apps, you’d be too addicted to turn it off for two weeks.” As the phone logged in, the several text messages I’d sent him all pinged in at the same time. I could feel my cheeks warm at the sound.

“I know,” he said, pushing the buttons to scroll through them. “I’m an idiot. Turning off my phone doesn’t ward off the Yakuza. But it’s not like I knew you were going to stay in Shizuoka. I’m going to text Shiori and make sure she’s okay.” He punched a few more buttons and sent the note.

“I told you not to desert her,” I said, and then I remembered I hadn’t come to the festival alone, either. “Oh crap. Yuki and Tanaka!” I pulled out my phone and started texting Yuki. This time Tomo raised an eyebrow at me and smirked.

“Shut up,” I fumed, my face burning.

He answered me in a slow, singsong voice, emphasizing every syllable. “Na-ni-mo ha-na-shi-ne-zo (#litres_trial_promo).” Translation: I didn’t say anything, in tough-boy speak.

I smiled and smacked his arm, and a glob of ink fell from his shirt to the ground. We stopped smiling.

Our phones chimed with replies about the same time.

“Shiori’s fine,” Tomo said. “She was under a tent when it happened, and she’s heading to the station now. She said to go ahead.”

“You sure?” I said. “We should wait.”

“That’s what I just wrote back. And...” Ding. “She insists. And Watabe-san (#litres_trial_promo)?”

The sound of Yuki’s last name startled me a little bit. I kept forgetting Yuki and Tomo didn’t know each other very well, so of course he’d refer to her more formally. “With Tanaka,” I said. “And they’re fine. Drenched in ink, but fine. You know, Shiori’s probably embarrassed about how you brushed her off.”

“I just wanted time with you, Katie, not to hurt her. I think she’ll understand.”

“And if it comes back to haunt you?”

“It’s worth it,” he said. And my pulse drummed in my ears, even though I didn’t think I should be flattered by that. It always had to be complicated with him.

He headed toward the marked lines on the train platform and I followed. The passengers around us spoke in quick, panicked murmurs. They had no idea what sort of prank they’d just witnessed, but we did. We knew it wasn’t a prank at all.

“Was it you?” I asked again, quietly, as we boarded the train.

“I don’t think so. Maybe it was Takahashi. But who knows anymore? The ink does what it wants.”

I leaned against the wall by the far doors of the train car. I couldn’t exactly sit in the dripping yukata. The ink had stained all the embroidered cherry petals black.

“It’s totally ruined,” I said. “I hope Yuki won’t be mad.”

“It’s not your fault. Well, it might be,” he added with a grin.

“Not funny.”

“Warui (#litres_trial_promo),” he apologized, but he didn’t wipe the grin off his face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue handkerchief with a cute cartoon elephant on it. He gently wiped the ink off my face with it before pressing it into my hands. The elephant’s adorable smile stared up at me.

Tomohiro, the kendo star of Suntaba School, the unreachable tough guy who sparked rumors and pretended to be badass, carried around this adorable cartoon-elephant hanky. I couldn’t help smiling a little as I mopped at the ink dripping down my arms. Poor Mr. Elephant turned pitch-black as the ink soaked into his smiling face.

The train car flooded with people, but more festivalgoers kept boarding, trying to escape the inky rain. We couldn’t possibly all fit, could we? It was like a nightmare rush hour at Tokyo Station, the kind that needed professional people pushers to close the doors. The flustered crowd swelled around us, elbows and shoulders prodding into me, squishing me until I felt a claustrophobic panic attack coming on. It reminded me of Mom’s funeral, the heat and sweat of all the bodies circling around me, too close.

“Here,” Tomo said, pressing his hands against the wall on either side of me. The crowd continued to push toward us, but Tomohiro took the brunt of it, forced closer and closer toward me.

“Thanks,” I said. He nodded once, bracing himself against the umbrellas and bags that jabbed into his arms and legs. We were pressed together like sardines; his breath was warm against my neck, and I could see the ribbons of badly healed scars trailing up his right arm. The biggest, where the painting of the kanji for sword had sliced him in elementary school, was mostly hidden under his soft wristband, but the edges of the scar trailed toward his palm and up his arm.

He hunched over me, trying not to press his body against mine, trying to give me some kind of modest space. This was the kind of guy he was, I reminded myself. Not the one who could lurk in dark alleys and call up people-eating dragons just by sketching them on paper.

But that was him, too.