I could almost hear her voice when I said it. Mom had always been like that, making sure I knew girls could take on anything. If Mom couldn’t be here to say it, then I would say it for her. I swallowed the sadness back, biting my lip. I could keep her alive, just a little bit. I wouldn’t have to let go. Not entirely.
Before the tears could start, I rose to my feet and started clearing up my empty dishes. Diane stared down at her pile of shrimp tails and I knew I’d won when her shoulders sagged. I knew she was thinking about Mom, too, about what she would want for me.
“All right,” she said eventually. “It’s okay with me, but take it slowly and be careful. If you get hurt, I’m pulling you out.”
“Diane, come on,” I said. “What’s a contact sport without contact?” Okay, so I was egging her on, but I couldn’t help it. A sport where I was expected, even encouraged, to smack Tomohiro. What could be better? I placed my dishes in the sink with a clank and raced to my room before she could say anything.
I sank into the quilt of my bed, the comfort of a Friday night where I didn’t have to slave away at homework. Diane shouted that our favorite drama was on, but by then I was half-asleep, dreaming of the clatter of bamboo swords.
Oh god. What had I signed up for?
4
On Monday, I slipped out the front door of Suntaba just as Tomohiro pedaled away on his white bike.
Where’s he sneaking off to all the time anyway?
I watched with frustration as he cycled out of sight. If he was trying to keep me at a distance, it couldn’t be good. I knew better than to spy on a boy who put his best friend in the hospital. I did. But I couldn’t get him out of my mind. And it’s not like I wanted my drawings to come at me again with pointy teeth, ever. Maybe I needed to pre-empt the next weird ink encounter.
“Diane,” I said, when she finally got in from a late night of drinking beer and slurping noodles with her coworkers—a required social thing.
“Hmm?” she said, slipping off her high heels and rubbing her feet. Her face looked worn and tired.
“Can I get a bike?”
“You want a bike?”
“It is a long way to school,” I said. “Most of the kids bike anyway. Tanaka does.” Diane arched her eyebrows, like she’d understood something.
“Oh,” she said, “you want to go biking with Tanaka.”
“Ew. Please don’t start that again.”
“All right, all right,” she said, but she looked unconvinced and suspicious. “You can take my bike on Wednesday, and I’ll see about getting you your own if you decide you like biking so much.”
“What about you?”
“Wednesdays I have a prep period first. They finally hired another English teacher, so it’s not a problem. And you may find you prefer walking, in which case I can get my bike back.”
There was no way I preferred walking. That Wednesday I hoisted Diane’s thin white bike from our balcony and shoved it into the elevator with me. I almost knocked out our neighbor with the wheel when I got to the lobby, but once I was on the streets, it was a breeze to maneuver through the traffic. The tires spewed up gravel in the park, so I had to slow down to avoid spraying passers-by. With the slow speed, I almost collapsed on my side, but once I’d found the right rhythm, it was perfect to cycle under the shower of pink petals, which would be hopelessly tangled in my hair by the time I reached Suntaba.
The breeze whipped my hair behind me and closed my ears to the noise of hanami-goers in the park. All I could hear was air, birds, the odd traffic signal beeping across the moats from the city, all buzzing together in a blurred combination. I pumped the pedals hard as I crossed the northern bridge, falling back into the city on the other side and through the gate of our school.
Class passed by slowly, and I kept staring out the windows, where I could see the pink snow of sakura from the tree in the courtyard. Yuki said the blossoms only lasted a couple weeks. Pretty soon I would wake up and discover the branches all bare.
Tanaka offered to help Yuki with the bathrooms because I’d mopped the floors for him the day before, so I managed to leave school earlier than usual, just in time to see Tomohiro straddling his bike.
I fumbled with my lock as he sped out of sight. Although I guess I didn’t have to hurry that much—I knew he’d end up at the station because he’d turned left first, which meant he was trying to throw everyone off his trail.
Always with the tricks. What was so important no one else could see?
I pulled the rusty lock off and scrunched it into my book bag, slipping the leather straps over the handlebars and yanking the tire out of the rack. I sped through the gate, nearly knocking out two second-year boys, and headed south.
I stopped for a breather at Shizuoka Station. I had a few minutes at least before he’d finish his wild-goose-chase route, and when he showed up, I’d be ready.
“Guzen da!”
I may have jumped clear out of my skin. I whipped around, but it wasn’t Tomohiro. For one thing, this guy had floppy black hair and blond highlights tucked behind his pierced ear.
“Jun!”
“You remembered.” He smiled. “Are you waiting for someone?”
“Oh, no, no,” I stammered. I could feel my face turning red. It was a million kinds of obvious that I was.
Jun grinned. “A guy, maybe? The one you saw on the train?”
Was I that transparent?
“What are you talking about?” I stuttered.
“Sorry,” he said. “None of my business, right? You just have that same flustered look again.” He reached for the heavy bag on his shoulder and pulled on the strap. “I’m on my way to practice, but I saw you and thought I’d say hi.”
“Practice?”
“Just a sport I’m into,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, trying to peer around him without looking like I was peering around him.
He leaned in a little, and whispered, “Who are we spying on?”
“Okay, fine, it is the guy from the other day,” I said. “Jeez, what are you, some kind of detective or something?”
“I watch a lot of police dramas.” He grinned. He lifted his left palm and pretended to take notes on it, his fingers poised around an imaginary pencil. “So is he giving you trouble or something?”
“He’s not—Well, I mean. Kind of?”
Jun frowned. “Kind of?”
“He’s just up to something, that’s all.” I thought of the inky eyes staring at me—they still made my heart flip over when I thought of them. “He draws these sketches that creep me out. It’s almost like they’re alive or something.”
“Creepy sketches? That’s definitely criminal activity,” he said, madly tracing kanji onto his palm.
My cheeks blazed red. “Forget it. It’s stupid,” I said, and he dropped his hands to his sides as he shook his head.
“It’s not stupid if he’s bothering you,” he said.
“He’s not bothering me. I mean, he is, but—” The words tangled as much as my thoughts. What exactly was he doing? “Sometimes it’s like he’s picking on me. And then other times, he looks like he’s scared of me, or like I’m in on some