him, whether she was there or not.
“Jun,” I blurted out, approaching them. Jun stopped mid-sentence, startled. Ikeda’s fingers wrapped quietly around Jun’s arm. Oh, I thought. She’s either scared I’ll hurt him again, or she didn’t like me using his first name. Or both.
“Katie,” Jun said, lowering his book bag to his side. “Is everything all right?”
“Um.” I stared at the two of them. A few weeks ago I would’ve been running from them, and now I was seeking them out? Jun tossed his head to try to get the black-and-blond hair out of his eyes. I sighed. I didn’t have a choice, and anyway, he looked pretty harmless at the moment. Except for his eyes, which always looked too cold. “Can I—can I talk to you?”
Jun’s mouth opened but he didn’t say anything. Ikeda didn’t look pleased.
“Oh,” he said finally. “Of course. Mochiron. Here, or do you want to go somewhere?” He smiled pleasantly but my nerves buzzed louder. At least he looked more like the guy who’d gently plucked petals out of my hair than the guy who’d carved kanji into his own skin. I could see the corner of the scab where his blazer sleeve lifted up.
“Jun,” Ikeda said, and her sharp voice startled me. “We’ll be late.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“But—”
“Ikeda, this is important. Go without me.”
Ikeda glared at me, and I felt itchy all over.
I blurted, “If you need to go...” What was I even saying? I needed to talk to him now.
“I don’t,” Jun said, his eyes gleaming. “Let’s get coffee.” He lifted his left arm slowly until the handles of his book bag slid up to his elbow. Then he stepped toward me and offered his open hand with a smile.
My face flushed. I still remembered the day he’d walked to school with me, the day my uniform had been totaled by the storm and I’d had to spend the night at Tomo’s. Jun had given me his keitai number in case the Yakuza bothered me, and then he’d wrapped his warm fingers around mine. I think you have someone you like, he’d said. But if things change, would you consider me? I’d really like to get to know you better.
Did he still feel that way? Even after Tomo and I had bashed his wrist in with a shinai?
I didn’t take his hand. How could he expect me to, after everything that had happened? And anyway, it didn’t matter if he did feel that way. Tomo and I were together. Things hadn’t changed. Instead, I squeezed the handles of my own bag with both hands and turned toward the coffee shop in the station. Jun followed close beside me.
I could feel Ikeda’s eyes bore into me as we left.
“Is everything okay?” Jun asked as we walked.
“Not really.”
“Is it Yuu? Did something happen to him?”
“It’s not Tomohiro. I mean it’s kind of him. But no.”
We went into the kissaten and Jun ordered an iced coffee. I opted for melon soda and we sat in a corner where the leather booth nearly engulfed us.
“De?” Jun urged quietly, resting his good hand on the table. His eyes looked so earnest, even if they were cold. It was like his kendo matches—you could see him thinking out his every move. I guess if you were a Kami you’d have to have control over the situation all the time.
I decided to plunge right in. “Why didn’t you tell me the police were questioning you?”
He said nothing for a minute, then reclined and took a sip of his coffee. “I haven’t exactly seen you around lately. The festival seemed a poor place to bring it up. You were already scared of me.”
I pressed my hands against the cool tabletop. “With good reason. You were being creepy. And your wrist—we were defending ourselves. What exactly did you tell the police? I thought you wanted Tomo to have a choice. Why are you pressuring him to join your Kami?”
“Whoa, matte yo,” he said, lifting his left hand to tuck a blond highlight behind his ear. “I didn’t press any charges. The police were at the hospital that night because of Ishikawa, and when I went in they recognized me. They wanted to know what had happened. But I swear I told them it was an accident, that I fell on my wrist and broke it.”
“Well they don’t believe you,” I said. “They said the bone fracture showed it was an assault.” I shuddered at the term. Is that what we’d done to him? But we’d had to fight back that night. Jun hadn’t left us a choice. The bubbles in my melon soda swarmed my straw and it started to tilt over the side of my glass. I pressed it back down with a shaky hand. “And now because you and Ishikawa both went to Kenritsu Hospital the same night and wouldn’t talk, they think the two incidents are related.”
Jun leaned in, toying absentmindedly with his silver earring. “They are related.”
“I know, but it has nothing to do with this whole gambling-on-kendo-results theory they have.”
“Gambling?” Jun frowned. “Two of the prefecture’s most promising kendouka injured and out of commission on the same night, a few weeks before the tournament.” My straw made a second bubbly escape, but before I could reach for it, Jun grabbed for it and pressed it down. “Yeah, I guess that looks suspicious.”
“I know. I hadn’t even thought of that before, but it does. But that’s not even close to what happened. It had nothing to do with the tournament.” I rested my head on my arm. “And they...they think Tomo’s involved. They found his tenugui at Sunpu Castle, and they overheard you two butting horns at the festival. You can’t let us get pulled into this, Jun. It’ll be bad for all of us. Please.”
Jun frowned. “I can keep denying everything, but it’s not like they’re going to believe me when Ishikawa is being silent, too. It just makes it look gang related if we won’t talk. I mean, what if they get video of us or something? We were all in the same places that night. Che! What a mess. If only I’d made it there before the Yakuza shot Ishikawa.”
“They didn’t,” I said. “Wait, you didn’t know that?”
“What do you mean they didn’t?”
Crap. Crap, crap, crap! Of course Jun didn’t know. He hadn’t arrived until after the gun went off. Now I’d run off to the enemy and given him all our secrets. Now he had all kinds of info to blackmail us into joining his Kami cult. Stupid!
“Katie?” Jun asked gently. “Who shot Ishikawa?”
“Never mind.”
“You can trust me,” he said. “I’m not going to tell the police anything, and I’m not going to force Yuu to join me, either. Right now I just want to help you, but I can’t unless you let me.” My straw made another jump for the table and we caught it at the same time, our fingertips touching as they wrapped around the slippery plastic. His fingers were soft and
