me a break. Not here, too. Didn’t he say he had kendo practice, or was that just another cover so he could disappear, like Keiko said?
The girl with him wasn’t Myu—that’s for sure—and her stomach curled outward under her skirt in a way that it shouldn’t.
I covered my mouth when I realized why.
A moment later Tomohiro embraced her, pulling her and her blooming stomach toward him.
The girl’s teary eyes flicked toward me as her head pressed into his shoulder.
The same burning eyes that had stared at me from the paper.
I turned and ran, spraying the gravel stones as I raced toward Shizuoka Station. I didn’t slow until I was across the bridge, down the tunnels and through the doors of the station.
She’s real. It’s her.
I felt like the station was spinning. And even though most of me was freaking out that the girl from the drawing was real, the shallow part of me was flipping out because Tomohiro was hugging another girl. A pregnant girl.
I stumbled through the crowds, desperate to be anonymous. I just needed a break from all this, just for a few minutes. Just so my heart could stop pounding.
I tried to lose myself, but as much as I wanted to be alone in the great mass of travelers, my blond hair assured I could never really blend in.
3
“Okaeri!”
“Are you going to do that every time?”
“Until you play along.”
I sighed.
“Tadaima,” I muttered in a flat tone. “I’m home. Happy?”
Diane’s mouth curved into a slanted frown. “Not really.”
I kicked my shoes against the raised foyer until they dropped off my feet, and headed toward the couch.
“Hey, rough day?” Diane said, looking worried.
“No,” I mumbled. “Just tired.”
“You’re home late,” she said. “Did you join a club at school?”
“I went to a café with Yuki,” I said. It was probably for the best not to mention the encounter with Tomohiro. Or, you know, that my drawings were coming at me with pointy teeth.
“That’s great! See, you’re making friends!”
I shrugged.
“And I got dragged into the English Club at school.”
“Ah,” said Diane. “Yes, that generally happens to gaijin. Did you join anything else?”
“Tea Ceremony, with Yuki.”
“Glad to see you finally taking an interest in the local culture.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know it’s not that. It’s not like I’m not interested in Japan.”
“I know. It’s homesickness.” And what she didn’t say. It’s Mom. And that’s a home I can’t go back to.
“So how was your day?” I asked. She looked shocked and way too happy that I’d asked.
“Busy,” she said. “The other English teacher is getting married soon, so I’m having to sit in on an extra period until we hire a temp. I don’t have any prep time now.”
“You need a temp because she’s getting married?”
“She’s going to quit to be a housewife,” Diane said. “A lot of women do in Japan. Not as much anymore, but Yamada is really traditional. So no prep period for me.”
“Taihen da ne,” I drawled, stretching my legs out on the couch. Diane beamed at me.
“Yes, it is tough,” she said. “And I can see that cram school is really paying off.”
“Give me four or five more months.” I smiled.
I helped Diane ladle out plates of spaghetti and we ate our dinner in exhausted silence. In the middle of dinner, Diane’s friends phoned to go out for drinks, and she hastily clipped on dangling gold earrings as I assured her for the fifth time that I would be just fine by myself.
“I am sixteen, you know.”
Diane gave me a once-over and arched her eyebrow. “I know.”
“I’m fine,” I said, pushing her out the doorway. “Have fun.”
“You have my keitai number if you need me,” she stuttered.
“Go!” I said.
“Ittekimasu.”
“Yes, yes,” I said, but she stood there with her frowny face until I gave in and muttered the response. “Itterasshai.” Go and come back safely.
I wished I could go anywhere without having to think about Tomohiro. And now I was in an empty apartment, flooded only with silence and the image of him hugging his crying, pregnant girlfriend.
I flicked on the desk light in my bedroom and lifted the lid of my laptop. As the colors swirled to life and the computer hummed, I thought about Tanaka and Tomohiro in calligraphy class, about the ripped canvas dripping into the trash can.
Wouldn’t the ink have dried overnight? How much did he load onto the brush? And what the hell did he do to his friend Koji?
I had an email from Nan, an update on the custody situation. What it really boiled down to was Gramps’s health, and it wasn’t great. But he was on his second-to-last round of chemo, and then they’d check to see if he was back in remission. Please let him be. I didn’t want to lose anyone else.
I tapped out a reply, then closed the lid on the laptop and collapsed onto my bed. In the dim glow of my desk lamp, I stared at the ceiling. Thin lines of light spread across the wall from the back of the metal shade. I tried to picture the kanji for sword, but had no idea. I sat up and grabbed my dictionary from the desk; Diane had an electronic one, but I still couldn’t read the kanji easily enough to use it. Sword didn’t look that complicated to write, at least not for Tomohiro. It took all of ten strokes:
I closed the dictionary and lay back, trying to picture Tomohiro standing in the arts room, holding a delicate painter’s brush between his fingers. Curving his arm in the smooth strokes he had sketched with in the school courtyard.
He slouched a lot, but Tomohiro didn’t strike me as clumsy. He moved with precision, and I didn’t think he’d cut his hand on a mounted canvas.
Maybe there’d
