imagined the stark spray of red across the kanji, black as night. The ripped canvas, ink and blood dripping into the trash, sluggish like the ink that had dripped down the steps of the Suntaba genkan.
And if his dad really didn’t approve of his time “wasted” on the arts, then I could imagine what he had to say about Tomohiro’s pregnant girlfriend.
If he knew, which he probably didn’t.
Not that any of it really mattered. Or it shouldn’t. I had my own life to worry about. I didn’t need moving drawings with sharp teeth and exploding pens. I didn’t need to cross paths with a guy who beat up his best friend and switched schools because of it. I’d just have to tell him to get lost so I wouldn’t have to stare at his gaudy highlight job anymore.
I closed my eyes to the spray of light in my room, and my thoughts spiraled into sleep.
The week blurred past between cram school and Sado Club, learning how to twist a teacup three times in my hand to admire the sketched cherry blossoms and leaves encircling the lacquered chawan. Hand-copying stroke after stroke, page after page of kanji. Schoolwork was getting easier, Japanese more natural, and I started to wonder if Diane was right. Maybe I’d really underestimated my language skill.
“Guess what?” Diane gushed at breakfast. I looked up from my pancakes and honey.
“What could possibly have you so giddy?” I asked.
“Cherry blossoms,” she said. “They’ve spotted the first ones in Kyoto and Osaka, and someone found a whole tree in bloom in Kamakura.”
“So Shizuoka will be next?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a few on your way to school.”
Sure enough, the odd tree in Sunpu unfolded in sprays of pink and white, dotting the bare park with color. Most of the trees still lay dormant as buds, but my eyes hunted for sakura trees as I snaked through to Suntaba.
When I slid open the door to our classroom, the whole class was going on about the trees. Was it really such a big deal?
“Katie-chan!” Yuki called out, and the friendly suffix she’d used wasn’t lost on me. She waved me over to where she sat huddled with her friends, who smiled shyly.
“Morning,” I said.
“The sakura are blooming. We’re going to go on the school picnic on Friday!”
“Picnic?” I said. “Nice!” Missing school to be outdoors was like skipping without getting into trouble. Everyone had trouble sitting through class, restless with thoughts of the upcoming picnic. We peered out the windows at the floating cherry petals, watching them spiral down from the trees until the final bell rang.
Tea Ceremony Club started after Yuki and I finished wiping down the blackboards and emptying the garbage cans. The teacher droned on about how to spin the whisk in our hands, the murky green in our cups frothing into a thick, bitter tea. She brought homemade sweets to go with the tea, pink nerikiri flower cakes and manju filled with red-bean paste. At first the texture of red bean had bothered me, but after almost two months in Japan, I guess I was adjusting.
Diane woke the next morning at five-thirty so she could cook karaage, onigiri, nasubi and stewed eggs for my picnic bentou.
“You can’t take peanut-butter sandwiches for flower viewing,” she said, and for once I agreed with her. “Only thing is, I don’t know how to make dango,” she added, embarrassed.
“Oh, dango, yeah,” I said.
“Tell me you know what dango are.”
I shrugged.
“Yuki will probably bring some. Eat them.”
I only found out after, when I peeked inside the delicate pink handkerchief she’d tied around my lunch, that she’d switched my box for the more expensive one she had, a traditional black-and-red bentou with two layers—lots of food to share.
It clicked then, in my memory—Diane hiding under platters of hors d’oeuvres at Mom’s funeral. This is how she copes, I thought. This is how she tries to be family.
I wrapped my arms around the bentou as I continued toward the park. There’s a saying in Japan, and it has to do with cherry-blossom viewing—hana yori dango. Dumplings over flowers. It basically means that someone should value needs over wants, substance over appearance. As in, make sure you have food and shelter before you burn money on something extravagant. And, you know, choose genuine friends who will be there for you over pretty, shallow ones. Don’t get carried away by beauty if it leaves you empty.
But it was hard to believe in dumplings over flowers when I reached the southern moat and stepped onto the arch of the Sunpu bridge. The beauty took my breath away, and for a minute I believed I could live off the flowers alone.
The entire park was bathed in pink, thousands of petals floating on the breeze as if it were raining sakura. The papery petals caught in my hair, on my uniform and on the leather of my book bag. Cherry blossoms littered the gravel paths, the bright green grass and the sluggish moats that pulled the petals from the park.
I walked slowly toward the castle, watching the petals falling. It was like an alien rain, something I had never experienced before. The crowds in the park were huge, salarymen, families and friends all gathered on tarps at the base of the cherry trees. They shared food as they laughed, beer cans and tea bottles lining the edges of the blankets. I closed my eyes, walking slowly, feeling the petals as they grazed my skin and floated downward. For the first time, I felt truly happy in Shizuoka, carrying my special bentou in a forest of pink under the clear sky.
I rounded the corner to shouts and howling laughter. Three guys—younger than me, probably thirteen or so—and one girl, who dabbed at her eyes with her seifuku sleeve. One of the boys chugged away at a can of something or other I couldn’t read, and another held the girl’s book bag up in the air, laughing.
“Give it back!” she begged, but the boys snorted and passed the can back and forth, tossing the book bag out of her reach to each other.
I stood there frozen. No way could I take on three punks, even if they were younger than me, but I had to do something.
I stepped forward, taking a deep breath.
A voice echoed through the park.
“Oi! Leave her alone.”
The boys looked up as a student from Suntaba stepped forward, petals clinging to the buttons of his open blazer. My mind churned—Tomohiro. The boys swore at him, and I secretly hoped he’d back off. They looked like seriously bad news.
But he swore back, apparently with a worse word, because one of the guys threw his can down and started rolling up his sleeves. They dropped the book bag, forgotten, and the girl raced over to pick it up. She darted away, running past me so fast that the breeze rushed against my face. The three came at him, shouting. Tomohiro lifted his hands slowly, and panic shot through me.
There’s no way he can handle three of them, even if he does get into a lot of fights.
The
