So I said quietly, “Don’t draw anymore, Tomo.”

His voice was barely a whisper. “I can’t.”

“I know, but—”

“I mean I can’t,” he said. “What Takahashi said about the dreams, the whispers…it’s all true. I don’t even need to draw anymore. The ink just uses me as its canvas.” He held out his arms, striped with pale ink stains.

“But…”

“It’s going to keep hunting me, until I give in or it destroys me.”

I felt hollow, like all my Japanese had spilled onto the floor and I couldn’t understand anything anymore.

“Tomo.”

He walked slowly to Diane’s ugly couch and pressed his back into the purple leather. He lowered his head and his bangs fanned over his eyes. The chill of the tea glass pressed against my fingers.

“I don’t know how to fight it,” he said. “How do you win when you’re up against yourself?”

I thought for a minute. “I don’t know,” I said. “But if there are so many Kami, there must be a way. It’s not like you see people’s chemistry notes exploding all the time.”

I hoped he’d smirk, but at this angle I couldn’t see his face.

His fingers gripped the glass tightly as it rested on his lap. I sat down beside him, placing my glass on the coffee table. I wrapped my fingers around his glass, pried it out of his fingers and placed it on the table beside mine. His hands free, Tomohiro buried his head in them.

“I’m a monster,” he said. “I have to go somewhere.”

“What? Where?”

“Somewhere I won’t hurt you. Somewhere I won’t hurt anyone.”

“Look, don’t listen to those idiots. If they’re all Kami and living in Shizuoka, and we didn’t know… I mean, he’s probably just trying to scare you into joining them. There’s no way Jun has enough power to take on the Yakuza or restore the Kami as rulers of Japan, or whatever crap he was spouting.”

“How do I know?” Tomohiro said. “How do I know you’ll be safe?”

And then I suddenly realized how his leg was pressed against mine, the heat of it through his jeans. The shame came flooding back to me, the anger with it.

“Tomo,” I said. “It was an act, right?”

He didn’t answer.

“I mean the—” I could feel the blood rushing to my face.

“The love hotel.”

Silence.

“Damn it. Say something!”

He lifted his head slowly, exhaustion in his eyes. It wasn’t much longer until the sun would rise.

“I told you to stay away from me,” he said, but his eyes gleamed as he stared at me.

There was no smirk, like there had been for Myu. There was no slouching, no look of disgust. No lies.

He reached his hand up and tucked my hair behind my ear with tenderness. “Gomen,” he apologized, his soft voice almost beyond hearing. I bit my lip as hot tears rushed to my eyes. I blinked them back; no way in hell was I going to cry now. He started to lean in, and I pushed him back, my palms smacking his chest.

“You’re such a jerk!”

“I know,” he said and wrapped his arms tightly around me.

The warmth of him pressed in around me and I breathed in the smell of dirt, sweat and ink. He held on tightly, like he was going to break if he let go. We lay there clinging to each other, knowing the world would tilt if we let go, that without each other everything would fall out of balance.

The muffled sound of the phone woke me, and I opened my eyes to the sunlight muted by the thick curtains draped over the balcony windows. It took me a minute to figure out where I was. Tomohiro’s face rested next to mine, his hot breath ticklish on my neck. We’d fallen asleep on the couch, and somehow by tangling our limbs into the cushions we’d managed not to fall onto the floor.

The phone stopped ringing as I tried to inch off the couch without waking Tomohiro. Not a problem—he slept like a stone. My neck and back throbbed from sleeping like a yoga pretzel.

I slid off the end of the couch and arched my back, stretching out all my sore muscles. It felt like I’d been kicked around the block, which wasn’t that far from the truth.

I jumped when the phone rang again. I walked over and stared at the lit-up ID.

From Osaka.

I lifted the headset out of the cradle and to my ear.

“Moshi mosh?”

“Katie!” Diane said, but the crackling on the line was awful. “I know you kids can really sleep in, but honestly?

I’ve called five times.”

“Huh?” I glanced around the room, looking for some clock to figure out what time it was. “Sorry.”

“Is—okay?” Her voice cut out.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. Just been kidnapped by the Yakuza, freed by some freaky mob with superpowers that may kill me, learned I’m connected to the Kami and slept on the couch with a senior boy. And I think I know which one of those will bother you the most. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, listen. I’m— crackle— coming back tonight, but—

hiss— need you to turn on the fax machine, okay?”

“What?”

“The fax machine. It’s— ksshhh— the bookshelf by the dinner table.”

I stared across the table at it.

“Are you listening?”

“Yeah, but it’s a bad connection.”

“I know. Turn on the machine, hon, and we’ll talk—

kssshh— get back, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, and Diane hung up. Had she ever called me “hon” before?

I stumbled toward the fax machine and pushed the button. It beeped a few times and hummed to life. Behind me I heard Tomohiro flip over on the couch. I was half-surprised he didn’t tumble right off onto the floor.

I turned to look at him, his eyes closed and his breathing slow. He looked so peaceful lying there. It was hard to imagine the nightmares haunting him. Was it true that someday he might not wake up from the horrible dreams? Or that one day he’d lose himself and come after me? I couldn’t picture it as he lay there.

Lies. They had to be. But they scared the crap out of me.

The phone rang again. The fax machine picked up the call with a high-pitched slew of beeps, and then the machine shook as it fed the blank paper through.

I stepped forward, covering a yawn with the back of my hand. My back throbbed as I leaned over to peek at the message.

Probably some kind of school forms or something for Diane.

But I hesitated. The fax being spit out was in English.

For once, I stumbled over my f luency. As weird as it seemed, I wasn’t used to reading without concentrating to try, and the fax paper was printing upside down, so it took me a minute to read the page.

The machine spat it out and started on the next page. I picked the paper up and turned it around.

It was for me.

All the beeping and printing woke Tomohiro, and I heard the couch creak as he stretched. I spun around, the paper pressed between the pads of my fingers.

He looked around slowly, but when he saw me, he bolted upright like he’d just remembered where he was. He face flushed a deep red and his eyes were big and round.

“Ah,” he stammered. “O-ohayo.”

“Um, morning,” I said, but as awkward as I felt— did it count as sleeping together? Oh god— I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the paper.

To the attention of Diane Greene, RE: Katie

“What’s that?” Tomohiro said.

Katie, sweetie, hope you’ve received our emails and phone messages. Here are the forms.

What messages? What forms?

Please fill them out with Diane ASAP so we can book the ticket. Love you, sweetie! Can’t wait for you to come home.

Nan & Gramps

What ticket?

Tomohiro padded over. He stood so close behind me I could feel his hot breath on my neck. It sent shivers up my skin.

My fingers started to tremble.

I grabbed for the forms as they fed through the fax machine, thumbing through them, freaking out.

“Are you okay?” Tomohiro said.

Hot tears formed in my eyes and I blinked them back.

They were custody papers. Gramps was in remission.

My head buzzed, and when Tomohiro wrapped his slender fingers around my shoulders, it took all the strength I had left not to collapse to the floor.

“They want me to go home,” I said.

“Home?”

“My grandparents. They’re booking me a ticket to Canada.”

Tomohiro was silent, his grip loose. “When?” he whispered.

“As soon as they can,” I said.

He didn’t say anything, and I just stared at the papers, my hands shaking.

I didn’t get it. This was what I’d waited for.

Wasn’t it?

So why the hell did I feel like someone had stabbed me?

“That’s great,” Tomohiro said eventually, and he lifted his hands off my shoulders. I turned around to face him and he looked so sincere, except his eyes didn’t match the rest of his face.

“But—” I said.

“It’s your home,” he said, but his words sounded so hollow. “It’s not the same as New York with your mom, but it’s where you wanted to be, right? With your grandparents.”

“Well, yeah, I thought so,” I said. “But I’m not sure anymore.”

“Katie,” Tomohiro said, and the low voice he used just about knocked me over. How did he look so stunning when his hair was standing at funny angles from sleeping on an ugly couch sized for Lilliputians?

“Tomo, I’m not sure I want to go back.”

“I think it might be a good idea.”

“Traitor.”

“If the Yakuza and the Kami come after you again… And I don’t think they’re going to stop…”

“And what about you? It’s okay if they come after you?”

Tomohiro gave me a hard look, his eyes like gleaming stones. “It doesn’t matter what they do to me,” he said. “It might even be better if they—stop me. But I need to know you’re safe.”

“Oh, and so what you need is so important?” I spat, but really I was shaking at what he’d said. More like what he hadn’t quite said. “How can I know you’re safe if I’m not here to save your pretty ass?”

“Katie—”

“Don’t ‘Katie’ me!” I shouted. “You all think you know what’s best for me. It’s my life! I get to choose!” He stepped back, stunned, and the tears spilled down my face. “You want to be in control of your life. Well, I do too!”

I let the tears curve down my cheeks, not caring if I looked awful. And suddenly Tomohiro blurred toward me, and his arms wrapped around me. He held me so tightly I thought I might break, and then he let go a little and my lips found his.

He gently reached up and smoothed my hair over my shoulders, cupping my neck with his warm hands. He kissed the tears off my cheeks, until my head buzzed with the warmth of him, until I forgot about the black hole about to swallow me up.

He leaned back, shaking the bangs out of his eyes. A second later they fell in again.

“Do you really think my ass is pretty?”

“Shut up,” I said, and he grinned.

The doorbell rang, and we stood there stunned. The grin dropped from his lips, and the warmth in me turned icy cold.

“Is it—” I whispered.

Tomohiro curled his hands into fists.

The doorbell rang again.

“Stay here,” he said and padded toward the door.

“Don’t answer it!” I hissed as I followed him around the corner. The papers dropped from my hand as I grabbed the phone off the table to call 911. No, wait—crap! Why did I still not know who to call?

Tomohiro pulled the door open and peered out.

Tanaka and Yuki stared into the genkan, and their faces flooded with red as quickly as ours did. I panicked. We must have looked like crap, still in our dirt-and ink-stained clothes from yesterday, our hair totally messy, and— oh god. And our lips swollen from kissing. We stood there, all four of us looking like tomatoes.

“Tomo-kun!” Tanaka stammered.

“I-Ichirou.”

Yuki put her hand to her mouth and stared at me, the edges of a huge grin visible between her fingers. I knew exactly what she was thinking. And I had no clue how to convince her it wasn’t what it looked like.

“Um,” I said. Wow, real articulate.

“Ohayo,” Yuki said, bowing to Tomohiro. He folded his hands across his chest, trying his tough-jerk look from school, but I’d never seen his face so red.

And knowing he was thinking about that made me go lobster-red. I swear my ears felt like they were burning.

“It’s great weather today! Um, can we come in?” Yuki said, looking at me funny. She was trying to save me.

“Of course,” I said.

They shuffled into the genkan and slipped out of their shoes, while Tomohiro and I moved back to give them room.

“We tried to call, but you didn’t pick up,” Tanaka said, tugging at his shoelaces. “Yuki-chan got worried, so we came to check on you.”

“Because you’re supposed to be staying at my house while your aunt is away,” she said. “But of course, I see you’re fine.”

“Um, I wasn’t— I, um, we were practicing kendo at school yesterday and he came over afterward. We were so tired we just—”

Yuki started waving her hands madly. “Oh, I know, I know,” she said, which meant she totally didn’t believe a word I was saying. “Don’t worry about it.”