“Don’t go cutting off your ears,” Sato added helpfully.

“That was van Gogh, moron.”

“It’s nothing, huh? Why are you flustered then?” Myu smiled. “Come on, let me see your sketches.”

“I don’t really have any,” I said. “I leave them at cram school.” Every part of my skin felt itchy, and I wanted to get out of there.

“Ne, will you draw me sometime?”

“Maybe na**d,” Sato quipped.

I whirled around. “What part of shut up didn’t you understand?”

“Yuu-chan, please?”

“I’m no good,” I snapped at her. “And I don’t draw people, ever.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t, okay? God, you guys. Leave it alone.”

I slid open the door to the hallway and slammed it closed behind me. Calm down, I told myself, but I couldn’t. I was sinking in the sand, the gateway to escape out of reach. Everything was unraveling in front of me, the shadows closing in. Swirling around me like I was some demon at the end of a dark alley. Which I guess I was.

There is only death.

No. I’ll fight it. I’ll fight it until the end.

Chapter Three

Katie

Nan was flying back to Canada without me. Gramps was too sick, and despite my protests that I would help them, there was still a mess of paperwork hanging over us.

A few years ago, before Gramps’ brief remission, he’d been so far gone that we were waiting for the call any day. At that time, when all our waking thoughts were of death, Mom made an appointment and changed her will. Legal custody of me would go to her sister, Diane, and not Nan and Gramps. Even without the legal issues, it was Mom’s last wish, and Nan was holding to it religiously.

“But Aunt Diane lives in Japan,” I said.

“I know, sweetie.”

“Japan.”

“I know. And it’s a nice country. I visited her there and the people were just lovely.”

“Nan, I don’t even speak Japanese!”

She’d squeezed my hands in hers again, but this time her grasp was weak. “We’ll get it sorted out,” she said.

Like I was just some sort of tangled knitting project of hers, like she could just unravel me and start over. Twisting my life into new shapes, something that everyone would nod and agree suited me better. But the stitches from my old life would show, the snarls and bends of the old pattern wrecking the new.

Mom was gone. Could we just stop trying to fix it for a minute? It couldn’t be fixed. Shipping me overseas wouldn’t make my life better. It would just make me vanish, tucked away where no one could look at me and feel awkward. Was Nan even on my side? Her eyes were tired and sad. I knew she loved me, but I also knew she wasn’t really seeing me. She was seeing Mom, and having her close but out of reach was hurting her.

God, I felt so alone. I was alone. This sore, horrible aching in my chest like I would just fall into pieces. All I wanted was to disappear.

There was a knock on my bedroom door. Almost all the guests had left from the memorial, ready to get back to their real lives.

This was the only life I had left. And it was falling apart.

A second, louder knock came, and before I could answer it, my door swung open to Aunt Diane, standing there with a worried look on her face.

“Hey,” she said.

I slumped down onto my bed, the energy knocked out of me. What kind of guardian would Aunt Diane be anyway? I knew so little about her.

Nan sat down beside me, patting my leg as I stared at the ceiling.

“So...you know, huh?” Diane said.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Mom never wanted to go to Japan. Why would she send me?”

“I think she was more concerned that you be with someone who loves you and can take care of you,” Nan said. “Diane will look after you, Katie.”

Can’t you do that? I thought. Don’t you love me? You wouldn’t do this to me if you did.

I figure you’re allowed to be childish when you’ve lost everything.

“I know it’s been hard to spend time together, Katie,” Diane added. “But we’re family, and I want to do what I can to help you.”

“Then let me live with Nan,” I snapped.

Nan moved her reassuring hand from my leg. “Katie.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Diane said. “She has a right to be upset. Katie, you know Nan and Gramps really can’t handle any big changes right now. Let’s just work it out for a bit until Gramps is better, okay?”

“I don’t want to,” I said, and Diane’s face fell. Okay, so I felt a little guilty about acting five, but my life was crumbling before my eyes. It was my only way to fight back. “Look, Aunt Diane, it’s nothing personal, but I don’t even know Japanese. I mean, past Hello Kitty and sushi, I really have no clue.”

“Just Diane,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I never got the hang of that aunt thing. And it’s okay. I know you’ll pick it up quickly. I’ll help you, and you can enroll in cram school, too.”

“I can’t,” I snapped, but what I meant was, I’m afraid. Too much change, all at once. Sure, going to Japan was exciting, but not if you’re going because your mom is dead and nobody wants you. I just wanted Mom. That’s all. Not exile to the other side of the world.

And the conversation I’d had with Mom hung over me like a dark cloud. It was the living-there-forever part of the talk swirling in my thoughts, Mom’s face when I’d wanted to take that vacation to Japan. What if you never come back? And now, to be told I was moving there—it was like some eerie prophecy of hers coming true, like something terrible was waiting for me there.

That was crazy, right? Because there was nothing more terrible than what had already happened to me. But why did I feel that way?

Nan and Diane looked at each other for a minute.

“Well,” Diane said cautiously. “What if you stay here?”

“Alone?” Nan and I said together.

“No, I mean with Linda. Just for a bit. The school year in Japan doesn’t start until the end of March, and I wouldn’t want to throw you in halfway through the year. Maybe we can wait to see if Gramps gets better? You’ll at least have a bit of time to figure out what you want to do.”

It was true Linda had offered to let me stay as long as I wanted, but I doubted she was thinking of adopting me for the rest of the year. It was one of those empty promises people make to you, like “let me know if you need anything” and “I know your mom’s in a better place.”

“What’s putting off the inevitable going to do?” I said.

“More time to decide,” Diane said. “It’s too sudden right now.”

“Yeah, but decide what? I don’t have any options.”

“I know,” Diane said, “but not having options doesn’t mean you don’t have choices.”

“Um...I don’t get it.”

Diane crouched in front of me, smelling of sweat and punch and appetizers from downstairs. “You can come to Japan filled with hope and confidence that you’ll make it work. Or you can be dragged because your life’s in tatters and none of us can fix it the way you want. And who knows, maybe this will all sort itself out and you’ll have choices you didn’t even realize you had. You still have choices, because you can decide how you face this. You can choose your next move, Katie. What do you think?”

I let Diane’s words soak into my thoughts. Stay here with Linda, living my life alone, in a way. The thought scared me as much as moving to Japan, but I wanted to hug her for suggesting it. At least she was treating me like an adult, like my life wasn’t being decided by some piece of paper. Like it actually belonged to me.

“Okay,” I said. “I want to stay with Linda for a while before I figure it out.” At least that way, my home would be across town. At least then I wouldn’t have to face the fact that Mom was gone for good.

Would everything hurt like this from now on? It was like I was caught in a storm, the rain so thick I couldn’t see anything around me. How was I supposed to make life decisions while drenched and disoriented?

“I’ll talk to Linda,” Nan said. “Katie, you know Gramps and I will do everything we can to get the custody papers in order as soon as he’s well, right? Japan is just temporary.”

Yeah, I thought. But how long is temporary? What if Gramps doesn’t get better?

I smiled feebly and Nan squeezed my hand, lifting herself slowly off the bed and stumbling down the hallway. She wasn’t well either—Diane and I could both see it.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You got it,” Diane answered. “And if and when you’re ready to come to Japan, I have a spare room that needs some decorating.”

I tried to smile. It came out hollow and fake. “Okay.”

“Listen,” she said, reaching for my hand. At the last minute, she pressed her fingers into the comforter instead. Maybe this whole thing was scary for her, too. “Let’s find a good Japanese class so you can start learning. Just in case. I mean, it’s something to take your mind off everything anyway, right?”

My room felt as stuffy as the living room had. I needed fresh air, or the walls would start rippling.

“Okay.” Anything. Just leave me alone. I need to be alone.

You are alone, Katie. You’ll be alone forever now.

“Katie.” Diane’s voice was steady. “Don’t try to do everything.”

“What do you mean?”

She stood up, ran a stiff hand through her tangled hair.

“I mean it’s okay to need help,” she said. “Let’s start small. I’m going to order some dinner. Chinese okay?”

I nodded, then fell back on my pillow. Diane backed out of the room and clicked the door closed behind her, the smell of cocktail weenies and rancid punch lingering in my room.

At least I could escape to my dreams, where Mom was still alive. Where I could choose what happened next.

It’s called running away, I told myself. Some choice.

Japan?

What if you never come back, Katie?

“You’re never coming back either, Mom,” I whispered, closing my eyes.

The world around me swirled to blackness.

Chapter Four

Tomohiro

Even with the cold and biting wind, I found Myu on the school roof where we often shared lunch on warmer days. Usually there’d be a few students up here, but the cold weather had forced them into hidden corners of the school to eat their lunches—the home ec tables, the far shelf in the library, the row of harps in the music room that formed a wall of strings. Myu was alone up here, and it was too quiet, eerie.

She stood with her back to me, her fingers threaded through the links in the chain fence around the edge of the roof. The wind tangled and untangled her hair as I stepped closer, watching it dance and whirl around her. She gazed out over the courtyard, almost deserted in the cold.

She was crazy to be out in this freezing wind, even if the sun was so bright I had to shield my eyes. But I liked that about her, when she did unexpected things. Her glittering nails and dangling earrings made her seem fragile sometimes, like something delicate, but then I’d find her standing alone on the roof in a storm, and I’d see the strength in her.

I smirked, just a little. Things were never what they appeared to be, not in my world.

I took another step toward her, my movement hidden by the sound of the wind encircling us.

She’d confessed to me up here that day. Sato and I had come up to the roof to drink our cold milk teas after kendo practice. I remembered throwing the can at him hard that day because I was pissed. He’d brought down a tsuki hit that I’d barely dodged, and I hadn’t even anticipated it. It used to be so easy to take him down, but he’d been getting tougher, and somehow while I was busy drowning in the nightmares that haunted me, he’d left me behind and surpassed me.

I’d looked at him, scrolling through his phone for any texts from them, any threats they wanted him to make today, any runs or jobs they wanted to send him on. It had started the spring we’d entered Suntaba, and it was getting worse. He was spiraling into his own darkness, and the thing was, he’d chosen it. It wasn’t like me. I didn’t have a choice. Why would you take a normal life and throw it away?

The bitterness had spilled over inside of me as it joined with my frustration from kendo practice.

I hate you, I’d thought as I ran my thumb down the cold tea can. Your life was normal. You don’t have the nightmares. You could even be the better kendouka if you focused.

I didn’t hate him, not really, but the jealousy was white hot as I pulled back the can, the weight of it sloshing in my hand as I hurled it toward him.

Your life was normal, and you f**ked it up.

The can smacked into Satoshi’s chest and he curled his fingers around it before it could drop. “Oi, what the hell, man?” he said, his deep eyes searching mine. “Save it for when you beat the crap out of Katakou School’s team.” He grinned then, pressing a gentle fist into my shoulder before cracking the pop tab backward.

I remembered the shame that followed.

I hate you, I’d thought again, but this time it was myself I hated.

And then Myu had appeared at the top of the stairs, her skirt hiked up short and her nails painted with blue bows or stars or something that sparkled in the sunlight.

She’d stood there for a moment, her hair catching on the wind the way it was now, her eyes locked with mine and a letter in her hands. She’d looked determined, like I was just an argument she had to win.