Ink (30 page)

There was silence, and I felt a little guilty for being snarky.

Just a little.

There was a distant sound, a crash not too far away. My heart jumped and I felt like I was going to puke.

“They’re coming,” I said.

“I’ll protect you,” Tomohiro said, squeezing my hands in his. “Go to the back of the truck.” He dropped my hands and stood. A light flipped on outside the truck, a little stream of light filtering between the truck doors. I could see Tomohiro’s hands balled into fists.

“You’re kidding, right?” I said. “They’ll kill you.”

“Go to the back of the truck.”

“Not a chance.” My legs felt like they were made of stone, but I numbly dragged myself toward him.

The doors flung open to blinding light. I’d been sitting in the truck for so long that pins and needles started to spark in my legs. I stumbled backward.

My eyes adjusted and I saw three men, two of them covered in rainbows of sprawling tattoos. They held guns pointed straight at Tomohiro, and the chill spread through me.

Guns are illegal in Japan. Most police don’t even carry them.

Which meant the police would be no match for these guys, even if they knew where to find us.

“Get out,” said the third man, his hands folded behind his back. He wore a black business suit and looked fairly normal—almost pleasant. “And don’t try anything.”

At first Tomohiro didn’t move. My brain practically screamed at him.

Then his feet dragged forward.

One of the guns followed his movement. The other one pointed at me.

Tomohiro’s eyes went wide. “Let her go,” he said.

I blinked back hot tears.

“It’s okay,” the suit guy said, staring at me. He lifted his hand, and the gun pointing at me lowered. “We’re just businessmen here. We’re hoping to come to an arrangement.” He smiled, reaching his hand out to help me out of the truck.

“We don’t want to do anything drastic, either.”

I stared at his chubby fingers until he pulled them back again.

“The thing is,” he said to me, as I sat on the edge of the truck and slid myself down, “we don’t know what he’s capable of. Even he doesn’t know. So we’re just being cautious.”

“Leave us alone,” I said.

The man didn’t say anything, but the tattooed, gun-toting guys motioned at us to get moving.

The room was a big parking garage, and our steps sounded hollow against the concrete floor. They marched us through a side door, into a maze of a house that felt way too big to be in Japan. Golden light filtered through the rice-paper walls as we approached a large tatami room. The
shouji
paper door stood before us, and as the businessman slid it aside, the full glare of the meeting room shone through the dark hallway.

We stumbled through the
shouji,
pushed by the men with guns.

There were about twenty men in the room and some tough-looking women. Some of them had ragged haircuts, tattoos racing down their arms and vanishing under their too-tight vests. Others looked friendlier, wearing suits like the businessman and smiling as we entered. Four rows of low-set tables were spread across the floor, some of the men kneeling at them and shoving sushi into their mouths with silver chopsticks. A Mohawked guy stood in the corner chugging a bottle of green tea as he spoke what sounded like rapid Korean with one of the businessmen.

And kneeling alone at one of the tables, looking dejected, was Ishikawa, a big, ugly bruise circling his right eye and three wide scratches across his jaw. His nose had swelled up so much he looked like the cartoon Anpanman.

“Satoshi,” Tomohiro said under his breath, but Ishikawa stared intensely at the tabletop, grimacing.

“Have a seat,” said the businessman, and a few of the others scattered to clear a table for us. Tomohiro and I just stared at him. One of the men cocked a gun and started to raise it. The businessman smiled and gestured at the table with his arm.

I wished I could punch him in the gut. But Tomohiro’s slender fingers curled around my wrist and he pulled me with him toward the table. We knelt down, two tough-looking guys closing in the sides of the table. At least Sunglasses and Cigarette were nowhere to be seen.

“We haven’t been properly introduced,” the businessman said. “You can call me Hanchi.” Tomohiro looked down at the tabletop, his hands still in fists.

Hanchi waited for a minute, looking at us thoughtfully.

Then he drew in a quick breath.

“Well,” he said, “I guess we should get down to it. We’re not here to threaten you, Yuu. We think you are a boy of incredible talent. Ishikawa speaks highly of you, you know.”

Tomohiro said nothing. The Korean guy came over and slammed a bottle of green tea in front of me. I looked up at his face, but he was already turning away.

“I think we could do a lot for each other,” said Hanchi.

“Not interested.” Tomohiro’s voice sounded so dark it almost made me shiver. It was like his don’t-give-a-crap attitude but more intimidating, like he could actually hold his own against these guys.

“Ah,” said Hanchi. “But I don’t think you’ve considered what a spectacle you made of yourself when you sketched that dragon.”

Tomohiro’s eyes went wide for a moment before he forced the expression off his face. I wondered if anyone else noticed.

“We can protect you, Yuu. We can take care of those close to you. We can protect your girlfriend.”

In a sharp voice, he said, “Ex-girlfriend. She’s not part of this.” The word ripped through me; it was probably a trick to throw them off, but I remembered then that we hadn’t made up. Maybe we were broken up. Or maybe he was protecting me the only way he could. So how come it still hurt so much to hear it?

And reality check, why do I even care in a room with gangsters and
loaded guns? Still working on the priorities, I see, Greene.

“Ah,” said Hanchi. “Well. But I’ve heard you still draw inspiration from her, so the specifics don’t matter.” He muttered something and one of the men tossed a pad of paper in front of Tomohiro. Hanchi reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pen, clicking the end and placing it down on the pad.

“What’s this for?” Tomohiro said.

Hanchi smiled. “You don’t have to pretend with us. You’re not the first Kami we’ve come across. But it’s been a while.

Most of them can’t get the drawing off the page, Yuu. I know you can do better.”

“What’s a Kami?” Tomohiro said in a bored tone. He looked up at Hanchi, and I could see the dark challenge that radiated from Tomohiro’s narrowed eyes. A slick smile curved its way onto his lips.

What the hell?
It better be an act,
I thought.
These guys could
kill us, and he’s enjoying it?

Hanchi frowned, squeezing his hand into a fist.

“Don’t play around, Yuu,” he said. The friendliness was starting to drop from his voice.

Tomohiro reached for the tea bottle and twisted the cap, chugging down a mouthful and wiping his mouth with the back of his arm.

“So what’s that for?” Hanchi smirked, pointing at the wristband.

Shit.

“I play kendo,” Tomohiro said. “I have a weak wrist.”

Hanchi motioned at the Korean guy, who stalked toward Tomohiro and yanked the wristband off his arm, revealing the stitched-up gash along his wrist for all of them to gape at. It was pink around the edges, crisscrossed by the dozens of other cuts and scars that trailed up his arm.

“Those kendo injuries?” the Korean guy sneered.

“I’m a cutter,” Tomohiro said through gritted teeth. “I have entrance exams coming up. It’s stressful. You do the math.”

Hanchi laughed. “Sorry, Yuu,” he said. “We’re not buying it. I heard from Ishikawa you used to be quite the artist in the day. Let’s start with something simple.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet. He spread the leather and flipped through, the bills slicking against each other as he pulled one out. He bent over the table and spread the ten thousand yen at the top of the pad. “Draw this,” he said. “If you can do it, you can keep it. My gift to you.”

“I can’t draw,” said Tomohiro.

The Korean guy pulled a gun from his back and slowly lifted it to me. My heart drummed in my ears.

“Can you draw now?” Hanchi said.

Tomohiro stared for a minute, his fists shaking.

“If you’re not a Kami, then why is it a problem?” asked Hanchi.

The Korean guy cocked the gun.

“Shit, Yuuto, draw the damn bill!” Ishikawa shouted. I looked over at his swollen face, riddled with blue-and-yellow bruises. He looked so defeated, so small among these punks.

Tomohiro’s fingers slid along the paper until they reached the pen. He closed them gently around it, lifting it upright to draw.

It’s worth my life, but it isn’t worth yours.

“Tomo, don’t draw,” I whispered.

He didn’t answer. And then his hand slid across the page, the patchwork of scars gliding along the table edge as we watched, his secret exposed to everyone.

He sketched slowly, looking from the bill to the page. Beads of sweat trailed down his forehead and clung to his bangs. I knew he was trying to control the ink, to disguise what he was. But with me beside him, he didn’t have a chance.

He shaded in the details, sketching in the two pheasants on the back of the note. I saw the edges of the bill flicker, almost move. He hesitated for a minute, his head falling forward and his bangs fanning into his eyes. Then he shook them out and kept shading.

The corner of the sketch was curling up, the way the real bill did. The pheasants starting flicking their heads around, pecking at the ground.

“Tomo, stop,” I whispered. I looked at his eyes. They were flooding with black, his pupils growing too large. “You have to stop.”

I reached over and pinched the back of his leg as hard as I could.

He dropped the pen and it rolled in a slow circle across the page.

“Let’s see,” said Hanchi, reaching over to pick the paper up.

As he lifted the pad, the sketch fell right off the page and fluttered to the table.

Hanchi reached over and picked up the bill.

“Su-ge,”
he said in a low voice. Everyone watched in stunned silence.

The sketch looked just like the bill. There was still a drawing on the paper, but it looked blurry and made my head ache when I stared at it.

“One problem, though,” Hanchi said as he flipped it back and forth in his hands. He held the note right in front of Tomo hiro’s eyes. “It’s black-and-white.”

“It’s a pen sketch,” I said. “What did you expect?”

“I can’t use this,” Hanchi said. “Are you messing around with me?”

Tomohiro shook his head, breathing heavily. A trail of ink trickled from his shirtsleeve down to his wrist, where it dripped onto the paper.

Splotch, splotch.

“All my drawings are black-and-white,” Tomohiro said.

“I only do calligraphy and ink wash.”

“This is no good,” Hanchi said. “Draw something else.

Get him a
sumi
and an inkstone.”

“No!” I said, then clamped my hand over my mouth. Hanchi raised an eyebrow.

“Ah, I think we’ve hit on something here,” he said with a smile. “Your…abilities only work with raw ink.”

“Look,” Tomohiro snapped. “I’m not interested in working for the Yakuza, and I don’t know what Satoshi told you, but I can’t make dragons appear in the sky. Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

“You just sketched counterfeit money, Yuu.”

“And you saw how pathetic it was. I’m no good at this, okay? Let us go.”

Hanchi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Let’s try again, hmm?”

Sunglasses came in, and the sight of him sent prickles up my spine. He put down an inkstone, a
sumi
ink stick and a
sumi
brush for Tomohiro, while the Korean guy brought a small dish of water. They backed into the group of Yakuza watching curiously.

“So you can’t draw money. There are other things we need.

Drugs, guns, your basic underworld stereotypes. In fact, as long as the other gangs know we have a member who can create monsters—that alone is all the power we need to run things properly.

“So,” said Hanchi, reaching behind his back and pulling out a gun, “let’s try again.” He pulled out the clip and reset it with a loud click. Then he tossed the gun onto the table.

I watched as it spun around on the glossy surface, slowing until the end pointed at Tomohiro. “And there’s no point in trying anything,” Hanchi added. “Gun’s empty. So draw.”

Tomohiro picked up the
sumi
brush, gliding his fingers over the length of it, plying the bristles back and forth.

“Horsehair,” he said without looking up.

“Ganbare,”
said Hanchi.
Do your best
.

Tomohiro placed the brush back on the table. He gripped the
sumi
ink stick tightly and moved it to the
suzuri
inkstone.

His hands shook just a little, but no one seemed to notice but me. He took a little water and poured it on the
suzuri,
then started grinding the
sumi.
The ink bled into the water, making it thick and dark. His hand twisted and twisted around the inkstone, the scraping filling the silent room. His bangs slipped from behind his ear and fanned downward, hiding his eyes from me.

I felt so powerless it was driving me crazy.

As Tomohiro ground the ink, the Yakuza began to crowd the table, curiosity overtaking them. Even Ishikawa rose, creeping forward on socked feet to peer over our shoulders.

I wished I could sock
him
one, but I guessed it wouldn’t be the best move. I’d have to punch him later.

If there was a later.

The ink thickened and pooled in the
suzuri
stone. A faint sheen swirled through the ink, the edges of the liquid floating in ways they shouldn’t. At first my brain tried to ignore it, and no one else seemed to notice except Ishikawa, whose face crumpled in confusion. But I’d watched Tomohiro draw before, and I knew when the ink stopped being ink and started being…well, something else.