Thomas Randall - The Waking

“This is my roommate, Miho,” Sakura said.

Kara smiled at the thought of shy Miho and bold Sakura sharing a room together.

“I didn’t realize you were boarding students.”

Sakura ran an eraser over the chalkboard one last time. “Yeah. The forgotten ones.”

“Forgotten?”

“By our parents,” Sakura said, and though she smiled, her bitterness seemed genuine. “If they’d had a child murdered, most parents would probably have brought the other one home. Mine are trying to pretend it never happened.”

A trickle of ice went down Kara’s back. She knew she ought to say something but couldn’t find the words.

“My parents haven’t forgotten me,” Miho said. She shrugged. “They just don’t like me.”

Sakura rolled her eyes again, grinning. “They love you, Miho. They just want to keep you away from gaijin boys.”

Miho flushed and started sweeping again.

Confused, Kara looked at Sakura.

“She’s obsessed with American boys. There were several she made friends with online. That would have been bad enough,” Sakura explained, “but then she started to spend time with one she met in Kyoto. Miho’s parents are very traditional. They want her to marry a Japanese man, to stay in Japan forever. If you’d been a boy instead of a girl, Kara, they’d probably have taken her out of here.”

Kara didn’t want to upset Miho, but she couldn’t help herself. She turned to stare at the girl. “Really?”

She needn’t have worried. As shy as Miho seemed, she gave a sort of helpless smile and shrugged again.

“Probably.”

“That’s extreme.”

Miho nodded. “That’s my parents.”

“Go on, Miho, ask her,” Sakura said.

Kara glanced from one girl to the other. “Ask me what?”

“Ever since she found out you were coming here, she’s been hoping to talk to you,” Sakura explained.

“About what?”

Miho glanced at the ground again. “American boys. If you have a boyfriend at home, or just boys you like.”

Sakura and Miho looked at her expectantly.

“No boyfriend,” Kara said. “But plenty of stories to tell.”

Miho smiled like she’d just remembered it was her birthday.

B y the time Kara left the school grounds for the short walk home, the afternoon shadows had grown very long and a crisp chill touched the air. It might officially be spring, but on the first day of April, the memory of winter still lingered. Once again she found herself breathless at the beauty of Ama-no-Hashidate. Late in the day, the pine-studded causeway had an almost mythical aura around it, as though if she went for a walk among those trees, she might encounter things that now existed only in ancient legends.

The day had felt even longer than she anticipated and Kara had been very tired when she left school. But with the cool air and the blue sky and the fading sunlight, she drew in deep breaths and felt like running. All of her preparation had paid off. The days would be hard work, but Kara knew now that she could handle it.

More than anything, she wanted to immerse herself in her new home, to learn the streets and the houses and walk the shore of the bay, to go into Miyazu City and visit the shops, and to discover the history of local prayer shrines and festivals.

Unfortunately, she had homework.

But she’d have all year to explore, and she’d already made a start. Right now, school had to come first, especially since a lot of the students she’d met were also attending cram schools- juku -which meant that while she now headed home for dinner, they had gone into the city for more school. The idea made her shudder. Kara wanted to have the full experience of what it meant to attend school in Japan, but she understood now that it would be impossible. At some point, she’d return to the United States, either for her senior year of high school or for college. No matter what she did, she would never feel the kind of pressure that her classmates felt.

As she started up the path to the front of their small house, she smiled to herself. Cram school. The idea made her cringe. She’d live with the guilt.

“Hi, sweetie,” her father called as she walked in.

Kara found him in the kitchen chopping vegetables. She dropped her backpack and gave him a short hug, picking up a slice of onion and eating it raw.

“Hey. How was your day?” she asked.

He took a sip from a cup of sake, then went back to chopping. “Good, but exhausting.” Rob Harper grinned. “I’ll never learn all of their names.”

Kara crossed her arms. “Oh, come on. Don’t give up already. It’s only the first day.”

“What about you?” he asked, turning to face her. He studied her intently. “Was it everything you hoped it would be?”

“Everything I hoped and everything I feared.”

Her father looked at her in alarm, but Kara brushed his concern away.

“No, no, it was fine. I don’t mean, like, utter disaster feared. It’s just so weird being the only outsider.”

“Were the kids that bad to you?” her father asked.

“Some,” she said. “But I made a couple of friends today. At least, I think they’ll be friends, given some time.”

Picking up his sake cup, he nodded. “It’s a start. What about school itself? Any trouble understanding the teachers?”

“Not enough to be a problem. I really like the art teacher. And I think I’m going to love learning social studies from a different perspective. Now if I can just figure out what club I want to join, I’ll be pretty much set.”

Her father turned on the stove and poured a bit of sesame oil into the pan. “Right, right,” he said, chopping up garlic. “Did you see anything you liked?”

“Too many things.” Kara took a step away as he dropped the garlic into the pan. “It’s an interesting way to go about it, almost like a career fair. After o-soji, all of the clubs met in the gym, and I just kind of wandered around, talking to different people. It stinks that there’s no photography club, but I guess I take enough pictures. I wouldn’t mind doing judo or working on the yearbook. Miho, one of the girls I met today, does Noh theater, which is totally fascinating to me. But Sakura, her roommate, belongs to the calligraphy club, and that’s pretty interesting, too. The only thing I’m sure of at this point is that I don’t want to play soccer.”

Her father sliced raw chicken on a dish, but he paused to brush all of the chopped vegetables into the pan.

“Why’s that?” he asked as he scraped the chicken in as well.

Kara wrinkled her nose, only partially because of the smell of frying garlic. “Snotty girls. I mean, I guess they were okay. But you can always tell popular girls by their attitude. That requires zero translation. I couldn’t stomach those girls at home, so I don’t think I’m going to like the subtitled version any better.”

Her dad blinked, brows knitting. “Meow?”

“Was that catty? I guess that was catty. But my cup isn’t running over with regret.” She shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not, like, a diva or something. But I don’t want to be anybody’s token gaijin girl. I’m a little odd, so I’ll stick with the odd ones.”

“Does that go for the boys, too?”

“Huh?”

“Just wondering if you met any boys today.”

Kara arched an eyebrow. “None worth mentioning,” she said, then thought better of it. “Actually, there was one-”

“Aha!” He pointed at her with the wooden fork he’d been using.

“No ‘aha.’ I’m not looking for a boyfriend. Hachiro was just nice to me. He’s this big, friendly kid, sort of like a Great Dane puppy, already huge but hasn’t grown into his size yet.”

And, yes, great smile, pretty charming, she thought. She remembered the little jump her heart had given when Hachiro had smiled at her the first time, but she wasn’t about to mention that to her father.