Thomas Randall - Spirits of the Noh

Amid the milling students, she searched for her friends. As she took off her shoes and stuffed them into a cubby, she kept glancing around, but at first saw no sign of them. Kara felt odd, her skin prickling with tension. She was in school, but felt apart from the other students. When she caught sight of bitchier-by-the-day Mai making a beeline toward her, she wished she could have been anywhere else.

“What happened to him, bonsai?” Mai said, her voice low, expression grim. She glanced around to make sure no one would overhear them. “Do you know where he is?”

A tremor passed through Kara. She knew exactly what Mai was talking about, but not why the girl would be asking her.

“Are you on drugs?” Kara asked, speaking loud enough to be overheard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mai hesitated, nostrils flaring with anger, eyes dark. Then she took a breath, and Kara could see beneath the nasty mask the girl had adopted in order to become queen of the soccer bitches. Mai had been quiet and unsure, once upon a time. That girl still lived inside this one. Kara got a glimpse of her, and realized that Mai was afraid.

“Ume told me what happened that night,” Mai whispered. She leaned in close and Kara flinched. “About Kyuketsuki. So don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m asking you. Where is Daisuke?”

Kara glanced around, wishing her friends would appear. Where were they all? She gnawed her upper lip and then made a little shrug.

“I don’t know. I mean, there’s no reason to think this is anything weird,” she said. Then her eyes widened. “Unless you’ve heard something. Is there news?”

Mai’s disappointment was plain. “No. Only that he didn’t go home.”

Kara felt bad for her, suddenly. Daisuke might be in Noh club, and Mai one of the soccer girls, but she clearly cared for him. “Is he your… I mean, are you two…?”

“We’re friends,” Mai said. “Is that difficult for you to understand? I do have friends who don’t play soccer, you know.”

Kara had nothing to say to that. Mai had been so awful to all of them over the past few months, she couldn’t quite bring herself to feel guilty, but she allowed herself to wonder if they had misjudged Mai a little. If Ume had told her what happened, perhaps Mai had been so harsh to them in order to keep them away from her. It didn’t excuse her behavior, but Kara had never considered that from Mai’s perspective, she and her friends might seem like the bad guys. Like trouble.

“If I hear anything-” she started.

Mai sneered at her. “You’ll do what? Get someone else killed? Don’t even speak to me, bonsai. You’re beneath me. Beneath notice.”

Kara blinked as if the girl had slapped her. Just a moment before she had been giving Mai the benefit of the doubt. Now no doubt remained.

Other soccer girls were starting to group around them, coming nearer, even as most students began to file into the corridor and walk toward the gym for the morning assembly. This time, it was Kara who stepped nearer, intimate, close enough to fill her senses with Mai’s plum blossom perfume.

“Your friend Ume murdered Akane Murakami. For all I know, you were one of the girls with Ume that night, one of the killers. I don’t appreciate the irony of you suggesting that I’m responsible for anyone dying. But, if you’d like, say that again, and I’ll be happy to hurt you.”

The soccer girls surrounded them now. If they had heard any of her whispered comments, they gave no sign of it, but Mai had heard her very clearly. Whatever part of her mask that had slipped was now repaired. Her sneering half smile showed no hint of the real girl beneath.

“I am certain your father would be quite proud of you, bonsai,” Mai said.

Kara nodded slowly. “You know what? He might be. Even if it dishonored him, he would understand. So don’t push me.”

Several of the soccer girls began to move closer as if to do exactly that, while others glanced around to make sure they weren’t observed. Mai held up a hand to forestall any scuffle.

“If you have anything to do with Daisuke being missing,” Mai said, “you will know what it feels like to be pushed.”

The moment went on for several beats and Kara balled her fists, ready to fight if it came to that. Then one of the soccer girls swore quietly in Japanese and stepped aside as Sakura pushed her way in among them, took Kara’s hand, and led her out of the crowd.

They walked quickly out of the genkan and into the corridor, heading toward the gym for morning assembly. The soccer girls followed perhaps ten feet behind, loudly whispering rude things to them.

“ Rezu, ” one of them said, taunting.

Kara glanced at Sakura, whispering, “What did they just call us?”

Sakura smiled. “They called me a lesbian.”

“Are you?” Kara asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I couldn’t say. It’s sort of like cheeseburgers, I suppose.”

“ How is it like cheeseburgers?”

“I’ve never tried one, but when I see them in movies or on TV, I’m intrigued.”

Kara let that sit for a while, trying to process it. Not that it troubled her. If Sakura eventually decided she liked girls, she wouldn’t be the first lesbian Kara had been friends with. She’d always be Sakura, and that was all that mattered. What disturbed her deeply was the idea that Sakura had never had a cheeseburger.

They walked into the assembly, where the students were lined up by homeroom. In a moment, they would separate, and not see each other again until o-soji. Miho must have gotten up earlier than Sakura; she was already in line with the rest of their homeroom class. Kara spotted Hachiro with his own class and waved to him. He waved back, but she thought he looked anxious, and knew why. They all needed to talk, and soon.

“Did you hear about Daisuke?” Kara asked.

“The whole dorm heard, last night. Teachers came to ask his friends if anyone had spoken to him, or knew why he might not have come home. Now they’re saying he has run away.”

Kara felt a twinge of hope. “Do they know that for sure?”

Sakura shrugged. “How could they?”

“So, do you think it’s got to do with… with Kyuketsuki?” Kara asked, whispering the last.

Before Sakura could reply, Mr. Sato snapped at Kara and gestured curtly for her to take her place in line with the other students in

“We’ll talk during calligraphy club,” Sakura said, heading for her own line.

Kara got in line with her classmates, wishing she could stand with Miho. But they would have plenty of time to talk later. They needed to talk. Meanwhile, she would be spending every spare moment praying that Daisuke came home safely, for his sake and his parents’, and also for hers.

Miho Baisotei had lived the first sixteen years of her life in quiet diligence. Her parents had raised her with little warmth but with a great sense of expectation that had seeped into her own sense of self. They went on with their lives, providing for her education and physical welfare, but otherwise leaving her to fulfill that expectation. When she thought of them, her heart remained mostly numb, though she had gone through long periods of melancholy. Mostly, she studied, and her effort paid off. As long as she continued along those lines, Miho would never need to attend a juku school, and she would certainly find herself in an excellent university.

And then she would escape. Years of watching Western movies and reading Western books had instilled within her a yearning to be free of the expectations, both her own and her parents’. The United States might have tarnished its reputation, but to her it still meant freedom. Her fascination with American boys sprang from the same desires. Most of the boys she knew did not seem as traditional as the adults she knew, but in America, she could be anyone or anything she wished. That was the magic and the promise of the place. Once, she had thought her parents might allow her to attend university in the United States, but they had ignored all of her attempts to discuss it, so Miho would have to wait until she had her degree. And then she would leave.