Amanda Sun - Rain

“Tomo!” I shouted, racing back to the gateway where he fell. The ink spread in a shimmering pool on the stone as tourists clustered around him. I collapsed onto my knees beside him, putting my hands on his shoulders. His eyes were closed and it didn’t look like he was breathing.

Behind me I could hear the groan of ancient wood bending and snapping as the painted dog snarled, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I shook Tomohiro by the shoulders gently, but nothing happened.

Above us, in the shadow of the gateway, I heard strange groans and whispers. Something was really wrong. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. We needed to get away from here, fast.

“Someone call for help!” one of the tourists shouted. Several had already reached into their bags for their keitais.

“No,” I shouted, and they hesitated. I knew what Tomohiro would say. Don’t draw attention. But how could I help it? He’d passed out in a pool of ink.

I hooked my arms under Tomo’s shoulders and started dragging him away from the gateway, toward the top of the stone stairs where I could look at him in the light. The ink left a bloodlike trail as I pulled him forward to see what the emergency might be.

The moment he was out of the shadow of the roumon, he gasped as if he were drowning, like he was breathing in life itself.

“Tomo!” I smoothed his hair out of his face. The ink had soaked into his copper spikes and they stuck together in matted tangles.

He opened his eyes and looked at me. His pupils were huge, alien, glistening black.

No! Like the times he’d lost control while drawing. The Kami in him had taken over.

He kept gasping for air, his voice frantic as he groaned.

“It’s okay,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. “It’s okay.” My hands dripped with ink as I stroked his damp hair.

A woman stepped over and offered her water bottle. I nodded my head in thanks and opened it, the ink slicking over the cap and trickling down the sides.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” another tourist said.

“No!” I said. We couldn’t risk getting the hospital involved. What if it drew the police or something? “It’s okay. He’s okay now, see?”

Tomo closed his eyes, and when they opened again, they were their normal dark brown. I pressed a hand against his heart.

Please calm down. Please.

“Katie,” he managed.

“Pull it together, Tomo,” I said quietly. “Everyone’s worried.”

He got the message, and his breathing slowed.

“But he’s bleeding!” shouted a tourist.

“It’s ink,” I said. “See?” I splayed my fingers, showing the black liquid to the crowd. It was strange, showing off the one thing I wanted to hide. Their faces crumpled with confusion and I had to fix it, fast.

I reached into Tomo’s satchel, hoping for a pen, anything I could lay the blame on. My fingers brushed against glass, and I pulled the item out.

A bottle of ink, sealed shut, but the ink on my hands muddied up the container so the crowd couldn’t tell.

“It leaked,” I said, my body shaking. “He’s in Shoudo Club. It’s for his calligraphy projects. He’s okay. Come on, Tomo, sit up.”

He took hold of my arm and pulled himself upright. His body was shaking, his heartbeat erratic.

“I’m okay,” he managed, bowing his head to the crowd. “I’m sorry for the commotion. I...I got too hot.”

“He just needs some water,” I said, passing him the bottle. He drank deeply, the water spilling over his lips, dripping onto his shirt and the satchel strap.

“Well, if...if you’re sure,” said the tourist.

Tomohiro ran a hand through his ink-caked hair. He curled his legs underneath him and stood slowly. I kept a hand on his arm just in case.

“I’m all right,” he said again. “No need to call for help. Thank you, everyone.” And he bowed deeply to the crowd, his eyes cast to the ground. He stayed like that, and I just stared at him. But then I realized that the whole occurrence would have been considered troublesome for the tourists. Japanese courtesy called for us to apologize. I bent over in a deep bow, too, until Tomo reached for my wrist and led me down the steps.

We couldn’t make it into the woods to be alone. There were too many eyes on us. So we got on the ropeway, making our way back to the platform.

I squeezed Tomohiro’s hand, but he pulled it away from me. “Are you okay?” I said quietly. “Really?”

“My head’s killing me,” he said. “That stone was hard.”

“It’s stone.”

He grinned, rubbing the back of his head. “I’ll live,” he said. But that wasn’t what I’d meant.

On the other side of the ropeway, Tomohiro walked silently down the winding road past the red-and-white radio towers.

“Are you really okay?” I said, but he wandered like he was dreaming. After a few minutes, the Nihondaira Hotel came into view, which he circled past. A vast green field stretched out behind it, edged by forest and hidden mountain slopes. In the center of the field, two pools of deep blue water gleamed in the sunlight, separated by a tiny wooden bridge that barely looked safe to walk across. A sprawling tree with deep green leaves reached high above the pool like a ginormous bonsai tree. In the distance I could see the looming shape of Mount Fuji through the haze.

“It’s...wow,” I said as we sat at the base of the tree.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” he said. “Somewhere we can be alone. And a new place to draw, if it comes to that.”

I looked around. It was far enough from the ropeway that there were no crowds.

“It’s not exactly private,” Tomo said. “But most days it’s quiet. Especially at night.”

“Wait, you’ve been coming here at night?”

“In theory,” he smirked.

“You have, haven’t you? To draw?”

“I told you, I’m not drawing.”

I figured the fact we were having a coherent conversation meant he was okay from his hit against the stone. “So if you’re not drawing, why did you have a bottle of ink in your bag?”

He rolled his head back to look up at the tree. A crow near the top cawed at us. “To get us out of situations like collapsing at shrines?” He laughed and shook his head, the ink loosening from his hair like fine golden dust.

I didn’t believe him. Without a word, I reached into the satchel on his lap, my fingers grazing the curve of his hip bone through the fabric.

“Oi,” he protested, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “If you’re going to violate me, I’d appreciate if you wait till I’m naked.”

Heat raced up the back of my neck at the thought of it. “You definitely hit your head too hard,” I stammered, but he saw how flustered I was and grinned. And then my finger sliced alongside the edge of a paper. I winced at the cut and pulled the black notebook from the satchel. “Explain this,” I said, letting the notebook drop on the ground.

Tomohiro grabbed it and shoved it back in the bag. “If Yakuza and Kami were after you, would you go out unarmed?”

It was a pretty good point, really.

“So what the hell happened back there?” I brushed the golden ink dust off his shoulders.

“It was like the nightmares,” he said, lying back in the grass. The giant bonsai tree made splotchy patterns of sunlight down his body. Damn it. I was still thinking about what he’d said, about him being naked. I remembered the feel of his skin when we’d been alone in his house that night, the way he made my fingertips pulse with heat.

Still working on those priorities, Greene.

He sighed. “I couldn’t pass through the roumon. ”

“Why, though? Why couldn’t you go through the gate?”