we do first?” Yuki shouted, but I could barely hear her. She grabbed my hand and we pressed through the thick crowd toward a takoyaki stand. Tanaka rubbed his hands together as the vendor doused the battered balls of octopus meat with mayonnaise.
“Anything’s fine with me,” I said. Translation: no idea.
“I’m good, too, now that I have my takoyaki,” Tanaka said. “Want one?” The bonito flakes on the hot batter shriveled as if they were alive.
“Um, maybe later.”
Yuki grabbed the spare toothpick from Tanaka’s container and stabbed a takoyaki, taking a chewy bite. “We should try to get a good spot for fireworks soon, though,” she said through the mouthful. “The bridge over Abe River would be best.”
“We have lots of time, right?” She’d mentioned them about five times on the train, too. “What’s the big deal about the fireworks?” I mean, I loved them as much as anyone, but now who was the one obsessing?
Yuki pulled me over, whispering in my ear. Her breath was hot and smelled of the fishy batter.
“Because,” she breathed, “if you watch the fireworks with someone special, you’re destined to be with them forever.”
“Oh.” Jeez, I could be so stupid. So this was some big scheme for her and Tanaka. “Do you want space or something?”
“No, no!” She waved her hand frantically. “Not like that. Let’s stick together, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. Like she’d tell me if that was the plan anyway. One thing I’d learned living in Japan was that sometimes it was hard to get a straightforward answer out of someone. They found it too direct, something that could make others feel uncomfortable. It was something I was trying to work on, another in my list of gazillions of daily cultural mistakes.
We rounded the corner to two rows of brightly lit tents. All the thick, fatty smells of festival foods filled the air. Fried chicken, fried squid, steaming sweet-potato fries, roasted corn, strawberry and melon kakigori ice. My stomach rumbled and I moved forward, heading for the baked sweet potatoes. I handed over the yen and pocketed the change. Then I pulled back the aluminum foil to take a bite, the steam flooding my mouth. Beside me, kids dipped red plastic ladles into a water table while an old motor whirred little plastic toys round and round. The toys bobbed in and out of the ladles while the kids shrieked with excitement.
A flash of color caught my eye, and I turned. I strained to hear a sound above the music and chatter of the crowd, but I could hear it—faintly. The tinkle of the colorful furin, the delicate glass wind chimes that Tomohiro had sketched into the tree in Toro Iseki.
Across from me, the furin booth glowed with electric light, catching on the gleaming chimes as they twirled in the night breeze.
“Hello,” the vendor greeted me in English, but it barely registered as I stepped into the tent. Almost a hundred chimes hung suspended around me in a rainbow of glittering colors, spinning above my head in neat rows. Tomo’s had been black-and-white, like all his sketches, but they’d held the same magic, the same chorus that my ears could never forget. These sounded happier, though—his had been melancholy, the tones haunting and ominous, a sort of beautiful discord.
“You like the furin?” the vendor smiled. He had a kind, worn face and the early beginnings of a gray beard.
“They’re beautiful.”
“The sound of summer, ne? The sound of possibility.”
I reached out, cradling a glass furin in my hand. Possibility.
“Yuki-chan, look—” I turned.
I’d lost her to the crowd.
Panic started to rise up in my throat. She wasn’t one to abandon me on purpose. Even if she did want alone time with Tanaka, I knew she wouldn’t leave me stranded.
It wasn’t like I couldn’t get home safely. Taking trains around Shizuoka wasn’t a big deal for me anymore. Festivals just weren’t as fun by yourself, and the loneliness stung a little. I clutched my fingers tighter around the furin.
“You looking for someone?” the man asked.
“I’m okay,” I said, releasing the furin and stepping back into the darkness between the bright tents. I pulled out my keitai, ready to call Yuki, and then stopped with my finger on the button. Why was I so worried? I’d been in Japan long enough that being lost in a crowd didn’t have to be a big deal. I could communicate and get around. Anyway, Yuki had wanted time alone with Tanaka, right? She’d always done so much for me, helping me with my Japanese and smoothing out my cultural blunders. I should do something for her, even something little like this.
I slipped my phone back into my bag and pulled the drawstring tight. I watched some plastic toys whir around the water table a little longer before I strolled down the row of tents.
I stared at the different festival games interspersed with food stalls. Eel scooping, pet bugs, yoyo tsuri balloons on strings floating in tiny blow-up kiddie pools. I finished my sweet potato, balling up the aluminum with a satisfying crunch. In the next tent a pool of goldfish darted around, slipping out of the way of the paper paddles dipped into the water to catch them. I watched the fish swim for a minute, their scales shining under the hot buzzing lamps of the tent. The paper paddles broke and kids shouted in dismay, while the vendor gave a good-natured laugh.
I shuffled closer to the tent as the group of kids left, a teen couple the only ones left trying to catch a fish. The girl trailed a goldfish slowly with the paddle, her movements deliberate and cautious, her giggle rising when the fish caught on and sped away. She crouched on the ground beside the pool, paddle in one hand and bowl in the other, her red-and-gold yukata crinkling around her geta sandals.
And then I realized I knew this girl.
The pregnant bump of her stomach under the light cotton of the yukata.
And the boy beside her. Tomohiro.
Not kidnapped. Not falling apart. Not dead.
Scooping goldfish with Shiori.
I stepped back. He hadn’t noticed me yet, the two of them laughing as Shiori tried to maneuver another fish into her bowl.
I knew he was here with Shiori as a friend, supporting her. He wouldn’t give up on us that fast, like we didn’t matter at all. Maybe that was the attitude he portrayed at school, but I knew better. After a sketching accident had left his elementary-school friend Koji almost blind, he’d decided to keep his distance from everyone, except his childhood friend Shiori, and now me. Shiori had been abandoned to the cruel bullying that came with being pregnant at her prestigious school. Tomo knew what it was like to be alone. That’s all this was.
But it still bothered me. I had to admit they made a cute pair. Seeing the closeness between them, seeing Tomohiro smile at another girl like that...I felt stupid suddenly, tall and ugly and awkward in my borrowed yukata.
Maybe Tomohiro wasn’t as dangerous as Jun had led me to believe. He seemed normal enough squatting beside Shiori, his eyes following the goldfish, that smile on his face. He wore jeans and a dark T-shirt, the usual thick wristband around his right wrist. I could still imagine the ink stains streaking up his arms, the scars hidden on the inside curve of his skin, but in the evening darkness there was no trace of what had happened. He looked so...normal.
Maybe staying in Japan had been the wrong choice. What if staying away from Tomo really did give him the ability to rein in his powers? Maybe the Kami didn’t need me—maybe he didn’t need me.
“Yatta!” Shiori shouted. “I did it!” The fish had slipped from her paddle into