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
2-C.
“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.
All through her schooling, she had lived her life in the balance between hope and necessity, building her life with an eye toward the future. Which wasn’t to say Miho did not enjoy her studies. There had been teachers she despised and those she adored, and there were several subjects-history, biology, and, of course, American studies-that she truly enjoyed. And friends… she had been so lucky to be assigned Sakura as her roommate, a girl who would understand what it meant to be ignored by her parents, not to mention the desire to rebel.
Sakura didn’t seem to share her desire to live in America, but when it came to breaking convention, Miho wished she had the courage to emulate her friend. How many times had she been tempted to cut and color her hair, or roll up the top of her sailor fuku skirt so that it would be scandalously short, or stay out long past curfew and come home drunk? She simply couldn’t do it. Perhaps it was her natural shyness, but for now, Miho was a good girl, keeping her rebellion locked up in her heart until the day she graduated university, when she would be set free.
All that day, she sat in class, too far from Kara to speak to her except for a few words between each class and at lunch, and not daring to pass notes in class for fear that Mr. Sato would turn his stormy eyes upon her. She’d eaten lunch without really tasting it, and when she had finished and had put her bento box away, she barely remembered having eaten at all.