Rain by Amanda Sun Page A

wrist. No sign of his cast.
    And at the piano, Ikeda, her fingers dancing across the keys.
     

They didn’t see me at first. Jun’s eyes were closed, waiting for his cue to join the piano melody. And Ikeda focused on the keys of the piano as she played, swaying her body slightly to the music.
    I’d never thought of how they might know each other. It was way too weird to see them being so...so normal.
    Ikeda played a long, slow intro, and it was like time stopped. Jun sat completely still, his fingers barely touching the strings. Then Ikeda played a loud chord and Jun’s bow moved, spanning the instrument slowly, the rich sound resonating. And then more waiting and more piano.
    Eventually he joined in, and the two played. It was a slow piece, gentle and beautiful, everything I’d thought to be the opposite of the Kami. How could they create such stirring music and yet stalk around Shizuoka at night hoping to build an army to kill Yakuza? It was like some kind of sick joke.
    Jun’s arm arced with the bow, his whole body swaying gently as he played. I was more of a dancer than a musician, at least back in New York, but even I could tell he had an incredible connection to the instrument. It was beautiful to watch him play.
    The piece swelled, more pronounced, the chords almost angry in their expression. It was then that Ikeda noticed me, when she glanced up from the piano to look at Jun and saw me standing in the doorway. The silence in the music room felt thick and uncomfortable. Jun opened his eyes to see why Ikeda had stopped.
    She glared at me. “You.”
    “Katie,” Jun said. He smiled, lifting his hand with the bow to tuck his blond highlight behind his silver earring.
    “Your cast,” I said, suddenly self-conscious.
    “Came off this weekend,” he said. “But I’m not allowed to do anything strenuous for another few weeks. So no tournament, I’m afraid.”
    “What are you doing here?” snapped Ikeda. “You’re not supposed to be on school grounds if you’re not a student.”
    “Hana showed me the way,” I said, as if that gave me some kind of authority. Maybe they didn’t even know who she was. It was a pretty common name.
    “Has something happened?” Jun asked. He bent away from the cello to rest his bow inside an open instrument case.
    I looked at Ikeda. What was her problem? So she was possessive of Jun—well, fine. Didn’t she know I was with Tomohiro? I wasn’t some kind of threat. I really didn’t like her looking at me like that.
    “I just want to talk,” I lied. No point telling Ikeda what was happening. What if she put Jun up to pestering Tomohiro again?
    “You’ll have to come back later,” Ikeda said sharply. “We’re in the middle of practice.”
    “It’s okay,” Jun said, gently lowering the cello. “My wrist’s starting to give me trouble anyway.” He lifted his bow back out of the case and unscrewed the bottom to loosen the horsehairs.
    “ Naruhodo ,” Ikeda muttered to herself. Yeah, right. She didn’t believe him, which was fine. I didn’t, either.
    “ Jaa ,” he said. “See you later.”
    She closed the fall board of the piano over the keys and grabbed her book bag, walking past me without looking up.
    “Jeez, what’s her problem?” I said to myself. But Jun heard me and laughed.
    “I think her problem is that you broke my wrist,” he said.
    “Valid, I guess.”
    “Uh-huh.” He snapped the cello case shut and crouched down to push the heavy container near a wall of instrument cases.
    “So you said you played an instrument, but I didn’t realize you meant a cello.” I guess I’d expected something more typical like guitar or piano.
    “It’s the deep tone of it,” he said, hunched over the case. He rose and turned to look at me. The blond highlights had tipped from behind his ears and now clung to his face until he tucked them back. His bangs had grown so long over the summer that I could barely see through them to his left eye. “When the bow