My Modern Kaidan

Chapter 2

Even though I had originally been nervous about starting my new school, the kids at Shimahara High are mostly nice. There's even a few that speak English.

Mikey Roxas is one of these people. While his family is originally from Chicago, his dad is some important businessman overseeing a new company headquarters here in Japan. I like to think I remind Mikey of home just as much as he reminds me. Even though he's been here three months, Mikey's Japanese is still worse than mine.

"But you have a Japanese dad," he tells me. We're sitting in the living room at my house, plodding through pages of new kanji.

"So?"

"So it's like, in your blood."

My dad isn't like ordinary dads would be when their daughter brings a guy over to the house for the first time. Instead of giving Mikey the interrogating once over, he peeks around the corner like a cat before just as quietly retreating to his office. Even though there are still plenty of boxes to be unpacked throughout the rest of the house, my dad's office has been meticulously unpacked, his drawing table and stool, his cork board for pinning up his storyboards, his monster movie figurines and posters, everything there like it's been that way for months.

It's not like there's anything going on between Mikey and I anyway. Mikey prefers Miyako Nishihara, and to tell the truth, why wouldn't he? Miyako is perfect, thin and graceful, with flawless legs and hair, and a perfectly styled school uniform, right down to her too-casual-to-care black socks and trainers to her perfectly tied scarves. She's in the same third and fifth period as us, and her English is almost as good as her Japanese.

Miyako is the type of girl that inspires awe and envy, and she either knows it or pretends she doesn't, or, well, there is no other possible scenario. Girls like her always seem to know their natural place at the top of the school food chain.

The same can be said for my most recent fascination, Kenji Iwata. The boy version of Miyako, from his black on black Adidas to his impeccably windswept hair he sweeps out of the way when he's called on to read in class. The only difference between Miyako and Kenji is that while Miyako excels at both English and Japanese, Kenji stumbles through his English pronunciation, bumbling through the text with lips that hardly move. It's quintessential cool and of course, just my luck. Not like I'd ever have the guts or reason to say anything to him anyway, and the same goes for Mikey to Miyako.

"What's your dad working on in there?" Mikey asks me.

"His work," I reply. "He's an artist."

"So that room is like his studio? He paints?"

"He draws. And writes."

"Comic strips?"

"Manga."

"Really?" Mikey says. "Is he good? Has he been published?"

"Yes." I hear my dad trot down the hallway as his phone rings, probably trying to give us a quiet study environment. He slides open a shōji and steps out into the garden. "Come on," I say.

I lead Mikey down the hall to my dad's office. The door is open so it doesn't seem that taboo to be in here. I take one of his manga volumes off the shelf and hand it to Mikey. It's Uchiko, Volume 1, about a town made of wax.

"E-go Hi-deo," he reads out loud. "I think I've heard of this guy." He begins to flip through the book, thumbing through the pages at a pace that either means he's really interested or he knows we've basically sneaked in here. "Wow," he murmurs. "This is your dad? Awesome."

My breath catches in my chest as I catch sight of my dad's sudden appearance in the doorway.

"Sorry," I tell him, waking Mikey from the pages of the book. He glances up, doing a double take, and even though my dad is smiling, the book falls from Mikey's hands, landing on the floor with a ceremonious thud.

"Uh," Mikey struggles to come up with the right word before bowing a whole ninety degrees and uttering "Sumimasen!" before he scrambles out of the room. Without a word, my dad sits down at the drafting table.

I come up behind him, placing my hand on his shoulder. "Whatcha workin' on?" I say, knowing the best way to butter him up is to act interested in his work.

"The story of a girl," he says. "about to be in very big trouble." His pencil slices across the paper pointedly.

I take that as my cue to leave.