The Pink Onesie #3
Whatever moved above our canopy had passed over them now, and hundreds of armed men went quiet in a wave I could watch with my own eyes.
I looked at Kenji. “Your dragon-shadow is over there?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I think I can feel it.”
“Good, but I’m not surprised. You are a man of many powers.”
“Many powers?” I blinked, unsure of how to accept that compliment.
Then, the baby returned.
I tensed.
Now she was on my brother's back with one chubby arm looped loose around his neck and her cheek pressed against the back of his muscular shoulder. She had her thumb tucked between her lips. She was a child sucking herself toward a nap she trusted would come.
And then her scent reached me.
Baby powder.
Soft.
Clean.
Warm.
The kind of powder that lived on a changing table in a peaceful nursery and got patted onto a small body after a bath.
And there was the scent of blood. My heart ached to have those smells collide.
It almost cracked my chest wide open. Almost made me moan in sadness so loud that everyone could hear it.
And those pretty, peaceful eyes watched me from over Kenji's shoulder.
I frowned. “Powers or not. I’m not okay.”
Kenji did not feel the ghost baby on his back. “You are okay, brother.”
"I see things." My voice came out lower than I wanted. "Wrong things that don't exist."
"I know."
"I don't want to. I don't know how much longer I can live this way."
Kenji went still beside me, and the worst part of it was that I knew he could see the true me more than anyone else. He had seen me my whole life. He had seen me as the screaming five-year-old in the cold mansion with the wrong neck man in the cellar and the wrist-open woman on the landing.
He had seen me as the boy who learned to kill before he learned to write.
He had seen me as the man who slept with a blade because his body could not believe a quiet room was safe.
But he had never paused like this.
The war was here. The plane would be landing in front of us soon. Surely, his dragon-shadow waited above us in the dark.
And my brother had stopped the entire night to look at me. "You carry things I will never have to carry, Hiro."
I swallowed.
"You see what the rest of us refuse to look at. You hear what the rest of us pretend is wind. You feel the weight of every person we lose and you do not put it down. You have never put it down. Not once in all the years of your life."
My eyes burned behind my mask.
"These are the truths kings hold."
My heart boomed in my ears. "Thank God I am not a king."
"You will be one day, Hiro."
I went very still. "No. I will not."
"You will."
"The throne is. . .yours.”
“What throne?”
He just looked at me.
I felt a panic I had no name for. “Brother, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“We’ll talk more later.” He turned forward.
Why would he say that?
The ghost baby kept her peaceful eyes on me.
Who are you? And why are you on my brother?
I had seen a lot of ghosts. The half-faced fisherman. Hiroko. Nura. Sora and his pink lollipop. A pregnant Nao with the knife in her belly. The dead crowded my whole life like an audience at a slow theater. I knew every register of grief, rage, and confusion they brought with them.
I had never seen a ghost this small nor calm and never this close to other people.
Blood dripped down her adorable face.
My bottom lip quivered. “Did a baby die tonight? On this island?”
Kenji’s expression was hidden under the mask, but I knew it held shock because I understood him well. “I don’t know, Hiro. I hope not.”
“I see one.”
“You may see more things tonight, Hiro. It’s war.
” Kenji placed his hand on my shoulder and this soothing sensation filled me and.
. .the baby vanished into the shadow across his shoulders.
“But know this, I am here. You are my brother. And together we are the most dangerous men on this island. And no matter what you see, I will be here loving you until the end of my breath.”
My eyes watered some more.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.” I rolled the lollipop hard against my back teeth—honeyed yuzu and white peach. “And if I see the baby again while we’re fighting?”
“Then, use that baby to remind yourself what we’re fighting for. With our father and Akiro gone, there will be no more dead babies on this island.”
I swallowed.
He removed his hand from my shoulder. “Do you believe me?”
“Yes.”
A masked Scale jogged up to us, carrying something long, wrapped in dark cloth. He bowed to my brother once and presented it with both hands held flat.
Kenji took the bundle and unwrapped it slowly.
Totoro.
His flame torch.
Kenji lifted Totoro, held it across his chest, and raised his voice for all of the Claws and Fangs to hear. “Now I’m truly ready!”
The men snickered, excited to see Totoro’s flames tear through Akiro’s flanks.
A piece of me that had stayed loose for hours finally settled.
Now it begins.
And that was when Akiro’s and my father’s plane began to land. . .right in front of us.
“Finally.” I put my focus back on death and sneered under my mask.