Shoji is sitting on the edge of a low wall when I pick him up from tae kwon do. He’s still wearing all his gear, but he has a thin book in his hands. I have to honk to get his attention, even though I’m only a few yards away from him.
He perks his head up and pushes his black hair from his eyes. Unlike Taro’s almost-military cut, Shoji keeps his hair long and straight, like he belongs in an Asian boy band.
When we were kids, we would fight about who looked the most Asian. We weren’t fitting in at school because we were consistently one of the token minority kids. It was something the teachers seemed to appreciate when casting pilgrims and Native Americans in the school Thanksgiving plays, but it came in a lot less handy when we were trying to make friends. We thought we were just like all the other white kids, but how a person feels on the inside apparently has nothing to do with how they look on the outside.
And I guess if we couldn’t feel white in school, we wanted to at home. So the three of us fought for the title of “Most Caucasian-looking of the Himura Children.”
Mom always found our game amusing. Sometimes she’d even play along and point out which of our features looked more Asian and which were—as she’d often call it—more “normal-looking.”
Dad didn’t want to play. I think our contests hurt him more than he ever wanted to admit, but Dad doesn’t complain. He’s a peacekeeper—he endures. Maybe that’s part of the reason I have such a hard time speaking up. I feel like I’m not supposed to.
Shoji always had the blackest hair, the smallest eyes, and the roundest nose. He hated it when he was little.
But something changed since then. Now he embraces it.
Even if I asked him, I don’t think he’d ever explain why. We aren’t like other siblings—we’re strangers living under the same roof. And talking about anything too personal feels like we’re opening doors we shouldn’t.
But sometimes—when the angle is right and Shoji doesn’t notice I’m looking at him—I can see our dad and none of our mom at all.
And maybe that’s all the explanation I’ll ever need.
“Hey,” I say when he climbs into the car.
He pulls the door shut and splits his book open with his thumb. “Hey.”
It’s quiet, but it’s always quiet with Shoji. Or maybe it’s me—I can never tell. Neither of us are good conversationalists. Sometimes I worry when we grow up we’ll never talk to each other again, and it will be because we didn’t practice enough as kids.
Some people don’t have to practice at speaking—it just comes naturally to them. My brothers and I aren’t like that. For us, speaking is hard.
I look down at his book. It’s a manga.
When we were little, Dad bought us some Japanese anime DVDs for Christmas. I loved them because they were like moving artwork—Taro and Shoji just liked them because they were cool.
But Mom hated them. She said all the voices gave her a headache. Dad never bought any more of them after that.
After a while, Taro and I found other things to be interested in, but Shoji missed the stories. He said he could see himself in Japanese cartoons in a way he couldn’t with American ones, so he started collecting Japanese comics.
Manga doesn’t give Mom a headache. At least not one she could admit to.
I glance down at the open page. The writing is all in Japanese.
“Can you read that?” I ask him.
Shoji doesn’t move. “Most of it. I’m still practicing.”
I’m not embarrassed to admit I think Shoji is a lot cooler than I am, even if he is younger than me. He’s always so calm—bordering on mysterious, even. He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve; he keeps it in a locked box with all of his dreams and expressions because he doesn’t want to share them with the rest of the world.
I don’t have that kind of control. My feelings tend to burst out of me like I’m a water balloon. Mom always says it’s because I’m overly sensitive, but I can’t help it. I don’t have a box to hide my emotions the way Shoji does.
And besides, everything breaks eventually if it’s put under enough strain. Even titanium. That’s not sensitivity—that’s science.
“Is that the one about demons?” I try again.
“Yeah.” He turns the page from left to right.
We don’t talk again until I pull into the driveway of our house.
Shoji wedges his index finger against the pages like a bookmark and presses the book against his chest. He grabs the handle of the car with his free hand just as I turn off the engine.
“Uncle Max is coming over tonight.”
The first thing I think of is my stuffed rabbit. The second is the feeling that something heavy and painful in the pit of my stomach is making me want to vomit.
“Oh.” My hands fall into my lap. “What time?”
Shoji shrugs. I’m not sure if he knows why I don’t like being around Uncle Max, but he’s not stupid. Neither is Taro, even though he acts like it sometimes. When Uncle Max and I are in the same room together, the tension is suffocating.
Mom says it’s all in my head, but I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have moved out in the first place if things hadn’t gotten so weird. My parents might even still be together.
Their divorce is my fault, after all.
Shoji gets out of the car, but I don’t follow him right away. I pull the key out of the ignition and squeeze the Batman key ring into my palm. I don’t even like Batman, but Jamie Merrick gave it to me when I was six years old, and sometimes holding it makes me feel safe.
Except it’s not working today.
My heart starts to race. My head throbs. I feel like I can’t breathe.
If Shoji knew Uncle Max was coming over, it means Mom did too. Why wouldn’t she tell me herself?
I get out of the car because I feel like it’s eighty thousand degrees and I need the fresh air to stop my head from spinning.
When I walk inside the house, I can hear Mom trying to get Shoji to talk to her. She has even less luck than I do, and as soon as I step into the living room, Shoji turns for the stairs with his book still in his hand.
“Mom?” I start. I try to calm my voice. Maybe she’ll be reasonable if I stay calm.
She looks at me with the kind of excitement a child has on their birthday. “Did you get your yearbook?”
“Yeah, I did. But—”
“—I want to see it!” she says with huge, round eyes.
I pull my yearbook out of my bag and hand it to her. She makes a noise like someone seeing a magic trick for the first time. There’s so much awe and innocence and joy—over a yearbook. I wish just once she had that kind of reaction over my art. No wonder we have a hard time understanding each other.
“Mom,” I start again. “Is Uncle Max coming over tonight?”
“Let’s try to be positive today, okay?” Mom says, her eyes pinned to the pages of winter formal. “What a gorgeous yearbook. Beautiful.”
I don’t know what positivity has to do with Uncle Max, or what a beautiful yearbook has to do with anything. Staying calm is becoming less and less of a possibility.