Chapter 4

I remember when Mom and Dad—though they weren’t that to me yet—took me on the train from Sapporo, Hokkaido, to Ueno, Tokyo. I remember glass-and-steel canyons flowing with rivers of people. I remember shivering, hiding behind the woman who tried to calm me down, and baring my teeth at people.

Now, riding the Tokyo Metro, packed tight with dozens of strangers, I feel the fox inside me flattening his ears, wary. I glance from face to face, noting only blank expressions. The metro feels like a place between places, or the time between a dream and waking.

And then, we’re here: Harajuku.

I grab Gwen’s hand and we swell upward with the crowd, surfacing in the overcast daylight. Gwen brandishes her camera and snaps photos of Harajuku Station, a white-and-brown building that looks more like an English cottage. To the west, snow frosts the bare branches of trees in a park—Yoyogi Park. But we’re really here for the pedestrian bridge, Jingu Bashi, that connects Harajuku with Yoyogi Park.

“Harajuku kids,” Gwen breathes, as if unearthing a rare artifact.

She grabs my hand, her grip crushing, and drags me forward. We run along the length of the bridge and skid to a halt in the center, at the epicenter of the Harajuku kids.

Doll-like, hair-ribboned girls in Alice in Wonderland dresses—Gothic Lolitas—giggle around a girl wearing a neon rainbow sweater, striped tights, and huge star-shaped sunglasses. They’re watching an androgynous kid in a black frockcoat and top hat pose next to a guy with ghostly makeup, electric-blue dreads, and pink contact lenses. Androgynous Kid and Blue-Dreads Guy make the peace sign, a tourist takes their picture, and then the Harajuku kids scatter back into the surrounding kaleidoscope of crazy clothes and crazier hair.

“I want that dress,” Gwen says, clinging to my arm.

She points to a scary-cute girl wearing a Lolita kimono-dress, black and red and trimmed with copious quantities of white lace. I look at Gwen’s face to see if she’s joking or not, but she seems dead serious. Then again, she does have a weakness for weird fashion.

“Oh, no,” I groan. “You want to buy something already?”

Gwen whacks me on the arm, then makes a beeline to the girl in the kimono-dress. “Photo?” she says.

The Harajuku girl smiles and strikes a pose. Gwen snaps a photo.

“Kawaii,” the girl says, pointing at Gwen’s red hair. Cute.

Gwen’s cheeks redden. “Uh, thanks. Arigatō.” She moves back to me and mutters, “Are they staring at me?”

“Well, you are an American giantess with curly red hair.”

She makes a face between a grin and a grimace. “Wow.”

While Gwen snaps photos, I slip a sketchpad from my backpack. I haven’t been drawing much lately, mostly due to the looming threat of college and my parents breathing down my neck. Art can be your hobby! You can still have a real career! Yeah. But it would be a crime not to capture these Harajuku kids on paper.

I lean against the railing and start sketching the people nearby. A trio of candy-bright girls with lollipops cluster at one end of the bridge and flirt coyly with two steampunk guys in trench coats, top hats, and intricate steel arm bracers. The guys must be cosplaying, dressed up as favorite characters from an anime I vaguely remember. A girl in a schoolgirl uniform minces across the bridge, a furry black tail trailing from her skirt.

Is she yōkai? I try not to stare.

Cat ears poke from her hair, and when she smiles, she flashes sharp teeth. A bell jingles at the collar around her neck. Her eyes, lemon-yellow with slit pupils, look too flat. Contacts.

I bite back a smile and go stand by Gwen.

“Look,” I whisper. “See the cat girl?”

Gwen follows my gaze. “Is she a bakeneko?”

I remember hearing about bakeneko when I was a kid—it literally means “monster cat,” as in a really big kitty with paranormal powers. Legend says they start out as ordinary human pets, then grow bigger and bigger and become yōkai. I doubt that’s true; bakeneko have a reputation for being tricksters, like nogitsune.

“No,” I say. “Just a girl cosplaying as one.”

A smile spreads on Gwen’s face. “Really?”

The bakeneko cosplayer strolls past us and I pretend to stare at the skyline behind her.

I talk in a low voice. “It’s pretty awesome that they actually would cosplay as an Other in Japan.”

“I know! The closest they ever get to that in America is Halloween.” Gwen rolls her eyes. “And that’s usually ridiculously stereotypical, offensive crap ordered from some catalog.”

I grimace. Like guys who like to smear on some gray face paint, add plastic fangs, and run around pretending to bite girls because they’re “werewolves.” And usually the girls who get fake-bitten are wearing sheer dresses and body glitter since they’re “faeries.” Never mind what real werewolves and faeries look like, or that both of those Others would kick some serious ass if they saw those costumes.

“Japan is different.” I laugh. “Though this is Harajuku.”

“True,” Gwen says.

We stand side by side in silence for a while, watching the pageantry of strangeness that could exist nowhere else. Watching the Harajuku kids makes me feel claustrophobic, in a way, like all the different people—the not-normal people—in Tokyo, maybe all of Japan, are crammed onto this one bridge. They know where they belong, and it isn’t with everyone else. I wonder how many of these kids take out their piercings and wash the temporary dye from their hair every night, then go work as secretaries and study at Tokyo University in the morning.

“I’m thirsty,” Gwen says. “Are you?”

“Let’s go find something to drink. There might be some drinking fountains in the park.”

We cross the rest of the bridge and head west into Yoyogi Park. The sun peeks through ragged clouds, and frost glitters on the grass and trees. Here, people wear darker clothes and take up less space. Gwen makes a beeline for a vending machine selling drinks—the hot ones marked with red buttons, the cold ones with blue. She buys a can of jasmine tea and pops the top, releasing a puff of steam into the chilly air.

“Isn’t this amazing?” she says.

I peer into the machine. “Oh, cool! Minute Maid Hot Lemonade.” I feed the vending machine some coins, wrap my numb fingers around the warm can, and take a sip of tanginess. “I remember drinking this when I was little.”

“Really?” Gwen says.

She must be wondering how a half-wild fox boy could have found the money to buy anything from a vending machine.

My cheeks warm. “My kitsune mother bought it for me.” I hesitate. “With fake coins. Illusions, made from her magic. So technically she didn’t buy it, she stole it. But in her defense, I was a little brat who wouldn’t stop whimpering for lemonade.”

Gwen laughs. “I’m trying to imagine you as a little brat.” She drains her jasmine tea. “I have to pee. Wait here?”

“Sure.”

She jogs toward the nearest public restroom. I finish my hot lemonade, then sit on a bench outside the restroom with my sketchpad. I love how the frost looks like sugar dusted on the grass and trees. Well, it’s not like that’s a sight unique to Japan. I sigh and slip my sketchbook back into my pack. This trip is going to be a total artistic failure if I don’t stop hearing nagging in my head.

The door creaks open behind me.

“Ready?” I say, my gaze still on the park.

“You need to go,” Gwen says.

Frowning, I turn toward her. Her face looks strangely serene. “What?”

“She is coming.”

“Who?”

Gwen raises her hand to brush back her hair—no, she’s wiping her face, wiping her face away, leaving nothing but blank skin.

The noppera-bō.