Fifty Words for Rain(39)

“I’m Miyuki,” she said. She had a strong country accent, so strong that Nori had to strain to understand her. “I’ve been watching you play in the great hall. It’s real pretty.”

Nori blinked. “I’m Noriko.”

She reached out and shook the offered hand, which was, as she’d suspected, covered in wet ink.

“Oh, sorry,” Miyuki said with a laugh. “I was writing. I don’t write so good, though. Always make a mess. I bet you write really nice.”

“I don’t write much.”

The strange girl plopped down beside her, uninvited, and wiped her dirty hands on the grass. “I was writing a letter to my sister.”

Nori really looked at her then. Miyuki had tan skin and thin lips that looked like they’d been pulled too tight across a wide mouth. Her hair was thick and, at the moment, full of tangles. She was short, shorter even than Nori, and plumper by quite a lot. Despite this plumpness, she had no chest to speak of. All of her fat seemed to have settled in her arms and legs. Still, it was a comfortable kind of plumpness that hinted at warmth. And she had pretty eyes. Nori did not think that she could be much more than fourteen.

“Your sister?”

Miyuki smiled. “Yeah. She’s only four, though, so she can’t read ’em. But it makes me feel better sending her something. She’s back in Osaka. She’s in an orphanage right now, but that’s just for a little bit, until I pay off my debt. Then I’m gonna go get her.”

Nori bit her lip. “So your parents are . . .”

“Dead,” said Miyuki without missing a beat. “Ma died right after Nanako—that’s my sister—was born, and Dad got injured in the war. He never really recovered and died a few months after Ma did.”

Instantly, Nori felt a bolt of guilt shoot through her. Her breath hitched. “I’m so sorry.”

Miyuki scrunched up her mouth. “He wasn’t the best.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Miyuki scooted around on the grass so that she was fully facing Nori.

“I heard,” she said, lowering her voice, “that your grandmother was a princess. Is it true?”

Nori didn’t like where this was going. “Yes, it’s true.”

The chubby girl beside her brightened. “So does that mean . . . does that mean you’re a princess too?”

“No. The Americans stripped all the minor royals of our imperial status, so we’re not allowed to use titles anymore. Besides, I’m just a bastard.”

Miyuki’s disappointment was obvious. “Oh.”

“Sorry.”

“Oh, no, that’s all right,” said Miyuki, perking right back up. “Still, what are you doing here?”

“This is where I was sent,” Nori answered dryly. “This is where I am.”

Miyuki nodded. Everyone in the hanamachi, it seemed, understood this much. No more questions needed to be asked.

“I went to the orphanage five years ago. Then I came here and I’ve been here for two years now. Gonna have to stay here for two more years, then I can go get Nanako.”

Nori plucked a strand of grass from the ground. “You chose to come here?”

Miyuki’s smile was pained. “Lots of the girls here did. It wasn’t no worse than what we had before. Me, I could’ve stayed in the orphanage all right. They fed us and were nice most of the time. But Nanako’s delicate. Always has been since she was an itty-bitty baby. So I decided I had to get her out. Needed money for that.”

She took a deep breath as if to prove her conviction. “I’m gonna finish out my contract. I stay here for four years and then I get enough money to go get my sister. I can settle nearby, keep working. Raise her right.” She laughed. “I’m gonna make sure she learns to write a lot better than me, that’s for sure.”

Nori didn’t know what to say to this. Besides, this conversation was making her think of Akira. And that was absolutely forbidden. She would never see him again. She told herself this and swallowed down the agony of it. She would never see him again.

She stood up. “I should go to bed now.”

Miyuki stood up also. “I didn’t mean to bother you none.”

Nori forced herself to smile. “You didn’t bother me, Miyuki-san.”

Miyuki smiled back, revealing her gap. “Oh, just Miyuki is fine. I should get back to trying to write this dumb letter anyway.”

She turned and started off, shoving her hands in the pockets of her robe. Nori watched her cross the yard. Something caught in the back of her throat.

“Ano . . . Miyuki-chan?”

The other girl turned, her pretty hazel eyes wide-open. “Yes?”

“Did you . . . maybe want help writing that letter?”

Miyuki’s grin widened. “Eh, Hontoni? You’d really help me?”

“Yes, well. I’m not really tired. So if you wanted help . . .”

Miyuki darted forward and seized Nori’s wrists, yanking her forward before she had a chance to blink.

“Noriko-chan! That’s great!”

“It’s nothing—” But Nori didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence.

“Can you write in English too?”

“What? Sukoshi. Just a little.”