Rise (The Paper Gods) Read online

  Amanda Sun weaves together two tales of love, ink and magic in this companion novella to the Paper Gods series!

  A long, long time ago, before the world was as we know it, Izanami and Izanagi came into being. Two of the first of the ancient gods of Japan, they crafted the world from ink and their own imaginations. Izanagi wants, more than anything, to be with Izanami—but one moment of pride could tear them apart forever.

  Yuki and Tanaka have been friends for as long as they can remember, but lately deeper feelings have been bubbling beneath the surface. How do they navigate the transition from friendship to true love without destroying the powerful bond between them?

  Set a millennia apart, can these two couples, living parallel love stories, find their happily-ever-afters?

  And don’t miss the epic conclusion to Katie and Tomo’s story in Storm, from Harlequin TEEN.

  RISE

  A Paper Gods Novella

  Amanda Sun

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Glossary of Japanese Words and Phrases

  Chapter One

  Mukashi, mukashi, long ago, as the Kami later told it, there was nothing of the islands of Japan but a swirling whirlpool of black ink, spanned by a bridge of crimson and gold. A single thin shoreline, stained black by the waves, stood at either end of the crossing, each sandbar no longer than ten steps to the edge of the opaque waters. The world was small then, unformed and infinite in possibility.

  The chaos of it engulfed the kami Ameno, the fog swirling around him in clouds of unshapen mist. A golden bead of ink dripped down the side of the spear he clutched to his chest. He could hear the roar of the ink around him, flecked with shining gold like a mirage in the distance. He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t heard the rush of it, when he hadn’t longed to reach into the waters and feel the warmth of the flowing ink as it raged toward the edges of the mist.

  Another bead of gold dripped off the spear as he reached it toward the darkness. He grasped the naginata spear in his hands, the blade of it gleaming with gold, gems of darkly lit sapphire and azure dangling from a string wound around the weapon. He tilted the naginata’s blade toward the ground as the ink fell.

  The ink bloomed into the shape of a reed leaf, a single stem that bent in the flow of the dark waters. The golden light of it faded, and the reed stood there, a tiny shoot of bright green against the swirling chaos.

  “You’re painting again,” said a voice, and Ameno turned toward it. The edge of the riverbank curled under a lip of dark fog, the geta sandals of another kami pressed into the sand of the shore. The kami wore a kimono that shimmered faintly with specks of gold that faded into plum.

  “The ink waves tumble toward the future, Kunitoko,” Ameno said, tilting the spear toward the other kami. “It’s been quiet for too long, with no life for them to crash against.”

  Kunitoko grasped the hilt of the spear and nodded. “I, too, tire of the endless roiling of the waves,” he said. He took the spear in both hands, the gems gleaming with dark light. He threw forward the curved edge of the naginata’s blade and the golden ink gleamed, the clouds of fog dissipating as they swirled backward.

  The shoreline cleared, a red-and-black pagoda looming in the distance. Ameno nodded, leaning against the planks of the bridge that scaled the shoreline to the other side, shrouded in mist.

  Two new kami lay on the banks of the sand, their eyes blinking as they stared at the golden dust of the ink, flying upward like a backward snow of sparks and embers. The two of them curled around each other, heads side by side but one facing the pagoda and the other the inky waters, one of them in a robe of white with long black hair that spilled over the fabric, the other wearing black with his hair pulled into a tight coil.

  “Let me help you,” Kunitoko said, reaching his hand out for the kami in white. She looked around the shore, her eyes wide.

  “What is this place?” she asked as the kami in black rose to his feet, dusting the sand off his hands.

  “It is everything,” Kunitoko said.

  “Everything is very small,” said the kami in black. “Only a bridge, a shore and an angry ocean.”

  “No,” said the kami in white. “There is a small reed leaf, there, that fights the current.”

  Kunitoko smiled. The naginata’s blade gleamed with golden light. “Would you paint more?”

  The eyes of the kami in white went round and amazed, her mouth opening in a small O. “What can I paint?”

  “Anything,” Kunitoko said. “But the kami in black was formed just before you. Let him paint first.”

  The disappointment on her face was quickly extinguished by her excitement as Kunitoko offered the spear to the kami in black. “Go ahead, then,” she said to him. “I invite you to paint on this moving canvas.”

  “As I invite you,” the kami in black said. “For Kunitoko has painted a masterpiece in you.”

  The kami blushed as she pulled her white robe tighter around her. The warmth of the feeling shut out the swirling cold of the mist.

  “Izanami and Izanagi,” Kunitoko nodded. “The kami who invite creation. I’m eager to see what you will paint.” He clapped the kami on the black shoulder of his robe. “Go ahead and begin, Izanagi.”

  Izanagi stepped toward the river, the spear dripping with golden possibility.

  “Up here,” said Ameno, and Izanagi startled at his voice. He stepped onto the planks of the bridge, the gems clinking against the side of the spear in an out-of-tune harmony. “You can see everything from here.”

  Izanami followed them onto the bridge, her eyes cast down toward the swirling mass of fog. It was cold here, dark and oppressive. She wanted space, light. Warmth. Yes, more of the warmth she’d felt when Izanagi had smiled at her.

  Izanagi reached the spear over the side of the bridge, as if he were fishing. He pressed the naginata into the waters, the blade rattling as the current threatened to dislodge it from the shaft of the spear. The gems tossed back and forth in the foam, their lights blinking in and out like fireflies. The lights lifted into the air as Izanami thought it, lightning bugs of sapphire and azure and gold.

  “It won’t budge,” Izanagi grunted, pressing against the waters. “The chaos is thick and immovable.” The blade shuddered in the current. Izanami tensed; if the blade was lost, nothing could be painted. Only shadow and ink would remain forever.

  She stepped forward, resting her hands upon his. The softness of his skin filled her with warmth again, the press of her fingers molding against his. This was what it was to be alive, she thought. Izanagi looked at her, his eyes softening, his grip on the staff loosening under her touch.

  Together they moved the heavens, swirling the chaos in a mass of churning ink. The fog pressed back, the light of the hundreds of risen fireflies gleaming in the sky. The sudden light blinded Izanami, and she threw her hand up to shield her eyes. They had turned to stars, lighting the darkness in a ceiling without end. Below, the reed leaf had risen from the waters, attached to other leaves, to other stems, and to roots. The roots to shoreline, heaving and steaming as it crashed forward from the waters. The bridge was propelled farther into the sky, the land pushed farther below.

&nb
sp; Ameno’s eyes crinkled with delight. Kunitoko pressed his fists to his sides as he nodded.

  Izanami looked down at the land as it shaped below them into islands. Her mind teemed with ideas for the painting to make it bolder, more fluid. Warmer.

  “Will you help me?” Izanagi said, looking at her. Izanami smiled, her glance falling as she looked away from the warmth of his face.

  “For all time,” she said.

  The golden ink lifted in a flurry of sparks around them.

  Chapter Two

  Yuki raced through Sunpu Park, her knee sock coiling around her right ankle. The shrimp had taken longer than she’d expected to fry the golden color she’d needed. Everything had to be just right. The bentou shifted around in her book bag as she clutched it to her chest. It wasn’t like her to be late for school, especially not today. Katie’d had a meeting with the headmaster over the weekend to discuss the graffiti that she and Yuu Tomohiro had somehow been involved in. Yuki still wasn’t sure what she thought of Yuu, but she felt pretty confident that Katie hadn’t been involved. Tanaka had even told her he’d met them when they’d first arrived that morning—they hadn’t had time to mark up all the chalkboards with giant kanji and awful messages. Either way, Katie hadn’t answered Yuki’s texts, and she was dying to know what had happened. Today of all days she needed to get to school before the bell went.

  She rounded the corner to the eastern gate, sliding on the gravel of the Sunpu Castle courtyard as she burst through and turned left. She slid between groups of other students, some bound for Suntaba like her, others wearing the blue-and-green plaid of Katakou School. Some of them were still only wearing their blazers for warmth. She shook her head, glad she’d pulled on her black wool coat. The air held a crisp chill to it that hadn’t been there last week. Fall had come on quickly, and winter wasn’t far behind.

  Yuki pushed through the gate, immediately spotting Katie near the front door. It was easy to find her in the sea of students, her blond hair spilling out around the pink plaid scarf wound around her neck. She’d picked it out when they’d been shopping, Yuki promising she’d knit her one like her own when she had time. In truth, she’d started a completely different scarf—a red one, and not meant for Katie. Yuki blushed at the thought, but then pushed the guilt away. Katie would understand.

  She raced toward her friend, pressing her book bag into Katie’s startled hands. “Here!” she said, reaching down to pull up her knee sock. The fabric clung to her leg, the cold wind finally blocked.

  “I’m glad to see you here,” Yuki puffed as she stood upright and grabbed her bag back. “I thought you might get suspended! When I didn’t hear back from you, I assumed the worst.”

  “I’m sorry,” Katie said. “I should’ve texted you back.”

  Yuki shook her head. “Is it bad?” She looked around the doorway, and back to Katie’s worried face. “Yuu-senpai isn’t here. Was he suspended?”

  A rush of warmth pried the girls apart, and Yuki found herself yelping in surprise. Tanaka shouted a cheerful good-morning, and after a moment it registered that he’d pressed his hand against Yuki’s shoulder to stick himself between her and Katie.

  Yuki glanced at him as he grinned, his glasses sliding just a little down his nose from the impact. His deep brown eyes gleamed as he turned to meet her glance. How many times had she searched his eyes? she wondered. They’d gone to different schools until junior high school, but they’d always lived only a couple streets away from each other. He’d had that same gleam in his eyes when he’d passed her house in his kindergarten uniform, his straw hat pressed too far down on his mop of curly hair. He’d had that gleam when his family came over for tea so their mothers could discuss elementary school choices and entrance exams. He’d pulled funny faces at her while she’d pressed her lips together as tight as possible so her mother wouldn’t scold her again for giggling. When no one was looking, long after Yuki’s mom had strongly reminded her that the refreshments were for the guests, he’d slipped her the last cookie under the table. His curly hair was gone now, cropped short and spiked on his head, but the gleam in his eyes was still there, Yuki thought. He was always full of a warmth that flooded through her when she looked at him.

  It wasn’t that he was always cheerful. He joked a lot at school, but walking home together from junior high, and now from Suntaba, he’d get quiet, thoughtful, his mood as deep as his eyes. She wanted more of that warmth from him, the way he made her feel that only she could swim in the ocean of his thoughts. The feeling that everything would always be all right as long as he was near her.

  She tried to ignore how warm his hand felt on her arm as she pretended to jump back from his reach. “You can’t go around terrorizing people in the morning, Tan-kun!” she said, burying her face deeper into the coils of her scarf. He hadn’t noticed her reaction, had he? She wanted him to, but she also didn’t. Things were so complicated between them. They’d always been together. How did he feel now? Like she was a sister, or did he feel what she did? She was frightened to ruin it, that he’d turn his back on her and go his own way, and then she’d be alone, split in half by the loss of him. Yuki blinked at how serious it sounded in her head, but that was the way it was with Tanaka. She couldn’t remember a time they weren’t side by side. It was like the vine of him had wrapped around her heart and bloomed into a hundred flowers overnight, when she wasn’t looking.

  “I only terrorize my favorite people.” He grinned, and Yuki hid inside the weave of her scarf. He had to feel the same way, too. But maybe he thought of her the way Yuu Tomohiro thought about the girl from the other school, Shiori. Yuki didn’t want to end up like that, humiliated and outcast. But she couldn’t live this way anymore, either. It was stifling.

  “Greene,” drawled a voice, and Yuki looked up to see Tomohiro’s bleached-blond friend Ishikawa, the kendouka he always hung around with. “I need to talk to you about Yuuto.”

  Yuki hesitated. Usually Ishikawa meant trouble. But Katie looked confident, nodding and stepping aside with Ishikawa as they entered the genkan. Yuki and Tanaka headed over to the First Year cubbies, sliding out of their coats and scarves and loafers.

  “Hope everything’s okay,” Tanaka said.

  Yuki nodded, but lost herself in thought as she pulled on the soft school slippers. She’d told Katie that Yuu didn’t strike her as a typical Japanese guy—with his mother gone, he’d picked up a lot of traits that didn’t fit his school persona. He cooked, for one, and he offered up his emotions a lot more easily than any guy she’d ever known. Yuki glanced at the curve of Tanaka’s spine as he hunched over to slip on his school shoes. Tanaka was traditional, she knew. He’d get embarrassed if Yuki asked him out. He’d want to be the one to ask her...if he even felt that way. Yuki sighed, sliding her shoes into her cubby and reaching for her book bag. Katie was still talking to Ishikawa, so Yuki nudged Tanaka with her shoulder.

  “Sounds like they’re having a serious talk,” she said. “Want to head to class first?”

  “Sure.” The school bell chimed over the speaker system. Kin-kon-kan-kon. The electronic bells rang like a cathedral in England. That was another thing, too, Yuki thought. Tanaka had his heart set on going to university in New York. Did that mean he’d leave Japan permanently? Did he want to marry a foreigner? Yuki shook the thought away. They had two and a half years until graduation, enough time to figure out what they meant to each other—if Yuki could figure out how to move their relationship faster than a snail’s pace.

  Yuki rested her book bag on top of her desk as Tanaka greeted his guy friends with rounds of “Ohayo.” She gripped the handle nervously; she could still hear the shrimp frying in the oil, sizzling and spitting at the pan as the sun rose outside the kitchen window. She didn’t want to lose her chance, not now. “Ne, Tan-kun,” she started.

  He looked at her, his glasses sliding just a little down his nose. She wanted to r
each forward, to push the frames up for him gently. “Nani?” he asked.

  “I...” She cleared her throat. It couldn’t possibly be this hard. Just ask him. “I made too much for lunch,” she laughed. “I was wondering if you’d like to join me, maybe on the rooftop?” Tanaka stared at her, and she suddenly had a strong urge to crawl under her desk. “I know your sister sent you with her onigiri again,” she added, trying hard for casual. “So I made those ebi fry you like.”

  He opened his mouth, but no words came out. A moment later, he coughed. “That would...I mean, I...”

  “Ichirou!” shouted a voice, and suddenly another boy tackled Tanaka from behind, his long arms wrapping around his neck. Tanaka leaned forward from the weight, the other boy nearly falling over Tanaka’s head onto the ground. Two other boys laughed and grabbed at their tall friend, Takeshi, yanking him backward with Tanaka’s body following. One of the boys reached over and pushed Tanaka’s glasses back up his nose. “You forgot baseball practice is today,” Takeshi sang at him. “No time for romance.”

  Yuki’s cheeks flooded with pink as quickly as Tanaka’s. “It’s not like that,” she stammered.

  “Guys! She’s my best friend,” Tanaka said, and the words stung, even though Yuki knew he didn’t mean for them to. Anyway, admitting even that was a big deal—it wasn’t common for boys and girls to hang out as friends in Japan. That had to be why the guys were teasing him. It had to mean more, right?

  Please, Yuki thought, invite me in.

  “Settle down!” Suzuki-sensei slid the door to the classroom open with a thud, and Yuki’s chance was gone. They stood at attention, bowing to their teacher as they recited their formal good-morning to him. Yuki slid her book bag under her desk, the cold leather of it pressed against the side of her leg. How stupid could she be to have forgotten his baseball practice? The smell of the fried ebi in the bentou wafted up from her book bag as she sighed.

  She stared at the side of Tanaka’s face as he scribbled down notes from the board.