Things We Can't Say

20: it's always the same with you people.

Kazue's the only one home when we reach Shimokitazawa again. We shuffle into the house, obediently shucking off our shoes by the door, and find her in the living room, dozing on her cushion, the news station turned on and the beginnings of what looks to be a wool scarf resting on her chest. She snorts awake, knitting needles clicking together as she sits up.

She needs no more than a glance at our faces. "Give me a second," she says, with a sigh. "I'll put some hot water on."

Jamie doesn't stick around, however. Instead, he gives Lucci and me a meek smile, mutters something about needing a second, and vanishes around the corner. A second later I hear the upstairs bedroom door slide shut.

Lucci and I stand, unmoving, in the silence Jamie's absence has created. Then he looks at me, oddly solemn. "Should you go after him?"

"I don't know," I say, because I really don't. After all this time, I don't really know if it's best to leave him be or if he needs me by his side right now. Guilt pinches in my chest, like a heart valve slowly squeezing closed. He's my brother, and I don't know that?

"Maybe he really does just need a second," I tell Lucci. "He'll bounce back, right? That's what Jamie does."

Lucci frowns at me, but before he can say anything more, Kazue reappears. In her hands she carries a platter of steaming tea, along with a plate of cookies so small I could probably eat five in one bite.

She sets them down on the table in the center of the room, and comes to a seat on her heels. "Tell me," she says as Lucci and I join her on the floor. "Tell me what happened."

We do, Lucci and I alternating in filling Kazue in with the details, including the director's stubborn refusal to tell us anything, including his offer to Jamie, including the way Jamie had sunken into himself the second the words left the man's mouth.

Lucci's gripping his teacup especially tight. "It just doesn't make any sense. If they feel so bad about what they're doing, so bad they won't tell anyone, then why even do it?"

"Why do it?" Kazue repeats, interlacing her hands in her lap. A furrow forms between her brow, her tone lofty and retrospective as she explains: "It's less expensive, for one. Werewolves understand human communication, so there's no need to pay a trainer like you would if you were using dogs. Werewolves live longer, too. And depending on the scene you're working with, it's much less money to use a werewolf than it is to finance some fancy CGI program."

Lucci gawks at her, utterly disarmed. "But—"

"Lucci," I interrupt, a rueful smile on my face. "It doesn't really matter why they do it. It's just the way things are."

"You can't blame me for thinking it's sort of...I don't know. Not cool."

"When you met me, Lucci, I was running from the police for killing the guy that used me as a circus act for a decade of my life," I say, and Lucci's jaw tightens, his eyes skirting towards the floor. "A lot of things are unfair."

"It is a similar story with Nat and I," Kazue says, eyeing each of us in turn, her small brown eyes sorrowful, but still warm. "Did she tell you?"

I shake my head. I hadn't thought to ask, either.

"Nat, like you, Violet, is from the States," Kazue begins. "Not from Atlanta, however. She grew up in Brooklyn, which, while it may have some safe spots for witches, is still a rather human-dominated place.

"I traveled to New York on a study abroad program when I was in university. At the time, I barely knew a word of English. It was a miracle that I met Nat. I don't know how I would have gotten around without her. And then to learn that she, too, was a witch—I don't know. It felt like fate to me," Kazue says, and now a slight, girlish smile plays at her mouth. I can't help thinking that it makes her look so much younger: her cheeks pinker, her eyes brighter. "Nat and I got this crazy idea that we had to do something fun before I returned to Japan. Something neither of us would ever forget. There was a talent show coming up at the college, so she thought that was our chance. A magic show, Nat said. What better an idea than that for two witches, right?"