Page 93 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“So youliedto them? Making it worse?”

“I know!” he said, throwing his hands into the air, standing up and stalking into the room. “I thought that I’d tell them the next day. The test happened to be on Akane’s birthday. Why ruin the party with bad news, I thought. So I let themassumeI’d passed. Didn’t say it, but didn’t really say anything.

“After that though, there were end-of-year tests, and I didn’t want to distract everyone. Then…it just kind of continued. I believe…something was truly wrong with me back then. I moved through a haze those first few weeks, my hopes lying around me with slit throats, my emotions a cloud as dark as the shroud.

“I remember genuinely thinking that maybe I could simply keep itgoing. There was a desperate edge to those thoughts, a terror that I didn’t want to confront. Couldn’t confront? I wasn’t thinking straight, Yumi. It wasn’t normal, what I did. But I justhadto keep it going. Watching it grow. A tumor. Not on my lungs or my throat. But on my soul.”

He stepped over to her and knelt beside the portfolio. He methodically, gingerly, began taking the souls of the various pictures and packing them back in.

“What about these?” she said. “You don’t paint like this anymore? Why not? You don’t need to be in the Dreamwatch to do art.”

“You know,” he said softly, “they say true artists create, even if nobody is watching? They’retrulydriven. I thought that was me. For years. Funny, eh? Me. I got to school and found an audience, then realized that it’s so,somuch more satisfying to createforsomeone.

“Shows how much of an artist I actually am. Akane and the others were my audience. I loved showing them the new pieces I made. I loved the joy, the delight, the…the praise too, I guess. But then I just…lost it all.” He bowed his head, pausing as one of the souls of the pictures evaporated in his fingers. “I had friends for the first time. For a little while.”

He gestured at the pictures then, pleading. So, reluctantly, she put them away.

“There’s no point anymore,” he said. “No point toanyof it. No matter how much I pretend and tell myself I’m something important.” He smiled at her. “I was willing to do it again to you. I jumped rightinto the lie. Willing to let you believe I was some hero, even though you’d inevitably find out. At least it only took you a couple weeks!”

She looked up to him, and her heart broke to see the tears on his cheeks. Phantom, ghostly tears. She reached up and hesitated right before touching him, then put a finger to the tear—wetting her finger.

He glanced away. “Well,” he said, wiping his eyes, “this is who those spirits stuck you with. I wonder what got into them. Shall we… I don’t know.” He sighed, then walked toward the door. “I’ll leave you alone. I can dothatright, at least.”

“Painter,” she said. “Nikaro.”

He stopped near the door, shoulders slumping. He…expected a rebuke, she realized. The kind that would set even the stones ablaze. He deserved one, didn’t he? She’d been warned against lies, and this was a monumental one. The biggest she’d heard of—except the one told her by the very person who had taught her to never lie.

What a mess it all was. Emotions swirled in her, like quartz in a stone cut in half. Frustration at him on one side. Agony for him on the other.

She’d tasted friendship in the others. And she realized in that moment that she would lose them too. When this was all over. She’d never see Akane or Tojin again.

“Nikaro, look at me,” she said, standing up.

He turned around, and she stepped up to him, close. Dangerously close.

“Let’s go out,” she said softly.

“…Out?”

“Go out.” She waved her hand toward the window. “Let’sdosomething. Just us. Something that doesn’t involve nightmares, or spirits, or machines, or betrayals. Let’s just…just go. For one night.”

“You know what I am, Yumi,” he said. “What I’ve done. We have to confront that. Deal with it.”

“Do we?” she asked, her voice growing small. “Do we reallyhave to?”

“Ignoring my problems is what got me into this situation.”

“What are we ignoring?” she said. “I heard what you said. I heard what they said. I know.” She met his eyes. “Iknow. We’ve confronted it. There. Done. Let’s go out.”

“But—”

“Maybe I don’t want to be responsible tonight! Maybe I don’t want tohaveto be the one who solves problems. Please?”

He held her eyes. Then he turned away, ashamed.

“We’re going,” she said anyway. She walked around him to the hallway, then held out her hand. “Come on. Tonight we’re not a painter or a yoki-hijo. Tonight we’re just people. I’ve wanted foryearsto visit the big city back home, and I was always denied. Will you deny me too, Nikaro? Would you break my heart like that?”

Finally, wonderfully, he stepped forward. “I could never,” he said softly. “I guess…there is that carnival running to celebrate the trip to the star.”

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