We couldn’t agree on what had happened last, and there was no paper trail to refer to. You were convinced your character had Reforged some critical piece of evidence that revealed my character was walking right into a trap. I accepted your version, even though I did not think my character would be so dumb.

Rather than one of us writing a chapter, then passing the pencil to the other to Reforge, we wrote the last chapter together. I wrote while you dictated. We got caught up in the act, forgetting our feud, forgetting the war and all its politics we did not understand. Your character raced through Shanghai, leaving graphite-stained claw marks on buildings, pushing through crowds and rickshaws, trying to reach me before it was too late. My character was starting to understand that things were not quite what they seemed. She was stalling for time with a soldier who had stopped her, and she managed to slip away from him but straight into the lair of his boss.

At the last possible minute, your character made it to the lair and screamed her name. My character armored up—by then she could call the graphite around her hand in the blink of an eye—and she caught the blade of a bayonet as it swung down at her.

The blade clashed with her armored hand, metal against graphite. For a moment, it looked like my character’s arm would give out. But then, slowly, the blade began to bend, at the same time as my character’s mouth bent into a smile.

“There,” you said. “That’s how it should end.”

“Really?” I did not feel it wrapped up the loose ends we had left behind.

“Yes. It should end with a smile. Because that’s what this story has done for us.”

“It doesn’t feel complete though,” I said.

“Well, that’s because you’re coming back, right?”

I should have gotten on my knees and apologized then, should have begged for you to come with me. Even now, I don’t know what would have happened if we had never fought. Would you have left Shanghai? You didn’t want to leave another home, I knew that, but would our connection have been strong enough to convince you otherwise, to let you avoid the years of famine and persecution China was about to go through?

Instead, I nodded.

“Yes, of course I’ll come back.”

We left the rest unsaid.

The next day, we stood outside the pencil company for the last time.

“I’ll see you in a few months,” I told you as you and your mother came to see us off.

You gave me the pencil, the one that contained our story.

Our mothers embraced, also exchanging a pencil. My father went into the courtyard where he bowed before my grandmother’s favorite bush, which was beginning to flower. Then we gathered our belongings.