“How can you know me so well?” She shook her head. She was backing away faster now, hands gripping the shoulder of her duffel bag, twisting its strap. “Thank you.”

And just like at the volleyball game, she brought both her hands to her lips and blew me a kiss. She hopped onto the train, seconds before the doors closed. I lingered, watching her leave on the well-traveled tracks.

Even now, she is cryptic, and I wonder if I’ll ever fully understand her. For the first time, though, it doesn’t bother me. A few months ago, I would have asked EMBRS to show me everything it could find about her, to understand all we might have in common. But now? I don’t really know. It hasn’t been entirely joyful, discovering her, unearthing her truths, and seeing her tears. But there has also been joy, and that’s what I cling to as I try to frame this into a story that feels true.

Chapter 22

From the Reforged pencil of Wong Yun

I can’t avoid fulfilling my agreement with Monica much longer. I didn’t think she’d really hold up her end of the deal and invite that girl over. It is time to Reforge your pencil. I have decided to ask Monica to do it. The wisdom she can learn from your words, feeling them in her blood, that is the best way for her to understand the power and danger of our ability.

As much as I want to feel your words run through me again, I must concede that I am not the best receiver for them. More and more of my days are blank. Torou tells me I keep asking him when he’s leaving for work even though he has been retired for years—and more troubling, Monica told me I mistook Louise for you the other night, briefly, during mahjong. I do not remember these things. I have no idea what it was about Louise that made even an addled me trust her to the point I would mistake her for you, the closest friend I ever had. There is clearly something about her though. She drew you in and Monica as well. I fear she may not be all that she appears.

What do we really know about her? She is the one Monica loves, or at least is beginning to love. I don’t know how you feel about a woman loving another woman, but I will always support Monica. Torou even finds it preferable. He is terrified of what a boy might do to her, though I wonder how he can see it in such simplistic terms after the way I treated him back then.

I did not see or hear from him for months after he stormed out of the pencil company. The next time I heard of him was from my father, who called me into his office.