The Red Shark - Chapter 0014

Chapter 14 — The Family’s Roar

The main hall had never been a quiet place. It was built to feed an army of children and to survive whatever that army did to it. Lanterns hung from the heavy beams, and their paper shades turned everything amber. Steam rose from iron pots and clay bowls: miso thick with seaweed and soft tofu, grilled mackerel with crackling skin, chicken skewers glazed in sweet soy, rice so fresh it still smelled faintly green, and pickled daikon cut into thin, translucent half-moons.

I came in last.

My legs felt borrowed. My ankles throbbed with every careful step, my tendons kept sending small, sharp reminders of the tree, and my calves and thighs burned as if I’d climbed through fire instead of fog. I’d washed my face and arms at the stone basin outside, but my tunic was still stuck to my back.

The hall was already full. Kenta and Haruto were arguing over the last skewer, Toma was laughing so hard he nearly choked on his rice, and Rokuta was telling a training story that got more heroic every time, to anyone who would listen and several people who wouldn’t. The mothers moved between the tables without needing to speak. My mother ladled soup with her red hair knotted at the back, Hanae portioned out fish with the same precision she brought to everything, and the babies’ mothers fed the little ones. At the far end, Yumi, barely a month old, lay in Akemi’s arms, waving her fists at nothing and making small hiccuping noises.

I squeezed into my usual place between Rokuta and Haruto and reached for the rice. My hands were still shaking a little.

Daigo stood up before I’d taken a bite.

The noise died almost at once. Daigo was the eldest of us, and the little ones obeyed him faster than they obeyed most of the mothers. He had Father’s skin and the beginnings of Father’s shoulders, and he wore his black hair tied back in a short tail.

“Everyone,” he said. “We have something to celebrate tonight.”

He lifted his bowl a little, the old shinobi gesture before a feast or a battle.

“Our little red shark”—he looked straight at me, and one corner of his mouth went up—”just finished the challenge Father gave him. Tree walking. No hands. In one week. Father saw it himself.”

For a second nobody moved.

Then Rokuta slammed both hands on the table so hard the bowls jumped and soup slopped over the rims. “What?!”

Kenta leapt onto his seat with both fists in the air. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Haruto threw a piece of pickled radish at me. “You little monster!”

The mothers were clapping. My mother reached across the table and squeezed my shoulder, her eyes bright. “We knew you could do it,” she said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear. “We always knew.”

“A round of applause,” Daigo said, raising his voice just enough to carry, “for the youngest Akashio ever to finish the tree challenge.”

The hall came apart. Fists pounded the tables, feet stamped until the floor shook, and the older brothers still at the Academy grinned wide enough to show every serrated tooth. Even the quiet ones, who usually watched everything and said nothing, were clapping.

Rokuta folded his arms and smirked at me. “He beat us. Took me almost a month. And I had Daigo coaching me every single day.”

“You still fell off at the third branch,” Daigo said, “and blamed the wind.”

The whole table laughed.

Shun leaned across, shouting to be heard. “I’m going to beat your time, you hear me? Next year I’m doing it in six days, and I’ll rub it in your face every morning.”

Haruto shoved him. “You’ll take three weeks and cry when you hit the ground.”

Kenta, still standing on his seat, pointed at me like a general. “You’re not allowed to be cooler than me yet! I’m the cool one!”

Then the mothers started passing me food: more mackerel, another full bowl of rice, a second skewer that left sweet sauce all over my fingers. “Eat,” my mother said, piling it on. “You used up everything you had today.”

I looked around the table, at the faces in the lantern light, mouths open laughing or shouting, chopsticks waving. They were already betting on who would break my record, who would climb higher and faster, and none of it had any edge. Whenever one of us climbed higher, the rest just wanted to be next.

At the end of the table Yumi let out a sleepy gurgle of her own. A couple of the mothers laughed, and Akemi stroked the fine black hair on her head.

I glanced at the empty place at the head of the table. Father hadn’t come to dinner. Daigo caught me looking and gave me one slow nod. Then he raised his bowl again, higher this time.

“To Arashi. The youngest Akashio to conquer the tree.”

The hall answered him. “To Arashi!”

Bowls clinked. Kenta started chanting my name, of course, and half the table joined in, the sound bouncing off the stone. My mother wiped the corner of her eye and pretended it was the steam from the soup.

I lifted my own bowl with hands that still weren’t steady and said nothing, mostly because I didn’t trust my voice.

Eventually the chanting fell apart into the usual chaos of dinner: skewers stolen, a dispute over the last of the mackerel, mothers scolding and laughing in the same breath. Rokuta kept elbowing me and grinning like an idiot. Haruto kept flicking bits of food at me and calling me “prodigy,” with regular reminders that I was still short. Across the table, a couple of the older Academy boys raised their bowls to me again when they thought nobody was looking. My mother watched me the whole time with a small smile she didn’t bother to hide.

In my first life, being good at things had mostly made people keep their distance. Here, every one of them was acting as if what I’d done belonged a little to them too.

Whatever Father had waiting for me on the field at first light, I’d find out soon enough. Rokuta stole my third skewer while I was looking the other way, and I let him have it.