Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(62)

“Where is he, Yumi?” Tojin asked. “If you don’t mind me prying. I normally see your brother every night or two, patrolling near us. Foreman says he’s on personal leave. But it feels like we should still see him now and then.”

“He, um…” Yumi’s heart started thumping. Could she go grab Painter and have him tell her an untruth? She decided on something that was close to what he’d said. “He has important work. Very important work.”

“More important than his job?” Akane said, returning and handing the sauce to Tojin.

“No, no,” Yumi said quickly. “It is his job.” She leaned in. “He’s hunting a stable nightmare.”

She expected shock.

Instead Akane rolled her eyes. Tojin paused, then shook his head, looking down. Izzy outright laughed.

“You don’t believe…” Yumi said softly.

Why did everyone react that way to Painter? Was he really so useless? Strangely, the thought didn’t make her angry as it had before. This time she felt sad for him. Along with…an odd sense of indignance?

Surely they’re being unfair to him, she thought. He might not be the best, but he’s trying to learn stacking. And he picked it up quickly.

Perhaps, though, she could see why he had some hard feelings for this group, if their first reaction to this news wasn’t concern, but dismissiveness.

“Enough, enough,” Izzy said, holding up some paper with words written all over it. Not a book. This was loose-leaf and made at an awkwardly large size. “Have you read this?”

“Please, no horoscopes,” Tojin said, emptying what seemed to be half the bottle of hot sauce into his soup. They all appeared happy to move on, without looking back, from the topic of Painter and his ways.

“Horoscopes are forbidden at this table,” Izzy said. “They’re a competing product. But this isn’t even a dramascope. They’re launching the ship soon.”

“They said that last week,” Akane said.

“The shroud was too thick,” Izzy said. “But it’s happening for real this time.”

“I bet,” Masaka said softly, “they are very. Very. Friendly.”

“They?” Yumi asked, glancing around as she slurped up a noodle. “What are we talking about?”

“The aliens?” Akane said. “Who live on the star?”

Yumi immediately started coughing. She drank half a cup of barley tea out of embarrassment, then spoke. “The what?”

“Don’t they have newspapers where you’re from?” Izzy said. “We’ve been planning a launch! Of a ship that can travel the space between worlds. It’s been building forever. But it’s finally time for it to leave.”

“Friendly,” Masaka hissed, leaning forward. “Aliens are all friendly.”

“You really haven’t heard, Yumi?” Izzy said. “That’s wild. I need my notebook. This is good information for refining your dramascope…”

“Hush,” Akane said. “Not everyone reads the paper obsessively, Izzy.”

How did Akane remain so dainty when eating? Was Yumi supposed to be that way? It seemed hard to eat noodles without slurping. She’d never actually eaten in front of anyone but her attendants before.

“I’ll bet,” Izzy said, “the aliens are hot.”

Yumi started choking again.

“Wildly hot,” Izzy said, flopping back. “All the men dreamy. All the women sultry.”

“How many dramas involve aliens these days?” Tojin said, with a smile.

“Like half,” Izzy said. “And the aliens? Hot. All of them. Isn’t it natural they would be though?”

“Um…why?” Tojin asked.

“I’m going to date an alien or two,” Izzy said, lifting her chin. “It’s in my dramascope. I’d never date one who isn’t hot.”

Yumi was glad for the others and their baffled expressions, so that she knew it wasn’t only her thinking Izzy was strange. Even Masaka stared.

“Your logic, Izzy,” Akane said, “is…um…”

“Terrible?” Tojin offered.

“I was looking for something more politic.”

“Allegedly terrible?”

“You’ll see,” Izzy said. “When I have both a handsome alien hunk and a curvy alien knockout fighting over me.”

“Excuse me,” Yumi said. “I need to…um…go. For a little bit. For something.”

She dashed off toward the bar, where Painter was chatting with Design. When she arrived, she found Design stretching something glowing between her fingers. Like a cord made of light. Yumi momentarily forgot what she’d been about, instead staring at that strange sight. A glowing rope, whose ends vanished into nothing.

“Your spiritweb,” Design was saying, “knows what body is yours. It remains Connected to it, you see. You form Connections like that with everyone—and to a lesser extent everything—you’ve known. Nifty, eh!”

“And that cord,” Painter was saying, “is mine?”

“Yup!” Design said. “This won’t cut it. Don’t worry. I’m just lengthening it, and also checking it for problems. I couldn’t think of much else to help—sorry, I’m incorrigibly useless at times. It’s in my Pattern. But at least this will give you a longer leash, so to speak.”