Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(85)

No more than he deserved though. He trailed off, enjoying the extended leash Design had given him, and went wandering through the night.





“I…know he sometimes tells untruths,” Yumi said to the group. “I’ve heard him speak them. I think they’re mostly just to avoid hurting people’s feelings. He’s more reliable than he seems.”

The others shared glances. Yumi didn’t know what to make of their behavior. Tojin wouldn’t meet her eyes, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Akane kept her arm on Yumi’s shoulders, as if to give her support.

It was Izzy who started explaining first. Yumi had mostly taken the yellow-haired woman for frivolous, but now her voice was dead serious.

“Yumi,” she said, “do you know what the Dreamwatch are?”

“Sure,” Yumi replied. “They deal with stable nightmares.”

“They’re the elite painters,” Tojin said, hands clasped tightly before him, as if he were trying to squeeze juice from the air. “The best of the best. The finest artists; the most respected of our kind. Every painter dreams of joining them.”

“They’re the actual warriors,” Akane said. “The rest of us, we’re like…the house dress you wear at home, while they’re the ball gown. Understand?”

“That makes no sense,” Masaka said.

“I understand,” Yumi said. “But why does this matter?”

“Your brother,” Izzy said. “He wanted to be in the Dreamwatch. Badly. Too badly.”

Yumi cocked her head.

“He lied,” Izzy said. “Back in school, he told us he’d gotten in. Tryouts were a year into our two years of training. He told us he’d been selected—and he managed to convince our professors somehow, although they should have known who got in and who didn’t. Nikaro left class half the day to ‘train’ with the Dreamwatch.”

“We were going to be his crew,” Tojin said softly. “Each member of the Dreamwatch gets a team, called companions. Nikaro promised us that we’d be his. It…would have changed a lot. Not just money. But…I mean, I told my family.”

“We all did,” Akane said, squeezing Yumi’s shoulder.

“I’m extremely confused,” Yumi confessed.

“One year into our training,” Izzy said, “Painter tried out for the Dreamwatch and told us he’d been accepted. He spent the entire next year pretending to go train with them, giving us promises, making us hope. Then…at the end of the year…”

“We found out,” Masaka whispered, “that he’d been lying the entire time. He hadn’t been going to special classes. He’d been going to the library and just…sitting there. Not even reading or studying. Just sitting. Staring at the wall.”

“A whole year,” Tojin said, wringing his hands.

“That (lowly) man,” Izzy said, punching the chair with a clenched fist. “Sitting in the library. He shouldn’t have graduated at all. Unfortunately, they needed painters, and he was capable.”

“A capable liar at least,” Tojin said. “Should have sent him to the law school after an extended con like that.”

Yumi felt her stomach wrench. She…thought she was following this. But it didn’t make sense. “Why would he just sit there? Maybe he made it into the Dreamwatch, but then washed out at the end?”

“Nope!” Izzy said. “He didn’t get accepted at all. He lied to us for an entire year.”

“Broke our hearts,” Tojin said softly. “We found him there in the library, after finally getting smart and realizing he’d never introduced us to any of the other Dreamwatch recruits. We confirmed it with the administration. He never. Got. In.”

Yumi looked up and met each of their eyes in turn, except Tojin’s—he was staring at the table, seeming concurrently angry and embarrassed.

“I was going to be famous,” Izzy said.

“It’s not even that,” Akane said. “It’s that… Yumi, it’s hard to explain how it felt. After all that time. To find out…”

“I can understand what it’s like,” Yumi said, “to uncover profound, extended deception by someone you love. I’m so sorry he caused you that agony.”

“Nikaro is unreliable, Yumi,” Akane said softly. “He’s done his job this last year since graduation, but…well, you need to know. This story he tells about the stable nightmare? It’s just a way to make himself look important.”

“What if it’s not, though?” Yumi asked.

What if it was?

She…had no proof he’d ever seen such a thing.

“It’s absolutely a lie,” Izzy said. At her side, Masaka nodded firmly. “If he’d really seen a stable nightmare, it would have attacked by now. They don’t skulk and hide once they’ve formed. They start murdering.”

“It’s proof,” Tojin said. “He said he saw one…what? Two weeks ago?”

“Twenty-seven days,” Yumi whispered.

“Right,” Tojin said, with a nod. “Over two weeks. It would have attacked by now.”

“He goes out at night, doesn’t he?” Izzy said. “He tells you that he’s hunting it, right? He encouraged you to take his patrol because he was so busy tracking a super dangerous nightmare? Well, I promise you. He’s going to some café somewhere. Staring at the wall. Letting you dream while he just sits there.”