Kōji

Personality-wise, she reminded Greta of one of those exotic vegetables she was drawn to at the farmer’s market but didn’t know how to cook. Kohlrabi, maybe, or a Jerusalem artichoke. Not very approachable. Not sweet or overly familiar. Not easily boiled down or buttered up. Not corn on the cob. Greta felt an instant kinship with Sabine, since she,

Makiko, the one visiting me today from Osaka, is my older sister. She’s thirty-nine and has a twelve-year-old daughter named Midoriko. She raised the girl herself. For a few years after I turned eighteen, I lived with them in an apartment back in Osaka, when Midoriko was just a baby. Makiko and her husband had split up while she was pregnant, and a

As with many beautiful teenage girls, her expression lacked any trace of everyday life.

‘Okay,’ he says, and he leans the long-handled dustpan and brush he is holding against the wall. He is just a bit taller than I am, slim, clean-shaven. He has very pale skin and eyes that are big and wet-looking. Their irises are like two dirty ponds. They take in my face for just a moment too long for it to feel normal. ‘So, what are you?’ he says

Mercy’s mother was sheathed in a violet dress and wore silver chains in her hair and around her neck, all set with amethysts. Her hair drifted like part of the shadows, and she tapped black lips with fingernails of purple crystal as she walked.

Mercy’s mother was sheathed in a violet dress and wore silver chains in her hair and around her neck, all set with amethysts. Her hair drifted like part of the shadows, and she tapped black lips with fingernails of purple crystal as she walked.

Anyway, threatening a kid with kappa in this day and age? Really? And what’s the deal with shirikodama? There’s no such thing in my butt, that’s for sure. But the kid wailed, “No kappa, they’re scary! I won’t do it anymore, promise! I’m sorry!” He was on the verge of tears. Talk about innocent. It’s as if all the villagers stepped out of a folktale