The kids a few rows back were talking about airplane crashes again.

Yoshi Kimura could hear the girl closest to him even over the announcements. She kept sharing fascinating technical details about the plane. This was the problem with his mom buying his ticket so late. He’d been stuck only a few rows from the economy section—all those people who thought sitting in a tin can for fourteen hours was exciting.

Yoshi couldn’t wait for the plane to take off, for the roar of its engines to drown out everyone’s voices and leave him with his own glum thoughts.

For the hundredth time, he wondered what awaited him at the end of this flight. His father had promised a punishment as epic as it was long-delayed, but had left the details to Yoshi’s imagination.

An attendant appeared and said in careful English, “Would you like something to drink before takeoff, sir?”

“Mizu, onegaishimasu,” Yoshi replied, and was pleased when she looked surprised. Japanese people always thought he looked too Western—too much like a hafu—to speak in a flawless accent. But he’d lived his first ten years in Tokyo, before Mom had given up and moved back to New York.

The attendant bowed, slipped away, and returned with a tiny bottle of water. Yoshi drained it in one gulp, but his throat stayed dry.

The weird thing was, he’d been much calmer on his way here to New York, nine months ago. Even with a priceless four-hundred-year-old sword in his baggage—stolen from his own father—he hadn’t been worried.

Of course, back then he hadn’t known he was breaking the law just by taking the family katana out of Japan. His father had always told Yoshi that it would be his one day but had never mentioned that it was an official Cultural Property, a national treasure too precious to leave the country.

The sword was in the hold of the airplane now, safely sheathed and in its travel case. And insured for four hundred thousand dollars, an amount that was somehow more impressive than words like Cultural Property.

On the phone yesterday, Yoshi had asked his father what would happen if Japanese customs took a close look at it. Could they arrest him for bringing it back into the country?

“You should have thought of that before you stole it” was all Father would say. Yoshi hadn’t pointed out that the whole reason for taking the sword was so he’d never have to go back to Japan again.

But that plan hadn’t exactly worked, had it?

The announcements finally ended, and soon the plane was rumbling down the runway, gaining speed, and lifting into the air. It leaned into an unhurried turn as it climbed, slicing through the sky like a vast, graceful blade.

When at last it reached straight and level flight, Yoshi reclined his seat all the way, until it was as flat as a bed. He curled up under the blanket, wrapped in noise-canceling headphones, staring at a tablet full of anime.

He had to binge-watch everything now. His father was almost certainly going to take his screens away when he got to Tokyo. No computers, phones, or TV for a month had been Yoshi’s punishment for failing a calligraphy test at age nine.

Whatever his father had in mind now would be much worse than that and would last all summer. Which meant disappearing from his New York friends’ lives. By September, everyone would’ve moved on to new shows, new music, new manga. And Yoshi would be forgotten. He’d be a foreign kid, starting all over again, just like three years ago when he’d first arrived.

He would always be foreign, it seemed, always on the wrong side of the Pacific Ocean.

The flight attendant came by and lightly touched his shoulder, probably to ask about dinner. Yoshi just shook his head, retreating further under the covers. He didn’t want her to see that his eyes were glistening.

He found himself hoping that the airplane never made it to Japan.