ONE

Never argue with the Nikkei Week Queen of Little Tokyo.

Auntie Suzy gifted me with this advice when I was six, and I probably should’ve taken it to heart. But “never” sounds like a long time when you’re six, and I must have known deep down that there would be so many things I’d want to argue about.

“Ugh, Rika-chan, why won’t you just stop fighting with me!” My sister Belle—the current Nikkei Week Queen of Little Tokyo—gives me an impressively regal glower. “You have the worst temper in the whole entire world.”

“False,” I say, even though it’s kind of true. “I’m actually suppressing my kaiju-temper extra hard because I’m trying not to fight with you. Even though you’re the one who’s blocking my bedroom door and waving random bits of fabric in my face.”

“It’s a scarf!” she proclaims, flapping the floaty bit of cloth she’s been trying to tie around my neck for the last five minutes. “And you need it.”

“I do not need a scarf,” I retort, batting her hands away. “We live in LA—no one ever needs a scarf.”

“It’s decorative,” she crows, her face screwing into that look that means I’m being a total pain the ass.

I would argue—see, again with the arguing—that she’s the one being the pain in the ass, since she’s keeping me from what I actually need to do. I have to get over to the dojo, where my fellow judoka are preparing for our big martial arts demonstration today. We always put on a show at the parade that kicks off Nikkei Week, the annual festival in Los Angeles’s downtown neighborhood of Little Tokyo celebrating all things Japanese and Japanese American.

I’m really trying not to deploy my temper—Auntie Och calls it “Rika-chan’s kaiju,” or giant monster, after all the Japanese creature movies she watches on “the YouTube,” holding her phone screen way too close to her face. I’d swear her tone sounds almost . . . admiring? But the truth is, my temper always gets me in trouble. It’s somehow even more monstrous than Godzilla or Mothra or any of the titans rampaging across Auntie Och’s screen, destroying entire miniature cities. It’s one of the snarling beasts in the Japanese folklore stories I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid, clawing through my blood and rattling against my rib cage, dying to escape and gobble up those who insist on provoking it.

Like the guy who thought it would be funny to “pretend choke” me after I tapped out during a sparring session in judo. I was only eight, so I bit him—and almost got kicked out of the dojo over it. Or the anime-obsessed white girls who frequent my Aunties’ katsu restaurant and order me to speak to them in “an authentic Japanese accent.” I once dumped a full can of Coke on Queen Becky, the Ultimate White Girl Who Just, Like, Loves Asian Culture, and it felt so good—until that particular Becky’s mother started an online petition to shut down the restaurant, and Auntie Suzy wearily explained to me the need for our family to appear “respectable.” (That one . . . did not happen when I was eight, by the way. That was last week.)

I don’t want to be in trouble all the time, so I try to keep my kaiju-temper leashed.

But my kaiju-temper doesn’t care about what I want.

Even now, I can feel it rising up, swirling through my bloodstream, tempted to bite at Belle for derailing what should be a big day for both of us simply because she hates my outfit.

Oh yes, that’s what started this—my sister hates my outfit.

“Rika.” Belle brandishes her decorative scarf again and gives me the imperious look that’s made her the benevolent but unchallenged leader of the cool kid crew at Tataki High. “Seriously. All eyes are about to be on you at this parade and that’s what you want to wear?”

“All eyes are about to be on you,” I counter. “You’re temporary royalty, ruling over the glorious smog of downtown LA. I’m merely one of your subjects—”

“—who just happens to be the reigning judo star of the Little Tokyo Dojo, about to kick every available ass in the Nikkei Week parade’s demonstration.” She gives me that imperious look again. “Don’t act all modest, Rika-chan, I know you’re proud of your fighty abilities.”

Even though my temper’s still simmering, a burst of warmth pokes through—like a tiny sparkle of a fairy trying to distract my kaiju. She’s right, I am proud. I’m sparring in today’s centerpiece match, the crown jewel of my dojo’s demonstration. It’s a chance to be part of the parade’s magic—in a way that feels like me, rather than what my scarf-obsessed sister might want—and I can’t even pretend I’m not thrilled.

“The dojo is the one place where I can be proud of my fighty abilities,” I say, giving her a half smile. “And I’m excited about today—for both of us.”

Belle has dreamed of being crowned Nikkei Week Queen since she was old enough to say “tiara.” Every year, six Japanese American girls are chosen from the local high schools and two from the middle schools and one is crowned queen. Belle was a junior princess in sixth grade, a princess-princess the summer before our junior year, and now that we’re about to be seniors, she’s achieved her dream. And as for me . . . well, I’ve worked my ass off to ascend from Rika the Biter to the top-ranked spot in my dojo, have pretty much made it my goal ever since Auntie Suzy put me in judo in order to channel my “aggressive tendencies” into something productive. I love the precision, strategy, and control of judo—they help me tame my kaiju-temper, or at least focus it on doing something useful.

“Belle-chan,” I say through gritted teeth. “My outfit will be totally covered by my judogi anyway, so what does it matter?”

“You need! The! Scarf!” she cries, her voice twisting in that high-pitched way that always makes Auntie Och’s ears hurt.

“Why is this scarf so important?” I snap, snatching it from her grasp and unfolding it to reveal . . . huh. It’s a pattern, some kind of colorful embroidery forming a vague shape that kind of resembles—

“Wait a minute,” I say, scrutinizing the embroidery. “Is this supposed to be Nak?”

“Yes, it’s my precious puppy,” Belle says, jabbing at the embroidery with her index finger. I can now sort of see that Nak (short for “sunakku,” which means “snack” in Japanese), her tiny mutt of a dog, is embedded in some kind of pattern of interlocking swirls. “He’s my mondokoro, my crest—I designed it myself. You should wear it during your match—it will make you look so regal. And it will give you a meaningful way to represent—”

“I am representing in a meaningful way,” I protest, gesturing to the ratty T-shirt I’m wearing, the one she hates so much. “This is my mondokoro.”

My T-shirt bears an illustration of a nure-onna, one of my favorite monsters from Japanese folklore. She has the head of a woman and the body of a snake and bloody fangs, like she’s just indulged in a feast of tasty humans. The nure-onna is my aspirational monster—she totally eats people, but she’s cunning about it. She plots and plans before she strikes; she doesn’t let her temper sweep her away and fuck everything up.

I still haven’t mastered that part yet. But while Belle was dreaming about all the princess things when we were kids, I was dreaming about being the nure-onna.

I bought the shirt for five dollars at Bunkado, a neighborhood gift shop that’s been around for decades and is still run by the same family that opened it when they returned home after the Japanese American incarceration of World War II. Its eclectic shelves are crammed with stationery and teapots and vintage Japanese vinyl—and this amazing T-shirt, which was the only one of its kind. The saleslady gave me a major discount because she could tell I just had to have it.

I thought wearing this nure-onna shirt would show off my Little Tokyo pride. Totally appropriate for the parade. I’ve completed my look with roomy basketball shorts (excellent ventilation to keep me cool in the blazing late-August heat) and gold Adidas that are waiting for me by the door (kinda royal in their own way, no?).

I can tell from Belle’s expression that she’s not really seeing the crest-like power of the nure-onna, though.

“Listen,” she says, rolling her eyes, “wearing this scarf is kind of the least you can do, since you straight-up refused to be in my court—”

“Oh—oh no!” I sputter. “I should have known: this is about princess shit!”

“Everything is about princess shit!” Belle explodes. “And every girl wants to be in the Nikkei Week court. The fact that you spat on that honor—even though you could have performed princess duties in addition to your judo demo—is . . . just . . .” She shakes her head, like she’s a robot short-circuiting.

“I’m not princess material,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at her. “We all know this.”

“But you could be,” Belle asserts—and now she’s back to waving the scarf around. “If you would just be open to letting me do you up, like Cinderella—”

“Cinderella’s stepsisters cut off their toes to fit into the glass slipper,” I fire back. “That’s the real story—not exactly happily ever after.”

“Do. Not,” Belle says, thwacking me on the arm with her scarf. “Cinderella’s my main bitch.”

I release a long breath, trying to shove down my temper—which is now slamming itself against my breastbone, wanting more than anything to get out.

It’s not that I want Belle to give up on her fairy tales, with their sanitized happy endings. It’s just that I want her to open up to my version of fairy tales, my melancholy stories from Japanese folklore. Where the endings are often bittersweet—emphasis on the “bitter.” Where it’s possible for, say, a girl with a dead mom and a deadbeat dad to triumph somehow, even if it means casting aside idealized notions of love and turning into a monster.

The nure-onna, after all, always gets a certain kind of happy ending—really, the only kind I can see for myself. Solitary yet satisfied. Fighty abilities top-notch. No prince in sight.

You’d think Belle would be open to all that after her umpteenth overly dramatic relationship imploded. (Belle dates, in her words, “hot people of all genders,” but still hasn’t found anyone who can successfully execute an Instagram-worthy promposal.)

“Why are you guys yelling?” Rory, our twelve-year-old sister, stomps into Belle’s room. I’ve never seen someone stomp quite like Rory, who walks everywhere like she’s trying to shake the ground. She insists this is her natural gait—all the more impressive when you consider her minuscule frame. “I can hear you all the way down the hall,” she continues, cannonballing herself onto my bed. She lands with a whump.

“Ugh, you can hear everything in this apartment,” Belle says, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Why bother having walls at all?”

“Rika, what are you wearing?” Rory sits up in bed, her cute little eyebrows drawing together.

“See!” Belle whirls around, her bright pink fingernails whipping toward Rory. “Rory thinks you should dress up more, too.”

“Rory didn’t actually offer an opinion, just a question,” I say.

“Rory thinks the outfit is bad,” Rory says. “Opinion given, no questions.”

“Thanks for nothing, Aurora,” I say, calling her by the full name that only gets dragged out when she’s in trouble or when people feel like being overly proper. Sometimes I can count on her to form an alliance with me against Belle. As a math genius who hasn’t felt challenged by the curriculum since kindergarten, Rory tends to be more practical-minded.

“You should look like a princess, too,” Rory says. “To match us.”

Oh, right. Even with the genius-based practicality, Rory still buys into that princess shit—she’s a junior princess in Belle’s court. Whenever she and Belle form their own alliance (#TeamPrincess), I get a little twinge that reminds me they’re technically not my sisters—they’re my cousins. Peas in a pod who were named after actual Disney princesses. I’m always supposed to match them, not the other way around.

Even though they’re built differently—Belle is all generous curves to Rory’s spindly limbs—they both have the same perfectly straight manes of black hair and flashing dark eyes, the same flawless creamy skin, the same cute little round noses. When they stand next to each other, the effect is almost comical: as if Belle has somehow manifested a smaller, more serious-faced version of herself.

I, meanwhile, have always looked like the outcast cousin—so much so that Belle’s and my teacher on the first day of second grade asked Auntie Suzy if she was “sure” we were both hers, giving me the suspicious side-eye, like I was trying to con my way into going home with people I didn’t belong to.

“She’s half!” Belle had declared, stomping her foot at the teacher as if that settled it. “And we claim her as a whole Asian!”

I have wavy, tangled hair a few shades lighter than the rest of my family—sometimes picking up brassy glints of red in the sun. And smatterings of freckles in various places, including across my wider bump of a nose. I do look Japanese (especially to all those Beckys who want to hear my accent, I guess), but it’s in that way where, as I accidentally overheard the confused second-grade teacher say later, “You can tell there’s . . . something else going on.” When we were younger and less aware of stuff, Belle dubbed me “Asian Lite.” We both thought this was funny until Auntie Suzy wearily informed us that it was not.

Auntie Suzy is Belle and Rory’s actual mom, and she took me in after my mother—her sister—died in childbirth and my “white devil” father took off for who knows where. Belle was still a baby when all this happened, only six months older than me. To this day, the murmurs still run through Little Tokyo. How Auntie Suzy did her Good Asian Duty by taking care of family. How my mother was such a tragedy, she’d had such potential before she got pregnant at fifteen—so beautiful and charismatic, able to charm the pants off of anyone she met with a smile. How it must be tough on the remaining Rakuyamas since I look so . . . different. There’s always that weird pause before “different,” as if the greater community of gossiping Little Tokyo Aunties and Uncles are carefully assessing my appearance, clocking all the ways I look . . . well, Asian Lite.

Some of them simply refer to me as “a mistake.” I’m not sure which is worse.

I refuse to buy into their Tragic Hafu narrative. But that’s another reason I don’t want to be a princess—because I’d definitely be the worst princess ever, and I don’t need to stand out even more than I already do by being that bad at something. I know some of those gossip-mongers would have no trouble gossiping extra loud from the sidelines, vocalizing the thing that’s always dancing around the back of my head:

What’s she doing here?

I’m good—no, excellent—at judo. Sparring is one of the only times I don’t feel like some kind of weirdo, bad-tempered Asian Lite mistake, trying to go home with families I don’t belong to. It clears my mind and settles my restless body, and I can connect to the pure magic of Little Tokyo that I love so much.

In other words, the only time I feel truly at home is when I’m fighting something.

And if I push myself to be outstanding today . . . I mean, my judo teacher, Sensei Mary, told me there will be a UCLA scout in attendance, assessing our performances for scholarships.

I dream of ascending the college ranks, kicking ass on the competitive circuit, maybe even helping Sensei Mary run the dojo one day. Basically, this is my ideal future as the nure-onna, defeating all enemies who stand in my way and eventually settling into a life where my fighty-ness is an asset.

And if I can do the community proud, maybe the gossip, the whispers, the lingering stares will . . . stop. Maybe I’ll finally feel like I belong here, to this place that flows through my blood as naturally as the sizzle of my temper.

“So, who do you think the grand marshal will be at the parade?” Rory says, snapping me back to the present. “And why is it always such a big secret?”

“It’s for the drama, Rory, they do a big reveal every year,” Belle says, rolling her eyes. “But honestly it’s probably some boring old person we’ve never heard of—as usual.”

“I have to go,” I say, suddenly realizing my door is now unblocked and I can continue on my quest to the dojo.

“Wait!” Belle protests as I dart toward my exit.

“I’ll wear it like this!” I shout over my shoulder, hastily using Belle’s scarf to tie up my unruly hair.

“Rika-chan!”

I let out a yelp and jump back as my bedroom doorway is blocked yet again, this time by Auntie Suzy. She’s swaddled in an old yukata with a fading sakura print and Adidas slides with socks, and she looks like this day has already exhausted her, even though it’s barely nine a.m. Nak scampers around her feet, tail wagging.

“Rika-chan,” Auntie Suzy repeats in a way that’s probably meant to be admonishing but is, as usual, too absentminded. She reminds me of a kindly witch who can’t remember what spell she’s supposed to cast. “Are you girls fighting already?” Her gaze lands on me, and her nose crinkles. “And what is that . . . shirt?”

Nak gives me a scolding look, as if to agree with her, and trots over to Belle.

Okay, so everyone in this family disapproves of my amazing T-shirt. Even the dog.

“It’s a nure-onna,” I say. “A Japanese fairy creature who morphs into a half snake and seeks revenge on those who have done her wrong—”

“Mmm, why can’t you like the nice fairy tales?” Auntie Suzy shakes her head.

“Fairy tales aren’t nice,” I mutter, twisting the hem of my shirt. Stubbornly, all of them being so against it makes me want to wear the shirt even more. “Anyway,” I say, edging my way toward the bedroom doorway again, “I really need to get down to the dojo and warm up because—”

“No.” Auntie Suzy’s voice is sudden and firm—a marked contrast to her usual dreamy cadence.

“What?” I stop cold in my tracks, unsure that I’ve heard right.

Auntie Suzy deflates a little. “I’m sorry, Rika-chan, but you can’t participate in the demonstration today. I need you to work at the restaurant—we’re having a much bigger crowd than usual.”

“But . . .” I shake my head, confused. My Aunties’ restaurant, Katsu That, is located right below our apartment, and their claim to fame is they will katsu literally any foodstuff. The whole family works regular shifts there, but I’d specifically asked for today off. “I’ve been training for this all year. I mean, really for most of my life, considering how long I’ve been in judo.”

My voice is already rising, my face flushing, my temper bubbling to the surface.

“I’m sorry, Rika-chan,” Auntie Suzy says again, but now my kaiju is roaring, threatening to consume my entire body, and I have to make her understand.

“I finally made the number one spot this year—do you know how hard that was?” I say, struggling—and mostly failing—to keep my tone even. “Natalie Ito and I have gone back and forth since we were nine, and she is a legit beast at sparring—she beat me out three times in a row for the regional championship, remember? But I finally did it, I beat her enough times in class, and now I get to lead warm-ups and be in the centerpiece match, and I can finally—” My voice catches, hot tears filling my eyes.

I can finally show everyone I belong here.

Auntie Suzy cocks her head at me, something I can’t recognize passing over her face.

“Rika,” she says slowly, “why must you make everything so difficult?”

Really, her weary tone is one of the most infuriating things. How can she be so unbothered, so dismissive of something so important to me?

“You wouldn’t be doing this if I were a princess like Belle and Rory!” I blurt out.

“Technically I’m the queen,” Belle murmurs.

“Because that’s important, right?” I bulldoze on, ignor-ing her. “You get why that’s important, them wearing fancy dresses and waving to the crowd, but when it’s something that’s important to me—”

“Your sisters are performing a service to the community,” Auntie Suzy interrupts, her tone still flat. “You had your chance to do that, too, and you chose not to—so now you can be of service to your family—”

“I’m barely part of this family!” I spit out, my temper exploding. My face feels like it’s on fire, and the tears are starting to run down my cheeks, and I’m just . . . so . . . frustrated. “None of you will even try to understand why I like my monster-woman shirt and why I don’t want to be a princess, and by the way, part of this isn’t just about my resistance to all things princess—I also don’t want to deal with Uncle Taki death-glaring at me from the sidelines because he thinks only ‘pure Japanese’ girls should be Nikkei Week Princesses, and—”

“Ma Suzy.” Belle’s voice is soft and placating. I can feel her sidling up to me, gently adjusting the scarf in my hair. I also feel Rory’s hand take mine. “Rika is the best at the dojo. She’s earned the chance to show everyone how good she is, right?”

I swallow hard and look at the floor, trying to shove the temper back down. But it doesn’t want to go. When it’s like this, it feels like it has nowhere to go. It’s a blaze consuming my body, obliterating everything else.

“I’m sorry,” Auntie Suzy says again—and now she really does look sorry, that sadness she always has about her brimming to the surface. “Your family needs you in the restaurant, Rika-chan.”

Then she turns and shuffles out of the room.

I feel Rory squeezing my hand, Belle messing with my hair. I love them and I know they mean well—but they’re trying to soothe something that can never be soothed, to slap a coating of princess over the messy remnants of my snarling monster.

I feel the distance growing between us—and there’s that twinge again.

The one that says no matter what, I will never belong here.

And I will never belong to my family as fully as they belong to each other.