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Chapter One: The Request
Hana Nakamura had been staring at the same cherry blossom design for twenty minutes when her shop door chimed.
"We're closed," she called without looking up. It was 8 PM on a Thursday, and she'd been working since noon on a full back piece that had left her shoulders aching and her eyes burning.
"Not even for family?"
Hana's head snapped up. She knew that voice—older, deeper, but unmistakably Kenji Tanaka. Her best friend Aiko's little brother. Except he wasn't so little anymore.
He stood in the doorway of her shop in San Francisco's Japantown, and Hana had to actively keep her jaw from dropping. The last time she'd seen Kenji, he'd been nineteen and heading off to college—skinny, awkward, buried in computer science textbooks. That had been eight years ago.
The man in front of her now was... not that.
Kenji had filled out. Broad shoulders, lean muscle visible through his white t-shirt, the kind of body that came from disciplined training rather than gym vanity. His hair was longer than she remembered, pulled back in a small knot. Black-framed glasses, the one remnant of the nerdy kid she'd known. And his arms—
His arms were bare. No tattoos. Which was interesting, given that he was standing in her tattoo shop at closing time.
"Kenji," Hana said, setting down her drawing pencil. "Holy shit. When did you get tall?"
He smiled, and even that had changed. Confident. Self-assured. "Around sophomore year of college. Aiko didn't tell you I was coming?"
"Your sister tells me nothing. She's too busy being a hotshot lawyer in New York." Hana stood, wiping charcoal dust on her jeans. "What brings you to my humble establishment?"
"I want a tattoo."
"Obviously. But why me? There are plenty of artists in—" She paused, really looking at him. At the way he held himself, the deliberate calm in his posture. "Where are you living now?"
"Tokyo. For the past five years. I run a cybersecurity firm."
Tokyo. That explained something about the way he moved, the slight formality even in casual conversation. He'd gone back to Japan, something few sansei—third-generation Japanese-Americans—ever did.
"And you came all the way to San Francisco for a tattoo?"
"Not just any tattoo. I want traditional irezumi. A full sleeve." He paused. "And I want you to do it."
Hana's breath caught. Irezumi—traditional Japanese tattooing—was an art form that took years to master. She'd trained under a master in Osaka for three years before coming back to open her shop. But full sleeves were intensive, requiring months of sessions, thousands of dollars, and a commitment most people weren't prepared for.
"That's a big ask, Kenji. We're talking six months minimu...
Jade Chen grew up between two worlds—attending Chinese school on weekends while binge-watching K-dramas at night. As a second-generation Chinese-American, she spent years as a cultural consultant in Hollywood, frustrated by the lack of authentic Asian representation in romance. From her loft in Los Angeles' Koreatown, Jade writes the stories she never saw growing up: Asian characters with rich inner lives, cultural authenticity, and unapologetic sexuality. Her work celebrates food as love language, explores diaspora identity, and centers Asian women as romantic and sexual protagonists.
