Full sleeve tattoo on an upper arm in Japanese style, with orange, green and red lotus-like motifs, swirling clouds and layered scale patterns.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Colourful ornamental sleeve on upper arm

Japanese · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A full arm sleeve covers the upper arm and shoulder of a person wearing a white top, with the back of their head visible at the edge of the frame. The design is built from a central lotus-like bloom, curling cloud scrolls and stacked wave or scale bands, outlined in dark ink with smooth, even shading. Bright orange, red, green and yellow dominate, with purple accents, against a plain indoor background.

Japanese Upper arm Shoulder Lotus Cloud Swirl Scale Wave Ornamental pattern Sleeve

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You find your name badge still stuck to the lapel of your coat, though nobody in the sports hall needs one. Someone has strung paper lanterns in orange and green across the basketball hoops, and the place smells the way it always did, of floor polish and the oranges from the tuck shop. Mrs Partridge, who taught you geography for six years, is working the room in a cardigan the colour of wet moss. She recognises you before you recognise her, and that is the first thing that makes your stomach turn over.

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Dev Okonjo finds you by the squash table, because you were the girl who drew swirling clouds on her hands in biro during registration, and he was the boy who copied them onto his maths book. 'Still doing those?' he asks. You say mostly on other people now. He tells you his daughter has a sleeve of carp and lotus blooms, and he pushes up his shirtsleeve to show you where the first row of scales would start on his own arm, then laughs at himself for it. You had not expected to be the one who remembered.

Later, when the DJ plays something from 1998 and half the room dances badly, you slip into the lower corridor. In Year 9 you and eleven others painted a mural there: a big lotus in the middle, cloud scrolls curling out of it, bands of orange and green rising like waves to the ceiling. In 2003 a new head teacher had it painted over in beige. Glass cabinets of netball trophies stand where it used to be.

But behind the fire door, where the boiler cupboard juts out, one square of wall was never touched. You crouch, knees cracking, and there it is: a single orange petal, a green curl, and a yellow centre gone the colour of weak tea. You press your palm against it, as if it might still be wet, and you stay there until someone calls your name from the hall.