March 2007
They only called me Toki anymore. I kept forgetting my real name, or stopped caring about it—probably both. Nintendo’s snoring was breaking my heart, all night long. I got up to grab some water. The moon had the whole room painted in soft blue.
The water here was actually fine. That was something. In the last six months I’d crashed in a bunch of places. A basement room under a tire factory. Some friend’s kid’s bedroom. The half-finished mansion of some J-pop starlet trying to make it big. But this place was decent. You could see the Tokyo Tower from the window, and I’d stare at it from different corners of the city. Every time I looked at it, I’d feel this warmth, this sense of something protecting me. It chased the dark thoughts away.
Toki, you okay?
Yumi was lying on the couch watching American soap operas. She did that every night. Sleep meant nothing to her, she said, and I believed it. I nodded and tried not to look at her legs—those long legs crossed over the table—or the way her breast was spilling out of her nightshirt. Stop staring at my sexy legs or you’ll start thinking about Ana again,
she said, winking. Her eyes went right back to the screen as the commercial ended. I took a drink.
We’d have sex sometimes, Yumi and me. But it wasn’t a big deal. She slept with Nintendo too, when I was at work, and he’d try to make something of it, like I should be impressed. But I knew she liked it better with me. Not that it mattered. Since I’ve been here I’ve had this heartbreak sitting in my chest, eating deeper and deeper. I let it. I used to be happy. She was called Ana. It’s hard to forget someone called Ana. Those three letters are everywhere—every variation you can think of. When you see them, you’re back to zero. Every time. She was my best friend. I was cold.
I pulled on the pink Little Foods t-shirt, the one Nintendo wore to work. I looked ridiculous in it. Nobody cared today. Not even Yumi’s cat, which barely spared me a glance before walking to the food bowl, already screeching that it was empty. I had to go shopping. There were some yen notes on the table.
Heading out, I turned my phone on. I’d brought it from Germany. Couldn’t afford anything newer. One unread text. Nobody from Germany ever texted me. Not Ana. Fuko—my boss at the disco—knew my phone couldn’t display Japanese characters, so he just sent times. When I should come in. That was how it worked.
Some schoolgirls smiled at me. Probably the t-shirt. Summer had peaked. I turned down a side street and said hello to the old guy who ran the 24/7. He’d yell out Twenty-seven!
every time I came in, laughing like it was the funniest thing he’d ever said—his German was incredible, apparently. I’d smile back like it impressed me every time and wander the aisles. The money barely covered a full bag of groceries. We were always broke. The rent on this place was killing us. I worked at a small disco doing whatever needed doing. Nintendo sold fast food. Nobody knew how Yumi made her money, but we had our ideas. Sometimes.
When I got home, Nintendo was sitting in front of the iBook playing World of Warcraft. He used to be the biggest Super Mario fan—the logo was still tattooed on his right shin—until he got into online games and started selling off his entire video game collection to fund the habit. He still had an old gray Game Boy. Yumi played it sometimes.
Where’s Yumi?
I called out as I came in and dropped the bag on the couch. Gone,
he said, not looking up, already talking into his headset about whatever was happening on screen. I had heartbreak. But I’d had it before I came here. I thought I could escape it. By coming here. But you can’t run from something that deep inside you. Everything we’d been through together, it had only made us closer. The little blue notebook she gave me for my birthday—I kept it like it was treasure.
I fed the cat, watched it dive into the bowl like it hadn’t eaten in days. Tokyo was different than I’d imagined it. I thought it would be colorful, exciting, breathtaking. It was colorful and exciting and breathtaking. But different. This endless sadness followed me everywhere. Dancing in arcades, fumbling with bleached-blonde dolled-up girls, having breakfast alone with the cat as my only company.
Late at night, usually on weekends, this thought would creep in that I was missing something back in Germany. Missing what she was doing right then. What gross guys were getting to touch her. What sweet little sounds she was making to someone else. I’d run out of tears for it, but that numb feeling stayed, solid and cold.