I was back.
My back hurt, my legs hurt, and my head hurt.
But I hardly cared.
Home, finally!
The taxi driver opened the trunk, and even though he offered to help with my bags, I refused his kind offer and tugged the overloaded luggage out the back.
My joints cracked ominously as I slammed the trunk door, and when the taxi's lights faded away into the darkness, I drew in a deep breath.
Los Angeles had smelled like gasoline and the ocean. Tokyo smelled like…flowers. Flowers and food. It made sense, I supposed. It was spring after all. The sakura blossoms were out in full force and it was dinnertime. Mom promised to have a good meal laid out for me. Body creaking from the twelve-hour flight, I moved quickly and entered the courtyard of the five-floor apartment building that my parents both owned and managed.
My parents lived on the first floor, and my shoulders stiffened as I approached the front door and recognized a voice I hadn't heard in a few weeks.
Crap.
My hand tightened around the luggage handle. I wanted a quiet dinner and then to pass out for the next ten hours, but that wasn't going to happen.
Not with my sister in town.
I squared my shoulders and reached for the knob.
Through no action of mine, the door swung open, letting out the mouth-watering scent of beef and potato stew and the sight of my older sister, Saki Hasegawa.
"Rika!" she squealed and wrapped me in a tight embrace that made my ribs squeak in protest. "Talk about good luck. I'm headed back to Fukuoka tomorrow morning!"
I patted her awkwardly on the back painfully aware of how far I had to reach down. I was one hundred and seventy-five centimeters while she stood a petite one hundred and fifty-five, and I had felt that difference in our heights acutely when we were growing up.
To be honest, I still felt it. "Hi, Saki. Good to see you."
She pulled back and looked up at me, her pretty face furrowed. "God, you look horrible. Come in, come in!"
I tried to grab my luggage, but she swatted my hand away and took it herself, coming in behind me as I kicked off my shoes in the entryway.
My mother poked her permed head out the kitchen doorway, a spatula in one hand, and wearing her usual red-and-white-checkered apron. The sight made my eyes hot.
"You're just in time," she said with a warm smile. I sniffed as I tried in vain to hide the relief of being home. "Sit down. Dinner is almost done."
"I'll help you set up."
She shook her head as Saki pushed past me in the narrow corridor separating the kitchen from the living room. "Don't be silly. Your sister can set the table. You relax."
My father called me into the small dining room and I padded to him, the muscles unknotting between my shoulders.
It never struck me how much I missed home until I got off the plane. When I was surrounded by a mass of dark heads, signs I understood, listening to Japanese spoken around me, I was so relieved I almost wept.
Dad sat at the end of the square table, glasses perched on the tip of his narrow nose, his familiar, wrinkled face making me smile. He closed his newspaper and folded it neatly. "How was the flight?"
I slid into the chair on his right side, sitting cross-legged as I always had. "Long."
My mother put out the plates, forcing me down with a strong hand on my shoulder as I tried to get up to help her.
"I thought you were in business class?" he asked.
I struggled and poured myself a glass of hot barley tea. "It's better than coach, but sitting for twelve hours is hard, no matter what."
Saki snorted. "With those legs, yeah, I'd bet."
It was a good-natured barb, but I still didn't like it. My sister had been ribbing me about my height for as long as I could remember and while I wished I could say I got used to it, some things are impossible to ignore. "At least I got unlimited wine and beer."
Saki stuck out her tongue. "Like that's anything to you."
And for a moment, I was back in school again, coming home late from a school council meeting, my sister fresh from a rhythmic gymnastics competition, Mom and Dad postponing their dinner so we could all dine together.
I sniffed again and brought the cup up to my mouth to hide the fact that I was a teary idiot who crumbled at the smallest of things.
Dad coughed. "That reminds me!"
He left the room and returned with a bottle of shochu and two glasses. "Saki, get some ice, hm?"
She wrinkled her small, pert nose. "Ew. I understand why you're drinking that, but Rika—you, too? How old are you? Fifty?"
I didn't mention she was closer to fifty than me, by two years, and instead waited for her to bring a tray of ice cubes so I could pour my dad and myself a drink.
Shochu with my father was a tradition. He had always been fond of a drink or two most nights. But Mom didn't like to drink and since he didn't have a son to drink with, the duty had fallen upon me.
Not that I minded. I liked the clean, crisp taste of the sweet potato alcohol and had grown partial to drinking it myself from time to time, even without Dad around.
He lifted the small glass in the air. "Here's to your safe return, Rika."
My heart swelled as I clinked my glass against his, and we both threw back the shot.
The familiar blossoming of heat in my chest brought a sigh to my lips as I put down the glass, feeling like I would melt into a puddle.
Dad poured another shot, and we did it again. His limit was two and done, something I appreciated. I didn't want Saki to keep teasing me about being an old man. Not that it stopped her from trying as Dad handed her the bottle to put back in the kitchen.
"Let's eat!"
Mom brought out a large plate, the centerpiece of my first Japanese meal in a week, her special beef and potato stew that made me almost drool over my rice.
Conversation around the dinner table, luckily, wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. What with my sister talking to Mom and Dad about her textile work in Fukuoka, I concentrated on eating the wonderful food I'd dreamed of on the plane.
When I wasn't thinking about Nobuki.
Suddenly, the food stuck in my throat and I gulped down tea, trying not to choke at the dinner table.
Saki's large brown eyes settled on me. "Hey, Rika?"
"Mmm?"
She pushed away her half-finished food, finished with the meal. Then again, Saki had always left food on her plate. Maybe that explained why I was twenty centimeters taller. It couldn't have been genetics, because my parents were rather short, with my mom the same height as Saki, and my father half a head taller than her.
Suffice it to say, whenever we took family pictures, I usually sat down.
"I heard from Mom you're still not seeing anyone?"
I almost choked on my food again and had to cough into a napkin. "Um. No."
Saki sighed, leaning her elbows on the table, even though Mom had always chastised her for doing that.
Not this time. This time she put down her bowl and chopsticks and looked at us inquisitively.
Shit.
"Rika, come on, how old are you?" cajoled my sister. "Aren't you getting a little long in the tooth?"
My appetite was rapidly waning from the sudden turn of conversation, and I set down my chopsticks. "Can we not talk about this right now?"
Her brow lifted. "Your biological clock is ticking, little sister."
I wanted to tell her she was thirty and childless, but that would cause a fight. And I knew I could never win, not against my stronger-willed sister. "Sorry."
The quickest way to end an argument with her was to agree with everything she said, and she'd get bored. Otherwise, she'd never stop.
She exchanged a look with my mother while my father continued to eat in his usual laconic way. "You're almost thirty. You need to think about getting married and having kids."
I sighed. Damn my timing or damn hers. "I'm a little busy."
"And I'm not? I'm a buyer for one of the largest fabric companies in southern Japan. You think I had time to get married? Hell no, but I still did it."
My jaw clenched, but I didn't say what was on my mind. That Saki married a man from her company and divorced him two years later after a childless and loveless marriage.
But that would draw out this conversation, and I found myself longing for bed.
"Okay. Whatever."
She rolled her eyes heavenward. "Are you seeing someone now?"
"No."
She was quiet for a moment, almost thoughtful, although my sister was too impetuous and high-strung to do anything remotely considered thinking. "There's a guy I know."
"Pass."
She huffed. "Oh, give him a chance. He's such a catch. I went to school with him. Sure, he's had a divorce and everything, but considering your age, I don't think you can afford to be picky. You know, after thirty, a woman's uterus starts dying. Most parents won't even consider their sons marrying a woman as old as you, but I—"
I pushed back the chair so quickly it tumbled to the floor and I had to pick it back up, face blazing. "Thank you for the food, Mom, Dad. I'm tired. I'm going to bed."
Saki stood up as well; although, much more gracefully than me. Then again, she was always the small, agile one, while I tried unsuccessfully to avoid comparisons to clumsy, drunk giraffes.
"Rika, I'm serious," she said. "He remembers you, too." She worried her lower lip between two small white teeth. "I've already arranged a meeting."
I stared at her in horror. "You've what?"
"He's a good guy," she countered hastily, looking at Mom and Dad as though she expected their help. "He was in my class. Yuuki Sugiwara. Remember him?"
"Why should I? He's your classmate, not mine. Why would I give a crap about him?"
Her mouth fell open. My father stopped chewing.
"How could you say something like that?" she asked in a halting tone, voice trembling as if she was about to burst into tears.
But she didn't fool me. Nothing short of a catastrophe would induce her to tears and, even then, she would fake it to fit in with everyone else.
"Don't you get it? I'm doing this for you. I'm trying to take care of my little sister. Shouldn't you be grateful that I'm paying attention to your life?"
"I'm supposed to be grateful?" I said. "How could you decide this without asking me? Why didn't you pick up the phone and ask me?"
"You would've said no!"
Yes. I would have.
But that was beside the point.
This couldn't go on. Obviously, my sister still thought she ran my life, like she did at school, when she would volunteer me for all sorts of sports clubs if they were missing a member for a game. Back then, she became known as my manager, and I couldn't even go against her because she blackmailed me with threats of exposing my bad test scores to my parents.
Now she had nothing to blackmail me with.
She could take her Yuuki Sugiwara and they could go to hell, for all I cared, and I said as much.
Her eyes narrowed. "Oh?"
I sighed, wishing this wasn't how my night ended, especially with a sister I hadn't seen in months. She might've been annoying more often than I cared to admit, but I loved and respected her. I didn't want to hurt her, but we weren't children anymore. She couldn't treat me like one. Not anymore.
"Saki, I'm sorry. I really am. But I don't want to meet your friend."
She pouted. "Why? You used to not care about this sort of thing."
"Well, now I do. Don't set up any dates for me. I mean it."
"You're seeing someone, aren't you?"
"I said no, didn't I?" I tried to keep a level gaze with my sister, to tell her silently that her scare tactics didn't work on me anymore.
"Really?" She looked me up and down. "Then why are you wearing makeup?"
I stared at her. "Why am I what?"
"Makeup," she said with a knowing smile. "You never used to wear makeup."
I put a hand up to my cheek, skin smooth from the face powder I used in the taxi.
Crap.
She had me there. "Because. I work in a big company now. Looks are everything."
Her grin widened. "Even on a Sunday night?"
Damn her and her observant eyes. "I'm trying to pay more attention to my appearance, okay? Maybe I'm trying to find a boyfriend without relying on someone else."
"But I want to help you, Rika," she countered. "Yuuki's great. I went to school with him for eight years. I'm surprised you don't remember him. Are you sure you don't know who I'm talking about? He's the really tall guy. Played baseball as a regular. Come on, Rika, he was super popular! All the girls in my class had mad crushes on him."
Now that she mentioned it, I thought I knew who she was referring to. I didn't quite recall the name, but when she brought up his height, something triggered in the back corners of my memories.
Having topped one hundred and seventy centimeters by the time I reached high school, there weren't a lot of people taller than me. But I recalled seeing a guy in my sister's class who was quite a bit taller than me. Granted, he was a third year, but it was nice to see someone I looked up at, literally.
I couldn't remember his face, but he couldn't have been excessively ugly if I didn't remember him. And he must have been good at baseball since my school was well known for its baseball team and scouted students from other prefectures. We even went to Nationals at Koshien Stadium in my first year. Was he part of that famous, legendary team?
Still, that didn't change my decision.
"I don't care how popular he is. I'm not going. I just came back from a business trip, Saki. Maybe I'll have time in a month or two, but right now my schedule is way too packed."
Her face fell. "It'll just be for an hour. Please? If you don't like him, I promise you never have to meet anyone I suggest ever again."
My ears pricked, even though I had heard the same things from her when she was pimping me out to the sports teams who assumed I was athletic because I was tall. I had some athletic talent, but I pretended I was a klutz, getting a great deal of perverse joy from making them regret they had asked my sister.
She clasped her hands in front of her, her eyes squeezing shut. "Please? Pretty please with a cherry on top."
"Not even with a million cherries on top."
Dad laid his chopsticks over his empty rice bowl. "Surely it wouldn't hurt to go to one, Rika?"
Yikes.
There went the killing blow, the KO to my health bar.
My father didn't ask for a lot. Actually, my parents didn't ask or expect much from me at all. Saki had met all their expectations and more when she excelled in her classes and her rhythmic gymnastics, so I skated through life with little trouble.
I looked at him sitting calmly at the other side of the table, his glasses glinting in the overhead lights. "Are you asking me to go, Dad?"
My mother stood up as well and collected the empty dishes. "There's nothing wrong with going, is there? And your sister is right. You'll be thirty and we're getting older. We want to make sure you're not going to be alone." Her forehead wrinkled. "We want to make sure someone will be there with you when we're not here anymore."
I sighed, knowing my defenses were growing feebler by the second. Judging from the grin on Saki's face, she knew it as well.
"I'm not going to be alone. Saki'll be here, too."
My mother shot me a meaningful glance. "You know what we're talking about, dear."
Hell.
Frustration welling up inside me at my inability to say no to anything, especially to my sister, even after all these years, I jammed a fist against my forehead. "Fine. When is it and where?"
"This Saturday at two. There's a shop that's just outside Jiyugaoka Station. It's a pastry shop called Patisserie Kashiwa. Can you make it?"
I paused at the meeting location. "A pastry shop? What kind of guy wants to meet at a pastry shop? Besides, don't these meetings take place in cafes or hotel lobbies?"
Jiyugaoka was at least an hour away and would require me to transfer trains twice. Not to mention it was a very popular station due to the number of tourist attractions nearby. It was bound to be swarming with people, something I did not relish. Just the thought of going was enough to make me feel queasy.
"I've been there before. Their cake is the best," said Saki in a reconciliatory tone. "You still like cake, right?"
"Yeah, but—"
My father clicked his tongue. "Rika, just go. What's the harm?"
Swallowing the angry words I would regret, I grabbed my empty dishes so I could escape to the kitchen. "I'm not doing this because I want to. I'm doing this because you're making me."
Fuming all the way to the kitchen, I almost hurled my dishes into the sink, annoyed at being manipulated by my sister again. And this time she didn't even have to blackmail me.
I was only twenty-eight. What was wrong with being single?
Everything, according to every damn person in my country.
My mother put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. "Don't worry, Rika. Saki is worried about you. She wants you to have someone to turn to, that's all."
My thoughts turned to a tall, lean man with sun-kissed hair and eyes bluer than the ocean off Okinawa. What would my parents have said if I had brought Julian Lambert home?
My sister's eyes would've gone bigger than dinner plates, and my parents would've been positively stunned at his mastery and grasp of the Japanese language.
They would've liked him.
I smiled at the thought. I wished they could've met him.
My mother stroked my cheek. "See? You don't mind if we want to take care of you, right?"
I leaned down and pecked her on the forehead. "You let Saki run the house."
She shrugged and handed over a warm Tupperware container. "Your sister is a force of nature. Why fight the storm? Anyway, here's your lunch for tomorrow."
"Mom," I said weakly, but she stopped me with a pinch to my midsection.
"Don't you start," she said as she shooed me out of the kitchen. "I know you can cook, but allow me this. The saddest day for me was when you graduated from high school and I thought I couldn't pack your lunch anymore. There's a special kind of joy that only a mother can feel, knowing her child is growing strong and tall from her cooking."
She looked me up and down, a look of resignation in her clear brown eyes. "Although, all my friends ask me what I fed you to get you so big."
"Love you too, Mom," I said dryly and tucked the Tupperware under one arm while I pulled on my shoes, knowing I needed to go to bed if I wanted to go to work tomorrow. "Thank you for the food. Saki, bye!"
"Next Saturday at two. Jiyugaoka!" she yelled from the living room as the sounds of canned laughter filled the house. "I'll text you the details later in the week."
Now that she got what she wanted, a date for her poor friend who apparently couldn't get one for himself, she had nothing more to do with me. She didn't even wave me off, though we hadn't seen each other in a month.
My father came out, hands behind his back. I kissed him on the cheek, wishing him good night.
His brows furrowed. "Saki means well."
"Yes," I replied with a heavy sigh. "I know."
That was the sad thing. She did mean well. In her own way, she loved me and tried to protect me. I remembered all those times when she stood up for me, even getting into a fight with an older, bigger kid who kept making fun of my gawkiness.
It was for those moments that I lived with my sister's forthright, insistent nature.
My father offered to help me with my luggage up the five flights of stairs, but he had a bad back, and after reassuring him my bag was practically empty, I lugged it to my apartment at the far end of the building.
When I arrived at my front door, I was a shaking mass of bruises and sweating profusely.
The apartment was dark and smelled musty. Luckily, it was balmy out so I left the veranda and kitchen windows open while I put the Tupperware container in my empty fridge and padded into the bathroom to take a hot bath in rose-scented water.
Afterward, toweling off my damp hair, I felt better and definitely sleepier. I was even humming as I grabbed my clothes to put them in the laundry hamper.
As I shook out my black jeans, a small silver key clattered on the tiled floor.
Nobuki's house key.
Come whenever you want.
Make yourself comfortable.
I let out a snort. "Without an address? Fat chance, mister."
Although I was sure he would've sent me his address if I'd asked him, I wasn't up for seeing him tonight.
But if he did ask for me…would I be able to turn him down?
I doubted it.