LENA
The general consensus around the office was that I should have been ecstatic about working with my favorite comic book artist ever, but even though I knew my colleagues were generally thrilled for me—and maybe even slightly jealous—they had that deer-in-the-headlights look about them, the one you have when you’re perfectly aware that things could go very, very wrong.
It was the same look I had in my eyes lately.
On top of getting through the lists of all the bureaucratic things Amos and I had to deal with—visas for Japan required an insane amount of paperwork, but I knew this already since I’d had to go through it once before—I had been losing sleep over the enormity of the situation and the fact that I would be with Amos pretty much twenty-four seven.
I would soon be surrounded by his masculine smell, his deep voice, his body, starting with our twelve-hour long international flight—PDX-SEA-NRT—and after that, every day until we finished the comic.
There was no way I could avoid him anymore. From now on, working together would not be the way we’d handled it so far. It was no longer a ping-pong project, going back and forth from me to him and vice versa. We’d be working side by side, all day long, every day, for who knew how many weeks, or even months.
Our visas were good for up to eighteen months.
Eighteen months.
It reminded me of the same visa I’d gotten before. I could still remember so clearly the day Maggie and I had gotten them at the Japanese embassy.
Amos had offered for us to go to the embassy together, but I’d found an excuse to go alone so as to not be alone with him. Now, I was running out of excuses, and I was running out of time.
I wasn’t just nervous because of the task ahead; I was nervous because I was afraid of what I was feeling for him. I couldn’t keep lying to myself anymore.
I want him.
Everything I’d done to stay away from him was in vain, because in just a matter of days, we’d be together all the time.
I didn’t know how I would survive being back in Japan, working on the most terrifying project of my life and being near him all the time. How was I going to convince myself to stop looking at him and wishing he’d kiss me again?
I wanted him so much, sometimes I felt as if my body were on the verge of exploding; the more I didn’t want to feel that way, the more I did.
He taunted my fantasies. His face was the first thing I saw in my head when I awoke. His lips…I felt and imagined his lips on mine more times than I wanted to admit. I imagined those lips covering every curve and achy part of my body.
I would soon be alone with him…a lot.
Me, him, and Riki Ishikawa—what a trio. We’d been told there would be a translator. My Japanese was rusty at best, and while I might still be able to carry on a conversation if I tried really hard, I mostly likely didn’t know how to explain myself in technical terms when it came to sketching and drawing.
I had to get my shit together.
I couldn’t think about Amos and how he affected me, not at a time like this, when I was on the verge of taking a giant leap with my career.
I felt like a baseball rookie about to play his first World Series.
I had come to accept that yes, I had a crush on Amos, but I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I wasn’t that kind of woman, and although Olivia didn’t seem like the right fit for him, it wasn’t up to me to decide or try to change the fate of their relationship.
Even though I knew better, I couldn’t stop myself from looking at him during meetings, and we had to endure a few more than usual to prepare for our upcoming trip.
Violet was sitting in on them, too, since we had some budget things to go over.
Marty had gotten the rights for the comic he wanted so badly, but he was also fronting every expense for our travel and stay in Japan. When Amos would speak and ask Marty a question, I would inevitably look at his face, at those eyes that seemed to want to know my secrets, and I would glance over those full lips, those lips that for a few minutes had seemed to erase everything I didn’t want to remember.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket to read the text.
Violet: You’re staring at him again.
Me: No, I’m not.
Violet: You’re in complete and utter denial. It’s kind of cute, actually. I’ve never seen you crush on someone so hard.
Me: Shut up.
I put my phone on silent and placed it on the conference room table, glaring in the direction of my friend. My reaction enthralled Violet, whose red lips curled in a smirk while she adjusted her glasses on her nose and kept typing on her phone with one hand. I saw my screen light up again and again with several messages—from her, no doubt—but I ignored them. I tried to focus on the conversation between Marty and Amos. He was asking questions about what was expected of us when we arrived.
“What do you want us to do when we get there? What are their terms? Are we allowed to make any suggestions, ask questions, or are we just supposed to execute what they want us to draw?”
“I’m really not sure,” Marty answered. “But since we’re talking about a Japanese company and Japanese artists, my guess is you’ll do what you’re told. You’d better keep your ideas to yourself, unless asked. You’re only going to complete a task, almost like a videogame mission.” Marty laughed, but Amos just nodded in agreement, his expression somber.
I wondered what he was thinking. Did he regret it now? Did he regret starting all this? Sure, it was a great opportunity, but it was also an incredible pain in the ass. We were both putting our comics on hiatus for this, to basically be the scribe of a mangaka who couldn’t—for some reason the world wasn’t aware of—finish her own comic.
Aiko was her magnum opus, her best work to date, probably the last of her lifetime. I didn’t understand why she hadn’t tried to find another way to finish it—like enlisting the help of a fellow Japanese artist, for starters.
We’d gotten a detailed schedule of our first days, both in English and Japanese.
The English translation was a bit off, but nothing too bad.
“I see some things don’t change after all,” I joked. Not everyone was aware of the fact that finding someone who could speak English well in Japan was as hard as finding a needle in a haystack.
“I hope you will keep your snarky comments to yourself once you’re there, Lena,” Marty admonished me.
“Noted, boss,” I said, bowing my head and joining my hands together as Japanese people did.
The papers also showed that we would stay in a certain hotel in Shinjuku when we got there.
“This is weird,” I muttered under my breath.
“What is?” Violet asked, obviously eager for me to chime in on the conversation.
I glanced at the papers and then flipped the page over and back again.
“Marty, what is this? It says here we are going to stay in a hotel, but there’s a check-in- and check-out date. Looks like we’re only staying there for five days. What does that mean? Do we have a reservation for another place?”
“Yes and no.” He let out a deep breath and looked at me then at Amos for a few seconds before speaking again. “You will only be staying in a hotel for the first five days.”
“Okay…and where are we staying after that? Did you rent us an apartment? It better not be at the edge of Tokyo. I really don’t want to have to take multiple subways to wherever it is that we’ll be working. Isn’t the publishing company in Ginza?”
“Yes, but that’s not where you’ll be working. No one has mentioned Ishikawa’s illness, but they said she is very frail. The publishing company is moving her from her apartment to a bigger home not far from Shibuya.”
He paused, and I frowned.
“I still don’t understand.”
His nostrils flared up as he let out a breath. “They want you guys to stay with her. They say this should facilitate things, and I agree. This way you won’t have to come and go from a place. I have pictures, look,” he said, distributing some papers around. “It’s a really nice house. It even has a Zen garden in the back.”
“Fuck the Zen garden. I’m not going to live with her.” My eyes immediately met Marty’s angry glare. “I mean, can this situation get any more fucking awkward than it already is?” I said, dramatically waving my pencil in the air.
“I understand it’s not what you want to hear,” Marty replied.
“Not what I want to hear? This is something I never thought I’d hear. We’re not exchange students going to live with a family. We’re goddamned adults, Marty.”
I looked over to Amos, who had remained silent. His eyes danced between the papers in front of him and me.
“Are you okay with this?” I asked him, trying to get his attention.
He shrugged, and I wished I found that gesture irritating rather than charming.
“I don’t like it, but what choice do we have? Maybe this way we’ll get done faster. Besides, it’s not like they’re going to keep us as prisoners.”
“You say that now.”
Prisoners. How could we know? How could we know for sure what our days were going to be like? I’d heard horror stories years ago from friends of mine about what it was like to work in Japan; the stories about stressed sararimans, the businessmen who ended up taking their own lives, weren’t urban legends. The long hours, entire days and nights spent at work without ever going home—it eventually took a toll on people, making their lives miserable. This was true for people who worked in offices, but also in every other work environment.
I still remembered the Reddit chat Henry Thurlow had done. Thurlow, the only American artist to ever be hired by a Japanese studio, had talked extensively about his experience working in Japan. The opportunity meant forgetting about having any social life and spending days and nights obsessing over work, which led him to be hospitalized several times. Still, as stressful as his job was compared to his life as an artist in the US, he’d never felt more fulfilled.
Part of me pitied him, and yet, part of me understood him completely.
The old saying was true: artists seek immortality through art. Being miserable whilst alive doesn’t matter much.
I stared at the papers in front of me, angry. All of this was so stupid.
My mind couldn’t wrap itself around the fact that we were going to live with Rika Ishikawa in some swanky property rented by the publishing company.
“Lena,” Marty said softly, and when I met his eyes, he tried to give me a sympathetic smile. “I get it. This is not what you expected.”
“Far from it. I don’t know when I signed up to get on this bizarre ride, but all I know is that I want off.” I looked at each one of the people in the room, staring at Amos last.
“Are we done here?” I asked.
“We’re done for now,” Marty replied.
“Well, please excuse me. Looks like I have some packing to do,” I said in an annoyed tone. I grabbed my things and left the conference room.