AMOS
“Lena, it’s me. Are you ready?”
“What do you want now, Amos?” she asked in an annoyed tone from the other side of the sliding door.
I frowned, confused. Weren’t we just making out in the bathroom?
“Lena, I—”
“Gotcha!” the screen door opened, and an amused Lena appeared on the other side.
She was dressed simply in skinny black jeans and a loose white t-shirt, but she’d put makeup on and had even styled her hair.
She looked beautiful, but there was something else about her. There was a light in her eyes I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Maybe since our very first kiss…maybe since that night in Seattle.
“Look at you, playing tricks on me,” I said, wrapping my arms around her and leaning in for a kiss. If I could have had it my way, I would have spent the next few hours kissing her beautiful, soft pink lips.
She pulled back once again, just like she had in the bath.
“I don’t think we should…not here where they can see us.”
“What now? Are you trying to tell me I’m going to have to take you to a love hotel so I can have my way with you?”
She smiled sheepishly, as if my proposal pleased her. “That’s not a bad idea, St. Clair, but no. I meant, let’s try not to make it too obvious. Let’s limit kissing and fucking to our bedrooms, shall we?”
I nodded. “I can’t wait,” I whispered, leaning dangerously close to her lips.
She smiled as she brought one of her hands down and patted my crotch playfully. I shook my head in disbelief, unable to contain my smile, partly incredulous that the evening had taken such a turn. Lena broke out of my hold and then walked past me.
I followed her closely as she flung the strap of her bag across her shoulder and made her way along the narrow hallway. The loose waves of her hair bounced as she walked in front of me, catching the light of the sunset coming in from the courtyard.
“Itte kaerimas,” she told Hiroyuki and Rika. Hiroyuki waved, while Rika gave us a cautious look above the rim of her mug. Maybe Lena was right about keeping things quiet.
We already looked suspicious enough.
I sat down next to her by the door and put my sneakers on.
She took off without me, and I had to hurry up to keep up with her.
“Slow down, Lena. What’s the hurry?”
She finally stopped and turned around. “I’m really hungry,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Plus, I can’t walk slow. It’s not my style. Keep up, St. Clair.”
“What’s up with the ‘St. Clair’ thing, by the way? You used to call me Amos.”
“Did I? Well, maybe now I will save it for the bedroom.” She winked.
God, I was dying to pin her against the wall and kiss her.
My heart was racing inside my chest, and I just couldn’t wait to have her naked in my arms again. I’d been tormented, agonizing about her for months, and I couldn’t believe the time had finally come.
“Amos,” she called, stopping in her tracks. I smiled hearing her say my name.
“What is it, Lena?”
“Would you have told me about you and Olivia if it hadn’t been for Rika-san meddling in your business today?”
“Maybe eventually.”
“Why not now? Why not yesterday?”
“Because I didn’t want to distract you. I know how important your job is to you. I didn’t want to cause any drama…any more drama between us.”
She took my words in, and when she looked back at me, her eyes had grown softer.
“I’m glad Rika meddled in our business. I probably still wouldn’t have wanted to know in a week, a month, or even longer.” She had subtly tried to avoid any talk about feelings earlier in the day, but something in her words made me hope that one day she might feel about me the same way I did about her.
I took her hand in mine and kissed the back; she rewarded me with a coy smile.
“Where are we going? Do you know where you want to have dinner?” I asked her.
“I want to get kaiten sushi.” The conveyer belt sushi places were a staple in Japan.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Not somewhere else? Somewhere fancier?”
“I don’t do fancy.”
I fought to hold back a laugh. “But, there are other places we could go…”
“You said earlier I could have whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted, right? Besides, why would we go anywhere fancy? This isn’t a date.”
“It isn’t?”
“Is it?” she asked in an alarmed tone.
“What’s the big deal? I know you’ve been dating the whole time I’ve known you. I’ve heard you and Violet talk about guys.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah, but those were…strangers. Those dates didn’t matter,” she said hesitantly, with a hint of embarrassment.
I paused and pressed my lips together.
There was a wariness in her eyes, and I felt the need to reassure her.
“Naruhodo,” I said with a smile, putting two and two together. Naruhodo meant I get it, and she’d told me before it was one of her favorite Japanese expressions.
My heart swelled with hope that I mattered to her.
Lena smiled at my words and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. I took it between my fingers and tucked it behind her ear.
“We can call it a date, or we can just call it dinner, but, Lena?”
“Yes?”
“You have no reason to be nervous about this. This feels right, and you know it does. Stop overthinking it.”
“You make it sound so easy, Amos,” she said in a whisper.
I cupped her cheek. “It doesn’t have to be complicated, babe. I told you, this feels right. I have been waiting for it for a long time.”
She relaxed under my touch, taking my hand in hers, lacing her fingers with mine. We walked side by side the rest of the way, took the JR line in Omotesando, and stopped in Yoyogi Uehara to hop on the Odakyu line.
We got to Shimokitazawa after a couple of stops.
We had been in Tokyo for a few months, and even though I went out almost every other night, I felt there was so much I still hadn’t seen. The weekends passed us by just doing routine stuff. I barely had time to do my laundry, catch up with my friends back in Portland, and check out the latest comics at the nearest manga-kissaten, the manga café which offered an “all you can read” buffet for few hundred yen per hour.
I followed her lead. She hadn’t been there in years, but she displayed no hesitation when it came to deciding which way to go.
It was as if, to that day, she still remembered every single detail of her time there.
I knew how hesitant she’d been about the trip, and I often wondered if this place held bad memories for her.
She hadn’t told me anything I wanted to know yet, but I was determined to find out sooner or later.
LENA
He walked beside me the rest of the way, keeping quiet, but I could feel he was holding back somehow. From my furtive glances in his direction, I knew there were things he wanted to say, things he wanted to ask me, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk about anything.
I couldn’t think or talk about much. I was still processing what he’d told me a little over an hour ago.
We reached a restaurant we’d been to when we had first arrived.
A cute hostess with bleached blonde hair greeted us. She had a bit too much makeup on, an indulgence that seemed to be common among girls of her age in Japan. She looked like she could have been anywhere from sixteen to twenty-two.
The hostess reminded me of the girls I used to work with when I lived there.
She had too much concealer on, but her eyeliner game was on point, and her fake eyelashes made her eyes look bigger. Every woman wanted bigger eyes and bigger lashes, and there it was true even more so than in other countries.
“Irassyamase!” the girl said, bowing.
“Nimei,” I replied, holding two fingers up.
“Hai! Douzo,” she replied, welcoming us into the restaurant and leading us to two available seats in the snug kaiten sushi place.
Amos and I both bowed as she pointed to our seats, and we sat down without saying a word.
It was such an unassuming, generic place, not fancy by any means. I had been to a couple of the kaiten places in Portland, but the main problem about them—besides not being in Japan—was that they cut their fish too thick and in all kinds of wrong ways. There was an art to sushi, as with all things Japanese.
People who didn’t respect that, who didn’t commit to learning enough about the food they were making were guilty of blasphemy in my eyes. Kaiten sushi places in the US were always more about atmosphere and location.
The kaiten sushi in Japan, on the other hand, had no frills. Here, it wasn’t smoke and mirrors. The room of the restaurant would usually be a rectangular, commercial space with neon lights, very little décor, bare walls and basic furnishings. All there was room for was the big conveyor belt in the middle of the room.
Most places had roughly twenty to thirty seats, with enough room in the middle to fit two or three sushi chefs.
Maybe that was what I loved most about the kaiten sushi—it wasn’t about appearances. It was purposely unpretentious. They served good, fresh sushi, and that was about it.
An older lady brought over our tea mugs, and I thanked her with a nod of my head.
That was another thing I loved about it. It didn’t get better than hot green tea with sushi—well, unless you had sake.
Plates upon plates of sushi scrolled right in front of my eyes, slowly making me forget about the butterflies in my stomach.
Amos said we didn’t need to overthink it, but this was a date and we both knew it.
He’d kissed me, we’d touched, and I was dying for it to happen again.
I wanted it to happen again.
I wanted him, but part of me was so scared.
“Are you not going to eat?” he asked as he looked at me staring at the plates.
“Of course I’m going to eat.” I glanced his way and noticed he already had a plate of maguro in front of him—my favorite. For some stupid reason, it made me smile.
He gave me a shy grin, his eyes sparkling with that kind of excitement that comes with beginnings. We held each other’s gaze for a few seconds then he reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze.
I took a deep breath. I could have stared at his eyes forever.
What was happening to me?
Was I lying to myself? Did I have feelings for him?
I shifted my attention to the conveyor belt again, trying to decide what to pick first, and Amos went back to the plate in front of him.
He had lifted the piece of tuna from the rice and placed it in the little dish with the soy sauce.
Apparently, I had missed him asking for additional wasabi, but clearly he had because he was now placing a pinch of the green paste on the molded rice. That was such an American thing to do. Unlike sushi in the US, the kind they prepared in Japan always had plenty of wasabi. There was virtually no need to request more, unless you wanted to test your limit with the green, spicy radish. I glanced around us, and of course no one else was using extra wasabi.
I looked at one of the chefs, expecting to see a scolding look in our direction, but he and the others were entirely too busy filling the empty spots on the conveyor belt with more plates of sushi.
I picked a plate of tuna rolls and instinctively said, “Itadakimasu,” under my breath. Although it could be compared to the French bon appetit, itadakimasu was more said by the person who received the food as a thank you.
I picked a roll with the chopsticks and placed it in the soy sauce. I picked it up again, making sure to pause with it over the dish for a moment so I wouldn’t drip soy sauce all over the place, and then I opened my mouth to accommodate the roll.
I hummed when the mix of rice, fresh fish, seaweed, and soy sauce teased my taste buds. I could taste the wasabi, too; it was just enough. Any more and I would have had my nostrils prickling and tears filling my eyes.
There was a ritual about eating sushi, and although I felt like I was on a mission to eat as much as I could when I entered one of these places, it was still an experience, different from when I’d sit down for a burger or even a bowl of katsudon.
Breaking out of my initial daydream-induced hesitation, I started grabbing plate after plate. Each one had two pieces of nigiri, or six small rolls.
There were no fancy, elaborate rolls like they made in the US.
California rolls were the equivalent of pepperoni pizza in Italy—it simply didn’t exist. I was never too much of a fan of any of those, anyway. One of the things I loved the most about sushi was its simplicity.
I ate my food slowly, enjoying each bite, trying not to think about my companion for the night and what the future might hold for us.
Before I knew it, I had seven little plates collected in front of me, piled up like a tower, and I was sipping on my second cup of hot tea. I loved the individual faucets where you could pour yourself more steaming water.
Seats around us emptied and filled up again. The chefs kept working tirelessly, exchanging very few words.
Soon enough, it became evident that Amos was trying his hardest to give me space. We exchanged a few glances and a few smiles but didn’t talk much, and for that, I was thankful. This was not the place to have a private conversation, and our gaijin faces gave us away enough already.
However, despite not talking, I could feel Amos’ eyes on me the entire time, and it made me a bit uncomfortable; no one looks classy eating sushi, especially if you try to do it the Japanese way.
One of the first things Maggie and I were taught when we got to Japan is that you never break the piece of sushi. You are not supposed to take a bite out of it. If you are eating a piece of nigiri, whether it’s salmon, tuna, or shrimp, you’re supposed to put the whole thing in your mouth.
For that reason alone, I didn’t want to have anyone looking at me while I ate sushi.
I took another sip of my green tea and glanced over to Amos. He’d just finished working on his tenth plate—shrimp nigiri, I guessed from the little tails left behind.
“Ugh!” he said in a high-pitched tone. “Put too much wasabi on that one.”
“You’re insane,” I told him jokingly, taking another sip of tea.
He glanced my way and smiled, suddenly looking slightly more relaxed.
“I’m stuffed,” he said, his eyes never leaving me. “Are you still hungry?”
I shook my head no and placed my cup on the Formica table.
“Very well. Let’s go, then. Give me your plates.”
I put my plates on top of his so he could pay for them at the cashier stand, as was customary, but my dishes and his combined amounted to almost twenty. Even though they were made of plastic, they made for a very dangerous tower to carry around in the snug, busy place.
It was a game of Jenga waiting to happen.
He let out a low chuckle and an amused smile stretched across his face. He divided the plates into two towers to take them to the cashier, and I followed.
“Gotchisosamadeshita,” I said with a slight bow to let her know how much we’d enjoyed our meal. Amos echoed my words, and then we left after saying thank you.
He held the door for me, and I bowed. It was an easy habit to pick up when you were there.
The sky had gotten darker, but the small, busy streets of Shimokitazawa were bustling with life and lights. Pachinko parlors, restaurants, hip clothing stores…the little neighborhood had everything. I’d read an article that said the neighborhood was about to undergo major renovation before the Olympic games. The updates were supposed to split the neighborhood in two, and locals were wary about it.
It was going to change the landscape of this unique, lively environment.
“Thank you for dinner,” I told Amos.
“You’re very welcome,” he replied with a nod.
Tension grew in my stomach, thinking about what might happen next.
I had been fantasizing about the two of us being together for a long time, and now that I could finally act on it, I felt nervous.
“Amos?”
“Yes?”
“Why…why did you come into the bathroom earlier? Why did you feel the need to follow me in there?”
He stopped in his tracks, hands in his pockets, head hanging for a second before he brought his gaze to mine.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. That was a bit of a shitty move, wasn’t it? I just needed to talk to you. I needed to let you know everything. I’ve been holding on to the news of my split for so long, and you were the only one I wanted to tell.”
His tone was apologetic, but his expression wasn’t what I expected. He looked worried, eyebrows drawn together, as if he had something else he needed to say.
He continued, “I wanted to tell you many, many times.” He smiled uneasily, and I felt my heart swell in my chest. I didn’t like how much I was feeling around him.
I felt much too vulnerable.
He pressed his lips together in a tight smile and spoke again.
“I honestly didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want you to lose your focus while we were here.”
I rolled my eyes and scoffed at him. “Look, I like you, but if you think you could make me lose focus, you’re mistaken. Nothing could distract me from finishing this fucking comic, not when my life depends on it, not when it comes with a big giant ‘don’t fuck it up’ disclaimer.” I couldn’t live with myself if I got all lost in him and messed up such a momentous opportunity.
He smirked, and I didn’t understand why.
“What? Wipe that smirk off your face, please.”
“You said you like me.”
My mouth formed an O, suddenly realizing what words had passed my lips.
“You can wipe that frown off your face, Lena. I have good news. I’ll let you in on a secret: I like you, too,” he said, leaning in for a kiss.
I pushed him away.
“In the middle of the street? Are you insane? No one kisses in public in Japan.”
An amused smile stretched across his face.
“I’m dying to kiss you again, Lena,” he whispered, kissing the back of my hand.
Desire and anticipation took control of my body, and I felt like I was floating a whole foot above ground. Yet, instead of walking back to the train station, we kept walking around the little streets of Shimokitazawa until we came across one of the less trafficked ones off the main road.
He gave me a wicked smile and took one of my hands. He pulled me into a little tiny alley that was barely large enough for three people to walk through. We moved into a corner of the wall of an apartment building that was partially covered in ivy.
He gently pushed me backward until I was pressed against the building, surrounded by ivy leaves.
His eyes pinned me. He cradled my face with one hand, the other around my waist.
My heart soared when he lowered his lips to mine.
The kiss in the bathtub had been unexpected, passionate, and messy.
This one was slow and building, as if he wanted to stretch out the moment and live in it a bit longer. His lips covered mine over and over again, tasting, cherishing.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered before demanding access with his tongue. I surrendered to him. This kiss was the powerful one I remembered, the one I could never erase. It burned and danced, like the flames of a campfire.
The more oxygen we gave to it, the more the fire grew.
My heart raced inside my ribcage, beating rapidly.
Adrenaline coursed through my body, granting me the rush I always chased.
However, there was something sweeter, something more intimate about this kiss than the ones I’d shared with strangers, even than the one I’d shared with him before.
I ached for Amos in a way I never had for anyone else.
I could feel it in every part of my body, from my toes to my fingertips. The need to touch him, to kiss him, to worship him was almost unbearable.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and ran my fingers through his hair, leaning into him as he ground his hips against mine.
Mother of Diana Prince, I could feel all of him.
His hard chest pressed against mine, and I couldn’t stop fantasizing about being naked with him again.
Why hadn’t we done it before we left the house?
Oh, right—because I was an idiot.
We’d had months of verbal foreplay when it was all there could be between us, and now…now I felt like my skin was on fire.
I needed to have him.
We’d cracked the egg, opened the door, and now there was no going back.
For once, I didn’t want to look back. I didn’t want to stop.
I wanted to go forward.
Only forward.