Tokyo Love (31 page)

Yuriko suddenly remembered. “Hiroshima?” Kathleen would be leaving for there in the morning, with the Mashida PR team. She had sent Yuriko a text earlier that night, asking to hang out. Yuriko had been in her apartment then and she had almost immediately left it, afraid Kathleen might try to come over. Yuriko didn't want to see her. She wasn't sure what she would do if she saw her.

So she had done what any sensible Japanese person does when trying to forget their problems, she went out drinking alone. Now she was here, listening to Shannon from Texas prattle on about the sights she saw in Hiroshima and the food and the weather. She was loud.

Kathleen had been quiet. She had been afraid to even go into the local grocery store. While Kathleen had struggled to figure out the train system in Japan, Shannon had been traveling the world all by herself. She had been taking on odd jobs, staying in the houses of people she just met, learning new languages as she sat on trains or in airplanes to a place she had never been to before. She was currently sitting in a cheap fast food restaurant, chatting to a complete stranger and laughing all the while.

“Was it hard to leave?” Yuriko asked suddenly. “I mean, moving from America?”

Shannon shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, it was a bit terrifying. I was barely twenty-one at the time. But I had been thinking about this for
ages
. So I was pretty pumped.” She snorted. “Though, it was a pretty steep learning curve when I first got to Korea. I feel like I learned more in those first two weeks than I have in five years.” She waved a hand. “Not that I'm not learning still. I mean, I used to think—” She continued on.

Yuriko didn't mind the noise. It gave a good background as she finished her beer and ate her food. It made her feel like she wasn't like the rest of the people around the restaurant. She might still have some life still in her.

When she met Kathleen, she saw someone lost, and maybe Yuriko had wanted to help her. Help her live in this country and understand it, but stay true to who she was. A foreigner, maybe, but just simply a person from another place. A person who had learned how to live here, but not be crushed by the culture. Instead, enjoying it. Enjoying it because she was foreign and could enjoy it in a way that a native could not.

Kathleen was traveling now and learning more. Yuriko knew she would handle it. Yet Yuriko wished she could be there. To see Kathleen flourishing, being excited about new experiences. To be there when Kathleen needed support. To be there when Kathleen would turn to her, face in awe, as if just realizing for the first time just how incredible this world was. Like maybe Yuriko was incredible for bringing her there.

“Hey, you okay?”

Yuriko realized she had been staring into her empty bowl. She nodded, a little hurriedly. Shannon was leaning forward. Yuriko noticed that her eyes were green. Kathleen's eyes were brown. Maybe that color wasn't as interesting as green or blue, but it was always the color Yuriko had envied since childhood. A color to keep quiet with. A color to stay unnoticed.

“What brings you out tonight?” Shannon asked. Her voice was softer now, more delicate.

The lonely people. The people Yuriko could walk by and judge and pretend she was above it all. Above the hurt and the heartache. Above the childishness and the weight of it all. Maybe Yuriko was what she wanted back in high school. She had learned to be Japanese. She had learned to keep her thoughts and emotions close to her. Not to bother others. Be strong and be part of the crowd.

She realized that when she told Kathleen that she might have loved her, she should have promised it. She should have said it long before. Before Ai had told her to stop holding back. Before she had told herself to hold back.

Shannon was waiting for an answer. Yuriko wasn't sure if she could stand the silence. “My … girlfriend broke up with me.” It was a partial truth and the partial lie. Yet it felt good to say it like that.

Maybe she and Kathleen hadn't been girlfriends, but they had been more than friends. Now it was over.

Shannon's eyes widened and she suddenly reached out, pulling Yuriko into a one-armed hug. She smelled like cigarettes and minty soap. “God, I'm so sorry. That's rough. That's so rough.”

Yuriko didn't think she was crying, but she might as well been. Her chest felt raw and open. Her every breath raked against her ribs. Shannon didn't even know her. She didn't even ask for more details.

Perhaps that was for the best. Maybe then, for just a moment, Yuriko could pretend that it was all simpler. That she could be cured with a night of irresponsible drinking and comfort from a total stranger. She could pretend tomorrow that she would wake up with a new breath in her lungs, a fresh hope in her heart.

She would forget this moment, in which she wished with all her heart that she could be holding Kathleen instead.

“Have you ever had that moment when you've been talking with a friend about something strange or funny that had happened to both of you, but then when you describe it, you both say something completely different. Like, even though you both went through it together, it was like you hadn't at all. Or you just made it up or something … ”

Dave was lounging in his computer chair, holding an oversized Christmas mug with a penguin riding a reindeer on it. He was wearing a rather subdued woolen sweater, but it was covered in old wrapping bows and bits of tinsel. He was the kind of brother that would turn a perfectly classy sweater into an ugly Christmas sweater by the end of the holiday.

He sat back in the chair, closing his eyes for a minute. Kathleen was worried he might actually fall asleep. It was rather late and everyone, including her parents and Dave's wife, had already gone to bed. However Dave was a trouper, and possibly still sipping the spiked eggnog, so he was up and talking to her.

He opened his eyes. “Well, if it's something stupid like you both saw your neighbor watering the plants with nothing but an open robe on a gusty day, then, yeah, your recollections could be different.”

Kathleen grinned, resting her chin on her arms. She was sitting in the living room at her table, but she might as well been lying on the floor. She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and even this late morning hour felt like twilight. “Mr. Garrison definitely had some old tighty whities on, okay? Which was alarming enough.”

Dave grinned, shaking his head slowly. “It was
nothing
, sister. Your sweet naive pre-teen mind just couldn't handle seeing your neighbor's junk. I understand.” He stared off slightly. “He was an alarmingly impressive gentleman.”

He shook himself and Kathleen wondered if he was trying to rid his mind of the image, or was simply shaking it back into the filing cabinet of his memory. To be brought out again at the next dinner party her parents would try to throw.

“But,” he continued, “if it's something important, like … like the first time you tell someone you love them, then you both should probably remember it the same.” He waved a hand. “I mean, more or less.”

Kathleen lowered her eyes. “What does it mean when you don't?”

“It means one of you is lying.”

Kathleen looked up, surprised to find that Dave was staring at her. Not in a judgmental way, not mean or piercing, but like he knew she was going to tell him exactly what he wanted to know. He didn't look drowsy anymore and Kathleen realized she didn't feel so tired. She was still exhausted, but that was different.

“I-I think I met someone. .”

Dave nodded. “I guessed that already.”

Kathleen felt her chest tighten. “You already know?”

He shrugged. “Well, not any details of course. But you used to call about three times a day when you first got there. Then, just out of the blue, I'm only hearing from you once a month. Maybe an email in between, if I'm lucky. You did the same thing with Brandon, you know. Just drop us family members like dead weight.”

Kathleen frowned. “I've not— I'm not like that!”

He rolled his eyes. “Don't take it personally. I really don't. And Mom and Dad are used to not hearing from you for weeks at a time anyway. Besides, I was kind of happy. Figured you finally found someone who could help you out over there.” He sat up a little straighter. “So when can I finally have a good online man talk with your newest boy toy?”

Kathleen tried to grin, she really did. “It's not like that. I mean, in a lot of senses.” She groaned, digging her fingers through her hair. “It's just been so
complicated
and dumb and new and strange and … and I don't even know.”

Dave paused, biting his lip. “It's a woman, then?”

Kathleen dropped her hands so fast they banged against her table with a loud sound. It
hurt
. “What? How did you know?”

Dave breathed out in relief, smiling. “Oh, thank God. That was a total shot in the dark and it would have been so awkward if I was wrong.”

Kathleen didn't care for his relief. Her heart was having palpitations and her palms really did sting. “Wait, how did you guess?”

“Seemed like a good guess.”

“Yeah, but like, based on what?”

He waved a hand. “I dunno, you acting weird right now. Honestly, Kathleen, it's nothing to freak out over.”

“
Nothing to freak out over
,” Kathleen muttered under her breath. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much she had been freaking out for months now. “Do I seem like the kind of woman who is … into other women?”

“If you are asking if you are some sort of stereotype, then no. But, you've always seemed like the kind of person who attracts people to you. It was only a matter of time before a woman approached you and you decided to give it a go.” He paused for a second, and then leaned forward, eyes concerned. “You do know that it's okay? To be bisexual, I mean. I'm not judging you and there's no reason to be ashamed of it or anything like that.”

Kathleen flushed and looked away. “I mean, I guess I know … it's just not something I expected. I think I'm still getting used to the idea that I'm bisexual.” She hesitated, looking at him again. “Do you really think I attract people?” She tried to sound teasing and not like she was totally fishing for more compliments.

Dave smiled sweetly. “It's the way you are so hopelessly pathetic. It's very endearing.”

She would have smacked him, but he was just a projected image flying thousands of miles through the internet connection. So she smacked the table, wincing when she forgot that she had already done that a few minutes before.

“Her name is Yuriko,” she started. “She actually works for Mashida, in Engineering. I've had this big project lately and it turns out we're neighbors. She's been a real help.”

Dave raised his eyebrows. “Just a help?”

Kathleen gave him a withering look. “We became friends,” she stated plainly. “We'd go out with other coworkers. Or she'd help me with the grocery store or riding the trains. She was the one who showed me Nikko. And, well, a lot of things actually. She showed me more of Japan than I had seen in the months since I've got here.

“Okay, so when can I meet this Yuriko?”

Kathleen felt herself deflate again. “It's not. We aren't like …
together
or anything. I mean, it's just been complicated and I've been … ” She couldn't even admit how utterly in denial she had been.

Luckily, Dave didn't try to press a confession from her. Maybe he did understand when it was fun to tease his sister and when it might send her into an emotional meltdown. “Do you want to be together?” he asked slowly.

It was the same question Kathleen had been asking herself for months now. Long before she was willing to admit that she just might have had feelings for Yuriko beyond friendship. “It's not easy to say. I mean, I've just moved to a foreign country, I've been trying and failing to figure out how to live on a day to day basis,
and
I've got this huge promotion and project and responsibilities. I know I'm more than a little emotionally fragile and, well,
needy
.”

She couldn't quite meet Dave's eyes.

“Sometimes it felt like I knew exactly what I wanted from her. Felt it so strongly that I did stupid things. What does it mean, when I take a step back, when I'm alone and away from her, that I second-guess everything? Did I read the signals right? Even the signals from myself? Did I really know what happened? Did I make it all up?”

She breathed in, ashamed to find herself shaking. She looked at Dave then, afraid to blink in case she started crying.

“How could I think of being in a relationship with her when I'm not even sure my feelings are real?”

“If you feel them, they are real.”

Kathleen opened her mouth to protest, but Dave held up a hand.

“Just listen, okay? I mean, I know feelings aren't the kind of thing we can just pull out of ourselves and put them under the light while taking a few steps back. Hell, I'd even say they aren't the kind of thing we can give to a person or have them taken from us. They are just … symptoms. When things, bad or good, happen to us, our brain tries its best to analyze it and either make it happen again or never again. Then we have feelings.”

He gestured with his mug, sloshing the liquid inside.

“If your brain decides that it is a good thing when you are around Yuriko, it's going to make you feel good. It's going to make you feel like you don't want to leave her. Or that when you aren't feeling good, you want to go to her. I know you can't live your life obeying every chemical reaction of a lumpy grey organ. It's not a matter of whether your feelings are real or not. It comes down to if she betters your life and you better hers.”

He paused then, looking into his mug. Kathleen wasn't sure if he was expecting her to speak. She wasn't even sure if he was entirely sober. He had never spoken to her like this. Even when Brandon broke up with her, he had given her a comforting hug and tried to tell enough bad puns to make her laugh. Of course, while she had been hurting at the time, she wasn't confused like she was now.