Removed – Chapter 2

I stare after Miko as she follows her father to the back office. She won’t be gone long. The place is too packed with people to neglect the staff on a busy night like this.

“Sanaa?” Helena snaps her fingers in front of me. “Wow, look at the spell that came over you.”

Heat rises to my face, and I wish the izakaya was a little cooler. Reaching into my obi, I pull out the fan I placed in the folds after Aunt Kimie wrapped me up, open it, and fan myself until I feel calmer. His face is now permanently burned into my memory.

“Saké and food would be good about now,” I say as I motion to Sono. Sono’s been working at the izakaya for the past eight years. He’s a sweet man, close to sixty years old, who refuses to stop working. And why would he when he has the best memory for faces and what they like to drink?

“Happy birthday,” he says as he leans forward and gives me a peck on the cheek. “Tofu teriyaki, rice, and saké?”

“Of course.” I need a distraction from the handsome one I had a mental affair with in the span of ten seconds.

“Same for me, Sono,” Helena says and then lowers her voice to whisper.“Bring the saké first. I think Sanaa may need it.”

Without moving left or right, he reaches down into the bar back and puts two small cups on the counter and a whole chilled bottle of saké between them. That man is always prepared. “Cheers, ladies.”

Helena pours saké for us both and lifts her glass. I match mine to hers. “Happy Birthday and Happy New Year.”

“You, too, Helena.”

We clink glasses and drink. Delicious.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so distracted by a guy before. Not even Chad.”

I blink and try to pull myself out of my head. “Well, Chad’s just my work friend. We’re not dating.” Helena raises her eyebrows at me, and I burst into a laugh before taking another sip. “I don’t consider sex once a month dating, especially since I have no feelings for him… at all. And I could never date someone I worked with again. Remember Joshua? What a mess that was.”

Joshua, another guy I was head-over-heels in love with when I first started working, was a six month trial of patience. He had two distinct personalities: eager to get into my kimono or barely knew I existed. He’d take me out to the movies, to the love hotel where he’d be so eager for sex he wouldn’t even take my clothes off, and then the next day, wouldn’t acknowledge my presence. It was maddening. I would think I was being used for sex then he would declare he loved me in front of our friends. Two days later, he’d blow me off. Finally, I told Joshua to go to hell, and he started dating someone new the very next day. What an asshole.

I tap my foot, nervous energy bubbling over down my arms and legs, straight to my hands and feet. When is Miko coming back?

Helena eyes me, and, as she’s about to needle me more, Miko returns to us.

“It’s as I suspected,” she says, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes. “A few weeks ago, my parents were talking about getting an matchmaker involved in my love life.”

“What?” Helena and I both say at the same time. Why would Miko need a matchmaker?

“Yeah. You know mother and her crazy idea I’m going to die an old maid. Well, I said, ‘Fine, yes, hire the damned matchmaker and we’ll see where it gets us.’ That,” she points to the empty room, “is where it gets us.”

“Really? They’re arranging a marriage for you?” Helena pales, her eyes wide.

“No, no. Just some dates, but…” She stops and thinks for a second with a faraway look in her eye. “He is kind of cute, right? And from an influential family. Hmmm.”

The wheels turn in Miko’s head. Influence is good when you run a place like Izakaya Tanaka. She may have better luck getting the permit they need for colonization with help from his influential family.

“What about the brother?” I ask, and I hope I don’t sound desperate at all because, boy, do I suddenly feel desperate. I should have gotten up and talked to him, or something! Anything. But the moment was over so quick.

Miko smiles at me. “The older one is Yoichi. He’s twenty-four. The younger one is Jiro. He’s twenty-two.”

Jiro.

Now I have a name.

“My father suggested they come back after midnight so I can meet him. ‘Firsts of the New Year’ and all that. I never knew my father was such a sap.” But by the way her shoulders melt and her breath puffs out, I can tell she knew this already. She only needs to think about how her father has always doted on her.

“Firsts of the New Year” are all of the traditions we do on New Year’s Day to make the year go smoothly. I may not have grown up in Ku 6, the Japanese Ward where the majority of Japanese in Nishikyō live, but my aunts have kept some of these rituals alive in our home. Like the extensive cleaning we do before New Year’s Eve and our first temple visit tomorrow, we have also put much stock in the other New Year’s traditions. Each year we eat our first dinner together on New Year’s Day, and I sit down to write the first letter of the year to each of my aunts on my beloved rice paper stationery. I wrote them my first letter when I was almost five and it was mostly scribbles, but I know Aunt Kimie and Lomo have kept every single one of them hidden away in their drawers as if they were sacred poetry.

So it’s possible I may see Jiro again after midnight. I will have to keep my cool until then.

Miko goes back to work checking on the last occupied private room. After a minute of silent saké drinking, Sono arrives with our food. The kitchen staff is fast tonight.

While we make our way through our tofu and rice, Helena and I talk about work. As kids, we both enrolled in the city fast-tracking education so we could earn more as young adults and enter the work force early. She was originally going to be a doctor but she faints at the sight of blood, so she chose massage therapy. I chose to be an engineer like my father. My mother, a chemist, was also intelligent like my father. They died in an explosion before I turned two, a completely freak accident.

My mother was Japanese. From her I got my most favorite features including my straight black hair and the freckles. She also gave me her thin figure which I was fine with until two years ago. Aunt Kimie says I look just like her. My father gave me his wit that always makes Aunt Lomo laugh, his English pale skin, rounder eyes, and the temper I have to keep in check at all times.

Our attention is brought to the door as the staff all shout “Welcome!” to Miko’s mother. She enters the izakaya in a flash of dark red kimono, her short, graying hair perfectly swept back in a beautiful silver comb.

“Girls,” she says, approaching us. “Happy birthday, Sanaa.” Her birthday wish is punctuated by a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’ve grown up into such a fine, young woman. Kimie and Lomo must be very proud.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Tanaka.”

Miko comes out of the kitchen and bows slightly to her mother before they embrace in a small hug. Mrs. Tanaka is a formal woman.

“Miko, I’m here to relieve you early. The restaurant is not too busy. You should spend the time now with Sanaa and Helena.”

Helena and I were so absorbed in our conversation we didn’t realize the bar has quieted. This happens every year right before midnight. The majority of people eat and drink up and then head out to spend the last hour before the New Year at a temple or private party.

In long-standing tradition, Miko, Helena, and I will stay here till around twelve-thirty and then visit the little neighborhood shrine two blocks over before Helena and I head home for the night. Miko will stay behind and help with any stragglers until they close up at three.

Instead of moving to a booth from the bar, we snag the last open private room, and Miko invites in the young guys who were at the bar to come sit with us. A few more girls show up from the shops down the street, and they join us too. But I park myself next to Helena, nod, smile, and do my best to make small talk because I am definitely not interested in any of these guys. I’m daydreaming and wondering where Jiro and the other men went to after they left the izakaya.

Helena catches sight of the clock on the wall, and one of the guys reaches into his bag, pulls out his tablet, and switches to the Nishikyō News Service. They are already streaming the midnight countdown from Ku 1. A huge crowd of people mill about the Administrative Ward’s central plaza, decked out in every possible kind of party clothes, but mostly kimono since Nishikyō is seventy percent Japanese.

Only three minutes left in the year 3102. I’ve decided I’ve been prosperous enough. This year I will wish for love, and I’ll make sure that I don’t look at any of these guys when I do because, oh gods, not in a million years. I’m not kissing any of them when the clock strikes midnight. No, thank you.

One minute left and Miko fills up cups around the table. Helena is tucking wayward strands of hair back into her twist. I am replaying those ten seconds of eye contact with the mysterious Jiro in my head again. Obsessing. I’m already obsessing over it.

Twenty seconds left in 3102. I’ll be twenty years old. I can move out and get my own place soon, and in two years, I’ll be on a ship and hibernating for the long voyage to Yūsei.

Five seconds left. Four, three, two, one.

“Happy New Year!” We all clink glasses and drink. Miko, Helena, and I get involved in a three-way group hug that makes us laugh and laugh. I’m glad I didn’t have to make eye contact with any of the guys at the table because I love these two the most.

“Wishes,” Miko whispers at each of us.

We close our eyes, bow forward a little, and clap our hands in front of our face twice in a prayer position.

Please, gods, bring me love and happiness this year. Bring us all love, excitement, and happiness this year. Surely, we deserve it.