Summer Haikus – Chapter 39

I can’t make it farther than eight miles into the ten mile morning run. I’m sick inside with stress over my inevitable new life, finding a new school, canceling classes at Michigan State, the possibility of losing Masa, and not seeing Halley again for many months. I’ve been holding it together for a week by will alone. Today, I just can’t do it anymore.

We pass the Imperial Palace, and I think, Wow, I can’t believe I’ll be living someplace with an actual emperor! An emperor, not a president. Not the United States, but Japan. My feet falter and my head swivels to watch the entrance over the moat fly by at Halley’s brutal pace. I hear that once a year on the emperor’s birthday, they open the inner grounds so people can come in and see the place for themselves. When I was in middle school, my class went to Washington, DC, and we got to see the White House from the fence across the front lawn, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument. This palace is a different beast altogether.

I slow down, Halley cruising out ahead of me for a dozen feet before she realizes I’ve fallen behind. I’ve slowed to a walk, my eyes scanning the wall past the moat, the people walking by us taking photos, and the Olympic flags and banners flying at ten meter intervals along the sidewalk.

“What’s the matter?” Halley asks, coming back to me. “Cramp?”

“I’m… I’m… I’m lost.”

“No you’re not,” she says, chucking me on the shoulder and glancing at her watch. “We’re only a few blocks from our turn.”

“I suddenly want to go home… really bad.” I shake my head and pace back and forth on the sidewalk, ignoring the stares of tourists around me. Strange cars race past. Japanese words chatter around me and my brain refuses to translate them. Even the signs look foreign and indecipherable. I suck in fast breaths, already winded from the run, but a panic attack is coming on, and I don’t think I can stop it.

“Hold on, hold on.” Halley grabs my arms and pulls me towards an empty bench. She sits me down and pushes my head between my knees without even asking me if that’s what I need. Blood comes rushing through my ears, a cramp stings in my side, and I howl, sadness leaking from my lungs.

“That’s all right. Get it out now. Get it out,” Halley whispers in my ear, her legs next to mine on the bench. “I wondered when you were going to lose it again.”

“Masa said… he said I make his life happy and he doesn’t want to go without me.” I suck air in and sit up. “And I just want to go home. I’m homesick. I want to go back to Michigan and my theater job and campus and classes.”

“I know, I know, sweetie.” She grabs my hand. “It must be so hard to know you’re not going back to Michigan —”

“Why can’t I go?” I plead with her, my eyes wide. “I can go back. I can.”

Halley shakes her head at me. “I’m so sorry, Isa. This sucks, but you have to stay. You can’t leave your mom and grandparents and the ryokan. They’ll be lost without you. Besides, the ryokan is important to you, and you’re good at it. You can’t give it up just because you’re scared. Masa understands. I’m sure he does.”

“He does. He wants me to stay, and he wants to stay, too. I know he does. But he’s going to have to go back without me.”

“Is his dad still giving him a hard time?”

I nod my head and remember our phone call from two nights ago. “‘Hard’ is an understatement. Now that I know more about his family, I get the impression his dad always hoped he’d take over the family business someday, and Masa has been slowly disappointing him each time he follows his heart to do what he wants.”

“That sounds so difficult.” Halley frowns. Her world has always been about her achievements, what she wants, and her family supports her, no matter what. We should all be so lucky.

“Family expectations. I’m living with them too. But his mom might be on his side.”

Halley perks up. “Moms are influential.”

I sit back on the bench and look up at the trees providing us with shade. “I think maybe she’s happy Masa and I got together. She’s been asking him questions about me, my family, and the ryokan.”

“Wait a second.” Halley grabs my arm and gasps. “What if you convince her to let Masa stay? Do you think she has as much say as his dad?”

“Maybe? I’m supposed to have dinner with them all on Thursday night. I actually had a little idea of something sweet I could do, just to show Masa how much I love him.” I blush rapidly and glance away from Halley, but she squeezes my hand and then tugs me to my feet.

“What’s that?”

“It’s silly,” I say, walking beside her. “But I remember how upset his mother was when he was dating Toni, and to hear that she’s not giving Masa a hard time about me makes me think she approves of me. Toni never cared about anything Masa liked — his art, his music, anything. I do. I thought I’d show him just how much.”

“I like what I’m hearing. And let’s not forget that you’re half Japanese with family here and a career ahead of you now. That’s always appealing to parents.”

I burst into a laugh, the pressure in my chest easing. “It’s not like I was a deadbeat to begin with. I’m sorry about the run.”

She waves her hand at me and puffs air through her lips. “Fuck the run. It’s not a big deal. I’m one week away from the Olympics!” Her voice booms, and she leaps into a dance, swinging her hips side to side, fingers in the air, before breaking into a hip hop routine I recognize from our dance and exercise class back at school. Foreigners in the background laugh and clap, and I laugh even harder as she bows and pulls me along.

“Now, tell me about your ‘silly’ idea on our run home.” She grabs my arm and prompts me into a jog. “I gotta run today because I have interviews tomorrow. Come on! Run, Isa! Run!”

She mocks Forrest Gump, and it takes all my willpower not to break down in giggles again and keep pace at her side.

—-

The arcade is relatively quiet in the middle of the afternoon on a Monday. I guess most gamers have jobs or school, and everyone else here is a foreigner, in town for the Olympics, only two weeks away.

“Do you know which booth you want to use?” Halley asks, clutching my cardboard posters to her side and looking down the row of purikura booths. Some display flashes of light behind closed curtains as people snap away at photos. The booth I want to use, the one I used with Masa, is currently occupied.

“The one there on the right, two down.” I fidget and look down at my feet in running shoes. I’m dressed in my favorite black and white striped shirt and easy crop pants. My makeup is perfect, and my skin is finally calmed down from my run with Halley this morning. I texted with Masa earlier, and he was so sick of his father, he bailed on them for a few hours and walked through Kamakura. I turn on my phone while we wait and glance at the last text message from him. “I wish I could just make him understand how important it is for me to stay and not go back to MSU. But all he can think is that I’m giving up, wasting his money, and I’ll be a bum for the rest of my life.”

His father has no idea how committed Masa is to his art when he has the time to work on it. If anything, I could see Masa being more committed to an art degree than communications.

I glance at my poster boards in Halley’s arms and wonder if I’m doing the right thing. What is he going to say when he sees what I’ve done? What real impact will this have on anything?

“This is a bad idea,” I say, turning from Halley. “I don’t see how doing this is going to make any difference in the grand scheme of things.”

“No, no, no,” she pleads, grabbing my arm as I try to make an escape. “This is a great idea! It’s perfect for you two. You should definitely do it.”

“It’s stupid.”

“It’s not.” She stomps her foot and hardens her face. “It’s sweet and romantic, and you should show everyone how you feel about him. He should know, and his family should see and understand how important this is.”

I swallow hard to keep from throwing up. Nerves are making my arms jumpy.

“You’re doing this.” She pushes me towards the booth, now vacant as the people inside have moved on to decorating their photos.

We enter through the curtain, and I set my purse on the ledge, select English as my language and get the whole situation set up with my name, email, and payment. The clock starts to tick down to my first photo so I position myself in the center of the frame and prepare to smile.

“Okay, Halley, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Halley stands outside the booth, the curtain cracked wide enough to hand me my poster boards as I ask for them.

“Here,” she says, handing me my first board.

—-

“More than air or sun”

—-

I smile, holding the first line in front of me, the phrase decorated with a sun and whooshes of curly, blue air. Click.

—-

“Better than a perfect run —”

—-

I look down at my poster board of words and drawings of sneakers. Click.

—-

“Spending time with you.”

—-

I smile and turn my head to the side so I don’t cry. Click. It’s the only haiku I’ve ever written. I know it’s amateurish and trite, but I spent hours thinking about what I’d say, what could possibly express how I feel about him, how he’s more important than the things I love most. This was what I came up with.

Halley hands me my last poster.

—-

“I miss you, Masa.”

—-

Click.

I stand with the poster at my side and let the photo booth take another picture of me before Halley jumps in and squeezes me tight for another.

“You did awesome. Let’s decorate them now.”

We take the photos from the booth once they’re decorated and make our way through the Metro back to Akasaka.

“What do you want to do after this?” Halley asks, threading her arm through mine.

“Go back to work? I made a deal with my grandparents that I’ll work overtime at the ryokan for a higher salary so I can either fly home to Michigan once over the winter or fly Masa here. If we don’t break up when he leaves. Anyway, I need the money. I don’t want to live with my grandparents forever. I’d like to get my own place.”

“Hmmm, have you turned on the advertising on your YouTube channel yet?”

“Nah,” I say, bumping into her side. “No one really watches my channel anyway. I can’t imagine turning on ads brings in much money.”

“Turn it on. Any money is better than no money.” She nods her head at me as we walk into Masa’s apartment building.

“Excuse me,” I say, approaching the front desk and the woman sitting behind it. I pull out an envelope from my purse. “I need to leave this ticket for a friend of mine in apartment 605. Can you put this in his mailbox?”

“I’ve seen you here before.” She smiles and bows at me. “Of course.”

I glance at the entryway and remember walking through the doors, laughing and smiling with Masa, holding his hand as we went up to his apartment to spend much-needed alone time together. Halley elbows me in the ribs to bring me back to reality.

“Just a moment.” I slip the ticket to the marathon in the envelope, flip over the purikura photo collage I made, and write on the back, “Because I don’t believe anything is important unless it’s in a haiku.” I add it to the envelope and write, “To, Masa. Love, Isa,” on the front. The woman at the front desk takes it from me with both hands over to the mailboxes and places it in box 605.

On our way out of the building, I text to Masa, “I left the ticket and a little gift in your mailbox. I can’t wait to see you on Thursday. xo”