“You see that buddy over there? I fucked him. See that buddy over there? I fucked him too. I never thought I’d see them again.”

Sex and the City (season 1, episode 3)

Everything is the Opposite in Japan

Never underestimate the sexual contents of the homosexual brain. Even when dying of heat and jet lag, studying Japanese at school, and being swamped with relocation errands, it would drift to rainbow-filled pastures from its past.

Kissing Ryder, Ben reminisced in class.

Cuddling Ryder.

Feeling his bare ass.

No amount of homework or difficult words could distract him from bygone pansies, even when surrounded by classmates who struck his fancy.

Sandro’s sand-coloured hair, ocean eyes, sharp bone structure, and Received Pronunciation made Ben stifle his sighs. Shin’s short shorts revealed thin, tanned legs. When Ben got paired with the latter, he surprised him by speaking Korean.

Meeting a Korean as delicate as Shin, who had grown up abroad and was fluent in English, was like encountering a unicorn. Yet it was Nathan, a German software engineer, who captured Ben’s attention the most. His eloquent speech and nerdy passion turned a simple explanation of non-ionizing radiation from cell phones into fascinating lore. Ben stared into Nathan’s large, blue eyes, and felt right at home.

Still, Nathan worked evenings, and barely had free time. When recess gave the opportunity to mingle, Ben’s classmates spent it on their desk, glued to their phones.

He grumbled in the hallway. Was it that hard to exchange a few words?

When the teacher asked the students to read a passage out loud, they muttered. Shin spoke so softly, that it sounded like a high-pitched whisper.

Nathan was the only one who talked with enthusiasm and exhibited a sense of humour. The rest seemed serious to the point of being dull. Ben felt silly making jokes in class and reading the written material in a loud voice.

Maybe I should tone myself down.

He struck up a conversation with Zelda about apartments while munching on chocolate and walnut bread. She lived in a new, foreigner-friendly flat in Ebisu three times Ben’s budget. Her social nicety seemed genuine enough to make him try to befriend her.

In the afternoon, a new real estate agency rejected him off the bat.

“Foreigners cook smelly curry,” the agent explained in Japanese. “It bothers the neighbours.”

“I’m not Indian,” Ben said.

“They throw a lot of parties,” the agent said.

“I’m a student looking for a small apartment.”

“It would be hard to convince landlords to trust a foreigner.”

Ben smiled through his anger. When Nathan had looked for a large apartment with his Japanese ex-girlfriend and begged to pay upfront two years of rent, the landlord had spurned him.

Was this how black people felt in the US? Asians in the West, or Arabs in Israel?

All his life, Ben had been rejected for his individual characteristics, such as personality or appearance. Now, automatic noes were thwarting his efforts, due to an attribute he had no control over. His nature could evolve, but his ethnicity was forever. He’d never emphasised it in his identity – never prided himself over his Ashkenazi Jewish heritage – and now, it was foiling him.

This was my grandparents’ past in Europe. And the present of Jews all over the world, ever since the new war.

Everyone at school lived in foreigner-friendly share houses or apartments 45-minutes away. Their location was far and their rent was overpriced, because they had turned to English-speaking realtors.

Refusing to settle on these two conditions, Ben was determined to find a cheap apartment in Shinjuku, where even Japanese people struggled to get their hands on one. Every agent and classmate who heard this desire laughed.

Yet he continued to visit Japanese-only agencies, learning real estate vocabulary instead of words used in class. He had three weeks left in his share house.

Then there were the move-in fees. In Japan, one didn’t pay just rent: landlords also threw in expenses at the beginning and end of the rental period. Cleaning, lock change, deposit, fire insurance; guarantor, brokerage, and management fees. Worst was key money – a present for the landlord. All of this could amount to six months’ rent. To make matters worse, only foreigner-friendly agencies offered one-year contracts.

A mouse was squeaking as Ben hung his laundry. He hated Tokyo at that moment. Money talked all over the world, but here, values took precedence. Respect was thankfully the foremost ideal – until a tenant wished to pay for a vacant apartment, but couldn’t even meet the landlord and prove that he wasn’t a delinquent.

Today was thirty-seven degrees and seventy-five percent humidity. A flash storm was rumbling every evening lately. Constant sweat didn’t exactly facilitate Ben’s psoriasis. Weather, errands, and classwork would leave him no time to go back to dating – and this was just his second week here.

*

The next day, he met the real-life, Japanese version of The Incredibles’ Edna Mode: his new favourite teacher. They wrote essays for the first time; Ben and Nathan checked each other’s.

Mr Perfect’s obsidian eyes, the former pictured in his head. Mr Perfect’s long, chiselled figure.

Nathan struggled to understand much of Ben’s kanji and grammar. His essay was rife with errors and unnatural phrases. But when he explained cosmic radiation to Ben during recess, none of this mattered.

Next year, he would return to Germany. Ben swallowed his disappointment.

Shin would leave after this term as well. Who among my classmates would become my friend, considering our limited time together?

After school, the staff introduced him to the other Israeli students. Two guys and three girls from the other levels. They seemed nice, until one rose above the rest.

Oksana was a Ukrainian-born goth with a slow, Russian accent. No sooner had Ben sat with her in the common area, than an hour flew by.

“I had the same experience when I came here, and it hasn’t gotten any better,” she said regarding the anti-social vibe of Ben’s level five class. “No one’s opened up yet.”

This was coming from a level two student. Several beginner students hung out in the common area every day, did homework, and ate lunch. Those in the upper levels, however, were already too ingrained in their routine to expand their circle. Moreover, they already knew each other.

“Are people really content spending a year just studying and working?” Ben complained.

“It’s so sad,” Oksana said.

He wondered if his classmates simply dismissed his company, the way ex-lovers had.

Mr Perfect’s weird, Eastern European accent.

When Ben caught sight of Oksana’s bunny trinkets and mentioned visiting a rabbit shrine in Kyoto, goosebumps spread all over her arms.

“You don’t understand, I love bunnies,” she trembled in excitement.

The school staff helped Ben with a new, potential apartment. Its prime location and mint condition didn’t match the suspiciously low rent. The staff checked the listing on a Japanese website, which showed if a tragedy had struck certain buildings. Fire, suicide, murder. Nothing whatsoever.

“You’d better go see it ASAP,” the staff said.

Ben ran to the property. The agency’s day off meant that he’d enter by himself. The realtor instructed him how to unlock the mailbox containing the key, yet no amount of rotating the dial did the trick. It took him ten minutes to realize that the realtor’s left was his right.

Everything was the opposite in Japan.

The apartment was superb, apart from a balcony overlooking the street. Passersby could see right in.

Disappointed, Ben rushed to Kabukicho for his flatmate’s wrestling match.

Japanese girls in lingerie hosted the ‘show’. In a country whose female population dressed like puritans, this was quite the shock. The wrestlers pretended to fight, writhe in pain, and spank each other.

“Please be careful!” the announcer repeated as the crowd cheered. “Do your best!”

The male wrestlers stripped to their underwear.

Ryder’s maid costume.

A large penis.

After the match, Ben’s flatmates escorted him back to the apartment. Despite the central location, its street was quiet.

“If you’re not taking it,” the wrestler said in disbelief, “I am.”

The realtor was pressuring him to seal the deal. But it was out of budget.

“This is what I paid per month,” Nathan said regarding the apartment’s move-in fees.

“Well, we have different professions,” Ben said. “You have one, and I don’t.”

Ben wished to find a job in writing, and gain a readership. He wished to live near Shinjuku ni-chome, and return to the game of love. He wished for a stable social circle.

He wished the concept of money disappeared.

At 2:00, he went to bed. Every day was so hectic, that he barely slept six hours. He had not done homework once. Finding an apartment and writing this story came first.

An intimate hug, he thought, or any hug.

He forced himself to push dating to the back of his head.

Gays Gone Wild in Tokyo

“I am done with public toilet blowjobs,” Ha-joon said upon entering Ben’s bedroom, wearing gym clothes that left little to the imagination.

Thank god, Ben thought, devouring natto rice for dinner on his futon mattress.

“You were into them?” Will asked. His faded T-shirt and short joggers accentuated his apparent discomfort, as his legs bent upwards from sitting squashed between the wall and bunk bed.

“Not all of us can host, you know.”

“Tell me about it,” Ben said.

Will blinked in confusion.

“There are love hotels.”

“Some of us are poor,” Mayume said, sitting on the floor and leaning against a wall while glued to Instagram reels of Taylor Swift on his iPad.

“Poor with an iPad?”

“iPad Pro.”

“Sugar daddy,” Ben said. “I’ve been looking for a cheap, second-hand model for school. But I’ll take yours instead.”

“You’re the daddy,” Mayume said. “You can take it if you pay the price. There is one preferred way.”

“I’ll whore myself out for an iPad, I don’t care.”

“So you’ll impregnate me?” Mayume blushed.

“I’ll impregnate Mr Perfect.”

“Whatever,” Mayume said. “I’ll take your seed anyway.”

“To the grave,” Ben said.

Ryder’s support. Ryder’s sarcasm.

There was a momentary silence as Ben and Mayume competed to see who would smile first. Will seemed more absorbed in his Grindr chat.

“So, public toilets,” Ha-joon said.

“What now,” Mayume muttered.

“I went to this village the other day, and this guy from Hong Kong was the only gay there,” Ha-joon said. “He sucked me off at the only train station, and it wasn’t that great, because he looked at me in a lecherous way that made him look creepy, and didn’t suck well, and blowjobs don’t really do it for me anyway.”

Mayume let go of his iPad. “Blowjobs don’t do it for you?”

Ha-joon shrugged.

“The right one can,” Will smiled.

“Someone who lives one minute from my dorm,” Mayume said, “he’s super short, with thick bangs and a baby face –”

“Are you talking about yourself?” Ha-joon furrowed his brows.

“His long-lost twin,” Ben interjected between sticky, fermented bites.

Mayume got red in the face.

“He’s a nurse, ten years older than me,” he said. “He opened the door and immediately took me to his bed, but there were tons of Psyduck plushies on it.”

Will blinked again.

“A kind of Pokémon,” Ben said.

“And?” Ha-joon snapped.

“Oh, I blew him,” Mayume said.

“Okay, but the station manager showed up once we finished,” Ha-joon said.

“What?” Ben put down his chopsticks in disbelief.

“Are you getting deported?” Will asked.

Ha-joon crossed his arms.

“I didn’t even want that guy. I jerked off with my eyes shut just to get it over with,” he said. “Someone came in and peed at the urinals. He swallowed my cum, and when we left the stall, the station manager entered.”

There was only one stall in that restroom. The manager had inspected it as the suspects were washing their hands.

“It’s okay, he won’t do anything,” the swallower had whispered. “Someone must’ve reported it to him.”

Ha-joon had boarded his train to Matsumoto feeling guilt-ridden. Japan was stricter than South Korea. He hadn’t even kissed that guy, nor wanted to.

Then, the only homosexual in his next destination had badgered him for an impromptu fellatio, before his long-distance bus to Tokyo.

A tall Filipino wearing a cap and athleisure, he had done a better job at a larger restroom. They were alone and quiet. Ha-joon closed his eyes again to ejaculate fast. The Filipino had spat everything into the toilet, thanked Ha-joon again, and again, and again, and left.

“So what’s the problem?” Ben asked at present.

“He wasn’t even attracted to them,” Will said.

Ha-joon nodded begrudgingly.

“I met a tourist for coffee and went to his hotel,” Will continued. “He didn’t attract me, but I was horny.”

Will had laid in bed and wooed the French commoner to slow kisses. He’d sought time and touch; the latter had reached down south.

It was supposed to be a long evening of lovemaking. Will had envisioned his long-distance boyfriend as the tourist was servicing him. Yet the opening act turned out as the finale.

“I cleaned for nothing,” Will said at present. “He took a picture of my dick after I came, and that was it.”

Mayume’s eyes lit. “Can I see?”

“Go back to your Psyduck nurse,” Ben scoffed.

Ryder’s lips and wide smile.

“That was just a quickie,” Mayume shook his head. “He looked my age. Said he didn’t like being so small and adorable.”

Ben grinned.

“They do make them small and adorable here,” he reminisced.

“Their dicks are also small, not gonna lie.”

Mr Perfect’s perfect penis.

“The problem is shortness, and I don’t mean just size,” Will said. “Everyone’s in a rush these days. What happened to taking your time?”

The foursome considered this as Grindr notifications were popping on Will’s phone.

Gay dating enjoyed a world-class privilege: no biological clock. Females thought about kids, or their partner thought about kids, and the clock was ticking.

The downside to this male lack of despair: hookup culture.

Women were notorious for avoiding sex on the first date. Gays did everything in reverse. They met, made little small talk, and explored each other’s bodies, sometimes without even exchanging names.

“I guess you’re all pursuing empty love filled with one-night stands,” Mayume said.

“I’m not pursuing love anymore,” Ben said.

“You don’t deserve it anyway,” Mayume muttered.

Ben squinted at him.

“I just need a hot guy in my bed.”

Mayume hopped on Ben’s futon and smirked. The latter fastened the collar of his yukata.

Not the guy I meant.

“I can’t stop thinking about those kisses that lit a fire in my chest,” he sighed.

“You’re still in love,” Mayume swooned.

“With them, or the way they made you feel?” Will asked.

“You’re just horny, Benedick,” Ha-joon said.

“Then why do I fantasize about having one more conversation?” Ben asked. “Just talking and making each other laugh?”

Staring into Cal’s narrow eyes over trashy pizza at Costco.

“That’s the most dangerous form of longing,” Will said.

“The most beautiful,” Mayume said.

“I hate him,” Ben grouched and hugged his pillow. “He ruined my life.”

Will chuckled. “Which one?”

“Ha ha,” Ben pouted.

“Who cares,” Ha-joon said. “They probably fucked around while you were fucking them.”

If only we fucked around.

“I don’t fuck around,” Ben said.

The others burst out laughing.

“You fuck around all the time,” Ha-joon said.

Cal feasting on my ass. Ben joined the laughter, even though it had been three months.

“Grindr is like Pokémon,” he said. “You gotta catch ‘em all.”

Women played in the streets. Men played in the sheets. The latter didn’t believe in delayed gratification; life was too short, the fish in the ocean were too plentiful, and their hormones were raging.

In an era where homosexuals could come out of the closet, was same-sex love inside the closet?

A wild fairy appeared on 9monsters, the local gay app, every twenty to fifty kilometres in the countryside. They were usually of certain age and appeal. In Faglopolis, however, one roamed every meter. In ni-chome, ten guys every meter.

“Forty million residents, plus tourists, plus commuters,” Ben said. “Unlike most cities, here there will always be a new face.”

And the amount of going down that went down in the world’s shyest country…

Love hotels. Public toilets. Gay saunas and dark rooms. Hostels and capsule hotels weren’t off-limits, either. Ueno Park was famous for cruising.

Ryder teasing me with his ass at a hot spring.

????????Japanese guys from 9monsters said. (“Looking for friends”)

They usually started off using polite language, and replied casually once you did.

??????????????????(“Hello, nice to meet you.”)

 Then they requested access to your private album.

??????

?????????

??????

??????

(“I want to suck you and have sex”)

Although they rarely used ?????the word for the deed itself. It was too blunt for them.

To stand out on this packed grid, users could Howl: announce an intention on a separate screen.

“I want to meet right away” was the default.

“I can host.”

“I want to go for a drink.”

And, every so often, the gay who got straight to business…

?????????????(“I want to fuck or get fucked”).

English speakers were rarer than unicorns. Instead, each user was assigned one of nine monsters.

The gay community rivalled zoologists with its physical labels. Twink, bear, silver fox, otter. Anything to facilitate sexual attraction, and accelerate the game.

?? (“longsword”)  or ?? (“attacker”) meant top.

?? (“receiver”) or ?? (“cat”) meant bottom.

?? meant vers.

Biographies of Asians on dating apps often began, or were limited to, their body stats: height, weight, and age, followed by one of the above positions.

Moreover, one inquired about the other’s preferences in bed before even considering enacting them face-to-face. What if he wanted to do something you hated?

What if Mr Perfect didn’t want your tongue anywhere near his perfect posterior, Ben sighed internally.

A libertine didn’t simply check if the sex was good before things got serious. Good sex was precisely how things got serious.

Only hopeless romantics spurned bed hopping.

Meanwhile, heavy hitters levelled up on 9monsters. Other apps veiled the ranking system that ruled the rainbow kingdom.

Grindr, for example, catered to foreigners; Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge were the vanilla versions. Almost all the Japanese guys there could speak at least basic English. But there were still some Asians whose collection was “Asian only”.

Jack’d dominated in South Korea, while Hornet, in Taiwan.

No matter their country, no matter their shyness, every confirmed bachelor based their libido on Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones.

“What’s a good body count?” Ben asked as the others were texting guys on various apps.

“Oh, we’re not gonna go there,” Ha-joon said.

Ben didn’t dare ask for their stats. Too low, and you were a pariah. Too high, and you were a whore.

“I always wonder, but it makes me jealous,” Ben said. “Who’s the bigger player? It’s a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down into.”

“I thought you love going down holes,” Will said.

Then let me, Ben almost blurted.

Girls were either hard to get or slutty. Gays were either ugly or sexy.

Poo pirates loved sailing so much, that they had originated outbreaks of a sexually transmitted diseases outside Africa. HIV, monkeypox: somehow, whenever an admiral went on a safari, it brought a souvenir on board.

It got to a point where an HIV clinic or the line to a monkeypox vaccine became breeding grounds for fresh bacteria.

“They don’t play it hard to get,” Ben said. “They play it hard to get again.”

The first date was easy: it immediately led to sex. The second date was a fool’s errand.

Cal. Ryder. Mr Perfect.

“Fucking text him already,” Ha-joon said. “You’ve been talking about him for almost a year.”

“No,” Ben said. “He hates me.”

“But he contacted you at some point, right?” Will asked.

They all did.

“That was just the nostalgia talking,” Mayume said.

“Same way Cal texted me out of nowhere just to tell me about his new relationship.”

“Fucking block him.”

Ben frowned into his pillow.

“I can’t understand why he did that,” he said.

“Why, why, ?,” Ha-joon mocked. “You can bang your head against the wall, or just bang a guy against a wall.”

“Or get gang-banged,” Mayume said.

“They’re gonna do what they want no matter what,” Will said. “You might as well do the same.”

The Japanese Twink Who Gave the Best Orgasms

The morning after the Tokyo Pride weekend where I’d met Stephen, I woke with a violent hickey. My throat looked like it had been punched.

Evidently, a police search wasn’t the only outcome of a late-night lip service in the streets of ni-chome.

I zipped my jacket all the way to my chin. At the Embassy of Israel in Tokyo, I checked if I could extend my visa and stay in Japan.

“I can’t help you,” the staff bellowed through the intercom. “Go to the Embassy of Japan in Tel-Aviv.”

He didn’t even let me inside.

His Israeli rudeness made me grouch. The last two and a half months spent traveling in this country had been the happiest of my life.  

Tired and concerned, I returned to my hotel. A whole new day of sightseeing – yet traveling wasn’t on my mind. Only the end of this trip.

I spent hours in my room, scouring the internet for information about cheap travel destinations. My head was swimming with anxiety about returning to Israel.

“What would you do?” I texted Will.

“I would stop and feel the stillness,” he said.

In the evening, a Japanese guy came over. He was very short and vaguely cute. I wasn’t particularly into him, as toned as his abs were.

Then he opened up for me, and I ascended to paradise.

He pleasured me so much, that I ejaculated in an instant. It always took me a long time to see god, partially because I hadn’t been with a guy who had turned me on enough. But there was something about this twink’s giddy-up, loud moans, and back door. I didn’t even need to fantasize about greener pastures, or do anything but lie on my back and smile.

We dozed off in each other’s arms. When we woke, round two of his rodeo featured a wilder ride.

Then he left. Back to Osaka, his hometown. And I, brisk from sex that triumphed porn, returned to ni-chome for the third night in a row.

Monday did not match my energy. The bars and clubs were nigh vacant. I talked to a few guys, with whom I felt zero connection. The gay scene in Tokyo came to life on weekends, and died on weekdays.

But I had a mission. I would lead a fabulous lifestyle, despite never having sold a single word of my prose.

So another Japanese twink came to my hotel room. He was very young, very short, very vaguely cute, and had abs just as rock-hard. I pumped him for a long time, until we fell asleep midway through.

*

The next day, I woke tired. Tired from a wild weekend of clubbing, days of worrying about my future, and months of inadequate slumber. Stephen had a day off from university, so we met at his share house in Akabane, an unobtrusive suburb in the northern outskirts of Tokyo.

Old school video games, music posters, and anime merch filled his bedroom, fitting of a video game music composition major.

We spent the whole day talking. He’d prepared a list of questions, having read every post on my blog several times.

He was very observant. He asked things I hesitated to answer, and made remarks I preferred he hadn’t.

“I feel like you have constant anxiety,” he said. “You seem really anxious.”

I fidgeted nervously in his arms. Every now and then, we stared into each other’s eyes.

“I want your eyes,” he said in admiration. Even though he was the one with the large, piercing blue ones.

We differed in many aspects, such as taste in food and music, but shared worldviews. I sang to him a sad song I’d written – the first person to hear my music – and he stayed silent.

He took me to my first Japanese curry restaurant and karaoke parlour. Carly Rae Jepsen’s Run Away with Me was his choice, after I’d featured it on my blog.

At night, we strolled around his neighbourhood. Narrow streets led to dead ends; tiny apartments, and the rare sight of an elder local. So quiet – so dark – so deserted.

He took me to his favourite alley, as short as it was cramped. It felt like a different city on a different planet.

We’d entered a pocket reality, in that brief moment, standing still and listening to nothingness. I was a bit restless, worried about intruding on the neighbours.

At the nearby Arakawa River, he showed me the wooden deck where he often passed time.

I told him about the police incident from last night.

“It seems like weird things keep happening to you, and I’m not surprised,” he said. “You have this sort of gravitas.”

He couldn’t have been more wrong. It was bad luck.

“People constantly give you presents,” he insisted. “They take you on two-day trips and pay for everything.”

“That’s just Japanese people being nice,” I said, recalling an example of this from last week.

The sky was exceptionally bright. Light pollution made ten o’clock at night seem like sundown.

We sat on the bank. The dim river was flowing quietly yet swiftly. Bats were flying above us; grass smelled of rain. The tip of my shoe was forming ripples on the water. The only sounds came from our infrequent words, and vehicles on the distant bridge. Sometimes, the quacks of ducks.

It felt like déjà vu. For the second time this trip, I spent hours with someone I’d felt an immediate connection to. We delved into personal matters and topics that made me cry.

Still, he was the first person to read my blog back-to-back, and bring it up. To my surprise, he had screenshotted certain passages, and saved certain photos.

“I feel like you’re the first person to actually see me,” I said.

I knew that I would remember this moment forever.

He read this thought as I was typing it. It felt like we were alone in the universe.

Then he asked me more questions. I found myself babbling about the people I’d hung out with on this trip.

“See? You’re surrounded by love,” he said.

It didn’t feel like that. They might have enjoyed my company, but hadn’t seemed interested in what I’d had to say.

“You’re equalling what you write with who you are, as if they’re the same thing,” he said.

“They are.”

Suddenly, it hit me: being read was the same for me as being seen.

I’d been fantasising about acquiring a readership ever since I’d begun writing at the age of seven. Sometimes I wished I hadn’t. There were easier dreams to pick.

Stephen was my only reader.

“Because to me, you’re the coolest guy in the world,” he grinned.

“You wanna hear something weird?” I asked. “I don’t really miss people. It’s easy for me to move on. But now that I think about everyone I met on this trip… I would like to see them again.”

He couldn’t relate to that.

“When I think about the people I can’t see again,” he said, “it hurts.”

My heart sank in shame. He was seven years younger than me, but more experienced. I’d never ached like him.

“I think I’ll miss you,” I said, meaning it.

We walked to Iwabuchi Watergate, also known as Suicide Bridge. Nicknamed after the corpses of jumpers that had washed to the water gate. A destroyed, faceless Jesus statue stood nearby to commemorate the victims.

Then it was time to head to the station for the last train.

Neither of us wanted to part. Yet I was worried about my hotel barring him entrance.

“C’mon, it’ll be fine,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said, embarrassed that someone else had already stayed there. “I don’t think I can have you over.”

“Okay,” he said, and walked away.

I stood outside the station. He didn’t look back.

He ripped the band-aid so fast, that it burned.

“Stephen!” I shouted, chasing him after a minute of rapid thinking, or rather feeling. “I want you to come.”

I couldn’t let today’s final note to be rejection. Not after telling him things I’d never told anyone, and crying multiple times in his presence.

“I thought I’d never see you again, so I figured it’d be easier to just go,” he said.

We hopped on the train to Shinjuku. I found myself tearing up again. By Yotsuya station, where we switched trains, my face was damp.

I got into the second train – packed like sardines, despite the late hour – and stumbled upon two Israelis I’d met ten days ago in Takayama.

“No way,” I exclaimed in Hebrew and wiped my cheeks. “What are the odds?”

We had a few minutes to chat before my stop. Indeed, what were the odds of running into them in the world’s largest city, inside a crowded train?

I was happy to see them again. But I didn’t get to run into the one person I’d longed to see in Tokyo. The first person on this trip I’d fancied, and tried to find because we hadn’t exchanged numbers.

Back in my hotel room, Stephen gave me a quarter of an edible.

“This trip is all about trying new things, right?” he asked, after I hesitated to take it.

I put it in my mouth. He said it would take some time to kick in.

“You smell like a bookshelf,” he muttered when we got into bed. “A cosy library.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, sniffing myself, yet not detecting anything.

“I’m like a wolfhound,” he said. “I can always tell who’s at home.”

I dozed off before the edible could work its magic. Or maybe it did, and simply made me sleepy. I woke in the middle of the night, slightly lacking balance.

All’s Fair in Love and Real Estate

“If you could live in a perfect world and be God,” Nathan asked during recess, “would you give up your sense of smell and taste in return?”

The endless kiss with Cal that unified our bodies. Ben caught himself daydreaming, and echoed Sandro’s ‘yes’. Kacie said no.

“My girlfriend also declined,” Nathan said. He, Sandro, and Ben – three Western guys – failed to understand the two Asian girls.

“If I eliminate suffering, it would make people evil,” Nathan’s girlfriend had argued. “Suffering is a part of life.”

“But you use medicine, right?” Nathan had asked. “So you try to avoid it. You wouldn’t save your family and your dog and all of humanity in exchange for your taste buds?”

After several minutes like this, tears had welled in her eyes.

“I had no idea she felt cornered,” Nathan said at present. “As far as I’m concerned, discussing the necessity of suffering is like making small talk about the weather.”

His new Japanese girlfriend had said that no one had delved into such matters with her, and asked him to stop.

“But that’s sweeping it under the rug,” Ben said.

Mr Perfect’s tongue tracing my upper lip.

“We did get into the same argument again,” Nathan said. “I told her sixty times that I wasn’t trying to attack her, just figure out what my partner thought about suffering.”

Ben would’ve also interrogated her until making sense of her illogical stance.

“Either I’m dumb and have no ability to read the room,” Nathan said, mentioning a common complaint in Japan regarding foreigners, “or I’m just an asshole. Am I that socially awkward? Like, where’s the line? I can’t understand, is it a cultural thing?”

“She’s going to dump you,” Ben said.

“Yeah,” Nathan sighed.

He seemed more confused than upset.

“I want a partner with whom I can have these discussions,” he said.

Were Japanese people too reticent for that? Ben had never argued with a local before. He’d also never been in a relationship with one.

“Even the order in which they date is the opposite,” Nathan continued over lunch at a Thai restaurant, after Ben had invited Sandro and him. “They go out, do the ‘kokuhaku’” (confession of love) “on the third date, become a couple, and then have sex.”

Unless they were gay.

“Regardless of order, I believe that every relationship must endure two tests,” Nathan said. “A big change, and a big fight.”

With Ryder, Ben had survived neither.

Nathan pointed out how, when Japanese couples broke up, they returned to the dating scene the next day, as if nothing had transpired.

“You become a couple so fast,” he said, “that it carries less weight.”

In the Western world, people tested the waters across all three bases before hitting home run. A break-up actually broke your heart.

Ben looked down at his plate. His heart had been broken even without an official break-up. A relationship wasn’t a stage he’d reached, despite two months of dating, living together, and discussing weddings.

*

He spent the weekend in bed, writing for hours without getting up for food or a drink.

Missionary.

Cowboy.

Reverse cowboy.

Ryder’s incredulous moan.

His heart skipped a beat upon publishing the first chapter of this story. Months of preparation had led to this. Yet by the end of the day, none of his friends acknowledged it.

Sex and the City had premiered as a dark dramedy about the death of love. After viewership had risen, it had concluded as a fairy tale rom-com. But throughout its run, one detail had remained realistic: Carrie Bradshaw’s closest friends never read, let alone brought up, her columns.

Neither did Ben’s friends and family. After years of daily writing, pain from romantic defeats, and life-changing growth, nothing had made him prouder than crafting this new story.

He felt betrayed by every person in his life.

“Stop being such a baby,” he imagined Ha-joon saying. “People do what they want.”

“That’s why I don’t expect anything out of anyone,” Will would have said, if they were here.

He continued apartment hunting instead. Two weeks of daily searches had yielded several good options, which rejected him automatically.

In the evening, Ben’s first visit to the grocery store raised his spirits.

In Japan, supermarkets opened with a takeout section. Sushi, salads, grilled fish, noodles. Half off around dinner time.

Then there was fresh produce, packed and presented like in a hotel. Fruit and vegetables native to both the East and West. But the cherry on top were mini melons and square watermelons.

The fish section was a hunter-gatherer’s heaven. Fresh, clean, and cheap.

Finally, bagging stations prevented customers from holding up the queue at the cash register.

After indulging on daifuku and sashimi, Ben went to bed at three AM.

Doggy.

On the floor.

Against the wall.

Head buried in ass.

He woke too sick to leave bed or eat anything. He hated how his dreams depended on other people.

The following day, a middle-aged fisherman he’d met in Onomichi visited Tokyo, and offered to accompany Ben to a new real estate agency. The realtor showed them an apartment in Shinjuku that ticked off all his boxes: location, budget, and condition.

Mr Perfect’s tender whispers.

Perhaps it was the presence of a Japanese companion. Perhaps this agency had a different pool of properties. Whatever it was, Ben said yes on the spot.