Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp’d town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,

But am betroth’d unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

John Donne, “Holy Sonnet 14”

Today’s title is a bit too cliché for my liking. But after two friends used this phrase to describe me, I couldn’t ignore it.

As far as memorable experiences go, Tokyo spared me none. 

22 April 2023

• 11:20-11:35 Shinjuku Isetan to Jin-nan-itchome bus
• Tokyo Rainbow Pride festival at Yoyogi Park (3h)
• Shibuya Scramble, Miyashita Park
• 16:06-16:12 Shibuya station to Shinjuku station train
• Clubbing in Shinjuku ni-chome

Another slow morning. Breakfast at hotel, and back to my room for two hours.

Tokyo was overcast and cold. Shinjuku, quiet and empty. Today was Saturday. Where was everyone?

This changed once I left the local Shinjuku neighborhoods. For a second, I thought I was in the countryside.

After my two-day trip to meet the Japanese couple, my only plan for the weekend was to attend the annual pride festival at Yoyogi park.

Tokyo Rainbow Pride Festival

I took the bus there. Immediate confusion. I had to board it from front door, pay, and get off from behind. Instead of using a separate change machine, the coin slot doubled as one. There was also a screen displaying weather forecast, information on transportation, and local news.

All of this was in diametric opposite to the rest of Japan.

After surviving the election period in the Kansai region and those boisterous cars with megaphone screaming, I found out the hard way that this was election period in the Kanto region.

So I hurried to the park, and saw rainbows everywhere. Drag queens and cheerful people; men in skirts and high heels. A truly gay atmosphere, in every sense of the word. My Luigi bag got quite a few compliments.

“There are my kind of people,” I thought happily.

The theme song for this year’s pride was “This Hell” by Rina Sawayama, from her recent second album.

There were booths of various companies sponsoring the event. I talked to a couple of representatives from Greenpeace, and learned that Japan tied with Israel as the world’s biggest consumers of single-use plastic. In both countries, this was driven by the culture: orthodox Jews used them to avoid washing dishes during Shabbat (and got used to using them on weekdays as well), while Japanese people ate in convenience stores on a regular basis.

I hated both this fact and the sponsoring companies for capitalistically shoving themselves into this celebration. But the people were fun. I signed up to the parade tomorrow, having come early enough to snag a spot in the first group. This being Japan, you had to join a specific group, rather than simply show up.

Then I walked around the booths and the rest of the festival. Speeches and musical performances. All in good order. Yet I couldn’t really make conversation; no one seemed keen to exchange more than a few sentences. I was about to leave, when I heard it from afar: sad… piano… music.

“Even here?” I scoffed, and returned to the performance stage. A short film was playing. A lesbian story, and not a happy one (at first).

After three hours at the festival, this was my sign to leave.

Shibuya Scramble

I walked to Shibuya Crossing. It was as crazy as I’d pictured it: hundreds of people crossing one intersection at once, in every direction, but somehow in perfect order, too. This was organized chaos. Not messy or overwhelming, but a feat of design and cooperation.

Near the intersection stood Shibuya 109, AKA a Japanese girl’s version of paradise. Eight floors of fashion and make-up catered to the local teen. There was also a six-floor branch of Loft, where I drooled at journals (my current one was nearly finished).

Stores everywhere sported rainbow colors. I disliked it.

I continued to Miyashita Park – not really a park, but a mall with Shibuya Yokocho at ground level and a hang-out spot on the roof: skateboards, rock climbing, a bazaar, some greenery, trains zooming left and right, and planes flying overhead. People everywhere and noise and everything happening all at once. This was the madness that was Tokyo.

It was also windier than other cities in Japan, despite the multitude of buildings. As if the wind didn’t want to be forgotten.

I took the train from Shibuya station and walked back to my hotel. From 17:00-22:00, I wrote hours about the last few days, feeling the pressure to get everything off my system. Finally, at 22:30, I went out.

My First Clubbing in Shinjuku Ni-chome

My hotel was no more than a five-minute walk from Shinjuku ni-chome, Tokyo’s queer nightlife capital.

Once again I was struck by the difference two or three streets could make. From utter silence around my hotel, to pavements bustling with people on their night out. Tiny bars whose patrons stood on the pavement because there was no room inside. It reminded me of London.

After touring around, I entered a club. My first one. I was nervous, but this trip had been about trying new things. So the time had come.

There was a line at the entry and a exorbitant entry price. Inside, I could barely move. It was more crowded than a rush hour train in Tokyo.

I got sake and headed to the dance floor.

It was weird at first. I never danced. Ever. A few people were standing in the back with their drinks in hand, looking uncomfortable. I forced myself to not join them.

So I started to dance. I mimicked other dancers at first, who seemed like they knew what they were doing. I slowly let loose and got into it. But I was very self-conscious, and examined myself in the mirror. I looked weird.

It didn’t help that there was a couple right next to me on a mission to break the world record for longest kiss in history. They sucked each other’s faces like oxygen masks in outer space.

I became hot, and took off my jacket. The entire place kind of reeked by this point. Cramped and sweaty. It appeared as though I was the only one who’d come alone. If other solo dancers were in the club tonight, they had already found a companion.

Suddenly, I felt déjà vu. This packed night club was just like my night at a Buddhist temple in Koya-san. Those two places could not have been more different from one another, could not have offered more opposite experiences. Yet both made me feel the happiest and saddest I’d been.

I enjoyed dancing and partaking in a happy, queer vibe – yet felt out of place and solitary.

A Japanese guy took me aside, gave me a wireless earphone, and played Nicki Minaj. We listened to both the song in the club and the song on his phone. It was nice, but didn’t really work out, and soon enough we headed in different directions.

I returned to my spot in the middle of the dance floor, hoping for another encounter like this. It didn’t come.

After some time, I decided to close my eyes and stop worrying about my appearance. To stop noticing all the kissing couples. That was when I truly let loose.

Not knowing who was around me, how attractive they seemed, how better-looking and better at dancing they were, and whether they were watching me, made all my inhibitions go away. I moved my body. I danced. I focused on my physicality and the music blaring in my ears, the lyrics I was screaming, the songs that gave me joy.

Bodies moving all around me, I let the sea of people push me, move me, relocate me, without seeing where my feet landed on the floor. Nothing mattered at this moment: the spot I inhabited on the dance floor, the way my body swayed to the rhythm, my inability to compete with the superior clientele. I felt déjà vu again, this time to Shodoshima, where I’d cycled up to the top of a deserted mountain, gazed at the view beneath me, and screamed with pure bliss.

I felt free.

I’d never expected a nightclub to trigger that. If you’d told 14-year-old me he’d be dancing at a gay club – a place that had used to both tantalise and scare him – at 28, and completely let loose…

No sooner had this thought occurred to me, than I managed to crack a smile. I stopped worrying about the people around me, about making a fool out of myself, about being the odd one out, and grinned, and chuckled, and laughed. I could not believe it. Could not believe my actions at present. Was this me? Was this really happening? Was I actually having fun?

Yes, I was, it was, and I felt on top of the world.

As singers continued to roar and dancers continued to push me with their moving bodies, a pair of arms touched my torso.

I opened my eyes. A Japanese guy was holding my waist, laughing uncontrollably. He was so chortling so hard, it was as if he’d sniffed laughing gas.

“ちょっと待って！” (“wait a second!”) he kept yelling, while I followed his lead and danced with him. He could barely stand up straight from all the laughter.

I supposed I really had embarrassed myself, after all. He excused himself and left the dancefloor to calm down. Slightly disappointed, I returned to my blind spot in the middle of the crowd, and danced with my mouth wide and eyes shut.

That was when another set of arms got a hold of me.

It was a guy wearing a cat outfit. We danced together – one thing led to another – and I found myself competing with the couples who had vexed me earlier.

Soon enough, he led me outside.

My first breath of fresh air in around four hours. Four hours of nonstop dancing. My ears were ringing. I felt like I’d had permanent hearing damage.

We found a quiet corner, where we sat and talked for a while. He was a British student of video game music in Tokyo. We both preferred Japan to our countries of origin, and saw ourselves living here. Expect he’d managed to do that, at least for the time being.

“Are you high?” he asked. He thought I was drunk, or took some drugs. My uninhibited dancing gave him that impression.

“No,” I said. “I had one sake. This is actually my first time clubbing.”

“It is?”

He was surprised. I explained my lifelong avoidance of clubs, and the inconceivable fun I’d just had.

“So you were basically high on life,” he said.

I was taken aback for a minute. It was a phrase I hadn’t recalled hearing before. At least not in relation to me.

“I want to use this as a title for my next post,” I said. By now, he’d known about my blog.

“No, that’s so cliché.”

“True. I probably embarrassed myself way too much already…”

“Yeah, that was kind of embarrassing,” he said. “But that’s why I approached you.”

The more we talked, the more we found out how much we had in common. Certain anime we both loved. Running a website dedicated to our passions. Dreaming of a career in arts. He had also given himself an unorthodox name. Every revelation like this made way for disbelief and laughter. Lots and lots of laughter.

There wasn’t any other way to react to such fortune. We were both so incredulous, that it was exhilarating.

He had the most mesmerising blue eyes. A voice I could listen to for hours. A British accent that had somehow become American.

Who was this person? Was this really happening?

I went to bed at 4:00, no longer a castaway in an ocean of superiors.

Today’s highlights: the atmosphere at the pride festival; the organized chaos at Shibuya Crossing; the pandemonium at Miyashita Park; clubbing for the first time; and hanging out with the British student.

23 April 2023

• Tokyo Rainbow Pride parade (~5h)
• Light dinner at a random standing bar in Shibuya
• Clubbing in Shinjuku ni-chome at night

Tokyo Rainbow Pride Parade

This morning, the British student and I attended the pride parade. I donned my lime-green jinbei and a tacky plastic ring I’d found at the same secondhand shop in Kyoto that read “BITCH”. Today was the excuse I’d been waiting for to wear it.

Right before boarding the train in Shinjuku, however, I realised I’d forgotten the bracelet I’d gotten yesterday for the group I’d signed up for.

We split up. He headed to Yoyogi park, to see if there were any last minute vacancies, while I ran back to my hotel.

My ears were no longer ringing.

With my bracelet around my wrist, I made it to Yoyogi, just in time to queue up with the group. I put on a ring I’d found at the secondhand shop in Kyoto where I’d gotten my

 I let him walk with me, thrilled not only by my lack of solitude, but also by having found such great company.

The parade kicked off.

We walked alongside dozens of other participators. Bystanders cheered and applauded. I waved at them, incapable of erasing the smile on my face.

It was the happiest atmosphere I’d reveled in, and a fine first foray into pride parades. Too fine, perhaps, since it was so merry and peaceful.

“It’s my first pride without homophobes,” the British student remarked, having attended a few in England.

There were security guards and police officers, yet no need for them. Everything was nice and orderly. I’d had a feeling Japan would be the place for me to dip my toes into such an event.

The only thing that bothered me was the hunch that most of the people walking the parade with us were heterosexual. No doubt they meant well – here to show their support – but it did feel a bit invasive.

After a short and uplifting hour, the first group finished circling Shibuya and Harajuku. I was sad to return to Yoyogi park. I felt as high as last night.

Soon enough, the British student had to leave, and I found myself alone again in an endless crowd.

Like yesterday’s festival, it seemed no one else had come by themselves. I struggled to make conversation. So I stood in line for half an hour or more for some food, and uploaded pictures from today to Instagram.

Feeling defeated, I decided to head back to my hotel.

I walked with another group, seeking to recreate the high from mere hours ago. After a few minutes, I noticed a couple holding a sign that said “love” in Japanese, English, and Hebrew.

They were visiting from Tel Aviv. We chatted for half an hour or so. They had some time to kill before their group joined the parade, yet didn’t seem too eager to meet again tonight.

Feeling even more defeated, I felt my phone beep.

“Are you at pride?” the Dutch girl from Mt Yoshino and Takayama texted me. “I’m on my way!”

I couldn’t have been happier that I’d opened an Instagram account. Time after time, it had proven itself as the best way of keeping in touch with new friends.

Back in Yoyogi Park, we reunited for the second time this trip. She introduced me to another tourist she’d met in Japan. The festival didn’t feel so alienating anymore.

We sat on the stairs and talked. I told them about last night: how I dipped my toes into dancing, felt awkward, closed me eyes, and let go, so much that people thought I was drunk or on drugs.

“Wait, so, you weren’t high?”

“No! I was just having fun.”

“You were high on life, then.”

I did not expect to hear this phrase again, let alone as a description of me.

After a couple of hours, it started to get chilly. The three of us walked from Yoyogi Park to a standing bar in Shibuya, where we ate and drank. I had the best time with them. We ran around Shibuya Crossing at night, reveling in the turmoil. It was as busy as daytime. The moon was shining brightly between the skyscrapers. We all stopped to gaze at it and snap photos.

Longing to return to the dance floor, we decided to call it a night. I returned to shower and change at my hotel.

Shinjuku Ni-chome… Again

This time, I danced in three different clubs. It was less crowded than yesterday; tomorrow would be Monday. I went through the same process of feeling self-conscious and awkward, getting into the vibe, becoming surrounded by couples, and closing my eyes to focus on the moment. Once again, I let go.

It was an out-of-body experience. I kept imagining myself from above, squashed inside a dark club, eyes shut, dancing and laughing. I couldn’t believe this was my life.

But the night led me nowhere. No one put their arms around me. No one sought my company.

I left the third and final place at 1:00, solitary and doleful.

On my way back to the hotel, three police officers on bikes ambushed me out of nowhere. They’d witnessed me do something in an empty alley with a stranger who’d danced next to me earlier tonight.

I was tired from hours of dancing. My ears were ringing from the blaring music. They’d asked me if I’d been drinking. I was so worried about getting into trouble, that I grew wide awake.

That might’ve proven my sobriety to them. Yet they still went on to perform a full body search on me, examining every single pocket, the inside of my socks, my bag, my wallet. It was one of the only times when I went out in Japan without my passport.

The officers rebuked me for it – the law required tourists to carry passports with them at all times – but my Israeli ID and hotel card sufficed. I explained my trip in Japanese, apologising all the while.

I was both extremely unlucky to have had police officers catch me in a bad moment (why were they patrolling the area to begin with? They hadn’t done so last night), and extremely lucky to have been let off without punishment or a warning.

It was ironic how boring my life used to be, before this trip. Israel had given me rock bottom and ennui; depression and close-minded people. Japan, on the other hand, was a country where the places I visited were singular, and the people were different. And so was I – doing things I’d never imagined, going through experiences I’d never dared to pursue. Not even as a teenager and a university student had I felt such a rush.

Today’s highlights: my first pride parade; reuniting with the Dutch girl; my first standing bar; clubbing for the second night in a row, dancing and going through an out-of-body experience; and surviving a police inspection.

24 April 2023

• The Embassy of Israel in Tokyo
• Bar in Shinjuku ni-chome at night

The Embassy of Israel in Tokyo

Another night of brief sleep. Breakfast at my hotel was free, served until 9:00. I couldn’t afford to turn down free food.

It was ironic how my room had soundproof windows that completely blocked all noise from the city, while the walls let me hear a neighboring guest cough loudly all night long several days in a row.

My plan for today was simple. Visit the Israeli embassy, and think about my future.

The last two and a half months had been the happiest of my life. Despite all the hardships and low moments they’d brought. I didn’t want to leave Japan.

I put on a jacket and zipped it all the way up. My throat looked like it had been punched. A violent hickey had taken up its left side.

After taking the train to Yotsuya station – my first time going east from Shinjuku, even after six days in Tokyo – and walked to a district with embassies and businesspeople.

I couldn’t find the Israeli embassy, though, and must’ve seemed so out-of-place and lost, that one of the many police officers situated on the streets approached me.

He directed me to a phone booth, where I spoke in Hebrew to an Israeli man from the embassy.

“I want to check if I can extend my stay in Japan,” I said. A Swiss guy I’d met a few weeks ago had told me he had extended his three months into six.

“I can’t help you,” the Israeli man said. “Go to the embassy of Japan in Tel-Aviv.”

What.

Apparently, the Israeli embassy in Japan only dealt with Japanese residents who went to Israel; not the other way around.

I tried to explain my circumstance to the Israeli representative, and ask for his advice. Yet he wouldn’t listen. He cut me off impatiently, and told me to look for help elsewhere.

My dislike of Israeli people suddenly resurfaced.

Worried about my impending inability to stay in Japan, I returned straight to my hotel. It was still morning. I had the whole day to sightsee – yet traveling wasn’t on my mind today. Only the end of this trip.

I spent the rest of the day in my room, scouring the internet for information. My head was heavy with thoughts and concerns.

“What would you do?” I texted the Ukrainian girl from Kyoto, after telling her about my dilemma.

“I would stop and feel the stillness,” she texted back.

I wrote this sentence down as soon as I read it.

“How are you not a poet?” I replied.

“I am,” she said.

We talked on the phone in the afternoon, and later, in the evening, I hung out with a Japanese local. That eased my mind a little.

Shinjuku Ni-chome… Again

At night, I went out to ni-chome, for the third night in a row. This being Monday, almost everywhere was empty. My favorite club had turned into a quiet bar with five or seven patrons. I approached a Singaporean guy, and we talked for a while. He seemed more keen on chatting with a group of Thai tourists, though.

The night ended earlier than the last two, as I found another local guy to pass the time with. I had fun again. But I was also tired, tired from two nights of clubbing, a week (or months) of inadequate sleep, and days of worrying about my future. Today came to a close without making any progress and reaching a conclusion.

Today’s highlight: hanging out with the two locals guys, by default.

25 April 2023

• Lunch: vegan curry at Coco Ichinbanya
• Afternoon: karaoke
• Night: Arakawa River

A Magical Day-Long Date in Akabane

Another day of no sightseeing. I met the British student at his place near Akabane Iwabuchi, an unobtrusive residential area in the northern outskirts of Tokyo.

We spent the whole day talking. He’d prepared a list of questions to ask me, having read every single post on my blog more than once. The list was long and personal. I wasn’t used to being asked so many questions.

He was very observant. Perhaps a little too much. He asked me things I was reluctant to answer, and made remarks I’d have preferred he hadn’t.

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

We differed in many aspects, such as taste in music and food, but shared enough things to compensate that.

Lunch was vegan curry (my first curry in Japan! I was stuffed); afternoon was a karaoke parlor (another first in Japan). My vocal cords were a mess after one hour of singing. But we both picked favorite songs, and, as Rina Sawayama said in her first album, ended up “singing our hearts out to Carly”. He specifically chose “Run Away with Me” after I’d featured it on my blog.

At night, we strolled around his neighborhood. Narrow streets and alleys that led to dead ends. Tiny apartments and the rare sight of an elderly local. So quiet – so dark – so deserted. The opposite of Tokyo.

He took me to his favorite passageway. As short was it was narrow. It felt like a different city, in a different world.

We’d entered a pocket reality, in that brief moment, standing still and listening to the nothingness. I was a bit restless, worried about intruding. These were streets I wasn’t supposed to inhabit.

Finally, we walked to the nearby Arakawa river, where he often went to pass the 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. To me, it was all just a mixture of bad luck and coincidence.

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

“That’s just Japanese people being nice.”

The sky was exceptionally bright tonight. Or, as I’d soon learned, every night. Light pollution made 22:00 seem like 19:00. There was no need for a streetlamp.

We sat on the bank. The water was flowing quietly yet swiftly. It was darker here, and silent.

Bats were flying above us. The smell of petrichor. The tip of my shoe forming ripples on the river. The only sound was us exchanging a few words, and vehicles on the distant bridge. Sometimes ducks were quaking.

It felt like déjà vu. It was the second time on this trip when I’d spent a full day with someone I’d felt an immediate connection to, and discussed everything with. Personal problems and topics that made me cry. But he was also the first one to have read my blog back-to-back, more than once – and talk to me about it, show me certain scenes that he had screen-shotted, pictures he had saved. I hadn’t expected someone to do all that.

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

Sitting on the bank with him at night was one of the many moments I immediately knew I would remember forever. He read this as I was typing it. It felt like we were alone in the world.

He asked me more questions. I found myself talking endlessly about the people I’d spent time with on this trip.

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

It didn’t feel like that. People might have enjoyed my company, but I wasn’t sure they were interested in what I had to say.

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

“They are.”

This was the moment when it hit me. Being read was the same for me as being seen. In the absence of the former, I would never feel the latter.

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

When I’d started this blog, I’d had this fantasy of being read by people. People who would be excited by certain sentences I’d written, who would want to hear about my adventures, who would inquire about certain occurrences, and ask me when I would post the next chapter. People who would enjoy my writing so much, that they would share it with others.

Before today, I’d only met one other person in Japan who had come close to that.

“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. I want them in my life.”

He couldn’t relate to that.

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

I’d never felt that.

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

We walked to Iwabuchi water gate, AKA Suicide Bridge. Nicknamed thus after bodies of people who had jumped from the bridge had gotten washed to the water gate. A destroyed, faceless Jesus statue stood nearby, to commemorate the victims.

It was getting late. Time to head to the station, before I’d miss the last train.

Neither of us wanted to part. But something beyond my control made me hesitate. I couldn’t invite him to Shinjuku.

That was a tough moment. He said “okay” and left me standing at the entrance to the station, walking away without looking back.

He ripped the band-aid off so fast, that it hurt even more.

I froze on my spot. Today couldn’t end like that. I couldn’t let the final note to be rejection. Not after telling him things I’d never told anyone and crying multiple times in his presence.

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

He came back. We confessed what was going through in our minds.

“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. Talked some more. 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 came face to face with the two Israelis I’d met ten days ago in Hida onsen.

“NO WAY,” I exclaimed in Hebrew and wiped my cheeks. “What are the odds?!”

We had a few minutes of chatting until my stop. Indeed, what were the odds of running into them in the world’s largest city? In such a crowded train?

I was happy to see them again. But I didn’t get to run into the one person I’d wanted to see in Tokyo.

After this reunion and train ride, the British student gave me a quarter of an edible.

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

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

“You smell like a bookshelf,” he said. “Like a cosy library.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, sniffing myself. I smelled nothing.

“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 and wobbled from lack of balance. This was probably its effect on me.

Today’s highlights: vegan curry; for once, a good karaoke experience; that narrow alley near his place; Arakawa River at night; running into the Israelis; and finding someone who saw me.

26 April 2023

A Magical Day-Long Date in Shinjuku

Another whole day spent with the British student. We had lunch at a local cafe in Shinjuku (my first crème brulee in years! so delicious that I was moaning), visited secondhand shops, and hit an arcade. The latter was as mad as I’d wanted Tokyo to be: full of colors and sound effects, Japanese youth glued to large screens, playing rhythm games and hitting buttons faster than the speed of light. The highlight for me was racing against the student on Mario Kart, one of my favorite video games.

Evening came, and with it the time to say goodbye. Not for the last time – we’d made plans to see each other in a week – but it still felt conclusive, somehow.

At Shinjuku station, by the ticket gates, surrounded by infinite commuters darting around us, we embraced. Tears damped my mask. This went on for a while.

I closed my eyes and focused on this moment. Soon, we wouldn’t be able to see each other.

“I miss you,” I said in a weak voice. We parted ways.

Outside Shinjuku station, Tokyo was rainy and misty. The bustling streets struck me as sad, the neon-lit skyscrapers as alienating. I felt anonymous again, a nameless being ambling solo in a dense megalopolis.

I limped back to my hotel, my left foot still hurting for some reason. The road back, which I’d memorised by now, allowed my mind to wander.

Perhaps I wasn’t alone in the world. Perhaps there were people out there who truly cared about me. But they were too few to make the world seem like a better place.

What was the point of making such deep connections, if they were about to end What was the point of fulfilling my dream of traveling Japan, if it was bound to end? What was the point of working and existing in a reality that no longer spoke to me?

I could’ve focused on the auspicious fact that all these things had happened to begin with. Instead, I pondered on their dissolution.

Love, in its many forms, might await me in the future, waving from the end of an arduous road. People conditioned all their happiness on it. For some, life revolved around friendship and romance. But love couldn’t pay the bills. Love couldn’t buy food and a bed to sleep in. Not even love could fulfill your dreams.

If something so pure couldn’t change the reality I was stuck in, what could? Was the world this corrupt, this irreparable, this indifferent?

I’d never been resistant of change. I’d been changing so frequently over the years, that I could no longer recognise the individual who, less than three months ago, had boarded a plane. But a person capable of relinquishing his ideals and coming on terms with their impracticality – that was someone lightyears away from me.

Today’s highlights: creme brulee; the insanity of the arcade; and sharing an intimate moment at the heart of the world’s busiest station.