“Rules!” Mika sent another koala sailing toward David’s mussed hair. He caught it and popped it into his mouth, then turned to me with both eyebrows raised.
I laughed. That was his Inside Joke face. The face he made when we’d watch episodes of Flight of the Conchords in computer science instead of doing work. When he’d make up stupid songs about my hair and sing them in the lunch line. Or when we’d sit next to each other at school assemblies and he’d slip me one of his iPod earbuds. It never ceased to amaze me that David—funny, charismatic, outgoing David—wanted to spend so much time with me.
“Rules?” David swallowed. “What rules?”
“We went over this,” Mika said.
David grinned. “Did we?”
“Don’t be an ass,” Mika said. “No making fun of Jamie tonight. No strutting around and pissing on your territory, okay? Tonight is not going to be Middle School: The Sequel.”
David walked over to Mika and picked up one of her hands, holding it in both of his. “Miks. You don’t have to worry about me. Baby James is one of us. We’re here to welcome him back into the fold. Aren’t we, Sofa?”
My mouth dried up.
“Christ.” Mika tugged her hand away and dusted it off on her shirt.
David frowned.
“I can’t go tonight!” I said, taking a step back, my shoulder bumping into the doorframe. “I have to pack.”
Mika and David exchanged looks.
“Pack later,” Mika said.
“My mom will be pissed if I leave,” I said. “Besides, he’s your friend. You can all hang out together, without me.”
Mika seemed wary. I waited for the inevitable grilling to continue—Why don’t you want to see Jamie? Why do you need to pack right now? Why are you incapable of maintaining eye contact?—but then Mika’s phone rang. As soon as she answered it, her whole face lit up.
“Jamie!” she squealed.
David gasped dramatically, and Mika kicked his leg, knocking over the box of kitchen stuff Mom had been packing earlier. “Damn it!” she said. “Sorry, Sophia! No, sorry, Jamie. I’m at Sophia’s, and I just knocked some shit over.” She laughed. “I’m crazy pumped you’re here!”
David made a gagging face and glanced at me for ap-
proval. I smiled, but it was halfhearted at best. There was a roaring in my ears. I wanted to open the fridge and crawl inside. I wanted to push my hands against the sides of my head until I couldn’t hear the tinny version of Jamie’s voice coming out of Mika’s phone.
Jamie Foster-Collins.
Mika’s best friend, who’d been shipped off to boarding school in North Carolina three years ago while the rest of his family stayed in Tokyo. Who I hadn’t contacted since then, who I hadn’t even contemplated contacting. Mika’s best friend. And my nothing at all.
“That is so fucking great!” Mika said. “We’ll meet you there.” She hung up the phone, still grinning. “He got to his apartment basically five minutes ago, but he’s heading to Shibs now.”
“Right, Sofa,” David said. “We’re leaving. The all-powerful Mika hath commanded it.”
“I can’t go,” I said. “It’s impossible for me to leave this house.”
“Of course it’s possible,” David said. “Here, I’ll show you. First, you walk to the door.” He looped his arm through mine and began leading me slowly toward the back door.
I laughed and David smiled, just the corners of his lips curling up. We were standing close enough that I could smell him—the new-shirt smell of him, the dark, sweet smell of him. He looked so thrilled about making me laugh, like it was something he worked hard for. Like it was something he cared about.
“God, he practically performs for you,” Mika had once said. “Whenever he makes some stupid-ass joke, I swear, he does it to impress you.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go.”
David nudged my temple with his nose. “Of course you will.”
CHAPTER 3
SUNDAY
BUT AS SOON AS THE TRAIN LURCHED away from Yoyogi-Uehara Station and toward Shibuya, I started to panic.
What on earth was I doing? Why had I allowed myself to be sealed inside a metal container inching closer and closer to Jamie Foster-Collins? I didn’t want to see him. As it so happens, I never wanted to see him again for the rest of my life.
At the beginning of May, when Mika had told me Jamie was coming back to Tokyo, I’d felt practically upbeat about moving to New Jersey. Until I found out he was flying in from North Carolina exactly one week before I left the country for good, and then I’d just been pissed. Couldn’t he wait a week? Did he have to ruin my life? And, on top of that, did he have to steal all my leaving thunder with his stupid arriving thunder?
The train picked up speed. Outside the window, the late afternoon sun drooped heavily toward the skyline. There was a map by the door, showing all the Tokyo train lines looping around one another like a tangle of blood vessels. Flyers hanging from the ceiling flapped in the air-conditioned breeze. (At least there was freaking air-conditioning on this thing.)
We changed trains. Eventually, a reassuring electronic voice came over the loudspeaker and said, “Tsugi wa, Shibuya. Shibuya desu.”
Next stop, Shibuya Station.
The train slowed, a familiar jingle playing as the door finally opened. We got off behind a group of women wearing yukata and walking slowly toward the ticket barriers. Their tightly bound robes were dark blue with undulating patterns on them like moving water. They had jeweled kanzashi pinned in their hair and wooden geta on their feet.
“Come the frick on,” David muttered to their backs. “Do you think it’s possible to move slower than that? Or would you stand still if you tried?”
“Shut the hell up,” Mika said.
“What?” David asked, lifting his hands in faux surrender. “I’m not being an asshole. I’m asking an important question. About physics.”