Discomfort crept across his face. “Parental abandonment, I definitely get. Why’d he leave?”
I twisted my watch, hard. I hated talking about this. It always made Dad sound like the bad guy. “We were moving to the States—my parents met here, in Tokyo. Mom had a job at a foreign university, and Dad was teaching English. He’d just graduated from college—he’s, like, seven years younger than she is. They got married here, and Alison and I were born here, but then Mom got a job at Rutgers and Dad didn’t want to go.” I couldn’t stop twisting my watch. A small blister was starting to bloom on the sensitive skin just below my palm. “But it wasn’t just that. Dad didn’t want to live outside France forever, and Mom didn’t understand that. You know what, though? I think I do. If you had one place you totally fit, wouldn’t you go? Wouldn’t you have to?”
Jamie took hold of my wrist and gently pulled it away from my other hand.
He wasn’t touching my skin or anything. Just the watch. He had smooth, trim nails and a wide thumb.
I swallowed so loud, I was sure he must have heard it. I’d definitely told him more than I’d meant to. I never really talked about my dad, and no one other than my mom and sister knew the whole watch story. Maybe I’d only told him because I was leaving—because it didn’t matter as much.
Jamie held up the watch so he could read it; I moved to the edge of my seat. “Is this how long till you see your dad again?” he asked.
I shook my head. “That’s how long till my flight leaves Tokyo.”
The waitress came back, this time holding two deep bowls filled nearly to the lip with brown broth, noodles, and meat. She put one in front of me and the other in front of Jamie. I grabbed a set of wooden chopsticks and broke them apart. Jamie and I didn’t say anything for a minute as we mixed the ingredients together: slender bamboo shoots, bright green onions, dark seaweed, and long, crimped noodles.
“I know it’s weird,” I said eventually. “Alison’s always telling me to stop wearing it. And I really should. It’s a little kid’s watch.”
The waitress set the plates of gyoza in the middle of the table. Jamie drizzled them with soy sauce and pushed the plate of vegetable ones closer to me.
They were delicious—warm and crispy dumplings with a filling that was almost too hot and too sweet. We polished off both plates without talking. Jamie looked like he was trying to hold the gyoza in his mouth for as long as possible. He looked like he’d been waiting to eat them for the past three years. Which, I guess, he had.
“It’s not a little kid’s watch,” he said, swallowing his last bite. “You’re not a little kid.”
After dinner, we walked to Shibuya Station. Mom called to say she was still cleaning out her office. I said I was walking around Shibuya with Mika. I couldn’t help the lie—the truth felt way too weird to say out loud. Alternate universe, I reminded myself. None of this counts.
Everyone around the station was dressed to go out. A girl with a bow on her head the size of a small street sign, a guy in bright yellow combat boots and pinstriped pants. They clustered around the Hachiko statue, then broke off into the night like satellites tracing new orbits. Jamie and I stopped at the crossing and waited for the light to change. Cars shooting by, one after the other after the other.
I studied him. Lit up by the surrounding buildings, he was blue, white, pink, and yellow. A neon constellation. He caught me staring and his face brightened. I was grateful he didn’t ask if I wanted to go home then. I wouldn’t have known what to say.
CHAPTER 17
THURSDAY
JAMIE AND I WENT TO TOWER RECORDS and rode the glass elevator all the way to the top floor. We went to a fast-food restaurant and ordered french fries, spilling them over a tray and counting them out so we each got the same number of crispy and non-crispy ones. We stood on a street corner where the air smelled like the memory of rain, and Jamie touched my elbow and said, “So. What next?”
Midnight came and went, but we didn’t catch the last train.
We didn’t even try.
The arcade was three stories high and packed with hundreds upon hundreds of games. Best of all, it was open all night.
Jamie and I hung out by the UFO catchers. UFO catchers are those claw-machine games, the ones that are a total con in the States and slightly less of a con in Japan. With a little strategizing, I’d seen people actually win some of the vast array of prizes: Rilakkuma stuffed animals and Hello Kitty toasters and enormous boxes of candy. Jamie decided we should try to win a box of chocolate Pockys bigger than my TV.
“Don’t you think we’ve eaten enough?” I asked.
“Still not everything in Japan, though,” he said. “We must forge ahead.”
“Right, of course,” I said. “Win us those Pockys or the mission will be compromised.”
He spared a glance from the machine to give me his biggest grin. When he turned back again, he furrowed his brow in concentration. I let my eyes trace the small bump on his nose and then move to his eyelashes, which were as pale as his hair. The game must have been frustrating, because he’d started chewing on his lower lip.
“Isn’t that your phone?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Your phone.” He pointed to my bag, which was buzzing.
“Oh.” Crap! Why do I keep ogling him?! “Yeah. It is.” It was my mom, saying good night. I’d texted her a little while ago to tell her I was staying at Mika’s and that I’d be back in the morning. The constant lying to my mom didn’t feel like the best decision I’d made all day. But it didn’t feel like the worst one, either.
I tried to hand Jamie my phone. “You should call your parents.”
“Nah,” he said.
I frowned. “They’re going to be so pissed. They’re going to excommunicate you.”
He gave me a wry, amused look. “They’re not the Catholic Church. I’m not Henry the Eighth.”