"Right now?" Ryuzo asked me in a deep, flirtatious tone.

I nodded. "Yeah. Right now."

His dreamy smile made my heart flutter. I wanted to wrap him up, feel his body against mine, tangle his perfect hair between my fingers again . . . But it wasn't meant to be.

"Kyodai!" A boy who looked sixteen ran over.

Ryuzo's expression dropped instantly when he watched the boy approach. His entire demeanor changed when he took a step back and crossed his arms. While he closed himself off the moment his comrade was nearby, he still didn't turn from me.

The boy bowed and held it. "Forgive me." He spoke other words I couldn't catch in their sequence, alongside more apologies. "Sorry, Yokoyama-san. Sorry."

"Go," Ryuzo commanded him. The boy ran off. He avoided my gaze, that hollowness returning to his eyes.

My buzz faded away, and an anxious cold settled in its place. I hated seeing him look like that, but he didn't seem capable of escaping it whenever he was wrapped up in Yakuza business. Everything I thought I knew about him didn't match the hard exterior he tried to maintain.

"You have to go," I asked rhetorically.

His rueful eyes lifted to mine. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

He looked at me from head to toe with a face full of longing. I wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss me, but I knew the rules. "Saturday?"

I agreed, "Saturday."

"I'll find you."

"I know you will."

He smirked at my joke. "See you, Mina," he said as always, then reluctantly walked away. He gave me one last look over his shoulder before disappearing.

I was disappointed, but curious. There was so much I had to learn about Japan, the Yakuza, and Ryuzo's place in it all. Everything I saw and heard that night made me feel like I knew him less than I thought.

When he stood me up, I wasn't sure I knew him at all.

. . .

I stared at the restaurant through my window like a child waiting for Santa. After taking multiple trips down to the gate just to make sure, I convinced myself he was running late because something popped off at work. Another hour passed, more patrons and kobun left, but no Ryuzo. Eventually, I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I went out to check the gate one more time before giving up and going to bed.

I had spent my whole day off getting ready to see him, my whole night waiting for him, then spent the next day wondering why I hadn't seen him. He had disappeared like he did before. For a man who always seemed to want to see me, he was frustratingly selective about when I saw him.

"Misaki-san, you need to calm down," Ayumi scolded our patient. The young man shied away from her in fear.

This patient had a fear of needles and what we would consider White Coat Syndrome in the States, but the culture was different here. Patients didn't come to seek medical advice, they came for treatment. Doctors made decisions, nurses followed protocol, and patients listened. It was hard to get used to, especially knowing how voiceless and overlooked certain groups were in America. Advocating on their behalf was a habit I would never break.

The patient shied away again. "Let me?" I asked Ayumi.

She nodded and handed me the needle. I took her place. The patient looked at me like I was an apparition.

I practiced my words in my head before speaking. "This is important," I said with moderate confidence. "This goes here. No surprise. No pain. Yes?" My Japanese truly was shit.

The patient nodded but had yet to blink.

"With me." I led him through some breaths. He followed my rhythm. While he looked as frightened as before, his muscles were less tense by the third, and only let out a little groan while I took the sample.

I praised him, "Good!"

He nodded once again, still staring at me with wide eyes.

I left the room with Ayumi, hoping I hadn't overstepped the way I often did. "Good job, Mina!"

"Thank you."

After we were sanitary, she stopped me with both hands. "You need to practice your Japanese more."

I laughed. "I know I do."

"Have you made many Japanese friends, Mina?"

Random, but okay. "Um . . . One?"

"This is why you need to go out more! Make more friends! You can practice Japanese with them!" she said in her overly excited tone. I had nothing good to say to my only Japanese friend that day.

"Mina, a hand?" Kat stole my attention while walking past us.

"Sure."

Ayumi turned me back to her before I walked away. "Practice your Japanese," she said again, then let me go. Sheesh.

I followed Kat up the hall to the cart storage. "What's up?"

A wide, mischievous smile graced her face. "Nothing, babes. Just saw you needed saving."

I laughed. "Thanks, but I'm fine. She was just telling me to practice speaking more."

"Yeah, you should. Your Japanese is less than ace, babes." Rude. "Do you not practice with your mans? Or is most of it moaning and 'hai, chichi, hai!'"

"Katrina!" I squealed to hide the shameless cackle burning inside me. "We are at work, stop!"

"Then let's go somewhere after," she begged. "Just for bevvies? Then you can scurry home."

"You go out drinking between shifts?" As my granny used to say, "On a school night?"

"Yes, love. This is Tokyo." I opened my mouth to rebut, but she stopped me. "Aht, aht, aht! No. No excuses. We're going."

Apparently, we were going.

. . .

We went to a restaurant in Shibuya, just a block from the famous intersection. I had been afraid to go by myself and walk in the sea of thousands of people crossing in every direction. But under the glowing lights of the neon signs and billboards, it felt natural, as if I had been doing it for years. Maybe I was getting used to my life here. Or maybe that was just Tokyo. The constant blend of foreign and familiar, a massive city that somehow made the world feel small.

I kept staring at the intersection, watching it empty and refill with every change of the lights. 

The heater above the windows next to us was on full blast, but felt refreshing after being inside a cold hospital for over half the day. Kat and I barely spoke at first, just nodded and pointed to our food saying "mm-hmm" while sharing the joy of fresh eel bowls and Sapporo.

"I fucking love Japan," Kat said.

"Same."

"Have you been to the restaurants in Ginza?"

"No, not yet." I had been nowhere outside a half-mile radius from my two train stops.

"My God, I did not know what food tasted like until we went there. It's expensive but so worth it. You've got to come with us next time."

"Us?"

She looked at me as if I was stupid. "Babes, we all go out after our shift. I've been saying you've got to come with! The nurses are wild. You should see Ayumi after a round."

"Just for that, I'll go." Maybe, I thought.

It had been a long time since I had any sort of relationship with coworkers. Between the time it took to reinstate my license and reestablish my identity, I was years out of practice. I wondered if it would be worth the effort when there were only a few months left in my contract.

"I know you're lying," Kat said suddenly, as if she read my mind.

I looked up, anxious that my face was saying something I meant to keep quiet. "Lying about what?"

"Coming out with us," she answered. I relaxed. "You're a private person. Reserved. But the quiet ones always have the juiciest stories."

I laughed to myself and sipped my drink. "I don't know about that."

"No, I know you do. Let's be real. No one takes this job we have unless they're tryin' to get away from whatever they've left behind."

That was a loaded statement that invited a prying question. One that would get the focus off me. "What did you leave behind, then?"

She looked at me for a moment, then turned to her drink. "A girl."

Another loaded statement. "A girl?"

Kat rolled her eyes at herself. "I was engaged or whatever."

"The fuck you mean 'whatever'? You were engaged?"

"It was . . . Well . . ." She paused to piece her thoughts together. "Things went too fast, I think. We moved in, I met her parents, we adopted a dog. Then . . . Things just ended with us." She sniffled and tried to laugh away her tears. "Sorry."

I felt for her. I didn't know what it felt like to love someone that way, but I could relate to having your life upended unexpectedly. "Don't be sorry, girl."

"It was all in less than a year. It was a stupid, foolish thing to do."

Relationships between women are wild. Finding someone who is considerate, emotionally intelligent, and capable of communicating feelings . . . You have all the proof that "this is it" until you don't.

Men are what they are. Wily idiots that have you counting down to the moment they'll disappoint you, lie to you, or . . . disappear.

All romantic relationships are stupid, foolish things.

Kat wiped her eyes. "When we broke it off, I couldn't afford to live on my own, so I took this job. Free rent, higher wages to build up some savings . . ."

"And to get away?"

"Yeah." She laughed at herself, then looked at me with a grin. "What about you? Are you running from someone, too?"

Only myself, I thought. As nervous as her question made me, I answered with what I believed was true. "No."

She stared at me, waiting for me to elaborate. "That's all? I just spilled my guts and you give me 'no.'"

I rolled my eyes with a laugh. "Yeah, I do that."

"Well, what about your lover boy? Is he still a one-time sort of thing?" she mimicked me.

I twisted my lips. "It seems that way, yeah."

"But you don't want it to be." That wasn't a question. She cocked an eyebrow and took a slow drink. "How good was the sex?"

I looked around us. "Kat, can we not?"

"Oh, they're not listening. Did you make love or did you fuck?"

I looked at the ceiling with a heavy sigh. The last thing I needed to do was recall that night in any level of detail.

"Oh, you fucked," she observed. "So, what's the issue?"

"He . . . likes to disappear sometimes. He ghosted for a while after we hooked up, then he showed up and asked to see me over the weekend. Then he ghosted again."

"I know you are lying," she sang. "Mans cannot be for real. Playing in your face for what?"

"You think he's running game on me and I just . . . haven't noticed?"

"What else could he be doing, babes? Gang banging with the Yaks, getting thrown in jail right in time to miss your dates? Please."

Something about that rubbed me the wrong way. I hadn't lied to Ryuzo. I even told him my real name and where I was from — something I hadn't done with anyone else. But after lying to people for so long, I could tell when others were doing it for necessity or just doing it for fun.

Ryuzo said things without actually saying them. More than his little hums and absent answers to questions he felt were rhetorical, he didn't talk about his work — whatever he did for the Yakuza. Even with his backward attempt to help me, he didn't say a thing about it until I brought it up.

Deep down, I didn't think he meddled with my job to get something from me. He just wanted to help. If he was anything like me, not telling me something protected me from the lies he would have to tell me if I asked.

Maybe I understood him better than I thought.

"You're probably right," I told Kat. But I didn't believe it.

. . .

People packed onto my train home. I wedged in with the rest of the crowd, feeling as out of place as always. I was also surrounded by smiling faces full of excitement, everyone wearing sharp suits or outfits that made Vogue look uninspired while I stood moping in pink scrubs.

A heavy sigh brought me back to reality in enough time to catch my stop. I squeezed off the train, willing to walk the extra blocks to avoid being pressed against strangers for longer.

The night air was chilly. An unseasonably warm winter had me tricked into thinking it wouldn't get as cold as it did in Georgia. My heart leaped when I found the man leaning against the wall next to my gate. A plume of smoke wafted from his lips as he stared into space, waiting.

"Ryuzo."

He looked my way, and a smile spread across his stupid, pretty face. "Mina."

___

A/N: Where did our mans go? Should Mina give him a talkin' to?

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