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Shun took me to the ATM, although it ended up being in the convenience store. I could’ve easily gone on my own if he’d told me that.
“Can I buy a SIM card here?” I asked him.
He shook his head.
“How will you contact me if you need me?”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. If Yamaguchi wants something, he’ll make sure you know.”
I didn’t doubt that but I still needed a phone.
“Why did he call us crows?” I asked.
“That’s what he calls us. His Harajuku Crows. Because Yuki and I dress in black.”
That made sense but I wondered if there was more to it than that. Something about Yamaguchi’s sly grin had made me think he knew more about me than I knew myself.
I was about to ask Shun if he wanted to go get something to eat or maybe a drink. After all, it was way past lunch time. Almost happy hour. But, before I could do that, he gave a little wave.
“You know how to get home from here?” he asked.
Yep, I did and I couldn’t exactly say “please hang out with me because I don’t know anyone else in this entire country and I feel a little lonely” without sounding like a pathetic loser. I couldn’t expect us to be instant friends but it would be nice to have someone to hang out with.
I started walking back to my apartment but an afternoon of sitting around, waiting for someone to update me on this job seemed like a waste of time, so I got out Ashley’s list to see if there was anywhere on it that’d interest me.
Nope.
Things like “The club from Death Note.” didn’t mean a thing so I ditched the list. I’d passed a couple of cool looking shops on the way to the cafe this morning but had been in too much of a rush to check them out. What was the point of even being in Tokyo if I couldn’t buy cute stuff then say things like “Oh this, I picked it up in Tokyo”?
I had a wad of cash in my pocket and a city full of shops. Bring it on. A very small wad of cash but enough to do a little shopping.
The first shop I went into didn’t live up to its promise. There were a few nice things outside but inside, everything was chintzy. Not my style. The second store seemed way too expensive for my taste. I didn’t know the exchange rate but I got that feeling from the way the sales assistant gave me that “you’re too poor to shop here” look.
I got as far as the cafe then kept walking, not sure if there was anything much worth exploring. About a block later, loud pop music blasted out of a brightly colored store. Oh yeah, that called my name.
I rushed in and found myself surrounded by awesome. Earrings shaped like sushi, hell yeah. I grabbed a shopping basket and threw them in. One pair? That’d be selfish. I grabbed a dozen so I had enough to give my friends.
A woolly scarf with a love heart pattern went in the basket. I had a scarf with me but this one was so much cuter. That’s all I’d buy, though.
Well, until I found a plushie dinosaur backpack. There might be people in this world who could walk past a dinosaur backpack without buying it but they were people with no souls. The hardest part was deciding whether to buy the red one or the yellow or the blue. I patted the soft dinosaur fur. The red one, definitely.
Once I started, I couldn’t stop. A super cute check skirt that would probably fit me if I didn’t zip it up fully and some pink and blue platform sneakers and a panda hat and a bunch of cool socks.
Eventually, I had to go to the counter because the weight of that shopping basket was too much for me to handle.
The girl asked if I had my passport and, when I handed it over, I got a tax-free discount. Woohoo. If I’d known I’d get that, I would’ve shopped more.
She handed back my shopping bags and I balanced them in my arms.
A bit further along, I got a whiff of something very delicious. Crepe van! Hells yeah. Ashley had told me about them and said I absolutely had to try one. I wasn’t going to pass up a cultural experience. It’d be wrong.
In the front of the van, fake food models filled a display case so that I could pick which one I wanted. Only I couldn’t decide. Out of all those hundreds of crepes, picking just one seemed torture. Strawberry looked so delicious but did I want it with just whipped cream or whipped cream and ice cream and maybe caramel sauce? But then banana looked good too. Tuna, just wrong. I could rule out the whole tuna section.
The strawberries looked nicer, all in layered slices, but you didn’t look at the insides while stuffing a crepe in your gob. The banana would probably be more delicious.
The girl working the van glared at me. I guess I was taking a long time but surely most people did. I hated being rushed in making important life decisions.
Then a bunch of tourists hit the van and, if I didn’t order soon, they’d get in the line ahead of me.
“Banana with caramel sauce and nuts,” I said. “No. Strawberry. No. Wait. I will have the banana.”
While the girl went to work, making my crepe, I leaned against the van. So many promising shops filled the streets around me and about half the people wandering down the street were foreigners, so my lack of Japanese would be no setback. But the handles of those shopping bags dug into my skin. I should go home and dump them and come back.
Once I got my crepe, I searched around for somewhere to sit. With all these bags in my arms, I wouldn’t be able to eat it otherwise. There were no seats, not even a ledge I could sit on. The best I could do was lean against a stone wall with my shopping bags between my legs.
Even then, eating that crepe was no easy task. All that whipped cream didn’t help. It had to be all over my face and I was pretty sure I’d dropped some into my cleavage.
I’d taken a few bites then looked up to find a couple of crows sitting on the wall behind me, their beady eyes focused on my food.
“Not a chance in hell,” I told them.
One of them put his head to the side as though he understood me and it made him sad.
“Sorry, crow, but I don’t think desserts are part of a well-balanced bird diet.”
I finished up, not looking at those crows trying to guilt me.
From the crepe van, some old stone stairs led from the shopping street to a shrine. Well, the sign said they led to a shrine. That could be a great backdrop for some selfies. I was in no rush to get home. Sitting alone in my bare apartment didn’t exactly thrill me.
As soon as I put my foot on the first step, the crows swooped down. They sat on the step in front of me, blocking my path.
“The crepe’s all gone,” I told them.
They didn’t leave, though. I took another step, trying to avoid stepping on them.
A few steps more and those few crows had become a flock. I tried to brush them away but there was no shooing them. I had no idea how many crows gathered around me but there was no way I could walk up those steps.
They cawed and screeched.
“You don’t want me going to the shrine?” I asked.
I stopped walking, leaning against the stair railing and folded my arms.
“Listen, guys. I don’t know what’s going on here. If you’re trying to protect me or give me a message or what, maybe you could try something a bit less intrusive than this.”
The crows just cawed. One of them sat on my shoulder. I worried about the hygiene aspect of that but I guess I couldn’t do much about it.
“I’ll listen to what you have to say but just get a little less intense. Deal?”
The crow gently pecked my ear. I took that as a yes.
It seemed we’d come to an agreement, the crows and I, when they started cawing again.
“Hey, I’m listening to you, okay guys. I’m not going to that temple. I’m just having a little rest before I go home.”
Then I turned to see a guy walking down the stairs. Holy guacamole! Not just a guy but a maximum hottie. Whoa.
I had crepe face. I totally had crepe face, and I had nothing to wipe it with.
Did my hair look okay? I put my hand up to flatten it. Those crows had probably made it look like a literal bird’s nest. Not that hot guy would notice me.
His hair flopped onto his face that effortlessly unkempt way. He didn’t have the same stylishness as Shun but, when he reached up to sweep the hair from his face, the bottom of his t-shirt edged up, revealing a strip of muscular stomach that almost made me swoon. Those cheekbones, those dark eyes. Heck, the guy even had sexy eyebrows. Definitely #hotAF. Even #out_of_my_league.
He stopped on the stairs, though, and smiled at me.
Scrap everything. This guy was so far out of my league there wasn’t even a hashtag for it.
“Are these crows bothering you?” he asked. “They can be a real menace around here.”
When the crow on my shoulder cawed louder, I almost said yes.
The guy smiled at me again. “If you need help, you just need to ask. I’m Hotto.”
“Hotto?”
There’s no way this guy’s name could be Hotto. Was he even real or a vision I’d stirred up from my mind of everything I found hot in a guy.
The crows began swarming again but Hotto put up an umbrella. I wasn’t sure if that’d stop them for long, the determined little buggers, but it was a smart idea.
“Not Hotto,” he said with a smile “Hokto.”
“Hokto?” I wasn’t sure why I cared so much about the pronunciation of this guy’s name. I’d probably never see him again in my life. Except in my dreams, that is.
“Ho-ku-to,” he said slowly, but when he said it again, it sounded more like “Hok-to.”
“Hokuto,” I repeated, trying to say it like he did.
He looked down at me as though expecting something.
My mind whirled through all the possible options of what that could be, like a slot machine spinning through a zillion pictures of fruit. Finally, it came to a stop. He’d told me his name. I hadn’t given him mine. Damn it. That made logical sense but some of those other scenarios had seemed closer to the jackpot.
“Molly,” I said.
The crows bashed against his umbrella. Either they didn’t like Hokuto or they had something else going on. Even though I’d said I’d listen to them, I wasn’t sure I’d trust their judgment in men.
“Mori?” He smiled as he said my name as though it gave him extreme pleasure just to say it.
I didn’t want to correct him. The way he said it was just perfect.
He tapped my cheek. “See you around, Mori.”
As he walked off, the crows went nuts in my ear.
“Stop getting too big for your crow boots,” I said. “I thought he was nice, so just shut up.”