“Really? They’re arranging a marriage for you?” Helena pales, her eyes wide.
“No, no. Just some dates, but…” She stops and thinks for a second with a faraway look in her eye. “He is kind of cute, ne? And from an influential family. Hmmm.”
The wheels are turning in Miko’s head. Influence is good when you run a place like Izakaya Tanaka. She may have better luck getting the permit they need for colonization with help from his influential family.
“What about the brother?” I ask, and I hope I don’t sound desperate at all because, boy, do I suddenly feel desperate. I should have gotten up and talked to him, or something! Anything. But the moment was over so quick.
Miko smiles at me. She’s been trying to set me up on blind dates for a year now. She keeps thinking I’m stuck on Chad, which I’m not. I just don’t want hurt his feelings. Miko is remarkably good at reading minds.
“The older one is Yoichi. He’s twenty-four. The younger one is Jiro. He’s twenty-two.”
Jiro.
Now I have a name.
“My father suggested they come back after midnight so I can meet him. ‘Firsts of the New Year’ and all that. I never knew my father was such a sap.” But by the way her shoulders melt a little and her breath puffs out, I can tell she knew this already. She only needs to think about how her father has always doted on her.
“Firsts of the New Year” are all of the traditions we do on New Year’s Day to make the year go smoothly. I may not have grown up in Ku 6, the Japanese Ward where the majority of Japanese in Nishikyō live, but my aunts have kept some of these rituals alive in our home. Like the extensive cleaning we do before New Year’s Eve and our first temple visit tomorrow, hatsumōde, we have also put much stock in the other New Year’s traditions. Each year we eat our first dinner together on New Year’s Day, and I sit down to write the first letter of the year to each of my aunts on my beloved rice paper stationery. I wrote them my first letter when I was almost five and it was mostly scribbles, but I know Aunt Kimie and Lomo have kept every single one of them hidden away in their drawers as if they were sacred poetry.
So it’s possible I may see Jiro again after midnight. I will have to keep my cool until then.
Miko goes back to work checking on the last occupied private room. After a minute of silent sake drinking, Sono arrives with our food. The kitchen staff is fast tonight.
While we make our way through our tofu and rice, Helena and I talk about work. As kids, we both enrolled in the city fast-tracking education so we could earn more as young adults and enter the work force early. She was originally going to be a doctor but she faints at the sight of blood, so she chose massage therapy. I chose to be an engineer like my father. My mother, a chemist, was also intelligent like my father. They died in an explosion before I turned two, a completely freak accident.
“I haven’t seen you around the past two weeks, and it’s winter break for most of us,” Helena says pushing her plate aside.
“I volunteered to cover other people’s shifts. You know my aunts don’t do anything for Christmas anymore.”
“I would have liked to see you.”
Helena’s parents are such a mystery to me. She still lives at home because they are never around, very much in their own world. Helena spends a lot of time with Miko when I’m busy, and I wish I could be here at the izakaya more often.
“I know. I should have taken the day off anyway. Work was stupidly boring with no one around. I ended up babysitting some lab work on composite material while working on schematics.” I fill up our cups again.
On the fast-track, I threw myself into my studies as hard as I could so I could get a job on the Colonization Committee, and I love it there. I may not have had the biggest social life on record but I’m pretty pleased with how well I did for myself. Since I’m settled in, I want something fun to happen this year now that I’m an adult. I have about an hour to think about what I’ll wish for at midnight, but I think I’m going to wish for love this time instead of prosperity. Prosperity has gotten me pretty far already.
Our attention is brought to the door as the staff all shout “Konbanwa!” to Miko’s mother. She enters the izakaya in a flash of dark red kimono, her short, graying hair perfectly swept back in a beautiful silver comb.
“Girls,” she says, approaching us. “Otanjōbi omedetō, Sanaa-chan.” She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’ve grown up into such a fine, young woman, Sanaa. Kimie and Lomo must be very proud.”
“Arigatō gozaimasu, Mrs. Tanaka.” She has always insisted on us calling her and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Tanaka, though I’ve tried to call her Tanaka-san on occasion. I think she likes the westernization a little bit more.
Miko comes out of the kitchen and bows slightly to her mother before they embrace in a small hug. Mrs. Tanaka is much more formal than Miko’s father.
“Miko-chan, I’m here to relieve you early. The restaurant is not too busy. You should spend the time now with Sanaa and Helena.”
Helena and I were so absorbed in our conversation we didn’t realize the bar has quieted. This happens every year right before midnight. The majority of people eat and drink up and then head out to spend the last hour before the New Year at a temple or private party.
In long-standing tradition, Miko, Helena, and I will stay here till around 12:30 and then visit the little neighborhood shrine two blocks over before Helena and I head home for the night. Miko will stay behind and help with any stragglers until they close up at 3:00.
Instead of moving to a booth from the bar, we snag the last open private room, and Miko invites in the young guys who were at the bar to come sit with us. A few more girls show up from the shops down the street, and they join us too. But I park myself next to Helena, nod, smile, and do my best to make small talk because I am definitely not interested in any of these guys. I am daydreaming and wondering where Jiro and the other men went to after they left the izakaya.
Helena catches sight of the clock on the wall, and one of the guys reaches into his bag, pulls out his tablet, and tunes to the Nishikyō News Service. They are already streaming the midnight countdown from Ku 1. A huge crowd of people mill about the Administrative Ward’s central plaza, decked out in every possible kind of party clothes, but mostly kimono since Nishikyō is seventy percent Japanese.
Only three minutes left in the year 3102. I’ve decided I’ve been prosperous enough. This year I will wish for love, and I’ll make sure that I don’t look at any of these guys when I do because, oh gods, not in a million years. I’m not kissing any of them when the clock strikes 12:00. No, thank you.
One minute left and Miko is filling up cups around the table. Helena is tucking wayward strands of hair back into her twist. I am replaying those ten seconds of eye contact with the mysterious Jiro in my head again. Obsessing. I’m already obsessing over it.
Twenty seconds left in 3102. I’ll be twenty years old. I can move out and get my own place soon, and in two years, I’ll be on a ship and hibernating for the long voyage to Yūsei.
Five seconds left. Four, three, two, one.
“Happy New Year! Akemashite omedetō!” We all clink glasses and drink. Miko, Helena, and I get involved in a three-way group hug that makes us laugh and laugh. I’m glad I didn’t have to make eye contact with any of the guys at the table because I love these two the most.
“Wishes,” Miko whispers at each of us.
We close our eyes, bow forward a little, and clap our hands in front of our face twice in a prayer position.
Please, gods, bring me love and happiness this year. Bring us all love, excitement, and happiness this year. Surely, we deserve it.
• • • •
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