Pandora on the Your-Japan Blog Network

Pandora here. It’s been a few months again, I know. Casanova and I have gotten….well, we’ve gotten pretty serious. It took quite a while, though, and I felt weird at first about choosing Casanova over Fujiomi. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

After meeting Casanova at the bar, I decided not to go there for at least a few days to avoid running into him. Besides, I was pulling late nights quite often at my job and usually just caught a late train back to my pitiful one-room dive at the hostel to shower and fall asleep. Between that and going through HELL to get a co-signer for my new apartment (Sukiko’s mom generously offered after Sukiko and Fujiomi told her about my situation. She’s a saint!) I had more on my mind than Fluffy and Casanova. I was getting to spend more time with Sukiko and- more importantly- Fujiomi. He was still sarcastic and a tad stand-offish, but I could tell that the both of us had matured during the time we were apart and it was a lot more fun to hang out. In general, my life was looking up- I had a relatively easy, exciting job I enjoyed that payed decently, a place of my own in the works, and good friends to spend time with. After only a month and a half in Japan, I was completely settled and comfortable where I was.

Can’t you see where this is going?

It’s amazing how something small set all of this off. A poster set my entire future in motion. A POSTER. I got a Dir en Grey poster the day I got my first paycheck, as a little “Hurray for me!” gift to myself. The next day, my day off, I decided to hang it up in my little one-room place, as if a demonic visual-kei band might brighten it up. Bear in mind that, as a poor girl living in Japan, getting furniture hasn’t really been that important to me. I figure that Japan is cramped for space as it is- why worsen the situation by cluttering my allotted space with something as trivial as furniture? I have a futon and a shower curtain and that is all the ‘furniture’ I need. Yet somehow- after masterfully hanging up my Dir en Grey poster with tape- I managed to slip and fall on the poster cellophane and knock my elbow into the wall and scrape a fair bit of skin off. Let me re-iterate that for you. In a bare, furniture-less apartment, I still managed to find something to badly injure myself on, walking across a flat, even surface.

Naturally, when I saw the blood streaming down my arm, my only solace was that I hadn’t gotten any on the wall. Paying for a paint job on a wall that ripped an inch and half of skin off my arm is between “Eating sand” and “Kissing a rabid dog” on my “Things I never want to do” list. The only thing I could do was press a wad of toilet paper to the wound while I grabbed my keys and ran downstairs to go to the corner store for some band-aids.

Just as I stepped onto the sidewalk, I happened to look over- and I saw The Casanova and Fluffy across the street! I made a quick right and walked as quickly as I could down the sidewalk. It was difficult, since every time my right arm bumped into someone my pain level went over nine thousand, and when I was a few buildings away from the corner store I glanced over to make sure- and The Casanova was keeping pace with me! Across the street, he was wading through waves of Japanese to stay parallel with me. I dove into the convenience store and ducked between the aisles, but it was only moments before I saw Casanova and Fluffy walk in. It wasn’t much longer before I was spotted, and the Casanova walked over to me with Fluffy not that far behind.

Me: H-Hey, guys–

Casanova: HI.

I was slightly taken aback by how loud his voice was, and I saw Fluffy put a hand on his shoulder and mutter, “Dude- chill.”

Casanova: Sorry. Um…I want to talk to you.

Me: …….Okay.

Casanova: Right. Um. I think I may have given you the wrong impression of me last time I saw you.

Me:….If you say so.

Casanova: I’ve actually, uh, been thinking a lot about you and I shouldn’t have acted like that to you. It was….really stupid and conceited and I don’t want                         you to think that I’m some mindless frat boy.

It was around this point that the pain in my arm was making me feel nauseated, so understandably, I didn’t really have much to say. I tried excusing myself to take care of my wound, but as I opened my mouth, I lost my grip on the tissue I was holding to my arm and both boys watched as the blood-soaked wad fell to the ground.

There was a brief moment of silence, then all three of us said, “Oh my God” simultaneously, but in three very different ways.

Me: (deeply embarassed) *sigh* Oh my God.

Fluffy: (small, surprised laugh) Oh my GOD!

Casanova: (horrified) OH MY GOD!

We caught the attention of the manager of the store, and while Fluffy was calling his other friends and Casanova was panicking uselessly, I was doing my best to speak over the both of them to tell the manager in broken Japanese that everything was fine. Casanova even bought me a box of bandages, and within ten minutes my wound was covered and had stopped hurting as much. The three of us wound up on the sidewalk in awkward silence after that.

Me: Okay, well, thanks for the Band-Aids…See ya.

Casanova: Um-!

Me:…..Yeah?

Fluffy: Wanna have lunch with us?

Both Casanova and I looked surprised at Fluffy, who had so casually asked if I wanted to have lunch with them- as if we had been friends for years and it was the most natural thing in the world.

Not sure why to this day, but I agreed.

To be continued…

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