Jon Athan - Am I Beautiful?

He grabbed a bottle of Pocari Sweat, a Japanese sports drink, and sneered at it. The drink obviously wasn’t made with sweat, but the mere idea of drinking someone’s bodily fluids made him shudder. He put it back and grabbed two bottles of generic mineral water instead. He puffed and recoiled as he shut the refrigerator door.

The reflection on the glass door revealed a woman standing behind him. He could hardly see her face amidst all of the bottles in the refrigerator and the condensation clouding the glass. But he felt her looking daggers at him, piercing his heart with her eyes. He rubbed his face with his arm and shook his head, hoping he was hallucinating.

There’s no way she’s here, he told himself, snickering. It’s in your head, Adam. It’s all in your stupid, drunk head .

He looked at the refrigerator door again. His lips sank into a frown. She was still there. He turned around and found Miki standing at the center of the aisle behind him. She didn’t look angry, though. There was pain in her eyes—the pain of betrayal, the pain of rejection, the pain of eternal loneliness. She walked up to him.

Adam said, “I don’t have time for—”

“I followed you,” Miki interrupted. “I’m not going to lie to you or myself anymore. I’ve been waiting all day to see you. I asked the receptionist if I could go up to your room. She said no, so I waited outside. Then I followed you in here. I don’t want us to… to be like this. I know you don’t even want ‘us’ to exist, but… I just want peace between us. I want us to talk so I can explain myself to you. Can we do that? Can we talk?”

Adam ground his teeth and clenched his fists, plastic bottles crackling in his hands. She finally admitted to stalking him, but it didn’t help. The confession just made him angrier. He was at his wits’ end. He didn’t know how to stop her. Miki understood English, but her mind worked in mysterious ways. In her head, ‘leave me alone’ translated to ‘please follow me,’ ‘no’ meant ‘try again later,’ and ‘I hate you’ translated to ‘I love you.’

Words weren’t working, so violent thoughts invaded Adam’s mind.

He envisioned himself slapping her in front of the other customers. Not embarrassing enough, he thought. He pictured himself pushing her into the bread aisle and watching the shelves tip over like dominos. Too much public damage, Adam, it would be all over the news, he told himself. Then he saw the glass bottles of alcohol on the shelves behind her. He thought about smashing a bottle over her head and stabbing her with the broken glass.

He didn’t want to harm her, but he felt like his back was against the wall. Emotional and intoxicated, violence seemed like his best and final option. Scream at her, he thought. Maybe give her a little push, then just run away . But he couldn’t hurt her in public.

In a monotone voice, he said, “We can talk in private. But not here. Not in my hotel room. Not in a restaurant. Not at a park. It’s not a date, just a talk.”

A twinkle of hope in her eyes, Miki asked, “How about a short-stay hotel?”

“You mean a love hotel?”

“Not every short-stay hotel is a love hotel. Some are for businessmen and—”

“Do you live alone?”

The spark in Miki’s eyes exploded into a raging fire of optimism. She saw an opportunity to win Adam’s heart.

She said, “Yeah, I… I live alone in my apartment. It’s close to here, actually. Maybe twenty minutes away by train.” She swallowed loudly as she blushed. She smiled nervously and asked, “You wanna come to my home? I don’t know if you ate in your room, but if you didn’t, um… I can cook something for you, too. If not, we can just talk. I promise I won’t push myself onto you.”

Adam’s eyes brimmed with tears. He was conflicted, but he felt hopeless. He was convinced that only a violent outburst could dissuade her from pursuing him.

He said, “Sure, sure. Let’s go.”

Miki said, “Thank you, Adam. Thank you so much.”

Adam bought a bottle of whiskey before leaving the 7-Eleven with Miki. They boarded a train and headed to San’ya, Tokyo.

Miki lived in San’ya, a neighborhood in East Tokyo known as a doya-gai —a slum district filled with flophouses and inhabited by manual laborers, transients, alcoholics, and the elderly. Adam was surprised by the area’s lack of tourists, the absence of neon lights, and the cardboard homes lining the Sumida River. It was nothing like the Tokyo he knew. It reminded him more of Skid Row in Los Angeles.

They didn’t say much on their trip to Miki’s home. They spoke about the chilly weather and Tokyo’s world-renowned subway system. They didn’t mention their relationship, though. Miki didn’t want to aggravate Adam so she didn’t say a word about it, and Adam wanted to keep a low profile so he acted cordial. They looked like a pair of friends traveling through Tokyo.

Nothing more, nothing less.

They stepped over a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk in front of a 7-Eleven, then they turned and strolled down a narrow street. They walked past a closed ramen shop and a set of vending machines selling canned coffee. They arrived at a three-story apartment building. It didn’t have a security gate or any surveillance cameras.

Miki led Adam into the apartment at the end of the first floor’s exterior hallway— Apartment 10E . She locked the door behind him. They stood less than a foot apart. Miki was a little intimidated and very aroused by Adam’s height.

As she took off her boots, she said, “You have to take off your shoes here. This is called a ‘ genkan .’ It’s the, um… apartment’s entryway. Every home in Japan has one. I guess it’s ‘tradition.’ Well, maybe that’s not the right word for it, but… Yeah, you always take your shoes off here in Japan.” She grabbed two pairs of slippers from the slipper rack next to the getabako —a traditional Japanese shoe cupboard—in the entryway. She handed them to Adam and said, “Here. You can wear these.”

Adam looked at her coldly, uninterested and exhausted. Miki smiled and gave him a slight bow, trying to overcome the awkwardness. She went down a very short hallway and took a left into the main apartment. Adam removed his shoes, put on the slippers, and followed her lead.

It was a studio apartment. The door to his right was open, revealing a puny bathroom with a small bathtub. There was barely enough room to stand in there. Beyond the bathroom door to his right, there was a kitchen with a sink and one stove burner. Wedged under a window in the kitchen, there was a dining table for two. A semi-double bed hugged the wall to the left and, next to the bed, sliding glass doors led to the tiny patio outside. The area was too small for a backyard.

All around the room, dresses and pants hung from hangers on hooks attached to the walls. A collection of plushies—which she won from several claw crane game machines—crowded the foot of her bed. There was more than a month until Christmas, but she had already hung Christmas lights over the sliding doors and kitchen window.

Miki said, “This is it. This is my home. It’s nothing special, but it’s cozy. The rent is pretty cheap, too. What do you think?”

Adam thought it was a pleasant place. A person’s home said a lot about their personality. The small space told him she lived on a hotel receptionist’s salary, and the decorations said that she made the best of her living situation. She was an optimistic survivor of the cruel world. The clothing told him she was honest. She was, in fact, an aspiring dressmaker. And the plushies told him she was pure and harmless. Like a child in an adult’s body, he thought. She couldn’t hurt a fly, could she?