7

“Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you gave it away…” belted out the blues pleadingly, incessantly.

Alone she sat in Starbucks on 25th December 2007, listlessly stirring her rapidly cooling Café Latte as her eyes roamed the crowds, the smiling faces, and the happy couples. In envy, in tiredness, in… helplessness at her own situation, at the melancholic feelings she tried so hard to suppress.

“At least some people are happy,” she thought, trying her best (and failing) to look on the bright side.

Christmas Day, alone, amidst a sea of foreign faces.

“There are many things worse than losing the one you love,” rang the voice of one of her classmates, Ryo, from the previous night’s Bounenkai.

But what about their dreams, their plans, and their promises to one another?

“Face it, you’ll love more than one person in your lifetime!”

No! That couldn’t be – no, she’d always believed that there was only space in her heart for one. Him. Her first love.

Her true love.

“You’ll never know when it is true love; and only when everything’s over do you realize, with a sickening jolt, that it wasn’t.” said another friend of hers, in an uncharacteristically serious tone.

Then does that make it “true” while it lasted? Or was it never “true” because it fell apart?

“It takes two hands to clap, and if one walks away…” she trailed off, mid-sentence, blinking defiantly as her vision abruptly blurred and swam in front of her very eyes.

Face burning in shame, she hurriedly pushed back her chair and made a move to head for the washroom, when suddenly, she heard a shocked gasp, and felt someone collide into her from behind.

Something flew from a tray, and in a split second, she felt a freezing cold, damp and sticky sensation on her hair and back. Along with a blob of sweet-smelling something that was quickly making its slimy way down her beloved new dress.

Stunned, she pulled her gaze upwards, but all that her shocked mind could register was the sight of the bright red and green banner that hung on the wall in front of her.

“Starbucks wishes you a Merry Christmas!” it screamed in large, happy letters.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and let out a shriek of incredulity.

6

He woke up with a splitting headache. He shielded his eyes from the piercing sunlight as he fumbled around for his cellphone. He finally found it under his pillow. He flipped it open. It was eleven o’clock and he had an email.

It was from her.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May all your wishes come true for the new year and the next!

An email containing well wishes sent to him, just as it was sent to everybody else in the address book.

5

The subway train was pulling away from the dirty platforms, taking her away from the blinding night life of downtown Osaka, away from the hallucinations and the false pretenses; away from the tears that she could not cry, and the final goodbyes that she could not enunciate.

As the train started gathering speed, the people and the station swirled into an indiscernible stream of blurred images, and she suddenly found herself mentally fast-forwarding her life, until the moment that she had met him over a year ago in Tokyo. From then on, the photographs stilled – froze – forever seared freshly into her mind’s eye, replaying in slow-motion, as if tantalizingly, jeeringly, forbiddingly... Odaiba, Tokyo Tower, Nikko, Asakusa –

Just then, her phone buzzed loudly, and she jolted out of her reverie in surprise. Who’d message her at 8pm on Friday night? Surely everyone (but her) would be out having the time of their lives? Unless... it couldn’t be, he’d promised never to contact her again... Wasn't that his last, and perhaps, only promise to her?

Heart clenching in fear and anticipation, she unzipped her bag and fumbled in jerky motions for her cellphone, and as she dug it out and flipped it open, her tiny heart crumbled instantaneously. Her friend, Mikki, had sent her an email.

Why should it have been anyone else...?

Biting her lip and blinking furiously to clear her suddenly blurred vision, she swallowed a lump in her throat, took a deep breath, and opened the email.

「遅くにごめ～んなぁ！今晩9時に法済学部２組は全員梅田で忘年会やるで！良かったら来てね！」

Her friend, Mikki, had invited her to their class’s Bounenkai at 9pm on that very night in Umeda. In Japan, Bounenkai’s were end-of-year gatherings meant to celebrate the passing of yet another year, and more importantly, to forget all the sorrows and the pain that the previous year had brought with it.

“Bounenkai..ka..” she murmured to herself, tired eyes taking on a faraway look. She hated alcohol, she hated drunks, she hated izakayas – but she wanted company. And she’d do anything to forget the past year and all the tears and joy that it had brought with it. It was too heavy a burden to shoulder for the year 2008.

Firming her resolve, she replied an “okay”. And, for the first time that night, she allowed her tense shoulders to sag a little in temporal relief.

4

He was drunk. He hadn’t intended to drink, actually. But being alone on a Friday night was too unbearable, with the cold and all. He thought he would just drink a cup. But a cup became two, and two became three…as he stumbled out of the restaurant, he had forgotten how many he had drunk. Perhaps he had even forgotten who he was, where he lived, what were his hobbies…

He bumped into someone. A girl. He squinted to see if it was her. It wasn’t. He pushed himself away from her as he staggered on. Suddenly, an absurd thought came to him. Perhaps, of all the places she could have been on a Friday night- at home, at an izakaya, at the theater, she was right here, on this same street he was on- where exactly was he, he didn’t know. He searched the face of any girl he met, hoping to see her face, if not, at least to discover that she was wearing a mask over the face he wanted to see. As he embarked on his futile search, one borne perhaps out of desperation more than anything else, he remembered who he was. It took the memories of a girl to whom he once meant everything. Not anymore.

He found himself at a bus stop. A bus came, and he stumbled aboard, without even knowing where it was headed. As his head hit the cold, glass window, it struck him hard.

She hadn’t promised him anything.

3

One year, 3 months, 22 days and counting: The total amount of time that she had known him for, and yet, did she really know what he was all about?

Apparently not.

A breeze picked up, and she pulled her muffler tighter around her slender frame in an effort to escape the cold that was gnawing her from within. Words floated into her mind; sweet nothings, harsh remarks, words of comfort and encouragement, heartfelt praise, unfulfilled promises, blatant accusations and…the most painful of them all… indifferent goodbyes.

He had said, in his last, angry letter, that she knew absolutely nothing of him, and hence, had no right to lay claim to feelings for him.

Feelings. What was it that people called it? Ah – yes – Love. They called that ambiguous, formless, undependable emotion “Love”.

A half-smile played over her lips, dancing like a ghost over features that were upturned in the smallest, mocking gesture; stubbornly defiant in its outset, but clearly trembling beneath, under layers of false bravado and good cheer.

And she walked, a solitary, lonesome figure, bent against the cold December north winds… making her way to the famous bridge that overlooked the river at Dotomburi. As the crowds weaved in and out of walkway under the pale moonshine, she stood, back against the railing of the bridge, tired brown eyes flitting randomly from the huge Glico billboard on her left, to the reflection of the night lights on the water’s surface, and finally, resting on the fast-moving crowds crossing the bridge at that time of the night.

And suddenly, her heart stopped. She saw him – could it really be him? – walking briskly through the crowd, in his trademark leather jacket and dirty blue jeans, away from her, towards the station. She stared. Her mouth dropped open in a silent “oh”. She reached out her hand, out of pure instinct. As if to hold on to something – anything. As if to ascertain for herself that he was real. But then, even before she could move, he had disappeared. Once again, even as a memory, he had left her world.

Just the way she always knew he would.

2

Kyoto: The old imperial capital lined with temples. An old, rustic town swarming with tourists. Or so you thought. Kyoto by day and Kyoto by night seem entirely different, like the same performer donning a different set of costume as the scene changes. During the day, Kyoto is every bit your peaceful, picturesque town where people converge to seek the soul of Japan…to seek themselves. At night, Gion comes alive. Amidst the hustle and bustle, one cannot really believe that he is in Kyoto; it could have been Osaka, or even Tokyo.

Gazing out of the window on the second floor of the restaurant he was in, it suddenly hit him…that he didn’t really know Kyoto. Even though he had been here for four years, he still couldn’t say for sure that he understood Kyoto. Kyoto is like a girl whom you can never understand; there is a side of her that you can never reach; a side that is forever sealed.

As he waited for his noodles, he thought of her.

How long does it take to understand someone?

1

Osaka: Business center by day and party paradise by night. The city of flickering neon lights, lively crowds, messy underground mazes and pulsating heartbeats. Otherwise known as the poorer cousin of the more polished, up-market and focused Tokyo – Osaka had always striven to prove herself different from the former, and unique to the multi-layered landscape of Japan. Osaka: The city of smiles and a loud brand of friendliness… and of a distinct spontaneity and confidence that somehow relentlessly pulls the city’s inhabitants forward with it, into an unknown but dazzling future.

“Osaka, the city of broken hearts,” she mused sardonically, staring at an advertisement for a suspicious “Love Café”, which was one of the many shady host clubs lining the back alleys of Nipponbashi.

“Love that can be bought is cheap,” she muttered, more so to herself than to any of the passer-bys; not that they would have heard her anyway. And so, the comment was discarded in the wind, as the deafening sounds from a nearby Pachinko parlour overwhelmed the Friday night crowds.

She continued walking, pushed by the throngs of people through the long shopping street that linked Shinsaibashi to Namba – walking aimlessly, feet shuffling and yet never really knowing where they were taking her – observing the animated figures that flooded the walkway, and then periodically shoving her hands deeper into the pockets of the black coat that she had donned. As if in an attempt to keep her tiny hands warm from the oncoming Winter cold; as if in an attempt to convince herself that she was alright on her own… even if she was no longer being hand-held.

She had chosen not to be hand-held anymore… In more ways than one.