Chapter One

“Payday!” A shiny 100 yen coin lies on the crosswalk. I bow and balance on one foot as I scoop up the valuable currency. The stopped cars witness my little theatrics as the timer runs out on my allotted crossing time. I jog to the sidewalk before the timer reaches zero.

Traffic resumes behind me and I am admiring my treasure find. If I find a capsule toy machine, I’ll definitely spend it on that. Hopefully, there is a keychain of my favorite anime which is airing its fourth season right now! A bright thought in my head is the perfect countermeasure for this gloomy, cloudy weather.

My name is Gabriela, and I’m head over heels where I am.

The drizzling rain starts up and picks up speed, its raindrops outpacing my stride. What a day to not wear a hoodie today. Instead I have a long sleeved baggy sweater and an all-black box pleat skirt. The sweater though, it’s black and blue, so it’s a cool color combination. The colors I think match the ongoing weather. I like it a lot, it’s got a cool Japanese-style aesthetic too with its lines and circles. I readjusted my laptop bag over my shoulder and shielded the already-waterproof bag.

Small puddles start forming and the fluorescent and neon lights reflect off them. I zig zag to avoid each one keeping my eyes down on the ground. My stomach lightly growls as my eyes make contact with the bright green sign of the convenience store.

Shame. I was feeling ramen tonight. I’ve been feeling ramen for like a month.

While waiting out the rain I am browsing the hot food section as I had already made my choices of bagged chips, onigiri, and electrolyte-filled water. I can get by with this for the night.

“Sumimasen?” I utter out in my limited Japanese.

The cashier turns their attention to me.

I pointed to the fried chicken display and held up three fingers, “Mittsu chickin kudasai.”

God, I hope I said that correctly.

With my goodies in a plastic bag, I’m ready to head home. I unwrap one of my fried chickens and munch on it. The weather has already dispelled, but the sky remains dark as night approaches.

Ramen.

It’s a bit embarrassing, but I’d like to have ramen with a friend. I know there’s no reason to be embarrassed going alone. But I bet it will taste better going with a friend.

It’s been a month since I first arrived for my new English teaching job. I’ve already experienced a couple weeks of training, a company dinner, and my last free days were used up for sightseeing and familiarizing myself with this city. It’s a dream come true.

I arrived at my apartment. Pretty nifty place. I only have a coffee table, a bed and a TV set up. There was a wave of romanticization of the Japanese apartment this past decade. As seen on television and anime, the lifestyle drew the attention of citizens and foreigners to try out the cheap but more than enough lifestyle. It’s probably a millennial thing, but I’m happy paying an approximate 50,000 yen a month for this place. I turn on the TV and a gameshow plays as background noise. I want to get a bookshelf, but that’s going to take a while to fill up with books. I would need to find a bookstore that sells books. I randomly managed to find the first two manga volumes of my favorite anime series in convenience stores this past month. They both sit at the coffee table unread. Of course, I can’t read Japanese, but there is something thrilling about owning merchandise from your favorite series. I heard there’s also collaborations between anime series and other products, so I definitely want to find some snacks with my favorite character’s faces on them.

Hmm. I also need to find a dojo.

I put away my groceries but an onigiri. I unwrap and munch on the mystery fish flavor filling. Eel? Cod roe? I can’t tell. It’s salted which is the only thing I can tell about it. I take a seat on my bed and flip through a notebook. Here I have a weekly schedule, notes on the city, and future lesson planning ideas I got from coworkers. Looking over my living space right now, I think I should also buy a dining room table and chairs. I flip through a page labeled, Future Purchases and write down Dining Room Set under Bookshelf.

I watch a bit more TV as the drowsiness sets in. I get up to brush my teeth and prepare for the night. After all, my first official work day at the school starts tomorrow!

I messed up. I messed up!

My alarm ringtone blasts from my phone. The sunlight barely seeps through my window as the sun is just rising. I lay already awake from an involuntary all-nighter.

This always happens. Whenever I have an important event the next day, my body instinctively is on alert. My body knows it has to wake up early, so what happens instead is that I don’t sleep at all. I remember getting drowsy and sleepy last night, but the truth is that as soon as I recognize those sleep indicators, I have to get up to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, turn off the lights, turn off the TV, charge my phone. It is one action followed by the next that re-energizes me and punishes me for my good end-of-the-night habits.

That’s not all. I can’t recognize if I’m awake or not as my dream(?) is me trying to fall asleep. It’s like being awake squared, like a math equation. The only solution I can think of is caffeine.

I get going with all my preparations like showering, meal prepping, and getting dressed for work. I get my laptop bag and input coffee into my maps app.

As I’m walking on the sidewalk, I rest my eyes on strides I know are safe. I calculate I can take ten steps before I lose my sense of orientation and crash into a pole. So after ten steps I re-open my eyes and take a look at my surroundings.

Before I know it, I arrive at a crosswalk. This particular one does not have lights to indicate when I can cross. So I take a look right, then left, then right again. Go, Gabby, go!

I follow the rest of the directions to a coffee shop, in which I am slowly gaining awareness. I get my drink and sip while heading outside. I see schoolchildren with their bright red backpacks and bright yellow hats crossing. Perhaps my students in the near future as I am teaching middle school English. The caffeine jump starts me. But what catches my attention is the fast approaching vehicle.

Perhaps it is the adrenaline or caffeine, but I feel like this person would be in the same situation as I am. Sleep deprived and work-ready attitude combined with stress. I can’t generalize, but it could also be a condition like heart failure or narcolepsy. Either way, I sprint.

Pitch black. No, no, no, no. It can’t all be over. Is this death? There’s so much I didn’t get to do. There’s so much that I want to do again! The vending machines, the trains, the capsule toy machines. All the English material I had ready to teach those kids. Kids, what about the ones in the crosswalk? Did I save them? Oh, please let them be safe.

Resonance.