Day 1: Part III

Sean wandered through the 7-Eleven as though he were in an art museum. He examined the package designs as if they were the brushstrokes of an Impressionist painter, sometimes stopping like a curator to explain to me a snack’s flavor, the dish it was based on, and then carefully selecting which to add to our meager collection. There was a hum to his step and excited glances back to see my reaction. I had heard of the wonders of a Japanese convenience store, and while happy to experience them first-hand, I had hoped that my first meal would be a big bowl of ramen. I found it impossible to both suppress my malcontent, as my stomach rumbled from the aroma of fried chicken, and to vocalize my desire to dine somewhere else. Sean was having a great time and I would not spoil it.

I wandered to the soft drinks. I was in the middle of contemplating whether the Coca-Cola in Japan tasted different than the Coke back at home, like how Mexican Coke tasted superior to regular Coke, when a mountain of snacks manifested itself beside my reflection in the cooler door--various flavors of potato chips, pudding cups, onigiri, matsuri dango, microwave dinners, among others. It was grotesque.

“Good thinking.” It spoke with Sean’s voice, though I could not see him. One could easily have assumed that he had been consumed by a kaiju. “We’ll need something to wash this down.”

“Right,” I said, opening the door and taking out two water bottles. The pile of snacks shifted, and Sean freed one hand, revealing the side of his face.

“Could you grab me a green tea?” he asked. The tea was in the next cooler, but Sean was blocking the door, so he shuffled out of my way like a crab. When I grabbed the green tea, he pinched it with his free hand, then used it to point at another beverage a shelf lower. “You’ve gotta try milk tea. Especially since you like sweet drinks.” I had tried boba before so I doubted it would be a novel experience, but he was so excited I went ahead and grabbed one anyway.

At the counter, he almost paid for everything. I had to use all my known oratory démarches to get him to let me pay for at least the milk tea and water. The cashier fit everything into just two plastic bags and we left. I had offered to carry one of the bags, if not both, but Sean insisted that he do it, noting my suitcase would be plenty of work itself.

The hotel was quite the contrast to the otherwise developed and wealthy area. A cement wall topped with spiked wires surrounded an unpaved parking lot with an unmanned boom gate to dissuade cars and passersby from wandering inside. We walked around the boom gate and then saw a security booth some ten yards away that we had to voluntarily approach to check in.

The security guard inside wasn’t much taller than myself, though he had other intimidating factors such as his well-built stature or his eyes burning with the fires of justice or the large gun at his waist to enforce it. Sean talked to the officer. I only recognized an initial, ‘konnichiwa’, and the occasional sentence-ending “ka.” Sean showed his ID and, eventually, I was asked for mine. The officer, intense with his non-expression as he looked them over, called for backup. Great. I’m gonna get deported and I haven’t even eaten yet! The backup officer came. They both began flipping through a thick binder. They closed it with a thud, then handed me a large laminated pass.

We continued to the hotel. “What was that about?” I asked Sean, somewhat worried that I hadn’t been given my ID back.

“They were double-checking the law. The age of adulthood in Japan is twenty, so they didn’t think I could check us in, but since we’re technically on US soil, it’s eighteen.”

“Oh, because this is a military base. That’s funny. I flew across the world just to end up back in America. What about my ID?”

“You’ll get that back when you leave.”

The hotel was as bare bones as would be expected from a government building. It reminded me of my high school, built with cement blocks into a simple square, with paneled ceilings and cubical lighting. The only difference was the grey carpets instead of cracked tiling along the floor.

“Well, this is it,” Sean said as he unlocked the door. He didn’t open it. He stood before it with the same intensity that he gave to all the snack packaging. “The Love Hotel,” he said with a smirk.

I burst out laughing, more at the olive branch of goodwill than from a particular fondness of my dumb joke. “You must be real proud of that one,” I said.

It was a small room. A window, a couch, a TV, and a coffee table. Sean set the plastic bags on the coffee table and reclined on the couch. I went to use the restroom. When I came back, the TV was playing a thriller movie and Sean was dumping the snacks onto the coffee table. He opened a bag of chips and his green tea. I joined him on the couch.

“Take anything,” Sean gestured to the pile.

I grabbed what I thought was yogurt but turned out to be a pudding cup. I scarfed it down then had another. I thought about having one of the microwave dinners, but not seeing a microwave, resigned myself to some onigiri. The movie finished and a mobster film began. We watched in silence.

“What should I try next?” I asked him after a while.

Sean rummaged through the pile on the table and raised two boxes like the Hylian Hero after opening a chest. On the boxes were pictures of bite-sized chocolate biscuits in fun shapes of either mountains or bamboo shoots. “There’s a big debate about which one’s better.”

“And you want me to chime in?”

Sean nodded.

“I don’t know. I mean, I’ll try ‘em, but I don’t want to get involved in Japanese socio-political affairs. Isolationism. Monroe Doctrine. All that stuff.” I began adding gestures as I spoke and my voice took on a strangely Italian New Yorker tone.

“Well,” Sean shook the box. “America wrote the Japanese constitution.”

“Some might say I’m Mexican.”

“Isn’t Mexico in America?”

“Uh, well, you know,” I said. “I don’t like this intelligence of yours. I don’t like that you can say that with a straight face. Like it was obvious.” I seemed to have gone full mobster by then. I might as well have been wearing a fedora. “What do you think I am, dumb or something? Don’t answer that. I bet you’ll answer honestly. I don’t want to hear your truth. I’ll eat your snacks, but I don’t want to hear your truth. I don’t understand this. This always happens to me. Why do I always end up the most dumb out of my friends?”

“Isn’t it ‘dumbest’?”

It happened again.“Yeah, so, um, these snacks,” I said, changing the subject. “They look good. What is that? Chocolate? I love chocolate.”

I extended my hand. Sean chuckled as he opened the boxes and then said, “I’ll give you the mountains first.” He shook them into my hand. I ate them, one at a time. When I was done, I sipped some water, swirling it around until all remnants of flavor were gone. We repeated this process with bamboo-shaped biscuits. I squinted at the boxes, as though the illustration would somehow illuminate my illiterate opinion.

“They taste the same,” I said. Sean was hesitant to respond, lest it be perceived as influencing my judgment.

“I mean, the texture’s different.”

“And?”

“Uh,” I picked up the boxes but couldn't connect either to my soul. “I’ve gotta start all over,” I submitted, taking another sip of water, then, this time, starting with the bamboo biscuits. “The bamboo shoots are better,” I concluded. “The texture’s more consistent.”

Sean applauded. “Exactly.”

It was a close call, but I guessed right. We celebrated by chugging our respective teas, then dug into the matsuri dango, yanking the chewy candies off their sticks with our teeth. Despite this rejuvenating combination of drinks, sweets, and the mobster movie, the twenty-something hours of sleep deprivation caught up to me. I had grown weak. “Dude, I cannot keep my eyes open. I should go to bed.”

“Okay.”

I got up and waited for him to do the same. He was too focused on the TV. A yawn escaped me. “So, like, are you gonna get up?” I asked.

“I was gonna finish the movie.”

“That’s fine, I can sleep through it. Still, need to pull out the bed.”

“What?”

“From the couch,” I said. “If we’re gonna share the bed, I need to pull it out.”

“Wha-what do you mean share?” Sean said, flushing red and taking on a harsher tone than I expected him to, as usually his anger manifested in a passive coldness. It was strange that he could tolerate my love hotel joke, but took such offense to a matter of practicality. Although, I could understand why he was mad: his mother had booked the room, and now I had tried to lay claim to the only bed.

“Why don’t you sleep in the bedroom?” Sean asked, looking towards the bathroom door.

“What bedroom?” I asked, gesturing around the room. “There’s just the couch.”

“Through the bathroom!”

“What are you talking about? There’s not a bed in the bathroom. There was a door but…OH! I thought that was a door to the next room.”

“Why would the next room use our bathroom?”

“I thought it was a shared bathroom. Like, in a dorm or something.”

He shook his head. “It’s the same room.”

“That’s nice,” I said. At that point, I was too tired to feel embarrassed at my stupidity and I was a little confused why Sean seemed to be. I grabbed my suitcase and walked to the bathroom door. “Goodnight, then,” I yawned.

I waited for a response, but instead, Sean sat sheepishly, with his hand on his chest. His eyes darted around the room but then landed on me for a moment. It lasted a while. Not an hour or anything, but probably approached a minute.

“Oh,” Sean said. “Goodnight.” After he said it, he turned to the window and hid his face in his hands. “Yeah,” he said again, though quieter and more to himself than for me. “Goodnight.”