Meet You by Hachiko by Loren Greene

Author:Loren Greene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HachiPress
Published: 2020-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Re: Looking for Kana Momokawa

From: [email protected]

Sat, Dec 13, 4:37 PM

Hi, Megucchi, this is Kana. I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you until now.

A lot of things have happened. I want to explain properly later, but right now, I can’t. I met Otsuka-kun for the last time today and I could borrow a phone.

But if you send me your message on SS, I will check it from an Internet cafe sometime.

I hope I didn’t cause you a worry. I want to talk to you soon!

Kana

Shortly before two o’clock, Grace finally arrived at her destination.

It’s fine, she told herself. She was here now, and that was what mattered. In Shibuya! In the heart of it all, at long last.

When she stepped out of the station onto the street, though, she didn’t see the vibrant shopping street pictured in her books or the flashy signs or crowds of trendy teenagers. Opposite the exit were dingy bus stops, and across the street, grey-faced buildings. A highway thronged with cars ran under the raised tracks. Old gum and saliva discoloured the ground. Grace hesitated. She had gotten off at the right station this time, hadn’t she?

The sign certainly said Shibuya, but it didn’t resemble the Shibuya that Kana described. Exhaust hung thickly in the air. She wondered if she had come out the wrong exit, and so Grace set off down the sidewalk to circle the building. She hadn’t gotten far, though, when she stopped again, incredulous. The underpass, though its concrete walls were painted in soft pastels with stencilled flowers and butterflies, was lined with sleeping bags and tarps. Men with filthy hair and faces lay curled up under blankets along the wall, some fenced in with or lying on pieces of cardboard. One boiled a kettle on a portable stove. Grace, with her foreignness and the purse with all the money she had under her arm, could not help but be frightened. She turned back, feeling afraid and somehow ashamed.

What had gone wrong? Grace studied her map. She’d certainly gotten off at the right stop. This time, anyway.

Walking back through the station, she tried another exit, and felt relieved to find it open into a more commercial area. A handful of small restaurants and a big department store were visible from the door—more lively; less depressed. Nevertheless, Grace couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that she had made a terrible mistake.

Famished, she decided to look for lunch before anything else. She hadn’t thought too much about eating yet, so eager was she to be on her way, and now her stomach growled in protest.

Grace felt very well-prepared for her first attempt at bridging the language barrier in a restaurant, thanks to Friendly Planet. She’d read all about plastic food sculptures, so when she spotted an Italian restaurant with the reproductions of each dish on display in the window, Grace didn’t hesitate. She was shown to a table by a smiling young woman with a glass of water and a menu.

Unable to even begin to pronounce anything, Grace pointed at one of the photographs.

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