I Love You So Mochi

by Sarah Kuhn

  “I like … clothes,” I finally say.

  “Clothes?” my mother repeats, sounding a bit incredulous. “Well, that’s fine, you can like clothes. But that’s a hobby, Kimi, not a career. Not a passion. Not something that will take you through life in a meaningful way or set you up for a good future.” Her frown deepens, and her voice is laced with disappointment. “I don’t understand you. You have so much talent and so many opportunities.”

  The opportunities I would have killed for part goes unsaid, which somehow makes it even worse.

  “So many chances to do so much. And you’re throwing it all away,” she continues. “Lying to me and spending time on, what? Frivolous things like obsessing over clothes?”

  “I was just … having fun,” I say, blinking like mad so the tears won’t fall. One of them rebels and slides down my cheek. I barely register a hand on my shoulder—Bex or Atsuko, trying to comfort me.

  There’s a silence, one of those heavy silences that goes on way too long. One of those silences that somehow contains every bad thing about this moment, rolls it all up into a great big ball of terrible feelings.

  “Well,” my mother finally says, her shoulders slumping, “I hope it was worth it.”

  She turns to Ms. Koch and gives her a slight nod. “I apologize for causing a scene in your classroom. And for my daughter.”

  “N-no problem,” Ms. Koch says, still looking a little scared.

  My mother holds her head high and strides out, barely looking at me as she passes. I follow her like a sad puppy dog, stumbling out of the art room with Bex and Atsuko trailing after me. I hear scandalized murmurs running through the class, but I don’t even care.

  “Mom,” I say, even though I’m not sure what I want to say after that. Tears are falling freely down my face now and I can’t stop them. She’s so disappointed in me. The daughter she was so proud of for getting into the academy has disappeared. It’s like I’ve shrunk to pea-sized Kimi right before her eyes. Like I’m an actual hamster, I guess.

  “I will see you at home, Kimi,” she says, not stopping as she heads for the school’s exit.

  Atsuko and Bex wrap me into a pretzel of a group hug, making soothing little noises. And Atsuko tactfully refrains from noting that anyone who knows Asian Mom Math knows that silent, disappointed anger is way worse than the screaming and yelling kind.

  Everything is quiet when I get home. Mom is out in her studio and Dad isn’t back from the restaurant yet. I flop on my bed and stare at my unfinished Battle Kimi outfit from yesterday. I think about tinkering with it, but I can’t seem to focus. Instead, my gaze keeps wandering back to the letter from my grandfather. To the plane ticket. If getting away from all my problems seemed like a tempting fantasy before, it has now morphed into a full-blown siren song of a fantasy, calling to me like fresh mochi or a perfectly cut pleated circle skirt or a half-off sale at an expensive vintage boutique.

  Why does it have to be a fantasy, anyway?

  I mean … I’ll have to explain it to Atsuko and Bex. They’ll be disappointed I’m flaking on the plans we’ve had forever. Actually, how am I going to explain this to them?

  Hey, guys, so you know I had that huge fight with my mom, but also I need to go on this international journey of self-discovery in order to finally figure out what my passion is. Since it’s apparently not painting.

  I’ll have to figure that part out later.

  I finger the tissue-thin stationery, considering.

  When Dad comes in hours later to tell me dinner’s ready, I’m rereading the letter for what must be the millionth time.

  “I really messed up, huh,” I say, not looking up from the letter.

  “You did,” he says, but his voice is gentle. “Kimi, you can’t lie to us like that. Your mother and I are discussing your punishment, but I’m not going to yell at you. I get the feeling your mother’s done plenty of that already.”

  “She actually didn’t yell,” I say. “She was more … quiet about it. Disappointed.”

  He winces. He knows that’s even worse.

  I hold up the letter. “Maybe putting a whole freakin’ ocean between Mom and me is a good idea right about now?”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” I finally meet his eyes and his expression makes me want to cry again. He looks like he’s trying so hard to understand me but can’t quite get there. “I think if you want to go, you should go. It’s a wonderful opportunity. But do it because you want to. Not because of what you think someone else wants.”

  I nod slowly, even though I don’t know how to figure out what I want anymore. Did I ever?

  I get up and follow him to the dining room, where Mom is sitting at the table, her face blank as she studies her food. Tonight’s dinner is a spin on Japanese curry, involving bits of ground beef in a delicious spicy gravy over rice. And I know there will be mochi for dessert, but even that doesn’t make me feel better.

  My dad and I sit. Everyone is silent. It’s only then that I realize I’m still clutching my grandfather’s letter like some sort of talisman.

  “I’ve decided that I’m going to take Grandpa up on his offer,” I say, trying to ignore the way my palms are sweating and my face is getting hot. “I’m going to Japan for spring break.”

  There’s a long silence, punctuated only by the soft click of chopsticks against bowls. When my mother finally speaks, her voice is measured and quiet. And she still won’t look at me.

  “Perhaps that would be best,” she says. She frowns at her curry, mixing it around with her chopsticks. “Kimiko, I’m not sure what to say. I feel like you are suddenly a stranger. Like I don’t know you at all.”

  I don’t know how to respond, so we eat the rest of the meal in silence. As we do, a tiny thought circles around in my head—like the hamster wheel’s back and as unrelenting as ever.

  I don’t know who I am, either. But maybe, just maybe, this trip will give me the chance to figure it out.

  How do you tell if you’re having an existential crisis or you’re just terrible at making decisions?

  Because ever since I made the incredibly impulsive decision to catapult myself halfway around the world, the sentiment that keeps running through my head is: I don’t know what I’m doing.

  Not with this trip, not with my future, and not with my life.

  I wish I could make that statement with gusto. I can totally see Atsuko doing that—in fact, I have seen Atsuko doing that, back when we were sophomores and snuck into senior prom, where we most definitely did not belong. I wasn’t quite in the zone with my Kimi Originals game yet and our plan had been sort of last-minute and haphazard anyway, so we’d “borrowed” these ridiculous long slips from Atsuko’s mom’s closet and strung piles of fake pearls around our necks and kept saying “We are such gla-mooooo-rous ladies” to each other in what we imagined to be high society–type voices. Of course as soon as we’d gotten there, I’d felt silly and childish and out of place. A kid playing dress-up among the throngs of actually gla-mooooo-rous seniors. I’d wanted to leave immediately. Atsuko, on the other hand, had plunged herself into the middle of the dance floor, flailing her arms with wild abandon. Her pearls whipped around her, clacking in time with the beat. Atsuko is not a good dancer. But she so obviously didn’t care what anyone thought about her, it kind of didn’t matter. She was mesmerizing.

  “Kimi!” she’d cried out, throwing her head back and raising her hands in the air. “Come on, dance with me! I don’t know what I’m doing!”

  She’d said it in a way that seemed to imply this was a good thing—breathless, enthusiastic, lost in the moment. Like there was so much fun to be had in the process of figuring out what she was doing. I’d danced awkwardly alongside her for the rest of the song, then convinced her to leave.

  In the few days between deciding to go to Japan and leaving for Japan, I tried to convince myself that going on this journey of self-discovery and figuring out who I really am and where my passion really lies could be fun in that “Atsuko figu
ring stuff out on the dance floor” kind of way. I decided I needed to embrace this state of not knowing what I was doing, to treat it like I was going on a truly epic quest. Battle Kimi Finds Herself.

  But right now, I’m feeling about as far from epic as you can get. I’m crammed into a packed train speeding from the airport and into Kyoto, my suitcase jammed between my knees. I’ve made it through a sleepless fifteen-hour flight, a seemingly endless customs line, and a heart-stopping moment wherein I thought my suitcase was lost. (It wasn’t, it got put on an earlier flight and was waiting for me at the little office next to baggage claim, its cheery floral exterior an insolent blotch against the sea of black and navy blue bags.)

  I’m in a jet-lagged haze—I think it’s late afternoon here? And I’m clutching the piece of paper with the instructions detailing where to meet up with my grandparents in my sweaty hand. I’m also starving because I was too nervous to eat on the plane and then I was freaking out about my bag being lost and the end result is that I haven’t had food since breakfast. The train is packed to the gills, but eerily quiet. I remember this tidbit from the hasty reading I did on Japan before I left—that you’re not supposed to talk loudly on the train, and you’re definitely not supposed to talk on the phone. There are plenty of signs posted—complete with helpful cartoons—just in case anyone forgets. It amazes me that people actually follow this rule. I can’t see this happening in the States, where talking loudly on your phone in public spaces seems to be some people’s chief joy in life.

  The quiet is nice, though, and I try to let it soothe me. To remind me that this trip is going to be my escape from the chaos of school and my messy life and the near silent treatment my mother’s been giving me since our fight …

  Okay, so thinking about all that stuff is not very soothing. I focus instead on the colorful presence of my suitcase, remember how I packed it full of my favorite outfits. The ensembles that give me confidence. After all, if I’m going to be finding my passion, it’s best to start from a confident place, right? A place where even if I don’t know what I’m doing, at least I sort of look like I do. A place where—

  BZZZZZZ BZZZZZZ!!!

  My phone chooses this moment to make the loudest noise in the history of ever. I nearly jump out of my seat. The noise pierces the peaceful silence and suddenly I’m frantically fumbling around, stuffing my sweaty piece of paper into one pocket and trying to get my phone out of the other.

  “Oh … crap …” I murmur to myself, my heart rate ratcheting upward as some of the older people on the train turn to stare, casting irritated looks at me, then at the signs that forbid talking on the phone.

  My phone slides around in my sweaty hands as I struggle to unlock it—it looks like someone’s trying to call me on Skype?—and my face gets all hot and is this really the first beautiful memory I’m making in Japan?

  I try to hit “decline,” but my finger slips and lands on “accept,” and suddenly Atsuko’s and Bex’s faces are filling the phone screen and really, there’s no way this could get any worse. Maybe if Mom was with them? Although, at least then, she’d be talking to me.

  “Kimi!” Atsuko bellows, and I wince alongside everyone else on the train. I look up and mouth “sorry,” trying to make eye contact with everyone, but the train is so packed, it’s impossible. “My mom told me that your mom told her that you went to freaking Japan for spring break?!”

  “Without even telling us!” Bex chimes in. “What about our plans? I made spreadsheets, remember? Color-coded?”

  “And … and what are you even doing in Japan anyway, Kimi?!” Atsuko says. “How could you not tell us anything—”

  “SorryIhavetogobyeeeee!” I finally manage, hitting “end call” as firmly as I can.

  I stuff the phone back in my pocket, mouth “sorry” again, and slide down in my seat, attempting to get my galloping heartbeat under control. I kept trying to find the right time to tell them I was flaking on all our plans, that I needed to go figure stuff out. That I couldn’t be in the same room as my mom at the moment, couldn’t take her silent, disapproving stares. With every stare, I felt the weight of her disappointment crushing me.

  Somehow, it was never the right time. And as the days melted away, as my friends’ excitement over big spring break fun grew … I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them. It was yet another thing I couldn’t stand to make real—but in this case, it was because I knew how awful that moment would be. They would ask me zillions of questions I didn’t have answers to, then stare back at me in disappointment.

  I couldn’t deal with disappointing anyone else.

  So, I’d retreated to my comfy continent of Denial. And I hadn’t thought past that.

  But now I guess I have to think about it, because my friends know what’s up, my friends are pissed, and I need to figure out how to tell them I have basically no solid answers to any of their inevitable questions. Because I am on a quest of self-discovery and all.

  Although it may not matter if I find the answers I’m looking for here in Japan. At the rate I’m going, I may not have anything—or anyone—to return to.

  I want to catapult myself off the train as soon as it arrives at my stop, but I force myself to stand and walk out in a calm, collected manner, hauling my suitcase behind me. My stomach lets out an angry growl and I quicken my step, trying to call as little attention to myself as possible. As I step off the train, I am once again struck by how orderly everyone is—there’s none of the usual pushing and shoving and jostling that inevitably springs from being part of a crowd. The sheer mass of people is overwhelming, though, and my stomach’s growling intensifies, like it was just waiting for me to exit one embarrassing situation so it could cause another. I scan the train station wildly, but in my hungry, panicked state, it mostly just looks like a big blur of people.

  “Sumimasen!” a young boy calls out as he scurries by me, his tiny backpack bouncing up and down. He doesn’t even come close to bumping into me, but I jump back instinctively and nearly knock into someone else. I do a double take as I watch his tiny form winding its way through the crowd, on a mission. He doesn’t appear to have a parent, guardian, or any other grown-up-type figure with him, and as I scan the station, I realize there are a bunch of unaccompanied kids, just going about their business like tiny adults. I am struck by the fact that Japanese schoolchildren are already way more responsible and mature and in control of their lives than I can ever hope to be.

  My stomach lets out a particularly enraged growl and I nearly jump out of my skin.

  My gaze finally lands on a food stand selling a variety of snacks, many of which appear to be breaded in panko. Mmm, panko. Suddenly I can smell its fried richness wafting through the air. Calling to me like a beacon.

  I detour over to the food stand and even though I want to order everything, I restrict myself to a pair of perfect, golden-brown croquettes positioned at the front of the display rack. I manage to do the necessary yen/food exchange without making a total fool of myself. The chipper man behind the counter deposits my croquettes into a paper sleeve with gusto and passes them to me. I nod and say, “arigato,” and then I cram one of the croquettes directly into my mouth. It’s lava-level hot and I let out a little whimper as it burns my tongue. It’s also so, so good—rich and hearty, the crunch of the panko giving way to that soft, potato-y center. I take another bite, even though I know I’m going to get burned again.

  My stomach finally stops growling as I polish off one croquette and start in on another, and I feel better as I move through the crowd, heading toward the spot where my grandparents suggested we meet. A few people throw me odd looks as I stride through the station and I wonder if there’s something I’m doing that gives me away as, well … super American. I suppose it could be the big freakin’ suitcase I’m hauling behind me. At least my stomach isn’t making noise anymore, and my friends aren’t hitting me up on Skype in the most disruptive manner possible.

  As I approach the designated meeting spot—
near the train station’s exit, next to a stand selling postcards—I spy a pair of figures I’ve only ever seen in old photos, and my heart starts to beat faster.

  My grandfather sees me first. A slight smile crosses his face and he raises a hand in tentative greeting—like he’s not sure it’s actually me. I raise a hand in return and quicken my step, trying to snarf down the rest of my croquette. I manage to pop the last bite in my mouth just as I reach them. I paste a big smile on my face, realizing too late there’s a smattering of crumbs dotting the left corner of my mouth.

  “Konnichiwa, Ojiisan, Obaasan,” I say, bowing. “Grandpa and Grandma.” I realize then that I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to call them. Atsuko calls her Japanese grandparents Ojiichan and Obaachan, but since I barely know mine, pretty much anything feels too familiar, too affectionate. But is the more formal address even weirder? Ugh, I don’t know. I try to cover my awkwardness by stepping forward to hug them.

  “Kimiko-chan,” my grandmother says, leaning back a bit, just out of reach—as if to discourage the hug in the politest way possible. Oh, right: Dad told me being all huggy and affectionate—particularly in public—doesn’t tend to happen as much in Japan, especially among older people. And hand shaking isn’t really a thing either, which is probably for the best since I’m still clutching my greasy croquette wrapper. I attempt to crumple it further, to make it as small as possible, but of course that makes a loud, obnoxious noise and Grandma’s brow crinkles.

  Just like Mom’s does, I can’t help but think.