Nit Picky

Kari and I sit on the busy Karasuma subway. We’re headed to class and running just a little late. Kari used to be a goth girl, black and lace made up her entire wardrobe. I’ve decided to take in more colors, she nonchalantly flips her hair. She takes out her lip gloss and re-applies another coating to her already shiny lips. She now dresses in bright orange and decides to copy the Japanese high school girls, with their stilettos and their dyed hair.

Look at them, she points with her chin. There’s a group of 3 high school boys who don’t look so innocent. They’re so hot, she salivates. I agree. Especially the shorter one in the middle. His man purse slung over one shoulder, his green and white school uniform in disarray. His carefully spiked hair and the slight makeup to enhance his cheekbones. We’re bad. I giggle. We’re like the old lecherous men who always try to feel us up when we’re packed on the subway cars like sardines.

Each platform in Kyoto have platform helpers during the busy rush hours. As the bell rings signaling the doors are about to close, people rush down the stairs hoping to squeeze in the car that is ready to explode. The platform helpers help to push us in and we sometimes find ourselves, nose on the window, hoping that the doors don’t suddenly open and we fall into the river, or worse, the other train track.

The three boys glance at us briefly with no interest. I wonder what it’d be like to have a boy toy. Kari and I take the long winded stairs up to the street. It was difficult at first, making it up the stairs without huffing and puffing like a dog. But after months of endless walking, we come out without a sweat. We can hear the signal lights telling people to cross the street. It sounds like birds chirping and becomes a nuisance if you listen too long. We pass the Curry shop and I tell Kari we should have lunch there. I’d rather just pick up a bento. We can lunch in Gosho. She says. We make a brief stop at the mini mart on the corner. I can’t make up my mind which bento box I want. There’s a wall full of variety. So I opt for an onigiri with tuna and a green tea cream cheese sponge cake. At the cash register I am enticed by the rice buns in the glass case. I’ll have the one with the barbecued pork, I tell the girl working behind the counter.

Lunch is my favorite meal of the day. Dinner can be a strenuous experience. Though Mama is a wonderful cook and the meal she prepares is always of the freshest ingredients – every morning she goes to the local market to prepare for dinner, and sometimes to replenish Papa’s beer cases – at least once a week we have smoked fish, roasted fish, or fried fish. A meal that would have taken me 30 minutes to finish, takes me 1 hour when I pick at the tiny bones in the fish, trying to unearth as much meat as I can to consume with my small bowl of rice.

Lulu, the overfed Welsh corgi, nibbles at the back of my feet. I tap her away with my foot. Papa is finished with his dinner and sips heavily from his beer bottle. He only drinks dry Kirin. On the bottles, if you look closely enough, you can find the ki, the ri, and the n in the image of the flaming horse. Papa’s tall and skinny, but too much beer consumption has given him a beer belly. He unhooks the button to his pants and asks Mari about her wedding plans. Silently I finish my dinner and help Mama with the dishes. I’m going out tomorrow, I tell Mama. Is that okay? She nods and asks me where I’m going.

Papa and Obaachan get to use the ofuro first. Sometimes if I’m lucky and Papa’s not home, I am the first to relax in the warmth of the bathwater. I want one of these bath rooms, I tell Mama. After dinner, Mama always heads to the bath room and fills the deep tub with water. She presses a button and like magic, the tub heats up and keeps the water nice and hot. I rinse my body on the floor next to the tub. There’s a shower head that flexes to reach all the dirty spots. Satisfied that I’m finally clean, I hop in the tub. Sometimes I don’t, if I see stray hair or body dirt floating on the clear water. There’s just something gross about that – sharing water with strangers. I laugh at my own prejudice. How absurd, I can swim in a lake, in the ocean, in a pool filled with stranger’s dirt and yet the thought of entering the hot tub Mama prepared, fills me with disgust.