a laugh. “It’s Hodaka,” she said, bringing food over. “Oh, I’ll help!” I said. There was a heaping platter of fried chicken, accompanied by a generous amount of slivered green-onion tips and grated daikon. A salad with tomato and avocado and onions. Hand-rolled sushi with beef and celery and tuna sticking out of it. And then I was starving. “Here,” Mr. Suga said, handing me another beer, and by then I knew not to say anything and just switch it for a can of cola. “Okay, in celebration of our new hire, Hodaka—!” Mr. Suga and Natsumi popped their pull tabs in unison, and I hastily opened my cola. “Cheers!” Clink, clink, clink. The three cans connected with one another. As I chewed my fried chicken, I realized it had been a pretty long time since I’d eaten dinner with anybody else, even though I wanted to roll my eyes at how pushy they were. Between that and how tasty the chicken was, I teared up a little. Mr. Suga and Natsumi both chugged beer after beer with incredible gusto, and of course, it wasn’t long before they were smashed. They were having a great time swapping online gossip and griping about their editors and making me tell them about my own life. It was a strange sensation, like having someone constantly tickling a part of me that wasn’t ticklish—like a gentle hand scratching the back of my head, for example. It wasn’t unpleasant at all. I had a strange feeling that for the rest of my life, even in the distant future when I was old enough to have grandkids, the memory of this rainy night would come back to me when I least expected it. That was how my new days in Tokyo began. Page 28 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com