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It’s ok Mrs. Miyuki, I can handle myself.
What a wretched lie, Eijun thinks.
Not even ten minutes after getting off the bullet train, he finds himself lost, bewildered, and grinding his teeth through a burgeoning headache because he bailed on lunch to finish packing.
The fact that everything is just so colorful and flashy in Tokyo didn’t help either.
A little over three hours removed from his childhood home and he already finds himself pining for the rice paddies, the wasabi, the strawberries, the cabbages, and even that ugly Sycamore tree.
He sniffs and dabs his eyes with his right sleeve. Stupid allergies.
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His phone buzzes and Eijun checks it to see a message from his mom pop in the screen.
U got off the train ok? Still at the station?
Yea, m about to go out
Gud, be respectful k? dnt go screaming around their hous, Aiya might look dainty but ur grandpa taught her how to slap when we wer young
Oh and don’t lose the omiyage
I won’t
And don t eat it either!
I’d never!
Eijun huffs, pockets his phone, and braces himself to face the harsh Tokyo air.
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So maybe he’s regretting that he turned down Mrs. Miyuki’s offer of fetching him from the station.
But what self-respecting Japanese man would further impose on his hosts? They’ve been kind enough to offer their house as his home for the year when he stupidly forgot to pass his dorm applications and when his would-be roommate bailed on their plan to share an apartment near campus.
Eijun’s going to be a freshman in college now. He can definitely wrangle Tokyo transportation into submission… is what he thinks before getting on the wrong bus and subsequently falling asleep and missing his stop.
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Here he is, almost an hour later, dog-tired from sitting on the train for two hours and on the verge of pulling his hair out. There’s a reason why trains are the best form of transportation, they’re orderly and have loud PA systems. Navigating through train routes and schedules is easy-breezy, you can even ask attendants for help.
Buses, on the other hand, are baffling. You’re dead if you don’t know the designated stops and their routes, it’s not like you can access that information easily (especially when you can’t see shit at night). Buses are for people who are native to the area, who are intimate with the endless highways and curbs, and who have honed their mastery of bus routes through years of exposure and necessity.
It’s just Eijun’s luck that Mrs. Miyuki’s house is more accessible to buses. He’d have to walk about two kilometers if he chose the train, which in hindsight, is certainly better than running circles through Tokyo.
He’s almost given up and is about to beg Mrs. Miyuki to pick him up when he sees a bus pull over. He trips on his feet and nearly face-plants before pulling himself up and running towards the bus at full-sprint.
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When the driver assures him that Mrs. Miyuki’s neighborhood is part of his route, Eijun almost drops on the spot, in boneless relief.
But he steels himself, lugs his hefty suitcase to an empty seat on the back, staggers on his feet and promptly falls on the lap of an innocent passenger to his left.
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Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
With his face glowing red in mortification, Eijun scrambles out of the stranger’s lap, a thousand apologies about to spill from his lips when he notices that the stranger is woah stunning…
His face is pretty huge. But it’s a pretty attractive huge face. Oh my god he looks like Yamazaki Kento. Is he Yamazaki Kento? Did I just sit on Yamazaki Kento’s lap?
…and also asleep. He lets out a shaky sigh of relief.
On second thought, he isn’t Yamazaki Kento. The nose is all wrong, not that it isn’t a very good nose. A tad crooked but still pretty ok. Good god, we don’t have guys like him in Nagano. What is it with Tokyo? Is it the water?
His attention shifts to one of the earbuds which dangles helplessly on the guy’s left side and Eijun winces, realizing he must have accidentally yanked it away when he fell like a baby lamb.
Feeling immensely guilty, he sits himself behind the ikemen and attempts to cautiously place the earbud back on his ear.
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It’s been ten minutes and Eijun has dropped the ikemen’s left earbud five times. Miffed at his lack of success, he carefully picks up the earbud and places it in his ear instead.
If you're too tired to walk
Then as long as you stand still and cling
The earth will spin
And carry us in the right direction
Mr. Children, Eijun thinks in glee.
At least, the ikemen had good taste in music.
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When a particularly rough swerve of the bus jolts Eijun awake he is horrified.
If it turns out that he missed his stop again, he resolves to bang his head on the pavement.
And when an unfamiliar song beats insistently on his right ear, he is even more horrified.
His gaze shift towards the ikemen and his eyes almost rolls back in relief when he finds the guy still asleep. He sends a thank you prayer above for being marginally fair. That despite granting Tokyo men unparalleled looks, they were quite weak and easily exhausted.
When the bus driver finally announces his stop, Eijun hurriedly grabs his luggage and clambers out of the bus like a bat out of hell. By managing not to disturb the ikemen’s sleep (avoiding a mortifying interaction) and waking up before he misses his stop (again), he is eternally grateful for whatever good luck he amassed.
Mercifully, he thinks, he had managed to get out of there unscathed.
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"Oi."
"..."
"What the fuck Mochi, you don't have to kick me."
"Then stop ignoring me, you bastard. You ain't fooling anyone with your shit. I saw you open your eyes when he fell on you, you smug fucker."