On Wednesday, I had my second date since coming to Japan. This time I went out with Ma (short for Masaomi), the guy I met at Dahlia last weekend. I had told him previously that I was free on Wednesday afternoons, so he called me on Tuesday night to check if I would still be free. He was going to visit his grandfather's grave on Wednesday morning and wasn't sure exactly when he would be done, so he said he would give me a call around 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, Tuesday night I became very sick and hardly got any rest. At first I was having trouble staying asleep. Later I woke up with an incredibly sore throat and stuffy nose. I had a hard time getting back to sleep, and felt horrible in the morning. I debated calling Ma and telling him that I couldn't meet up with him, but I really didn't want to do that. So after work ended on Wednesday, I bolted back home to get a nap in before he called.
Luckily for me, Ma didn't call until just before 2 pm, which gave me a little time to rest. I felt somewhat better after taking a nap. When we met up, I told Ma that I was sick and apologized for not being very energetic. He seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being and asked if it was okay for me to be out and about, but I insisted that it was fine. We didn't have any specific plans, so we met up near Hirome Ichiba and just walked down Obiyamachi for a while. After wandering aimlessly for a bit, we decided to stop for coffee. We sat in a cafe and chatted for a good length of time. Ma told me about the kind of work he does in Tokyo, and it sounds like he has a lot of ambitions, though I'm not sure how practical some of them are. It was an interesting conversation, though.
After leaving the cafe, we decided to walk along the river for a while. We walked from the Harimayabashi area to Kamimachi 5-chome, which is a considerable distance. While nearly all of our conversation was in English, Ma did encourage me to try to speak Japanese with him. I probably should've made more of an effort to keep talking in Japanese; I think he was a little disappointed when we switched back into English. He did manage to teach me a new word, though: nodoka. Nodoka means something along the lines of peace and quiet. He used it to describe the area where we were walking, which was very tranquil.
We stopped and sat on a bench for a while near the bridge at Kamimachi 5-chome. We talked a little, but sometimes just sat quietly. I'm not sure if Ma felt awkward about the silences, but I was comfortable enough. It was still fairly early, but I had only eaten a handful of crackers for lunch, so we decided to get dinner around 5:00. I was actually feeling kind of queasy from hunger, and was getting tired as well. Ma asked if I knew of anywhere to eat in that area, and the first thing that popped into my head was a Chinese restaurant in my neighborhood, so we went there. I ordered chicken rice, having forgotten that it was basically only rice, chicken and ketchup. I only ate about half of it. I think Ma enjoyed his food, though. By that point I was really feeling the fatigue. I apologized and told Ma that I probably needed to go home. He seemed to understand, and said he was sorry for keeping me out all afternoon.
Ma walked with me to my apartment building and we said goodbye. I had been kind of nervous that he might be pushy and want to come upstairs with me, given that he had been pretty aggressive on Saturday night, but he didn't even try to give me a kiss goodbye. We hugged and that was the end of it. Ma said that maybe he will call me if he's here for a few more days. He still doesn't know exactly when he's going back to Tokyo, but it sounds like it will be very soon.
I'm a little concerned that maybe I was very dull and seemed uninterested during our date. I really did enjoy wandering around with Ma, and I told him as much, but I don't know if he believed me. I'm hoping he will call me again before he leaves. Sasha, Julie and I are considering trying to arrange a group date, but who knows if that will work out.
After I went upstairs, I immediately lay down for a nap. Later in the evening, I woke up long enough to get ready for bed and crawled back beneath the covers. I was feeling pretty weak and feverish. As I tried to fall asleep, I felt chills running all up and down my body. Maybe walking around all afternoon hadn't been such a great plan... but, I've obviously survived, and am feeling considerably better today.
No comments:
Post a Comment