Free Rain by Amanda Sun Page A

Anyway, do you even know the first thing about dating a Japanese guy? Poor Tomo-kun. Japanese guys have totally different expectations than Americans, you know. I could never date a foreigner. I mean, for a bit of meaningless fun, maybe, but not long-term. You know your relationship with Tomo isn’t going to go anywhere serious, right? Wait...did you know?” She looked at the bright red plastered on my cheeks. “ Ara , you did! Never mind. Enjoy your date. It’s nice to be exotic, even if it’s short-lived, right?” She rose to her feet as the train doors opened, waving her hand at Tomo with a big smile as she went out the door. I stared at her like a blowfish, my mouth open in a big O as the train pulled away.
    Tomo collapsed into the seat beside me, the motion making the seat jump a little. “ Daijoubu ?” he asked. “You look pale.”
    “I’m not okay,” I said. “Not at all. Did you hear what she said?”
    He leaned forward. “What?”
    But I couldn’t say it. It was hurtful, but it was true, wasn’t it? I was stumbling over every cultural difference, like Jun’s name. What kind of expectations did Tomo have? Was I supposed to cook lunches for him like in animes? Women working in the offices brought tea for their male coworkers at break time, and Diane had told me about a teacher who’d quit working because she’d gotten married. Did Tomo expect me to do that, too? Were we really too different to have a future?
    “Nothing,” I said. I was scared Tomo would agree with what she’d said. He’d already acted pretty jealous about the Jun thing.
    “Forget her,” Tomo said. “It’s probably baby hormones talking. Today it’s just you and me, ii ? ” He ruffled my hair with his slender fingers, a grin carving its way onto his lips. I smiled back, confidence slowly flooding back into me. Tomo liked to cook, for one thing. Yuki had told me that was pretty unconventional for a Japanese guy. Maybe he wasn’t typical in any way.
    Shiori had reminded me that I was different, that I didn’t fit in. But the way Tomo looked at me right now, I didn’t feel different at all.
    * * *
    “Up a mountainside?”
    Tomohiro grinned. We’d been riding the bus for fifteen minutes, scaling closer and closer to the summit on the narrow roads that tunneled through the trees.
    “This isn’t exactly the most convenient spot for everyday meetings,” I said.
    “Okay, fine, maybe it’s a bit far for every day,” Tomo said, slouching into the bus seat. “But it’s worth it.”
    I stared out the window as the bus pulled up to a platform. Forests surrounded us in a blanket of leaves, more lush green than I’d seen in one place since moving to Shizuoka. Above the trees, a thick wire ran up the hill.
    “What is this place?”
    The bus shuddered to a stop, and we hopped off the front, dropping our yen into the plastic box beside the steering wheel.
    “Nihondaira,” Tomo said, and the moment we stepped out of the bus, the fresh, sweet mountain air gusted around us.
    The chirps of wagtails and Japanese bush warblers echoed from every corner of the forests. It was as though Toro Iseki had burst through its boundaries and transformed into an overgrown secret garden.
    The crows cawed incessantly, the only familiar sound that we were still in Shizuoka.
    “Look,” he said and stretched out his arm. It was hard to see, but there was something in the distance across the bay, a looming shape with a cap of white at the top. “The air’s muggy, but you can kind of make it out.”
    Mount Fuji towered over the landscape, reaching into the sky like a giant. I’d never seen a mountain that huge in my entire life.
    “It’s beautiful,” I breathed. “This whole area is.”
    “And remote,” he said. “Well, except the tourists.” Most of the ground around us was paved into a huge parking lot for the tour buses. But on the edges of that platform, the rolling mountains teemed with life and sound. I turned—behind us stood a