Head back home...
He would never even consider going to such a place.
“Come on, Yuy! Consider it your birthday present!” his coworkers urged as they offered the membership card, tastefully wrapped inside a white envelope complete with noshi and color-coordinated strip, to him.
“You have to find a pretty girl,” started one.
“You have to find any girl!” interjected another.
“And this place,” said the leader, the person who went through all the trouble of buying the membership, “will help your solitary life become nonexistent.” He placed the precious package in Yuy’s hands, purposely wrapping his fingers around the envelope. “Go, Yuy, and find the one destined for you!”
He couldn’t simply refuse the gift. That would be truly impolite. And yes, his coworkers were right. More often than not, he found himself searching for something, and, although he was certain nothing good will result from going to this place, it did not hurt to try.
So, that night, the quiet, solitary Heero Yuy was paying to enter the facilities of a dating club in Harajuku and to meet a young woman in a similarly lonely condition.
“Harajuku’s interesting, ain’t it?” his classmate giggled as they took in all the neon-tinted sights.
“Yeah, it’s the shit,” he replied as the group of five girls and one boy made their way through the crowded streets.
He has only been in Japan for a few weeks, but it’s been the best few weeks of his life. All the natives call him ‘cho-sexy’, while the fellow foreigners he goes to school with call him handsome without hesitation.
Or something like that.
That night, several members of the female contingency in the university’s dorms asked him to join their all-female crew to the party spots.
He was never one to let a pretty face frown.
“Hey, guys,” cried out one, pointing to a discreet sign in white and blue. “Does that say what I think it says?”
The whole group looked up. He began to laugh along with the few others that were capable of reading Japanese.
One of them grabbed his arm. “Come on, we have to go in.”
“What!” he cried out. “I don’t need a date!”
“How ‘bout we say you’re girl, Duo?” said another, a gleam evident in her eyes as she relayed the brilliant idea. The other girls vocalized their approval of the plan.
“Wait a minute,” he cried out in protest as they simultaneously undid his braid and lead him to the dating club’s door.
“And if you snag a guy,” the leader tempted, “I’ll do your laundry for a week.”
“Two weeks,” he countered.
“Deal.”
Heero felt more than a little uncomfortable in his seat. Both to his left and his right were desperate men twice his age, sitting reverently as they looked at the woman at the opposite side of the room, separated from them by a thin sheet of glass.
The woman on the other side of the glass was a lovely gaijin about his age. Most likely an American, although most Japanese think any Westerner is ‘American’, she had her long hair down and her face was tastefully made up.
She looked so beautiful, there on the other side of the glass, but he couldn’t bring himself to write anything to her.
The man that was acting intermediary between the men and the young woman entered her side of the room and handed her a note from the man to his right. She took the piece of paper from the go-between and flashed a warm, inviting smile to the sender.
Something within him clenched tightly. Inspired for a split second, he took up his pen and wrote this simple line:
If to only have you look at me that way, I will send you a thousand letters.
The gaijin opened the note and read the few lines written on it, her expressive face growing more and more dour. Without a moment’s rest, she quickly scratched out a reply and sent it right back to the man on his right. Satisfied with what she wrote, she gave the folded paper to the intermediary and gave the man another smile.
Yet, this smile was different. It was cold… nasty… bordering on the maniacal as she brushed some of her chestnut hair off of her shoulder.
If only to have your eyes on me forever, I will write over and over again.
He looked at his script. Neat, almost elegant kana stared back.
Would she be able to read the kana? Most likely not. She -is- a gaijin.
In hesitant English, he wrote this underneath his earlier thoughts:
You are pretty. What is your name?
He signed it ‘H. Yuy’ and had it ready for the intermediary to take it to her when he returned with the response to the man on his right.
The gaijin still looked at the man with a snide grin on her lips.
Duo was infuriated. Did that ugly old man think that he could get away with insulting him so blatantly?
Although, in English, the man had only asked for his name, in Japanese, underneath the polite English, he had called him an ugly foreigner that shouldn’t have even thought of coming to a dating club.
He watched as the man read the response, in perfect Japanese, no less, and grew pale.
Duo almost started to laugh. The man never saw it coming.
The intermediary took a note from the guy in the middle and left the room. The man on the left, now feeling a bit disgraced by the response sent back, also left the room.
The go-between returned to his side of the room and gave him the note from the man in the middle.
He gave the guy an once-over. In his twenties, with a untamed shock of dark hair, he seemed indifferent to his current situation.
He gave the guy his brightest smile as he unfolded the note and read both the Japanese and English script. Without hesitation, he wrote this back in Japanese:
I smile for everyone, but my secret smile is reserved for my lover’s kind face. They call me Duo, and if a letter equals a smile, then I will write to you forever.
He folded the paper up once more and sent it back. His skin flushed slightly as the guy opened the reply.
He stared at Duo, his eyes wide with shock from the blunt words. Duo smiled warmly and bowed his head a bit.
He better make sure to get that girl to starch his clothes properly.
It’s been a few days since Heero met the gaijin at the dating club, and yet here he stood in the young man’s dorm building, waiting for him to come down.
Yes, he has realized during the course of their time at the club that the lovely gaijin was male and -not- a female as he was originally led to believe. He was in the dating club that night to settle a bit of a bet, but he had agreed to go out with Heero on a real ‘American’ date.
In his hand was a small bouquet of wild pinks, wrapped up in layers of tissue papers and insignificant bits of fern. As he waited for the American, he wondered for perhaps the 10th time why he was going along this strange idea.
At that moment, the elevator door opened and out came the young man. His chestnut hair was braided back, and his pale face wasn’t made up, but he still looked as beautiful as he did on the other side of the glass.
Duo smiled. “I’m glad you came, Mr. Yuy,” he greeted cheerfully.
Heero’s features softened. “Please call me ‘Heero’, not ‘Mr. Yuy’.”
His warm smile turned a bit mischievous. “And you can call me whatever you want, as long as you call me.”
Heero smirked. “Of course… baka.”
For those who care: Dating clubs have recently been popping up in Tokyo for lonely young men and women as a place to meet others. There are more people in each of the rooms than were in this story, but everything goes down as I portrayed. Men have to pay for a yearly membership, as well as for each visit. Women don't pay the membership fee, and pay significantly less per visit.
Yes, there is a New York Times article on this. That was how I learned of this current trend.
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