Tokyo Hearts: A Japanese Love Story (5 page)

‘Good guess, Haruka, and you’re half right,’ said Yuriko. ‘I didn’t have any plans to meet up with him today, but I was coming out of Sogo Department Store and I saw him walking from the station. I was going to rush up and say hello when I noticed that he wasn’t alone.’ Yuriko took her hands off the bike handles to blow her nose and wipe the mascara away from under her eyes as she peddled. ‘He was with a young, pretty girl about our age. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions and get jealous and upset, because I thought she might be his sister or someone like that, so I decided to follow them.’

Haruka crossed her legs and leant forward. ‘So you decided to follow them,’ she repeated, nodding her head and urging Yuriko to continue.

‘Yes,’ Yuriko replied. ‘I kept my distance so they couldn’t see me and they started to head towards Chinatown.’

‘Go on,’ Haruka said.

‘Well, you’re not going to believe this, but as they walked through Chinatown, Ry
took the girl’s hand, and they walked down the street, both of them looking blissfully happy – and that’s when I started to get upset, wondering what my boyfriend was doing behind my back.’ Yuriko’s face started to contort again and tears started running down her cheeks.

Haruka went over and placed her hand on her shoulder.

‘But that’s not the worst part,’ Yuriko said between gasping sobs. ‘I kept following them and of course they didn’t see me, because they were so wrapped up in each other, and before long I could see where they were going.’

‘Where were they going?’ Haruka asked her face incredulous.

‘They were going to a love hotel!’ Yuriko replied, still peddling like a crazy woman.

‘
Noooo
,’ Haruka said, now feeling really upset about what Ry
had done to her friend. ‘What a sleazy two-timer.’ She sat down on the edge of Yuriko’s bed.

‘Oh, yes – I hate Ry
and I never want to see him again,’ continued Yuriko. ‘If he tries to call me, I won’t answer and if he sends me a text message, I won’t respond to the sleaze.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what you should do,’ Haruka reassured her. ‘Come on, get down off the bike before your legs fall off.’

Yuriko slowly wound down and eventually dropped off the bike and fell onto the bed next to Haruka, curling up into the foetal position. Haruka stood up to give her more room and went over to sit down on the bright pink candy-striped sofa chair opposite, very concerned about her friend.

‘I’m thinking of buying some laxatives,’ said Yuriko, looking at picture of a skeletal girl jumping in the air on the front cover of the magazine at her side.

‘You can’t do that – laxatives will make you ill,’ replied Haruka.

‘But I’ve put on a kilo and I want to lose it quickly. I read on the internet about a girl that lost two kilos in a week just by taking laxatives for a few days.’

‘Did you know that you could have a heart attack if you take them for the wrong reason?’

‘Don’t be silly, Haruka. I’m not going to have a heart attack,’ said Yuriko. ‘You do make me laugh.’

‘I’m not joking. Promise me you won’t try laxatives or any other weight loss tablets you read about on the internet,’ said Haruka, covering her eyes in shock and shaking her head.

‘Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,’ Yuriko replied, laughing at Haruka’s obvious concern. ‘I’ve been taking weight loss pills on and off for six months and I feel fine.’

They sat there in silence for about ten minutes. Yuriko flicked through the magazine in front of her and Haruka looked around the room, searching for any evidence of weight loss pills. She noticed a container beside Yuriko’s pillow, but she didn’t want to give her another lecture. Haruka decided that her friend needed support, not criticism, so she kept quiet.

Bored with flipping through her magazine, Yuriko sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said. ‘I just need to use the bathroom.’

‘Take your time, Yuriko,’ Haruka replied.

Haruka sat back and sighed, wishing her good friend had not had to witness this today. Poor Yuriko had been head over heels in love when she’d met Ry
just a few weeks ago. Haruka was happy for her, but concerned about the effect he was having on her self-image. She’d been dieting frantically for some time now and since she’d met Ry
, she’d become even more obsessed with diet and exercise. Haruka could tell that she thought if she just ate a little less each day and exercised frantically, she’d be the perfect woman, just like those models on the cover of the fashion magazines piled up in the corner next to her bed. Haruka wished she could figure out how to stop her friend from continuing to diet when she didn’t need to anymore and convince her that she was absolutely fine without this excessive exercising.

Haruka looked around her friend’s room, in which she’d spent many hours gossiping and enjoying her company. It was decorated throughout in various shades of pink. She wondered when Yuriko was going to refurbish the room and do away with the cuddly Hello Kitty toys piled up at the head of the bed and the children’s books on the bookshelf in the corner that had not been picked up for at least eight years. There were also several magazines on dieting on her pillow, which she’d obviously been researching that evening. This concerned Haruka, but not as much as the pro-anorexia websites she knew she’d been devouring lately.

Haruka turned to see Yuriko came back into the room from her en-suite bathroom a different person, with a controlled and determined face, newly made up with a fresh coat of foundation and mascara.

‘Let’s change the subject, Haruka,’ Yuriko said. ‘You’ve just come back from work and you must be exhausted. Tell me, did you meet up with Takashi this evening?’

‘Yes we met up in Omotesando again,’ Haruka replied, happy to oblige and change the subject.

‘How was that?’ asked Yuriko, seemingly transformed into an emotionally balanced person compared to the scene only minutes earlier.

‘It was great meeting up with him, but I told him about my job offer in Kyoto and he wasn’t happy about it. Now I feel a twinge of guilt not telling him how much time I’ve been spending with your cousin Jun lately.’

‘Oh, there’s no need to feel guilty about that, Haruka,’ said Yuriko. ‘You aren’t dating Takashi seriously yet and you’ve only met up two or three times with Jun in the last couple of months, and that’s only ever been purely innocent. You’re just beating yourself up over nothing. You’ve done nothing wrong,’ Yuriko reassured her.

‘Thanks, Yuriko,’ Haruka replied. ‘To tell you the truth, I absolutely adore Takashi and I’d like to take our relationship to the next level, but I’m afraid I might be making a mistake if I do that and I know this would upset my mother – you know how much she likes Jun.’

‘Yes I do,’ replied Yuriko. ‘Is it because she likes him or his money?’

‘I’m really not sure,’ said Haruka. ‘Well, if you’re feeling better now, I better head home. My parents will be wondering where I am.’ Haruka picked up her handbag.

‘Okay thanks, Haruka,’ said Yuriko. ‘Don’t forget Jun will be staying here again Sunday week and he’ll probably want to see you that evening.’

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Haruka replied as she stood up to leave. ‘By the way, did you know your younger brother had his ear to the door earlier, listening to you when you were upset?’

‘I didn’t realise he was doing that again. He gets bored because he has no one to talk to most of the time. You know what my parents are like. My mother’s always socialising and my father’s too busy with work.’

Haruka thought about this and how rarely she saw Yuriko’s father. He was the general manager of an import/export company and one of those salary men who rarely came home.

‘As well as this, you know my family are lucky if we see my brother at home more than twice a week in the evening and I’m always busy or at the gym, so he’s been inventing ways to keep himself amused,’ said Yuriko. ‘I’ll have a word with him tomorrow.’

There was a knock on Yuriko’s bedroom door. Her older brother Taroo poked his head through and jiggled his car keys at the girls.

‘We were just talking about you,’ said Yuriko.

‘All good, I hope,’ he said to them, flashing Haruka a smile. ‘I’m ready to leave for Yokohama. I’ve just spoken to our cousin and he said he was looking forward to seeing you. You said you wanted to come with me, but it doesn’t look like you’re ready. Are you coming or not, Yuriko?’

‘I never said anything about going with you to Yokohama,’ Yuriko replied.

‘You told me an hour ago not to leave without you,’ said Taroo, not smiling anymore and looking annoyed.

‘I don’t remember that,’ said Yuriko. She stood and whispered to Haruka, ‘I love infuriating my brother. He needs to be brought down a peg – he’s so full of himself.’

‘You’re impossible,’ hissed Taroo and shut the door behind him with a bang before stomping downstairs in a huff.

‘I better go, Yuriko,’ said Haruka, quite amused by her neighbour’s sibling rivalry. It was not the first time she’d seen Yuriko and Taroo have a go at each other, and it always made her think how nice it would be to have a brother or sister. ‘Call me tomorrow,’ Haruka said to Yuriko as she headed for the bedroom door.

‘Okay Haruka,’ her friend replied. ‘I promise I’ll call you at about eight p.m., after you finish work.’