Shiiou Campus Gaijin.

Part One. A smelly yet enticing proposition.

To experience an idea, something you only imagined as a 'figment of possibility', take form and expropriate your senses while simultaneously overriding your existence in this universe is both bewildering and intriguing to behold. The concept that the thoughts and visions of one person could manifest their tiny amount of presence into a whole reality that can be feasted by the eyes and ears of the masses is as close to the work of gods than anything we can conceive.

Or so I'm told. I never studied philosophy.

I only mention this borderline gibberish as a way to make light of where I found myself one boring Wednesday morning at my local community college, the day itself only notable for the fact it was raining tigers and chupacabras. I was lucky enough to avoid the downpour having arrived way before classes were to start that day, but that's neither here nor there.

I'd been through the first burst of daily courses, coasting along like any other day. Classes didn't start again until ten, and I had decided to spend the interlude lounging around one of the lecture halls. My laptop and earbuds were doing their best to keep me entertained and while they were succeeding for the most part, I quickly came to realize the coffee I had started my day with had slowly made it's way around. I could have let it wait until just before classes would restart but I settled to get it over with while I had my lions share of free time.

Packing up my lappie and collecting my backpack off the idle chair next to mine I made my way down the hall stairs and out the door into the hallway. I checked my watch; It was close to nine at this point and as expected the halls were abuzz with my fellow learning patrons. Nothing out of the ordinary. A normal day.

I had plans that night, though nothing special in particular. Withdraw some money from the bank, eat a panini steak sandwich, play Street Fighter V or Tekken 7 until my eyes bleed, then pack it in and prepare for the next school day routine. The after school events would change but the daily routine would remain the same, at least until I graduated. Even that was coming up close in the next eighteen months. My internship was already reaching the planning stages and I was just around the corner from having interviews with prospective companies for the chance to learn from the best.

Which brings us back to the place I now found myself: A lightly soiled yet unremarkable bathroom stall in the second floor west wing washroom of the campus. At this point I was on automatic. I was left alone with my thoughts and the faint smell of urine in the brightly lit toilet cubicle as I sat on the can, only the faint sound of bustling students outside the washroom door to interrupt my train of thought. And for a fraction of a second, and I swear it was only that long at best, I closed my eyes and lowered my head to let the relative silence soak into my skull. I stopped paying attention to the noise outside, or the annoying hum from the fluorescent lights above my head, and just sat there while I finished up doing my business.

Sometimes a fraction of a second means everything.

I snapped out of my silence and realizing I was done stood up, wiped, and flushed the soiled toilet clean. Grabbed my bag, opened the stall door, washed and dried my hands, and stepped out into the hall. I was taken aback immediately.

It was quite a bit dimmer in the hall than the washroom so at first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. I wiped them quickly with my hand and closed the door behind me. I was at a loss. This was not the second floor, or even the west wing of campus. It didn't even really look like a college hallway at first. It was only once I glanced around that I noticed that the walls across from the washroom were covered in postings and notices for events. Many of them were torn and taped haphazardly to the paint peeling concrete walls. At this point I turned around to see the washroom entrance again and noticed the door was also worse for wear and also covered in postings from side to side.

I took a closer look at one of the more prominent ones as many had been posted on top of others that had likely worn out their usefulness. I tried to read, and then realized with a jolt that the text was a mix of kanji and hiragana. This was Japanese text.

Now at this point my natural response should have been to freak out and curse several times in vain as I ran down the hallway looking for someone who could understand what those words meant. Instead of this I ended up muttering something less extreme. "Fucking figures."

Of all the bullshit things that could happen to me after a defecation I was not expecting to fall asleep and wake up in another part of the campus. It literally made no sense and I was at a loss to explain it rationally, so all things considered I came to to a conclusion that made the most sense. I recalled I had never been to parts of the north wing of the school, it was entirely possible there was a foreign exchange section tailored to foreign students over there. I wiped little beads of sweat off my forehead and started to think really hard about what I should do given the situation.

I scoured over the other notices along the walls and while some managed to jumble in various English slang and phrases they were all prominently written in Japanese. Some of them had the wear and tear to indicate they had been posted here for not months but years without ever being removed by a janitor. The custodial services around college were much better than to let this kind of clutter slide around here.

"Hello? Anyone around here?" I beckoned down the hall, but to no avail.

As I walked down the hall I reached a junction which revealed a curved section of the floor that opened up to the outside. There was a central courtyard below, and I now got my first glimpse of people since my washroom break. It was quite busy down below with students coming and going along the brick walkways. Absentmindedly I noticed that virtually all of the apparent students below were of Asian descent. Japanese, if the halls were to be any indication. What concerned me was that there was a complete lack of any other ethnic group wandering around. I lived in Kingston, a smaller than average yet busy Canadian city that was known both for its prisons and the large Queens University campus downtown. But the fact was it would be highly irregular to see this many Japanese students just wandering around Queens, much less a small less extravagant community college.

Transfixed by the busy scenes below I failed to take note of the fact the hallway was starting to flutter with students. It was when I heard some vaguely familiar Japanese phrases that I turned around to notice two young women standing by the hallway rail overlooking the courtyard below, both talking faintly to themselves as they watched me look them over. Even to someone who was oblivious it was apparent they were surprised to see a gaijin wandering around. My mouth was slightly gaping now as my brain took in the information and started to piece together a logical explanation. But first, I had a nagging question. What the heck campus was this?

I gave a small wave to the ladies as I headed down the hall looking for some stairs. Finding some at the far right side I descended down to the first floor (I determined I started on the third) and exited some glass doors out into the open air. I took in the surroundings noticing a few highrise apartments off in the distance as well as a few other buildings that were part of this campus. I followed the open pathways down away from the campus and after a fifteen minute walk I made my way to the street. A telltale Japanese style rail station lay by the street, and I could make out the English words advertising the monorail above. There was a FamilyMart at street level and a few vending machines that I had seen countless times in various anime and manga. The anxiety was creeping in now if it hadn't already.

Turning around, now fully off kilter and looking for anything to indicate where I was, I spotted a directional sign with an arrow leading up the path I had just taken. Most of it was in Japanese, but there was some small English section that immediately hit me like a metal bat to the back my head.

Shiiou University - Administration

I started at that sign for quite some time before it clicked. I knew that name. I knew this campus. I knew where I was.

And as soon as I came to that conclusion, I concluded as well that I must be crazy. This couldn't be real. Not a chance. But as I looked up at the towers of campus my fears came to be reaffirmed as I saw the trademark Shiiou logo emboldened on the side of one of the towers as it stared back down at me and the passersby.

This wasn't Kingston. Or Canada. Or even the western hemisphere. This was Japan. This was Tokyo-well suburban Tokyo. This was the stomping ground of one of his more memorable manga reads as a teenager.

"Gen-..shiken" I managed to mutter to myself as I felt my stomach tingle with feelings of both excitement as well as genuine fear. Taking a moment to collect myself I walked over to a nearby bench, removing my backpack as I sat down. At that moment I noticed something was amiss with my bag. One of the pouches was unzipped slightly and had a red ribbon hanging out of it. I hesitantly pulled it out and found that it was attached to a slightly thick envelope. it was sealed with a red heart sticker.

"The plot thickens." I said as I removed the sticker and flipped open the envelope. I was within my right to be disturbed by what was inside.

I pulled out a Canadian passport which I quickly flipped open to see my name and photo on the data page, but was at a loss when I saw the validation dates were from 2002 to 2012. For the record, it was 2017. At least where I started from.

I noticed one of the visa stamp pages was folded at the corner so I opened it to that page and saw a Japanese student visa staring me back in the face. Oh god, I'm a student? Here? I don't even speak the language. What's at play here?

Putting down the passport I removed a plastic debit card with as microchip at one end, with one of the local bank logos on the front. To any idiot this looked like an obvious form of financial support. I could only speculate how much was in the account it was linked to, but I was too anxious to even bother contemplating checking.

Next I pulled out a piece of printed paper and looked it over, welcoming the fact it was in English. it had the Shiiou University emblem and typeface on the letterhead. As I read it little bits popped out.

I muttered under my breath as I read. "Congratulations are in order... full scholarship... off campus accommodation.. welcomes you to Japan." I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as I closed the letter. Well shit.

I was at a loss. This couldn't have been anything but a preplanned farce someone had set up as a joke. It didn't make sense any way you looked at it. And yet there was the passport, the student visa, the welcoming campus letter. Someone obviously wanted this for me, for whatever purpose it served them,good or bad, I could only speculate.

You know what, screw it. This might be interesting, and a learning experience. I always wanted to see Japan, and now here I was presented with the chance to go to university here, fully paid, with everything checked off beforehand? it wasn't like I had a choice at this point. Well, I did actually. I could have walked out on it and taken the next train to Narita and went home. But home to where? Was my family waiting for me in Genshiken Kingston? Hell if I knew. That thought made me shudder for a moment as I flipped the envelope onto my bag.

As I did this a pair of keys fell out. Picking them up I could quickly tell these were likely the keys for my flat. Or campus housing, whatever it was. I pocketed them and quickly put the debit card in my wallet. The passport went into my bag. I picked up my bag and turned towards the campus. I walked up the steps and headed back towards the grounds, expecting to walk into the Administration offices and be told this was a practical joke. But whatever happens, happens.

'Don't foreigners need an alien registration card..?' I thought to myself as I ascended the stairs. Oh well, time to face the music.

Hey all, this is just a random experiment for me to work with in my spare time. I hope it doesn't come off too negatively. I'm just having fun. Comments / Critiques welcome. I'm only human.