I couldn't understand why I had made this decision. The timing was all wrong, the stocks and house value markets were playing Tetris, in the sense that it took so much time for things to match up. But that mattered not, for I had gotten a really nice deal on what was the nicest palace I had ever seen. It was 157 bedrooms, 3 living areas, a large dining area, and a gigantic variety of flowers and plants in the front yard, next to a pond and a marble walkway. The bricks were white and the tile was black-silver. I smiled upon seeing this. Tokyo, Japan was my new home in which this palace was beheld. I sighed and began to start moving all of my belongings and some furniture that I bought into my new home, not at all in any hurry. I was loading some of my boxes from a few moving trucks into the palace when I heard the jingling and rumbling of my handy iPhone 5-c. I slid past the lock screen with my thumb and looked to find a text message. It read: "I'm here."
I smiled and walked out of the building to find a young man about my age, so in his early 20's, without the best features of clothing but with a good rating look for the ladies- should he have the ambition. His hair was a black, pointy fro all over his head and his face usually gave off a strange read of: " I'm not going to do anything stupid, so don't kill me." I smiled and laughed merrily as I called out, " Minato Sahashi! Good to see you, brother!"
Minato Sahashi and I met because he and I were roommates in a mid-class apartment with decent furnishing and a good cable network with the TV, as well as plenty of food, hot water and no real problems. I had bought the palace weeks and weeks ago, but it had taken a month or two to actually get all of my stuff from my old home. He and I have grown friendly, very much so since he has tried and failed to pass an entrance examination of Shinto Teito University twice; and I have been helping him study. He's been getting closer and closer to actually making it in, and I had confidence that a third time will get him passing. He smiled and we shook hands before I surprised him with a quick hug. As I let go, he laughed a bit, surprised. "Nathan, you still surprise me.," he blunted out as he shook a bit, then he began to look at the palace. "You never told me you were so rich!"
I grinned and answered that statement with a simple, "I'm not rich. I was lucky enough to find that this cost me as much as a standard two story house."
He looked at me in open mouth gape, his eyes wide like quarters and his pupils sharpened down to point size. I furrowed my lips and raised a brow. " Is it customary for Japanese people to have comical attitudes towards such things?," I asked in confusion.
He flailed his arms wildly, as if I was going to kill him. He closed his eyes while doing so and cried out, "No no no! I don't know what you mean!"
I smiled and patted his back. "Help me unload this stuff, I had a lot to take here and I plan to settle as soon as possible." I walked over to the moving trucks and began to unload more stuff into the palace. I wasn't born in Europe or Asia, I came from America and graduated from the Academy of the Arts before I began to travel around my country and eventually moved to this place. I had not found a good living to make yet, for I was not exactly job hunting. My main activities in the last few months were finding a living space and, surprisingly enough, helping Minato get into a college he wanted.
Seven hours of hard work and we managed to unpack and unload everything from the moving trucks, and all that was left was the furniture I ordered. We were sweating like pigs, and Minato looked like he was going to pass out from hunger or dehydration. We sat on the lawn chairs and drank some water from plastic water bottles, the night air cooling us down after a long day's hard work and very few breaks. "Nathan, can we please..." Minato started as he breathed deep and drank some more water.
"There's a good burger outlet pretty close by. I'll pay for our food, I'm starving.," I answered before he even managed to finish his request.
"Yes!" he sputtered in purest gratitude. "I'm going to die without food!"
I rolled my eyes and we began to stroll our way to a burger joint, which was ironically a Japanese McDonald's, and we ordered some food and tore through about 45 yen's worth of burgers and fries. He wouldn't usually eat as fast and as feral as he did, but today was a day that worked us hard, body and mind. We gave off a heavy sigh as I had to pay for our food and he kept bowing apologetically, making this funny in my case. I told him he had nothing to worry about and we began to walk to my home. He checked his cell phone for the time, and he let out a yipe as he cried out, "Oh, man! I gotta head back. I'll see ya."
I laughed a bit as we part ways and I waved to him. "I'll see ya, man."
I walked my way back to the palace and I sat down on a black bean-bag that I had in case that it took the furniture a bit longer to arrive. The walls were a newer coat of white, and it smelled like a mixture of fresh carpet and oily and wooden art supplies. I breathed it all in and let out a breath of approval through my mouth, my eyes that were closed opened softly as I said, "It's good to have a home." I found that there were two restrooms. One had a 5 yards by 7 yards tub that was 3 feet deep. White tiles and black and red décor filled the room, with black towels stainless steel metal stuff; like the faucets and the towel rack. The other bathroom was a black and red tiled room with nothing but dark metal shower heads and towel racks and turn faucets. I unclothed and turned the shower water to a hot temperature as I bathed for an hour or so. It only took so little time to clean myself, I mainly took the time to feel the hot water and the comfort that it had brought. As I closed my eyes for extended points in that time, I felt something new. I smelled the aroma of sandalwood and fresh obsidian mixed in with beach sand. I opened my eyes and disregarded this as I dried myself off and adorned in underwear and a bathrobe. The fresh fabric smell mixed in with steam made me feel tired as I found the master bedroom. It was nothing more than a closet filled with all of my many shirts and pants, some redwood glazed cabinets; and the master bed was black bedspread upon a king size bed futon on the floor and black curtains hung from the ceiling around the bed. I did little more than fall unto the bed and sleep. "Good night, house."
X
I woke up to the sound of a ring-tone for my phone. It was a repetitive loop of the first minute of "Immigrant Song", the Led Zeppelin song that played for a few times. I answered the phone tiredly and groggily. My eyes were still closed as I groaned and answered, " Ugh... Yes?"
"Oh yeah, baby!," a naturally modulated voice answered to my question.
My eyes doubled in size as I hung up the phone and screamed in a high pitched modulation and ran away from my phone. I shuddered and shook like a little girl as I hid behind the partially opened door. The phone was quiet, and I slowly picked it up in my hand and clicked the small round button below the screen. As the screen lit up, I saw that a dubious friend had sent me a picture of his face with 8-bit sunglasses and along with the cheesy smile of the selfie with the edit, white words spelled out, "Dill with it!" I screamed at my phone. "F**king John!," I screamed as I heard a fart sound from my phone- signaling a text message from him. I read it and it said, "You know it can't hear you."
I unlocked my phone and typed the text message to say in reply, " U f**king wot, m8."
It was then that I was fully awake and still under the adrenaline rush of the strange and emotionally disturbing wake-up call. I found a decent pair of jean pants and a black shirt and donned them as I saw that the sun had barely even risen, by looking out through the window. I darted to my phone and shouted at it, "Freaking John!" and he sent me a text message.
"Problem?" it read.
I threw my phone onto the bed and I put it to sleep mode as I walked down to my kitchen area and made myself a wild berry smoothie and ate a singular apple for my breakfast. I consumed the fruity delight and took to find a good spot to sit outside, on a lawn chair. I took my time to enjoy the way that the sunrise in such a big city looked, even if it wasn't the heavily urban chunk of Tokyo itself. I took a drink from a glass bottle of pomegranate soda and let out a breath as I smiled. "Good stuff, man." I rambled to myself, thinking I was talking to my friend, who was far away.
I took the time to enjoy the environment around me before I noticed her. She stood in front of the palace entryway, with white clothing, pale skin, dirty brown hair, and a tattoo of an orange bird design and a yin yang symbol upon her forehead. Chains upon her chest and no emotion upon her face were the real attention grabbers for me. I stood up and walked towards her. As I slowly strolled over to her, we made eye contact with one another, and my heart began to beat loudly, for I could hear my pulse through my ears. 'Could this be actually exciting me of all people?' I thought. 'No, it's just because she's lightly dressed. Stop thinking with your drawers Nathan.' I scolded myself as I stood in front of her. I smiled and waved my hand a bit. " Good morning, ma'am.," I greeted warmly.
She started to tumble and wobble wearily. My eyes widened as I fidgeted and I asked, " Are you okay? Miss!" and I caught her as she fell over and fell into an unconscious slumber. Her body was ice cold, most likely from the provocative light clothing and chains upon her chest. I frantically took her into the palace and placed her on the nearest bed of the closest bedroom. Little did I know this would start a new story for me.