Brian sighed and stretched as he got off the plane. It was a long ride, almost eleven hours, but it was worth it. He was finally in Japan, where he would stay for the next year. He grabbed his backpack and headed deeper into the terminal, looking for baggage claim. As he read the signs, he felt mild pride swelling in his chest. He was a big fan of anime and manga, and had developed quite a large Japanese vocabulary. He was still getting used to speaking it, but was able to carry on a conversation well enough.
As he moved towards the baggage claim area, he sat on the bench and waited for his suitcase to come down the line. He glanced at his phone, checking the time. He had left at around noon in Seattle, and it was 2:00 A.M. in Japan. The airport was predictably deserted, by Japanese standards at least. Small crowds moved like schools of minnows towards their gates, hurrying to not miss their flight. He waited for a while more, still not seeing his bag.
He moved around to the other side, seeing but not noticing the man entering the airport through the revolving door. As he moved back around to the original side, he saw the man check the name on a suitcase, before grabbing it. His suitcase. Brian approached him, slightly irritated. As soon as the man saw him, however, his face immediately brightened into a smile.
As Brian drew closer, the man gave him a small bow. "Brian McDonough?" He asked inquisitively with the heavy accent of someone who had just recently learned a language. Brian immediately realized who the man was, and broke into a smile himself, returning the bow. "Mr. Amachi. I didn't realize you spoke English." He replied. The man scrunched his face and made a meh gesture with his free hand. He was middle-aged, handsome with dark hair. He had the face of a patient man who smiled a lot. Brian immediately reached for his bag. "I can get that." He added. He smiled again as he relinquished the bag. "Some. My daughter is much better than I, and my wife speaks almost none." He chuckled.
Brian smiled again, but his mind was racing. He had never known Mr. and Mrs. Amachi had a daughter. He vaguely wondered what she looked like, and how old she was. As the two made their way out to the car, Brian deposited his suitcase in the back seat, before taking his place in the passenger seat. He smiled to himself as they pulled out on the 'wrong' side of the road. "So where are your wife and daughter?" He asked in Japanese, figuring it would be easier on the man. "Well," Mr. Amachi replied, "I thought it would be easier on everyone to just put then to bed before I came to get you." Brian nodded. "No need to drag them along." He agreed. They drove in comfortable silence for almost fifteen minutes before Mr. Amachi spoke next. "I will not lie. I am just as happy as you for this visit, for I have done it for my daughter's sake just as much as your own." Brian began to feel puzzled. "Why's that?" Mr. Amachi frowned for the first time since Brian had met him. "I feel she...is not happy. She has very few friends, dedicating herself almost entirely to books." Brian thought for a moment before replying. "What's so wrong with that? There's no harm in reading." Mr. Amachi nodded. "Perhaps not. However, Yuri has some...other passions that you may find disturbing. My hope is that you can show her that it is not healthy to be so introverted." Brian nodded, feeling a slight sense of unease. He was suddenly more nervous of this girl-Yuri-than he had been five minutes ago, where he was anticipating their meeting. Now he was feeling kind of apprehensive.
The car was silent until they reached Mr. Amachi's house, about 45 minutes from the airport. As the two exited the car, Brian quietly retrieved his suitcase from the back seat, and as they entered the house, Mr. Amachi moved to turn on the hall light, but Brian stopped him with a simple whispered, "It's fine, it's late and I don't want to disturb anyone. I'll sleep on the couch for the night." Mr. Amachi stopped for a moment, then nodded. He moved away, up the stairs. Brian looked around. The foyer was small, with a portal to the left that led to the kitchen and dining room, with a small linoleum counter separating the two. The living room was right off from there, with two entryways, one from the kitchen and the other directly in front of Brian. To his right was a small hallway with two doors on the right side and one door to the left before a staircase that led to the upstairs. He moved into the living room, and saw the couch against the far wall. He lay down, setting his bag beside him on the floor. The cool leather was comfortable, and he fell asleep quickly.
He woke up to sunlight streaming through the window into his face, causing him to blink and sit up suddenly. Glancing at his watch, he saw he had slept until almost 9. He yawned and stretched. Jet lag had never really bothered him too much, even since he was little. Besides, six hours, while not quite healthy, was certainly enough to function for one day. He swung his legs over the side of the couch, standing up. As he moved towards the kitchen, he saw everyone seated around the table. Mr. Amachi sat beside Mrs. Amachi, a tall woman with a kind face and a large smile the second she saw him. "Brian!" She immediately sprang up from the table and enveloped him in a hug, as if they were close relatives instead of total strangers.
He awkwardly hugged her back, seeing the third occupant of the table was a teenage girl, watching the exchange with a seemingly sad smile. She had a pretty, if shy, face and deep purple hair that cascaded around her shoulders well down her back. She was slim and well endowed, and Brian had to stop from staring. The second she saw Brian look at her, she looked away, out the window, her cheeks turning a healthy shade of vermillion. Mrs. Amachi sat back down, leaving the one remaining chair next to the girl. Brian took a seat, and her blush deepened, her lower lip disappearing into her mouth. Despite it being an unusually warm March morning, he noticed she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt with what he assumed to be a stylized Illuminati symbol on the front. Brian couldn't help but sneak a few more glances at her throughout the meal. She was absolutely stunning, and couldn't be more than a year younger than him. As soon as she was finished, she took her plate and immediately went to the kitchen to deposit it in the dishwasher. When she stood up, Brian almost did a double take. She was nearly six feet tall, a full four inches above him. He immediately realized he was wrong, she was almost certainly the same age as he. She left the dining room and headed back down the hall, exiting with a strange mixture of grace and awkwardness. Mr. Amachi leaned across the table to Brian. "I'm sorry for her." He spoke lowly in Japanese. "Yuri is very shy, like I said last night." Brian nodded. "It's quite alright." He reassured the man. "I'm sure she'll come around eventually." Mr. Amachi nodded. "If you are finished, let me show you to your room." Brian nodded, standing up and taking his plate to the dishwasher like Yuri had. As he reached for the handle, Mrs. Amachi stopped him. "The dishes in there are clean." She said kindly. Brian remembered that the woman spoke almost no English, and replied, "Thank you for telling me." He placed it in the clean sink, wondering why Yuri had forgotten that fact.
He grabbed his suitcase from the living room floor and followed Mr. Amachi down the hall. He stopped by the first door on the right. "This is the restroom." He explained. "Me and my wife have another on our floor. Yuri's room is right across from the bathroom." He gestured to the closed door on the left. He moved further down the hall. As he indicated to the stairs, he said, "My wife and I have our room up there, as well as our offices and a study." Brian nodded, making a mental note to check out the study later. "And," Mr. Amachi said, pointing to the other room. "This is where you will be staying for the year. Feel free to decorate it as you please." He smiled warmly, and Brian smiled back. Just then, there was a call of "Kintaro?" from the other room. Mr. Amachi immediately disappeared to check on his wife, leaving Brian alone in the room. He immediately set about unpacking, moving his clothes into the spacious dresser in the corner of the room. He glanced around to make sure no one was looking before taking a stuffed tiger out of the suitcase and placing it on the bed where it wasn't easily visible. That tiger had never been any more than a few miles away at any given moment, and he had had it ever since he could remember. Although he didn't sleep with it anymore, he still loved it and felt like he would be judged for having it. After making sure the tiger couldn't be observed unless someone was looking for it, he began on the books. He had many, in both Japanese and English. He had an arrangement of books, mostly sci-fi or fantasy related, his favorites being the cult classic Alien series printed in English. He placed them in the small cubby under the nightstand, and then straightened, proud of his work. Most of his suitcase was unpacked, with only a few toiletries left. Deciding to unpack them later, he moved the suitcase into the closet.
Just as he was emerging, he heard Mr. Amachi coming down the hall. He peered around the door and called out "Brian, me and Noriko need to go the store to pick up some things for dinner tonight. I thought we had more rice than we actually did." He chuckled weakly. "I presume you and Yuri will be alright for a few minutes?" Brian nodded. "Sure, go ahead." Mr. Amachi smiled warmly. "Excellent. We shouldn't be gone more than fifteen minutes." With that, he left the room, and a minute later, the door closed after the two of them.
Brian picked up a book, a hardcover copy of Stephen King's Cell, he made his way out to the living room. To his surprise, Yuri was already there, lying on the couch, reading a book. She was totally absorbed, having not even realized Brian had entered the room. He decided to sit in the recliner in the corner of the room, the chair making a muffled sound as he sat down. Yuri's eyes never left the page, flying over the lines with great speed and intensity. Brian watched her for a moment more, before cracking open his own book. Despite all the sounds and motion beforehand, the sound of the well-read volume being opened was the thing that broke Yuri's focus. She flicked her eyes towards him for a split second, before her bottom lip vanished again. Her blush returned, and he could tell she was trying hard to get immersed again, with little success.
He finally set his book on his knee, marking his place. "I don't bite, relax." He told her softly. She pretended not to hear, although he could tell she was trying much too hard. "I'm Brian. Brian McDonough. Since you're your father's only daughter, I assume it's safe to say that you're Yuri?" She shot another glance his direction. "T-that's right." She said in perfect English, with almost no accent. Brian looked at her, surprised. "Your father was right. You do speak good English." She smiled quickly. "That's right. It's like a second language to me." Brian made a mental note, then carried on the conversation as casually as he could. "You've got a great house." She nodded. "Father's a lawyer, and mother used to be a florist. She lived in America for quite a few years, although she never learned much English." Brian nodded. "There's no crime in that. How's the school here?" She looked pensive. "It...well, it's good for the most part. The people are nice, and the education is good. I've enjoyed my time there very much." Brian smiled. "That's great. I'm sure we'll be in some classes together." He indicated to their books, then laughed. She smiled as well. "What have you got there?" She asked. Brian held up his book, then passed it to her, losing his page in the process. She held it in her hands, a large smile spreading over her face as she saw the cover and author. She finally handed it back, before saying, "I've read that one. I think it's just amazing how Stephen King is capable of capturing such feelings of primal dread and pure horror. It's almost as if he can tap into the human psyche and find just what each of us is afraid of at a deeper level. His work has been a massive inspiration for me in my writing, as well as that of Michael Crichton. Crichton is such a legend, I'm very sad that I'll never get to meet him in per-" She stopped, a horrified expression on her face. "I'm so sorry." She hid her face behind her hair, her cheeks burning. "I was rambling again, wasn't I?" Brian waved it off, silently noting how adorable she was when she was embarrassed. "I don't mind it one bit. It was actually really neat that you like horror too. Have you ever read creepypasta?" She shook her head. "I was never able to get into it, the stories were way too short." Brian nodded. "That's understandable. What're you reading there?" She held up the book. The picture on the front was the same as on her shirt. Underneath the eye it read The Portrait of Markov. Brian took it from her, looking at the back, which was blank. As he handed it back, he said, "I've never heard of it." She smiled sadly. "I didn't think you would. It's an uncommon book, and it's written by an author who has never received much fame." He nodded understandingly. "You said you liked to write..?"
When Mr. and Mrs. Amachi got home, they found Brian and Yuri sitting beside each other on the couch, discussing books and other literature. Mr. Amachi even saw a piece of scrap paper with Yuri's poems on it. He blinked. He had never, as long as he had known her, seen Yuri share anything that was on those papers with anyone. Then he looked at the two of them sitting together. Yuri looked happier than she had in years, and Brian was very animated in his gestures and movements, clearly excited about the material. Either Yuri hadn't noticed them, or she was too involved with Brian to care. At this point, Mr. Amachi was just happy to see her smiling about something besides, well, that.