Our small group of foreigners wasn’t so small anymore, we made our way from McDonalds to Yamada Denki trying to get simple Sim card plans for our not so smart phones. Thanks to the greedy company Verizon Wireless, my precious Galaxy was region locked to America. Knowing that, I took the opportunity to explore the store unattached from the group. Looking at the prices of things like monitors, pc components, and other peripherals was a useless hobby of mine considering I never had the income to afford such things. It gave me some alone time to wonder what kind of setup I’d have if my wallet supported my imagination. When I looked at the price of PC peripherals in Japan I nearly passed out, parts I already couldn’t afford in america were more expensive here. Not understanding the reason why I made my way back to the group where they were finishing up their plans.
Yay For Working Phones
Most of us now had working phones (except for me of course) Amy informed us that we were making our way to a vegan restaurant not far from the electronics store. Not used to being in large groups, my social ineptitude and athletic prowess allowed me to run ahead or stay behind the group to take photos as we made our way further away from Akihabara. Some members of our party were getting pretty hungry, but me having had fries at McDonalds didn’t share their same pangs.
As we were walking through the dimly lit streets, the bad habit of letting my mind wander kicked in. Pure bliss from the cocoon of deep thought enveloped my mind sending me flying through infinity. My body continued to walk, but there was no one home as the voices around me became background noise. I thought of that night a year before which was impossible to forget, how could I when two beautiful girls and a couple of friends showed me around Shibuya(the girls are also my friends). My dream of being a video deejay and influencer in japan had me visualizing playing at big festivals and clubs in the city, and lastly I thought of Matsumoto. What kind of place was it? I’d be leaving for the place tomorrow, but I had no idea what Nagano was like. Snapping me back to reality was the restaurant which was closed when we got there.
To my surprise the small hitch in the night plans sent group morale tumbling down faster than the MMR of a tilted bronze player. This was a new sensation for a practiced loner such as I, but our fearless leader Amy stuck to her guns and began immediately searching for another vegetarian friendly restaurant. Amy didn’t seem like the type of person who handled carefully crafted plans not coming together well, I had casted her as a Type-A sort of character and her already rapid pace of speaking went faster than usual as she scrambled to find another place.
When My Social Circuits Fry
There was rapid speaking back and forward from multiple members of the group, people were speaking louder and there was a hint of aggravation in some of their voices. Was it the exhaustion or the hanger that was driving the frustration. . . I was glad I had those fries even though the ketchup to fry ratio was off. When these sort of exchanges happen everything just starts to sound like noise and I can’t keep up with the words coming back and forward. Two years prior I had been diagnosed with mild Asperger’s, but I still didn’t know what to think about it. I wasn’t sure if that was even a real thing, was I just in denial about it. I remember being pretty mad at the therapist for two reasons. One because it was a christian religious one, when I had asked my mom specifically for one that wasn’t a Jesus indoctrination center, and two because he even said I had Asperger’s in the first place.
Tom looked at me and said “we should have just gotten beers”, but I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not. There’s a lot of sarcasm I just don’t understand, my best friend Sean and his family always use a lot of it and sometimes I would sit there for five minutes wondering if Sean really meant what he said. Amy having located another restaurant announced that we would be walking another twenty minutes to an Indian place.
The air was heavy and tense as the group made our way from the brightly lit main road to the only partially lit outskirts and side streets, tucked away behind layers of buildings. Even though we were in a safe place like Japan, the fear of darkness is built into the DNA of every human being. What lurks in places you can’t see? The mind starts playing tricks on itself, using the imagination to create nightmares. Humans are visual creatures, we fear what we can’t see. This applies to the metaphorical sense as the fear of the unknown is familiar to everyone.That small amount of fear is capable of paralyzing you as you let life pass you by.
The Marco Classic
Speaking of things that were unknown to me we passed by an area illuminated by red neon lights advertising “massages”. The pink light that soaked the street to our right as we walked by made me think they weren’t the most pg rated thing in the world. Trying to lighten the mood I cracked a joke to Tom about getting some “massages”, but instead of making things better I pulled a classic Marco and made things worse. Realizing there were girls in our group made this really awkward, only Tom let out a small laugh followed by silence. It was similar to the times when you were the one person that took a joke to far and ended up making the laughing stop. While I wasn’t okay with being the weird person who said that joke, the silence gave me time to think.
Hahah How did they not love that “Lets get massages” joke. I would have made another joke on top of that for sure.