17 Jan Love Over Rice – 1st Person

It’s 4am in Tokyo. Aside from energy drink fueled students and boisterous after partiers, most of the city is fast asleep. But the Tsukiji fish market roars to life as fisherman bring their plentiful bounty of bluefin tuna for auction. I carefully pick my mark. The massive fish fetch thousands of dollars, and I must choose wisely before investing my restaurant’s hard earned cash into a specimen. I eye a particularly large fallen beast and make my move. There is competition, but I prevail. Pleased with my victory, I instruct my transport team to relocate the prize into the frigid confines of the freezer at Kuro, an omakase-only sushi bar at the outskirts of the city. Once there, Chef Ichimura will expertly slice and prepare the fish for the night’s customers. I trust the chef implicitly, and therefore move on to the next order of business: breakfast.

It’s now 5am, and the market bustles with renewed fervor. Tourists have gathered in anxious anticipation and the doors have just been opened. I am lucky to earn a seat at my favorite sushi bar, Daiwa, and am pleasantly greeted by a familiar face behind the smooth wooden countertop.

“The usual?” the chef asks rhetorically in Japanese. I nod, bleary eyed and too tired for words at this hour.

I lazily enjoy the pristine slices of a variety of white fish surgically placed atop the chef’s signature brand of shari (sushi rice), when a woman rouses me from my morning stupor. Her platinum blonde hair stands in stark contrast to the sea of black that typically dominates the city.

She sits next to me, and carefully removes a camera from her neck as she settles in for her meal.

“A tourist no doubt,” I muse to myself, intrigued by her beauty and clear interest in the art of sushi. “Why else would she arrive so early, and choose this vendor?”

She makes no acknowledgement of me as she struggles through broken Japanese to place her breakfast order. I seize the opportunity, and translate in a language that was once strange and foreign to me as well.

“Thank you,” she says, relieved. “Clearly my Japanese needs some work.”

“No problem at all, Daiwa is an old friend. You were doing quite fine by the way, just a bit more practice,” I encourage.

She smiled.

“I’m John, by the way,” I say.

“I’m Sarah,” delicately extending her hand.

I had grown accustomed to the subtle nods of greeting in Japanese culture. As I grasped her hand I was taken aback by its warmth. A warmth that traveled to my core. A warmth that I had not felt in some time.

Our eyes meet and suddenly the sushi counter becomes a distant second to conversation.