"Lee-Kun? Did you think about something happy?" ask my Okasan suddenly.
I was startled by my Okasan's question and almost cut my finger while chopping the radish. I guess I never knew how deep in thought I was.
"Uhm, I was thinking about what happened today at the station, I met a new friend." I answered. I had to speak slowly so that she could listen to what I had said.
"Oh? Really? Who was it? Girl or Boy?" her eyes glimmered with curiosity when she asked the question.
"It was a girl, her name was Miyuki." I blushed a abit when I told her it was a girl, somehow it was a natural reaction for guys and since she was my foster mother, it added to the awkwardness.
"Wow, Sugoine!!!!(Thats great!!!!), you found a girlfriend in just 2 days in Japan? Thats very fast!!!" She said and smiled so widely. It was the kind of smile you get, when your mother finds out you have a girlfriend and is overly curious to find out who it was. This only added to my further blushing and I replied her,
"No Okasan, I did not find a girlfriend. It was just a stranger I met while I was waiting for the train to arrive, nothing much."
"Ah, most things start from zero, that was how it was when I met your Otosan, we were never high school sweethearts, we also met quite surprisingly....... it was about 30 years ago......"
Just as she was about to tell me her story of how she met Otosan, there was a knock on the door. I was surprised as Okasan did not tell me that we were expecting visitors tonight. Suddenly, I saw a really big smile on Okasan's face as she hurried to the door to open it. Just a note for you all, everybody who comes to visit usually enters via the backdoor, weird huh? Ok back to our mysterious visitor. Okasan opened the door and started to hug the person. It was a young man. He was pulling behind him a big luggage and was clothed in winter clothes with a scarf around his neck. Okasan smiled so widely as she held him in his arms. The young man kissed Okasan on the cheek and hugged back. After all that, the young man turned to me and offered his hand to me. I was quite alarmed because I expected him to find my presence here surprising. He shook my hand and started to speak in Japanese, "Orewa, Noriaki desu". It took me a while to get what he was talking about, he was introducing himself to me and I replied," Watashiwa, Aaron desu." He then proceeded to speak japanese all the way which of course, I could not understand fully. My Okasan patted him on the back and asked him to speak english as she knew my japanese was not good. He just smiled and then spoke in very simple english,"Hello, I am Okasan's son, Noriaki Umeda, very nice to meet you."
This was 1 of the sons Otosan talked about the other day, he was youngest son, just an age older than me. As the night progressed on, we had dinner together and chatted about Noriaki senpai's life in Tokyo studying. He told me that living in Tokyo was very expensive and that he always chose to buy food that was cheap but has a big helping. I could see that was true as he gobbled down 3 big bowls of rice while I only had 1. He was quite the chatterbox and filled Otosan and Okasan in on his life in Tokyo. As he struggled to converse in English so that I would not feel left out, I knew it was time for me to leave the table and let the family have a little bit of alone time together so I excused myself with the excuse of going back in my room to talk with my parents. And as a matter of fact, I did.
I picked my cellphone and made a phone call back to Malaysia, it was freaking expensive but my father said it was ok for me to make a call cause he said he'd miss me too. The phone rang a few times before finally my father picked up the phone. It was a relief listening to his voice again. Then I heard my mom shouting out my name in the background.
"Son!!! You finally called, how's life there?" asked Dad.
"I'm doing fine dad, How about you? Everything fine at home?" I replied.
"Ya, sister was quite naughty today though, she had a fit when she could not find you in the house today."
As he said those words, I realised how much I missed my little sister. She is 2 this year and very cute, the jewel of the family. Sometimes the whole fmaily fusses over her too much until my auntie who stays with us and takes care of her scolds us for being "too caring", haha. Suddenly, mom's voice boomed over the phone.
"Hey darling!!! How are you over there? Packed enough clothes? Happy there? How are your foster parents?" mom asked.
"Everything's fine mom, don't worry, their very nice to me and they take care of me very well." I calmly replied.
My mom always fusses over me as I was her only son for 17 years until my sister came along. I love my sister very much don't get the wrong idea, haha. We went on to talk about a lot of things, about my life in Japan and what happened at home while I was gone. Nothing much happened, besides the fact that my sister threw a fit while I was gone. We stopped the conversation after 15 minutes and I promised to call more often as I bade goodbye to my parents.
Just as I got off the phone with my parents, there was a knock on the door and I heard Noriaki senpai's sound behind the door, "May I come in Yin Tung-kun?" he asked.
"Yes, no problem." I replied.
He then pushed open the door and walked into my room.
"Weren't you chatting with Otosan and Okasan?" I asked Senpai (elder brother).
"They wanted to watch drama on TV, so I thought I come and talk with you, lots of things I want to ask you." Senpai replied me.
"Go ahead Senpai."
"Don't call me senpai, just call me Noriaki will do, haha, I don't want to feel so old." he told me.
I chuckled and just nodded. We chatted for quite a while after that, he asked me a lot of questions about Malaysia and I tried to answer the best I can. he asked questions like our customs, our languages and our religions. Seems like he is studying chinese in school too and I spoke some simple chinese just to let him know I knew chinese too, he was totally stunned. He said he could not really utter a word of chinese. After that, I dare not speak chinese again, it felt like showing off to him, so I kept quiet. He was extra thrilled when he knew I knew how to speak chinese. Then I thought of something, I went to my bag to retrieve my Ipod and passed the earphones to Noriaki and asked him to put them on. He was puzzled and just did as I said. I then started playing chinese songs and he was so happy to listen to nice chinese songs and asked to borrow my Ipod so that he transfer my songs into his laptop.
"This is great!!! I must let Miyuki listen to them!!!" Noriaki suddenly said.
I was stunned to hear the name Miyuki again, the Miyuki at the station? I asked Noriaki,"You have a friend named Miyuki?"
"Yes, she lives in the next town, Mukainada, she is much younger than us, why? Do you know her?" Noriaki asked me.
"No no, I just thought Miyuki was a nice name, thats all." I answered him.
After a few more minutes, he left the room to go transfer the songs into his laptop and left me alone in my room to wonder, "Am I to meet Miyuki again in the future?"
