“She loves you, ya, ya, ya. She loves you, ya, ya, ya.”
It was Beatles karaoke night in Roppongi, a neighborhood frequented mostly by gaijin, foreign businessmen and women like herself. She was exhausted after the long conference and her shopping excursion, but wanted to experience a little of Tokyo’s nightlife. Surrounding her table, a mixture of Japanese men in black suits and ties and Westerners in less formal attire tapped their fingers on tabletops strewn with napkins, straws, and drinks. The music was loud. People were singing, smiling, and having fun. She noticed a family with a group of young teenagers sitting together in one corner. Alone, she missed her husband and her two sons.
She pulled her smartphone from her purse and opened the app she had purchased and downloaded in one of Tokyo's markets. The stall was run by a small, independent company, and software prices were high. "So advanced you'll question reality!" the hawker cried.
She asked the salesman if he sold any games that featured dragons. He paused to consider, and then knelt down to rummage under the cash register. Standing, he showed her two games.
"Each one very unique. One of a kind," he explained.
A teenaged boy in a striped tee shirt stood nearby, listening carefully to his explanation. One game featured a dragon named Futara, the other featured a giant millipede. When she chose the game with the dragon, the teenaged boy stepped forward.
"Please, I would like to purchase that game. Futara great dragon. I travel many miles today to purchase this."
If she wasn't so desperate, she would have relented, but her ten-year-old son Jason had asked her to bring home a dragon figurine, and she had been searching everywhere for one he could add to the collection he displayed on top of the bookshelf in his bedroom. She wanted to please Jason, but the closest she could come was this game.
The salesman apologized to the teenager, and he offered him the other game. The teenager nodded his head and purchased the other game, but he was clearly disappointed.
A short while later, she discovered a small dragon figurine in another stall that was perfect for Jason. It was small but golden, with an intricate pattern of inlaid garnets and scrollwork. Its eyes glowed like diamonds, and its claws were sharp.
She examined it closely, put it down, and continued to browse, hoping for something bigger. Unfortunately, the same teenager happened to be browsing in that particular stall, too, and, when he noticed her interest, he stepped forward to grab the figurine.
She tried to explain to the boy, politely, respectfully, that she’d like to purchase it for her son, but he had an earbud attached to the smartphone in his tee shirt pocket, and he didn’t seem to listen. She repeated her plea in slow English. This time he glanced at her, but his eyes hardened as she spoke.
"Westerner,” he muttered, "now the score is even. You have game, I have dragon, and he brushed past her, carrying the dragon to the register.
She was the unluckiest shopper.
A waiter approached her, but she asked for the tab. She paid it and left as the boy sang “Yesterday”.
The next morning she was determined to see the countryside, and she searched for the train station, passing an abandoned McDonald’s and hurrying under the elevated railroad tracks. Finally she located the grungy ticket office and boarded the rickety, rollicking train to Nikko, home of the emperor’s summer palace. The city melted behind her as the train entered Tochigi Prefecture with its emerald rice paddies and soft, round mountains.
After an hour in the pleather seat, she rose to stretch her legs. In the car behind hers she noticed the boy again – Was this the third time? - still wearing his striped tee shirt. His eyes were riveted to his manga paperback, and the bag holding the dragon was on the seat beside him. He may have been aware of her, but he did not deign to lift his eyes.
When she disembarked from the train in Nikko, it was raining, and she opened her umbrella along with all of the other travelers. She pulled out the map and directions the innkeeper had emailed her and crossed the arched, vermilion lacquered Shinkyo Bridge. She glanced behind her once or twice, but she didn’t notice the boy under all of the colorful umbrellas.
“Nikko is Nippon,” read the sign on the village restaurant. This village wasn’t Toyko with its cosmopolitan flavor. She noticed no foreigners inside the establishment. It wasn’t tourist season, and she felt conspicuously out of place in her sneakers and jeans. All of the Japanese women around her wore black high heels and sleek pantsuits. She had seen a few traditional kimonos paired with socks and sandals on the train.
The onsen at the inn was nirvana. She dismissed every care from her mind as she relaxed into the ritual and moist heat and later slept deeply and dreamlessly on the tatami mat.
At dawn, walking along the Daiyagawa River that flows behind the inn, a long row of red-capped, red-bibbed statues regarded her solemnly.
Noticing others’ offerings, she deposited a coin in one lap. Should she make a wish? Say a prayer? “Make me a better shopper!” she implored.
After a breakfast of fish and eggs, she explored the summer palace with its traditional artisan’s architecture. She visited the shrines, stopping with the other tourists to admire the intricate carvings. Young girls giggled under the Three Monkeys of "see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil" fame. The guide informed her that Buddhism teaches that if we do not hear, see, or speak evil, we ourselves shall be spared from evil. She hoped that that was true.
Late in the afternoon, she wandered away from the tourist hordes and followed the cobblestone path up a steep hill lined with tall evergreen trees that soared through the mist to the cloudy sky. A lonely shrine seemed to beckon to her from the summit.
The view of the surrounding mountains was worth the climb. The guide standing outside the shrine named the mountains for her; Mt. Fuji, Mt. Futara, and Mt. Akagi were like shadows in the distance. She recalled the dragon Futara from the app she had purchased for her son and smiled.
She removed her shoes and set them, all alone, outside the temple door and entered the enclosure with some trepidation, never sure of the proper deportment expected in such a holy place as this. When she saw the Buddha, she put her palms together and bowed as she had been taught.
Then she noticed the arrow labeled GIFTS, abandoned her supplicant’s pose, and entered the shop.
Inside the shop, in a small, glass display case, she spied the only souvenir sold there, a ruler-length dragon wrapped around a golden arrow - and the price was reasonable.
“Perfect! I’ll take that one,” she told the tiny gray-haired sales woman in the black apron.
Smiling and gesturing, she set her purse on the counter and searched for her wallet.
“Grandma, I will finish this sale,” she heard a boy’s voice say. The old woman spoke to her grandson in Japanese, probably scolding him for speaking English, but she stepped out the back door of the shop.
Looking up from her purse, she gasped. It was the same boy with the striped tee shirt. In her surprise, her hand grasped her smartphone, and she pulled that out instead of her wallet.
The boy glanced at her hand and drew his smartphone out of his pocket, too.
“Our score is tied. So you like to shop for dragon? Today I see you drop. The Battle of Sarumaru?” he asked.
She understood that they were choosing the weapons for a duel, and, inexplicably, she nodded her agreement. She had done nothing wrong. Why shouldn't she defend herself?
He tapped a key, and a gigantic millipede with a thousand legs emerged from the screen. Howling, it hovered beside the boy. Its gaping mouth breathed noxious fumes and sparks, and its teeth dripped venom.
"So advanced you'll question reality!" the salesman had promised. And he was right. Somehow the monster inside the game had achieved physical reality here in the gift shop.
"Attack!" ordered the boy, and the millipede swooped over her head. She stepped back in shock, gripping her smartphone in one hand and waving at sparks with the other as they descended upon her head.
“I want that souvenir for my son!” she shouted and tapped her smartphone, calling forward from its memory the Dragon Futara. Wouldn't Jason love to see me now, she thought.
“Sic ‘im, Futara!” she shouted, and the dragon that materialized from her screen rose into the air, thrashing its tail from side to side and baring its awesome teeth. From its nostrils, clouds of smoke issued forth. It exhaled with a roar, and fire swept across the surface of the glass case, singing the boy's hair.
In seconds, the monsters clamped their teeth around each other's throats, devoured each other, and disappeared. Only a thin, green vapor remained.
Before she could heave a sigh of relief, the boy began to change. His face became a devil’s mask. He wore a horned helmet, and a samurai’s armor covered his shirt. His earbud and smartphone transformed into daisho, two swords, large and small, which he pointed at her, menacingly.
She tapped her smartphone again and a dagger replaced it in her hand.
The samurai brandished his large sword. She ducked as the blade swept past her ear. He swung his small sword. She ducked again.
In response, she paused for one second and licked the tip of her dagger. Then she aimed and sent it flying. It pierced the samurai’s mask, protruding from one eye hole, and remained there, its silver handle reflecting in the glass of the display case. Inwardly she cringed.
The samurai's armor evaporated, leaving in its place the boy, his shoulders slumped, his head hung in shame.
“How did you know that human saliva could triumph over me?” he asked without looking up.
“I didn’t know. I was lucky,” she answered, “and now I’d like to buy that dragon’s arrow for my son.”
“You are very lucky. It’s the last one,” said the boy.
The next day she returned to Tokyo. Before her plane departed that evening, she stopped at the karaoke bar seeking a calming beverage. Her bulging luggage lounged on the floor beside her chair.
She wasn't at all surprised to see the boy in the corner. When he stepped to the mike and began singing, she raised her glass in a farewell toast.
