truly if there were an ASCII spiral character, it would be my best friend in writing ꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜
I'm currently sitting at a little window booth in the corner of 309, a popular coffee chain [ikebukuro branch]. in the 90s or so they showed up here and there with their signature chocolate crossaint and completely ravaged the middle class coffee market. luckily they tend to be pretty good, and particularly the one in ikebukuro has become a sort of ritual to me. without fail, my patronage at this place has been accompanied by a weird encounter with the cashier, and a sense of deja-vu
. I make it a habit to stop by every time I'm in ikebukuro.
my first time here was summer last year - my first summer alone in tokyo. I'd seen these stores around - they have a fairly high spawn rate around the shopping districts - but I hadn't given one a chance yet. in truth, I felt compelled to come here. but I think I'd like to write why at the end of this article ! lets work backwards.
I played .hack//GU vol.2 - reminiscence for 6 hours straight today. my summer vacation is running short, and I wanted to get this series under my belt before school broke out again. I have trouble balancing multiple important things [꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜].
I'm meeting someone next month, specifically to talk about .hack. it's a strange sort of situation that only happens in tokyo; a world where you can find a partner in your weird obsession, but are so busy you schedule it a month in advance. obsession is a key word ! this kind of waiting and suspense is enough to drag anyone into a ꩜, but something about .hack's inherent conspiracy-like quality, and the setting summer, has got me feeling so FLCL. I normally get this way around autumn/winter ~ something I welcome and fear equally. there's no guarantee that I'll meet this person a second time, so I wanted to discuss everything I could with them , hence my mad dash to destroy .hack.
and so I played until my eyes burned out. I came to ikebukuro for a little walk and a change of scenery . ikebukuro is a weird town to me, it's like . . . a pathetic shibuya? I'm still not really sure why it exists, but I like it in it's kitsch. as per, I dragged my groggy ass out to the 309 for a refresh and a reflection, before crawling home for the final game in the trilogy. and here we are~
i started music in 2017. it was the vector that pulled me here in a way. the chain of causality is long and convoluted, but from when I decided I would be a musician, I knew why not shoot for Tokyo? the city of rusty shoegaze and crunchy electronica. there's a lot more to it than that ~ of course I was drawn here by my desire to be surrounded by hz and voltz and denpa and then I go insane and explode꩜꩜꩜꩜꩜ but yeah. generally my dream to make game music grew within a dream of living here. I'm still watering that first plant, but I'm luckily enough to be taking good care of the second already. so let's go a step further back, what got me into music?
this too is an overly long and convoluted chain of events, but essentially a boy guided me in.
my first ever friends dragged me into a highschool production, and through that I found love in the atmosphere of creation and performance. (I hate performing myself but . . ahah it felt nice to be a part of something).
I (decisively)befriended a boy with fair hair and glasses too big for his eyes. a self-described weirdo who practised how to be adequately aloof and anti-social at events. everyone else called him a weirdo too. through discord I pestered him about music, and slowly went about putting my own together. it was some kind of chiptune lo-fi shoegaze song named after a scene in FLCL. (see!! it always returns to me in September).
awfully mixed, arranged and written, it was about as good as anyone's first song. but! it contained one little flame that keeps me warm to this day - I had accidentally discovered the lydian mode by moving down a maj7 chord a perfect 5th. it's a really common chord progression actually! and if you ask me now I wouldn't really describe it as lydian, but as having a lower key originally. however, the weirdo seemed impressed by the song. he explained the mode I'd found to me, and it was over. it doesn't take much complimenting to get me inspired it seems.
that boy and I had a rough relationship over time. our weirdnesses were shaped just different enough to grind against each other. and eventually we fell out of contact. the seat behind me right now was where I was sat a year ago when I told him I had already left England to live here. it had been a long time since we talked. and now it's been another long time . I wonder if we'll always be stuck together like this. kind of . . watching each other from afar.
it was the hottest day of my life, my clothes betrayed me to the world - declaring "white boy drowning in tokyo heat". I had just arrived at ikebukuro on foot. okr of those adventuring moods where I just want to walk in one direction for a realllllly long time. I live on the edge of Tokyo, it had taken around 4 hours to get here. I stumbled around in the sun, searching for the fabled 309 to collapse in. there's actually only one in ikebukuro (sorta), and it's tucked away in a little backstreet. by the time I found it, my body was flashing red for low battery . the cashier glanced me up and down, and noting my sweat-drenched shirt, decided to handle me with a 10-foot pole. my subsequent excursions here would prove that 309 ikebukuro employees are consistently inhuman . I think anyone working at ikebukuro coffee stores would become inhuman. I love it.
so here we are again ! in truth it's a similar situation as my first time. I wanted an adventure, and came out here to soak my head in the sink. someone far away that feels close is on my mind, and a soft obsession is rounding the harsh edges of reality. the kind of softness that a crush provides to help you survive highschool.
Tokyo has a kind of romantic magic to it. I think people who've never been here can feel it too, due to how romanticised the city is in media. there's an infinite potential in the air. the chance to fall in the path of anyone and end up intertwined, anywhere. walk in any direction for 10 minutes with your eyes locked in and you'll notice something - anything - to love. it's a feeling I forget about now and then, but when it comes back this warmth in my heart inspires me to take a big step into my backyard and go on another adventure. I'm nearing my 2-year anniversary here actually. come to think of it, it's around the start of October - roughly when I'll be meeting Mr.Hack. in a lot of ways the magic has worn off! now and then I even find myself cynical about Tokyo. I hope I can hold onto this little flame.
I felt compelled (perhaps against my better judgement) to take a little trip round to Ikebukuro again. Same order, next day. This 'special' croissant seems to be just a little bigger than the regular - but it feels immense. In 2012 when epic was a trending word I tried to make 'immense' a thing because I thought you could use any word. it only caught on in my church group. let's bring her back
I have therapy later today, 7PM ish. it's the same therapist as 2 years ago, back when I lived in England. right now we're going over the concept of shame, but generally my parental situation is always in the background of our conversations. she doesn't prescribe me any meds or anything, but her presence and words are a galvanising force in my neurotic world. I have a little homework - to finish reading a book about shame. I haven't finished it yet due to circumstances outside of my control (which I feel NO shame over!!). but I also scheduled a little digital rendezvous with my mother, before therapy. it's good to generally get a read on her situation beforehand - incase something important comes up. my mother is currently separated(?) from my father but living with him.
this is a less than ideal situation for anyone, surely. she's deciding whether to leave him permanently, a decision made difficult due to his cognitive processing disability. she must either accept the burden of being a caregiver for someone who doesn't make her happy, or accept the guilt of abandoning someone asking for her help. I don't envy her, and given her background I think she's incredibly strong for not going insane in this situation. well, maybe she is (slowly).
I like to call her regularly to make sure she's safe, and see any updates on her and my other family members in the UK. afterwards, I discuss any updates with my therapist, alongside any other personal changes. I always wonder if there's an end goal to my therapy. I wasn't forced into it, I choose to do it due to some afore-mentioned family issues. those issues might be a big reason I'm in tokyo ikebukuro 309 in the first place. many have speculated I chose one of the furthest countries from England as an escape route. they're partially right ! when I was around 13 this idea hatched in my mind, to move out far away as quick as possible. coinciding with my unprecedented passion for Japanese art, I wound up over here. through the shining youth power of a 13-year old. I owe them my gratitude, their tenacity has gotten me far. but every now and then (past 9pm), I wonder if I'm living my own life, or the dream of someone long gone. I wonder if I want to stay here, and for how long. the city is of course cold and dehumanising, and my school feels more limiting than liberating. my good days here are dazzling and bright, but when the sharp air and distortion of august fades in, I start to wonder if what I left behind in England was worth it.
the sunset from the hill where he lived took everyone's attention away from their lives. for the next 24 hours our Instagram stories would comprise of that same image through a hundred lenses. I hadn't ever had a friends-only BBQ before. we were in your garden, playing a little hide and seek. I don't remember who was cooking. the boy with the fair-hair was there, sat appropriately far enough away from the crowd. I was still in my school uniform - I liked how my body felt in it. I felt almost like everyone else. my lesbian bestie took a photo with me, the sun in our eye
s. tired from school, the vegan BBQ woke us all up enough to laugh and shout loudly like teenagers do, sparkling. you were all my first friends. when we finally went inside with the sunset, I wasn't the only one to notice the electric purple magic in the air. something glowing softly between all of us. i live my life hoping to recreate that feeling.
but in truth, that day had ended long before I arrived at Tokyo. I had already grown into a young adult (the youngest), with scars and bad tattoos and 3 explosive friendship groups, and a chronic illness from a past lover.
in some ways I wish that day was the last day of my life in England. the sun set, we held hands, sang, and I woke up early to catch my plane far away. it would make things simpler. sadly everything contains multitudes and those multitudes contain everything. so everything that did or didn't happen to me yet in England had to or had not to happen before I could depart.
I was studying hard, ignoring classes to focus on music and Japanese. I got good grades, enjoying my first circle of friends I'd ever encountered. people who not just tolerated me being nearby, but looked at me and saw me. in a very literal way, I had used the game persona 4 as a trial grounds for friendships before falling into this rag-tag bunch of losers. I finished the game just as we met. it's with me forever, just like them. what I hadn't imagined (or hadn't let myself imagine) was that these people by my side were capable of hurting each other so quickly. when it's your first time in the sunlight, it's so blinding and warm you would die for it. you want it to last forever, you'd do anything to make it last forever. higurashi reached out to me in this time - its portrayal of a close friend group making me feel just as close to the game as the opening 2 chapters (focused on isolation and paranoia), had made me feel when I played those years earlier. and then, in the way that young queers with no social development tend to, my friends hurt each oth
er. and me.
in a fateful conversation in a city library, sipping free coffee, we all promised to kill and or die for each other. heavy words for 16 year olds. but I really did mean it, I think we all did.
and we either grew apart or were split apart. I didn't handle it well - they were my first and only shining light in this world, and their abscence would force me back into darkness. it would change me into who I was before. I ended up hurting people in my fear too. that once wide circle of hands in hands thinned out. right now, there isn't really a circle to speak of anymore at all. everyone has such a complicated history with each other that it would be impossible to organise a meet-up of any more than 3. I'm on good terms with everyone I could keep ahold of, but they're all independent 1-on-1 relationships to me now. when I talk to them, it's like no time has passed at all. and I still think about that one summer day where the sun shined so warmly on our interlocked hands and hearts. how it felt to be loved.
the following years were rough for everyone. things fell apart in 2020, so the isolation of the next few years would end up feeling a little too cold for me. my family issues became harder to ignore, stuck in that house all day without a support group. I fell harder into the online world, and honed my music skills. I made some more friends, this time on a discord server for When they cry. this group would fall close, then far over time too. it's a story for a different game, in another
writing.
next: Nottingham to Tokyo.
and how I feel about Tokyo
I waited around 2 years to finally start university. it wasn't really my choice. I wanted to use a Japanese language school as a transition space before university. it would be pretty wild to move across the world and immediately start university without much chance to practise actually speaking the language. plus, language schools often are necessary for recommendation letters to actually get into higher education. I applied for the most difficult+cheapest school, with the school dorm. by chance, due to sheer number of applicants, the dorms were full, so I and 5 others were moved to a completely random sharehouse at the very North of Tokyo
. this would be a sort of miracle and curse simultaneously.
Tokyo is isolating, and everyone knows it. This holds true for those who have lived here since birth, for university students, for every salary man on the train at 6AM. I'm a home-grown farm kid - there wasn't a store to speak of in miles. If you wanted milk you had to milk it yourself, or drive 30 minutes to pick some up. I was close with a few kids who lived nearby, but we ended up hurting each other a lot due to my quirks. I don't blame them, I was a lot to deal with
. I felt isolated there, of course. but in a weird way, the trees act like friends to you in a way that buildings don't. perhaps it was because that place was where I first found my sun-lit friends, but it always feels like my true home. someone else lives there now, I hope they feel as warm as I used to.
there's a certain coldness shared by all people who make a claim for Tokyo as their home. you need to look away, to desensitise yourself from others. in order to get through those awful cramped morning trains, you have to dissociate and pretend everyone around you doesn't reflect how tired and depressed you are. ive never felt more like an animal. people fall over here and the crowd walks around (or over) them. I've never felt so utterly abandoned at times. when you're asking an official for help, and they give you this look to indicate they've already long given up on you. my home town wasn't friendly or communal much, but . . . I could count on people to help when I sincerely asked for it. my first mistake was experiencing Japan for the first time through the lens of Tokyo. it's like taking a MDMA. it feels stimulating and exciting and colorful, but the next day is devoid of life. ive suffered a lot here
. through mental prisons of my own construction, and from the coldness of others. I have life-saving medicine I need several times a day. I pay a lot for it. and I was denied it here. one of the scariest, most despairing moments so far - feeling like I was left on the side of the road.
the isolation comes for me even in spaces where I seek connection. the queer club scene has hurt me many a time (as most do to young gays), and any nerd or rave places are cloyingly straight. not just straight, but . . . otaku-sexist. I feel so unwelcome. my closest friends here are the ones I ended up living with by chance.