“I want to show you another one of my favourite places”, he tells me. “Maybe my favourite place in Japan. Maybe in the world. Do you want to go? It’s in Shibuya.”
“Yes,” I say easily.
We arrange to meet in Shinjuku. I wake up to half of the previous night’s karepan and devour it. Typical.
I’m going to be late, still working, he texts me. I tell him to take his time and wander into Tajimaya. The bubblings of a routine appear. I always thought I was someone who didn’t particularly enjoy the confines of a routine.
A friend, familiar with my history, on multiple occasions asked me if I would have continued being monogamous with my ex-husband had he not been emotionally abusive. No, I’d answer without hesitation. Although I was polyamorous by nature, he’d talked me into a monogamous relationship. My first monogamous relationship ever , lasting eight years and ending in cheating on his part, was, I thought, a good enough reason to decide that monogamy was a part of the human experience I had tried enough to discard.
I understood his point, though. Had the variables been different, would the outcome have been the same?
This variable, the country that I was in, was it drawing me towards romanticising a routine? A person? Was this invigoration a perspective I could take with me? Did the variable matter? I never thought so. But maybe I was wrong.
I ruminate in Tajimaya, lost in possibilities. He sends me a voice note telling me when he’s free and it makes my heart flutter a little. I don’t know what it is, the flavour, the lilting upwards, the polite restraint. There’s something about it that’s oddly musical. It draws me in.
He tells me he can meet me in Shinjuku in ten minutes. I tell him to meet me on platform 14, the Yamanote line. At the JR lines, I listen to Steve Reich’s Different Trains, tuning the settings on my earbuds to let in as much noise as possible. The music of the trains around me blending in with the melodies of different trains. I feel pivotal, like I’m in the eye of the storm.
Walking up and down the platforms, my shoelaces come undone. I wander to an unobtrusive corner and lace them up. I’m here, he texts me. I’m the tall guy with messy hair. Slightly autistic. The notifications appear on my watch. I finish lacing up my shoes and look up. There he is. The back of his black overcoat facing me. The unmistakable shock of hair. I creep up behind him and we get on the train to Shibuya.
In the incalculable times I’ve wandered Tokyo, I’ve managed to give Shibuya only a cursory glance. There’s something about it that feels a little too superficial, a little too fast-paced. My home in Tokyo, for almost two decades, has always been Kabukicho. It’s overwhelming but it feels authentic. Shibuya is something I’ve yet to understand.
He leads me here, I take his hand.
We go up Dogenzaka. I see a huge green sign - ライオン. “It’s here!” I say. “How do you know where my favourite place is before me?” he asks, a little lost. “The sign…” I tell him.
Meikyoku Kissa Lion is an odd pocket in Shibuya reminiscent of an European chapel. Stone walls and wooden doors. Small tables and chairs are arranged all facing the same direction, like pews. Where the cross should be, there are massive wooden speakers and shelves filled with records. The staff, who all look like they have incredibly interesting lives, rotate classical records on the player, announcing composers - Scriabin, Prokofiev, Ravel, Holst.
Before we got here, he’d warned me that talking in Lion was not allowed. So, the only words I speak are to order something called a ‘Milk Egg’ from the waiter. It’s delicious. We listen to the music in silence. It’s a jarring experience. I’m not sure why but it feels like a nexus.
At some point, he looks at me and smiles. I smile back, confused. He fishes out a notebook and tears a piece of paper out of it.
What is your first memory, he writes and passes the paper to me. It’s intimate, mischievous, surprising and utterly charming. I write my first memory down and ask him to write down his. He asks me another question. I answer. I ask him a question. He answers. Back and forth, we scribble down our lives, tearing page after page out of his notebook, passing them to each other like we’re delinquents in the conservatory.
I think this is where it truly began, for me. When I started to realise that this could be something different, that this was special. That this wasn’t a passing fancy but something that could be a core memory. In the swirl that was Shibuya, there was an oasis and, in this calm, were the beginnings of a hurricane.
I go to the toilet and, when I return, he has neatly folded all the notes and packaged them up for me into a makeshift envelope. ‘The Lion Dialogues’ he’s written on the front. He presses it into my hand. This is one of the most beautiful gifts I’ve ever received, I think. Maybe the most beautiful, I think.