パーティー

In Violon, the tiny sister cafe to Lion, an order of coffee presents you with a choice. Will you have it with a little bit of milk or brandy? The brandy comes in an elegant bottle with a long, curved neck.

Dr Yellow

In the Spring of 2023, on the precipice of my long torturous divorce, my pain took me to the Kyoto Railway Museum. I remember that time being glacial, like I was functioning behind a thick, solid pane of glass, unable to touch the world. The curve of the Zero makes me feel hollow inside.

引

A kanji, a memory, a fortune. How does one pick a memory when the story is still unfolding so delicately? I floated, untethered, into 🫘's life last summer.

Tajimaya

And here I am again. In the place where it began. In one of the places of one of the beginnings.

天丼

Just a little thing. A little bath in a little town. In a round tub above the Atami skyline, high as kites, we hold each other and kiss and kiss and kiss for what feels like an eternity.

叶う

It's hard to fully express what this year has meant to me. After spending almost a decade being kept at a tolerable level of permanent unhappiness, being constantly told that my needs and desires were irrelevant, that I was an extension of someone else, someone more important, I had to claw my way back to who I was. Who I am today.

Satellites

Deep in the throes of infatuation again. It never gets old, everytime it happens. I just wish I didn't find it so sticky.

Iwate's Number One Fan

In Morioka, I am lulled by a faint ennui. A sense of restlessness. Anxiety manifesting as slight annoyance.

Ghosts

How long overdue is this. Once again, I am the sailor. Goldmund era, I say.

上

A kanji, a memory and a fortune. The first time I met 🐦‍⬛, time seemed to pass so quickly. DDR and dinner disappeared into midnight and we found ourselves in a playground high above the city.

槍

A kanji, a memory and a fortune. The first time I met 🥊, I remember thinking how easy it felt to be with him. He had a sparkling curiosity, charming wit, sharp mind and was endlessly entertaining.

愛

A kanji, a memory and a fortune. My memories of ♏ will always be tied up with pudding. The first time we spoke online, I was eating pudding, alone, in a Cafe Renoir in Shinjuku.

Resolution

In 2023 I discovered that the most precious thing that you can have is peace of mind and no one is worth giving that up for. If someone consistently makes you feel awful about yourself, leave. It has been a relief to not be the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong.

Blueprints

After I'd stumbled my way into dating (and then dumping) a hotel owner because I wanted to learn salsa, ♏ asked me, incredulous, "How do people like you even exist? You function on like… cartoon logic. And it works?

ライオン

“I want to show you another one of my favourite places”, he tells me. “Maybe my favourite place in Japan. Maybe in the world.

Focus

It's easy to keep your cool if you just think of him as a child, my best friend says. Don't be surprised if he's small-minded, petty, mean. That's just who he is.

Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do

"Maybe my base personality is bully," he says proudly. And it's true. Throwing my things in the garbage like I don't even get to decide what lives on my table.