50 Notes To Say I’m Sorry, 2/3
Q&A - Be Persistent With Persimmons!
Sunday, 3:00 PM
Garden Room B
Speakers: Nishiyama Tomokazu, Omoto Taizo, Hara Reiko, Japan Agriculture Bureau-Produce Division
You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. Come chat with this panel of experts, who will provide you with solutions to the most pertinent persimmon problems plaguing your production. We want to hear from you!
-
“Be proactive,” Jun was still muttering to himself hours later, standing behind the JTSB table.
He’d called the number on the business card Aiba had given him, just to be sure. And yeah, it was still wrong. It was still the number for a take-out ramen place in Ebisu.
His shift was finally winding down and not a moment too soon. Shihori had stayed with him for a while to keep him company, and they’d realized that Sho’s candy was quickly vanishing. Even in their poor traffic zone, people were bound and determined to try and find every freebie possible.
Sho had given Shihori the ice bucket from his hotel room, loading it up with individually-wrapped mini chocolate bars. It was already half gone by the time Jun showed up, but only a handful of people had taken pamphlets. The new solution was probably cruel, but perhaps it would work.
Shihori returned halfway through Jun’s shift with a plastic bag from some office supply store, using part of her daily food allowance to instead buy some scotch tape. She and Jun had then taped a piece of candy to each of their brochures. If someone wanted something now, they had no choice but to accept the government pamphlet along with the candy.
They’d have to restock the candy come morning, but at the very least the pamphlets were starting to move. They needed the numbers for their quarterly outreach report and to continue justifying the cost of printing them at all instead of relying solely on their Stay Alert, Stay Alive homepage. Dull metrics, all of them, but it would make Sakamoto-san happy.
When Sho finally arrived to relieve him, Jun was still trying to gather his courage. He wasn’t the most confrontational person. He usually had to be kind of drunk. Sho approached, notebook tucked under his arm. The smile that spread across his face at the sight of the candy-brochure hybrids was rather endearing.
“That was smart,” Sho admitted, moving behind the table and resting his stuff on the chair behind them. “How’d everything go?”
“The tape was Shihori-chan’s idea. Credit where credit is due. Looks like we’ll need more candy tomorrow.”
The expo center would be open another three and a half hours, and Sho would finish the night out on his own. “Excellent. Any oddball questions?”
Jun shook his head. “This one guy asked why we were wasting taxpayer money with a booth here, but he got the standard reply.”
Sho nodded, and they recited it together: “Thank you very much for your feedback. We suggest that you please contact the member of the House of Representatives for your voting district with any concerns you may have.”
“Ah,” Sho laughed. “It’s been a while since I got to use that one.”
“It was every bit as satisfying as it always is,” Jun admitted. Voter apathy was always a good card to play.
Jun leaned against the table, picking at a little bit of fuzz on his suit jacket. Aiba’s business card was burning a hole in his pocket. Sho took one of the pamphlets, ripping the chocolate bar off of it and shoving the pamphlet in his convention swag bag. He had half the candy gone before he looked over at Jun.
“So are you going to confront him?”
Jun nodded. “I think so.”
“At the very least, you’re helping him in his job. The wrong number on the business card thing.”
“Right.”
“I hope it goes well for you.”
He shrugged. “Either he really forgot about having sex with me or having sex with me sucked. There’s no middle ground here, Sho-san. And both options reflect poorly on me as a romantic partner.”
“It could be something else. Some other explanation,” Sho said encouragingly.
Easy for him to say. Sho had a really great ass. No woman sleeping with him could have ever forgotten it. Not that he’d ever tell Sho as much.
“Want me to stick around a while?”
Sho shrugged. “That’s up to you. You might keep me from eating all the candy myself.”
Jun agreed to stay, if only to kill time until he was going to find his way back to the Byatt Regency bar. He knew he had the option to forget all about it, to hop onto the subway and find different entertainment for the evening and for the rest of the conference. He could show Aiba the same amount of respect that Aiba had shown him.
But he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. Even if he only breezed in to Jun’s life every four or five years (like the World Cup, said Sho’s voice in his head), Aiba was different. He was frustrating as hell, but Jun knew he couldn’t give him up. It was irrational, and Jun loathed being irrational, but he needed to know what he’d done wrong.
If he was ever going to find “the one,” he couldn’t have any lingering doubts about his capabilities as a lover. He couldn’t pursue a permanent relationship, a true future, with the Aiba questions hanging around in his head.
Sho, kind guy that he was, talked about anything but relationship issues. Instead he and Jun stood behind the table together, discussing work stuff, upcoming projects on their plate. The nitty-gritty stuff that drove Shihori up a wall, but that Jun liked to think about. Sho was kind of big picture and relied on Jun to focus on the little details. It was a welcome distraction, their chat broken up every few minutes by someone reluctantly taking a pamphlet in order to take the candy.
They passed an hour and a half in this fashion before Jun knew he couldn’t monopolize any more of Sho’s time. He departed, exhaling nervously as he headed back through the convention center. Moving through the halls, he could see the different rooms for the other conferences. Each person had to show their badge before being allowed through, and Jun frowned. He was stuck with the truckers and the shippers.
He took a long walk, all the way from one end of the convention center to the other, coming rather close to entering the Cosmos Hotel and Suites, backing off when he saw the signage for the conference being hosted there. VacEx 2016: 19th Annual Vacuum Convention and Show, the signs proudly stated. An entire convention about vacuums?
He grabbed dinner at one of the restaurants in his own hotel, lingering longer than he had to. Even the waitress seemed worried about him, especially when she caught him staring into space, daydreaming about having some grand confrontation with Aiba.
You’re horrible, he’d scream. You can’t treat people this way, he’d scream. I’ve loved you since I was sixteen, he’d scream. You kiss with a bit too much tongue, he’d scream. And each scenario ended with him dramatically throwing his drink in Aiba’s face before being hauled out by security. Sho would have to come bail him out from Byatt Regency jail. In his scenario, the hotel had a jail, too.
Instead he simply apologized to the waitress, asking for the bill. He paid, pocketing his receipt and slumping off in the direction of the bar. It was past 9:00 by now, and he realized just why the waitress had been concerned. He’d spent almost three hours eating a salad. He should have stayed in the convention center with Sho.
He hovered in the entryway, repeatedly excusing himself as other patrons slipped past him. He found Aiba Masaki sitting alone in one of the booths way in the back, sipping from a pint glass and looking…
…a bit nervous?
Jun shook his head. No, Aiba Masaki didn’t get nervous. Aiba Masaki smiled and laughed all day long. He was calm and collected, unlike Jun, who’d had his elaborate daydreams about wasting money and good alcohol by throwing it in Aiba’s face for the last several hours.
Jun did his best to calm down, to not become the hysterical overdramatic wreck he’d been in all of his brain’s wildest scenarios. He approached the booth. “Hey.”
Aiba looked up, and Jun almost lost his nerve, seeing the bright and friendly smile he’d fallen for so easily, half a lifetime ago. Tonight Aiba was in the same gray suit he’d worn the day before but with a different colored tie. A hideous green striped thing dotted with little watermelon slices. “Matsujun, you came! Sit, sit.”
Jun did so.
“Let me treat you. What are you having?” Aiba asked.
In Jun’s scenario, they’d been sitting at the bar together. Thus it had been easier for Jun to slip off the stool and toss his drink in Aiba’s face. Stuck together in the booth, he’d have to wiggle his way back out before any drink tossing.
Instead he held up a hand. “Aiba-san, I have something to say to you, and I’d rather you not respond until I’m finished.”
Aiba’s warm brown eyes widened, his fingers fidgeting around the base of his beer glass. He nodded in acknowledgment.
In Jun’s daydream, he’d slapped the business card down onto the bar counter, hard enough to knock over Aiba’s beer. In reality, he took it out and gently set it between them. He tapped it with his finger.
“Your phone number is wrong.”
“I…”
“Please don’t interrupt me.”
Aiba shut up, though Jun was a bit pleased to see the slight tremor in his hand before he set his hands in his lap, off the table where Jun couldn’t see.
“Ten years ago or so, at the five-year reunion. That was at that dive bar near Gotanda Station. We met there, and you gave me this business card. We made plans to meet up, and it didn’t work out. I couldn’t reach you because the number on this card is wrong.”
Aiba at least was looking guilty now.
“Fast forward to five years ago. This was the 10-year reunion. You had Nino invite you to that one as well. That reunion was at a hotel. We met there, and you gave me this business card.”
“Matsujun…”
“Let me finish.”
Aiba couldn’t even meet his eyes now, his dark fringe hanging in his face.
“You gave me this business card, and I gave you my phone number. In fact, I gave you my phone number multiple times. I wrote it down and slipped it into the pocket of that red bomber jacket you wore that night. I also put my number into the pockets of your pants. How did such a thing happen? How did I find myself in a position where I could sneak a piece of paper into your jeans?”
“Oh gosh…” Aiba muttered.
“Because you weren’t wearing them at the time, Aiba-san. I slipped them into your clothes while you were showering. And then we…” Jun cleared his throat, tapping again on the business card to gather his courage. “And then we had sex. We had very very…um, well…I don’t know if frantic is the right word, but I’ll go with that for now. Frantic, energetic sex. And then we fell asleep and when I woke up…”
“Oh, Matsujun…”
“Stop!” he growled, knocking his fist on the table. Aiba’s beer swished a little but didn’t even come close to tipping over. “And when I woke up, not only were you gone without a word, but you took my fucking jeans with you. Of course, that was the last time I heard from you because, surprise surprise, you once again gave me a business card with the wrong phone number on it.”
With each thing he said, he felt like a weight was lifting. But with each thing he said, he could see Aiba’s handsome face filling with horror.
“So you took my jeans, fine. But you took that red jacket, which means you had my phone number. One might conclude that you never emptied the pockets of that jacket, so maybe you didn’t have my number. But I have social media. I can be found, unlike you. Nothing about that night screamed ‘one time only’ to me, Aiba-san. Not when Ninomiya gave me a keycard to that hotel room when I got there. That was planned. That was deliberate. So what was I supposed to think? I’ll tell you what I thought.”
He tapped repeatedly on the business card, finger thumping against the table.
“I thought that it must have been awful, at least in your eyes. Because if it was something you wanted to do again, you’d have found a way to contact me. That’s option number one, the ‘sex with Jun was really fucking bad’ option. And then option number two might be worse. Option number two means you forgot we even had sex in the first place.”
He stopped tapping, if only because he could see Aiba shaking across from him. Aiba’s eyes were wet, but Jun knew he had to finish what he had to say. He kept his voice calm and steady, barely louder than the jazzy music piping through the bar.
“And that makes you look pretty bad, Aiba-san, since you were neither drunk nor on any illicit substances when you fucked me. But then you came up to me yesterday without even seeming to remember what we’d done. You handed me this stupid card, and your number is still wrong. For the love of…this phone number goes to a ramen shop, Aiba-san.”
He got to his feet, slipping out of the booth, and Aiba looked up in surprise. Jun rested his hands on his hips, hoping he looked cold and heartless and untouchable. He opted not to go for the Byatt Regency jail scenario. He wasn’t that tacky.
“It’s irresponsible, giving out business cards with incorrect information. It reflects poorly on you as an employee. It’s my humble suggestion that you have new cards made as soon as possible. Goodbye.”
He turned around without saying anything else, speedwalking out of the bar. He was halfway to the elevator banks when he heard his name.
“Jun! Jun, wait for me!”
He pressed the “up” button anyhow.
“Jun!”
One of the elevators opened and he hurried inside, hitting the button for his floor and then repeatedly tapping the “close door” button. He heard the squeak of shoes on the tile, saw Aiba come skidding to a halt right in front of him.
Aiba looked awful, tears streaking down his face. He tried to catch his breath. “Jun…” he huffed. “Jun…I didn’t forget…”
But then the doors closed, taking Jun up up and away.
-
Domo Arigatou, Mister Roboto: Helpers In Our Homes
Sunday, 10:00 AM
Willow Room A
Speaker: Sanada Maika (appears courtesy of Kouno E. Publishing)
In the future, robots will cook and clean, turning housework into a thing of the past. But what does this mean for the traditional housewife? How might her role evolve after the robot revolution? Sanada Maika, housewife and the acclaimed author of Cleaning Is A Snap: 500 Fast and Easy Household Solutions, explores what tasks robots will be able to replace…and what situations will always call for a more human touch.
-
He slept even worse that Saturday night. Instinct told him he should have waited for Aiba to explain himself. After all, wasn’t that the one thing he actually wanted? But if he’d stayed in that bar a moment longer, he’d have ended up saying something even worse. He likely wouldn’t have thrown a drink…and not just because he hadn’t ordered one. Instead he’d have said something he knew he’d regret.
At least now he’d gotten out all of his complaints, and then when the fifteen or twenty year reunions rolled around, he’d be able to keep cool. Not let himself get drawn into the Aiba Masaki trap yet again.
He took first shift at the booth in the expo center that morning, picking up the new bags of candy Sho had bought. Sho had simply handed them over, an inquisitive look on his face. Jun had just sighed. “Tell you later,” he mumbled, letting Sho head out for some sightseeing tour with Shihori that one of the trucking companies had sponsored.
Enormous coffee in hand, he spent a long, miserable morning in the convention center. It seemed that most of the logistics professionals had likely had a wild night as even fewer of them were milling around on a Sunday morning. Jun busied himself rigging up the day’s batch of candy-pamphlet hybrids. Only five were taken during his entire shift.
He grew so bored that he and the woman in the booth beside his, the company with the pens, mutually agreed to exercise together. Even in a dress, nylons, and heels, she did some stretches, a few jumping jacks. They did some squats, jogged in place. Nobody was coming by to judge them.
Shihori came to relieve him around noon, looking well-rested and fresh after her morning tour. She gave him a poke in the arm. “How’s your lost love?”
He rolled his eyes. He should have known that she’d pry the information out of Sho. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sure,” she said, ignoring his request, grabbing one of the candy-pamphlets and tearing the chocolate bar off of it. Like Sho had done before, she shoved the pamphlet in her bag as though it had been taken by any other conference-goer. “Sho-san said it was all about you getting closure. From the look on your face, I’m guessing that didn’t happen yet.”
“I said what I wanted to say to him.”
“And?”
“And then I ran away. It was not my finest hour.”
She rubbed his arm affectionately before unwrapping her candy. “Sho-san is a very proper man, you know, so he was pretty vague on details no matter how much I prodded him. But if a guy gave me the wrong phone number on three separate occasions, I’d kill him.”
He looked down at her, grinning. “Is that really worth committing murder over?”
“I prefer straightforward men.”
“I don’t think he gave me the wrong number on purpose.”
She huffed. “I also prefer men who aren’t complete idiots.”
He shook his head. “It’s not like that…”
“Then how is it like?” she asked pointedly.
Jun couldn’t get the image of Aiba out of his mind. The look on his face as the elevator doors closed on him. The guilt he’d shown in the bar as Jun laid into him without stopping. “I didn’t forget,” Aiba had said. He’d been crying. And Jun had just left him there.
“I think I’m going to take lunch now,” he said.
Shihori shoved four candy-pamphlets at him, and he stuffed them in his bag. Sho had asked him to sit in on a few of the conference sessions, if only so it seemed like the government got its money’s worth sending all three of them to the conference for the entire long weekend. He was going to need the sugar to get through the afternoon.
One mediocre club sandwich and chips later, Jun headed into the Zelkova Room deep in the bowels of the convention center. The air conditioning in the lower levels was cranked up way too high, so at least it would keep him awake during what was sure to be an hour of pain and suffering. Industry best practices for an industry he was not a part of.
He set down his bag and put his phone on silent, having a seat in the second to last row all the way to the right. Despite the cold, dry air, the room filled almost to capacity. The doors had just closed when someone quickly maneuvered into the empty seat beside him.
A balding man came to the podium to introduce the speaker just as Jun noticed a familiar gray suit fabric on the legs of the man beside him. He took a more deliberate peek, inhaling sharply when he realized that Aiba Masaki was now sitting next to him.
Before Jun could say anything, Aiba merely smiled at him, bringing a finger to his lips and telling him to ssh. While the introduction carried on at the front of the Zelkova Room, Aiba lifted the badge on the lanyard hanging around his neck. It was not a badge for Aiba Masaki attending the HomeSmarts Show and Expo. It was a badge for a logistics conference attendee named Kazama Shunsuke.
Jun leaned forward, digging around in his bag for one of the candy-pamphlets. He flipped it over, writing on it angrily as the crowd around them burst into polite applause for the speaker coming to the podium.
“Where have we been?” the speaker asked in a booming voice. “And where are we going? I hope you’ll kindly indulge me for the next hour as we discuss the future of our industry. I’ll be happy to answer any of your questions after the presentation.”
Jun finished writing, holding it out so Aiba could see it.
Who is Kazama? What are you doing here?
Aiba leaned over, yanking the pen from his hand. His handwriting was really horrible.
I will explain. Hold on.
And then Aiba was pulling out a hefty stack of small papers from inside his jacket, each piece of paper filled with more sloppy handwriting. Aiba handed them over one at a time, not seeming to care if other people around them were a bit annoyed by the rustling. From the sizeable number of papers with Cosmos Hotel and Suites letterhead, he’d spent quite a while getting his thoughts together. But he hadn’t bothered to write them down on a larger piece of paper.
(1) Hi Matsujun. It’s me, Aiba Masaki.
Jun looked over, irritated beyond belief. Aiba’s expression was nervous but still hopeful. He pointed down for Jun to continue.
(1) Hi Matsujun. It’s me, Aiba Masaki. I know you have a lot of questions.
Aiba handed over the next note.
(2) First, how am I at your conference? I have Nino to thank. Nino is a bit of a rascal. Whenever we come to conventions, he tends to pick up badges he finds on the floor.
Aiba handed over the next one.
(3) He doesn’t turn them over to Lost and Found like he should. He likes to use them to check out other conventions and find free stuff. It can be fun sometimes.
Aiba handed over the next one.
(4) So I don’t know who Kazama is, but I’m him today so I can come talk to you. I couldn’t leave things how they were last night.
At this point, Jun simply yanked the rest of the notes from Aiba’s hand so he could read them all together.
(5) Thank you very much for informing me that the phone number on my business card is wrong. I had no idea. That may sound dumb, but it’s the truth.
(6) When I first started at Zic right out of college, they said we could order business cards. I read the form wrong and instead of getting 500 business cards I accidentally ticked the box for 5000. Who needs 5000 business cards???
(7) And that’s really thick, fancy card stock you know, so I didn’t want to just throw them in the recycling bin. Someone went to all the trouble of making them with my name and all. It would be rude to ignore their hard work. So I’ve been handing them out all this time.
(8) But thinking about it some more, I realized that only a few months after I started, I got moved from sales to the buying department. I never call myself so I never realized that they changed my phone number.
(9) Now you must really think I’m an idiot, and I guess I’m not going to deny it. But that’s what happened. My phone number switched only months after I got my 5000 business cards so the number has been wrong all that time.
(10) It’s been 10 years and I still have a ton of the cards left to give away. And you know what really upsets me now that I know it’s been wrong all this time? Well obviously I’m upset that I have probably missed all these phone calls from people (especially from you, Matsujun).
(11) But also I’ve been trying to get rid of these cards by dropping them in jars at restaurants. You know when they have jars set out on the counter and it says ‘put your business card in here for the chance to win a free lunch’ and I always put my card in those jars.
(12) For ten years I just thought I had bad luck and that I was never going to win anything but now I might have actually won hundreds of free lunches but they could never reach me, that’s so frustrating!!!!
Jun looked over, raising an eyebrow. Aiba’s sheepish smile in return made his heart race. Of all the things to be upset about. Not potentially losing clients or anything…
(13) So I swear and I promise and I vow that from this day forward Aiba Masaki will drop all of those incorrect business cards in paper recycling!!!!! I will order new ones and before that happens I will verify that the number is correct.
(14) I completely totally 100% no I completely 1000000000% apologize for giving you false information over and over again. I feel so horrible about this.
(15) And you know after the first time, you know the five year reunion thing, I thought maybe you were angry with me because you told me about the love hotel and then I was dumb and got that note from you wet so we couldn’t meet at all but I knew I gave you my card so I figured that you didn’t want to call me.
(16) So I accepted that. I wouldn’t want to call me either since I ditched you even when I really didn’t want to. I really didn’t want to!!!!!!! I really didn’t!!!!!! Really!!!!!!!
“Do you have to put so many exclamation points?” he mumbled under his breath, trying not to laugh.
“I’m just being honest,” Aiba whispered in reply.
Jun loved Aiba’s exclamation points. He absolutely loved them, and the anger he’d felt toward Aiba was already starting to fade a bit.
(17) So now I should probably get to the biggest apology that I owe you. I am so sorry Jun. I am so sorry, I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am about what happened at the ten year reunion.
(18) My explanation is going to be stupid again, and I’m sorry for that too. All of my explanations are stupid, but Nino said if I wasn’t honest with you that I was a bad person because even he didn’t know everything that happened that night.
(19) And now that he knows, he’s super pissed off (at me, not at you of course). He wants you to know, Matsujun, that if he had known that my phone number on the business card was wrong all this time that he’d have found a way to give you my cell phone number.
(20) And Nino wants you to know that if he knew that I had pulled a “fuck and run” on you (this is what Nino called it okay) that he would have kicked my ass five years ago and had me call you.
(21) But I guess I never told Nino about it because there was other stuff going on at the time. It’s really stupid looking back on it but let me at least try to explain.
Jun couldn’t help smiling at Aiba’s comments about Ninomiya. All this time, Nino really had been cheering them on.
(22) So let me tell you that the week that you and I had sex, I had just been dumped. I had been dating someone for three years and we were very serious. Or maybe I was very serious and he was just a complete lying jerk!!!
(23) Anyway he broke up with me maybe the Tuesday or Wednesday before the reunion and he told me that he found somebody new and that he didn’t want to cheat on me or anything but that he was going to be with this other person now.
(24) Like not even a cooling off period, he was going to get with that other person immediately and he was only telling me as a courtesy!!!!! After three years!!!!! We were living together and everything!!!!!!
(25) And the person he got together with was someone he’d apparently been hanging out with at work all this time behind my back but he was all “I didn’t cheat on you, having dinner with another guy isn’t cheating” and I guess it’s really not.
(26) But everything about it was just really awful, finding out one day that the person you trusted and loved and shared a home with was dumping you out of the blue. It may not have been out of the blue on his end, but it was on mine!!!!!!!!!!
Jun looked over, saw that Aiba was holding back tears.
(27) So I thought going to the reunion would be good so I could catch up with the guys from the team and Nino found out you were coming, so we both thought I could find an opportunity to apologize.
(28) Nino got the hotel room so we could talk privately. But then as you know I fell asleep in the hotel room. It had been a long week and I was looking for a new apartment, sleeping at Nino’s place, still going to work, it was pretty awful.
(29) But you were perfect, Jun!!!!! You showed up and I don’t know it was like everything bugging me just froze or disappeared I don’t know, I’m not good at explaining this kind of thing!!!!
(30) I suppose being with you falls under that ‘rebound’ sort of designation, but you had no idea because I didn’t tell you anything. I’m sorry.
(31) I was so exhausted but then you were there and Jun you just looked so hot (you really are, okay) that everything I was supposed to do that night didn’t happen.
(32) I didn’t apologize for the other reunion, I didn’t tell you I was depressed, I just pretty much used you to feel better and to feel wanted again and it was so good being with you and that’s really selfish I know.
(33) I know it is, I do. It was selfish of me especially considering what happened.
By this point, Aiba’s handwriting was getting really difficult to read, but Jun refused to quit. He thought back on that night. It really had been odd that he’d found Aiba asleep - Aiba had told him it was because he’d worked late. That, apparently, had been a lie. Aiba had been in pain that night. Aiba had been living a nightmare, his entire world turned upside down. And Jun had had no idea.
(34) Now what you said to me last night. You thought that what happened meant one of two things - that you were bad in bed or that I forgot we even had sex. Those are both very much not true!!!!!
(35) I was in a weird place, but the fact that you made me forget it, even for a little while, meant more than I realized. You made me feel wanted again, worthwhile again. You are good in bed, don’t you ever doubt that for a second (honestly!!!!!!!!!)
(36) Is it weird if I say again that you are hot?? You really are hot!!!
Jun blushed, moving to the next group of papers.
(37) My ex called me really late that night. You were asleep. He told me that things were not going well with that other guy, he was sorry, blah blah blah. Stupid stuff. He asked me to come home, he wanted me to stay.
(38) I had half my stuff moved out already at that point. Jun, I wasn’t going to fall for it. It was 4:00 in the morning and I didn’t put the light on, I just grabbed what I thought were my clothes.
(39) I left you behind and I took a taxi and went to the apartment. And instead of letting him beg me to come back, I got started on moving everything else out right then and there. I wasn’t the problem, my ex was the problem.
(40) Being with you, even though all we did was have sex, I knew that I was worth more. I knew it was the right call not to go back to my ex, not to forgive him. I had all my stuff in the hall of the apartment building, it was a real problem.
(41) Nino came and helped me and we moved it to a storage locker that morning and I was so done with that guy. I didn’t even realize I’d taken your jeans until later that night at Nino’s. Because I was going to apologize and call you but I didn’t have your number.
(42) You told me last night you put it in my jacket. I don’t even know where that jacket ended up when Nino and I started moving all my stuff. So I figured we’d had the same problem again!!!!
(43) But I knew you had my card, I knew I’d given it to you, so I hoped you’d call and we could work it out. And then when you didn’t call, I figured it was because you didn’t want to. I ran away without even saying anything to you because I was so mad about my ex.
(44) It’s not fair to you, none of it was fair to you, Jun!!!!
Jun shook his head, astonished by how much Aiba had written to him. All of this to explain himself, to apologize. He turned to the last handful of notes.
(45) I thought you were right to be angry with me. I used you for sex, right? So when I saw you here at the convention, I didn’t even think you’d talk to me.
(46) I thought you hated me for ditching you, so I tried not to bring it up. I guess that was stupid of me to do, but I was so happy to see you, I thought it was best to play it safe.
(47) But then last night you told me about the business cards, and I just felt rotten. I still do, okay? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to apologize enough to you. I want to start over!!!! Can we please start over??????
(48) So that is why I am going to infiltrate your conference and force you to hang out with me!!!!!! I want to get to know you!!!!! You’re not the Matsujun from high school who came to all my games. You’re Matsujun the adult, and that’s who I want to know.
(49) I wrote a lot but I don’t want to end on 49.
(50) So here is my cell phone number. Please send me a message so you know it’s real!!!!!
Jun set the massive pile of notes down in his bag, only keeping the last one that had a phone number on it. Aiba sat beside him expectantly as Jun added his contact number in his phone. “Hi” was all Jun sent as a text message, and Aiba’s phone vibrated. He held it out, smiling.
Aiba reached over, writing on Jun’s candy-pamphlet.
10 years of misunderstandings and now we finally have each other’s number. So glad!!!!!
Jun wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. Aiba’s story was…well, it was a lot to take in, especially across a stack of 50 handwritten notes. But he had the answers he’d sought for so long. He had confirmation that he hadn’t sucked. And he had confirmation that he hadn’t been forgotten. Sho had been right - it really had been something else entirely. All this time, Jun had been obsessed with what he might have done wrong. And here was Aiba taking all the blame. But really, they’d both failed to communicate.
But here was a second chance.
No wait. Jun had to count again. High school. Five year reunion. Ten year reunion…
Here was a fourth chance. And he wasn’t going to let it slip away this time.
He wrote on the pamphlet again.
I accept your apology.
Aiba tugged the pen back.
Then let’s go have fun!!!
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Follow Me: Cultivating Social Followers In Floorcare
Saturday, 5:00 PM
Cosmos 4A
Speaker: Miura Keito, SVP Participation Strategy, DDBO Japan
These days it seems like every brand has a social media presence, so how can your vacuum brand stand out in the crowd? It all comes down to listening to the voice of your customer, and speaking to them in their language. Marketing guru Miura Keito is here to cover the do’s and don’ts of your social strategy, showing how any brand can use a Snapchat Story or Sponsored Tweet to stay on fleek with Millennials and other core customer bases.
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As soon as they’d exited the freezing cold Zelkova Room, Aiba had taken him by the arm, yanking him over to one of the empty tables in the ugly-carpeted corridor. Upending his bag onto the table, Jun’s eyes went wide at the pile of colorful lanyards and plastic-covered badges that fell out of it.
It turned out that Aiba didn’t just have a badge for Jun’s conference, courtesy of Nino’s sticky fingers. He had equivalent badges for every single conference going on that weekend at the convention center, badges for the dental society meeting in the Byatt Regency, as well as badges for the vacuum conference in his own hotel.
“I’ve got two of everything. Nino has a stash in his room, and he made sure I had one of each for you too. Where do you want to go?”
Jun couldn’t help laughing. His miserable, miserable weekend had just done a 180. He had Aiba Masaki at his side. After all these years and all these misfires, they were on the same page. He was catching the shinkansen back to Tokyo at 6:00 PM the following evening, but until then, he had Aiba Masaki at his side.
His first thought was “let’s just have sex.” But no, no he didn’t want to do that. Okay, he really wanted to do that, especially now that he had a note in his bag where it was written very clearly (if not very legibly) that Aiba found him hot. But he needed more than that. After all this time, he needed way more than that.
Jun spread out all the badges, trying not to think too hard about all the people wandering the convention hall who might have been at their wits’ end about losing them. He picked up two badges that had orange around the edges. Kodaira Jotaro, Shikoku Fruit Farmers Bureau Annual Meeting and Fujii Junichi, Shikoku Fruit Farmers Bureau Annual Meeting.
“Wanna check this one out?” he asked.
Aiba agreed, taking the badge for Fujii Junichi. “I like fruit. Maybe they’ll have free samples.”
Aiba stuffed all the other contraband badges back in his bag, and they swapped out their logistics badges for the fruit farmer badges. Together they headed up to another floor, giggling their way up the escalator and probably looking like a pair of fools. But Jun really didn’t care.
The conference for the fruit farmers turned out to be less than exciting. It was a very small conference, and they noticed fairly quickly that they stood out. Most of the attendees were in their sixties, maybe older, hunched over older men with tanned skin from long hours working outside in their orchards. Only a handful of them were in suits, most of them in polo shirts and khaki slacks. Their small exhibition hall was sadly not full of free fruit samples but instead farming and irrigation equipment, soil supplements, and seeds.
They flashed their badges at the entryway anyhow, Jun a little nervous about getting caught but Aiba waltzed in like he owned the place. Apparently Ninomiya had been running his badge scam for years so Aiba was used to sneaking around as someone he wasn’t. A few people looked at them a bit oddly - probably because they didn’t look anything like Shikoku fruit farmers - but the badges seemed to keep them from voicing any objections.
“Oh Matsujun, there’s a tractor!” Aiba exclaimed, jabbing him in the side with his pointy elbow.
Jun groaned a little in pain. Since he’d been angry with Aiba for all these years, he’d kind of forgotten how enthusiastic he could get. Aiba the team captain who’d always cheerfully rounded up his players on the basketball court.
Aiba hurried along, entering a queue for the largest tractor. Jun tried not to roll his eyes, getting in line behind him. There was an entire “Check It Out” area with three different types of small tractors, spraying devices for what Jun presumed were insecticides, and industrial-strength ladders.
There was a young woman at the front of the queue wearing a pretty white dress dotted with apples. She was wearing a hat shaped like a bowl of fruit, the badge around her neck noting that she worked for a company called Yoshimoto Tractors. “Hello there,” the woman said when they approached. “Can I help you find your next tractor?”
“Yes! Yes you can,” Aiba said confidently.
“Wonderful! What model are you currently using, if I might ask?”
Aiba’s smile froze on his face. “The…the uh…” He mumbled under his breath a little. “….mmfhhmfffmm 5000.”
The woman was confused. “The what?”
“He’s always wanted to try out a Yoshimoto,” Jun interrupted, even as he tried to keep from shaking. Was he really panicking at the thought of being booted from a fruit farmer convention? “Can he have a look?”
The woman went along with it. “Of course, of course. This one here is our newest model.” They headed over for a tractor painted a rather vibrant green. “What sort of acreage is your farm, sir?”
Aiba ignored her, setting down his bag and hopping right aboard, settling in the seat and turning the steering wheel in his hands. “Ah, this is great!”
The woman, undeterred, turned to Jun. “This model is good for farms of all sizes, but if you have less land, I’d recommend that you try the…”
“Hey, take a picture of me on the tractor!” Aiba cried, waving his hand at Jun. He was a real interesting sight, a noisy man in a gray suit sitting on a tractor.
“As far as my boss has told me,” Jun said to the poor saleswoman, “he’s only here to get a sense of the new models. If you had some additional, er, literature about this…a sales catalog, I mean…”
“Oh yes, right away!”
The woman hurried off to some display table not far from the ladders that were set up. Jun used the opportunity to pull his phone from his pocket. He knew people were definitely staring at them now, and he knew his face was red when he pointed his phone in Aiba’s direction.
“Pose quickly,” Jun admonished him.
Aiba nodded. “First, a serious one!” He sat with his back ramrod straight, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. Jun counted to three and snapped the picture. He did look pretty cool, but Jun supposed he was a bit biased when it came to Aiba.
“Okay.”
“And a fun one!”
Aiba then took one hand off the tractor’s steering wheel, offering a peace sign in Jun’s direction. He took a second picture.
By then the woman was back, a stack of catalogs in her arms. “Can I have your email address? We sometimes offer discounts on our mailing lists, and we feature tips and information about your warranty…”
“When he places his order. Thank you very much,” Jun said, putting his phone back in his pocket and taking the catalogs. By now Aiba had merrily hopped off the tractor and was climbing one of the ladders, waving for Jun to hurry over. Jun shoved the heavy catalogs in his bag, rushing over.
He lowered his voice. “I don’t think we’re doing this right.”
Just behind them a few middle-aged men were examining the tractors’ big thick wheels, but none of them pretended to be joyriding on it.
“Our farm just went under,” Aiba insisted, posing like some teen idol on the ladder, pointing at nothing in particular and offering a too-serious idol gaze. Jun reluctantly took out his phone, taking another picture. Aiba’s normal expression returned, and he looked down with a wry smile. “We’re only here to remember the good old days of our beloved pear farm in Kochi.”
“Pears, huh?” Jun asked, holding out a hand to make sure Aiba didn’t trip and fall as he climbed back down.
Aiba’s hand in his was warm, his grip tight as he moved. “I love pears. Too bad we’re bankrupt now.”
A bankrupt pear farm? That was their cover? “Does Ninomiya-kun usually come up with the backstory when you two infiltrate enemy conventions?”
Aiba let him go, smiling. “Yep, he’s the creative one. We usually pretend we’re super spies preparing for an undercover mission, but uh…you seemed to have covered well with the fruit hat lady.”
“Can we get out of here? They might run us over with a tractor if they realize we’re not actually qualified to sit aboard, let alone operate heavy farming equipment.”
“What a killjoy you are, Matsujun,” Aiba teased.
They departed the fruit farmer expo room and found another empty table. Aiba opened up his bag again and out came the avalanche of badges.
“I picked the last one,” Jun said. “What shall we do next?”
Aiba’s smile was just as powerful as it had been when they were teenagers. Warm, welcoming, and perhaps a little wicked. Jun swallowed nervously, still a bit disbelieving that in the course of an hour, maybe two, his entire perspective had changed. It really was way too easy to fall and fall fast for someone like Aiba Masaki. And the fifty pieces of paper tucked safely away in Jun’s own convention bag would serve as a helpful reminder of that.
Aiba moved forward, into Jun’s space. Usually such a thing would make him jump, but he stood his ground, Aiba’s fingers taking hold of the lanyard, slipping the fruit farmer badge from around his neck. He licked his lips, struggling to breathe as Aiba presented him with a new identity, this time a white badge with a blue lanyard stamped with the name of a toothpaste brand.
Aiba teasingly poked the badge where it now rested against Jun’s abdomen. “Have you been flossing regularly, Hamada-sensei?”
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Caries Remineralization Agents - Where We Are, Where We’re Going
Sunday, 10:00 AM
Byatt Blue (Floor L1)
Speaker: Asai Tomomi, DDS
This session will discuss the early diagnosis of tooth demineralization and intervention with fluoride (including fluoride varnish and silver diamine fluoride), glass ionomer surface protectants, sealants, and minimally invasive products and procedures (including CPP-ACP paste, xylitol, and chlorhexidine). Risk assessment utilization in decision-making for restorative care will be discussed and related to recommendations made by the Japan Dental Association for restorative dentistry care in children.
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If they thought they didn’t belong at the fruit farmer convention, then the Kansai Dental Society 143rd Annual Winter Symposium was even more of an awkward situation. At first they’d been successful, walking together into the Byatt Regency and taking an elevator down two levels to the convention rooms.
Aiba was just as slick and quick-thinking on his feet as he’d always been on the basketball court. Jun watched his fast fingers snatch samples of floss, toothpaste, breath-freshening gum, and even magnets shaped like molars. Into the bag they all went, sometimes two freebies at one go with the excuse that Nino was too lazy to come to the dentist meeting and thus Aiba was grabbing one for him as well.
It should have struck Jun as a bit…irresponsible, impersonating someone he wasn’t. Attending a conference he hadn’t paid for and snagging the swag. But then again, nobody was being hurt by it. They weren’t taking anything that wasn’t being freely given away. The people at the trucking convention were mostly coming to their booth for the free chocolate, so did it really matter if some impersonator logistics professional approached their booth to take one? Jun wondered if Ninomiya was there right now, offering Sho a wink and a smile and shoving some Stay Alert, Stay Alive pamphlets into his bag just to get the chocolate. Metrics were still metrics, weren’t they?
It all seemed to be going okay until Jun lingered too long at one of the booths, trying to decide between a sample of bubble gum-flavored mouthwash and strawberry. He knew Shihori loved strawberry-flavored things, and he figured he owed his colleagues for putting up with his lovelorn self all weekend.
It was then that someone else approached, looking at Aiba’s badge. “Nakamura-sensei! From Kanagawa Dental University!” the young woman in enormous glasses cried, looking at Aiba like a god. Then again, Jun knew the feeling. But he suspected this wasn’t because Aiba was hot. “I read your recent paper, you know, in the Japanese Dental Science Review?”
“Oh?” Aiba asked, face turning bright red. “Thank you very much.”
The woman was more aggressive than she looked, her hand locking around Aiba’s wrist. “I was utterly fascinated by your research on morphological variations found in the maxillary lateral incisor. Do you have a moment? I’m a student, a student at Kansai Medical University…”
“A student…I…I love talking with students…” Aiba stammered, eyes looking to Jun for help. Unfortunately Jun knew nothing about morphological…whatevers.
“Nakamura-sensei,” Jun mumbled. “We have the symposium later.”
The woman gasped in happiness, still with a firm grip on Aiba’s sleeve. “Ah, the special session on endodontic excellence! I was planning to go to that. Perhaps I can walk with you to the ballroom?”
Jun’s lie had backfired instantly. He was not as good at this as Ninomiya likely was. Aiba instead chose that moment to panic, groaning and clutching his stomach.
“Nakamura-sensei?” the woman gasped, letting him go. “Are you alright?”
“Mmmm…I think it’s diarrhea. Yep, definitely diarrhea,” Aiba moaned. “Excuse me, won’t you?”
And then Aiba fled, leaving Jun there with the shocked dentistry student. She looked at Jun with an inquiring eye. But when her gaze dropped to the name on his badge, she didn’t seem as impressed.
“See you in the ballroom then,” she said dismissively, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose and walking off in what Jun thought was a rather snobby fashion.
Apparently Hamada-sensei wasn’t a dental profession superstar, and Jun allowed himself to be miffed about this for maybe five seconds before realizing that he was still standing there like an idiot. He snagged the strawberry mouthwash with a quick “thanks very much!” to the bored salesman standing behind the table, shoving it in his bag as he hurried after Aiba and his fake diarrhea attack.
Aiba already had the badge off when Jun found him hiding (not very well) behind a large potted plant near the escalator.
“That was a bit scary,” Jun admitted.
“Yeah…maybe I shouldn’t pose as a medical professional.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t.”
Aiba scratched his head, shaking it in frustration. “Aaaah, what if someone suddenly had, I don’t know, a cavity and wanted my advice?”
Jun chuckled. “Then you tell them to get a filling.”
“At least Nino will be happy with all the stuff I got him.”
“You’re a good friend,” Jun said.
Aiba dug around in his bag, this time unearthing his own badge. Aiba Masaki, Zic Camera. He slipped it around his neck and then found an equivalent for Jun. He could now be Wada Mariko from Fujiwara Appliances.
“This is a woman’s badge,” Jun complained.
“So? I think the chances of you being a woman are just about as equal as you being a dentist or a fruit farmer, Matsujun.”
Jun sighed, putting the badge around his neck. He supposed Aiba was right on that account.
“I think you’ll like my convention better anyway,” Aiba said, linking arms with him. “Let’s go, Mariko-chan.”
part three