Anywhere but China, Second Layer, Dark Shadow Child

She fixed me yakisoba—fried noodles topped with onions and sliced sausages which took about only twenty minutes. Along with that, we had ourselves umeshu from glasses that she had bought from Japan. Easy-listening music was flowing from her speakers. The rocking chairs outside her terrace occasionally swung to and fro from the wind, silently. The air was cloudy, the sun covered from the grey clouds. Her full-size bed was made perfectly, folded neatly. Staked neatly above her bed were a collection of books in Chinese, English, and Japanese, ranging from paragliding to a book about honorific Japanese. Her clothes were all neatly hung on her clothing rack. Throughout the entire time, we spoke in Japanese. She sat on the heater with her legs tucked by her chest, hugging with her the paragliding book. She was wearing loose-fitting shorts, and socks that went up to her knees, and a light grey jacket. Her graceful black hair was let loose.

I had some of her tea, and listened to the soothing music. Nobody else was home. 

"It's a nice place you got here," I said. "Quiet and peaceful. Spacious room, bed, and free."

She nodded, "But I sometimes get lonely by myself. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the dorms."

"Your cooking is a hundred times better than dining hall food."

She smiled into the window as her skin glowed from the outside light. "But there's nothing much to do in this neighborhood. When you're at the dorms, you live right next to a lot of people. You can meet a lot of new friends. You don't get that here."

I nodded, and took another sip of the tea. I munched on a shortbread cookie she had prepared on the table. 

"I really want to go paragliding," she said, flipping through the book. "Seems so fun. I practiced a few times when I was abroad." 

"But it seems scary, no?"

"Not at all. It's so fun," she walked toward her pictures that were pinned on the wall. The wood flooring creaked from her footsteps. They were pictures of her abroad in Japan and Yellowstone National Park with her friends. 

"I got to have so much fun there," she said. "Over here there's really not much to do. Not enough clubs. I want to go back. Anywhere but China."

"Anywhere but China," I repeated her words.

"Have you been there?"

"I haven't," I began to peel a clementine. 

"You shouldn't go there," she said, staring outside the window as if she was gazing at her reflection in a pond. "The air isn't splendid. Not the best place to be."

"I'd take your word for it," I said. "But say, your Japanese is really good so I think you'd be better off in Japan."

"I think I'll go back there," she nodded. "That's where I'd like to go. There's nothing to do here. I'd prefer Japan over America."

Popping a clementine slice one after the other in my mouth, I continued to listen to her soothing playlist. A jazz mix, akin to Norah Jones. The type of music you could easily sleep in. Our two coats were on the bed, and I thought about sleeping. 

"Sean," she said. "Tell me, what time do you usually get up?" she asked me, as if she had read my mind. 

I thought about it for a while. "It varies from time to time, but I'd say around 10:30."

"10:30," she said, nodding while flipping through the paragliding book. She seemed to be engrossed by the pictures. Most of them were sweeping views of Japan from a paraglider's point of view. "Then you don't need to nap."

"I nap a lot."

"You know, they say it's ideal to nap everyday for about thirty minutes. If you sleep more than that, you'd start to get headaches. It's like the stages of eating food. Do you know it? How it's better for your body to eat desserts last and everything?"

"I don't," I said. 

"I have a lot of time so I read about it," she laughed.

A brief lull fell upon us. I began to peel the rind of another clementine. I couldn't peel it smoothly because of my recently cut nails. On the table by the side was her clementine rind, which was adroitly opened all in one peel. The song switched to a jazzy vocal version of "It Had to Be You." She walked toward her tier shelf by her bed, and brought something to me. It was an unsolved Rubik's cube. 

"Can you do it?"

I was able to solve this thing in a minute, and even remembered how to solve a four-by-four back in high school, but I couldn't for the life of me remember right now. 

"Not anymore," I laughed. I eventually solved the first layer, but everything after that I couldn't solve. 

"I only could solve up to the second layer," she said. "But wow, you still remember!"

"Of course."

She glanced at the cube, looking at all six sides, then, as if content with solving the first two layers, placed it back on her shelf and sat back down on the radiator. 

"You should come here," she said. "A cold draft comes from the window but the radiator is warm."

Whereupon I sat by her, and indeed, there was a slight breeze seeping in from the window. 

"Sean," she said. "Do you like ghost stories?"

"Ghost stories?"

"Yeah," she said. "Do you have any experiences? I like talking about them. I mean, I get scared when I talk about it during the night but it's still light out so it's okay," she laughed. "Plus, I'm not alone so it's alright."

I didn't have any. I crossed my legs, in wonder. 

"Not really," I said.

"Well you're boring."

"I sometimes felt some spirit looming over me," I said. "But I never could tell. It's usually the wind, or just in my dreams." 

She nodded. "For me, I know the father of my host family when I was in Japan had an experience. He ran some business, and he wasn't really making decent money. But one night, he saw in his tatami room some dark shadow child, or, what seemed like a child. Since that occurrence, he began to earn more and more, for some strange reason. Weird, isn't it?"

"Weird. Scary, but a good kind of ghost."

She nodded, grabbing another one of her books from a pile stacked along her radiator. "My other Chinese friend could predict whether someone is gonna call someone. She's oftentimes right." 

"Wow," I said, finishing up the clementine. "She's psychic then."

"Could be," she stared out the window, seeming this time to follow the movement of a branch on a tree.

I sat back down on the chair by the table, and thought about her for a second. I took a moment to glance at her from the full-size mirror in front of me. There she was on the radiator, looking out the window with her book flapped open by her lap. What an easy, peaceful, life, I thought. Everyday she'd sit on the radiator and read through countless books while listening to jazz, alone. Out of her entire suitemates, it seemed like she had the best room. Everything here was neatly organized. Her desk consisted of a miniature humidifier and pencils that were all sharpened. The longer I stayed in her room, the more I began to feel how disorganized my life was. Everything was properly placed where it should be, and nothing was out of order. 

"Sean," she said, pointing behind me."Where have you gone in the US?"

I looked behind me and it was an atlas map of the United States. 

"I've traveled to LA, San Francisco, Boston, Orlando, and Honolulu. Canada for a few hours, and Dallas for a few minutes."

She laughed. "I've only gone to Boston, Seattle, and Yellowstone National Park."

"Seattle seems nice," I said.

"It is," she said. "Everyone seems to sleep early and get up early there." 

I imagined myself going there, taking a gander at the official Starbuck's and having myself a nice cup of coffee while gazing at the sea. Maybe even catch a Mariners game at Safeco. 

She was flipping through something on her phone. The music continued. Her suitemates didn't seem to come back any soon. If I stayed here, nothing would probably change. She'd probably stay there on the radiator, until dusk, until nightfall, until the stars glittered and the moon shined, until the branches from the trees camouflaged into the demure and plain darkness. Then she'd probably cook dinner, wash the dishes, read again over calming music, and sleep. Rinse and repeat. There was no television so she didn't watch anything. It was a calm afternoon, the calmest I've felt in months. I munched on another cracker, glanced at our two coats again, closed my eyes, and dreamed.