Archive of Our Own ^beta

“I’m here about the Help Wanted sign?” 

“Is that a question or a statement?” asks the blonde girl at the cash register of the store that used to be Katsumoto’s Grocery. She speaks with a Southern drawl and has a smirk on her face that lets Tommy know she’s only poking fun. 

“Both,” her admits with a shrug. “The statement is I’m here about the Help Wanted sign and the question is are you operating under a ‘no-Japanese-allowed’ employment policy?” 

The girl looks a little taken aback before her face breaks into a smile. “I admire your direct approach,” she tells him, and Tommy blushes.

“Don’t get too excited,” he warns her. “Definitely a one-time thing. I just–really need a job.”

“Understandable,” she admits. “I’ll ask my daddy ‘bout a job for you when he gets back; I know he’s lookin’ for a stockboy. Till then, you mind writing down your information so we can get in touch?”

Tommy nods. “Absolutely,” he says, taking the piece of scrap paper and ballpoint pen she offers him. 

Tommy Harano, he writes, and then falters. 

“Is it okay if I put my friends’ telephone number down?” he asks. “I’m moving into a new apartment today and I don’t have much of anything set up just yet.”

“Of course,” the girl says with a smile. “Good luck moving in.”

He hands the pen and paper back, complete with his name and the Itos’ phone number.

“Thanks,” he says.

“I’m Lucille, by the way,” she tells him, holding out a hand for him to shake. 

“Tommy,” he says as he takes it. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Lucille says, smiling, and Tommy waves a little goodbye before turning to leave.

Before he reaches the door, he stops, turning back. 

“Lucille?” 

She looks up from the paper in her hand and meets his eyes.

“Yeah? You alright?” she asks.

“Are you actually going to consider me for the position or are you just being nice?” he asks. “Because if you–if you know you’re not going to hire me, I’d rather you just say so.”

Lucille furrows her brow. “I’m not the one makin’ the business decisions ‘round here,” she says, “but I think it’d be a little hypocritical to open up a store in Japantown and get angry when a pretty little Japanese boy walks in the door lookin’ for a job.”

Tommy feels his face go hot. “Thanks,” he says, ignoring the way his heart leaps into his throat at her words.

“See you around!” exclaims Lucille as he turns once more to leave, and the bell on the front door rings as he steps out onto Pine Street.

-

“Shig, I don’t think moving to the building down the road is going to take quite the effort you seem to think it is,” Stan says, slinging the paperboy bag that holds the vast majority of his belongings over his shoulder. Tommy’s got a bag with nearly identical contents on the table in front of him, and Shig picks it up before he can do so himself.

“I’m being helpful,” he says, in response to the eye-roll Tommy shoots him. “Tommy can carry the food.” Shig gestures to the several furoshiki -wrapped parcels that Mrs. Ito had placed on the kitchen counter this morning, presumably because she didn’t trust two teenage boys to be able to fend for themselves on their first few nights living alone in the city. 

Tommy chuckles, picking up the parcels full of Mrs. Ito’s cooking as Stan opens the front door of the apartment.

“Roll out, boys!” exclaims Shig, and Tommy follows him out into the hallway, fighting a smile.

-

As Stan had predicted, the move is underwhelming and pretty much consists of the three-minute walk from the Itos’ second-floor apartment on Post Street to Tommy and Stan’s single room on the third floor of a building half a block down the road. Once they arrive, the three of them set down their bags and take in the space. 

There’s a double bed shoved into one of the corners of the room; a dresser of drawers against the far wall. A circular table stands by the kitchen counter but no chairs accompany it; there’s an oven in the corner and a row of cabinets above it. A rinky-dink little refrigerator sits beside the entrance to the apartment, letting out a low hum that Tommy feels reverberating inside his own chest.

“It’s small,” Shig says.

“We’re poor,” Stan reminds him, before sitting down to unpack his meager belongings.

“At least we’ve got the Golden Gate Bridge out our window,” Tommy points out, opening it with a creak. He breathes in the cool summer breeze, smiling to himself as he does.

“All that’s gonna get you is Minnow hangin’ round and sketching on your fire escape,” says Shig, and Tommy shrugs.

“Minnow’s good company,” he says, and then, turning to Stan, “Is there anything left in the moving process? Any integral steps we missed?”

“Do you guys have any, like, furniture, or anything? Y’know, like, chairs, or–?” Shig asks, and Stan looks up from the clothes he’s currently folding on the cold hardwood floor. 

“Do we look like we have furniture?” he asks, with such a straight face that Tommy bursts out laughing. 

Stan’s face breaks into a smile as soon as he does, and rolling his eyes, Shig says “I was just wondering!”

“We’ll hit the pawn shop once we manage to find jobs,” Stan says. “I’m gonna go out looking this weekend.”

“The diner at the Kitanos’ old place finally loosened up and hired a Japanese waitress,” Shig points out. “The businesses are gonna realize after a while that this is still Japantown, no matter what they do to it.”

“I asked about a job at the new grocery,” Tommy tells them. “I think it might work out.”

“The rip-off Katsumoto Co.?” asks Stan, the disdain in his voice evident.

“The one and only,” Tommy confirms. He turns to Shig. “I gave the girl at the register your number to get in touch with me, so if she calls, that’s why.”

“That pretty little hakujin with the pigtails?” Shig asks.

“Her name’s Lucille,” Tommy tells him.

“Do you think they’re actually going to hire you?” Stan asks.

“I mean, I asked her straight-out and she told me her dad would have to be a hypocrite to refuse to hire a Japanese kid to work at his Japantown grocery,” says Tommy, hoping the false air of confidence he puts on hides the nervousness behind his words. Shig huffs a laugh. 

“She sounds cool,” he says with a smile.

“Yeah,” says Tommy. “She is.”

“I don’t buy it,” Stan throws out, and Tommy feels anxiety coil up in his gut.

“It’s better to try for a job and not get it than to keep relying on my twenty-five dollars from the government,” he points out defensively. 

“It’s the dad who owns it and the daughter who runs the register, right?” Shig asks, clearly trying to diffuse some of the tension between Stan and Tommy. 

“Yeah,” Tommy confirms. 

“They’ve always been cool to us there,” Shig says. “Even when we'd only just moved back, they were, like, one of the few businesses that wasn’t weird about us being there. The girl—Lucille, I mean; she always makes small talk with me when I go in; she’s—I mean, she seems really nice. I feel like your chances are better there than they would be in a lot of other places.”

Tommy nods. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s the idea.”

“Good luck, man,” Shig tells him, and Tommy smiles, trying to ignore the look of resentment on Stan’s face. 

-

“We need to own more things,” Stan observes, once they’ve unpacked. In front of Tommy sits a tattered old notebook full of poetry, the last origami crane Aiko gave him before he left Tule Lake, his good fountain pen, three years’ worth of letters, a photograph of him and his sisters, and one of Fumi’s scribbled drawings of something that Tommy thinks might be a cherry blossom tree. In front of Stan, there’s a couple of well-worn paperback books, half a pack of chewing gum, a few old childhood photographs, and the roll of tape he’s been using to mend the bridge of his broken glasses. Their clothes each take up one drawer of the four-drawer dresser they’ve pushed up against the foot of the bed; Tommy having chosen the bottom drawer and Stan the second to the top.

“Your family’s got more of your stuff in Tule Lake,” Tommy points out, hoping the words aren’t tinged with bitterness.

“Yeah, but you guys still need, like, a couch,” says Shig. “And a chair. Probably more than one bed—”

The apartment door flies open to reveal Minnow, who kicks off his shoes before entering their humble abode.

“Thanks for knocking,” Stan says, deadpan. 

Ignoring Stan, Minnow points at Tommy. “Some girl with a kind of weird accent called and said you have a very informal job interview at 9:30 tomorrow morning.”

Tommy smiles. “Awesome,” he says. 

“Shit, I guess your pretty little hakujin came through,” comments Shig. 

“She’s not my—”

“This is the first step in my master plan,” says Stan. “This is how we’re gonna get furniture.”

Minnow is silent for a second and then says, “What are you talking about?”

“They don’t have chairs,” Shig explains. “Or, like, anything.”

“Job equals money equals furniture,” Tommy clarifies. “Stan’s plan is to take advantage of my hard work.”

“Well, I’m not going to work for the whitewashed version of my family’s store,” Stan points out. “No matter how pretty I might think Little Miss Texas is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tommy asks, feeling his face go hot.

“I was kidding,” Stan tells him.

Tommy feels suddenly very foolish. 

“Oh,” he says. Minnow gives him an odd look, his brows furrowed. He appears to be deep in thought, but when Tommy meets his eyes, he looks away immediately. 

-

Minnow’s sketching the Golden Gate Bridge when Tommy slips out to join him on the fire escape. Shig and Stan are still inside, Stan trying in vain to compile a list of all the things they need to live on their own, with Shig lying on the floor and throwing out unhelpful suggestions every now and then.

“Looking good,” Tommy says, gesturing to Minnow’s sketchbook as he sits down beside him. Minnow looks up. 

“Thanks,” he says, but there’s something in his face that Tommy can’t quite decipher.

“You okay?” he asks. Minnow sets aside his sketchbook.

“We see it from a different angle up here,” he says. Tommy furrows his eyebrows. 

“The bridge, I mean. It’s like, I drew it so many times from the old apartment that it feels… wrong to try and do it from here. I mean, my lines are all wrong; the perspective’s fucked–”

Here, he takes the sketchbook back into his hands and shows Tommy what looks to him like a beautiful rendition of the view from his new fire escape. Minnow’s got that artist’s eye, though, he supposes. And a decade of drawing the Golden Gate Bridge from one angle.

“I don’t like it when things change,” Minnow says softly, and Tommy becomes suddenly aware of an ache in his chest that feels like it's been there since before Tanforan.

“Sometimes, I miss Topaz,” Minnow confesses. “The desert snow, the way you could see the constellations—”

He pauses. “Is that fucked?”

“No,” says Tommy, almost immediately. “You were—you were so young when we left. You stayed there for so long. There’s—there’s something about that familiarity that’s gotta be more comforting than a home that you barely recognize.”

“Yeah,” Minnow says. There’s a pause. “Are you worried about your job interview?” he asks, and Tommy sighs. 

“Yeah.” he says. “I’m—yeah. The girl at the cash register told me her dad wouldn’t–you know, he wouldn’t kick me to the curb for being Japanese but she’s—I’m worried she’s lying to me. To make me feel better or whatever.” He pauses. “Stan definitely thinks she’s lying.”

“She sounded nice on the phone,” Minnow points out. “She didn’t have to call you back.”

“I don’t want to get my hopes up,” Tommy tells him. “I’m not used to things going right.”

Minnow furrows his brow. “There was a girl before you got here,” he says. “Stan and I met her; her parents were—they lived in Mr. Oishi’s building while he was gone and the parents trashed the place when he asked them to move out, but she—the daughter, she yelled at them. Tried to get them to stop. She told us she was sorry.” He takes a breath. “So, like, there is some good out there. If you want to look out for it. Maybe your grocery-store hakujin is one of the good ones.”

“Here’s hoping,” Tommy says. 

He rests his forehead against the railing of the fire escape, looking out at the bridge from their new angle. Its lights shine bright, projecting undulating colors onto the waters of the Pacific. The stars are out, the city is awake, and somewhere out there, Tommy knows, there is good.

-

Dear Kiyoshi,

I am now officially writing to you from our new apartment in Japantown! After staying with the Itos for a few weeks, Stan and I made a deal with one of San Francisco’s few remaining nihonjin landlords for the smallest one-room in his building. We are currently lacking in furniture, tableware, and other earthly possessions, but we plan to hit the pawn shop as soon as one of us manages to find a job. 

I actually have a job interview tomorrow morning at the old Katsumoto Co. It’s been bought by a white family, but it’s still a grocery, and I’m interviewing for an open stockboy position.

Stan is not thrilled by this choice of establishment. I think he might be a little mad at me for applying to work at what he calls “the white-washed version of his family’s store,” but the stockboy job is kind of all we have right now, so I’m going to worry about employment first and hurt feelings afterwards. 

I get why he’s angry. The neighborhood is different. Our childhoods are gone. But there’s good out there, too, and for the first time, I’m looking for it. 

Like, the hakujin girl at the cash register of the old Katsumoto Co smiles and makes small talk and calls me back about a job interview instead of throwing out my information the second I walk out the door. Our fire escape looks out on the Golden Gate Bridge. Every time I breathe, I feel the ocean air fill my lungs. I think being here without my parents is good for me. I don’t dread going home anymore, which is new. I feel freer without them, like I can do anything I want and no one can stop me. 

Tell Aiko I love her. Wishing you a swift and easy departure from Tule Lake. 

Tommy

-

Lucille wears a green gingham dress and a smile when Tommy walks into Wilson’s General Store the next morning. Preoccupied with a few customers at the register, she gives him a little wave. One second, she mouths, and Tommy nods.

She makes casual conversation with her customers, and as he stands next to the soda cooler fidgeting with the cuffed sleeves of his white collared shirt, Tommy feels suddenly out of place.

“Come again soon!” Lucille says as her customers begin to clear out, and behind her, a door opens. A man who Tommy can only assume to be Lucille’s father steps into the room.

Mr. Wilson is large and stands confidently, towering over his daughter as she turns to greet him.

“Daddy, this is Tommy,” Lucille says, gesturing to the spot where Tommy stands by the soda cooler. “He’s here about the stockboy job.”

The tall man’s intimidating face breaks into a smile, and he steps out from behind the register to shake Tommy’s hand firmly.

“Nice to meet you, Tommy; I’m Charles Wilson.” The smile on Mr. Wilson’s face hasn’t quite cured Tommy of the queasy anxiety running through his veins, but he nods anyway.

“Tommy Harano,” he says, hoping the nervous tremor in his voice isn’t too obvious.

“Mind if we head into the back room for a little job interview?” the store owner asks. Tommy nods again, managing a quick smile. 

“It would be my pleasure,” he says, and follows Mr. Wilson into the back room.

-

“So, tell me about yourself, kid,” Mr. Wilson says once they’re both seated at the little table in the corner of the store’s back room. “What’s your story?”

The back room is so familiar to Tommy that it takes him by surprise. That corner was where the peaches went after they shipped from Sacramento. That shelf was where Mr. Katsumoto put the kombu, the rice, the tea. Right next to the door he just walked through, Tommy knows for a fact that Stan had carved his name into the baseboard on evacuation day, STAN KATSUMOTO WAS HERE . In Tommy’s hazy memory, the letters are big, bold, bleeding red with rage, but the quick glance he gives the baseboard shows that they’re so small and unassuming that anyone walking by would miss them entirely. 

“Um, I’m Tommy Harano,” he starts. “I’m nineteen. I grew up a couple blocks from here. I, um–”

Tommy cuts himself off. “I mean, do you want to address the elephant in the room or should I?”

Mr. Wilson raises an eyebrow. “Doesn’t seem like I mind the elephant half as much as you do,” he says, “but if you’d like to, go right ahead.”

Tommy swallows. “Yeah,” he says. “Right. Um, I’m Tommy Harano. I’m nineteen. I lived a couple blocks from here for sixteen years and then got sent to Utah in ‘42. I just wanna–” he cuts himself off again. 

“I don’t want to be rude, but I just want to make sure you’re not offering me an interview out of, like, Southern hospitality?” he says, and it’s more of a question than he means it to be. “I don’t–like, I know who I am. I know how the world is, and I want to make sure you’re not just pretending to consider me.”

“Son,” says Mr. Wilson. “I may be a Georgia boy at heart, but I’m not dumb enough to move into a place called Japantown and then get offended when Japanese people have the nerve to exist there.”

Tommy nods.

“This is your home,” Mr. Wilson tells him. “We’re the assholes who moved in and tried to change everything. And for the record, even if I didn’t believe that, my version of Southern hospitality would still include you.”

Mr. Wilson’s blue eyes are piercing yet kind, and it’s all Tommy can do to nod his head and tell him “Thank you.”

“It’s not right what they did to you,” the man in front of him says.

“I know,” says Tommy.

“I know you do,” Mr. Wilson tells him. Tommy sees something like guilt in the man’s expression and finds, unexpectedly, that it brings a strange sort of fleeting comfort to life in his chest.

-

“How’d it go?” asks Stan, not looking up from his copy of today’s newspaper as Tommy enters through their apartment door. 

Tommy stops; freezes in his tracks. “I got the job,” he says, and Stan looks up in surprise. 

“Holy shit,” he says. Tommy smiles. 

“Yeah.”

There’s a pause. 

“Are you mad at me?” he asks, and Stan furrows his brow, considering his next words very carefully. 

“I’m not mad at you,” he finally says. “I’m mad at a lot of things, but I’m not mad at you.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” asks Tommy, advancing into the apartment towards where Stan sits on their shared twin-sized bed. 

Stan sighs, putting aside his newspaper as Tommy sits down beside him. 

“I’m mad that my family’s store is gone,” he says. “I’m mad that it’ll never be real again. I’m mad that a white family bought it and changed it and made it unrecognizable.” He takes a breath. “I’m scared that I won’t be able to get a job in my own fucking neighborhood because people see me as a threat. I’m jealous that you let yourself try and that you got to succeed. I’m sorry for being an ass about the whole thing. I’m proud of you.”

“There’s a burger joint on Buchanan and Pine that’s hiring,” Tommy throws out after a few seconds of silence. “A black couple opened it a few months back. I was gonna go see about a job there if the stockboy gig fell through. I mean, if you’re interested.”

Stan nods. “I am,” he says. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Tommy says. “Want to hit the diner?”

“Only if you’re paying,” Stan says with a smirk. “You wonderfully employed boy.” 

“You know it,” Tommy says, and they set off for an early dinner. 

-

They don’t make it to the diner, though. They don’t even make it halfway to the Webster Street intersection before they see the green Cadillac parked in front of Mr. Oishi’s building and stop dead in their tracks. 

The trunk of the car is open, and the woman standing by the car passes each item she retrieves from it to her son, a lanky little boy of ten or eleven, who lines them up by the curb. 

Out from behind the Cadillac comes a pretty young woman in a pressed white blouse and black velvet skirt, a messenger bag slung over her shoulder. Tommy swears he hears Beethoven in the air as her name falls from his lips. 

“Yum-yum,” he says, and she turns to him, to them, black eyes widening with recognition. Before he knows what’s happening, she’s running to them, gathering both him and Stan up into a big hug. Her hair tickles Tommy’s cheek. She hasn’t been home since ‘42 and somehow, she still smells like the ocean; still holds the Pacific fog and city lights of the San Francisco skyline somewhere deep inside of her. 

“What’s it been, Oishi, two fuckin’ years?” asks Stan. 

“Not all of us have what it takes to party up there in Tule Lake,” she says, hitting Stan gently on the shoulder before she breaks away. 

“Can we help with anything?” asks Tommy. “With your bags, or—”

“Or should we kindly retrieve your knight in shining armor from his apartment?” Stan asks, gesturing vaguely to the Itos’ building. 

Yum-yum’s face lights up at the thought, and Stan smiles. “I’ll go get him,” he says, leaving Tommy and Yum-yum standing on the sidewalk in front of their building. 

“You look good,” she says. “Happier.”

Tommy shrugs. 

He does not say what they’re both thinking: I renounced my parents along with their country and they cannot hurt me anymore. I am home, I am free, I am more myself than I have ever been. 

Instead, he says, “Do you need any help with your bags?”

She smiles, gesturing to the bags Fred has lined up on the curb, and Tommy takes one in his hands before following her up the stairs to her family’s apartment. 

The suitcase in his grip is big and bulky, evacuation day tag still tied around the handle. Oishi, Amy, it says, and Tommy finds his mind lingering on the image of the Oishis’ bags lined up on the curb. Three big suitcases. Fred’s little backpack. Yum-yum’s messenger bag. 

It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, not much compared to what they had to leave behind, but compared to the bag of items Tommy brought back from Tule Lake, the Oishis might as well be living in the lap of luxury. 

His parents give him five minutes to collect his belongings before he leaves. Five minutes before they let themselves cast him away forever. They watch him pack up his whole life from across the barrack, for once silent in their judgment. 

Only the bare essentials get the privilege of going West with him: His clothes. His shoes. Three years’ worth of letters, a collection that’s been growing since Tanforan. His notebook of poetry. His good fountain pen. 

Aiko slips a photograph into his bag just before he leaves; Fumi holds out a crumpled drawing of a cherry blossom tree. 

Fumi and Frannie each get a hug, a kiss on the forehead, a quiet “I love you.” When Tommy turns to Aiko, he’s suddenly at a loss.

And then he’s in her arms, swept up into a goodbye hug, and her words are barely a whisper when she says “I love you. I’m proud of you. Don’t turn back.” The fabric of her blouse is cool against his skin, and he is reluctant to break away from the hug. Somehow, despite all the times he’s dreamed of going home, he cannot imagine leaving her behind.

He looks her in the eye when she lets him go. “This is your chance,” she tells him, and he thinks of her final origami crane, tucked between the pages of his notebook. 

“Follow me there,” he whispers, low enough that their parents don’t pick up on it. 

“I will,” she says, and Tommy walks away without looking back. 

-

“Hey,” says Shig from the doorway, and Yum-yum looks up in excitement, running to him immediately. 

Thanks to Tommy and Yum-yum’s hard work, the Oishis’ luggage has all been delivered to their first-floor apartment, so all Shig has to do is sweep Yum-yum off her feet and kiss her in front of the bay window so all of Post Street can see. 

Stan makes a fake gagging noise from behind Tommy, and Yum-yum turns to him, glaring daggers. Shig smiles, brushes a few loose hairs out of Yum-yum’s face, and takes her hand. 

“Jealousy’s not a good look on you,” he says to Stan, and it’s a joke, but something in the words make Tommy almost sick with emotion. Something about interlaced fingers and kissing in front of the bay window that makes him ache with something queasy and almost jealous. 

“Do you guys want to get dinner?” he asks, ripping his eyes away from Yum-yum and Shig’s hands. “A little homecoming celebration?”

Yum-yum’s face lights up. “I’d love to!” she says, looking to Shig for confirmation. 

“Sounds good!” Shig says, and as they walk down Post Street to the diner that used to be Kitanos’ Dry Cleaning, Tommy wonders for the millionth time if he’ll ever have what Shig and Yum-yum have; if he’ll ever feel that kind of love for another person. 

He still doesn’t think so.

-

Dear Aiko,

Stan and I are currently settling into our new apartment, the smallest one-room Japantown has to offer. Home sweet home is now apartment #4 at 1716 Post Street,  just past the Buchanan Street intersection and across the street from the Oishis’ place. The apartment is a little cramped, but our fire escape looks out on the Golden Gate Bridge, and I spent a lot of nights out there with Minnow and his charcoal. The stars aren’t nearly as bright here as they were in Tule Lake, but the air smells like home again, like you can feel the Pacific washing over you when you step outside.

The Oishis just got back, and Stan, Shig, and I helped them move back into their old apartment yesterday. Shig and Yum-yum have picked up right where they left off and Minnow has been rolling his eyes at their lovebird behavior so constantly I’m afraid they might fall out of his head. Everyone here is doing well. I’ve got a job down at the old Katsumoto Co., which is now called Wilson’s General Store. It’s owned by a white man and his daughter, who is named Lucille and who seems to be around me and Stan’s age. They’ve both been very nice to me and I’m set to start work tomorrow morning. Stan was kind of weird about the idea of me working there at first, but we talked it over and things are good between us again. We’re planning on going to the pawn shop for furniture as soon as my first paycheck comes through this Friday. 

I’m going to leave it here – It’s getting late and I want to wake up early for my first shift. Wish me luck and I love you always. Give the twins my love.

Tommy

-

On his first day of work, Tommy wakes before the sun rises, practically buzzing with nervous energy. 

Taking care not to wake Stan up, he rises from the bed they share and tiptoes to the bathroom to brush his teeth, mindful of creaky floorboards. 

His own reflection stares back at him from the tarnished old mirror above their sink, and he wonders how he looks to Lucille and her father. Is he just another San Francisco boy, or does the shape of his eyes flip some kind of switch in their brains no matter how hard they try to pretend that it doesn’t?

Tommy rips his eyes from his double in the mirror and spits a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink. He puts his toothbrush back and tiptoes across the apartment to the corner that houses his belongings, changing into a pair of khakis and a white button-up shirt. 

A glance at his watch tells him it’s just past six in the morning, and he sighs. Three hours till he’s due at the grocery. 

Breakfast is a handful of Mrs. Ito’s rice straight out of the container, because Tommy and Stan are still lacking in bowls, plates and utensils. Tommy adds dishes and silverware to his mental list of necessities they’ll try to pick up at the pawn shop this weekend after his first paycheck comes through. He pulls on his sneakers, slings a bag over his shoulder, and leaves the apartment, locking the door behind him. 

-

Walking down Post Street before sunrise feels like walking through a cemetery.

Usually, it’s not so bad. But here, alone in the silence of the six-a.m. fog, Tommy is alone with his thoughts. Images of the past flood his brain, and he has to remind himself as he walks that the Japantown of his mind’s-eye no longer exists.

He passes his family’s old building and notes with a pang that it’s been painted sometime in the years since they left, the warm yellow of his childhood concealed with a cool, pale blue. A block later, he walks by Mr. Hidekawa’s building, and remembers how Twitchy used to slide down its beautiful stone banister with such ease.

Tommy still aches for him, months later. This city makes him ache more. The Japantown he remembers in warm, blurry photographs and ink-stained notebook pages has gone the same way as his friend, and Tommy feels a black hole of loss gather in his stomach, threatening to consume him from the inside out as he remembers the golden boy who colored the city of his youth.

In Tommy’s snapshots of childhood, he remembers Twitchy almost glowing, shining with a gentle kindness, incandescent under the San Francisco lights. If he closes his eyes, he can almost see him on a late June morning, beaming in the sunlight with scraped knees and ripped jeans, peach juice dripping down his chin.

With three hours until he’s due at the Wilsons’ grocery, Tommy sits down on the steps that are no longer Mr. Hidekawa’s, pulls out his notebook, and starts to write.

-

Heaven’s Concession for Dead Boy Soldiers

There is a dead boy baked into the pavement under my feet.
If I close my eyes, he smells like peaches.
He wears the city like a sweater, because if you die at nineteen,
scared and alone and bleeding out for a country that hates you ferociously,
you have the right to do whatever you want. And you can tell Saint Peter or whoever:

“Hey, I’m gonna fly on down to the West Coast and wear San Francisco like a sweater because fuck you, you know? I’m down here in the pavement and I’m not coming back out, because this is where I should have died if I really had to die. But as long as it’s cool with you, I’m gonna take Japantown and turn it into a pair of canvas sneakers, and I’m gonna lace them up with Post and Buchanan, tie the streets of my childhood into a couple of messy bows. And you know, as long as I’m just taking places to do with them what I will, I’m gonna take a quick trip to Europe and look Forêt Domaniale de Champ dead in the eye and say its name like a Frenchman and win its allegiance just like that so I can squish it down like copper and drop it in the heel of those Japantown shoes like a penny I don’t want to let out of my sight so I can make sure no more American boys die there for the sake of a war that never gave a shit about them. Because fuck you.”

But probably the dead boy was too kind to feel that kind of rage. Probably he was too good for the anger that flows through our veins. Probably that was why he got taken from us. Probably we never really deserved him in the first place. 

And maybe he didn’t really do all of that. Maybe he never even thought about wearing the city like a sweater. But I still smell peaches in the San Francisco wind.

-

The bell on the door rings as soon as Tommy steps into Wilson’s Grocery, and Lucille looks up from sweeping the floor. 

“You’re early!” she says, and Tommy shrugs. 

“I was in the neighborhood,” he says with a smile. Lucille laughs. 

“Where do you live, by the way?” she asks. “I know you were movin’ out of your friends’ place last week.”

“Oh, I’m just up Post Street,” he says, nodding in the direction of his humble abode. “Over by the Buchanan intersection.”

Lucille smiles. “I’ll have to stop by sometime,” she says. “Daddy’s out pickin’ up a produce shipment, so he said I could show you the ropes.”

“Sounds great,” says Tommy. Lucille beams at him, grabbing his hand and leading him to the back room.

-

When the shop’s inventory is up to date, Lucille hands Tommy the price tag gun and he goes to town on the rows of milk cartons in the back of the store, feeling almost like he’s back at the old Katsumoto Co. on a lazy summer day, the only one of Stan’s friends willing to engage in a tedious task in order to pay the price for his presence in the sweet cold air of the refrigerator aisle.

“Well, look at who the fucking cat dragged in,” a voice from behind him says, and he whips around to see Keiko, cool as a cucumber, leaning on the soda cooler in the corner like she never left Japantown.

“Oh my God!” says Tommy, face breaking into a wide smile. “Minnow told me you were coming back next week!”

“Gotta keep the kid on his toes,” Keiko says, a wicked grin spreading across her face. There’s a split-second pause, and she rolls her eyes. “Bring it in, Harano,” she says, spreading her arms out for a hug. “For the love of God.”

Tommy’s much shorter than her, and when they embrace, he feels her rest her chin on top of his head. 

“What’s it been, two years?” she asks when they break apart. 

“Something like that,” says Tommy, still smiling as he returns to the milk cartons.

“God, look at your little apron,” Keiko says. “Absolutely adorable. You work here?”

Tommy huffs a laugh. “Clearly,” he says, rolling his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Mom gave me a grocery list,” she says, holding up a piece of scrap paper lettered in her mother’s steady hand. “Definitely neglected to remember that this town is fresh out of authentic Japanese grocery stores.”

Tommy winces. “Yeah,” he says. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Still kind of working on the whole getting used to it thing,” she points out. Tommy winces as Twitchy flits across his mind’s eye. The Haranos left for Tule Lake before Twitchy and Keiko became an item, but Tommy remembers the look in Keiko’s eyes when she’d look at him in Topaz; feels a pang in his chest at the memory of the two of them turning cartwheels across the Tanforan infield. 

“Listen,” he says. “Go get the things you can find. I’m off the clock in ten minutes and I’ll help you carry it all home.”

“My knight in shining armor,” Keiko says, pinching his cheek with a scrunched-up smile and skipping off down the freezer aisle.

Ten minutes later, Tommy’s punching his timecard behind the cash register as Lucille loads up Keiko’s groceries with bright eyes, excitedly making conversation.

“How long have you guys known each other?” she asks after Tommy has introduced the two girls, and Keiko smiles. 

“Oh, we go way back,” she tells Lucille. “Tommy was the only boy at Soko Gakuen who never got in trouble for pulling my pigtails.

“Oh my God, yeah,” Tommy says, Keiko’s anecdote illuminating a hazy memory. “You had those long braids, right?”

“My mother’s pride and joy,” Keiko says with a smile. She shakes her shoulder-length hair out of her face, acknowledging the drastic change. “I’ve always liked it short.”

“It looks really nice,” says Lucille. “I wish I could get my hair that straight!”

Keiko furrows her brow. She looks at Lucille’s wavy blonde hair, the way it curls at her ears, and Tommy watches as her skeptical expression fades into a smile. 

“You’d look nice with short hair, too,” Keiko says, and Lucille beams at her. 

-

“She reminds me of Bette,” Keiko says as she and Tommy head down Webster Street to her family’s apartment. 

“What?”

“Lucille,” she says. “She’s so… like, bright, you know? Like I’m looking at the sun. And she’s, like, beautiful. Adorable. And then she’s like oh my God I wish I had hair like yours and I feel like I’m talking to Bette again.” 

Tommy nods. “That makes sense.”

“She’s totally into you, by the way,” Keiko says. 

“What are you talking about?” asks Tommy, and he feels his face go red as Keiko smirks at him. 

“That girl’s got it bad for you, Harano,” she says. “Looks at you like you hung the moon, I swear to God.”

“I don’t—” Tommy starts, feeling suddenly panicked and feverish. “I mean, I—”

“Hey,” Keiko says, her voice suddenly serious. “You okay? I didn’t mean to make fun.”

Tommy nods; takes a deep breath. “Fine,” he says. “Just—you really think so?”

Keiko’s face breaks into a smile. “No question,” she tells him. “You’re a catch, Harano, girl’s got good taste.”

Tommy finds it in himself to spare half a smile, and as they walk the rest of the way to Keiko’s apartment, he tries to ignore the slightly queasy feeling in the bottom of his stomach. 

-

Minnow, Shig, and Stan are on the floor playing cards when Tommy leads Keiko through the front door of the new apartment, and it’s just seconds after they enter that Minnow’s launching himself off the hardwood and into her arms. 

“Missed you, too, kid,” she tells him, and there is something so tender in her voice that Tommy is taken aback. He didn’t know they’d gotten so close since he and Stan had left for Tule Lake. 

He glances at Shig, who’s sporting a look of confusion that matches Tommy’s own. Tommy quickly deduces that this friendship must have blossomed sometime after Shig left for Chicago, and then he feels, like a punch in the gut, the sudden certainty that Minnow and Keiko were brought together by hurt and grief and wanting, an indescribable hurricane of feeling for a golden angel of a boy who went down fighting. 

Shig pulls Keiko into a wordless hug when Minnow breaks away, pressing a kiss to the top of her head when she buries her face in his chest. 

“Feel free to sit down,” Stan says, when Keiko pulls away from Shig. “We don’t own chairs, but the floor is… fine. You can sit on the bed if you want.”

Keiko smiles, sitting down across from him. The others follow her lead. “You guys should hit the pawn shop,” she says. 

“We’ve got a list,” Tommy tells her. “We’ll go once my first paycheck comes through.” 

“You only just started working at the store?” Keiko asks. Tommy nods. 

“Today was my first day,” he says, and she laughs. 

“Lucille talks to you like she’s known you for years,” she says. 

Tommy smiles. “She’s like that with everyone.”

“Wait, you met Lucille?” asks Stan, and for some reason, Tommy feels his stomach flip. “What was she like?”

“Absolute ray of sunshine,” Keiko says. “Like, if Bette was a southern belle of a hakujin girl, you’d have Lucille. Gorgeous little thing, too. Fucking darling. You should all introduce yourselves sometime, I think she’d like that.”

Stan furrows his brow, but says nothing, leaving Tommy to pick up the conversation. 

“I should get paid on Friday,” he says, “if we want to hit the pawn shop next weekend. You guys can tag along if you want.”

“Absolutely,” says Keiko, eyes wide. “I can get this place decked out for pennies.”

“Saturday morning,” says Stan. “Be there or be square.”

-

Untitled

Minnow and Keiko are almost one entity in the San Francisco evening;
sewn together by grief for a boy they both loved,
and a sick, selfish part of me yearns to feel the ache that ties them to each other.
A dark voice inside tells me maybe the loss would be worth it.
As they hold each other, I rationalize to myself
That maybe the memory of love could outweigh the sorrow.

And then I come back to myself
To my place in a city rendered hollow with the loss of him.
I feel his absence like a supernova,
A star gone out too soon.

Sometimes I disgust myself.

-

A week of keeping inventory and tagging milk cartons goes by, and Saturday morning comes around. There’s a list in Keiko’s hand as she flits around the pawn shop, cursive bullet points under helpful headings like Things We Have, Things We Need, and Things Keiko Thinks We Should Get. 

“Are you guys sure you don’t want another bed?” Keiko asks, surveying what looks like a perilously rickety old bedframe, and Stan nods his affirmation. 

“Not exactly rolling in cash over here, Keiko,” he points out dryly. “And I know I don’t mind sharing.”

“I don’t take up very much room,” Tommy says with a smile, and Keiko giggles. She moves across the room to inspect an array of mismatched wooden chairs, and Tommy’s breath catches in his chest as he comes face to face with a scuffed-up Victrola record player just like the one he had to sell back in ‘42. He runs his hand over the side of the wooden case and gasps when he peers under the cover to see his own name in little block letters: PROPERTY OF TOMMY HARANO, PLEASE RETURN TO 2086 BUSH STREET IF FOUND. 

“This is mine,” he says softly, turning to Stan and Keiko. “This is mine!”

There’s recognition in Stan’s eyes as he turns to see the record player, and as he moves forward to examine it, Tommy points to the bold black letters under the cover. 

“Holy shit,” says Stan, running his thumb over Tommy’s name. “Nice find, T.”

Tommy’s absolutely beaming, joyous tears catching on his eyelashes, and he feels Keiko come up next to him and ruffle his hair. 

“It’s fuckin’ beautiful,” she tells him, and an elated laugh falls from his lips as he latches it closed and picks it up, holding it to his chest with a giddy smile. 

-

They’re barely five feet down the road from the pawn shop, lugging three wooden chairs, a nightstand, a lamp, a set of mismatched dishware, and Tommy’s beloved record player down Post Street when Tommy hears his name and turns to see Lucille waving at him from the passenger’s seat of a red Chevrolet truck. From the driver’s side, Mr. Wilson gives him a friendly wave, putting the car in park as Lucille asks “Do you guys want some help?”

Tommy looks first to Stan, who shrugs, and then to Keiko, whose face breaks into a smile. “If you don’t mind!” she says, and Lucille beams at her, pushing open the car door and jumping out onto the sidewalk. 

“You can put everything in the back,” she says, gesturing to the flatbed of the truck, “and we’ll drive you on home.”

Mr. Wilson’s getting out the driver’s side door and rounding the truck to stand beside his daughter. “This it?” he asks. “Or you got more inside?”

“We got a couch waiting for us in the back room,” says Tommy. “But we were gonna wait ‘till Stan’s family gets back on Tuesday to use their car to bring it home.”

“We’ve got room,” Mr. Wilson assures him. “Why don’t we go get that before we load everything else up?” he asks, and Tommy nods, leading the way back into the shop. 

-

“I’m Lucille, by the way,” Lucille says as Keiko, Tommy, and Stan squeeze into the backseat, and Stan looks up, almost bewildered. 

“Stan,” he says, hesitantly reaching out to shake her hand. “Katsumoto. I, uh… my family actually used to own your store,” he tells her, and her mouth forms a little “o” as she searches in vain for a response. 

“Must have taken mighty good care of it,” Mr. Wilson says from the front seat, and Stan nods, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows down something like stale grief. 

“Did our best, sir,” he says, and Tommy finds himself reaching out to take Stan’s hand, squeezing it gently in the hopes of providing him some kind of comfort. 

Stan squeezes back, and Tommy feels Mr. Wilson put the truck in drive. 

-

“She asked me about stocking Japanese food in the general store,” Stan says, when the furniture’s safe in its new home and the Wilsons have driven back down Post Street and Keiko’s headed home for lunch with her parents. 

“What?” Tommy looks up from his record player, which he’s set on the nightstand next to their bed. 

“Lucille asked me about stocking Japanese food in the general store,” he says again. “Said they’re getting more and more people moving back to town who come in looking for stuff they don’t have and her dad wants to stock what they’re looking for, he just doesn’t know where to get it.”

“What did you tell her?” Tommy asks. 

“Said I’d check with my folks when they got back,” he says. He takes a seat beside Tommy on the bed; takes his glasses off and runs a hand over his face. 

“She’s nice,” he says. “It’d be easier if she wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” says Tommy. Stan shakes his head. 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “Not your fault, or hers, or her dad’s. They’re good people.”

“I’m still sorry,” Tommy tells him, and Stan nods. 

“Thanks,” he says. Tommy gives him a tentative smile before turning back to his record player, already daydreaming about the records he saw in the back corner of the pawnshop. Maybe when his next paycheck comes through, he’ll head back down Post Street and see if any of his old records are waiting for him there the way his Victrola was.

-

Paul Katsumoto comes tripping out of a Greyhound bus on Tuesday evening, two months older and an inch taller than he had been when Tommy left Tule Lake. Mary follows behind him, clutching a paperback novel and looking the same as ever. “Mary has a boyfriend!” Paul announces loudly as soon as he notices Stan and his friends waiting at the bus stop. Mary doesn’t hesitate before shoving her little brother hard into Stan’s awaiting arms and flipping him the bird. 

Stan laughs. “Did you wait seven hours to tell me that?” he asks his brother, who nods affirmatively. 

“He kissed her goodbye when we left,” Paul informs them. “It was so gross.”

“Oh my God,” groans Mary, face flushing red. “Shut up.”

Stan pulls her into a hug as she comes closer, to which Mary, obstinate as ever, rolls her eyes. 

“Tell Yosh I say hi,” he tells her, to which she lets out a truly dramatic groan. 

“Oh my God, please be normal,” Mary begs, and Stan smiles. 

“Love you, too,” he says, before Mary shrugs away from his embrace. 

- 

Three days after the Katsumotos move back in, Mas Ito gets on a Greyhound headed to San Francisco, spends something like two days watching the scenery of middle America pass him by, and shows up at his family’s new apartment at about thirteen minutes past midnight. 

They’re all at the Itos’ when he arrives; Shig and Yum-yum holding hands and lounging on the couch while Keiko hangs upside down beside them, her sleek black hair just brushing the floor as she makes faces at Minnow, who’s laid out on his stomach with an array of pencils scattered around him, drawing in a sketchbook that seems to be filling up quick. Mary’s in an armchair reading a book, and Stan and Tommy are engaged in a heated game of War when they hear a knock at the door.

“Who–?” starts Shig. Tommy pushes himself up off the floor.

“I’ll get it,” he says, ambling along towards the door.

“If it’s my mom, I’m not here,” Mary calls, and Tommy shoots her a thumbs up before he opens the door and comes face to face with a man in formal army dress, looking so unfamiliar that it takes Tommy a moment to realize who he’s looking at.

“Mas,” he says in disbelief, and the man in front of him opens his mouth to reply, but whatever he’s about to say gets swallowed up by a stampede of Japantown kids running to join them at the door. Minnow jumps up and wraps Mas in a fierce hug that his brother returns, burying his face in Minnow’s shoulders before Shig puts his arms around the both of them.

It feels almost too intimate to watch, and Tommy and the rest of them stand in silence until the brothers break away from each other. 

“You’re so tall,” Mas tells Minnow, who’s got about a half-inch on him now. “When the fuck did you get so tall?” There are tears in his voice and then there are tears running down his face and Shig is reaching out to wipe them away.

“Should we, like, leave?” asks Mary, and Mas lets out a teary laugh.

“No,” he says, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his coat. “Christ, no, I’m–of course you’re all here, I’m glad you’re all here. God, Mary, you’re so tall, too, you’re all so old–”

“I’m eighteen next month,” Mary informs him, standing a little taller.

“Christ, Mary–” Stan starts, rolling his eyes, but then Mas is wrapping her in a hug, ruffling her hair, holding his arms out until he’s held all of them, until he knows they’re all real.

“I missed you,” Tommy says softly when his turn comes around, and Mas squeezes him a little tighter.

“Right back at you,” he whispers into Tommy’s shoulder, and it feels like something has fallen back into place.

-

Dear Aiko,

Mas is officially back in San Francisco, and much earlier than expected! He didn’t tell anyone he was coming home, but he’s been honorably discharged from the United States Army and is in Japantown to stay. He hasn’t talked about it much, but he got taken off the front lines in November for something called “battle fatigue,” which basically means that the war messed with his brain so badly he couldn’t fight anymore. Frankie wrote Minnow a letter explaining it and said it happened pretty soon after Twitchy. I’m glad he’s back home, but I don’t think he’s doing very well.

They always talk about people coming back different, but I don’t think you can really understand what it means until you see it yourself. He looks old . He looks tired. It’s kind of strange to know that he’s not invincible. I don’t really know how to explain it. The rest of us are doing alright, though. Keiko is back in town, too, and so are the Katsumotos. Paul has informed us that Mary and Kiyoshi are officially going steady – tell Yosh congrats for me.

The grocery job is going great – my coworker Lucille and I are getting on very well and the work has resulted in enough money for Stan and I to buy a few pieces of furniture from the pawn shop down by the old Methodist Church. We also found my old record player there, still in great condition! It’s the same one I had when we were kids, and you can still see where I wrote my name on the inside of the case. I haven’t bought any records yet, but the pawn shop seems to have a pretty good selection. I’m excited to head down there by myself once we’re really on our feet, money-wise.

We’re all ready for you whenever you’re ready to come back home, so I’ll see you when I see you. I miss you more each day. 

Much love,

Tommy

-

Tommy wakes to the sound of a door creaking open. He opens his eyes to see Stan still asleep beside him and feels a flash of panic run through him like a lightning bolt. “Hello?” he calls, his heart pounding, and a tall, skinny shape emerges from the darkness sheepishly with an awkward little wave of its hand.

“Oh my God, Minnow,” Tommy breathes, bringing a hand to his racing heart and letting out a sigh of relief. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Stan stirs out of sleep and groggily pushes himself up to sit against their headboard. “What’s happening?” he asks, squinting into the darkness. “Can’t see shit.”

“Sorry,” Minnow says quietly, his voice catching on the word, and it becomes suddenly apparent to Tommy that the kid is crying silently. 

“Go back to sleep, Stan” Tommy says, before Stan can fumble around for his glasses and see the tears on Minnow’s face. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

Stan shrugs and pulls the covers back over himself, out like a light almost immediately, and Tommy leads Minnow out onto the fire escape, closing the window behind him. He sits down and motions for Minnow to join him. He does, setting his sketchbook down by his feet.

“Hey,” Tommy says softly. “What’s wrong?”

Minnow wipes his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” he tells Tommy. “I just–I couldn’t be–I had to–”

“Woah,” Tommy says, cutting him off. “It’s okay. Take a deep breath. I’m not mad at you, okay?”

“Mas had, like, an episode,” Minnow tells him. “And it was, like, really scary. I don’t know. I didn’t even–I mean, they didn’t even know I was awake, but it was–” he lets out a sob. “God, I don’t–”

“Shh,” Tommy tells him, bringing a hand to rub Minnow’s back. “You’re good,” he whispers. “You’re okay.”

Minnow brings his knees up to his chin and hides his face in them, taking shaky breaths as Tommy continues to rub circles over the fabric of his pajama top.

“He had a nightmare or something,” Minnow says. “I don’t know, I was–I was asleep and then I think I heard Shig’s voice, so I got up and opened my door and I saw them in his room and it was, like–like, harder than I’ve ever heard him cry, like, I can’t remember the last time I saw him cry–like, really cry, you know, but he’s sitting in bed, like, sobbing, and he’s breathing all weird and shuddering and Shig’s just–Shig’s just, like, comforting him, talking all soft, and that’s not–that’s not Shig’s job, you know, that’s what Mas does for us, and it’s like–” he cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Fuck, I don’t know, I just–I had to get out of there.”

Tommy nods in understanding. “That’s okay,” he says. “It sounds scary.”

“It’s scary to look at him sometimes,” Minnow admits. “He’s–I knew he was going to be different, I knew that losing–losing Twitchy, you know, I knew that hit him hard, but I–” Minnow squeezes his eyes shut; lets a couple tears run down his cheeks. “I want my brother back, you know?”

“I know,” Tommy tells him, and he finds Minnow leaning into him, resting his head on Tommy’s shoulder.

“Sorry I broke into your house,” he mumbles, and Tommy exhales a laugh.

“It’s alright,” he says. “Just wake me up next time instead of trying to sneak around like a burglar. You scared the shit out of me.”

Minnow nods. “Thanks,” he says, and Tommy just smiles. They sit there like that, letting the Pacific air wash over them, until Minnow drifts off to sleep on Tommy’s shoulder.

-

A year ago, Tommy was probably writing a poem about the sick irony of the American obsession with Independence Day. He will probably do the same thing after he gets home tonight, but now, American flags hang from restaurant awnings as he walks down Pine Street with his friends. 

“Ah, shit,” says Minnow, coming to a sharp stop in front of Tommy as the melting scoop of chocolate chip ice cream he’s been fighting with for the past fifteen minutes finally falls off its cone and onto the sidewalk. 

“Nice one,” Mary says, and Minnow rolls his eyes.

“This is a tragedy,” he says, completely deadpan.

“Maybe if you didn’t eat like a toddler, it wouldn’t be a problem,” says Mas, fighting a smile. He’s been a little more lively today, and Tommy silently hopes that he’s starting to acclimate back to life in San Francisco.

“This is slander,” Minnow says, exaggeratedly shaking his head. “I’m gonna be an adult in a month and a half!”

“Your hands are so sticky right now,” Mas tells him. “Just looking at them makes me want to take a shower.”

Minnow reaches for Mas with his sticky hands and Mas catches him by the wrist, dodging the attack. Minnow tries to break free, but before he can, the first firework goes off.

And Mas flinches like he’s been hit.

“Mas?” says Minnow. Mas takes a shaky breath in, eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t–” he starts, and then another explosion goes off and he freezes. 

“Mas,” Shig says, shaking his shoulder. “Mas, come on–”

Yum-yum and Keiko’s voices layer over each other in whispers from behind Tommy. Battle fatigue, says Minnow’s voice in his head. It’s like an illness.

“Shig,” Tommy says softly. “Don’t do that.”

“I–”

“Give him some space,” Tommy urges. Shig steps away, arms up in mock surrender.

“Mas,” says Tommy. “Let’s get inside somewhere, okay?”

Mas nods his head jerkily. Tommy turns to Shig.

“I’ve got this, okay?” he says. Shig furrows his eyebrows.

“He doesn’t want you to see him like this,” Tommy mumbles, just loud enough for Shig to hear. Another firework goes off.

“I trust you,” Shig murmurs, and nods. “Yeah. See you in a few.”

“Let’s go, Mas,” Tommy says, leading him down the sidewalk and through the entrance to Wilson’s General Store. Lucille’s at the register as they enter, thankfully not busy with any customers.

“Hey, Tommy!” she greets him. Tommy nods.

“Hey,” he says. “Can we hang in the back room for a while? I mean, just until the fireworks die down?”

Lucille furrows her brow. She turns her gaze to Mas in his army jacket, tapping his fingers rapidly on the side of his leg, seemingly seconds away from tears.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, take all the time you need.”

As soon as they’re sitting down in the back room of the grocery, Mas bursts into tears.

“Hey, ” Tommy says. “Hey, you’re–you’re okay. It’s fine, it’s not–you’re safe. You’re safe, Mas.”

“I know,” Mas manages, “fuck, I know, I—” a strangled sob rips through his body. “Shit,” he says. “I don’t—”

“You’re alright,” Tommy says softly, as the fireworks continue outside. Mas covers his ears, choking out a series of breathless sobs. 

“Can I touch you?” Tommy asks, and Mas merely nods, desperately and wordlessly, before Tommy wraps him in a tentative hug. 

Mas trembles in his arms, flinching at each faraway explosion, and Tommy runs a gentle hand over his back. “It’s almost over,” he says, hoping there’s truth in the words. “I’m so sorry; it’s almost over.”

They stay like that until the fireworks finally stop, Mas’ face buried in Tommy’s chest, shaking violently as Tommy rubs his back. 

“I think they’re over now,” Tommy mumbles, when a couple minutes have gone by uninterrupted, and he feels Mas nod. 

“Can we stay like this?” he asks, his voice almost a whisper. “Just for a minute?” 

There is fear and desperation and palpable shame in the words, and Tommy nods. “Take your time,” he says. “Whatever you need.”

When Mas finally pulls away, his face is blotchy with tears. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m so sorry, I don’t—”

“You’re alright,” Tommy says. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

“I’m sorry you had to see me like that,” Mas tells him, sniffling as he wipes his face on his shirtsleeve. “I don’t—”

“You’re alright,” Tommy says again. “Let me give you a minute and we’ll go home, okay?” 

Mas nods and Tommy pulls himself off the ground, closing the door behind him as he goes to meet Lucille at the counter. 

“Thank you,” he says, when they come face to face. 

“He okay?” she asks, a look of concern on her face, and Tommy nods. 

“He just got home from the war,” he tells her softly. “He’s been…” he finds himself trailing off. 

Lucille’s expression changes, something like sympathy in her eyes. “I didn’t know they let you fight,” she says softly. 

“Decided they’d let us give our lives for them if we were willing to,” Tommy explains, and there’s bitterness in his voice as he says it. “Keiko’s boyfriend died over there, and Mas hasn’t been the same since.” 

“I’m so sorry,” she says. 

“Yeah, well,” Tommy says. “What’cha gonna do?”

Lucille swallows. “I’m so sorry,” she says again. “About everything they did to you. About everything we did–”

“You didn’t do anything,” Tommy tells her, and she looks at him helplessly.

“This place used to be your home,” she says, looking around the store like she’s trying to imagine the way it looked before she and her father stepped over the threshold of the building. “This town used to be yours and this store used to belong to Stan’s family, and I don’t–” she takes a breath. “I don’t think I realized that we just swooped in and took it from y’all. ‘Cause I didn’t know you then, you know? I’d never met any Japanese and I mean–I knew that they were here before we were and I knew the government took them away, but I guess I didn’t know that you were here. I didn’t know they took you away. And maybe that’s terrible, that I didn’t think too hard about it when they did, you know, that I only really started thinking when I met you. But I’ve been thinking now and I’m just–I’m real sorry about all of it, Tommy.” 

“Thanks,” he says softly. He’s about to open his mouth to say something else, but the door to the back room creaks open and Tommy hears Mas clear his throat.

“Sorry,” he says, when Tommy and Lucille turn to him. 

“Hey, Mas,” says Tommy. “This is Lucille. Lucille, this is my friend, Mas.”

“Nice to meet you,” Lucille says, and Tommy watches, almost awestruck, as her Southern charm diffuses the awkwardness of the situation. “You want a coke or something?” she asks. “It’s on the house.”

Mas shakes his head politely, offering her half a smile. “I’m alright, thanks,” he says. “Think I’m gonna head back home for the night.”

“Me too,” Tommy says. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lucille.”

“Goodnight!” she calls, as Tommy and Mas turn to head out. The bell on the front door rings when Tommy pulls it open, and for a moment it feels like it did before, like they’re leaving Katsumoto Co. after a lazy summer day. And then Tommy looks back at Mas in his army jacket, his jaw clenched and his eyes glassy, and the moment is gone. 

-

7/4/1945

July in San Francisco and they say the war’s almost over but 
the sky is full of firepower, bursts of pyrotechnics, and there’s a 
boy in the back room who might as well still be a soldier except that
no one stops to salute him in the street,
because the army never thought to tell the folks back home 
that boys like him were fighting for their freedom.

Kind of a shitty excuse for independence if you think about it.

-

“Would you maybe wanna go out to dinner sometime?”

Tommy’s punching his timecard behind the front counter at the end of a long Friday when Lucille looks up from the cash register and asks him the question like it’s easy as breathing. He looks up, wide-eyed. “What?” 

She looks almost amused at his reaction. “Do you wanna go out to dinner with me?” she asks again, eyebrows raised in an almost playful way.

Tommy takes a moment to really get the question through his head, attempting to analyze every piece of it. “Do you mean like a date?” he asks, and she smiles.

“That’s the idea, yeah. No pressure or anything.”

Tommy looks at her, her green eyes sparkling. Her pigtails are pulled back with baby blue ribbons, blowing in the wind from the old electric fan shuddering on the counter behind her, and Tommy suddenly thinks that if he were anyone else, the answer to her question would be so easy he wouldn’t even have to think about it.

“Yeah,” he says, because what else can he say? “Yeah, that’d be–that’d be great. Do you wanna–we can do tomorrow night? Maybe six o’clock?”

“Sounds great,” Lucille says, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll see you then.”

Tommy replaces his punchcard and bids Lucille goodbye in a daze. It’s only when he’s coming up on the Post Street intersection that he finds himself suddenly overwhelmed with dizziness and has to sit down on the curb in front of the Itos’ old building until his heart stops pounding.

The sun is good and setting now. All Tommy can do as he waits to regain control of his body is look straight ahead at the building where the Hashimotos used to live. Through the lace curtains fixed above Twitchy’s bedroom window, Tommy just makes out a pair of silhouettes in motion. So close to each other that he almost sees them as one entity. He thinks they might be dancing a waltz.

He takes a deep breath, tears his eyes away from the couple, makes peace with the pit in the bottom of his stomach, and pushes himself up off the ground. 

-

“Hey,” says Stan, when he finds Tommy out on the fire escape that night. “You alright? I didn’t know you were home.”

At a quarter past ten, Stan’s just coming off his first shift at the burger joint on Pine and Buchanan. His hair’s plastered to his forehead with the sweat of a hard day’s work in an unventilated room, and Tommy reaches a hand out to smooth it back out of his face.

“You smell like a restaurant,” he says, making a face, and Stan huffs a laugh.

“I work in a restaurant,” he deadpans. When Tommy doesn’t so much as crack a smile, Stan furrows his eyebrows and crouches down to sit on the grated metal at his feet. “You alright?” he asks. Tommy shrugs.

“If I tell you something, you can’t get mad at me, okay?” he says, and Stan tries not to let his concern show on his face. 

“Anything, man,” he says. “You know that.”

Tommy closes his eyes; points his face towards the sky. “Lucille asked me to get dinner with her,” he says. “As, like, a date. And I’m just–I don’t–I don’t think I know how I feel about it.”

Stan lets out a silent sigh of relief that Tommy’s big, existential problem is nothing more than high school stuff. Even so, he aims to comfort.

“Okay,” he says. “Just first date jitters, or…?”

Tommy shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never been on a date before. Definitely not with a white girl. What if I don’t know the rules? What if I do something wrong? What if she picks a restaurant that won’t serve me? What if I–”

And here he cuts himself off, because some things are still too scary to say. What if I don’t have the right love in me anywhere? God knows if I was going to feel it, I’d feel it for her.

“She clearly likes you, Tommy,” Stan says with a comforting smile. “Just be yourself. When’s this dinner?”

“Tomorrow at six,” Tommy replies, feeling his stomach flip at the reminder of how close this date really is.

“Okay,” says Stan. “Listen, why don’t you call up Keiko tomorrow and she’ll give you a crash course. Let her doll you up or whatever. I don’t know, man, I haven’t seen any action since Dorothy Suzuki kissed me at the eighth-grade graduation dance.”

Tommy smiles. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, I’ll call Keiko.” 

-

In the quiet of the San Francisco night, calling Keiko seems like a good idea; a tentative solution to Tommy’s countless anxieties. In the light of day, she’s flitting around the apartment like a hummingbird, a seemingly never-ending list of things girls like falling off her lips so fast Tommy can’t even count them, let alone remember the details of each individual item. Yum-yum’s tagged along, too, adding onto and amending Keiko’s tips from her spot at the dining room table, where she sits beside Shig. Stan’s beating Minnow at Scrabble on the hardwood floor, Mary’s in the corner reading a book, and Tommy is seriously weighing the pros and cons of feigning an illness and calling off the whole thing. It wouldn’t be a huge stretch, seeing as he’s felt vaguely nauseous since he left work last night.

“Stay still,” Keiko says, in the midst of a futile attempt to make Tommy’s hair lie flat.

“It’s not gonna do anything,” Tommy informs her tiredly. “Can’t I just wear my beanie?”

“No,” Keiko and Yum-yum say in unison, and Tommy groans. 

“Maybe I should cancel,” he suggests desperately. “I’ll tell her I’m not feeling well; I’ll–”

“Over my dead body, Harano,” Keiko tells him. Tommy’s heart sinks into his stomach.

-

Thirty-five minutes and half a container of hair gel later, Tommy’s ringing the doorbell at the back entrance of the Wilson’s store. He’s got barely five seconds to steel himself for the night ahead before Lucille comes out the door, beaming at him.

“Hey!” she says. She’s clearly dolled herself up for the occasion–rather than being tied up in her usual pigtails, her hair’s loose, curling over her shoulders like a lazy river. She’s got a full face of makeup, rosy cheeks and cherry-red lipstick that both remind him of Bette, and she’s wearing a simple but striking silk dress, looking for all the world like a southern belle in pale peach. “You wanna go down to the diner on Sutter Street?” she asks, and Tommy furrows his brow.

“The one by Webster Street or the one near the Laguna garage?” He asks. The diner down by Sutter and Webster was an old high school haunt of the Japantown boys, but Minnow told him a while back that they wouldn’t serve him and Mrs. Ito there the first week after they returned.

“I don’t know the one by the garage,” Lucille says, and Tommy nods. 

“I like it better,” he says. “They’ve got these really great milkshakes. They used to stay open longer than, like, anywhere else on the block and we’d go there on Fridays after Mas’ football games.”

“Sounds great!” Lucille says with a smile, and the two of them set off down Pine Street.

“I like your dress, by the way,” Tommy tells her as they walk. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not wearing work clothes.”

Lucille smiles. “Thank you,” she says. “It was my mama’s. She wore it for garden parties and such.”

Tommy nods. “Your mom,” he says. “Does she live here with you?” It strikes him that this is the first time Lucille has mentioned a mother at all.

“She’s dead,” Lucille tells him. “Died giving birth to me, so it’s just been me and Daddy for as long as I can remember.”

“I’m sorry,” Tommy tells her, and she shrugs. 

“It’s okay,” she says. “Never met her, you know, so it’s a little harder to miss her.”

Tommy nods, not quite sure of how to respond.

“Your parents don’t live here anymore, right?” Lucille asks. Tommy shakes his head. 

“No, they, uh–” he starts. “They raised me here, obviously, but they’re still at Tule Lake with my sisters.”

“Tule Lake,” Lucille repeats, and there’s a distinct lack of recognition in her face. Which is good, if Tommy’s being honest, because it means she doesn’t know that he said no and no.

“Yeah, it’s one of the camps where they–you know. Where they took us.”

“Oh,” says Lucille. She looks a little embarrassed. Tommy can’t tell if it’s about her lack of knowledge or about the fact that she’s talking to a former prisoner. But then she says, quietly, “I thought they let you all go,” and he figures it’s the former.

“Not quite,” he says. “My parents are–they want to move back to Japan. Don’t want to swear their allegiance to America. So they’re waiting to be sent back. But I wanted to stay, you know. So I’m here.”

“It makes sense that they’d want to go back,” Lucille reasons. “I mean, if my country locked me and everyone I loved up… and if I had somewhere else to go, I think I would, you know?”

Tommy shrugs. “I was born in San Francisco,” he says. “I’ve never known anywhere else.” They’re at the Webster Street intersection now, coming up on Mr. Hidekawa’s old building, and Tommy feels something like grief wash over him. He can’t tell if Lucille notices, but he brushes a hand against the old stone banister as they pass.

-

By the time the waitress at the diner comes by with their milkshakes, Tommy and Lucille have actually fallen into easy conversation, and Tommy’s breathing a little easier as she tells him about her life back in Georgia. He’s learned about her childhood in a town called Richland, the general store her father owned just over a half hour from the Alabama border. Her mother was trained as a nurse in Baton Rouge, she tells him, and she wanted to join the Red Cross in Europe during the Great War. 

“They signed the armistice, like, two months after she got certified, though, so it never happened. The furthest she ever went from home was a couple hundred miles, you know. Never even left the South.” She takes a sip of her vanilla milkshake.

“She sounds like she was really cool,” Tommy says. 

Lucille nods. “I think so, too. But I’m talking too much about myself. What about you? You said you had sisters, right?” 

“Yeah,” Tommy confirms. “Three of them, actually.”

“Oh, wow,” says Lucille. “Older or younger? Or both?”

“All younger. Aiko’s turning seventeen in a few weeks, and she’s gonna come back home soon. If Stan gets into college in the fall, she’ll probably move in with me. Fumi and Frannie are twins; they’re six.”

“Is it hard being away from them?” she asks. Tommy nods. 

“Yeah,” he tells her. For some reason, it feels easy talking to her, and so he continues. “I mean, I don’t–I know Aiko wants to move back, but I don’t know if I’m ever gonna see the twins again. I’m kind of–you know, I’m kind of done with my parents and they’re kind of done with me, and I’m pretty sure they’re gonna take the twins back to Japan and forget about me, so… yeah, I’m gonna miss them.”

Lucille looks deeply concerned at the casual nature with which he’s describing the situation. Tommy winces. “No, I mean, like–don’t be horrified, or, like, feel bad for me or anything. I’m glad my parents are leaving. Living here without them is, like, the happiest I’ve ever been. My–they always wanted me to be something else, and I wasn’t, which was–it was hard, you know, but now that I’m here without them, I don’t care so much anymore.”

There’s still worry in her eyes, and Tommy sighs. “Sorry,” he says. “Not exactly great first date conversation, I guess.”

Lucille huffs a laugh. “No, it’s fine,” she says. “I mean, I just talked your ear off about my dead mom for, like, fifteen minutes, so I’m definitely not one to talk.”

Tommy smiles. “No, it’s–I like learning about you. The whole last three years of my life don’t really make for great conversation, so it’s nice to hear you talk.”

“You can talk about it,” she tells him. “I mean, if you don’t want to, I get it, but don’t censor yourself on my account. It’s your life, you know, and I want to learn about you, too.”

“What do you want to know?” Tommy asks. 

Lucille appears to think about it for a while, and then she says, “I want to know about your friends. I’ve–you know, I’ve met Keiko a couple times, and I’ve had, like, brief encounters with Stan and Mas, but I feel like you’re always throwing out new names when we talk. It just seems like there’s so many people in your life.”

“I mean, there are a lot of them,” Tommy warns her. “Even if I just tell you about the ones who’ve come back home.”

“Take your time,” Lucille tells him. “I want to learn about you.”

Tommy smiles. “Well, you’ve met Keiko and Stan…” he starts, and Lucille is so engaged as he tells her about his friends that he just keeps going and going–tells her how he and Minnow used to lay in the infield at Tanforan and make up their own constellations; how Frankie used to lead banzai charges down Buchanan Street. He tells her about Bette’s blonde wig and Minnow’s charcoal sketches and how Stan wants to go to UC Berkeley. He tells her about Twitchy, his butterfly knife and his radiant smile and the way he went out like a flashbulb somewhere in the hills of Eastern France.

“That’s Keiko’s boyfriend, right?” Lucille asks gently. “You said he died in the war?”

“Yeah,” Tommy confirms. “Yeah, he was–I left Topaz before they became, like, an item, but they were–they were in love, I think.” At these words, a crimson blush spreads across his face, and he hopes Lucille doesn’t read too far into it. “It’s kind of weird being back here without him, if I’m being honest. Like, so many things have changed since we left, but sometimes the fact that he’s not here is the weirdest thing. And we weren’t–we were friends, you know, but he and I were never, like, super close. Shig and Twitchy, they were best friends, and Stan and I would hang out, and Frankie was just Frankie, you know, didn’t want to seem too attached to anyone or anything–but now that Twitchy’s gone, I miss him like crazy. I hadn’t even seen him for a whole year before he died, but it was still–I still almost can’t believe he’s gone.”

“He sounds really special,” Lucille tells him softly. She reaches over the white formica of the tabletop and takes one of Tommy’s hands in hers. “I’m really sorry you lost him,” she says. Her hand is soft in his, and there is something about her closeness; the warmth of her palm; the way the band of her golden ring fits perfectly in the groove between his middle and ring fingers. The sensation is unfamiliar, but he realizes with a jolt that he’s been longing for it. Is this what it’s like, he wonders, to fall for someone? Maybe it’s not love yet, but Tommy thinks it’s something bigger than him. Maybe all his worrying was for nothing, he thinks. Maybe one day, he’ll sweep Lucille off her feet by the bay window for all of Post Street to see. Maybe one day, he’ll know what love is.

-

“I’d like to meet the rest of your friends sometime,” says Lucille, as they’re walking back up Pine Street.

“I could invite you over sometime,” Tommy tells her. “Keiko’s already a pretty big fan of yours, you know.”

“She’s very sweet,” Lucille says.

“I’ll ask Stan,” he promises. “About having you over one night. Minnow and Shig are already at our place most nights, and wherever Shig is, Yum-yum is, so… It’s a pretty small place, but one more guest can’t hurt.”

Lucille smiles. They’re coming up on the general store now, and when they reach the back entrance, she takes his wrist and pulls him into the alleyway beside it. 

“I had a really great time tonight,” she tells him, slipping her hand into his.

Tommy’s heart skips a beat. “Me too,” he tells her. “You’re–I like talking with you,” he says, and her ruby-red lips pull back into a smile. 

“You too,” she says softly, and she’s closer now. Tommy couldn’t tell you when it happened, but he can see the thin but steady line of black makeup over each of her eyes; can make out each individual freckle on her pale face.

“I should–” he starts, and then she’s pressing her lips to his. 

There’s a moment where he fights his instincts; a moment where he doesn’t pull away. To her it must feel like a split second, but Tommy feels it in its entirety, his teeth knocking against hers, the wrongness condensing inside of him. Something is coming to a boiling point in his chest. There’s a finality somewhere inside him that he doesn’t dare put a name to. 

And then he’s pulling away; wrenching his hand out of hers and begging himself not to crumple at the hurt laid bare in her wide green eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I can’t–I’m–” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, blocking out the image of her in her pretty silk dress. “I have to go,” he tells her.

“Tommy–” she starts, and she’s reaching for him, her fingertips brushing the cheap cotton of his sleeve.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he turns on his heel before she can reply, running down Pine Street like a little kid playing at war.

-

By the time Tommy reaches their apartment door, he feels almost sick with the memory of her lips on his, his stomach churning at his own inanity. He puts his hand on the doorknob and steels himself before he turns it and walks though, prepared to shrug off any awkward questions from Stan in favor of climbing into bed and pretend the whole thing never happened.

“Tommy’s home!” shouts Shig, and Tommy’s stomach drops as he comes face to face with what’s left of the old Japantown crew, entirely at home in his apartment. 

“How’d it go, loverboy?” asks Keiko with a smirk. Tommy bursts into tears.

“Shit, Tommy, I didn’t–” she starts, and before anyone else can open their mouths to speak, there’s a hand on his shoulder, someone guiding him back out the door he just walked through.

“I’ve got him,” he hears the someone murmur, presumably for the benefit of the apartment’s other current inhabitants, and then the door closes behind them and Tommy’s looking up through his tears to see Minnow beside him, something like empathy in his eyes.

“Let’s get some air, yeah?” the kid suggests softly, and Tommy follows him down the stairs like a puppy, tracing the old oak banister with his pointer finger the whole way down.

-

“So I’m guessing it didn’t go great,” Minnow says, when Tommy’s gotten ahold of himself. They’re sitting on the curb under the streetlight out front of his and Stan’s building, Tommy staring blankly through the Oishis’ bay window across the street.

“I think I have to quit my job,” he tells Minnow miserably. 

“It can’t have been that bad, man,” Minnow says, and Tommy groans, burying his face in his hands. 

“She kissed me,” Tommy tells him. Minnow pats his shoulder sympathetically.

“I kind of figured,” he admits. “You’ve got lipstick on your face.”

Tommy turns red. “Oh my God,” he says, quickly wiping his mouth on the inside of his wrist. 

“So I’m guessing it wasn’t ideal,” Minnow says. “The kiss, I mean.”

Tommy sighs. “I ran away,” he says. “Like a little kid. She was perfect and beautiful and I ran away when she kissed me and I have to quit my job.”

“Can I ask you something?” Minnow says softly. His face is illuminated in soft yellow by the streetlight above them.

Tommy swallows. “Yeah,” he says. He’s got a sinking feeling he knows where Minnow is going with this; knows why it was Minnow who took charge back in the apartment and brought him down here to spill his guts into the empty night.

“The night you came back to town,” he says. “You told me you didn’t think you’d ever love someone the way most people do. The way I–” and here he cuts himself off, shaking his head to sift away all thoughts of that golden boy. “So I was–you know, I was surprised when Stan said you were going to dinner with Lucille. But you seemed–You seemed to like her, so I thought maybe you realized you were wrong. But now–” he stops, seemingly unsure of what to say; how to sum up Tommy’s conflicted heartache in just a few words.

“I knew that if I could, it would happen with her,” Tommy tells him. “Because I do–I do like her. I think I do have feelings for her, they’re just–you know. Not the right ones.”

Minnow nods.

“She’s really pretty,” Tommy tells him, tears pricking at his eyes. “Looked like a fuckin’ southern belle.”

“I know,” Minnow tells him, and suddenly Tommy is glad Minnow is the one here with him, because he knows he does . 

“She held my hand and I liked it,” Tommy says, his voice quivering as he gropes desperately for any semblance of normal that might dwell in his black hole of a heart. “I tried, I really–” 

And here, he’s cut off by a gut-wrenching sob. It feels like he’s caving in on himself as he wails, and then he’s in Minnow’s arms, sobbing into his shoulder like a child under San Francisco streetlights.

-

Requiem for Peach Season 1942

A southern dream under a streetlight
with a face like a porcelain doll’s,
Her garden-party elegance written in smooth silk
like the sweetness of the peach season that never came.

Late May meant peaches like candy,
Juice like treacle dripping down our chins, 
Staining the concrete outside the old Katsumoto Co.
We were just boys then, alive and free before we knew those things were gifts to be.

We were still boys the year peach season passed us by,
Saw us spend the summer sleeping in old horse stalls,
Tanforan peaches nothing but tin cans of sickly sweet mush.
We were boys behind barbed wire, starving for the fruits of our freedom

But suddenly we are no longer boys and there is
A girl before me in pale peach pink 
who should be as sweet as the sugar of a San Francisco summer.

Her lips on my lips and there is a sickness inside me that I can’t quell.
I leave her standing on the sidewalk where we used to eat peaches.

-

“So can we talk about whatever the fuck happened with Lucille last night?” asks Stan the next morning, when he and Tommy are eating corn flakes at the kitchen table.

Tommy groans. “Do we have to?” he asks.

“I mean, Minnow wouldn’t tell me, so yeah. We kind of do.”

Tommy takes another spoonful of corn flakes. Stan doesn’t waver, looking on patiently as he waits for Tommy to finish chewing.

“I’m not gonna make fun of you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Stan says. “I’m just–I care about you, you know?”

Tommy nods. Without meeting Stan’s eyes, he says, “I just didn’t like her the right way, I guess.”

“Okay,” Stan says gently. “That’s okay, but I mean–I know you, man. I know it’s more than that.” 

Tommy swallows. He looks at Stan. His face full of something so gentle that Tommy doesn’t know what to do with it. “I think there’s something wrong with me,” he admits softly, like if he says the words quietly enough, they won’t come true. “I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to. About her, but really about anyone.”

“What do you mean?” Stan asks.

“The way Shig and Yum-yum feel about each other. The love people mean when they say falling in love. I just don’t think I have it. I don’t think I ever will.”

“That’s okay,” Stan says again. “I mean, you don’t have to fall in love if you don’t want to.”

“But I do,” Tommy tells him, feeling tears well up in his eyes. “I do want to fall in love. I don’t want to be alone.”
“You know you’re not alone,” Stan tells him quietly. “I know you know that, Tommy.”

“I am in the way that matters.”

“To who?”

Tommy swallows. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But it feels like it matters. And even if it didn’t, everyone else would still grow up and fall in love and I’d end up alone in a shitty studio apartment while they all grew old together.”

“I would live with you forever in a shitty studio apartment,” Stan declares. “I’d die of old age before I’d leave you behind.”

Tommy smiles. “Thanks, Stan,” he says, and Stan grins back. “I love you,” Tommy adds tentatively. Something in Stan’s face shifts.

“Love you too,” he says, and Tommy’s heart feels somehow whole. 

-

“Can we talk?” Tommy asks, when it’s just the two of them in the store on Monday afternoon. He hasn’t spoken a word to Lucille all day, and she’s followed suit, never so much as looking his way when he passes the cash register.

Now, she looks up from the cash she’s counting and raises an eyebrow. “You gonna run away again?” she asks, and Tommy cringes.

“I’m really sorry,” he tells her. “And, like, absolutely mortified. I just –” He sighs. “And you’re right to be mad, I just – I want to explain myself. You know, as much as I can.”

Lucille seems to look him over, perhaps evaluating whether anger or pity wins out when she’s looking at him. “Okay,” she says.

“I don’t think I–” he starts. “I mean, I don’t think I… feel the way I’m supposed to feel.”

She stares blankly at him. Tommy sighs.

“I know I’m not making sense. I just mean I don’t–I don’t think I can fall in love like most people can. I wish I could,” he tells her. “I just don’t feel how I’m supposed to.”

Lucille furrows her brow. “You trying to tell me you’re a–?”

“No.” Tommy cuts her off quickly. “No, I’m just – I don’t feel it at all. But I thought if I could fall in love with anyone, it would be you.”

A surprisingly sweet smile comes over her face. “Me?” she asks, and Tommy notes with a small burst of joy that she’s actually blushing.

He smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, you’re beautiful–” and at this, he feels his face flush, but he persists. “And you – you’re special, Lucille. I love talking to you. I mean, I like you a lot. I even really liked holding your hand at the diner, I just – y’know.” He thinks of what he’d told Minnow out on Post Street on Saturday night. “I have feelings for you,” he tells her. “They’re just not the right ones.”

“That’s alright,” Lucille tells him softly. “I’d really like to be your friend.”

Tommy’s face breaks into a smile. “Me too,” he says. “I’d really – I’d like that a lot,” he tells her, and she smiles too.

“Do you want to come over next weekend?” he asks. “I’ll have to ask Stan, but we can have a little get-together. Introduce you to everyone, you know?”

“It’d be my pleasure,” she tells him.

-

“I told Lucille six o’clock,” Tommy says at 6:01 the next Saturday, bustling around their apartment looking for something more to tidy up.

“I know,” Stan tells him. “And Christ, sit down, you finished cleaning up an hour ago.”

“I just want–”

“I know,” says Stan again, unwrapping the parcels of food that his mother donated for their little potluck. “It’ll be fine,” he assures Tommy as he sets out a dish of tsukemono on the kitchen counter.

The front door opens and Tommy looks up to see their first guests arrive. He rolls his eyes. “Thanks for knocking,” he says, as the Itos kick off their shoes. Only Mas has the good manners to look sheepish, and he and Tommy exchange a quick smile. 

“Really pulling out all the stops for Little Miss Texas,” Shig observes, looking around at the spotless apartment, and Tommy goes red. 

“Stop fucking with him,” Stan says, firmly enough that Tommy looks up in surprise. “God forbid we host an actual event instead of sitting on the hardwood and shooting the shit till half past midnight every Saturday.”

Shig rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Sorry, man,” he tells Tommy. “It’s nice that you’re doing this. I’m excited to meet her.”

Tommy gives him a nervous smile and busies himself with his old Victrola, putting on a Count Basie record he bought at the pawn shop with his most recent paycheck. There’s a knock on the door as he lifts the record needle, and he feels his heart skip a beat as Minnow calls “I’ll get it!”

But when he looks up, it’s just Keiko and Yum-yum at the door, and he feels suddenly very silly. If he wanted to be more than friends with Lucille, his nervousness would make sense. As it is, he’s not quite sure where it’s coming from, but he gives the girls a little wave anyway; smiles at the sight of Mary trailing after them with her nose in a book.

“I’m glad everything worked out,” Tommy hears, and he turns to see Minnow beside him. “It’s cool that you’re doing this for her.”

“Is it weird that I’m nervous?” Tommy asks quietly. “I mean, it’s not even like I like her or anything, I’m just–”

“It’s because you care about her,” Minnow tells him. “And because you want her to care about you.”

“I know,” Tommy says. “Still feels weird, though.”

Minnow smiles, and then there’s another knock at the door. Tommy’s heart gives another flutter before he rushes forward to open it.

And there’s Lucille in green gingham, her face already stretched into a sweet smile. “I brought peach cobbler,” she says.

“Are those Sacramento peaches?” Stan calls from the other side of the apartment, and Tommy huffs a laugh. 

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Tommy tells her, taking the dish from her hands and setting it down on the counter. “He’s got a complex.”

“‘Course he does,” Lucille reasons, slipping off her mary-janes. “He grew up in a grocery.”

Stan points at her with a look of approval on his face, and Lucille smiles.

“You ever had Pearson peaches?” she asks. “You know there’s a reason they call Georgia the Peach State.”

“I’ll believe it when I taste it,” Stan tells her, and Tommy finds himself smiling at their banter.

“Great to see you again,” Keiko says, meeting Lucille on her journey further into the apartment and giving her a brief one-armed hug.

“You too,” Lucille tells her, and then she’s face to face with what remains of Tommy’s little family.

“I’m Lucille,” she says, giving a little wave. “I’ve heard a lot about you guys.”

And Tommy’s friends introduce themselves in turn, Minnow with a soft smile and Mas with a firm handshake; Shig with a smirk and Yum-yum with a compliment.

“If you guys want dinner, my mom kind of went overboard,” Stan says when they’ve all taken their turn. He gestures to the veritable buffet of homemade Japanese cuisine taking up the entirety of their kitchen counter.

“Thank God for Mrs. K,” Keiko declares, and the rest of the apartment murmurs its assent before filing into line.

Lucille turns to Tommy as the others move forward to fill their plates. “Thank you for this,” she tells him. “I really appreciate it.”

“Thanks for the cobbler,” he tells her, and she smiles soft as a summer’s day. 

-

Dear Aiko,

Happy seventeenth birthday. I am devastated to have to miss such an auspicious occasion but I can only hope you and Kiyoshi are celebrating up there in Tule Lake. It’s hard to believe you’re already seventeen, especially now that I’m back in San Francisco. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how young you were when we had to leave, not even fourteen when we got to Tanforan. It’s hard to believe this city has never known the version of you that I hold so dear to my heart, and I can only continue to hope you don’t wait too long before you follow me back home. 

Things in Japantown are as normal as they get nowadays. Stan has started work at a burger joint that opened a couple months ago on Pine and Buchanan, so we’re covering rent a lot easier. The couple who owns the place sends him home with leftovers some nights, which is always a thrill. 

Lucille (my coworker at the grocery store) and I have started to spend more time together outside of work. We went on a date a couple weeks ago, which went okay (?) I guess, but afterwards, we decided we’d rather be friends, and that’s treating us much better. She came over the other day for a little get-together with Yum-yum, Keiko, Stan, Mary, and the Itos, which went really well. I think you’d like her a lot, and I hope I can introduce the two of you soon.

Give Kiyoshi and the twins my love. Don’t leave Japantown waiting for too long!

Much love,

Tommy