バレンタインの日

It started out as a joke.

The first time we went to Daikoku and thus sold our souls to a bunch of wonderful boys (some of whom, by the way, we now have outside-of-work correspondence with!), one of us brought up the idea that we could give them chocolate for Valentine's Day. That was in January, and Feburary the 14th seemed so far away that we dove into that fantasy like nobody's business. After all, it wasn't like we were actually going to go through with it. For the rest of the month it became another one of our too-numerous inside jokes: remember that time we said we were going to give chocolate to Daikoku on Valentine's Day? We gave the idea sparkles, put a ring on it, drove it home and made it dinner, painted it with elaborate pastry ideas and sprinkles and letters full of why you guys so awesome though?s.

Nobody actually thought we were going to go through with it (aloud, anyway).

But by the time Valentine's Day actually rolled around, it wasn't so much of a joke anymore, and on the morning of that Monday--thank goodness we were still on February break--we trooped to the sticks of Nagoya, also known as Toyota (yes, everyone! It's a real city!), to make Valentine's Day pastries...for a bunch of waiters (though I hesitate to call them that) who didn't know what hit them when the four of us walked into their bar/izakaya/restaurant-thing that first day. To be fair, we didn't know either. But this study abroad experience wouldn't be the same without them, that's for sure.

Anyway--it's not mushy time yet. First, an explanation of Valentine's Day in Japan, told through a comparison of Valentine's Day in America.

WHEN IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY AND YOU'RE:

- a single woman in America, you go about your normal day. Or you have a little rant about how ridiculous this so-called "holiday" is. Or you go out with your girls and make fun of all the couples having a romantic dinner/walking around being all snuggly and cute. Or you buy chocolate for yourself, eat all of it in one sitting, feel sick and curse February the 14th.

- a single man in America, you--well, I don't actually know. Most of the guys I know wake up and don't even realize it's Valentine's Day.

- dating in America, you have a nice day with your significant other doing whatever makes the both of you happy, like endless games of Scrabble (hey, I'd be thrilled).

- a single woman in Japan, you feverishly make chocolates--yes, you MAKE chocolates--or pastries or cake or cookies or some kind of delicious sweet thing either the day of Valentine's Day or a couple of days before. The entire time, you practically sweat sparkle-filled, manga-flower vibes of nervousness and thoughts of OH MY GOD WILL HE ACCEPT MY FEELINGS? If you're a single woman making romantic chocolate for the man of your dreams/that kid next to you in math class you draw comics about, you're not just making chocolate for the hell of it. In Japan, Valentine's Day is a day for women to give their feelings away in a box tied with a ribbon. The department stores are practically OVERFLOWING with gourmet chocolates, gift ideas, gift boxes and chocolate-making materials; suddenly everyone remembers their favorite anime/manga/drama scene where the heroine, blushing furiously, thrusts a box of chocolate in the face of the boy she likes and says, "Please accept this!" Japan took Valentine's Day and marketed it to women like never before. If you try to escape it, there will be consequences.

(On the other hand, it's also a custom to give your guy friends chocolate--aka, non-romantic chocolate. That's called ぎり/giri chocolate, and at the very basic level it means 'obligation chocolate.' For giri, you make chocolate because you want to, and you give it to whomever you want to, even your own girl friends. There's no blushing and no "please accept this!"--unless you're us.)

- a single man in Japan, you eat chocolate (if you get any) and start thinking about White Day, which is exactly a month after Valentine's--March 14--and it's when the guy gives chocolate/a present back to the girl if he accepts her feelings (or if he just wants to in the case of giri, because they're friends/it's the nice thing to do/why not). The department stores have been advertising White Day since the end of February, and there's not only an impressive array of chocolate that I could only afford if I sold my leg, but there are also stuffed animals! I mean, I was excited about it...

- dating in Japan, you parade your love to the masses by strutting about in public holding hands and walking beside each other attached at the hip. Here, that's practically PDA.

Did you get all of that? There will be a test.

For Daikoku we decided to go with the whole 'this is giri, you guys are cool, thanks for always being awesome! This is how gaijin make friends!' kind of thing (it actually said that in our letter). I mean, maybe there's one specific staff member I would have liked to give real chocolate to, but we're not going to get into that now. Or any other day, actually. Let me pine in peace.

Our menu included the following: orange sugar drop donuts and brownies, to be put in cute pink baggies bought at the hundred yen store (we were going to go with boxes at first, but when I got there each box had to be bought individually and we needed 14 of them--I love those guys, but I am a poor ryugakusei [exchange student] and do not have 1400 yen to spend on boxes the size of my palm).

But as these things go, luck was not entirely on our side.

First off, Massiel had come down with some strange sinus/infruenza-like illness the day before and by the sheer power of Sports Drink (no really, her host mom handed her a huge bottle with a label that said Sports Drink) and love for Daikoku, she managed to get rid of the fever. She was still somewhat sick, though, and had to wear a mask throughout the pastry-making session. Secondly, the brownies WOULD NOT COOK THROUGH no matter how long we kept them in the oven. The top would burn but the middle would be mush. :( The donuts also weren't cooking correctly--the oil kept heating up too fast and we would get black drop donuts with gushy orange insides. Not exactly appetizing. And to top it all off, it started raining outside, huge snowy-like chunks of freezing cold water.

But time does great things. We managed to get a batch of brownies that were cooked through (though we had to slice off the top) and also had reinforcement brownies that Rachael had brought (sssh, don't tell. They were still handmade; it's okay!). The orange drop donuts finally started doing what I wanted them to, and we had enough batter left over to make a nice amount. And Massiel's illness did not rear its ugly head again (oh, the power of love and Sports Drink).

After a walk to the station in the snowy rain and discovering that, because it had gotten wet, the bag we'd put the pastries in had a small tear in it, we finally got on the train to Kanayama....

...As nervous wrecks. It didn't start that way, but by the time we were only a couple of stops away I was getting pretty anxious, and Grey was too. Massiel had been that way from the start, and Rachael told us en route that we were making her nervous. There wasn't really anything to be nervous about--either they took what we had to give them or didn't. But we'd already dug ourselves into a big, big hole of what-ifs that we couldn't climb out of it anymore, and at the same time, we'd already come so far that we couldn't go back.

In the end, we arrived at Daikoku with a wet, torn (though still mostly sturdy) bag full of pastries. We'd battled snow-rain and the freezing cold and too many mishaps, but we were there.

I can't remember if there was anyone greeting in front. At any case, we walked in, said our hellos, and decided that we were going to give them the goods later....

...at the appropriate time...

...whenever that time was.

I mean sure, we could have thrust the bag at Ryou-kun (who was working that day and took our first order) and been like, "HERE, CHOCOLATES! TAKE THEM!" But that would have required guts, which we didn't really have at the time. So we ordered our drinks and then pouted at each other, because apparently pouting gives answers.

As we were pouting, I started reading the boards they have on the wall. Not the ones with the Daikoku story on it, but the ones with the specials of the day and the staff recommendations. Underneath the specials, there was a little drawing of a pig as cupid and then a small, almost unnoticeable note:

チョコください！

Which means choco kudasai or 'give us chocolate, please.'

THEY HAD BASICALLY GIVEN US AN IN. Immediately the pouts were replaced with sounds of enlightenment (which in our case are usually things along the lines of "Why so genius though?" and "OH MY GOD"), because Daikoku hadn't just made things easier for us--they'd given themselves away. Oh, you want chocolate? We'll give you chocolate. We got it right here.

At that moment Ryou-kun came over with a plate of liver sashimi (sliced, raw liver--I know that sounds gross, but it's actually delicious), holds a finger to his lips and says, "Ssssh!" Free food. Oh, that man. I adore him.

And then I go, "So, you know how on that board it says you want chocolate...?"

He says yes. I mean, if he hadn't--but.

"Well, we actually made chocolate for you..."

And I hand him the bag.

He was the cutest, most surprised person on the earth at that moment. So was Yuuta in the background. It was a chorus of "Ehhhhhhh!?"s and "Oh wow, really?"s and general disbelief. Seriously though, it wasn't like we'd given them phantom pastries--they existed. The bag was in Ryou-kun's hands. We were fifteen year old girls again, suddenly, and asking boys our age (because we discovered that they are!) to accept our feelings for them even though technically it was giri.

And then--oh. And then Ryou-kun turns around, pumps his fist in the air and yells, "WE GOT CHOCOLATE!!!!!!"

Cue a round of applause, more "Ehhhhh!?"s, every one of the staff members thanking us and the entire bar turning round to stare at the four gaijin who'd made the staff members of Daikoku pastries for Valentine's Day.

We exploded.

"I'm just gonna, uh," I said, and tried to pick up another piece of sashimi but physically just could not, "eat. Wait--I can't."

"Well, I'm gonna eat," Rachael said, but only because she couldn't bring herself to face the applause from random strangers.

"Did we just do that?" someone else said.

"Yeah. That happened."

Story of our lives. Did that just--? Yeah. It happened.

We'd also included a letter in our package that had a drawing of us and then our names because, if you can believe it, they didn't know them. We knew theirs, and their ages, and everything else about them thanks to profiles put up in the bathroom (don't ask--Owner's fault), but they didn't know anything about us.

So after the applause fiasco and outing ourselves as Those Girls, Ryou-kun came over a little later while Massiel is in the bathroom and said, all sing-song, "I know your names!"

We gave him a little test.

"Melissa-chan," he said. (I died.)

"Rachael," he continued.

"Grey-san." (Or -chan. Some suffix. We couldn't tell.)

"And...Ma-massiel?"

He struggled a little bit with hers, but got it in the end. A+, Ryou-kun!

Then Owner came over, asked us if the pastries were handmade, and blew us all kisses when we said yes. That man.

Also, Yuichi cooking at the grill, then looking up at us with the hugest grin to show off his English skills: "I love you."

We'd met him for the first time that night. Daikoku, you employ the most charming of boys.

At the end of the night, Ryou-kun showed us to the door (they always do that) and bowed a full 90 degrees to show his gratitude. We were basically humbled to the point where we were like, "NO, GET UP, THAT'S TOO DEEP A BOW, WE JUST MADE YOU CHOCOLATE, IT'S NO BIG DEAL!"

Then we asked him if we were allowed to call him Ryou-kun.

"Of course," he said, smiling. "But...how do you know our names?"

Everyone sighed.

"They're in the bathroom," I said, and he proceeded to laugh. Like he'd forgotten. I mean, I would remember if my boss posted my biography on a wall in the bathroom, but still....also, Yuuta told us everyone's name on the very first day.

"Call us all by our first names!" he said. "If you want anything, yell my name across the room!"

And then he waved us off (with a "じゃ、また!" which is how you'd say "see you next time!" to your friends) and we proceeded to run down the stairs and shriek our happiness down the sidewalks of Kanayama.

Can you blame us? (The answer, in fact, is no.)

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from this night except for when we were making the pastries, and those are relatively boring because they're just--batter and orange zest in bowls and so on. So you're free to imagine your own visuals. Just don't forget to add the sparkles.

(As a post-note: the ones who weren't working that night thanked us the next time we came. Except for one, who needed a little prodding, but that's a story not worth my writing down. Secondly, we are now on a first-name basis with all of the boys, including Owner, who especially likes to call Rachael's name from across the room. And besides that, we've established some outside-of-work communication and even plans. The Daikoku Saga continues...)