Come on, Toshi!

Nobody could stop laughing at Yohei's blunder. What kind of preposterously rude person takes a swig from the teacher's bottle of tea in front of the entire class? It was clearly mine, in its usual position to the right of my clipboard. Yohei fumbled for a hundred yen coin, saying he'd get me another one, but hey don't worry, Yohei, I crooned, we can share it! (Neither of us took another germy sip; his boy germs and my girl germs were probably already making new baby germs.) He wrote down the Unit 5 homework, left the classroom bowing apologies while I brushed them away, and Aki entered. Aki, you're not wearing your glasses today! It's like a whole new you! Nice to meet you, too, New Aki! And then class started and then class was finished and New Aki was standing up, and can you guess what he was doing? He was casually sipping from my bottle of green tea. Barely able to contain my amusement at this dazzling coincidence, I approached him delicately and shared the joke with him. He erupted in embarrassment, started speaking Japanese, and spilled the beverage all over his T-shirt, which read "Come on people! Don't hold back!"

Later that night, Aki impressed me further at the school party, where he candidly told me about his desire to quit his job at IBM while slowly devouring a cheeseburger (someone cleverly brought McDonald's to the potluck). He was there with two friends who he called his "24 hour party people," and they backed up every word of his story. Yeah, Aki hates his job. It's not where his heart is. And they patted Aki's chest, where his heart actually was, if memory serves. I excused myself to the ladies' room, where my wine-lipped coworker Francesca began divulging her Secrets of Teaching Businessmen. You have to let them know who is boss. Don't let them stand too close to you. If they cross a line, notify their wives. I don't know what kind of businessmen she has been working with. Mine are all more like Aki.

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