1 Chapter 1

The flight attendant brings the third glass of champagne I asked for. I immediately take a greedy gulp drinking half of it. I need to keep my nerves in check. This third glass has done the trick. I feel more relaxed now. I sink in my comfortable first class seat and watch the pure clouds outside. It has been thirteen years now. I wonder if Tokyo has changed.

Tokyo, huh. My mind starts wandering back through the alleys of the past.

I blame the champagne.

Memories flash in front of me like a roll of film. Some happy, but others painful. I close my eyes and see Kei's face. His beautiful green eyes. I can't help but sigh.

Kei... my first love.

I remember when I was about five. I was sick of playing with my older brother and his friends. They used to always leave me behind. Tom hated me for following him. He used to complain to mom and dad all the time. He was ten at the time and too cool to hang out with his little sister.

My younger brother, Daniel, was only three. So when I was with him, it was more watching than playing. I felt so lonely. There was not even one kid my age in the neighborhood. So I kept on running after Tom and his friends.

Until, a family moved into the house next to ours. The Ichihara family. A few days after they did, my mom took me along when she brought an apple pie over to their house. It was a 'welcome to the neighborhood' gesture. The blond woman welcomed us and invited us in. I remember there were a few boxes still laying around. We sat on one of the green couches in the living room and our new neighbor smiled at me sweetly.

The woman, Amanda, was really pretty I thought. She had long thick locks of blond falling on her shoulders. Her eyes were green and very beautiful. I remember I thought they looked like my mom's emerald earrings.

"I was just making some tea, so your timing is perfect." Mrs. Ichihara said as both her and my mom giggled. She disappeared to the kitchen for about three minutes and came back with a tray of tea and some plates for the pie.

"Kei, come say hi." The woman called as she poured tea.

A shy little boy showed up from behind the dining table. He was hiding there the whole time.

"Hi Kei." My mom greeted. "Sam, do you want to go say hi?"

"Yes." I replied already walking towards the boy.

As I got closer to him, I noticed he had his mom's eye color. The shape was different though. I remember I looked at his eyes for a long time. I also found out that he got that beautiful shape from his father, Mr. Kenji Ichihara, who was originally from Japan.

"Hi, my name is Samantha. And you?"

"Kei." He replied shyly.

"How old are you?"

"I am five years old."

"Me too." I yelled. I think I even ran to my mom telling her that we were the same age.

Kei also had a younger brother. Like Daniel, he was also three, but he was sleeping the whole time we were there. I played with my new friend for a couple of hours as our moms enjoyed their tea and conversation.

It was my first encounter with Kei Ichihara, but far from the last.

That summer, we played together every day. We celebrated Kei's birthday in July, and then mine in August. And a few weeks after that, we started school together.

When our moms dropped us off in school on the first day, Kei was crying while clenching Mrs. Ichihara's skirt. I walked to him and took his hand.

"I'm with you, don't cry." I whispered in his ear and gave him a hug.

Ahh, kids.

He immediately stopped and we enjoyed our first day in school a lot.

A few weeks later, some kids in school were making fun of Kei. It made me so angry I beat them all up. In my head, he had a beautiful and fragile body that needed protecting. So, when I saw his pure white skin tainted with bruises, I went crazy.

Did I mention that I was a tomboy? Moreover, I was taller than most of the kids in my class. After that incident, everyone was scared of me. And those losers never bothered Kei again.

Kei and I were inseparable, especially that our parents became really good friends. We even went camping all together a few times.

When Daniel and Jiro - Kei's brother - were about six, they started following us everywhere we went. But we always managed to lose them. I finally understood what Tom had been so mad about a few years back. We didn't want to play with them. We were older and didn't enjoy the same games. So we just ran away and hid from them. Sometimes we pretended to go outside so that they would follow us, but we would sneak back in and play video games in Kei's room or mine.

Kei wasn't shy anymore. He was also very smart. He became very popular at school. Especially with the girls. Everyone wanted to work with him on projects, but he always chose me. It always made me extremely happy when I heard him say: "I am working with Sam." I felt I was above all the other girls.

This made all the girls in class hate me. It also didn't help my status of tomboy since I didn't have a single female friend.

My dream of being attached to Kei all the time was shattered when, one day, the teacher decided to choose the pairs for a project herself. I was sure it was Sandy Reynolds who complained that Kei and I always worked together. To top it all, Miss Peters paired them together; Kei and Sandy.

This was the first feeling of jealousy I had known. It was awful. I hated every minute Kei spent with that witch. I didn't concentrate on my project at all. I was watching them the whole time. And when I glimpsed a shadow of a smile on Kei's face, I felt so betrayed.

The feeling was so intense, I wanted to make Sandy Reynolds disappear. Instead, I glued all the pages of all her books and notebooks together. I felt such triumph when she opened her locker the next day. I laughed about it in secret for days. Thankfully, nobody found out it was me. I would have gotten in so much trouble.

I was also mad at Kei. I didn't talk to him for a week. I even ignored him on our rides to school.

"Are you guys fighting?" My mom asked us one morning.

"She is mad at me Mrs. Martin." Kei answered.

"Why is that?" My mom added with amused eyes.

"Well, the teac..." I covered his mouth with my left hand. I was so embarrassed I felt heat on my face. I didn't want my mom to know. Even at that age, I knew my odd behavior was because I liked Kei.

"Well you guys better make up soon, Jiro's birthday is coming up. He would be very sad if you are still fighting on his birthday."

I let go of Kei and sat back silently.

Two days after the conversation in the car, Kei came to my house with a big bag of candy and a new video game. I opened the door but when I saw it was him, I took a few steps to go back in the house.

"Sam, I'm sorry." His soft voice made me stop. "I know you don't like Sandy, but I had no choice." I didn't react. "I bought a new game for you and I brought you candy, would you forgive me now?" I stared at his hands for a moment.

"Which game is it?" I asked trying to keep my voice nonchalant.

"The Need For Speed."

"Oh my God, I heard it was amazing!" My excitement made Kei smile, and that was the end of our first fight ever. If you can call it a fight. It was just me being a spoiled brat.

We played for a long time that night. I loved the game he gave me. We also had so much candy that my parents had to take the bag away at eleven at night because we were too hyper.

Kei also told me that night that he knew it was me who glued Sandy's books.

"How did you know?"

"I saw your shoulders shaking, you were laughing while she was screaming in the middle of the hallway."

"You didn't say anything." I said, not as a question but as a fact.

"Of course not."

We looked at each other, and we bursted out laughing. We laughed so hard, we were holding our stomachs and wiping our tears before my dad walked in and told us to go to bed.

Another memory pops into my head.

In fifth grade, on school photo day, my mom made me wear a dress for the first time. She even did my hair before school. I thought I looked like an alien in that eggplant velvet thing. I was so mad at my mom, I considered plucking out the satin ribbon. But I didn't.

I was so shy getting in the car that morning. After dealing with Daniel's comment about me being ugly and a girl, I turned to look at Kei. I waited for a comment from him. I hoped for a compliment. But nothing came out of his mouth. It was his mom who broke the silence.

"You look really pretty Sam."

"Thank you Mrs. Ichihara." I murmured.

The whole ride to school, Kei was looking out the window. Never once did he look at me, which was really irritating. Then, I noticed that he was a little dressed up too. He was wearing khaki corduroy pants, a green sweater, and a black wool open sweater vest.

Maybe he was a little embarrassed about the outfit that his mom obviously chose for him. Or maybe he was mad about it, like me. I smiled and looked out my window.

Suddenly, Kei turned his face to me and leaned closer.

"You look like a girl." He whispered. His comment got a totally different reaction from me than Daniel's did. A huge smile drew itself on my face.

"You look nice too." I teased.

"Shut up." He turned his face away again.

When Kei and I walked into our classroom, I couldn't believe my eyes. Sandy Reynolds was wearing the exact same dress as me.

Of course, it had to be her.

Her face went pale at the sight of me, and I have no idea how my face looked like. All I know is that Kei had to pull me out of the way when other students were coming in.

During recess, Sandy walked to me with three other girls. I think she was scared to come at me alone. I was alone too, Kei had just gone to the bathroom a few seconds before.

"What are we going to do about this dress situation?" She asked me wearing an innocent look on her face.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I am not going to take my fifth grade picture wearing the same dress as Samantha Martin." She uttered while rolling her eyes.

"Well then call your mom and ask her to bring you another dress." I said with a mocking tone.

"I don't think so. You are the one who is going to change." She almost yelled.

I saw fire on her eyes. I should have anticipated what came next. One of the girls, who was hiding her hands behind her back the whole time, gave Sandy one of those Handi-Snacks packs. She took a handful of cheese and smudged it on my dress from my shoulder all the way to my belly. I was so shocked I froze.

All four girls started laughing. Their faces were mean and ugly. I could take all four of them down, beat them up and there wouldn't be a picture day for any of them. But something more urgent had to be done about the dress. Without saying a word, I ran to the bathroom. I tried to clean it, but the yellow cheese was deep into the fabric. My eyes watered and I felt really bad. My mom had made such an effort to dress me this morning, and now it's all ruined. I was so sad I wept. Then, I washed my face and left the bathroom.

"Did you cry?" I turned around and found that Kei was waiting for me. I didn't answer his question. "Come on, they already started with the photos." He pulled me by the hand but I freed it right away.

"I am not going." I told him. He stared at me for a while then he took off his vest and placed it on my shoulders.

"Wear this, it'll hide the stain. Now come on."

I put on Kei's black sweater vest. It was perfect. I felt saved that day.

I did get in trouble at home that evening, though. My mom didn't believe that I wasn't the one to ruin my dress. She thought I did it on purpose because I hated it so much. When I told her to ask Kei, she finally calmed down. I apologized and went straight to my room.

A few weeks later, I was at Kei's house on a Saturday afternoon. We were playing video games in his room as usual when we heard shouting coming from down stairs. I had never heard Kei's parents argue before. That was the first time. They looked like a happy couple who never fought. Kei opened the door and tried to listen, but when he couldn't decipher a thing, he closed the door again and crashed on his bed.

"This is the third time this week. I have no idea what's going on with them." Kei's voice was full of worry.

I wanted to reassure him, but the arguing was so unnatural in the Ichihara household that I had no idea what to say to him.

"I hope they're not divorcing."

"What are you saying Kei? Are you crazy? That is never happening." My words comforted even me.

The next morning, Kei showed up at my house at eight. It was really early for a Sunday morning. When I opened the front door, I was surprised by his pale face.

"Let's run away." He asked me with serious eyes.

"What? Are you sleepwalking?"

"I'm dead serious Sam. My parents told me yesterday that we are moving to Japan."

Every word he uttered punched me in the face.

"Wait, what? What are you talking about?" I was so confused my mind couldn't understand what he was saying.

"They want to leave in two weeks." He added.

"What about school?" I slowly took a few steps and sat down on the stairs. Kei sat next to me.

"I'm transferring to a school in Tokyo."

"Why so sudden, though?" I was beyond lost.

"It's because of my dad's family. They want him to inherit their theater or something like that."

I was silent for a moment.

Japan, huh. It is so far away. Would he ever come visit? Could I go visit?

All I could think of was that I wasn't going to see Kei anymore. I felt my tears gathering in the back of my eyes.

Kei took my hands in his and squeezed them.

"Come on, let's run away. I don't want to go to Japan."

"Don't be stupid Kei." I yelled angrily. I didn't know what I was angry about.

All I knew was that Kei was leaving.