Shonen to Seinen
written by: Ben Branscombe
The lights flickered like tiny fireflies, dancing across a dead night sky. Pulsating blue turned to red and then to green before returning to its original crimson hue. The patterns and shapes they formed on the ceiling almost resembled a painting of a Sakura. The heavy noise of a hard bass stomping at the floor so viciously the vibrations were almost like experiencing a mini earthquake. A droning underlying symphony of faceless voices that littered and conglomerated like bees hovering over fresh and fertile flowers. Oh yeah. This was a club.
Not a particularly charming or even medium end club. In fact, if it wasn’t for the neon sign outside the narrow street, one would never find such a place. The club was named The Camp and it was on the lower floor of a seedy and almost run-down-looking building in which the only way to reach it was through an elevator to B2. I usually wouldn’t even bother clubbing, but for just one night, whilst scouring down Nicho, I thought why not.
It was the first day the cherry blossoms were expected to bloom, but I was too lost in my own internal maze that I barely even acknowledged the outside world. Didn’t even stop to look upon the pink petals glistening against the pitch-black night. Shinjuku can be such a different place when night falls. I often like to get lost in the crowd when my own mind is like a sailor without a compass. I felt both connected yet distant. Losing one’s face in a plethora of a million other faceless petals on the black bough. That disconnect, can be a very alleviating feeling.
Even the usual men that try to converse with me in a desperate attempt to entice me to one of their sleazy clubs I didn’t even notice. It was as if my body had been left on autopilot, the only objective was just to continue walking whilst the mind would wander through the endless and crowded streets of the imaginative kind. When I finally took back control of my own body after a long absence I was faced with The Camp, just staring directly at me. As though being called upon by destiny I decided to unashamedly sign myself up for the night.
After paying both my entrance fee and the drink tab I ventured deeper within the confines of the club. It was dark, dingy with a very distinct smell of cigarette smoke, emanating from the tables surrounding the large dance floor in the centre that mixed with the heavenly scent of a lavender fragrance protruding from the incense box that sat next to the filled black ash tray. Each table was like its own small island, isolated like Japan and Britain to many of its other neighbours. The large, squared dancefloor was a polished bright wooden floor that only narrowed towards the bar at the far end of the room. It was only one floor with the toilets next to the bar. The music playing, I could tell was Signal by f(x). The dance floor, whilst not full did hold a substantial number of dancers, usually older women dancing, with various onlookers in the form of old men sitting, smoking and admiring the dancers from afar. It was only 12am, so still quite young into the night.
I managed to squeeze my way to the bar through the narrow corridor of sweat soaked bodies with one particular older woman having her eyes seemingly glued to my bottom whilst never once relieving the bright smile that exposed her slightly coloured teeth. I returned her warm gesture with one of my own before returning to the mission at hand. I ordered my usual drink for a night like this, a Jack Daniels and coke. I grabbed my fingers around the cold fresh drink before allowing a few droplets to sprinkle their way down to my liver. The refreshing taste of alcohol covered by the sweetness of the coke offered a faint glimmer of rejuvenation to my slumped and corpse like body, hunched over as though about to face slam on the bar. I looked over to find the older woman, once again looking at my direction. She turned to her equally wrinkly old friend beside her who at that moment, began to look towards me before smiling and giggling to her fellow compatriot. Perhaps she is wondering what a gaijin is doing in such a locally dominated location or maybe she was considering getting a cute young exotic lover. Either way, I wasn’t interested.
My body was too heavy to lift itself above the hard surface. Beaten down by a whip of sorrows from the day. I could feel each issue chained to my flesh, weighing me down as though a ship anchored in the endless blue sea. I had this game of self-torture I often played with myself. It was something to shame myself with constantly whenever the possibility of embarrassment rears its beautiful head, I am often so encapsulated by the allure that I lustfully embrace him in my arms, letting him whisper all the sour things into my ear, reminding me as though a dominatrix of all the horrible ingredients that make up my body and mind. These were often met with anything from slight body jolts to full blown hand in head as I reflect on my past.
Whilst I was only at the mere muscle jolt levels, I could feel that with a few more whispers, my head would leap into my palms in a heartbeat. I had to silence my brain. So, I ordered another drink. Drown his whispers by submerging myself deeper and deeper within the depths of alcohol. By the time I had thrown 3 wet oceans of JD and Coke down to further exacerbate my liver’s slow rotting, I felt my drunkenness cloud my negative emotions festering within me. The older woman by this point had long since gone with her friend.
I was just now staring at a void of blank bodies with no faces, bounding up and down to the rhythm of the synthetic beat like soldiers marching to the beat of the drum. The old men littered around the tables like vultures, spying for that one lone prey they can begin to peck at until they reach their bare-naked innards. The dance floor now filled to the brim with those who had just escaped with age of shonen and bishonen and were now all in the comfort of wearing their Mishima like masks on the dance floor. The music often switched between standard K-pop groups like BTS (Dynamite) and Blackpink’s Lovesick girls to top 40 western hits like Ariana Grande and Cardi B. Despite knowing the Kpop song (most of which I confess to being fond of) and most of the western ones (most I confess, I am not fond of) my body was still tied to the chains that I could barely lift myself up from my stool.
I watched the dancers, the couples, romancing, so naturally. Oh, so natural. As though they were the elegant swans, having just risen from the foul clutches of adolescents to spread their beautiful wings and wrap them around those they seek to intertwine with. One swan had his big, strong, and muscular arms gently wrapped around the small and fragile frame of his dance partner whilst both staring directly and tentatively into each other’s eyes so endearingly, that if one were to ask one of them to describe down to a T, the shape, colour, texture, tone and any other tiny detail of their partner’s eye balls, they could accurately write it down with the exact attention to detail only an author could dream of attaining.
I stopped staring as flashes began to appear. I remembered their eyes. Brown with a slight grey tint to the left side next to their black pupil. Any light would often illuminate this tiny tint making it sparkle and dazzle under the sun. Cracking through the pure white background of the pupils were the tiny red lines from all the work they had done throughout the day. They often stayed up all night working. Just so they could spend more time with me during the day. As I watch this couple, I’m reminded of those eyes. The eyes with the grey tint and the red rivers leading towards the centre of the black sink hole. I didn’t notice my eyes watering, till I could feel a wet dropping oozing drooling down the left side of my face. I wiped the tear away and held back any others from breaching through. It was as if I could remember a dandelion that I had long since blown it’s white snowy covers off. Watching as the wind carried it further and further away.
I guess ever since arriving I’ve been holding in the dam behind my pupils. Today was the day I finally unpacked most of my things in my new apartment in Tama. It was small, cramped and a very typical Tokyo shoe size apartment, with only an electric stove area for cooking and a narrow metal ladder to guide one up to the top of the bunk bed just above the sofa next to the balcony. I had both welcomed this new change, but it was only after unpacking everything and standing out of the balcony overlooking the quiet and dead night street with only the towering streetlights to offer me company that it all sunk in. The green shrubs surrounded the quiet road that had no life walking or driving. The dead silence reduced me to tears. I cried and cried and cried. I knew why, but I tried to convince myself that I didn’t. My weeps were without noise, but they drenched my face. The silence was usually welcoming for me, offering me comfort in times of heavy unfiltered noise but now I was left feeling alone, and utterly devoid of the life I had so vigorously tried to escape from. I had left everyone behind for my dream of living abroad. Yet it all felt like this spectacular orchestra that was my exciting future was put on mute.
I hadn’t received word from my family, though I didn’t expect to. For they have their own lives and are not so bothered about me for as long as I had finally moved out. Their little angel, finally taking on the big scary world. They’d tell anyone ever since he got watching those Godzilla films and reading Confessions of a Mask he had been obsessed with living in Japan. I guess part of that is true. But I always remembered hearing that watching the cherry blossoms bloom was the most serene and peaceful experience one could have. Peace, tranquillity, escaping from one’s own problems. As though a Sakura, caring little of the wind that constantly pushes it around. Free. Independence. My, what a terrifying concept.
I had no chance of hearing anything from those whose’s eyes I had once been so hypnotised by. I understood why. I had hoped they had understood. But dreams come at a cost. I don’t even know what I had planned to get out of this. I just knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass on. Or maybe, it was just a life I thought I wanted to escape from. A life of madness and chaos, uncertainty and eventually misery. The future was very much the same as the present in a small coastal town. No difference between young and old besides the look of wrinkles on the face. My ambition was like the pretty Sakura in a field. It would be the first to be plucked out. You disintegrate yourself with vice like everyone else. Or you take a risk and let yourself be plucked to be sold to some foreign owners. I chose a foreign owner. Yet I never realised how much complacency would hurt to tear out.
After I told them, that was the last I heard from them. My family, and my lover. I was hoping they along with my family would come to say one last goodbye at the airport. Just so I could look into those eyes one last time. But that was a vacant hope. I took the plunge into a new career, with only my two feet for company.
My job, a meek translating job that whilst supplied me with everything I needed to move in, I knew would be heavily demanding. I start my first day in less than 48 hours. A 9 to 5 office job, depending on when my new boss decides to leave, or have a drink. I hadn’t seen my new office cell yet, though I expect to on my first day. I can imagine the generic grey confided wall room sitting at a computer desk, slaving away the hours till the end of the month’s pay check. Save that up until, well I don’t even know. Perhaps I’ll be there till I’m 80. Maybe till I die of being overworked. I don’t know. I’m working in my dream country I keep telling myself. That’ll be my motivation throughout everything. I’m in Japan.
The night before, I had a dream that I was running away from something. It was a mist with darkness at the centre of the fog that was encompassing the dark forest I had found myself in. But I couldn’t run fast at all. It was as if I was running in slow motion. I tried my very best to escape the dark fog. Running with every force in my body. I can’t even remember whether I managed to escape the fog, or whether my efforts were all in vain. I just remember waking up, then the tears abseiled down my face as though rain was dripping from the ceiling. The salt from my tears penetrated through my lips, reminding me of my weakness.
The cold wind of the night was an allure. It called out to me whilst I had the window open. Though it was only until today that I finally answered the foreign lovers call and ventured out. I don’t know what had driven me to go to Shinjuku, but it was for whatever compulsion I did that left me stranded in the dense fog of people. All looking at me like the ocean feels towards a campfire on its surface. A thousand stares and a thousand glances more. A thousand “oh look a Gaijin” and many other comments made (a big regret in learning Japanese). This only made me retreat further into myself as I found my breathing becoming ever more erratic. The noise, the once familiar noise of the city seemed so alien now. The lights and the mysticism of the land of the rising sun that made it so attractive had removed all their make up and left me with the shrewd and decrepit old man behind the beautiful kabuki actor.
Retreating further in did nothing to solve my issues, as I was only faced with the pictures and memories of the life I had left behind. It was staring at me, right in the face. The smiles, the laughter I once enjoyed, all mocked me now. I couldn’t think of the happy times I spent with them on the beach, the sunshine making their beautiful grey tint so intoxicating a sight for my own heart. The intoxicating sight reminded me of the pain that comes with knowing I will never have that moment again. With each memory I tried to skip, another is immediately played as though a playlist on shuffle that only plays your most hated tracks. It wasn’t until I reached the destination at which our story begun that I was finally released from the R’lyeh and granted the precious air of distraction a blind club night might hold. But here I was, trying my hardest not to cry from the constant reminders I thought the high energy music might erase. Perhaps I was wrong to have even bothered coming here.
The drinking I thought would help, but it only made the voices inside my head heavily intoxicated and louder than usual, seeking further humiliation for all my failures and the future failures to come. The dead-end job, the loneliness, the separation, and the alienation. All erupting inside me humungous roars of laughter as though a comedian slaying it at a gig. As I took my final sips from my 8th JD and Coke, I had thought that nothing would happen tonight, and it was best to just leave. It was a pointless endeavour to try and come here anyway I thought.
It was only after I got up to leave that I heard from the speakers, a faint intro that soon sparked a recognition I had long since subdued long enough to think it impossible to feel. Through the speakers I heard the beat to Dearest by Ayu. It was a personal favourite of mine at one point when I was first exposing myself to Japanese culture. So, hearing it over the booming loudspeakers did spark that instant nostalgic throwback that I had for the longest time today held nothing but contempt for. But this time it was different. I tried not to associate it with any memory but with the joys it delivered like a main course to me. I ate it all up before, whether drunk from the alcohol or from the song, I made my way to the middle of the dance floor. There, standing under the neon flashing lights that shot like guns in the forest of Okinawa, I closed my eyes and allowed my body to be taken like the rock in the river by the music. I danced and danced, not letting any other thought into my mind besides the music and the rhythm. As though I was in a deep meditation, I was in a zen like trance. No shame, self-disgust or even a reminder could dare try and filter their way into my brain. I built the barrier and kept them all out. Just for these few moments. Just for this one night. I wanted to have just this one night where my mind could be empty. One night where I could be just a body in the grips of a fun composition. I didn’t even notice when Dearest had ended and when Automatic by Utada Hikaru began, but that wasn’t for me to decide anymore. I was the Sakura blooming under the neon sun, and I just danced and danced till the club began to close.
- Shonen to Seinen - June 19, 2023
