Bad Friend

3- Tokyo

"Harry? What are you doing here?"

It was four in the morning in Tokyo, and there he was, standing right in front of me at the hotel I was staying at for two weeks. Last time I saw him was at home in San Diego wanting a new tattoo. I hadn't really heard from him since, nor had I told him that I was going to be in Japan this summer.

Harry grinned and scratched the back of his neck, a little sheepish. "I, uh, I stopped by the shop, and when you weren't there, your dad told me you were here so I...I came."

"I—" I tried to speak, to find the right words to say to him, utterly dumbfounded at his confession, but none of them felt fitting, and the ones that did escaped me. He flew all the way to Japan to see me? "Is everything okay?"

Normally I didn't have to ask. Harry always claimed that tour or his bandmates were getting to be too much and he needed to get away for a few days. Once or twice he showed up on my doorstep, wherever that may be, after a breakup, but never he had never come this late.

"Yeah, I—When I heard you were here I knew I had to show you this place I'd been to on tour last year," he told me, but I wasn't so sure. Still, I didn't ask. I figured he would tell me if or when he was ready, and I wasn't one to pry.

I held the door open for him a little more so he could come in and led him to my bed so we could both sit down. Luckily my mother had booked two separate rooms for us; I don't know how she would feel about late night visitors. He sat down next to me, and maybe because it was four in the morning, but he seemed more subdued than usual. Like I said, I wasn't the type to pry or ask questions about his personal life, that wasn't really who we were to each other, but maybe that's what he needed tonight.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked him.

He looked up, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know, you just seem off," I shrugged, pulling one of my legs up underneath me on the bed. "I know we don't really...talk about that stuff, but, we can...if you, like, need to or something."

Harry was silent for a moment, playing with the rings on his fingers, something I hadn't seen on him before. I was worried that I crossed a boundary of some sort, but when he looked up at me, he looked different, like he was seeing me for the first time.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing," he startled, the look on his face now gone. "I...yes, that would be nice, actually."

So we didn't go out like we usually did. We stayed inside and talked about his breakup, one that apparently had more media attention than usual. He didn't say who it was, nor did he speak badly of his ex, he just quietly ranted to me about everyone constantly being in his business all the time.

I didn't say much as he spoke, but I figured he wasn't really looking for advice. He just needed someone to let out all his frustrations to. At some point, we went from sitting on the bed to laying side by side, then facing each other, and before I knew it, I was waking up with his arms circled around my body and his cheek pressed against my shoulder. Looking down at him, he looked more at peace than I had ever seen him. I tried to move, unfamiliar with the feelings fluttering around in my stomach, but Harry's grip tightened.

"Don't," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Don't go. Please."

There was something desperate about the way he told me not to go, something that blurred the line between friendship and more. But I snapped myself out of that notion, telling myself he just needed a friend, that he was hurting more than he probably let on, even last night. So I stayed, letting his steady breathing lull me back to sleep.

When I woke up, Harry was gone, and I wondered if he'd left Japan entirely, but there he was a few seconds later, hair damp and steam coming out of the bathroom.

"Morning," he said, no trace of the desperate boy from a few hours ago. Maybe he didn't remember, or maybe it was a dream. Or maybe he remembered, but was pretending that he didn't. Maybe I could do the same.

Harry spent the day showing me everything there was to see in Tokyo, according to him at least. And when I had to spend a few hours at the tattoo parlor my dad had set me up in while I was there, he stayed and watched, even got a tattoo or two while he was there. He wanted me to give him one, but this was one of the best places in Tokyo; I wasn't going to get in the way of some of the best tattooers around. And if I was honest, I didn't want to give him one because I felt like there was a certain level of intimacy there. Having a friend ink you permanently meant something, even if they were stupid ones that didn't have any real meaning. I had grown up learning to respect the artform that tattooing was. Maybe it didn't mean anything to Harry, or maybe it did, but I felt like we had crossed enough boundaries for one visit.

He cuddled up to me again that night, evading my mother as I snuck him in after she had gone to sleep. And when I woke up alone the next morning, I knew he was gone for good this time. Whatever secret moments we shared wasn't enough to make him stay, and I scolded my heart for thinking it would.

I told myself this was a one time thing. That Harry was in a weird place and needed comfort outside the world he currently lived in. It wasn't easy at first, but one month turned into two, and then three, and when he stopped by on Thanksgiving unannounced, I thought that I had left the feelings I felt for him in Japan. But one look at his face, and I knew it would be much harder to shake them than I originally thought.