You know the old saying fake it til you make it? Well my best friend took that a little too seriously. Caitlyn came up with a crazy scheme to help me finally get the guy I had been crushing on for three years. Her plan was a little unorthodox to say...
As we made our way to the bottom of the stairs, Takashi stopped and turned to face me, saying, "Before we go in there, I should probably warn you that my father is going to ask you a lot of questions. He likes to interrogate new people. Oh, and in our culture, people don't smile that much, so don't assume they don't like you just because they don't smile. Sometimes that throws my friends off when they come over here for the first time," he laughed.
"Oh, okay," I said hesitantly, taking a deep breath in and letting it out, feeling my social anxiety starting to kick in.
Takashi could obviously tell I was nervous because he gave me a weak smile and said, "Don't worry. You'll do fine Sydney. It's just dinner. C'mon."
Then he turned and kept walking and I followed after him, going down a hallway and then into a large narrow room with a high ceiling.
Their dining room set up was like nothing I had ever seen before. The table had very short legs and it was positioned directly over a hole in the floor. The chairs around it had no legs at all. They sat directly on the floor. I watched as Takashi's family took a seat and put their legs and feet inside the hole under the table as they sat down.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I did the same, sitting down next to Takashi, across from a young woman that I assumed was his sister. She had blue in her hair and heavy makeup, but she was really beautiful.
The girl looked over at me and narrowed her eyes, scrunching up her nose when she saw me looking at her. Then she turned back to her parents and asked, "Why is Takashi allowed to date and I'm not?! I'm twenty freakin' years old!"
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Their Mom scolded her, saying, "Akari, is that any way to greet our guest?"
Takashi scoffed and said, "You're getting yourself all worked up over nothing. We're not dating. She's just my lab partner. She came over to work on homework and Mom invited her to stay for dinner."
Her face softened when she heard that.
That's when his Grandma came out of the kitchen and handed everyone a hot towel and I looked around and noticed everyone wiping their hands on theirs, so I did the same.
