One is Rust the Other is Gold

10: Call It What You Want

"You got involved with someone who runs drugs with the mafia??" Ms. Kujo said while holding the bridge of her nose between her fingers. "Yare yare, what am I going to do with you?"

"I didn't know he was connected to the mafia at the time," Joel protested. "But even if I did know, I'd do it again!"

Ms. Kujo sighed. "You're just like jiji, acting impulsively."

I stood awkwardly in the Kujo's expansive living room of their posh hotel room, listening to Ms. Kujo and Joel argue in the open kitchen in English. I wondered how someone with a marine biology salary could afford something like this, especially for the length of time they were staying. Koichi sat on a couch nearby looking equally awkward.

"So, I hear you speak Japanese?" Koichi asked in Japanese.

"Yes," I replied in the same language. "I'm rusty, though."

"Oh okay. Cool," Koichi nervously rocked his feet side to side.

We fell silent.

"Sorry again. About. Stealing from you," I continued the conversation, my words jilted as I wasn't used to speaking Japanese anymore. Sometimes I had to pause to remember a word.

"You said you had my passport when we last saw each other. Do you still have it?"

I nodded. "It's in my. Um. Room. I can get it for you. Later."

"Okay, thanks."

We fell silent again.

"Mom, I'm an adult now," Joel continued arguing. "You can't keep making all my choices for me! Especially after you booked flights all over the world and every time you come back you expect me to act like you haven't been gone half my life!"

"This is different," Ms. Kujo said, her voice low. "You don't know what I do. You don't know what you're getting into."

"Because you can't stop keeping secrets and treating me with kid gloves thinking I can't handle it!"

I wish I understood English better. "Do you know what they're talking about?" I asked Koichi.

He shrugged.

"Yeah, me neither."

I sat down on a long, white couch next to Koichi and rolled up the sleeves of Joel's over-sized jacket over my wrists. I pulled out my phone and tried to turn it on. It was still broken from the... event. The screen was smashed and no matter what I did, there was only a few seconds of life before it died again.

"Are you trying to reach your friends?" Koichi asked, pulling out his own phone and offering it to me. "You can use my phone to call them if you'd like."

His expression wasn't exactly friendly, but it wasn't hostile, either. It was cautious. Looking at him, especially this close, made me feel that pang of guilt again. I assumed Koichi to be naive or a doormat when I first met him, but after observing him today, I could see firm intelligence in his eyes. He wasn't a pushover, but he was kind. He'd done nothing to me, and I made his first day in Italy terrible. My instincts told me I could relax a little around him, but I kept my guard up.

I shook my head. "No, it's okay. Thank you, though." I pulled Joel's jacket tighter around me.

Koichi shrugged and put his phone away.

Joel marched into the living room, still shooting at his mother in English, who shot back from the kitchen. He grabbed my arm and tugged me to my feet.

"Come on, Giorno, let's go!" Joel said, finally in Italian.