He was the sunshine that woke you in the morning. The joy that motivated you. The wisdom that guided you. The loyalty that protected you. He was everything you ever wanted.
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Joji held my hand, dragging me away from that nightmare that I called a school.
"I have other classes today..." I mumbled as I followed suit.
"It's cool, you probably had perfect attendance until now, right?"
How did he know...
"Um... yeah?"
He chuckled. "I remember my freshman year of college. I'm a train wreck now though."
"You're still in college?" I asked.
He nodded. "It's my last year though. Can't wait to get this over with and move on."
I nodded and kept quiet for a while. I couldn't help but feel anxious about this whole thing, but this guy was hot and I haven't done anything risky in my life yet so why not give this a shot?
"Um... so where are we going?"
"I dunno. I figured we could just walk around until I figure something out," he said as we walked downtown on Broadway.
He's a real charmer.
"I'm skipping school for this."
"Correction, a strange man has convinced you to going on a date and you didn't even realize it until he told you."
Somehow he managed to give me a genuine smile that was also a shit- eating one. I mean, who actually is this man!?
"You're lucky you're cute." I mumbled.
"You know, I get that a lot, and then some, but I don't really see it. I just kinda go with it."
"So you lure them in with the fake self- confidence and then cuff them with honesty. That's honestly a good strategy."
"Heh, so you consider yourself cuffed now?" He smirked.
"Ah, I didn't mean it like that... I-I mean I'm more interested now..." I stammered.
"Right, okay..."
I didn't realize that we had already walked 5 blocks downtown. Bearing in mind that "5 blocks" in NYC equals like 10 to 15 small town blocks. I never really understood why each block in Manhattan was about the size of 3 in my hometown, give or take for each block. It never made sense, but then again, this city never did to me.
"Huh, we got here fast..." I said as we crossed W 132nd street.
"You must've been pretty immersed in our little conversation then," Joji replied, grinning.
"You're an interesting guy, I'll give you that. But do you have any clue where you're taking me?"
"I have an idea now... but you'll have to wait and see..." He hummed in delight.
After block after block of me asking things and him telling, or not telling, me the answers, we reached W 125th street. After a few more blocks, we stopped walking.
"So uh... what?" I said, waiting.
Joji nodded to the building in front of us.
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I shrieked. "THE APOLLO THEATER!? IT'S HERE!? WHY IS IT SO DISCREET!? IS THERE A GAMESTOP NEXT TO IT!?"
He chuckled at me blatantly sounding like a non-New Yorker. Which I wasn't. "You'll find that a lot of 'key places' here are either huge or discreet as fuck. Like how Madison Square Garden is connected to Penn Station."
"It is? Why!?"
"No idea. This place doesn't make sense but I'm used to it, so I don't ask anymore."
To think that the Apollo Theater was a mere 12 blocks away from my school... amazing... After taking a few pictures of the star plates that were on the sidewalk in front of it, and deeply admiring the Stevie Wonder one... maybe a little too much... we kept walking, making a U-turn until we hit Broadway again and made our way downtown (pun intended).
We did a lot of walking, and by the time we hit 96th street, my backpack had become too heavy for my back. Joji took the liberty of holding it for me.
"That should've been the first thing I did," he remarked as he literally lifted the weight off my back.
"It's alright. Hey, don't you have a car?"
"I do. But two things: 1- I live in Brooklyn. 2- This is Manhattan. The city never sleeps, and the traffic doesn't either. Driving is a nightmare. Most people who live here don't have cars."
"I see... is that why public transportation is so heavily relied on here?"
"That's exactly why."
I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty glad I decided to skip class today. I'm learning a lot about the city I now call home. Maybe now when I get to school I'll be less likely to get lost... and I'll know some cool hangout spots too.
