When with family, fallouts are bound to happen.
Things were pretty smooth when it was just me and mom. I’m not complaining about the others being here, I’m really not. But it’s just a fact that keeping everyone happy at once becomes infinitely harder when we’re all together. And today, I happened to be the unhappy one.
Onkar had stayed over last night, and mom had been telling me all day yesterday to accompany him back to his hotel in the morning, so he wouldn’t be lonely.
Now, I’m fairly certain that he wouldn’t actually be lonely — I’ve travelled solo more times than I can count, and even just judging by this trip, getting some time to yourself amidst family is actually refreshing. But fact (slash: my opinion) was one thing, and mom’s was another. And if not for Onkar’s sake, I at least knew that me keeping my brother company in the morning would make her significantly happier.
I wouldn’t have planned it myself, but I had no reason to say no. So I agreed and made plans around it — like getting a few hours of work done from his hotel lobby while he got on with his day. He’d been excited to show us where he was staying, and I’d be the first of the family to go see.
I woke up and got ready earlier than I usually would, skipping a work session last night to ensure I got enough sleep and didn’t oversleep the morning plan (after countless reminders from mom). Onkar’s sleep schedule is like an old man’s these days — he passes out before midnight and wakes up without an alarm at 6am. Most mornings that he stays over, we hear him say “Alright, I’m off to the hotel now” before any of us have even sat up. But he’d had a bit of a cold last night, took an anti-allergy tablet, and ended up sleeping in until 9 or 10. We all woke up around the same time.
I got ready to leave. But when I suggested we head out, Onkar kept stalling — said he had to do something else, then picked up a book to read (which was very non-urgent). I was patient for a while, but I’d sacrificed a night of work in expectation of a productive morning, and now I was stuck doing nothing instead. I was irritated. Mom, meanwhile, was entertaining his evasiveness.
I told them I’d head out to a café on the way to the station to work, and that Onkar could pick me up when he was finally ready. He said he’d ‘think about it.’
There’s some more context needed for this next part. He’s been trying to take us to this fancy restaurant called Mushroom — if the name wasn’t clue enough, they specialise in mushroom-based dishes. More specifically, he wants to treat us to an eight-course mushroom-based dinner. I despise mushrooms. I can handle the taste in soups and the like, but the texture? Yuck. If he’s going to spend ¥8000 per person, I told him I’d rather not come than be gustatorily tortured. He could give my share to charity or something and it’d be a much better use of money.
He now played the Mushroom card. He said I could choose: either I go with him to Odaiba now, or he cancels the Mushroom reservation — something I’d been practically begging him to do for days. The fact that he was even considering canceling was a rare opportunity — something I knew better than to give up or attempt bargaining. I wasn’t about to waste it. I chose no Odaiba, and walked out.
I worked from a Starbucks all morning. Not long in, mom called — not Onkar — to say that he’d left and that he’d apparently said I could still catch the next train with him if I wanted to join. I was (a) too mad at both of them and (b) not entirely sure whether doing so would void the Mushroom deal, so I declined.
I hadn’t gone out of my way for Onkar, really — it was for mom, because she was worried about him being alone. And when he decided to throw a tantrum and sabotage her plan, she didn’t step in. She took my time for granted. And it wasn’t just this one incident in isolation, it’s a pattern — Onkar is constantly put up on a pedestal in her eyes, and I’m the one expected to adjust around him, keep peace, keep up.
I don’t blame Onkar for much of it — he isn’t mean towards me usually, and I would’ve expected him to say no anyways if mom hadn’t made the plan in the first place. But it was mom who sold the plan to me in the first place, and then didn’t hold him accountable when he changed his mind last-minute.
There wasn’t even a bigger reason than Onkar just not feeling like it. She should have enforced it. He hadn’t rebelled against the idea yesterday when she brought it up, else I would’ve just worked at night.
Anyway, I told mom as politely as I could that no, I wouldn’t be joining him at the station (with no communication from him about it directly, mind you).
An hour or so later, she phoned again to say she, Dad, and Bua were heading out for the day and asked if I wanted to come. I told them to go ahead. I wasn’t furious, just tired of everything — and knew I needed space to cool off, rather than make things worse by sulking through their plans.
After a couple more hours of work, I decided to visit Harajuku. I’d been there briefly when Mama & co. were in town, but I’d only got a passing glance at Takeshita Street, a trendy shopping street. Mom and Eva had explored it properly and they loved it, and Dad and Bua gushed about it when they went too. I definitely wanted to go back, and I figured it would make a nice study break.
I shopped for a few things I’d been meaning to buy, window-gazed at the animals in pet cafés (spotted a pig café and a man holding an otter outside an otter café — Japan, never change), and it turned into a surprisingly good solo date.
Later in the evening, the plan was for us all to stay the night at Onkar’s hotel. Mom asked if they should meet me where I was, but I told her I’d go directly to Odaiba. I ended up arriving 15 minutes early. They planned to check out the nearby artificial beach during the last bit of daylight anyway, but Mom and I had already been there on a prior visit, so I went exploring in a nearby mall instead of waiting to join them.
An hour or so later, mom called to say they’d finished at the beach and were meeting Onkar in 10 minutes, asking me to come join. They were at another mall, 10 minutes from where I was at the time so it would work out perfectly. I agreed and headed towards them.
A couple of minutes before I reached, they texted that they’d met Onkar. I asked where exactly I should meet them — it was a massive mall, after all. For the next 10 minutes I heard nothing back.
I didn’t feel the slightest urge to chase them down, and sat enjoying a balcony view of the bay, a lit up bridge over the river, a giant Christmas tree and the mall itself all illuminated. I video called a friend in London because it reminded me of Christmas season there. I knew the parents would be a while — they’d just met Onkar after all, duh. And it was indeed another ten minutes before they thought to ask me where I was and finally told me their exact location in the mall.
Again, I didn’t want to cause any drama so I cooperated. I wasn’t overly cheery because I just wasn’t feeling it. But I didn’t want to intentionally ruin everyone else’s mood. So when they suggested sitting in the food court instead of Taco Bell where I was thinking, I went ahead and got myself a seat first.
Later, we watched the Gundam statue’s light show. Onkar handed us his hotel key and left to meet his friends, saying he’d be back by 11 and explaining how to sneak into the room without raising suspicion (‘just act confident,’ he said).
We took a train one stop to the hotel, and by then Dad had — of course — Googled the rules around hotel guests in Japan. Unsurprisingly, we were legally only allowed into the lobby. To further solidify his case, the hotel’s own website FAQ explicitly stated that guests not listed on the booking weren’t allowed in rooms.
Dad, ever the rule-follower, was adamant we not go. And this time, it wasn’t even a paranoid take — the rules were clear. I leaned towards his side. But Mom, who had seen Onkar so excited to host us (wildly different from his attitude that morning, might I add), felt bad backing out. Mom and dad had it out. Bua stayed silent. I tried staying out of it.
In a rare outcome, Dad won and we headed home.
At the train station, we’d just missed our train and had to wait 12 minutes for the next. There was one bench seat free. Naturally, everyone started fighting — not over who would get the seat, rather, trying to make each other sit. Dad insisted mom take it, mom said no and told me to sit instead. I was the youngest and least eligible and I resisted for a while but eventually, seeing no one else was moving, I gave in — more to distance myself from the situation than anything else. I don’t like conflict and I’d had too much of it for a single day.
Mom wanted to get away from dad and came and stood next to me. I offered her my seat one last time. She refused, but a Japanese man in the seat next to me misread the situation, assuming we wanted to sit together, and started to get up. She quickly waved him off and stepped away so he would stay put. But the moment somehow sparked a conversation between the man and me — in Japanese.
I hadn’t yet had the courage to walk into an izakaya and socialise with a stranger, but there it was. Spontaneous. Natural. Not transactional. He was genuinely curious. His breath reeked of tobacco — a smell I normally hate — but I found myself smiling through it anyway.
When I say we spoke in Japanese, take it with a grain of salt. It was half gestures, half words. We talked about where I’d been in Japan, where I was staying, something about going to Akihabara (the electronics/gaming district of Tokyo), and even touching on anime. He asked about Demon Slayer (Luckily I knew its Japanese name — Kimetsu no Yaiba — which he was able to identify) and who my favourite character was. I said Nezuko. He asked if it was because she was ‘kakkoii’ (cool), and I knew enough vocabulary to understand it and respond: ‘iie, kawaii’ (no, cute).
It wasn’t a long conversation — his train arrived 6 minutes before mine — and honestly, I’ve probably used more Japanese in other places. On a regular day, I would’ve been ashamed after this conversation of how little my already-limited reading/comprehension abilities transfer into speech.
But this was a real conversation — spontaneous and unprepared and organic — and after a long day, it was a small win I hadn’t even known I needed.