Onkar left early in the morning to return to his hotel. He had a bunch of unused tickets for the hotel’s partner onsen (hot spring) — he’d received one for each of the 13 days he was staying, and hadn’t even gone once yet. But he was leaving to go back to the UK today and wanted to use at least one before he went. So, he went to chill in the hot spring for a bit, get some work done, and agreed to meet up with us at his hotel around noon.
Realistically, it ended up being closer to 1pm, but when we did get there, we went up to his room (and saw the messy stack of paper tickets lying over the sink area), enjoyed the view, and I helped him pack his bags. I’d packed a separate one last night with the overflow of stuff I was sending back with him. (He was mad about not being woken up to go to McDonald’s and had apparently stormed off in the morning without taking it along himself — I heard the story later, but his mood was fine by the time I saw him.)
Before we knew it, it was time for him to leave. He insisted we not come all the way to the airport, which was 1.5 hours away — he said he had work to get done en route. Somehow, the parents actually listened and let him go alone. I had a pretty casual goodbye, since we’re meeting in London again in a few days anyway, but the rest of the family walked him to the station. Mom must’ve cried, for sure. I napped.
The elders went exploring again, and when I woke up, I joined them for another round through the mall next door.
By evening, the plan was for Mom and Bua to use the onsen, per Onkar’s enthusiastic instructions. As much as I’ve been wanting to go this entire trip, I’m now on my period — RIP.
Dad, however, was anxious.
Last time, when Mom and Dad were debating staying over in Onkar’s room while he was away, I found myself siding more with Dad — hesitant, cautious. This time, though, I’d been more influenced by Onkar, who insisted everything was chill. And since I was already in his room (he’d personally accompanied me there), I felt much less inhibited.
When he left, he handed me the room key and told me to relax, stay over, and just check out in the morning. It was decided then: I’d be staying the night. After he left, though, Dad’s nervousness started creeping back in — and creeping into me, too. But I stood my ground.
I’d also discovered a route to the hotel via the adjacent mall — through the 6th floor instead of the main lobby — which gave me a bit more confidence in my role as an imposter guest.
Mom sided with me. She has no fear — Onkar definitely gets that from her. Bua probably would’ve stayed with us too if it had just been the three of us, but I could tell (the same way I would be if I were alone with Dad for too long) that she was being swayed by him. She also didn’t want him going back to Ikebukuro alone, so she decided she’d accompany him back.
Mom and Bua were both still keen on using the onsen that night before Bua and Dad left though. But as the time drew closer, Dad, who’d tried to be quiet earlier, started voicing his concerns more. He worried they might scan the room number and realize someone was overstaying. Onkar had mentioned that when he went in earlier, they scanned his ticket and looked something up in their system for about 30 seconds before letting him through. We figured it might’ve been about occupancy — but probably not guest-specific data, since they didn’t ask him for ID and, being part of the mall rather than the main hotel, it would be weird (and a privacy breach) for the spa to have access to guest records.
I argued that they could at least try to go in. If asked, they could say one of them was a guest of the room occupant and ask if it was okay to enter. Worst case, they’d be turned away. No harm done. But Dad countered that it might still raise a flag for the room number and could cause trouble for Onkar if they realized that (a) two people were staying in a one-person room (even though the bed could easily fit four), and (b) neither of those people was Onkar.
This went back and forth for a while. When Mom and I went up to the room to check if the tickets had any explicit usage instructions, Dad must’ve taken that time to persuade Bua a little more, because by the time we called down to say everything looked fine and that both of them could probably go in, she replied with something along the lines of ‘It’s better to stay on the safe side.’ Classic Dad.
And look, while I do understand and even share his perspective most of the time (I’m usually a lot more like him than Mom in this regard), I sometimes wish I weren’t so cautious. It’s fun to take a few risks now and then. And in this case, calculating the risk of being a different guest in one single room in such a massive hotel against the potential upside, it felt like a risk worth taking.
It would’ve been a whole different story if Onkar wasn’t on board. That would’ve been taking advantage of him and putting him at risk, which not even Mom would do, let alone me. But in this case, he strongly encouraged it himself. He practically ordered it. So who was I to argue, when he was the one whose name was on the line?
So I made a choice tonight, to loosen up a little and be more like my mom and my brother. And while I’m still a little scared about pretending to be a guest at checkout tomorrow, I don’t regret staying over.
Sometimes, breaking the rules (responsibly) feels like a small act of freedom. I know this seems like bad advice — showing rulebreaking in a good light — but for me it’s character development. It’s becoming less uptight. And in my opinion, it’s progress.