“See you again!” shouts the new guy. I wave back, walking past the sliding doors just as he whispers something to his co-workers about how amazing it is that there are “kurojin” in Nishibe. I’d rather not hang around to hear their responses. I return home, lock my apartment door, sit right down in front of it, and rip the plastic off the top bento, devouring the first few rolls by hand like some ravenous sushi-predator. As I eat, I turn on the TV and watch the tail end of a kids’ show where they sing about taking a bath, letters of the Japanese alphabet, then do the goodbye song and shower the kids dancing on stage with balloons. After that is a commercial showing three aliens balanced on top of one another in a long trench coat disguised as a human being so they can sneak into a kaitenzushi restaurant. I’m still hungry. There goes bento number two.

I shut off the TV, sigh out loud in my big empty apartment chock full of grocery bags. Might as well see if Mom is online.

As my old laptop boots up, I change out of my work clothes, put all my groceries away, gather all my stuff from work from my purse, and grab art supplies from my plastic dresser. Once Skype loads, I click on my mom’s profile. I take photocopies of cookies, apples, and ice creams I made from my textbooks weeks ago and prepare to spend the next hour colouring them with markers, cutting them out, and wrapping each picture with parcel tape.

“Hello?” says my laptop.

“Mother?”

“Who is this?”

“Your first-born?”

“Hi, sweetie! How are you?!”

“I’m good. You?”

“What time is it over there? Did you just wake up or something? You sound so far away! Why isn’t your video on? How are your students?”

I chuckle, since technically, I am far away. “They’re … um, they’re the same. How is everyone?”

“Oh! They’re wonderful,” she says. My webcam kicks in while she gives me a thorough rundown of how wonderful everyone is, doing what they love, hoping I’m doing the same, being in the most exotic country in the world and all. She asks how my weekend was, hoping I didn’t just do chores the whole time. No way am I telling her how my Saturday night really went.

“I did go out with some co-workers, but they were kinda —”

“So, go without them! You don’t need a babysitter.” Mom has this thing about giving me advice long after the event in question has passed. “You need to socialize, Cybelle! You can’t stay home every weekend for seven years and —”

“Six and a half, Mom.”