Akari and the Australian

Akari and the Australian

(This is the follow on from Akari and the American. I do suggest reading that account first. Many continued thanks to Rotorhead450 who patiently guides, edits and corrects!)

Living and growing up in a country that isn't your own isn't easy. Using one language at home and another out the front door is difficult. To be dragged around by your folks pedaling a foreign religion door to door is near impossible. It's how I came to be in Japan most of my life. This isn't a story about my youth, nor a narrative of the pros and cons of missionary work. I mention it only as an answer to the question of how I came to be where I am. And perhaps who I am.

My name is Jordan. I did my undergraduate degree at university in Kobe, Japan, and now I'm starting the second year of my Masters. My folks and brother have long gone back to Australia, but they left me the small, one bedroom apartment in Akashi they bought years ago. Even with just me living in it, the place is tiny. The bedroom is six tatami, which is about one hundred square feet. The kitchen and living room are about the same each, but I've taken out the sliding doors and put the dining table straddling the two rooms so it pushes into the kitchen, making the space seem as big as it can. How the four of us lived in it for so long is incredible.

When my folks left, I regret to say they took their religious oversight with them. It was April, I was about to start university and I took full hold of the experience. University clubs, university bars, university parties, I had a lot of catching up to qualify for a misspent youth. For months I was the life of the party, taking every new invitation that presented itself. A fluent Kansai-dialect speaking foreigner was a great novelty, I was asked along to most things that were on. I studied well though, I didn't go so far off the rails that my grades slipped; so I guess I didn't entirely dispel my disciplined upbringing. If anything, my greater challenge was feeding myself healthily; cooking for one is not much fun and good food ate into my beer budget.

I have to admit I swung wildly between exhilaration and guilt when I bedded my first few classmates. It was a dream-come-true to see underneath the clothes of a young, supple Japanese woman. Everything fell into place. I had my own apartment, I was eighteen and surrounded by same-age university girls in an experimental mood. I could get a new one each weekend. I fucked each of those girls rotten, my conscience fought a losing battle with my carnal desire. My respect for those girls as a person wasn't what it should have been. Their bodies were a vessel for my explosive sexual germination. Thankfully that only lasted a few months. By mid-summer I had settled down, and my care for the person I was with was less skewed toward the need to cum in them.

I took a job part-time at a bar near uni; that way I was more sober, I was earning money rather than spending it, and it made me even more well-known in the campus community. Even the hipper teachers got to know me well, and it helped that my grades were always good. Overall, I was flourishing away from the stifling life of my youth when my folks were in Japan.

I visited Australia regularly enough. Cairns is not too far away. Thankfully my family never came back to visit me. To have that mob back in the apartment I had made my own would have been torturous, even if only for a couple of weeks.

When I graduated and moved onto my post-grad masters, one of the under-grad lecturers took me under his wing and gave me work as an official university tutor. Twice a week I ran a lecture-revision session, two hours per class. The money from those four hours was more than I got for working all of Friday and Saturday night at the bar. It was a good experience for me. Coaching a group of first-years through those subjects consolidated my own base knowledge and understanding of all those topics. It's kind of like going back and playing Mario all over again from the start, knowing what's ahead, knowing why you need to learn what you're learning. The students were happy with the context I could give them. Overall, it went very well.

Oh, and I fell in love.

Actually, that's not true. One can never truly love someone until they love you back. Or know that you like them. Or ever speak with you outside class. But there was something about my student Akari Suzuki. She was cute as hell, and her ass in jeans was divine - but it was more than just that. I'd had cute girls before; I had driven my cock into beauty, but no one with Akari's presence. There was something wholesome about her. Akari was kind and gentle, intelligent and perceptive. She listened while she waited to talk, then spoke with calm confidence. She was insightful. Clever. Charming. Modest. Polite. And just occasionally her great little tits could be glimpsed down her shirt as I walked around her in class.

I could tell some of the guys in class tried to get close, to try their luck, but it never seemed to work. Akari didn't accept any dates, nor put herself in a position to be approached socially. She turned up for lectures, tutorials and exams, but other than that, Akari was a mystery. We never saw her in the library, or cafeteria, and certainly never in any of the bars the students hung out.

Discretely I had a look at her details in the system. Her address was a town well outside Kobe. I guessed she was still living with her folks. It made sense; her life was out in the countryside with her family. She only came into the city when she absolutely needed to. Her parents probably had some nice nerdy boy from a nice neighbor's family lined up for her to marry after she graduated, leaving both her brilliant mind and gorgeous body to the confines of a backwater village in the mountains.

All through my first year of teaching, my feeling and admiration for Akari did not dull. She was as enchanting in the last lesson as the first, yet all through the year I never saw her outside of class. She even skipped our informal end of year tutorial dinner. If anyone else had snubbed us like that, the class would have resented it - but no one felt that way toward Akari. She engaged and participated so well with her classmates in lessons that everyone liked her too much to feel slighted. She lived far away; she was required back home on time every day. There was nothing to be upset about.

The Japanese school year goes from spring to spring. Summer is still the longest break, so there is a relatively short turnaround when people move year levels in April. A lot of people go away on short trips, but I'd now confined my own travels to only going home at Christmas. With the bar and tutorial work I was well ahead financially, and once I had the taste for money in my bank, I took all the shifts I could get during the break to make more. As the new school year started, I managed to keep my first-year tutorials, too. The new group were clever and fun, but there were no Akaris among them.

But it didn't matter.

The real Akari suddenly appeared.

At first, I saw her in the university coffee shop, leaving as I waited in line. I didn't have time to yell out before she left. Then I saw her coming into the cafeteria with two other girls as I was rushing out to a class. I waved briefly but did not talk. Three times I saw her in the library, one time of which I was able to say hello and desperately flirt for thirty seconds before I was shooshed. And then, on a Friday night, a miracle. Akari came in to my bar. I was stunned. She was gorgeous, wearing a stylish maroon summer dress that flared past the hips. I almost fell over. I couldn't believe it. My heart leapt; I could hear it pounding. Akari walked in timidly, looking around, it was her first time there. That she was with two local Japanese guys didn't matter; better she was with two guys than one - one would more likely be a date. I felt like a nervous school kid, waving at her and getting a surprised wave back from her table. I could see her talking to those guys, explaining me, then squeezing out from between them to walk over.

"Sensei! This is your bar?" she smiled at me across the counter.

I stumbled through my answer, unprepared to see her like that and confused by her question.

"Ah. No. I work here. I don't own...," I stammered. Oh god, what had she asked exactly? "Do your friends go to our uni?"

Kaboom. Brain explosion! Why on earth had I asked that! Dumb, dumb, dumb! Akari turned and looked at them, then back to me. "They're from my high school class. My home town. Neither got into a university, so they came with me today, they wanted to see the student life."

"It's amazing to see you here," I said, trying to recover. "First time in this bar?"

Akari nodded. "I didn't know you worked at a bar."

"Pays the bills. Keeps me sober."

"You must meet lots of girls," she grinned.

"Actually, I've been working here for so long, just waiting for you to walk in." I gave the statement in just the right tone. I might have been joking, or I might have been serious.

"Oh really?" Akari smiled.

"Here, let me make you something."

I could sense Akari watching me move swiftly and impressively as I whipped up a perfect Malibu Sunset in no time.

"What is it?" Akari asked, smiling.

"Delicious," I simply replied.

Akari took a sip and nodded, agreeing with me.

"Every time you come to the counter, I'll make you something new," I flirted.

"I'll get drunk."

"It's a bar, no one will notice."

"I better get the boys a drink, too," Akari sighed.

We talked some more as I poured two beers as slowly as I could. Akari lived closer than I thought, it took less than an hour to get to campus; that was a relatively normal commute in Japan.

"I thought you might have been further away," I told her as I called one of the waitresses over to help carry the beers to their table. "I never saw you out like this at all last year. Not even on campus. I thought you must have lived a long way away."

Akari shrugged. "I can spend more time in Kobe this year."

"Wow, that's great." I guessed that as a second-year student she could get out more from under her folk's control. Her grades in my classes were top rate, and I expected it was the same with all subjects.

Akari came back to the bar each time to order, and as promised I gave her a different drink each time. She and those two boys from her home town left before my shift finished, so the extent of our encounter was across the bar counter. But as we closed the bar that night my heart fluttered again. One of the waitresses came over with a small pair of girls' panties, left in a booth near where Akari had been sitting with those boys. If they were Akari's pants, were they left behind for me, as a message to me? Surely it was? Or was I being overly optimistic; was lustful hope clouding my judgment? I guessed I would know more the next time I saw her.

I determined that next time we met, I would get Akari's mobile number. Hanging around campus in the hope of meeting her, and looking at the door of the bar longingly every time someone walked in was pathetic, schoolboy behavior. It paid off though. I found her in the school cafeteria finishing lunch with a girl student that I didn't know. It was a Thursday, almost two weeks since the night at the bar. That other girl was polite enough to leave after we'd had introductions, and I sat down.

"First things first," I said, as charmingly as I could. "Give me your phone number."

"Sure," she smiled. "Can't you just look it up in the system?"

"That would be... inappropriate," I said, trying not to blush as I remembered sneaking into the records a year before to see where she lived. "Right, so let me send you a message."

"Here? Now?"

I typed in 'Can I buy you lunch this weekend?'

Akari looked at her phone as it beeped and laughed.

'A date?' she typed her reply.

'Yes, a date! Saturday or Sunday?'

'Where?'

'I can come to you. No need to come to Kobe.'

"Okay, enough typing. Talk!" Akari laughed. "You want to come to my town?"

"Yeah, why not? Get out of the city, it would be interesting."

"Hmmm," she said. "People might see us. I'm not sure I should be dating my teacher."

"I'm not your teacher anymore," I defended.

"But you are a teacher. Are we allowed to go on a date?"

It seemed a serious question, so I answered properly.

"Yes. If you are of age, not my student, if I have no influence over your grades and there is no thought of coercion by either party."

"Okay," Akari nodded. "You can buy me lunch, teacher."

"Aw, now don't tease me. I'm just a boy, asking a girl out to lunch."

"You're being very sweet," she said to comfort me.

We talked for as long as we could. Akari only had mornings on Thursday, she had finished for the day but I had to teach classes.

"I could hang around for you to finish," she told me, sending my heart aflutter.

"I'm at the bar after that," I said regretfully. "It's early shift, it won't be busy, though. I could buy you a drink there?"

"It's okay," she smiled. "After lunch Saturday, do you have to work that night?"

Again, I nodded. I had been taking every shift offered me, partly because of the money, and partly so I'd have a better chance of running into Akari if she ever come back in.

"Not until eight, though. I'm on late, then Sunday off."

"We could meet Sunday, then, if it's better?"

"No, let's start with Saturday, I don't wanna wait all the way til Sunday," I said honestly. Akari smiled and blushed.

"And you want to come to Sanda?"

"Will that be okay? You worry if you'll be seen with a boy, it will get back to your folks?"

"Ha," Akari laughed. "No. That's not a problem."

"No other... problems back home? Boyfriend, boyfriends, fiancé?" I probed, only half-jokingly.

"Hmm, there is one boy seems quite nice to me," she said slowly.

"Oh? And... so what's going on... with that?" I asked, trying not to pout.

"Well, I'm not sure yet. I'll know better after lunch on Saturday."

"Oh you...," I grinned from ear to ear. "You are cruel. Nasty, rotten, cruel!"

"Look at the time. You better go," she said, scurrying me off. It's fair to say I floated through the day after that. I was overtly happy and fun at work that night, people were commenting on it.

I didn't see Akari at uni on Friday, but we messaged back and forth, mostly on logistics. Friday night I was working again until late. I was the only foreigner among the staff, and one of the few males. Most were girls, intuitive girls. They figured something was up, all the time I'd worked there I'd never been bouncing off the walls like I was over Akari. One of the girls, Miori, even caught on that it might be because of the girl who I'd been talking with two weeks previous, the one that left her panties in the bar.

"You don't know they were hers," I said, brushing it off. They kept teasing regardless.

I left super early on Saturday morning. We'd set to meet at eleven at the Sanda Tourist Information Centre at the top of the station, but I was up and about so early I got there by ten. There was no point to sit at home, I was too nervous. So, I investigated Sanda for an hour by myself, mostly the inside of Kippy Shopping Mall and the streets nearby. I dared not go too far. Akari was spot on time at eleven, which I love. I don't like it when people think it's okay to make people wait for them.

"You are gorgeous," I said, smiling. "You look good in that."

It was a long, close-fitting summer dress, tight through to the hips and then loose below. It had a stylishly floral pattern.

"You like it?" Akari grinned and twirled.

"Very bright. Very cheery."

"Thank you."

"So, this is your home town huh?"

"Uh-huh."

"So, we're going to run into people you know everywhere today?"

"It's what you want, right?" she teased. "Make sure everyone in this town knows I have a man courting me."

I couldn't tell if she used that word as a way of teasing me, or because her English wasn't very good, so I let it go without comment.

"So where are you going to take me? Somewhere nice for lunch?"

"Back to my place. Mom is making soba for us." Akari said it so seriously, I couldn't help but freeze in my steps.

"What?" Akari asked. "What's wrong?"

"Your place? Your mom? Really, you mean that?"

Akari grinned from ear to ear.

"You are such a shit," I laughed. "Evil, shitty and cruel. A terrible girlfriend."

"I'm not your girlfriend," she quickly returned. "Not until you kiss me."

"Okay. Fair enough," I said. At some stage during the day, I would fix that. We walked and talked about Sanda, what Akari knew of it. Over a thousand years old as a town, and famous for producing a lot of Kobe beef. We wandered through the streets, over the Muko River and toward Nishiyama. The park wasn't big, but had some temples and forest shade from the heat. Akari took us to a yaki-niku restaurant on the other side, it was a long walk by the time we arrived. Thankfully the restaurant was air-conditioned and full of delightfully cold beer. Like a lot of unpretentious Japanese girls, Akari was okay to drink beer.

Yaki-niku is simply barbecued meat. A grill fits in the middle of the table, which sits on a tatami mat with a hole under the table for your feet - called a hori-gotatsu. You order raw ingredients to cook for yourself, and dip in various spicy sauces or salts. It's a sociable way to eat, very noisy and smoky and fun.

"So, Sanda is one of the key places they grow Kobe beef?" I said again, looking at a platter of thinly sliced raw meats.

"It is," Akari confirmed.

"Is that what you've ordered?"

Akari laughed out loud and drank a big gulp of beer. "No!"

"No?"

"Not for you," she grinned.

"Not for me?"

"Too expensive. You're not my boyfriend. I would only order that for my boyfriend!" Akari was enjoying teasing me.

"Okay. Let's get that sorted," I determined.

"What are you doing?" Akari squealed, smiling as I crawled around the tatami matting to get to her side. "Go away!"

"Not before our kiss."

Akari was laughing, people around us noticing. "Why I need to kiss you?"

"Kiss," I simply said, holding the back of her neck gently.

Akari gave a small peck on my lips.

"Not that. A proper kiss," I smiled at her.

Akari looked me in the eye momentarily, as if to steel herself for the emotional leap of faith. Then she kissed. A long deep, proper loving kiss. Young kids pointed and laughed, older couples sighed and our food burned on one side as Akari and I shared the most wonderful first kiss with the people seated around us. It was gentle, and it was long. When we finally stopped a middle-age couple across the aisle clapped, and some other tables followed suit. Akari blushed red in embarrassment.

"Go away," she affectionately pushed me. "Back to your side. You're embarrassing me. Nobody does this in Japan."

I crawled back over and sat in my spot. I raised my beer for Kampai.

"So," I said as we clinked, "Now I'm your boyfriend, can we have Kobe beef?"

Akari laughed.

"What?" I asked.

"They don't have. This is just a cheap yaki-niku, no one will put Kobe beef on a barbecue like this."

"You tricked me into kissing you!" I accused.

"Huh? You complaining about my kiss?"

"No. No, I'm not. It was gorgeous."

"Okay then. Eat your burned pork."

We cooked and drank and talked about who we were. Akari was fascinated by my religious and pious upbringing. She was amazed to know I'd not kissed a girl until I was in university. She admitted her first kiss was in high school, but wouldn't open up about it. From how she spoke of her family, her parents worked long hard hours and were strict with Akari's study-first ethos.

"Is that why you never appeared anywhere outside class last year?" I asked.