Yuko’s house is quite large. It’s white both on the inside and outside and it has about five rooms on the second floor. It’s a shame that all of the house but her room is clean. I look down at my History book and let my thoughts flow.  Why did I agree to come here so suddenly? Does Yuko really want to be my friend?

“Oh, I forgot.” I say. Maybe Yuko thinks I’m a robot. I realize I’m not very expressive.

“What’d you forget?” Yuko turns around in her chair.

“I need to tell my parents that I’m here.” I take out my phone and call. After a few rings, my mom picks up the phone. “Hi, mom.” I say.

“Honey? Where are you?” My mom asks. I can tell she is worried. I would be home by now.

“I’m at my classmate’s house. We’re doing homework. I don’t know when I’ll be home” I tell her. “Sorry, I didn’t tell you earlier. It was sudden.” I hear her laugh a bit.

“You’re finally being social. Be sure to bring your new friend home sometime!” I can hear the smile in my mom’s voice. I don’t have very many friends. In fact, a lot of my friends don’t go to the same school and all of our interactions are usually texting and instant messaging.

“Ok, mom. Bye.” I say. I hang up and put my phone down and continue to stare at my History book. Finally being social? We’re hardly talking.

“Hey, Atsuko…” Yuko says. “Can you help me? I don’t understand this math problem.”

I get up and go to her. When I see the problem, I wonder if she’s being serious. The math problem is pretty easy but we were being quiet. Maybe she just wanted to break the silence.

I take her pencil and start explaining it to her. I guess I’m going pretty quickly because she keeps saying stop, go back. So, I start my explanation again and after half an hour which is longer than it should take, she finally understands it.

“Thanks!” Yuko smiles at me. “Math is my worst subject. No matter how many times the teacher explains it I won’t get it.” She says. “I don’t want to ask because whenever I do, he makes me feel stupid.”

I sympathize with her. I have teachers like that too. I’m like that with History but the thing is History is memorizing facts and an occasional analysis so you can still do well without asking but math is different. If you mess up anywhere, you’ll get the wrong answer even if you did the process right and you might not catch even catch the problem. The concepts are sometimes confusing and the teacher won’t wait for you to understand it before moving on. He’ll move on and you’ll have to deal with it. I guess teachers just expect us to understand it the first time it is explained.

“I have a worst subject too.” I say and Yuko looks at me with some disbelief. “It’s history.” Yuko’s mouth widens a bit. Did I seem like the perfect student to her? Not having any troubles with any class?

“I love history!” Yuko says. “Why don’t you like it?”

“It just seems pointless.” I tell her and I know that she’s going to give me a speech on why history is important.

“It may seem that way but think about it as a long-drawn out novel.” Yuko says. “It does have the word story in it after all.” Yuko and I let out a short laugh. “It’s a novel of our country, of our world.” Yuko continues. “Best of all, it has multiple writers so the next era, the next chapter is unpredictable.”

It still seems pointless but I can appreciate her view of history. She does make it sound beautiful.

I hear a knock on the door. “Come in!” Yuko says. Mrs. Oshima opens the door and walks in.

“Atsuko? Will you be staying for dinner?” She asks me. Yuko looks at me with her eyes and I can tell that she is hoping for a yes.

“Yes,” I tell her and Yuko is excited. “I told my mom that I don’t know when I’ll be home.” Mrs. Oshima looks at my stuff on the floor.

“I see. Homework is tough these days.” Mrs. Oshima says. “Dinner should be ready soon.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” I say and lower my head.

“It’s all right. Don’t worry about it.” Mrs. Oshima walks out of the room.

I turn around and see Yuko’s big grin. “You’re going to love mom’s cooking!” Yuko says. I laugh. I can’t believe how excited she is about me being at dinner with her.

---

Dinner is ready. Yuko and I take our seats at the table. She’s right. I think I will love her mom’s cooking. The dinner looks delicious. It’s seafood fettuccine covered in a white cream sauce: my favorite.

“Thank you for the meal.” I say to Mrs. Oshima. “This is one of my favorite dishes actually.”

“Really?!” Yuko says. “It’s one of mine too! Right next to Mapo Tofu and Ramen!”

“Those are some of my favorites too!” I say and I’m shocked that I gave such an expression. I’m shocked that Yuko and I have similar tastes in food.

Mrs. Oshima laughs. “Well then, next time you’re over. I’ll make Mapo Tofu or Ramen.”

Next time. Would I even come back again? I smile at her and she smiles back. “Um…where’s Mr. Oshima?” I ask. I start eating since I see Mrs. Oshima and Yuko eating as well.

“Dad’s on a business trip in France.” Yuko says as she swallows her pasta.

“I see.” I feel less intrusive now that I know that I would have taken Mr. Oshima’s place at the dinner table.

We eat our dinner. Talking, laughing, and having a great time. I’m pretty sure I will come back again. Of course, I won’t be as intrusive as today.

“Thanks for the dinner, Mrs. Oshima.” I say. I take my dishes to the kitchen.

“You can leave it, I’ll handle it.” Mrs. Oshima says. I don’t want to let her do it alone. She’s been so kind to me even though she has the right to be mad at me.

“No, I’ll do it.” I say. “Yuko and I will do it.”

“Huh?” Yuko says. I nudge at her. “Yeah, we’ll help…” she says and looks at me with a little bit of anger. I smile at her.

“All right, if you insist.” Mrs. Oshima gets up and leaves. This is the least I can do for her tonight.

“Thanks a lot.” Yuko says as we gather the dishes. I can’t help but giggle a little bit.

“It’ll be fun.” I reassure her though Yuko is still grumbling.

We wash the dishes and talk about school. This is the first time I’ve ever talked about school with a classmate. Then after talking about school, we begin gossiping which is also a first. Yuko told me how Sayaka Akimoto asked Alex Byrnes out and that Alex Byrnes turned her down because he had a boyfriend. Yuko was there to witness it and she told me that Sayaka wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or cry. I think I would try to do both at the same time.

“Hey, Atsuko!” Yuko sings my name. I turn to her and she flicks water in my face and she laughs.

“Hey!” I try to wipe the water off my face. “What was that for?”

“For making me wash the dishes!” This time, Yuko scoops up water and throws it at me and I scream.

I scoop up water and throw it at her and she screams too. “Payback!” I laugh.

We ignore the last dish in the sink and start having a water fight. Mrs. Oshima might not like this but I don’t care right now. With each scoop of water thrown, we scream and laugh. I’ve never had so much fun.

We’re out of breath from laughing so hard and we finally get to the last dish. As I hold the dish, wiping the soapy sponge on the plate, I can’t help but laugh. Yuko tries to hold in her laughter. I pull my head back trying to hold whatever laugh is trying to escape through my mouth. I’m actually worried that I might drop the plate.

A job that was supposed to take less than ten minutes turned into an hour because of our fight. We clean up the kitchen and we apologize to Mrs. Oshima. Rather than scold us for being stupid, she laughs and Yuko and I join her.

“It’s late, I better go home.” I say.

“All right.” Yuko smiles. “I had fun even though I think we weren’t supposed to.”

I laugh. We weren’t. We were supposed to do homework not have soapy water fights.

“Let me walk you out.” Yuko says. She puts on a pair of slippers and opens the door. “After you.” Yuko bows and gestures me out like how a gentleman would.

“Why, thank you.” I put on my shoes and prance out like a princess.

Yuko follows me out to my car. “Thanks for today.” I say. “I really had fun.”

Yuko leans forward. “Enough fun to come back?”

“Yes, enough fun to come back.” I smile. “See you tomorrow!” I get in my car and wave at Yuko.

“See you tomorrow!” Yuko waves at me.