The last class of the day was gym—the only class that mixed students from both programs. Presumably because it was not dependent on linguistic skill. We were just starting the aikido unit—a traditional Japanese martial art that involved throwing your partner to the ground and pinning them with wrist or shoulder locks. The harder your partner came at you, the harder they fell. Instant karma. It appealed to my sense of justice.

I dressed in my borrowed gi, and even managed to figure out how to put on the wide legged navy hakama without assistance. The uniform was a little short. My arms and legs stuck out like twigs. Nakatomi looked predictably flawless in his uniform, and clearly had some idea what he was doing already.

The aikido instructor was a short, round, Japanese woman with a perm that made her hair stand out on the sides. Students simply called her Sensei. She had a dimple when she smiled and was perhaps the most energetic person I’d ever met—the embodiment of the Japanese word “genki.” Overly so.

“You need to kneel on this line,” a girl from my class said. So I knelt with everyone else and bowed first to the picture of the founder of aikido and then to the instructor. Like I was joining some kind of cult. Then Sensei clapped her hands and everyone stood up to begin the warmups.

I followed along as best I could, but sooner rather than later, Sensei picked me out of the lineup and singled me out for special treatment. Exactly like in Japanese class. I was clearly not up to snuff.

The person she paired me with for my entry-level lesson was an advanced aikido student from the Japanese program. She showed me how to fall backwards, how to roll forwards, how to walk on my knees. I was sure I looked like an idiot, but somehow she managed not to laugh at me.

“Watch.” She demonstrated the forward roll for what must have been the tenth time. Then she traced a line from my right shoulder to my left hip. “Try again. Across this line. Diagonally. Tuck your chin.”

I kept doing an awkward sideways somersault that brought me considerably off the seam on the white canvas mat I was supposed to be following. I was making some improvement, though. I no longer landed with all my weight on my shoulder. Eventually she decided I was ready to join the class. On the first day. I didn’t feel even remotely ready.

Sensei called on one of the senior students to demonstrate the technique we were going to work on. It involved one partner coming at the other with a slow motion punch. It was very clearly a fake attack. No one ever punched like that in real life and expected to actually hit someone. The person being attacked needed to step off the line and do some intricate move that ended with their attacker on the ground, pinned with a simple wrist lock.

When everyone partnered up to practice the technique, novices were grabbed by some of the more experienced club members who could walk us through the moves.

The problem started once they left things to chance, partnering novices with other beginners so the better students could work on more advanced forms of the techniques we were learning. Breakfalls, for instance. I was pretty sure I would never be ready for those.

People from the International Program tended to seek each other out when given the option, although I noticed I was typically the last to be chosen. Me and Nakatomi.

Naturally, inevitably, we were paired together.

The exercise involved a wrist flip that brought the other person to their knees followed by this complicated move that turned them face down to the mat. It was called kotegaeshi or something.

We didn’t speak, but that was normal, at least. Normal for me and Nakatomi, and normal for the class. This put us in closer proximity to one another than usual—and that was saying something. Aikido is not done from a distance.

I found myself being distracted by things like the triangle of skin showing at the base of his throat. The gracefulness in his steps. His hands were cold against my skin as his fingers grasped my wrist, his thumb resting on the back of my hand for the first technique we were practicing.

When it was his turn to pin me, he was not gentle. I fell to the ground, crashing heavily to my knees. When he pulled my arm behind my back I tapped out almost instantly. My shoulders were ridiculously tight. He smirked, but I did my best not to react in any way.

I couldn’t manage to remember the technique, so one of the seniors had to walk me through it one step at a time. Nakatomi enjoyed every minute of it. My angles were all wrong. It was impossible to put him off balance. Once he was on the ground I couldn’t figure out how to rotate his shoulder to do the final pin. He rolled his eyes. “Great job, gaijin,” he said quietly enough that I wasn’t sure I’d heard him.

Those were the only words he’d said to me all day. Not that I’d gone out of my way to chat him up either. I’d managed not to say more than a few words to anyone, which suited me fine.

So far everything confirmed what I’d expected going into this: I was stuck with a disappointing collection of teenage clichés from around the globe. No gay vibes either—shocker. Not that I was looking for anything serious.

I’d shied away from anything serious after my disastrous “relationship” with Anders. Big misunderstanding there. I thought we were boyfriends. He thought we were fuck buddies. What I saw as cheating, he saw as Saturday night. That relationship didn’t last long. Well, that relationship had never existed in the first place.

My friend Maddie had encouraged me to have one last hookup before I left, predicting a lengthy dry spell in Japan. And it looked like her predictions would prove true.

I didn’t expect to find much in the way of bangable material anytime soon.