“Richard…” Yukimura looked at me with soft eyes looked on mien “I remember when you arrived at this dojo, lost and full of insecurities, but through the years you have grown out of that phase, you are a remarkable man, even if you don’t know the answer to the question just yet” he said and stood up with such poise I felt the pressure of my problems been lifted with him “I´m sure you will arrive at your own conclusion, remember we don’t run from our problems” he says and offered me his hand to help me stand up “a samurai faces them head on, unafraid and with grace” he smiles “that’s how we do it, see you next weekend, remember the tournament is close”

I look at my schedule classes for the day, in the launch I go over the lessons we are going to be having, David sits down takes a sip of his coffee and sighs “What did you do?” he asked me in a cordial and slightly playful tone “would you be welling to believe that I just had eight hours of sleep and a good night rest?” he rolls his eyes as apparently that is way out of consideration “Richi” “Dav” for the looks of it he is very close to threw his coffee on me so I have to relent “can you not, you know try to psychoanalyze me if I tell you?” “I don’t do that” I pout, he is right but once I tell him he is going to tease me to hell “I went out to dinner” I blur out “whit?” he ask his mouth already curving into a smile “Mika?” and I watch in horror how he starts to take air “say it!” he urges me “…Michel” “Michel who?” Vallery arrives just in time to get in on this “the guy I told you about, you know, from back in college.” They wait for a moment to take the information in. “So, the guy who stalked you to the subway?” David asked, “The one that broke up with you?” Val added, “… yeah?” Val nods and looks at Davi,d “how screw is he?” he thinks for a moment before answering, “Well, I mean, people can change. Has he done different things from his previous behavior?” “He is well... different; however, you guys don’t need to worry, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, not an open invitation, but it is strange.”

“How so? People sometimes try to reconnect when the fuck things up.” Val pulls her tablet from her bag and starts to work on something. “It´s just, I don’t know how to put it into words, something feels off about him.” “Off as in you think he would fuck up again?” I shook my head at David´s question “maybe it´s nothing, I mean I haven’t seen or talk to him in years, so maybe I´m misreading things” we keep chatting until it becomes time to star our classes, and I wonder if Michel will show up in the subway like he has been doing lately if he does maybe this time I´ll be less prickly to him.

The classes end normally, this time I don’t get a surprise visit form Ceecee, I pack my things and walk slightly more quickly than usual to the Subway, and I wait in the station waiting to see if Michel appears, I sit and look around the station to make some time waiting for him, but time passes and he doesn’t appears, I look at my watch and found out that I been waiting for almost half an hour, I pull my phone and sigh R: hey Michel… am where are you?” I sent him a message and I look at the dots moving at the bottom of the screen, M: Sorry I wasn’t feeling well and did home office to my surprise I felt relived, and the anxiety that was overcoming me melts R: Oh I hope you are feeling well M: I´m feeling better no… wait you are waiting for me? Realization hits me hard like a bucket of cold water on a hot summer day. Why am I okay with waiting for him? How come I message him instead of just going home, and why does my mouth feel like it is made of sand? Questions I would love to answer, but right now I need to deal with a cheeky idiot on my phone. R: I wasn’t waiting for you. M: Right~ so I assume you are at your house right now, and he says he doesn’t stalk me. R: And how do you know that, Mr. Stalker? That’s right, I need to deflect and redirect this to him, so he feels the need to defend himself. M: I´m NOT a stalker! Hook, line, and sinker, I got him where I wanted him. R: right~ what was I wearing the first day you saw me in the subway? He sends me an angry dog sticker. M: I don’t need to answer that! R: So, you could answer that, but won’t? My phone starts to ring, a song from a game I like starts to fill the station, and luckily for me, right now it is pretty empty.

“I¨M NOT A STALKER!” Michel yells at me through the phone. I chuckle and press the phone back to my ear. “Of course you are not, so what put you out of commission?” The line goes silent for a moment, and that I think is scarier than him rampaging, for some reason that silence falls off, “Michel? Are you okay?” I hear coughing from his side “yeah sorry, some prints I was making came out of my machine, I just had… wait, why should I tell you! You keep saying I a stalker” I pout at his mock anger “oh so I guess you don’t want me to make some soup for you” I hear a loud crash on the other side of the phone and wonder if he tip and fall “You serious?” he says breathlessly with a hint of excitement on his voice, and to be completely honest I wasn’t expecting him to take me on that offer “Michel… you remember what you all said about my cooking?” I´m instantly transported at a day I made a lunch box for me and for Michel, back in college as two broke students would, we had to make do with what we had on hand, I searched high and low for cheap ingredients for food, it wasn’t nothing super fancy but I did put a lot of effort into it, only for Michel and his friends to start gaging and pretending to throw up, he joined in on the teasing even told me that I should never be allow into a kitchen ever again, and for a while I did, I stopped preparing food for anyone, it was not until my best friends called me out on the fact that I love cooking and baking that I started again but never to them.

“…” Michel takes his time to answer. I´m not sure if he remembers or if I should give him the Cliff Notes on it. “I… I´m sorry for that, I didn’t mean any of the things I said that day, god I’m an idiot” I nod and clean my eyes “that you are… but I agreed to give you a second chance and that includes my cooking” I heard a loud swallowing nose coming from his end “You don’t have to I don’t deserve that” “yeah you don’t get to decide that, unfortunately for you, you are now force to eat whatever I serve you as punishment” he laugh nervously on my ear “I-I guess that’s fair, I´ll sent you my address, is that all right?” “Yeah and you better be prepare for some soup” his address appears on our conversation and turns out he lives only a station away from my house, before I arrived, I stepped into a store to buy the things I´ll be needing and boy the things he will be seeing will make him regret ever mocking my cooking skills, I grab a can of liver, soy sauce, cocktail onions, noodles, and more things to make him regret his choices, I pay for my groceries and resume my walk, Michel like me lives in a apartment building, according to his text he lives in the fourth floor I just need to ring him up to be let in R: Hony I’m home… and I brought trash!”  he sent me a gift of a dog hiding under the covers and he lets me in, I quickly made my way through the stairs and knock on his door, he opens it with the chain still on and he doesn’t look too good “Can I lie to you and pretend I didn’t saw you?” he told me through a very clogged nose, “Nop, like a velociraptor I already detected movement so let me in” he grumbles and opens his door, he is wearing gray pants and a 8-bit themed hoodie his curls are all stoked to his forehead form sweat and I realize he doesn’t look good at all, “Jesus maria y Jose que te pasa?”  he gives me a puzzled look then remembers that I´m proficient in several languages “oh what happens? Well like I say I got sick” “with what? The plage?” he sarcastically laughs and guides me to the kitchen “you know I don’t get sick often but when I do I die” he lets himself fall on his couch and he looks miserable, lucky for him I only plant to mass with him visually not in the taste department.

His apartment look just like I thought it would, some paintings and his prints, a small bookshelf with art books and programing manuals, a few plants but mostly looks plain, nothing I was not expecting, I walk to his kitchen and found it clean and usable, the pots were left out for  me so I fill one with water, before I start anything I pull my bangs back and tie them with a band to keep my hair out of my eyes, I then proceed to put on the apron he had near the shelfs, roll my sleeves back and prepared to cook, “Am…” he says form a stool near the table, he is looking at me and if he hadn’t been sick I would assume he was blushing “I-I didn’t know you tie your hair like that now” he said and broke eye contact with me, I just nodded and pull the groceries I bought from the bag “a lot of things changes, but what isn’t is this punishment” he gags at the sight of the cocktail onions and liver can, his face looks miserable but he just pulls his hoodie up and walks away, I laugh at his worries and preparer the soup.