When Sparks Fly

Yori

After my therapy session, I start looking for Yori, an older man whom I spend most of my time with trying to make amends. See, I killed Yori's son when I was the Winter Soldier and since I can't bring myself to tell him, I decided I would spend what time Yori has left looking after him, like his son would have. When I find him he is fighting with a kid over his garbage bins, "it's Mr. Nakajima!" Yori shouts at the young man he is fighting with.

"Hey! Hey! Yori, what's goin' on?" I step between Yori and the young man, "I thought we were getting lunch."

Yori points to the young man, "Unique is putting his trash into my trash."

"It's trash," Unique shrugs.

"And the time has come for me to smack..." Yori tries to reach over to slap the young man, who's name I can't fathom, but I stop him.

"Whoa!" I gently grip Yori's hand.

"It's just trash," Unique shrugs again, this being his only argument.

"Hang on," I put my hands up to Yori, before turning to Unique.

"Hey, man. I'm Unique," Unique shakes my hand, "it's like Monique, but it's got a 'U' in there for uniqueness."

"That's absurd," Yori complains as he starts down the alley the trash bins are in to get back inside the apartments.

"Okay, sorry," I walk after Yori, leaving Unique on the street, "Yori, you can't keep fighting with your neighbors." Yori just ignores me and keeps marching down the alleyway. "Come on, let's go get some food."

"No, go away."

"But Izzy. We always go to Izzy on Wednesday."

"I'm not in the mood today."

"Hey, what if I buy?"

This stops Yori in his tracks, he turns back to me and shrugs, "fine, but no talking." Yori walks past me and starts to make his way to the sushi place we go to every Wednesday. We get there just as a storm starts outside, nothing I love more than Brooklyn rain. We get our food and Yori sticks to his no talking rule, until he gets done with the obituaries in the paper, "take a look. Nobody made it past 90 this week."

I shake my head, "so young, such a shame," I basically stuff another roll into my mouth.

As I do this our waitress, Izzy, comes up to the table, "you guys didn't order the usual, huh? Feeling a little adventurous?"

I look up to Izzy and look her over, she's very pretty and funny from what I've seen here. Yori leans in closer to me, "you should ask her out." I look over to Yori as if he's crazy, shaking my head, but Yori, being Yori, takes it upon himself to ask her out for me, "he would like to take you out on a date. Maybe to bingo or a night of pinochle?" Yori mispronounces this the first time, but he gets it the second, "pinochle. Yeah."

I lean forward a bit, "I'm really sorry about him."

"Why are you sorry?" Izzy smiles as Yori chuckles, "I'm game."

"Wow," I shake my head a bit taken back at how easy that was, "but I can't, I have a uh..."

Yori doesn't let me finish before continuing on with the date plan, "tomorrow night, then?"

"Tomorrow night's great," Izzy nods with a chuckle, "just maybe not pinochle."

I lean back a bit, having myself propped up on the bar and my other hand on my hip, "what's wrong with pinochle?"

"Yeah," Yori turns to Izzy, finally having my side in this.

"I have a shift," Izzy laughs, "but if you wanna come back here, I should be done around 10." With that Izzy walks away to serve a few other tables.

I shake my head as Yori takes a drink, "I can't believe you did that. There's a dance to these things. You can't... you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943... it feels like."

"No? Then who is that person you were going to use as an excuse?"

"Uh, she's a friend who comes over every now and then and we... uh...." One I'm not sure what we are, two, I'm not sure how to talk about it, and three, I'm not sure how to talk about it with Yori.

"Ahh, but that's not a real relationship, which would be very good for you. You spend too much time with me anyway, it's suffocating," Yori laughs, I do too, but it doesn't take long for me to realize that Yori's laugh is short lived.

When I look back at him, he is looking at a couple mochis, "what's wrong?"

Yori responds to me in Japanese, which I understand, "my son... he loves the red bean mochi." Yori sniffs a bit and goes back to english, "um..." he sighs, "he had a job with a consulting company. And, uh, he was working abroad and he was killed. The police said, 'wrong place, wrong time,' but... I will never know what really happened to him. I felt it was strange," Yori pats his chest, just over his heart, "in here."