My roommate and I lived off homemade banana ice-cream (bananas were the cheapest fruit and it suited our ‘model budget’). We sat under the air-con until dusk most days and left our shoebox apartment just before the sun was setting, to avoid the Tokyo summertime heat.
We fell asleep on our bunk beds at four in the morning, when the night sky was turning to blue and the sun would start to peep through our makeshift curtains. We woke at lunchtime and lazed around drinking cocoa and chilled tea and making quick dashes to the Family Mart downstairs if we were feeling peckish or if our agency required us. We were, after all, at their disposal.
Castings would last till late into the night and we would watch from behind the car window, the city changing from a hot sweaty mess into a wonderland, where the streets would light up for us, like magic.
Saying goodbyes are never easy. My new friends had to go their ways and I had to go mine. On my last night I tried to sleep, but instead, I pulled back my hair and sat outside, alone on our balcony, watching the taxis hurry by in a blaze of fuzzy lights, while the warm summer night passed over me and my bare back.