Grounded (Up in the Air #3)(89)

We were given the royal treatment from the moment we walked in the door. I was growing accustomed to it, though the Japanese took the royal treatment to a whole new level. I was still growing accustomed to the Japanese way of bowing in deference to one another. I found their manners charming, and tried to emulate them quickly, wanting to blend into the culture as much as possible, though of course it was impossible for me to blend in there. Still, I badly wanted to avoid standing out as a rude foreigner.

James had his manners down perfectly, as though he visited often. For all I knew, he did. He even spoke a convenient amount of the language. I had studied it, but I was hopelessly outclassed. One sentence of Japanese out of his mouth and I was lost, just watching him in awe and not understanding a word of it. The locals seemed to have no trouble, though.

We’d been discussing for weeks just what kind of a trip I had envisioned when I thought about visiting Tokyo. James seemed to find it charming that I’d only been thinking of a tourist type tour of the city. I wanted to use the subway, visit every temple, shrine and park, and all of the popular attractions. Basically, I wanted to see as much of the quirky city as humanly possible. The plan was for nine days around the city, then another four in the areas surrounding Mount Fuji, and then one day on top of the mountain itself. I had even talked James into camping out on top for a night. He had been easy to convince, considering that he’d never actually been camping before. I wasn’t an expert on camping myself, but I was an expert on roughing it, and a night in a tent on top of a famous mountain just sounded like fun to me. I got the idea in my head, and James didn’t even try to dissuade me.

“Of course, I’ll arrange for supplies,” was all he’d said, giving me his indulgent smile.

We started our first sightseeing day in Tokyo at the crack of dawn. We wore shorts, T-shirts, and comfortable shoes like the tourists we were, and set off on foot for our first destination. Kyokyo, the Imperial Palace, was only twenty minutes from our hotel, so we went there first. Our security trailed us at a somewhat discreet distance, and I almost forgot they were there for most of the day. The palace grounds alone took up most of our morning.

We encountered the scenic jogging trail that surrounded the palace grounds first. I had been reading aloud about the trail from a tour guidebook the night before, so James grinned as he pointed it out to me. “Wanna go for a jog?” he asked me.

I nodded and smiled. I wasn’t a big jogger. Even when I did work out, it was usually lower impact cardio than an actual run, but it sounded perfect just then.

We jogged for maybe ten minutes, James keeping pace beside me, before I slowed to a brisk walk.

I grimaced at him. “I know this won’t be a shocker, but you’re in much better shape than I am.”

He gave me a rather lascivious once-over. “I disagree. I like your shape much better, Love.”

I laughed. The man could turn anything suggestive.

We spent hours walking the trail around the grounds and covering every inch of the scenic gardens inside. It was a romantic setting and James, being a romantic soul, used every bit of it to his advantage, clasping my hand and smiling into my eyes. If I wasn’t already hopelessly in love with him, just one morning like this one and I swore he would have changed that.

We took our time exploring the palace, and when we were done, we found another charming park just a few blocks away. Children played some version of soccer in a shaded dirt field. The people we had encountered had been the epitome of polite so far, not even staring at us, though we must have seemed out of place to everyone there. The only difference were kids under fifteen. They stared unabashedly at us, their game coming to a halt as we strolled by. As we drew even with them, all of the young teenage boys raised their hands in the air, as though they had planned it, and began to cheer. I giggled at the strange reaction, looking at James. “What was that?” I asked him.

He was grinning. “I think we just found some new members of your fan club.”

I rolled my eyes, still laughing. Boys were weird.

We strolled the large circular park, pausing when we caught sight of an impromptu concert in the park. A crowd had gathered to watch a small orchestra play.

James pulled me into his arms, handling me with mastery and gallantry, surely a rare combination. He moved into a light-stepping waltz, smiling down into my eyes.

“What a charming city,” I told him, smiling back, enjoying the novelty of a morning dance in the park.

He nodded. “I’m finding a new love for this city. For everything. You’ve made the world a new and exciting place for me.”

I flushed in pleasure, believing every intoxicating word he said to me.

We leisurely walked from the Imperial Palace district and back to the Ginza district, shopping a little, but mostly just exploring the fascinating city. We walked through a mall, and used a tour guidebook to try to find one of the large city gardens in the Tokyo Bay that I’d marked.

We were trying to decipher the map for maybe five minutes, laughing at our confusion, when Clark approached. He’d been hovering with Blake, following at a discreet distance all day.

“The Hamarikyu Gardens, right?” he asked, peeking at our map.

I nodded.

He pointed down a street. “That way,” he said. He had apparently been here before. “We’ll pass the fish market, which is closed for the day, but it’s just a few blocks past that.”