Before I start freewriting, anyone out there interested in starting a writing group with me? Our goal would be to encourage each other to write regularly and critique each other on our work. Please contact me privately. Aloha!

“If I could have a moment of your time, sir.”
Never was there a more polite phrase uttered in such unexpected circumstances. Unexpected for J at least. In this part of Shinjuku, the Yakuza-operated host and hostess clubs had their men and women out procuring drunken customers exiting the restaurants that cohabited the little paradise. J was himself walking to the station, trailing a group of friends who had decided to call it a night. He would fall behind his friends if he turned, but turn he did, and there, lit on her right side by bright and flashing pachinko parlor lights, and shadowed pink on her left by a glowing display for a sexy lingerie pub, was the most ordinary girl in the most ordinary collared white shirt and khakis.

She was a head shorter than him. She carried a plastic white clipboard pressed against her chest. She bowed slightly. “Thank you for stopping.” His eyes flicked quickly to the display. An instinctual reaction. Involuntary. She smirked. Her right eyebrow twitched behind thin, wire-framed red glasses. “Let’s walk while we do this. You’ll lose your friends otherwise.”