"Hi, thanks for picking me up!"

"No problem." I smile. I was initially worried for this blind date but I feel myself relaxing as I look at her. She's blonde and blue eyed with dainty and soft features. She's also wearing a really cute baby blue blouse.

"So Pon, are you Japanese?"

"Uh, no I'm Thai."

"Oh. Well, I love your eyes. They're gorgeous."

"Oh, thanks."

"And your eyebrows, they're just so cute!"

"Um...thanks?" I pass a bend and furrow my "cute" eyebrows. Maybe she's nervous?

"You Japanese and your mono lids, they're just so cool!"

"...I'm not Japanese."

"Oh right, haha." I glance at her expression in the rearview mirror. She still has a sweet smile. She must be nervous, I guess it just doesn't show.

Twenty minutes later we're at a restaurant having dinner and I'm sitting with a menu in my hand hyper sensitively aware of her eyes boring into me. I look up with a pasted smile on my face.

"Is there something on my face?"

"Oh, I just love slanted Japanese eyes, they're just adorable." At this point I've given up on correcting her and my eyes return determinedly to my menu. It could be worse. My mind goes to a memory from two months ago...

I'm sitting in a restaurant watching my partner apply her lipstick for the nth time. She looks back up.

"What were you saying?"

"Oh, well I'm currently studying hygen-"

"One second." She bends back down to apply some more. "Sorry, I missed a little on the left.

At that moment the waiter arrives and serves our stakes. Thank god, perhaps she'll finally stop putting on her lipstick.

She finally lifts her head, reaches for her plate, and takes a bite...then bends down to reapply her lipstick. Sigh.

My mind returns to the present. We're in the car after exiting the restaurant at some unidentifiable time and now our lips are glued together, bodies pressing against each other. Her hands slip around my neck, our breathing intertwines. We're interlocked for several moments before she pulls away. She opens her mouth and just as I think she's going to kiss me again, she speaks.

"Can you say something sexy in Japanese?"

...what?

"Um, I don't speak Japanese."

"That's okay, just makes sounds and I'll pretend."

What the heck is going on right now, someone get me out of here!

With great difficulty I manage a half cringing smile.

"You want me to pretend to speak Japanese?"

"Yeah." She smiles as if that's a perfectly reasonable thing to ask of someone. Shit, what do I do....At that moment my phone rings. I give her a hasty apologetic smile and scramble to pick it up.

"Hello?"

"Uh, where did you leave the remote?" It's my brother.

"What are you doing at my house?"

"Uh, I was bored so I-" I freeze mid sentence, feeling her eyes boring into me.

"What! You said Grandma is in the hospital? In the ER??? I'm on my way!"

"Huh...?" I hang up on him and turn to face her with a smile full of apology.

"I am so sorry but as you heard my grandma is currently in the ER so...Actually she's hopping around, fit as a fiddle. In fact she was just forcing me to take the leftover turkey from thanksgiving. Ugh.

"Oh no, what happened?"

"Uh, um it's complicated. I really have to go, but I'll drop you home first..."

"Oh, no if it's really bad I can call an Uber."

"Yes, please! I mean, it's really urgent. So...thank you!"

I wait until she has an Uber because I am a polite gentleman but as soon as it arrives, I'm out of there, racing home to my four hamsters, confused brother, and the remote which I hid specifically to ward against him but which turned out to be my savior.