The Boy Who Wore Boat Shoes

13⎜The Sushi

13⎜ The Sushi

As I exited the auditorium building with a mass of other freshmen that had also endured the two-hour lecture with me, the only thing on my mind was sleep. It was three in the afternoon, and all I knew was that I wanted to take a nap. My previous class was practically torture, for while the topic that had been discussed was pretty interesting, it was also boring as hell. Plus, the teacher’s voice had a lulling quality about it that made the two hours even more unbearable. I honestly couldn’t even comprehend how I had made it out of there alive.

           “Eric!” someone called sharply, possessing way more energy than should be allotted to a single human being. I looked around, facing the fact that they were probably seeking my attention, and that was when I spotted her. It was a bit surprising that she was addressing me, but I didn’t think too much into it. As girls went, she was pretty cool…in a completely weird and totally eccentric way.

           “Noa,” I greeted back with an unfortunate yawn.

           The redhead rushed over the short distance required to meet me, a large grin spread across her face. I had a hunch that rambling was about to spout from her mouth, and within seconds, my premonition was proven correct. “Okay, so Seth—who happens to be my boyfriend at the moment and your roommate—just called me to cancel our plans this afternoon, which was totally a dick move by him, because I was really excited and made the reservations and everything! If you’re not doing anything, do you want to take his place and go to sushi with me?”

           As quickly as I could, I dissected what she had said, the buzzwords in the paragraph of dialogue being “Seth,” “cancel,” and “sushi.” Seth had cancelled on going to sushi with Noa. Damn, I was smart. Hell, I had a gorgeous brain and a face—I was the whole package. Thankfully, though, I wasn’t nearly as cocky as my inner monologue made me out to be at times. I blinked a few times at Noa, making sure that I wasn’t sleep walking or something, and then made one of those big “College Decisions” that parents almost warned you about. “Sure,” I said slowly, not having to wait long for her response.

           “Ohmigosh! Yay! Let’s go!” she grinned happily, not wasting anymore time and dragging me all the way across the campus, her grip tight as she babbled away about Seth being annoying, the sun, and something having to do with her cuticles. As I had learned to do when Seth was in a particularly loquacious mood (which was essentially always), I just nodded my head politely, occasionally saying, “Yeah?” “Really?” “Oh,” “How nice,” “You don’t say?” and a few derivatives of those. It was an effective method, and since Noa and Seth generally didn’t care what I had to say, anyways, it tended to work out well.

           Once I was virtually sure we had speed-walked all the way to the opposite side of the Stanford campus where we had initially started, Noa came to an abrupt stop, halting before a restaurant of sorts. It had a sign above the front entrance that read “Yoi Sushi,” and I figured that since I was 98.4% certain Noa had mentioned something about sushi, we were finally at our destination. Noa then dragged me inside, making me 99.84% sure that we were actually done walking.

           After checking in at the hostess’ podium in the front of the restaurant, the hostess herself—who happened to have a sleek quality about her, and was probably a few years older than us—walked us to the back of the surprisingly busy place, getting us all set with our menus. Noa and I sat down in these heightened stools, our feet not being able to touch the ground. The entire restaurant had this modern vibe about it that I liked, though felt was very…West Coast. Noa seemed to be completely at home, but she was from the area (meaning state), so that was expected.