Traveler in a Suitcase!

I’m in Tokyo. Winter break, allegedly.

Everyone else is chasing snow in Hokkaido or performing enlightenment in Kyoto—onsen steam, rented kimonos, happiness in ten carefully edited photos.

Me?

I chose part-time shifts and eye bags. Limited edition. No refunds.

There’s a seasonal loophole: holidays stretch student work caps from 28 hours to 40.

I took it. Of course I did.

Because money outlives snow.

Because lipstick remembers you longer than a weekend in Niseko.

Because stillness asks questions and I don’t have the subtitles yet.

I could have gone to Nikkō and taught the snow my outline. I could have made a snow angel and called it growth. Instead I’m here, weighing mascara shades against train fares, writing budgets like vows I’ll keep for once.

Next week is my last course. Year two, Tokyo. I still don’t know where my feet go when no one’s clapping. I’m excellent at arrivals. Departures keep moving the gate.

They never tell you this part: you can outrun almost anything with sarcasm and subway transfers—until the map ends. Then it’s just you, a vending machine that knows your order, and the question that doesn’t blink: Now what.

I laugh. It’s a convenient weather system. The forecast says “clear skies,” even when the room smells like rain.

I say it’s strategy. The truth wears sneakers.

I say I’m fine. The sentence does not argue.

If I’m a winter city, I’m the one that stays lit after last train: convenience-store soup, fluorescent kindness, and a seat I call mine because no one else does. I practice being a person by buying onigiri and saying thank you like I mean it. The clerk smiles. The change is warm. That counts.

People post Hokkaido like it’s proof of life. I stack receipts. Same faith, different hymns. They collect mountains; I collect shift schedules and quiet endurance. Sometimes the snow inside me is cheaper to maintain.

I tell myself a joke. I’m the only one who hears the punchline. It lands. I don’t.

Maybe this is what growing up looks like: not choosing between money and memories, but admitting which one you can afford this month. Maybe I’ll travel when I learn how to sleep without bargaining. Maybe the vending machine will miss me if I go.

For now, I clock in. I clock out. I keep one ritual.

Cocoa at 22:37, platform wind, the soft hymn of trains. 

I wave at the version of me riding somewhere braver. 

She waves back. 

It might be a reflection.

I’m good at smiling with all the lights on. I’m even better at crying with the filter set to “joke.” 

If you laugh first, the sadness pretends it was late.

Anyway.

Tokyo, winter break. I’m here. I’m working. I’m laughing like a professional.

And if you feel water at your throat when I say I’m fine...

That’s just the snow, melting politely.

-ikkel-