“Nakamura Hayato, chasing after a woman instead of the other way around. This is a first,” Daniel says on the phone, after instructing his latest lover to look up her name in his handwritten reservation book. Not having an online reservation system is meant to be part of Sukiyabashi Daniel’s traditional-meets-modern-world charm. A bold choice in a city as teched up as San Francisco. I fully approved of the branding tactic when he pitched the restaurant to me back in Tokyo, but I now I curse its absence as I wait for Daniel to report back. I might have at least been able to pull an IP address from his records if he kept them online.
“Her full name is Kristal Kringle,” Daniel tells me with a disbelieving, “Eh! I do not think she gave us her real name, Nakamura-san…”
He was right to think that. With the song “California Dreamin’ playing inside my head, I go through pages and pages of results on a few different search engines. But I can’t find any mention of or social media belonging to a Kristal Kringle who looked like the woman I met last night. I don’t bother performing a search on the name Jae-Hyun. Jae-Hyun is basically the “Jake” of Korea. But with only that most likely false name to go on, my substitute escort’s trail quickly goes ice cold. I keep looking anyway. Even going as far as to add the word “elf” to a few of my searches.
Until I receive a polite text from my driver. It’s time to go. Time to return to my real life in Japan. I must reel myself back in, I decide, closing my laptop.
Just losing her like that feels crazy to me. But not as crazy as delaying my flight back to Tokyo. I let her go.
Still, “California Dreamin’” continues to play inside my head on the way to the airport.
Instead of returning business emails in the back of the luxury SUV, I search the streets, looking for her. But I don’t see even one person in an elf hat. I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s twelve days past Christmas. Of course, I won’t see any elf hats. Of course, I won’t see Kristal again. We were but two ships passing in the night.
Yet this song “California Dreamin’” stays with me on the plane ride back to Japan. Then continues to haunt me for days that turn into weeks that turn into months.
I continue to live my charmed life after that night with Kristal. I spend money without a care, sleep with beautiful women, attend parties all over the world, and contribute to ground-breaking robotics projects at work. Most men would kill to be me.
But whenever my mind quiets, “California Dreamin’” slips into my head. And when I sleep with my escorts it plays especially loud, rising in a crescendo until l close my eyes and imagine Kristal underneath me instead of whatever beauty I hired that night.
There is someone I want.
But I cannot have her.
I try to let her go.
But “California Dreamin’” continues to play inside my head.
Outside I am still the same Hayato Nakamura. But inside, I can feel myself coming unhinged as the year crawls by, slow as a snail.
For these reasons and more, I’m shocked when I walk into my business partner’s office on Christmas Day and find Kristal Kringle.
Oh wow!
What will happen next?
Find out in the episode 1 of
TWELVE MONTHS OF KRISTAL
I SAW HER AGAIN
Episode 1
Last Christmas
Nearly one year has passed
since Hayato's and Kristal's night of passion.
He's a billionaire.
He can have any woman he wants.
So why can't he get that
BBE (big beautiful elf)
out of his head?
HAYATO
The first day of Christmas
When I step into the elevator of our GoNoToRobo Shiba district headquarters, George Michael, though dead, is still complaining about the poor decisions he made with his heart last Christmas.
I met Kristal in January, not last Christmas. But for the first time, I find myself sympathizing with his yearly lament. At least it’s not “California Dreamin’”—
Oh hell, I’m thinking of her again. For what feels like the millionth time this year, I have to forcibly re-direct my thoughts from that incredible one-night-stand. I push the memory of Kristal’s sweet, shy smile out of my mind and start making mental notes for this morning’s stand-up meeting with my brother, Norio, and our GoNoToRobo co-founder, Go Rodriguez.
Go is the Chief Technical Officer of our co-founded enterprise, while I’m the CEO, and my brother, No, is the president. But those are merely titles, and none of us bother to adhere to them during our weekly Tuesday stand-up, which is technically Monday for my brother since Tokyo is seventeen hours in front of Portland, where my brother runs our U.S. offices.
Tuesdays are usually the worse part of this job since I must get up early to make it to Go’s office by five a.m. But I believe today’s meeting should go fairly fast since Go is from the States. Christmas is more of a fun, cutesy event day for the mostly non-Christian Japanese. Many school children have the day off, but it’s not considered a national holiday like New Year is. Go and I decided to give our mostly Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Indian workers from December 30th to January 3rd off, with the option to use December 25th as a vacation day for Go and the other Western members of our company.