“This is true,” Daniel said, smiling.
“How’s Cherry?” the chef asked.
From a stack below the conveyer belt, Daniel pulled off two china cups without handles and set one in front of me. “Too old for you.”
“I’ve dated older. And younger,” he said, smiling at me. “How old are you?”
“Right in front of my face?” Daniel shook his head, and as he scooped green powder into our cups, he said to me conspiratorially, “Don’t listen to this guy, Birdie. He’s all talk, no game. And his sushi skills are shit.”
The chef pointed the tip of his knife at Daniel. “Those are fighting words, Aoki.”
“Fine. He’s actually one of the best,” Daniel told me. “He worked for Shiro’s, but he opened this place last year. Before all that, he used to live across the street from my auntie, and he hung out with all my cousins. He’s been shit-talking me since I was a wide-eyed, tender boy.”
“You serial pickpocketed me when I was in culinary school,” the chef argued. “That was my beer money, man.”
Daniel held my cup under a tap that jutted below the conveyer belt, pulling a lever. Steaming water streamed from the tap, making the powder inside the cup swirl. When he set it back down in front of me, the floral scent of green tea wafted up. “It’s not my fault that you were the easiest target,” he told the chef.
“Still am, probably. At least there’s a counter between us. You ordering off the menu?”
“Nah. We’re good. Do your thing.”
The chef nodded, reaching over the conveyer belt to hand us rolled-up hot towels on little oblong bamboo trays. “Let me know if you need anything.” Then he left us alone, returning to the giant gray-scaled fish he’d been carving, revealing rosy pink flesh as he sliced.
“That’s tuna,” Daniel told me.
“I think it’s still moving,” I murmured, unsure about all of this. Everything smelled and looked strange. Little signs that sat near the plates on the conveyer were in Japanese and English. It was overwhelming. Especially considering that I couldn’t discern Daniel’s intentions in bringing me here. “I’ve never had raw fish,” I told him.
“Let’s start out slow, yeah?” Daniel said, leaning his shoulder against mine and smiling down at me with his eyes.
“Okay,” I said, trying to dispel my anxieties.
Nodding, he proceeded to explain everything in detail. The purpose of all the little bottles and jars and tiny plates sitting in front us. Where to put my chopsticks. The difference between nigiri and maki rolls and stuffed temaki cones. Between us, he set up a little station of soy sauce, wasabi paste, and pickled ginger slices, and we watched the conveyer belt until he spotted what he wanted me to try first.
“Tuna roll,” he said, taking down a small plate from the belt. “It’s basic. Nothing weird.”
“It’s raw?”
“Think of it as super fresh. Do you know how to use chopsticks?”
“Sort of.” I wasn’t very good at it.
“Then use your fingers. It’s totally acceptable. See?” He wiped his fingers on one of the hot towels we’d been given, and I did the same. Then he dabbed a bit of green wasabi on two pieces of tuna roll and showed me how to dip it in soy sauce before eating a piece himself. “Mmm,” he said, chewing. “See? Try it.”
I steeled myself and popped one into my mouth. It was... salty. Briny. Soft. And—
“Oh God,” I murmured as my eyes watered and my nose began burning. Should I swallow this or spit it out? Was I going to gag?
“Wasabi,” Daniel said, laughing. “Swallow. It will go away. Have some tea.”
The tea was too hot. I nearly burned my tongue. But at least the terrible nose burn was fading.
“Well?”
“I can’t taste anything.”
“Try again,” he said, giving me a look that riled up those fluttery butterflies in my stomach again. “Sometimes things are better the second time.”
I tried a second piece, this time without the wasabi. And it was... weird but good. He pulled down other plates from the conveyer belt—a salmon roll, a spicy tuna roll, some shrimp nigiri. Pretty little bites dressed in pink and orange roe. And before I knew it, I was eating everything and liking quite a bit of what I tasted. I even began enjoying the burn of the wasabi. It was crave-able.
