Fast Fiction: Badminton Girls

We keep going down the wrong street. We know it has to be somewhere close, but the elusive lounge is nowhere to be found, even though our map shows that it should be right here.

“It might be down some tiny alley.”

“Yeah, or down in a basement somewhere…”

“Let’s go check down here.”

We take a right and head down a small alley. Entrances to various adult manga shops flank us on either side, and we smell the barbecued crispness of yakitori. And then we them.

“Is this for real?”

Two girls are in sailor suits, like the kind worn by junior high and high school students throughout the city. They are playing badminton. Close to them is an old man, belly protruding from a stained white shirt. He glances at us. The girls laugh and enjoy themselves, as if playing badminton in a dirty alley in the middle of Shibuya is the most obvious thing to be doing.

Of course.