i finally had my opportunity to meet my best friend (and crush- what? who said that?) on june 14, 2022. the day before we left, i sat in my car at work and texted you. it was raining really hard and i was going home early; first, i sent a couple texts saying how nervous i was. you agreed. of course that was natural, and of course i was worried, but as soon as we met and i placed my hand on your head (sorry, that was weird, i dunno why i did that, but at least i won airport tag right?) i knew that everything would work out. it felt strange in a good, new way… my best friend, in the flesh? how novel, and how wonderful. over the course of our week in toronto i sometimes felt like our energy online versus in person was completely different… and maybe that was true? but it wasn’t bad. and, in the time since, we’ve gotten more comfortable with each other (to the point where our irl banter sounds very similar to the texts we send… haha…).

toronto had such lovely weather, didn’t it? it was hot for a few days, but nowhere near nyc levels. i hardly remember them now, but we got very well acquainted with the ttc subway station names during our trip. spadina, anyone? we bought so many transit day passes in toronto, and made very good use of them. i loved our daily ritual of feeding the station machines money (usually early in the morning when nobody else was around… how peaceful that neighbourhood was in the morning!) and then bringing our tickets down the stairs through ossington station and waiting on the platform. and do you recall how we could hear trains passing by underground from our airbnb? at least, i think that’s what that sound was… i hope that’s what that sound was. we did a lot of walking, too, and everything felt so relaxed. this was the trip we planned the least, so our schedule wasn’t as rigorous and we were able to take things slowly.

the first night, as we sat at kinka izakaya and i (surreptitiously, innocently, and very normally, in an extremely well-adjusted way) watched you demolish a stone bowl bibimbap, i could only reflect on how unreal everything felt yet how lucky i truly was. not only was i finally with the person who understood me most in the entire world, he also happened to be my favourite person. and your pink hair was so beautiful (your hair is beautiful in any colour, though, so don’t get this skewed), and i loved your brown eyes more than anything (as i still do), and your entire style was so elegant. i felt so privileged and lucky to be your best friend, just how i feel so privileged and lucky now to be your girlfriend. out of everyone, you chose me? how fortuitous for me, and how grateful and relieved i am every day.

i suppose kinka izakaya was our first date, technically, but we were so nervous! it makes me laugh now. i think we were more relaxed in cafe landwer… that yellow decor was so cheery and bright, though it was a rainy and overcast day. we almost sat outside, but it was literally raining and i’m glad we didn’t. and afterwards, we began our long saga of museums… hey, don’t we still have our memberships for the art gallery of ontario? a year-long membership for tourists… how silly. that day, we also made pizza… how silly! it was more fun to make it than to eat it. i just enjoyed spending the time with you. cooking together is so precious to me, and the fact that we have many homecooked meals in our future is so lovely to think about.

we had many other adventures on the days following. we went to the mall and smelled perfumes, drank alcohol and got into a precarious situation, visited kensington and moseyed around the thrift shops, imagined filling priceless artifact bowls with beans at the gardiner, hunted in vain for the ever-elusive cn tower, were served fine miku dining by a drunk employee, made awful charcuterie boards for the very first time (a tradition we shall carry forevermore into the future), met your current idol and my future idol nozmo in the real flesh, ate the most delicious fondue at a swan diner, visited parks, faked illness to skip le baratin, schemed a crafty twoseraph scheme at soya, had many nighttime walks back to our airbnb, finished gurren lagann, found a chocolate factory in the middle of nowhere…

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real mature.


us at the bata... girls in skirts! magnificent!


undeniable proof of the cn tower. that instax photo was SETTING ME UP!


the "slay what you wanna slay" era and all its consequences...
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we said goodbye at the end and i was ragged for many days afterwards. so thank GOD our nyc trip was just seven weeks later!

disturb aph greece from his slumber to advance.

wrangle little pikachu to return home.