Friends will be friends (4)

He is a very busy man, and I didn’t think he would come to Okinawa with a very tight schedule. I asked him to fix a day for us and call me when he got to the pub. I decided to take the afternoon off to be as accommodating as possible to his movements on that day. It was interesting to see the distinct difference in our work styles here.

Around three o’clock in the evening, I received a call from him. He said in a cheerful voice, “I’ll be there by 4:00!” It was earlier than I had expected. He said he would check-in at the hotel and then come to a pub near my house. So I figured it would be around 5:00, although earlier than the 6:00 I had reserved—he did not notice the traffic jam in the evening.

As expected, he didn’t arrive by 4:00. Since I didn’t know when exactly he would come, even if I went to the store earlier than him, I decided to wait at home for his call by 5 PM and went to the pub. I spent some time at the storefront for a while.

About 30 minutes later, I guess, a rental car arrived. The man who got out was quite stocky and wore glasses. The man I remembered did not wear glasses. As I left him to walk past me, thinking, “Maybe not,” and shifting my gaze elsewhere, the man called out, “Oh, maybe!”