How it all began

And the chain reaction

Photo by Falco Negenman on Unsplash

We were in transit in Switzerland when everything came to a halt. A tsafun at our final destination forced all flights to turn into question marks, and by early afternoon it became clear that we would not be reaching Japan that day. The eight of us lingered at the airport — four girls, four boys — watching daylight slide across the vast glass façades while departure boards flickered stubbornly in red.

To keep our spirits from sinking, we claimed a quiet corner near the enormous windows. Behind them, airplanes drifted along the tarmac like backstage actors waiting for their cue. And there, in that strangely suspended moment between departure and arrival, we held our own practice lesson. We danced, our reflections gliding over polished floors, laughing more than rehearsing. For a brief while, the airport stopped being an airport. It became a stage.

By evening, the inevitable was announced: we would spend the night in a nearby hotel. It felt less like an accommodation and more like a waiting room with beds. Still, dinner was paid for, with no limits — an almost decadent luxury after a day of uncertainty. We sat around a large round table and ordered fondue, the perfect meal to share, warm and communal. Yet beneath the laughter, a quiet tension flickered: When would we finally reach Japan? Would we miss a performance? Would everything still be waiting for us once we arrived?

Karl sat beside me. He was my dancing partner — a kind, fair-haired boy whose smile always appeared a heartbeat before his words. I never had much of a weakness for blond men; my attention tended to drift toward the dark-haired, slightly dangerous types. But Karl and I shared something else. A rhythm. An ease. A trust.

We had known each other for years, long enough to collect a handful of stories that belonged only to us. One I would never forget: the day he tried to impress me with a particularly ambitious lift. He swung me upward with such enthusiasm that I slipped over his shoulder entirely, and we crashed onto the studio floor in an inelegant tangle. I was fine — more startled than hurt — but I was terrified he might have hit his head. He only laughed, brushing off my concern with stubborn gentleness. And then, without hesitation, we tried again. The second time, everything worked. I landed exactly where I was meant to be — balanced, secure, trusting.

From that moment on, my esteem for him settled into something steady and enduring. He was the only partner who never complained I was too heavy to lift, who never doubted his strength or mine. That became our quiet bond: trust built not on perfection, but on falling together, rising together, and trying again.

And so, in that hotel near the airport, with a fondue pot steaming between us and the uncertainty of Japan hovering above us like another delayed departure, I realized: whatever awaited us on the other side of the world, we would meet it the same way we always had — step by step, shoulder by shoulder, trusting the next lift to hold.

After three long days of waiting in a polished Swiss hotel, we finally arrived in Japan. I expected excitement, maybe relief. Instead, I felt disoriented, as if I had stepped into a world that had been quietly rearranged in my absence.

What struck me first were the plastic food displays — meals that looked more perfect than any real dish could ever be. They stood behind glass, identical, immaculate, and for a moment, I felt a strange pressure in my chest. So this is Japan, I thought. A place where even the imitation demands perfection.

Our hotel in Shibuya-ku didn’t help my sense of imbalance. The room was barely big enough to turn around in. We had to place our suitcases on the bed to open them, like travelers trying to unpack inside a dollhouse. And the bathroom — a smooth, seamless plastic cocoon — felt more like a capsule meant to contain me than a space meant to comfort me. Karl, however, thrived in exactly that kind of tightness. It made him alert, alive. Restless.

After our official dinner with the Symphony Orchestra’s conductor and Madame Eva Campianu, his energy was almost manic. “Tonight I’ll walk through Shibuya. Maybe I’ll find a little bar or café. Do you want to come?” His tone was light, but there was something determined underneath, something that would go with or without my answer.

“No, I’m tired. Jet lag,” I replied. “Maybe Christian and Wolfgang — ” He didn’t even let me finish. He was already halfway toward the elevator. He didn’t want company; he wanted freedom.

The next day he tried to reconnect, perhaps out of guilt — or habit. He brought me to a tiny café named AYAME, the Japanese version of Iris. At first I smiled at the coincidence, but soon the feeling shifted. The place was filled with irises — paintings, decorations, even the matchboxes. The matches had blue heads. Everything mirrored my name. It felt less like a charming coincidence and more like the universe whispering something I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.

“Tonight I’ll go to Akihabara,” he announced, almost too casually. “Maybe I’ll buy a new camera.” Again, he didn’t really wait for my response. “And I’ll go straight to the hotel after rehearsal,” I said. “I don’t feel like shopping.”

He nodded, but his mind was already elsewhere. When he disappeared into the evening crowds, I felt a pang — not of worry, but of distance. A widening gap.

The next morning, he arrived at breakfast unusually animated. “You won’t believe who I met,” he said, leaning in. “A Slovenian sculptor and his Japanese wife. And the sculptor — Alojz — he knows you.”

I felt a flicker of discomfort. “How could he know me?” Karl smiled in that way he does when he already knows he has the upper hand. “He knows your father. Recognized your name immediately. Apparently, your father is quite famous. And look — he has an exhibition here, on the main street.”

There was something in Karl’s voice — a kind of insistence that wasn’t about the sculptor at all. Something like: See? I find connections too. I am not alone here. I am seen.

Then he added, with a tone too light to be innocent: “I told them to call you tonight at the hotel. They really want to meet you.”

At that moment, the pieces shifted. Not dramatically — subtly, like a chair moved half a centimeter in an empty room. But I felt it immediately. A sense that something was entering my space, my silence, my history. And I wasn’t sure whether Karl was opening a door for me — or quietly pushing me through one.

Alojz and his wife arrived in the evening, warm, polite, and unexpectedly familiar, as if they had stepped out of a story I had forgotten I was part of. They took me to a small local restaurant — the kind hidden in narrow side streets, glowing with soft lantern light. Inside, a real obāchan greeted us, bowing with the slow grace of someone who has lived many decades and seen many travelers pass.

The food came in small dishes, simple and perfect, each one like a secret folded in flavor. Conversation flowed easily; our stories layered themselves over the table like overlapping waves. By the time we stepped back outside, the evening had almost dissolved into a new day.

We strolled toward the hotel, the street lamps casting long shadows behind us. And maybe it was the late hour, or the comfort of being understood, or simply the warmth of the sake — but I felt close enough to ask a question that had been circling in my mind.

“I was wondering,” I turned to Alojz’s wife, “do you maybe know a modeling agency here? Wolfgang and Christian read somewhere that you can earn some side money with modeling. They even brought their pictures. I want to help them.”

She began to think, her brow softly furrowing — but before she could answer, Alojz stopped mid-step and spun around as if struck by sudden clarity.

“What are you talking about? Fashion?” His voice echoed lightly in the quiet street. “I just met a fashion designer two days ago! A friend of a friend. I’ll give you his phone number — you can call him. He should know!”

And as he said it, I felt it again — that faint shift, that almost imperceptible click, like another domino falling in a chain I did not yet see.

That was the moment the snowball began to move.

Not fast. Not loudly. Just a slow, inevitable shift — like the first tremor on a mountain slope before anyone hears the avalanche forming.

Alojz stood under the yellow streetlamp, his breath a faint cloud in the cool Japanese night, his excitement glowing as if someone had flicked a switch behind his eyes.

“A fashion designer,” he repeated, as though the words themselves were a key. “To meet him was pure coincidence. Or maybe not a coincidence at all.”

He laughed lightly, but something inside me tightened. Not fear — more like recognition. As if a small voice whispered, Pay attention. This is not random.

Because that was how it always began: with one tiny, seemingly harmless piece of information rolling forward… gathering momentum… picking up stories, chances, people… until it changed everything in its path.

We walked on, but it felt like the night had shifted under our feet. The lanterns above us seemed brighter. The street is more alive. Even the air carried a kind of quiet electricity, like static waiting for a spark.

The snowball was moving. And though I didn’t yet know where it was rolling, I felt its pull — gentle, insistent — drawing me toward something larger than a modeling question, larger than a dinner with near-strangers, larger even than Japan.

It was the beginning of a sequence, a chain reaction set into motion by a storm, a delay, a shared fondue, a familiar name, a question asked at the wrong — or perfectly right — moment.

I could almost hear it: the soft, inevitable scrrrtch of snow gathering speed on a distant slope.

And without realizing it, I had already begun to follow.

The next morning, the snowball rolled a little faster.

Down in the basement of the hotel — a dim, slightly echoing corridor that smelled faintly of carpet dust and old receipts — there was a small phone cabin for local calls. A relic from a different decade. Its glass felt cold under my fingertips as I closed the door behind me.

I dialed the number Alojz had scribbled on a napkin.

“Hallo!” A very sleepy voice answered, thick like someone woken from the safest part of a dream.

“Hello,” I began, suddenly aware of how strange this all sounded. “My name is Iris, and I just met Alojz yesterday evening. He gave me your number because I need some advice for two friends of mine who want to do modeling.”

A pause. Then a suspicious, incredulous:

“Is this a joke? Who is calling? Can you repeat that?”

So I repeated the whole story — slower this time, feeling faintly ridiculous, aware of the echo of my own voice in the tiny booth.

Another pause. I could almost picture him sitting up in bed, hair in disarray, trying to understand whether he was still dreaming.

“So… you are not a joke? You’re not calling me from the Embassy?”

“No, no! I’m a ballet dancer — not from the Embassy at all!”

A rustling sound on the other end. Sheets? Clothing? A life rearranging itself in real time.

“Okay… listen,” he said, suddenly more awake, more decisive. “Let’s meet this evening so I can explain everything properly. I will come to the lobby of your hotel at 6 PM. I will bring my friend Mikele. Tell your friends to wait for me. See you.”

The line clicked. The booth fell silent.

And in that silence, I felt it again — that subtle, almost imperceptible shift, like the snowball gathering weight.

A sleepy voice was awakened by coincidence. A meeting is set for 6 PM. A friend named Mikele. Two boys with modeling photos in their suitcases.

Nothing dramatic. Not yet.

But something was in motion.

And it was coming straight toward us.