The plane touched down at Narita just after 4 PM local time. Mike’s legs were numb, his neck was stiff, and he was fairly certain the man in the 49ers jersey had been using his shoulder as a pillow for the last three hours. But none of that mattered. He was in Japan.
Immigration took forty minutes. The officer studied his brand-new passport, glanced at him, stamped it without a word. Mike walked through the arrivals gate, scanning the crowd of drivers and family members for the adult supervisor he was supposed to meet — someone from a crypto fund that had invested into Solana.
He almost missed him.
The sign read MIKE SOLANA in black marker on white cardboard. The man holding it looked like he’d wandered off the set of Tokyo Drift. Late twenties, platinum blonde hair swept back, sharp jawline, a pair of oversized sunglasses pushed up on his forehead. He wore a black leather jacket over a plain white tee, slim jeans, and boots that probably cost more than Mike’s round-trip flight. He looked less like an adult supervisor from a crypto VC fund and more like a member of the Japanese mafia who happened to be very into fashion.
“Mike?” the man said.
“Yeah. Ryota?”
“That’s me.” He extended a hand. His grip was firm but unhurried, the handshake of someone who didn’t feel the need to prove anything. “Welcome to Japan. How was the flight?”
“Long. Really long.”
“Yeah, economy’s brutal. Let’s get you to your hotel.”
They walked to the parking garage in comfortable silence. Mike was still adjusting to the sensory shift — the signage all in Japanese, the vending machines everywhere, the eerie orderliness of everything. Even the parking garage felt cleaner than most restaurants he’d been to in Oakland.
Ryota stopped in front of a canary yellow Bentley Bentayga. He popped the trunk, tossed Mike’s backpack in, and climbed into the driver’s seat like it was a Honda Civic.
“First time in Japan?” Ryota asked as they pulled onto the highway.
“First time outside California.”
Ryota glanced at him sideways, grinning. “Anatoly said you were interesting. Didn’t mention you were basically a baby.”
“I’m sixteen.” Mike protested.
Ryota didn’t bother to answer and kept driving.
The drive from Narita into central Tokyo took just over an hour. Mike spent most of it with his forehead against the window, watching the landscape transform — from flat suburban sprawl to dense urban clusters to the towering neon geometry of Shinjuku. Every few minutes a new skyline emerged, each one denser and more vertical than the last. The highways stacked on top of each other like layers of a circuit board. Everything hummed with a quiet, mechanical efficiency that made San Francisco feel like a construction site.
Ryota pulled up to a narrow business hotel wedged between a convenience store and a ramen shop. The lobby was barely wider than the Bentayga.
“This is you,” Ryota said. “Dump your stuff. I’ll wait.”
Mike checked in, rode a tiny elevator to the eighth floor, and entered a room that was roughly the size of his closet back in Oakland. A single bed, a desk, a window overlooking an alley. He dropped his backpack, splashed water on his face, and went back downstairs.
Ryota was leaning against the Bentayga, scrolling his phone. He looked up when Mike came out.
“I need to get some dinner,” he said. “You should join.”
His eyes twinkled as he smiled a mischievous grin that made Mike slightly nervous about what he was being invited to.
They drove to Roppongi.
Saturday night. The streets were thick with people — clusters of salarymen loosening their ties, groups of young women in heels navigating the sidewalk, tourists with backpacks looking lost. Pink and blue neon spilled from every doorway. Bass thumped from somewhere underground. Ryota turned down a narrow back alley that smelled like yakitori smoke and cologne.
As the yellow Bentayga rolled to a stop, a well-dressed man in a black suit materialized from nowhere, bowed deeply, and opened Ryota’s door. Ryota handed him the keys without a word. Valet parking in a back alley — Mike was learning that Tokyo operated on a different set of rules.
They entered a nondescript brownstone building and stepped into an elevator. Ryota pressed 8 — the top floor. Mike watched the numbers climb in silence.
The doors opened.
A dozen men in black suits stood in two rows, backs straight, hands clasped in front of them. The moment they saw Ryota, they bowed in perfect unison and bellowed in chorus: “IRASHAIMASE!”
Mike flinched. Ryota didn’t.
The sign on the heavy door they were led through featured a pink graphic logo that appeared to be — Mike blinked — a stylized illustration of a woman’s chest. The text beneath it read: MAGIC EDEN.
They were escorted down a dim hallway into a private room. Two large black velvet sofas faced each other across a heavy marble table with gold finishing along the edges. Soft lighting. A faint scent of perfume and whiskey. Ryota dropped onto one of the sofas like he was collapsing into his own living room.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the opposite sofa.
Mike sat.
Ryota raised a hand to the waiter hovering next to the table. “The usual.”
The waiter bowed and turned to leave. Ryota caught his wrist gently, shook his hand — and Mike noticed a folded 10,000 yen bill pass between their palms. The waiter bowed again, deeper this time, and disappeared.
“What is this place?” Mike asked.
“This,” Ryota said, leaning back and crossing one boot over his knee, “is a kyabakura. A hostess bar. But not just any kyabakura.” He paused for effect. “This is a JAV kyabakura. All the hostesses here are either former or currently active JAV actresses.”
“What’s JAV?”
Ryota stared at him. Then he explained.
Mike, who had just taken a sip of water, spat it back into his glass.
Ryota was delighted.
The waiter returned with a bottle of Dom Perignon and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label, both placed on the marble table with the reverence of sacred artifacts. Minutes later, the same waiter burst back in — visibly sweating, as if he’d sprinted across Roppongi — carrying a pizza box. The top of the box read PST.
“Pizza Studio Tamaki — the finest pizza in all of Tokyo,” Ryota said, flipping the lid open. “Trust me.”
Mike stared at the spread in front of him. Dom Perignon, Johnnie Walker Blue, and artisanal pizza in a hostess bar staffed by adult film actresses on a Saturday night in Roppongi. He’d been in Japan for approximately four hours.
“I, uh — I can’t really drink,” Mike said. “I’m underage. And I don’t want to make a bad impression or get anyone in trouble—”
Ryota burst out laughing. A full, head-back, uninhibited laugh that echoed off the velvet walls.
“You’re cute, Mike. Don’t worry about it. Anatoly asked me to take good care of you and I will. Drink.”
A knock at the door. Three women entered — evening dresses, immaculate makeup, professional smiles. Ryota glanced at them, exchanged a few words in rapid Japanese, and waved them away. He turned to the waiter.
“English speakers. For my friend here. And tell Yu-san I’m here.”
Another knock. Another wave of women — four this time, all in evening dresses, all smiling. They lined up near the door. Ryota nudged Mike.
“Pick one.”
Mike, eager to get all of this over with and back to his hotel room as soon as humanly possible, pointed at the girl closest to him. She smiled and sat down next to him on the sofa. She smelled like vanilla and something floral he couldn’t identify.
“I’m Tiffany,” she said. Her English was accented but clear. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three,” Mike said.
The word came out before he could catch it — a reflex from his past life, his real age slipping through the mask. Ryota, across the table, pressed his lips together hard to suppress a grin, clearly assuming Mike was trying to impress the girl.
“And what do you do?” Tiffany asked.
“I’m here working on games.”
“What kind of games?”
“Strategy RPGs that run on blockchain. You know, crypto. Crypto games. Uh, players own their in-game assets as NFTs — digital items with real value that can be traded and sold.”
Tiffany’s eyes widened. “Crypto games? NFTs? Like on Ethereum?”
Mike turned to look at her fully for the first time. “You know about Ethereum?”
“A little. I lost my savings during the ICO boom.” She shrugged with the casual resignation of someone who’d accepted the loss long ago. “But I always thought crypto was interesting. Just never knew what to do with it.”
Ryota chimed in from across the table, pouring himself a generous measure of Johnnie Walker Blue. “I made a fortune on OmiseGo and EOS. Sold the top. Bought a stake in the company that makes this jacket with the profits.” He tugged at his leather collar. “Worth it.”
Mike took a sip of Dom Perignon. Then another. The bubbles hit differently when you were sixteen in a Roppongi hostess bar and the entire evening felt like a fever dream.
Tiffany leaned in. “Do you think anyone can get into the NFT business? Like, could actresses or influencers do something with it?”
Mike’s mind flashed forward — to 2021, when every celebrity, athlete, and influencer on Earth would be launching NFT collections. When the market would explode and then implode and then somehow keep going. Tiffany was asking a question that, in two years, would answer itself a thousand times over.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I think the creator economy and NFTs are going to merge in a way nobody expects. People with audiences — especially in entertainment — are going to have a massive advantage.”
Tiffany’s eyes sparkled.
Mike, now feeling the Dom Perignon warming his chest, remembered why he was actually here. He turned to Ryota.
“Hey — have you ever heard of a company called Frontier? Frontier Biolabs?”
Ryota thought for a moment, swirling his whiskey. “Frontier… no. Doesn’t ring a bell. What do they do?”
“Bioengineering. Exosome research. Based here in Tokyo.”
“Exosomes? That’s a bit outside my world.” He took a sip. “But I can ask around. If they’re legit and based here, someone in my network will know them. You need a meeting?”
“If possible. Even just thirty minutes with anyone there.”
“I’ll see what I can do for Monday. That’s your only business day, right?”
“Yeah. I fly back Tuesday.”
“Got it. I’ll make some calls tomorrow.”
Another knock. A woman in a more elaborate dress entered — clearly a level above the others. She walked straight to Ryota, who stood and greeted her warmly. Yu-san. His regular. They exchanged a few words in Japanese and she sat beside him, immediately at ease.
Mike turned back to Tiffany, who placed her hand gently on his thigh.
He froze. He’d never been to a strip club, a hostess bar, or any establishment with female entertainers — not in this life, and not in the one before it. His twenty-three-year-old brain understood the situation perfectly. His sixteen-year-old body had no idea what to do with it.
Tiffany smiled at him. Patient. Amused.
Mike took a very large sip of the Johnnie Walker.
End of Episode 8