We exited the convenience store with my face full of smiles and arms full of food. Masa sighed as he led the way to his house. "I don't see why you had to buy so much stuff now. We could just pass by this way again tomorrow."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "I can't visit your house empty-handed, can I? And besides, these are all desserts."

In the clear plastic bags were ice-cream cones, cream puffs, fruit tarts and various cakes. I admit I went a little overboard with the number of purchases, but everything had looked so good that I couldn't resist. The convenience store had so many kinds of ready-made food and breads that I was spoilt for choice. We were going to have dinner at Masa's place so I didn't buy any of the onigiri or sushi, but I definitely wanted to try some soon. I was so distracted by the food that I barely browsed through the drinks or magazine sections other than noticing they had the latest manga magazines for sale.

The shelf of bowl and cup noodles also interested me, but I assumed those could be bought anywhere. I might have to stop by a supermarket to stock up on some before returning to Malaysia. As I continued musing about what else to buy, we arrived at Masa's house. It was a double-storeyed detached building painted a nondescript pale brown and looked pretty similar to the other houses in the vicinity. I guessed it was more or less a typical house for a mid-income family here in Japan. Our family would never be able to afford a house of this size in Singapore, but on the other hand, we were now living in a bungalow probably three times its size in Malaysia. Life was strange.

My nervousness and excitement grew as we entered the gates and he turned the doorknob to open the door. I was glad there were some stock phrases you had to say when meeting people for the first time in Japan, but actually starting a conversation with Masa's parents was a different thing. What was I going to say? I couldn't tell the truth about how we met, but there was the story we had decided on when we met my parents. Hopefully that would work here too. I didn't particularly like lying, but it was difficult not to do that when the truth sounded stranger than fiction. Not to mention it would only result in us facing questions we had no answers for.

We were met by a lovely middle-aged woman I assumed was Mrs Tanaka. She beamed at us and ushered us in immediately after I greeted her. Placing my shoes neatly beside Masa's, I stepped into the hallway and proceeded to the living room, following his lead. He told me to take a seat while he carried my luggage upstairs, but I insisted on doing it myself. "Now, now," Mrs Tanaka interrupted us. "I'm sure you're both tired, so I'll ask Taka to help you with your luggage, Rynn-chan."

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"Taka?" I tilted my head. "Who's that?"

Rather than answering, Masa's mother shouted up the stairs. "Taka, your brother's home, so come help with the luggage!"

Ah, so Masa had a brother! Come to think about it, I hadn't asked him about whether he had siblings other than his older sister. We hadn't really talked about his family situation. There was the sound of a chair scraping against the floor and an irate voice called back down, "Can't he carry that up himself? I'm in the middle of something right now!"

"Ah, it's ok, I can carry it by myself, really!" I told Mrs Tanaka. "I carried it all the way here after all."

There were sudden footfalls from above and a bespectacled face popped out at the top of the stairs. "I knew I heard a girl's voice!" exclaimed the young man standing there. "So Masa brought home a girl, huh! Well, well, I never thought I'd see the day."

"She's just a friend, Taka-nii," retorted Masa with a sigh as he attempted to brush past him while going up the stairs.

"Hajimemashite, my name is Rynn," I said quickly, blushing a bit at Taka's comments. I mean, I had expected a similar reception considering how my parents had reacted, but it hit harder when the other party was a good-looking young man. Masa was handsome too, but in a rather more outdoorsy way. His older brother looked like an intelligent university student, even dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. I reckoned it had to be the spectacles. His longer and slightly wavy hair softened the overall effect and made him look more approachable.

"Nice to meet you too," replied Taka in impeccable English as he descended the stairs. He gave me a big smile and picked up my luggage. "My name is Takahiro, but you can just call me Taka."

Surprised, I nodded mutely as I followed him up the stairs. "So, where are you from?" he asked. "Masa only told us he was going overseas and didn't specify which country apart from the fact that it has lots of birds." He paused and rolled his eyes dramatically before continuing, "Which is so like him. You must have been dragged around by him to look at birds too, right?"

I shook my head as I tried to find my voice again. "It was no bother, since I like nature too," I finally replied. "I'm Singaporean, but currently living in Malaysia. He really loves birds, huh."

"Yep, to an almost obsessive degree," stated Taka with a sigh. "We were starting to get worried that he would never be interested in girls. Although a long-distance relationship might be hard to maintain. Hmm..."

Waving my hands, I quickly attempted to clear his misunderstanding, but he simply grinned at me. "Don't worry, I'm just teasing. That guy doesn't talk much about anything unless it has feathers, so it's rare to get such an interesting conversation topic. And speaking of interesting..."

Taka half-turned to give me a longer look. Then he smiled to himself and continued up the stairs. Puzzled, I tilted my head but he didn't say anything further.