Two bodies lay tangled in the sheets, and each other, as the night before turns to memory.  The specter of sweet wine, sticky floors, and cigarette smoke linger like a sleep-eyed dream. They begin to stir, to recognize each other’s body once more, as sunlight streams through the slanted blinds.  Coffee? Breakfast? Home? Of the many questions this fragrance poses, the one that stands out for d’Annam’s Tokyo Nights is, “Will it last?”.

The opening of Tokyo Nights feels like stepping into a jazz lounge in the 1950s. A singer stands in the spotlight, backed by a three-piece band; in front of her, several round tables, draped with tablecloths and a center candle. Further back yet, on the right, a bar, some round tops, and some semi-circular booths. Hard wood and velvet are everywhere, yet the bar avoids being upscale. Jeans and t-shirts are acceptable attire, and there is no dress code, but wearing something so casual might feel awkward. 

Stepping into the club, the stranger’s senses are immediately on alert, and his nose becomes aware of everything at once. The sweet depth of the Umeshu, the smoky atmosphere, the spice of tobacco leaf—just a whisper, a fingertip on the lips—the soft velvet of cushioned booths, and the warmth of air filled with bodies. Not crowded, but busy enough to feel alone. His nose has yet to individuate all the smells; or the smells have yet to settle into more and less dominant features of the setting. So, he moves to a table to sip his wine, smoke his cigarettes and listen to smooth jazz.  

The evening narrows and the table shrinks. Smoke comes and goes, no longer constant, seeming to have a life and will of its own. The plum wine has been the one constant tonight, but the last ounces now wait to be drained by plum-stained lips. As the club thins and patrons begin to take their nights elsewhere, the sticky floor—concentrated sweetness, the sum of a thousand nights—tries to hold them. The smoke has thinned to particles in the light: not candlelight, not sunlight, but amber, deep and warm, as if the room refuses to let the night go. He drains the last of his Umeshu and prepares to leave. The night, it seems, is over.  Or this part of it is.

He drains the remnants of his glass and is about to leave when he feels something new, a smell and a feeling all at once, something floral, something he wants to say is fruit but knows isn’t.  It’s not his drink; that’s gone. This feels powdery and warm, and in the absence of all the bodies and smoke, also soft and sweet, skin-close.  He sees her at the bar and knows immediately that this is osmanthus. He is certain she wasn’t there earlier in the night; he is confident he would have sensed her presence, her aura. A practical man, he doesn’t believe in the randomness of events nor in fate specifically, but rather a philosophical principle called unmei: the idea that neither will nor fate operate on their own to bring one toward destiny, but rather as one: fate may have brought the woman into the club, but the stranger must also choose to act in that moment.  And so he does.

He offers to buy her a drink and she accepts. They talk and laugh until the last of the bodies leave and the cigarette smoke becomes a memory. The space between them has become more intimate, velvety and alive, their heat radiating now in the same bubble, their warmth as one. It’s a physical closeness, yes, but also something more, like two molecules that have bonded and now vibrate with the same frequency. It’s closing time and they leave together in the rain. There is a Japanese proverb that says that when two people share one umbrella, the one more in love gets wet. He pulls her close. Neither of them mentions it. They step into the cab and leave the club behind.

So, there they lie in the morning light, the night distilled now to warmth and skin and the soft persistence of osmanthus: the umeshu a memory: the smoke now in the sheets. Whatever the evening was — and both of them are careful, in the light, not to name it — it was undeniably real. The body does not lie about what it wants. Whether the heart was present is another question, the kind that morning asks and night never does. The poet Sharon Olds understood this: that the most honest thing two people can share is not a declaration but a moment, and that the moment asks nothing of the future. Tokyo Nights asks nothing of the future either. It simply leaves them here — warm, velvety, alive — with one umbrella drying by the door and the only question that matters still unspoken in the space between them. Is this written in the stars, or in the sand?