I sat up from the hotel room bed and walked over to the window.  Pushed over the curtain and stared out at the city below.  The bright lights and bustle reminded me of Tokyo but this was different, really different.  It was only 1 in the afternoon here but combine the length of the flight and the jetlag and it you like a ton of bricks.  Emi passed out on the plane, in the taxi and as soon as we got into the room.  I’ll admit I slept too, but right now there were too many other things on my mind.

	These past five years with Emi had been the best of my life.  I graduated magna cum laude from Waseda University with a degree in physics over the summer.  My parents were so proud of me and so was Emi, beaming at me from the audience.  Like usual, Emi hadn’t known what to do after Yamaku.  She went to a junior college in Tokyo, near Waseda, but dropped out after a year.  Now she worked part-time in an office and volunteered at a rehabilitation center.  Apparently she was the best they’d ever had, more motivating and inspirational than any other volunteer before.

	And of course she ran.  We both did.  Twice a day.  And this was the ultimate culmination of everything we’d worked up to.  The most prestigious and famous running event in the world – The New York City Marathon.
This city was so like Tokyo, but then so different.  So fast paced and big.  Emi was still so small, I thought, turning my gaze over to the bed where she slept.  She’d barely grown an inch in five years.  Not that I cared, her spunk made her huge in my eyes.  I went to my luggage and pulled out the small velvet box hidden in my shoes.

	“Hey Emi?”
	She groaned.
	“H-Hisao?  Five more minutes.”
	“Come on, I’ve got something to ask you.”

--------------------

	“I’m standing here with Hisao Nakai and Emi Ibarazaki, here all the way from Japan.  Now Emi, the audience can't tell, but you’re missing two legs!  And you just ran 26 miles!  That’s incredible.”
	“Well, I always said I’d be the fastest thing on no legs!”
	“And Hisao, you said you wanted to say something to your friends and family back home?”
	“Yeah! Hey, to my parents, my friends from university, my bro Kenji, and Rin, if you had a TV I'd tell you she said yes!”
	“Well I couldn’t say no, it’d give you a heart attack!”