I Will Bring You Tokyo

I WILL BRING YOU TOKYO

by P.S.C. Willis

“I would burn a city to the ground for you, if you asked me to,” I say. 

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she says, a soft smile playing on her lips. “Though I don’t think I’ve ever hated any city that much.” 

She thinks I am speaking in hyperbole, but I’ve done it. Mother taught me there’s no such thing as someone loving you, only someone loving what you can do for them. Which put me in a predicament when I fell to Earth, cursed to walk around in mortal form unless I could procure true love’s kiss. 

She signals for the bill, and I try to think of what else I have to offer. Humans pretend that love is easy, that they have it pared down to an algorithm. Answer a few questions to find people who are eighty percent compatible or more with you. Or play the numbers game. If you swipe right enough times, the odds are you’ll find someone who really means it when they say they want what you do. I gave up on men pretty quickly. Men did not like me telling them I was strong enough to destroy pieces of the universe on their behalf, even though it’s true. 

What do you want? I don’t ask. How can I make you love me? Human custom forbids these questions, even though it would save everyone a lot of time. You can’t, Mother’s voice echoes in my head. You can only make her love what you can do. 

“I can get it,” I offer, as the waiter comes over. 

“It’s my turn,” she reminds me. There’s an unfamiliar warmth in my chest at the fact we have turns. She’s the first person I have had turns with. Enough history to owe each other something, enough promise of a next time not to worry about this.

“Where do you want to go?” I ask, as we slide into our coats. 

“If I could go anywhere? Tokyo.” 

Yes. Alright. I will bring it to you on a plate. I will serve you Tokyo in bed, and let you crush Harajuku between your perfect lips to get the sweet, rainbow candy-floss taste of it. And, if afterwards, you still don’t love me, then that’s okay—It’s not okay.

I think the body they gave me is broken. Beyond the problems of tiredness, hunger, and thirst that I adjusted to in my first few days, it does so many other things wrong. It aches if I lie down in a way it doesn’t like. My skin gets blemishes and lines. Nothing about me stays the same, so how can I expect someone to love me, when the process takes an unspecified amount of time? I consulted the human knowledge database on how long people are meant to take to say ‘I love you’. The results were inconclusive. 

“We should do that then,” I say. 

“Plan a trip together?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. I know this look. This is the look that says you have been too much, too fast. But if we have turns, why can’t I take her to Tokyo? Bending reality to bring her what she wants is easier than a series of dinners, locked eye to eye across the table, following imaginary rules that I don’t understand. 

Or it would be. If I had my real body. My real powers. But even with them, nothing I could ever do would be enough. Mother said so. She was right. I burned cities, I created constellations, I made mountains flower with rare plants. Those things were the desires of people’s hearts—not the one who could give it to them. 

I step outside in silence, waiting for her to tell me to leave. She follows. 

“Do you really mean that?” she asks. 

The correct, human answer is ‘no.’ The correct, human answer is that I will keep playing this silly game of pretending and guessing and not asking what she wants and then being cast aside when I fail to deliver it. 

“I’d give you anything,” I say. I don’t know how to get someone to say it back, other than by offering again and again. “Go anywhere with you.” 

“How about the park?” she says. 

“Which park?” I say. 

“The one on Highmore Road. On the way back to mine. If you want to come back to mine tonight?”

I do. Going back to hers is cozy, and less confusing than all the other times I went back to anyone else’s place. She means it when she says she would like me to come for coffee or a movie or just to fall asleep. These are not codes for touching the body that I don’t like and didn’t ask for and don’t know what to do with. She still hasn’t got mad at me for that yet. It’s something to do with the little square of black, grey, white, and purple she has pinned on her rucksack, even though I do not see the correlation. She likes hugs and kisses, both of which I find acceptable, even though every touch of her lips proves she doesn’t love me because I have remained Earth-bound. I wouldn’t mind kissing without love, but I want to be set free. 

“Okay…” The park is not Tokyo. It is nothing she cannot get by herself. The park will not convince her to love me. But it’s what she says she wants. So we walk, hand-in-hand. 

Hand-in-hand is one of the nicer parts about being human. It’s like another human is scared that, in the vast emptiness of space, in which they are but a tiny speck, they might lose you. So they hold on. She doesn’t know that I used to sail above the clouds or that I could do so again if she’d give me true love’s kiss, but it’s like she doesn’t want to risk me drifting up and away. 

I don’t understand why it makes my hands tingle, but it does. 

When we get to the park, she opens the squeaking metal gate. The sign says that children over twelve are not permitted. We are over twelve but not children, so perhaps that’s why it’s alright. Besides, it is dark and all the children under twelve are asleep. 

She sits on the swing, so I do the same. Grips the chains, so I do the same. I spend a lot of time copying, hoping it’s the right thing to do. She kicks her legs back and forth, so I do the same. Human bodies are silly, and this application of physics is mediocre in the extreme—I used to rearrange dimensions before breakfast on a regular basis. But there is something soothing in the sway of the swing, matched to the rhythm of our bodies. 

I feel her smile, more than see it. The turn of her head in my peripheral vision signals the fact that she is looking at me. That usually means she is smiling. I hear it in her voice when she says, “No one ever says ‘yes’ to coming and playing on the swings with me after dark. Or wants to plan trips with me.”

“I do.” I forget to kick, my feet bringing my swing to a screeching halt that makes me almost stumble and fall. “I will always say yes. I will do anything you ask.” 

“I know.” She brings her swing to a stop, staring into my eyes. “What do you want, though? It’s always what you’ll do for me, but this should go two ways.”

I want to be loved. I am not allowed to say that, and I hang my head in shame. I want to give you what you want. “I want to make you happy,” I say. 

“Well… good. I’d like that. And I want to make you happy too. I love you.”

I look up at her, eyes brimming with tears and confusion.

She pulls back. “Sorry. You don’t have to say it back.” 

“I… It’s not that. I just…” I don’t understand. I have done nothing. I have not razed her enemy’s crops, nor made all music sing her praises. I have just been here. Gone to dinner. Sat at home with her. Played on a swing. “I don’t know if I really know what that means,” I admit. Other than the freedom a loving kiss would grant. 

“Me neither. Not always. But… I suppose it means I trust you. And I’d like you to stay.” 

Oh. 

“I’d like that too,” I say, scared that she’ll take it back otherwise. 

“Good.” She leans a little closer, the power to send me away on her lips. The power to free me, return me to my true form and the life I am meant to lead, burning and reshaping reality to please the highest bidder. All of whom want what I can do.

But who don’t want me. 

Mother might be right. There is no such thing as someone loving you, only loving what you can do for them. Up there, anyway. Here, there’s something else. Something made of blankets and trips to Tokyo and caring about all of that, even if I can’t bend reality to make it happen now. 

“Is it alright if we don’t kiss?” I say. “I… Love is already a lot, without kissing on top.” 

“Yes,” she says. “Thank you for telling me what you want.” 

She reaches a hand between our swings instead, holding onto mine even though I am not going to fly away.

P.S.C. WILLIS (they/them) is a queer British writer, currently living in Shanghai, where they are an active member of the local writing scene and the LGBTQIA+ community. They have previously been published in DreamForge Magazine and multiple short story anthologies. Their debut novel Crying Out for Magic was published by Space Wizard Press in 2025. They like to create stories that allow others to believe in good people, in magic, or both.

I Will Bring You Tokyo was edited by Louise Koren and Lois Chan. It can be found in Tales & Feathers Volume 4.