Vodka, Mochi and Sakura - part 2

|when fiction and realities collide|

"So, what's your full name?" I asked Mika after I ordered a set of yakitori to the waiter. "Mikhail Arjuna. My great grandfather from my mom is a Russian..so my mom asked my dad to use a Russian first name as a way for me to keep remembering my mixed Russian-Javanese blood line." "That's cool. I think you're the first one like that that I've met in my life. Let's drink to that! Hey..teach me something..how do you say "cheers" in Russian?" "Chtob vse byli zdorovy. To our health, cheers, mate!"

...

The conversation turned out to be as warm as sake in the summer time. I found that Mika used to live in Jakarta and Bandung until he was 20 years old. He used to hide his part of Russian identity due to stupid political campaign back at that time. Though he grew up a bit introvert, somehow he could manage his teen life in Jakarta. When I asked what made him moved to Tokyo, he was hesitant in answering the question. He simply answered "I got bored and came here to study." He said that he moved to Tokyo for a change in life. There was time when he was a Japanese language school student in the day time and at night time he would do some part-time trance dj-ing at some small clubs. Fancy answer but I still could sense there were more than that underneath the iceberg. I didn't want to be pushy so I took every answers he gave without trying to argue with him.

...

"So..what did you do here in Niigata? Let me guess...you went for snowboarding in Echigo Yuzawa, somehow got bored and wanted a piece of action here in Bandai area? Haha." Mika was just smiling and he said "Something like that but actually I'm on my way to Vladivostok. I'll have my plane on Sunday afternoon." "Wow..that's really cool! Are you going for leisure?" "Hahaha. Well..you can say that, Nick." Mika answered my question with a wink on his eye. Hmmmmm..very interesting. I was curious what actually his connection with my source but I decided not to ask any questions on that..at least for now.

...

3AM in the morning and we were still drinking. Luckily I had enough dinner and quite relaxed which made my level of resistance to alcohol quite high. On the other hand, both Mika and Nadya already getting super drunk. I actually didn't want to fish in more and just wanted to enjoy the rest of the night..however, suddenly Mika said "Nick, listen, I know what you're doing here with our common friend. Have you ever wondered how he got all the insider information?" "Hahaha..what do I do? What information?" I tried to be cool and answering his question with some jokes. "Cut the crap, Nick. I can tell exactly what a guy like you doing with him. Just like what Gordon Gekko said...greed is good..and correct me if I'm wrong but you're here to be good. No?" "Hahaha..fair enough. So what do you want to say?" "Listen...everything that you got from him..those came from me initially. I'm the one who rolled the sleeve and digging the gold so people like you can make the gold into jewelries." I was just smiling and nodded my head while raising my glass to give a kanpai to Mika. Hah..kids nowadays..

...

Though I was skeptical at the time Mika told me about it, somehow I got drawned into believing his story. I learned from his story on how he got the information. Here was my guess. He basically plays an impostor role, pretending to be a programmer and then our friend will place him as an IT engineer into the company that will go for IPO. Once he gets into the company, he will hack the database and download any confidential information using his infiltration skills. His trip to Vladivostok tomorrow was part of the plan..he would go to fix some database issues in one of the company's factories and while he was doing his job, he would connect to the company mainframe and retrieving information. Once it's done, he would fly back to Niigata, handed the information to our friend and I..alongside with some other people, would pay for it. Whoa! This Arjuna surely can use keyboard as his long bow and shooting out codes as the arrows!

...

Anyway..after some more drinks, the clock already showed 4 something in the morning. None of us was sober..of course, what else to expect? Before we split out, we exchanged our contact info and promised to catch up in Tokyo. I went back to hotel and Mika went separate way together with the girls. As I walked back to my hotel, I was smiling and saying to myself "Indonesian hacker in Japan..leaking hot IPO information to global greedy boys by hacking it..unbelievable..haha"

...

Back to Ueno Koen, Early Spring 2009

I got up from my past recollection and walked towards Mika and Nadya. As I hugged both of them from behind, I told Mika "Hey..little fucker..I just remembering the first time we met. Haha. What a rock and roll journey, heh? Glad to have you in the family. Osu!" Mika was just laughing while Nadya pretended that she didn't hear what I just said and kissed me on my cheek. I smiled to both of them, looked around and then shouted to the gang.."Lunch ikou yoo!" (let's have lunch!)

..in memory of the night when thing is going to change big time..