"Irasshaimase!" the chefs greeted as Martha and James entered.

"Ojama shimasu," James replied. They had returned to the scene of their first date, but asked for a table instead of the bar. They sat and filled out the order form – three selections apiece, all of which they would share.

Martha stared at James and waited for him to speak. James stared back. She raised her eyebrows. He batted his eyelashes. She sighed and asked, "Okay, so is it just alcohol? Or are you immune to other drugs?"

The first plates of sushi arrived. James said, "Every last one of them – stimulants, depressants, cannabinoids, opioids, hallucinogens..."

Martha picked up a yellowtail and said, "Got a favorite?"

"Drug?" He poured soy sauce into his dish and scrunched his mouth to the side in thought. "Marijuana, I guess? Nice payoff, no withdrawal. But if you're talking about the high," he dabbed a chunk of wasabi in the dish and began to mix it into the soy sauce, "nothing beats heroin."

He continued to stir the sauce but his eyes glazed as his mind appeared to leave the restaurant.

"So... you were like, what, a junkie or something?" she asked, half joking.

"And then some," he said as he guided a tuna roll into his mouth. His affect had dimmed and his eyes stayed on the dish in front of him. Martha tried to think of a new topic – sports, school, the party... but before she came to it, he said, "I think it's important that you know... There was a stretch starting somewhere around my twentieth life that was very dark for me..." He paused and brought his eyes back to her. "After the confusion of the first few lives, I got used to the gout and started to enjoy all that the gout afforded me: the skills I could learn, my partial clairvoyance, the money, the fame... But then it began to feel pointless. Because no matter what I did – good, bad, big, small – everything always reset. And so, I slipped into nihilism. Not the fun, Sex Pistols kind, but the real thing. But it didn't start as nihilism. I think, at first, I wanted to see if I could be sent to hell."

He set down his chopsticks and took a drink of his ice water. Martha set hers down as well. Their date had taken a left. She had no idea where he was going with this and struggled to read him. He was morose but matter of fact; a strange mix of shame and resignation. If this was a confession, it was a peculiar one. Probably not the first time he's made it to me.

Calm and deliberate, he continued, "So I started doing horrible things. I hurt people. I hurt bad people. I hurt good people. I didn't discriminate. I made it random. I wanted to provoke – God, the devil, whoever – to show me that morality existed, that there was some form of order, any kind of meaning to my choices – to my existence. And..."

He stopped and smiled politely – sadly. His chest rose as he took a deep, slow breath. Finally he said, "And I received no answer. So I surrendered. Some lives I spent catatonic. Others I spent punishing people for... believing, I guess. If I wasn't in prison or a psych hospital, I was homeless. And it was a long time before I came back. "

More silence. Martha strained to find something to say. James had 'hurt people' – 'punished' them. Did that mean murder? Torture? Rape? It was hard to imagine the boy across from her was capable of it. With the possible exception of her father, no one in the world had ever made her feel as safe as James. But now this...

"So..." she said. "How did... What made you come back?"

He looked up to her and tilted his head. It made her happy to see his affect brighten and happier to see the answer to her rhetorical questions in his eyes.

James took up his chopsticks and ate a salmon roll. Martha did the same. He said, "Funny thing is I can't even apologize to the people I've hurt. Because I haven't done anything to them. But the memories... I can picture their faces. I can hear their..." His affect fell back. He broke eye contact and sighed. "All as clear as if it happened this morning."

"Wow. That sounds horrible," Martha said.

"I was."

"No, I mean it's horrible that you have to live with that."

"Martha, it's... you don't have to-"

"Sure I do." She leaned forward and felt an unexpected passion behind her words. "This last happened when – life thirty?"

James shrugged. "Give or take."

"Okay, and this is life 240? So 200-plus lifetimes, seventy years per life is... 14,000 years, 'give or take.' You've like, done your time."

"Thank you, but-"

"You were a different person then and you need to forgive yourself," she finished. Her voice had raised unintentionally as if she were scolding him.

He smiled and said, "Okay, I'll work on that."

They held each other's gaze for a moment. Suddenly, Martha's demeanor turned serious and she said, "I forgive you."

His affect flattened to match as he said, "I know."

A half moment later, James threw his head upward, grit his teeth, and made the carbon freezing "Hissssssssssssss."

Martha added Chewbacca's wail to their theatre. "EWUUUAUUUGHHHH!" They both laughed in spite of the turned heads and castigation from nearby tables. The Star Wars reference was as thin as the ginger on her plate, but he caught it. Or I've made the reference a hundred times already, but who cares?

"God, I love that you go to Chewie instead of Leia," James said.

"I know, right?" she said enthusiastically. "The princess practically just showed up but Han and Chewie go back like-" Her brain stopped. He said he 'loves' something about me.

"Ten years, I know!" James completed.

I did something and he 'loved' that I did it.

"And Chewie's supposed to comfort her?" James added.

"Yeah," Martha forced out.

Most of their sushi sat uneaten before them. James smiled. "Did I ruin the date?"

She grinned and shook her head.

"Did I ruin your appetite?" he said.

Sort of, but not why he thinks. She shook her head.

"Then help me with this." He pointed to the sushi. "There is such a thing as too much raw fish on top of Jagermeister and Old Milwaukee."

"Okay, that's gross. That might have done it," she joked.

"Sorry."

"That's okay. I'll find the strength somehow because Chewbacca would help Han Solo if Han Solo ordered too much sushi."

"Are we?" James began to ask. "Are you saying I'm Han and you're Chewie?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Because that's very romantic," he continued. "And at the same time, bizarre and potentially a crime against nature – Chewbacca being a wookie, and all."

"It would only be a crime against nature if they took it that far," she said. Then with faux-shock, "James, why are you thinking about taking it that far?"

"I wasn't thinking about that, but clearly you were," James teased.

"All I did was allude to a deep platonic friendship. You made it scandalous."

They continued all the way to 11:40, the time they needed to leave to make curfew.

Author's note:

So Mr Perfect Pants ain't so perfect after all.  Is it still a crime if the victim has no recollection?  James appears to think it is.  What say you?

Like, totally (not)90's detail:  Star Wars premiered the same year James was born.  Coincidence???  Yeah, probably.  But it does serve as the launching point for this sub-generation's pop culture milieu – ooooh, someone's got a thesaurus.