My cousin, Reeva, had recently moved to Kyoto, Japan to learn Japanese for a year, and she convinced me to visit her there. I didn’t know anyone else living in Japan and Reeva was going to be there short term, so I couldn’t possibly pass up going! I was admittedly pretty nervous about traveling all the way across the world— a 24-hour long plane trip, including a layover— especially to a country that uses a language that isn’t remotely like anything I was used to. But, again, I wasn’t going to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Theodore "Armpit" Johnson tries his best to keep out of trouble after being released from juvenile detention. But it's hard to do when the only person who believes in you is your ten year old neighbor with CP, and people from the past are trying to get you back into bad habits.