In September, my neighbor Brian knocked on my door at 12:45 a.m.
Brian is from Columbus, Ohio. He was wearing a red jersey and holding a bag of ice.
"Game's on," he said. "You coming?"
I asked which game.
He looked at me the way you look at a man who has asked what year it is.
A noon kickoff in Ohio is the middle of the night in Tokyo. Every Saturday night in the fall, six Americans meet in Brian's apartment to watch Ohio State. They have done this for nine years. Their wives have accepted it the way you accept weather.
That night, I learned the rules. Nobody wrote them down. Nobody has ever needed to.
Rule 1: Never say "We've got this." Brian's cousin said it at a party in Columbus in 2014. They still talk about him the way you talk about a war.
Rule 2: Everyone has a seat. Your seat is not where you sit. It is where you were sitting the last time something good happened.
Rule 3: Brian's jersey has not been washed since the season began. It will be washed when they lose. It is not a shirt. It is a record.
Rule 4: The dip goes on the left. Moving the dip is a substitution. Only Brian makes substitutions.
Rule 5: There is a team in Michigan. You do not say its name. You call it "That Team Up North." For one week in November, Brian crosses out every letter M in his apartment. Including the one on the microwave.
Rule 6: Brian's wife watches from the kitchen. In 2019, she walked into the living room during a field goal, and it missed. She has not seen a fourth quarter since.
I sat down in the only empty chair. Everyone went quiet.
"That's Kyle's chair," someone whispered.
Kyle moved back to Ohio in 2021. It is still Kyle's chair.
Brian studied me for a long time. Then he said, "Let's see."
Ninety seconds after I sat down, Ohio State scored a touchdown.
Four minutes later, they scored again.
Nobody cheered. Six grown men slowly turned their heads and looked at me.
Brian said, very quietly, "Don't. Move."
In Japan, we have lucky charms. You buy them at a shrine for 800 yen. You keep them in your bag.
In Ohio, the lucky charm is a person. The person is not consulted.
I have been to every game since.
Same chair. Kyle's chair. Same red shirt, which they gave me and which I am not allowed to wash. Same snack. On the first night I brought Japanese rice crackers, so the rice crackers are now a starter.
Brian's text every Friday is the same.
"Don't change the crackers."
My wife has asked why her husband leaves the house at 1 a.m. every Saturday night in an unwashed red shirt. I do not have an answer that sounds legal.
They taught me the last rule after a month. Brian said it like a man handing down a sword.
"If anyone, anywhere, says 'O-H,' you say 'I-O.' No matter where you are. No matter what."
I said, "Where would that ever happen in Tokyo?"
He just smiled.
Recently, I was walking through Shinjuku Station at rush hour. Over three million people pass through it every day. Nobody makes a sound.
Somewhere in the crowd, a man in a red cap shouted, "O-H!"
I did not decide what happened next. It happened through me.
"I-O!"
Three thousand Japanese commuters stopped. The man in the red cap turned around, pushed through the crowd, grabbed my hand, and held it up in the air like I had just won something.
"How long you been a Buckeye?" he asked.
I said, "Six weeks."
He nodded like that was a perfectly normal answer.
"Welcome home," he said.
I have never been to Ohio.