It's a Small World After All

Trudging around Tokyo Disneyland, Lauren Wells glared at her friend Sabrina, dressed in a Princess Tiana costume, flitting a few paces ahead. It was May. The park's flower gardens were blooming. And Sabrina's life-or at least the life she pretended to have-was crumbling. Lauren knew it. She suspected Sabrina did too.

- SARAH TRELEAVEN

But for now, that day, Lauren kept quiet, letting the charade play out a little longer: Sabrina like any of the other Disney adults enjoying the rides and attractions, the cinnamon sugar of overpriced churros dusting the front of the green-and-cream dress and matching cardigan she claimed to have made herself. Obviously an Amazon purchase, Lauren thought bitterly.

In a couple of days, the two women would be back home in Seattle, and Lauren was deciding what to do next. She just had to make it through this one final vacation, the last of many with a best friend she never really knew.

Lauren and Sabrina were in a niche squad of sorts: four American women in Japan who shared a love for some aspect of Japanese pop culture, whether anime or visual kei. "We're all nerds," Lauren says.

Three of them actually lived there Lauren worked as a translator for Nintendo, based for a time in Kyoto. Then there was Kathryn Robarts, an English teacher and belly-dancing instructor who'd been in Matsudo for more than a decade. Ebony Norwood-Brown was a longtime Tokyo resident, working as a daycare provider while co-parenting a young son with her ex. Sabrina was the globe-trotting tourist of the bunch, a science researcher who lived in Seattle, with a love of Japan so big that it stretched across the sea.

Sabrina's connections with each of the others began when she friended them on Facebook, followed by messaging them one-on-one to ask if she could stay at their place while visiting. She'd book a plane ticket, touch down in Tokyo, and lavish her host-Lauren or Kathryn or Ebony-with meals, gifts, and whimsical adventures.

She had plenty of money and was always happy to treat. She never asked for much in return, apart from a comfy place to crash. Every few months, she'd be back in Japan for more fun.