Hello! Happy Thursday, and Happy Chanukah if you're celebrating!
I hope you're all well, my week has been surprisingly chill, the most activity has been making Christmas cards and watching Kakegurui (which if you have not seen OH MY GOD it's phenomenal) and of course, editing this chapter.
This chapter, like the last one, also really hurts me. It's nice to get more resolution, and to geek out about process, but it's also rough. I've gone back and forth about Yuuto and Satsuki's situation a lot throughout writing and editing this. Three years ago it was to vent about one situation, then I ended up in a similar situation, and now both situations have gotten so much better? So yeah, more personal reflection, but also just reflections about infidelity in general. What it means, how we treat it on a personal and societal level, why we do or don't... Yeah, lots of complicated feelings, it's been interesting!
Also! They're in previews! Opening night is almost upon us, I'm so excited!
Also also... holy shit there's just one more chapter to post after this?! How did that happen?! It doesn't feel real at all and I know it won't feel completely real until after I post it, when I'm taking my final bow and when I inevitably start hysterically crying a few minutes later.
Okay let me stop, here's chapter 12!
Disclaimer: I own nothing and I'm making no money off of this.
"Actors are all about entrances, but writers are all about exits."
- Vincent H. O'Neil
Fuuma didn't hear from Seishiro at all during the next few weeks of rehearsal. Fortunately, it no longer felt like such a distraction, or something he wanted to escape from. The scab over the old wound left by Seishiro abandoning In Your Silence had been ripped off during their big fight, and though Fuuma knew it wouldn't heal completely until they spoke to each other, it could at least suppurate in their time apart. However, he did break down and text Camellia to ask if she'd heard from him, then ended up telling her that they'd had a fight, and about his conversation with Kusanagi.
'oh god are you okay?'
'of course I am, it just fucking sucks and it's my fault which sucks even more'
'yeah for sure… well I haven't heard from him, I hope he comes out of hiding soon' Fuuma smiled.
'thanks, me too. speaking of coming out of hiding… '
'I'll be up in a few weeks! gotta make my rounds at Oruha and SLA too' Fuuma smiled and shoved his phone into his pocket, suddenly in much better spirits.
"Fuuma?"
"Yeah? What's up?" he asked as Kakyo approached his front row seat in the Igarashi. He also looked much better than he had done since the start of rehearsal: his face was fuller, the dark circles under his eyes were nearly gone and he was much more talkative and expressive.
"Previews start today, right?" Fuuma nodded. "What exactly…?"
"Don't worry about it," replied Fuuma, grinning and waving the words aside. "It's just a rehearsal with an audience. If something's still fucked up it's not a big deal." Kakyo raised an eyebrow.
"Do you think something will be fucked up?" Fuuma laughed, but then shrugged.
"I have absolutely no idea, but I will definitely tell you once we have an audience."
"Does having an audience make that much of a difference?" Kakyo asked, politely incredulous. Fuuma grinned.
"Of course. Wait and see."
"Fuuma?" came Nataku's voice from the theater entrance.
"What's up?" Fuuma asked, arching backwards over his seat to look at Nataku upside down.
"Your photographer's here," he replied, coldly. Fuuma straightened up and rolled his eyes at Kakyo, who hastily stifled his laugh, before heading out into the lobby.
"Hey, Kotori!" he exclaimed, smiling broadly at the pretty young woman by the bar. "How are you?"
"Well enough, and yourself?" She extended her hand to Fuuma.
"I'm good, I'm good," he replied, shaking it.
"That's wonderful. I'm so excited for this, your show last year was phenomenal!"
"Already making jokes, all right, I see you…"
"Jokes?" Kotori repeated, her eyes widening innocently. "No! I'm totally serious! I loved In Your Silence, I saw it twice!"
"Thank you," replied Fuuma, taken aback but touched all the same. He smiled, and she beamed back.
"Is there anything in particular you'd like me to focus on?" she asked, patting her camera bag.
"Nah," Fuuma replied, waving the words aside. "You're the photographer, not me, you do what you think is best. Besides," he nodded at the Yoru poster hung up behind them, "you always do a good job for us." Kotori smiled and placed a hand on her chest.
"I'll try not to be too distracting," she replied, and it was as though her sweetness were contagious.
"You want coffee or anything?"
"Oh no, I'm fine, thank you though!" And with that she hurried into the theater. Fuuma stared blankly after her, but fortunately was almost immediately distracted by the lobby door banging open and an onrush of chattering voices. He turned, and found himself facing all of the students from the Babylon Training Institute summer intensive. The chatter stopped abruptly when they realized who was facing them, and a few gasps were heard in the sudden, ringing silence. Fuuma smirked at their reaction; they'd all seen him around campus at least once, but he figured he could still indulge their reverence a little.
"Good afternoon," he said in a low voice, and the group shivered. Now really, what did they have to be so freaked out about? "How are you all doing, good?" The bravest of them nodded, and a few others followed suit. "Good," Fuuma said, smiling his most charismatic smile. "I'll be curious what you think of the show." Another shiver, and Fuuma turned. "Follow me," he called over his shoulder. This would ordinarily be a job for Nataku or ushers, but he was here, so why not? However, he did know a twinge for Seishiro, who always liked to pull shit like this, or hide behind Fuuma while he pulled shit like this. "Make yourselves comfortable," he told the group, gesturing graciously at the seats in the center section, and the students sat down.
"He's so obnoxious," Satsuki muttered to Kusanagi, who was helping her fix a table lamp on stage.
"Come on, let them keep their fantasy version of him until they actually work with him. No need to spoil the fun early." Satsuki snorted, turned on the lamp and turned it back off again.
"Perfect. Thank you for your help."
"No problem," Kusanagi replied, before heading backstage. Satsuki straightened up and stretched just in time to see Yuuto and Kanoe walk through the door.
"We have an audience!" Kanoe exclaimed, stopping dead in her tracks to smile widely at the assembled students and Kotori fussing with the light meter on her camera.
"Don't you always have an audience?" Satsuki asked, not bothering to keep the hostility out of her voice. However, Kanoe just laughed and tossed her hair as she headed backstage with Yuuto, who had gone red and kept his eyes averted. Satsuki felt a rush of sharp contempt in her chest and a twinge from that old pain in her shoulder.
"Five minutes," Nataku called, suddenly, from upstage.
"Thank you five!" Satsuki replied, sarcastically, waving at him over her shoulder as she made her way up to the lighting booth. Yuuto had tried unsuccessfully to speak to her several times since he'd fucked her during rehearsal. At first it had given her a deeply pleasurable rush of power to deny him, to watch him squirm whenever they were in the same room, to make cutting comments he wouldn't respond to. However, the longer it went on, the less satisfying it became, and she wondered realistically how long it would, or could, continue. If she wasn't even getting anything out of her hostility, was she getting anything out of Yuuto at all? She closed the door to the lighting booth, her space, which he had invaded and desecrated just like her heart and her body. Fortunately, before she could feel too bitter, Fuuma's voice reached her, loud and clear from center stage.
"Welcome, thank you all so much for coming!" he said, loudly and impressively, his arms wide. "We also have a photographer here with us doing some promotional stuff, so try not to get too distracted." He smiled at Kotori, and she shook her head in an embarrassed sort of way. "I think you were warned about this, but just in case, there are flashing lights during Acts Two and Three and gunshots during Act Four. Please don't text during the show and please don't judge us too harshly." With that, he leapt off stage to take his front row center seat. Backstage, the cast stifled laughter while the audience hesitated, then broke into applause.
"Holy shit, Fuuma," muttered Satsuki, killing the lights and starting the music.
The play began smoothly. Fuuma was pleased to see his cast wasn't distracted by the audience or by Kotori flitting about taking pictures. However, he cared far more about the audience, not because he planned on changing anything for their benefit, but because he was genuinely curious about how they'd react. He had ideas and hopes about how the play would be received, though he'd been wrong more than once. So far so good though: the students gasped, laughed and rolled their eyes at all the right places.
"But here the river isn't full of dead bodies and chemicals!" Sorata reminded Subaru, Arashi, Karen, Kakyo and Keiichi halfway through Act One.
"I'd be fine with that if I also got humidity and four seasons," Subaru replied, dryly. One of the watching students burst out laughing, making Fuuma's lip curl.
'Someone's from out west,' he thought.
"Aww it's not so bad," Sorata said, gesturing around the stage. "Here there's space, it's quiet…" he paused, squinting at the screen, "Those train tracks are just for storage though, the nearest train station is far away. Why…?"
"I know why," Keiichi interjected, loudly. Everyone turned to look at him. "Because if the station were nearby, it wouldn't be far away, and if it were far away, obviously it wouldn't be nearby." An awkward silence fell upon the stage while someone in the audience let out a cry of cringing laughter. Fuuma waited, then Kakyo said, loudly,
"Shut the fuck up, Jepsen."
This set off a chain reaction: whoever had just laughed let out another squeaky cry, and a whole tidal wave of laughter from the rest of the students followed. Even Kotori allowed herself a moment to giggle before raising her camera again. Fuuma's smirk broadened as he listened to it build and build, wondering if this had hit on some inside joke they had or if it really was that funny. Either way, he was pleased, though the laughter obscured the next few lines.
"I'm already having trouble remembering what Mom looked like," Arashi said, as the laughter finally subsided. Her arms were folded and she was looking almost appraisingly at Sorata. "No one will remember us, either."
"It's true," Sorata replied, looking just as appraisingly back at Arashi. "Nothing you can do about it though. Everything we care about, everything that all seems so fucking important, someday we'll forget it, or it just won't matter anymore." He paused for a moment, still watching Arashi for her reaction. "What's interesting, though, is we have absolutely no idea what will be important and meaningful, or trivial and stupid. Wasn't all of, what's his name… Copernicus! Wasn't his work all absurd and blasphemous while bleeding and humors were cutting edge science? Someday everything we're used to might seem strange or uncomfortable or stupid, maybe even depraved." Fuuma knew a rush of pride at Sorata's delivery: no pretense, no overacting or tone of saying (or trying to say) something profound. He could feel the audience's attention sharpening.
"Who knows?" Kakyo said, lightly, stretching. "Maybe we'll be elevated and remembered respectfully. It's not like we have torture or public executions here anymore, but of course there's still so much suffering…"
"Do you hear yourself?" Keiichi asked.
"Shut the fuck up, Jepsen."
"I'm just asking!"
Again the audience burst into laughter, though Fuuma picked up a note of growing tension beneath it, which only built over the course of the first act, then intensified during the second. Several people gasped when Sorata and Arashi finally got to kiss (and Kotori was all over them with her camera), then shifted uncomfortably in their seats when they were interrupted. Although that one moment was broken, the residual, deeper strain only grew. Fuuma could feel it powerfully, and he wanted to turn around and watch his audience, though of course he had to stay focused, stop and give occasional notes.
"You're so quiet, Colonel," Karen observed, stretching on the couch. Sorata, sitting beside her, ran his fingers through his hair and stared straight ahead, determinedly not looking at Arashi.
"I know, I'm sorry. I need some tea, I think."
"Tea, yeah," a BTI student muttered to her neighbor, who snorted.
"Irene!" interrupted Kusanagi.
"What?" Karen asked, wearily.
"Please come over here. Venez ici!" he called, patting the dining table. Karen rolled her eyes, but heaved herself off the couch to go and sit across the table from him.
"If there's no tea, we could at least wax philosophical or something," said Sorata, sardonically. Arashi took Karen's vacated seat, though she and Sorata continued to look anywhere but at each other.
"Sure, what about?" Kakyo asked, straightening up.
"Let's be creative," replied Sorata, with just detectable sarcasm. "What will life on Earth be like two hundred years from now?"
"Sure!" cried Kakyo enthusiastically, making everyone laugh. "What if… The people who come after us finally figure out teleportation? Or come up with some revolutionary cut for suit jackets?"
"What the fuck?" muttered a student, sending more giggles rippling out through the group. It was refreshing to be watching with other people, to have new sets of eyes and ears; all the lines that had stopped being funny weeks ago were now hysterical again.
"Or maybe they'll keep jerking off Descartes and actually prove the soul is in the pineal gland or whatever it is."
"Yo…" someone sighed, appreciatively.
"Regardless, it'll still be 'life sucks and then you die,' and in a thousand years it won't change. People will complain about how hard life is but still be terrified to die," Kakyo finished. To give Sorata time to reply, it seemed, he got to his feet and came to stand by the table, watching Karen out of the corner of his eye as if wondering what she thought.
"How do I say this," Sorata began, still not looking at Arashi. "The phrase is 'the only constant is change,' right? So presumably life is always changing, even if we're not conscious of it. So that means everything we do affects the next things that come into being. So what if that's our purpose now? To make the future happier, even if we can't participate in it because we'll be dead." Arashi laughed softly and finally Sorata looked at her. His expression softened into one of deep tenderness and longing. Someone in the audience sighed audibly.
"What's up?" asked Kakyo, crossing his arms and tilting his head to the side. Arashi looked over her shoulder at him, her long neck extending gracefully.
"I have no idea, I've been laughing at nothing all day," she replied, composedly. Sorata swallowed and got to his feet as well.
"Listen, I'm no scholar, I'm not even a good student. I just like to read and want to learn shit. I'm getting old and I still know fuck all, but what I do know, I know really fucking well. I'm convinced there is no happiness, there won't be for any of us, so we should just keep going and working. The happiness is for the people who come after us." Arashi closed her eyes, a soft smile on her face. "Happiness is for the people who come after us."
"So no one's supposed to be happy?" Kakyo asked, incredulously. "What if I told you I am happy!" His eyes darted to Karen, though she and Kusanagi were still pointedly ignoring the conversation.
"No," replied Sorata, bluntly. Kakyo laughed along with both the audience and Satsuki up in the lighting booth.
"You know what? You're not getting it," he said, and Sorata raised his eyebrows. "Trust me. One hundred, two hundred, even a million years, assuming we haven't destroyed each other or the planet by then, nothing will change. It'll stay the same because it works under its own laws that we'll never actually understand."
"Hmm," muttered someone in the audience.
"So what's the point?" Arashi asked, sounding more amused than anything.
"The point!" Kakyo cried, ostentatiously, striding about the stage. "Oh shit, it's raining now! What's the point in that?" Arashi snorted and shifted in her seat, but when she stared into the audience, her eyes were very bright.
"I guess life will always feel pointless if you don't believe in something. Either you know why you live or it's all nonsensical bullshit." Some uncomfortable laughter.
"Getting old is so depressing," muttered Sorata, followed by more laughter.
"A character I love says no two people suffer the same," Arashi added to Kakyo, who replied,
"And I say no two people agree completely. You're exhausting!"
The audience laughed and Fuuma leaned back in his seat, feeling Mr. Aoki most definitely had a point on both counts. His mouth twitched as he saw Mr. Aoki's face clearly in his mind's eye. He was so soft and unassuming, put together and composed, such a glorious subversion of the fucked up writer stereotype. He felt suddenly and strangely hopeful as Keiichi appeared on stage with Yuzuriha and Kanoe to say his line.
"If that baby were mine, I'd fry him in a pan and eat him."
The audience exploded with laughter and Fuuma's chest swelled with pride. He felt buoyant for the rest of the act, and the moment intermission started, he disappeared to avoid talking to anyone and to write down his thoughts and notes. Of course, he returned for the top of Act Three to observe the tone shift and how it would manifest. Fortunately, the moment the music started and the screen lit up, the buried tension of the first half was suddenly brought, raw and sharp, to the surface by fear. Fuuma remained quiet throughout, feeling his audience and observing his cast, relishing this part of the process. No major structural repairs, just fine tuning stylistic choices. "Big picture's coming," Camellia always reminded him during Yoru.
Act Three flew by in a whirl of lights, sirens and emotions just as it always did, but with added flashes of Kotori's camera, and the intermission that followed had many more people leaving the theater for air, cigarettes or phone calls. 'Good,' thought Fuuma. Those people who had remained in the audience were talking quietly amongst themselves, sounding stunned and exhausted. 'Good,' Fuuma thought again, as he jotted down more notes. He reflected again how pleased he was to get the reaction he wanted, though it brought another conversation with Camellia to the surface of his memory.
"It's such a weird position to be in," she'd said, during Yoru's previews. She and Fuuma were out in the lobby with mugs of coffee, and they watched BTI student after BTI student rush into the bathroom in tears. "My person self sees that and feels just awful, you know? But then my writer self goes 'Ooh yes what happened? Where does it hurt?!' It's hard to reconcile." Fuuma burst into laughter.
"Sorry, I'm not laughing at you, just-"
"I know you're not," she assured him, grinning, though her eyes were still fixed upon the bathroom door.
"Curious or sad?" he asked, following her gaze.
"Pick one."
Fuuma got up to disappear once more. He went around backstage this time, though he had no real destination or specific person to talk to. He caught snatches of conversation.
"Kakyo you're doing so well!"
"You think so? I-"
"I did intensives with half the people watching, it's so weird!"
"I can't tell if they love it or hate it, can you?"
"Five minutes, everybody!" came Nataku's weary voice.
"Thank you, five!"
Nataku stepped out right in front of Fuuma and gave the smallest of starts. "Sorry," said Fuuma. Nataku raised an eyebrow a millimeter.
"Eavesdropping?"
"Avoiding overenthusiastic students." The corner of Nataku's mouth twitched, but he said nothing, just pushed past Fuuma to make sure the stage was ready for the final act. Fuuma waited as long as he could before returning to his seat.
Satsuki killed all the lights yet again and everyone took their places in the darkness. The music began, low and morose, as the lights came up to reveal the Perspicuo's back garden. A few people, including Kotori, said, "Oh!" caught off guard by yet another tone shift. Fuuma smirked, his arms and legs crossed, watching and listening.
The act was smooth; the only bumps came from the audience, which Fuuma would be lying if he said he didn't appreciate, particularly as they sharpened and caught at the tension pulling thinner and tighter over the room. The talk of the army leaving, everyone's worry and displeasure against Kirsch's insistence of how happy he was, the discussion of Transeau and Jepsen's fight over Irene…
"I keep hearing about some incident outside the theater yesterday," said Kamui, inserting himself rather awkwardly into Dr. Grant and Maudie's conversation.
"Jepsen started shit with Transeau, words were exchanged, now they've gotta sort it out," Kusanagi explained, shortly, not looking at Kamui but checking the time on his phone. "No idea what the fuck Jepsen thinks he's doing, but…"
"What about Transeau? What if he gets hurt?" asked Arashi.
"They'll be fine," replied Kusanagi, shoving his phone back in his pocket. "It's so stupid anyway, does it matter?"
"They're like kids meeting after school to fight behind the bleachers, it's ridiculous," agreed Kamui, looking hopefully at Arashi, who ignored him and stood up abruptly.
"This is such a waste of time! I won't go into that house anymore, I fucking refuse! Let me know when Colonel Young gets here." And with that, she strode downstage and out through the audience. Kamui sighed and stared sadly after her, pushing the stroller back and forth.
"Our house is being evacuated too," he said, softly.
"Oh god," someone in the audience moaned quietly.
"What about your wife?" Kusanagi asked, turning to face Kamui with his arms crossed.
In the audience, someone whispered, "Oh no…" In the lighting booth, Satsuki's jaw clenched, and backstage Yuuto closed his eyes. He knew what Kamui was going to say, he'd heard it hundreds of times at this point, but after speaking his own lines about feeling content while his wife carried on an affair and her suffering went unnoticed, he felt rather sick. He got up from his seat beside Kanoe, unable to look at her, and began to pace back and forth, feeling simply awful. Unlike Andrew, Yuuto had innumerable reasons for loving his wife, he'd just made a mistake. In his almost constant agonizing over the last few weeks, he'd concluded that he didn't love Satsuki, she just… He looked at his feet, realizing he had no idea how to continue, or even how he did feel, except that he didn't want to feel it anymore. He had to do something.
"Since I'm fucking off tomorrow, I can give you my honest advice," said Kusanagi. Kamui's eyes widened in innocent curiosity. "Leave." Kusanagi got to his feet to awkwardly indignant sputters from the audience. Kamui's expression crumpled.
"Ooh, sorry!" Keiichi whispered to Yuuto as he swerved around him to enter for his cue. Yuuto started and hastily moved out of the way. He couldn't leave Kanoe, he'd concluded that too. He'd have to resolve this with Satsuki some other way, without being tempted into fucking up even more. He pressed his fingers into his eyes, hating himself and the situation but doing his utmost to stay focused and listen for his next cue. "Doctor, it's time to go!" Keiichi yelled downstage at Kusanagi.
"You all disgust me," Kusanagi replied.
"What?" snapped Keiichi.
"Shut up, Jepsen," sighed Kusanagi, before addressing Kamui, "I'll be right back." He followed Keiichi through the audience, singing, "Tarara boom de-ay," under his breath.
"Fuck me," muttered someone in the audience. The scene pulled the momentarily slackened tension tight again as Transeau and Jepsen's final confrontation drew even closer. When Kakyo told Karen he'd like some coffee when he came back from their meeting, someone in the audience let out a sad little moan that seemed to infect the rest of the group, so that by the time Colonel Young was telling Irene, Jackson and Maudie goodbye, several people were breathing shakily as if they were crying.
"I have no idea what to say, I've used up all my philosophy, I guess," Sorata told Arashi in a pained voice. "I've gotta go." He looked in absolutely no rush to do so. "What if hard work was always supplemented by education? And education by hard work?" he tried, with a brave smile, but it was no good. He cleared his throat, then addressed Arashi, while Subaru and Karen drew away to give them a moment. "I just wanted to say goodbye." Arashi's eyes filled with tears.
"Goodbye," she said. He took her into his arms and they exchanged a passionate kiss.
"I know, I know…" Subaru muttered to Karen, his arm around her as they watched the scene out of the corners of their eyes. Sorata and Arashi broke apart, and she cried harder than ever as he held tight to her upper arms.
"Call me and text me, okay? Please?" he begged her in a choked voice. Arashi nodded tearfully. "Fuck, I really have to go, I'm way too late as it is." He exhaled in sharp regret and let go of her, then crossed the stage, clasped hands with Subaru and Karen one last time, then headed off downstage and disappeared into the audience, discreetly wiping his eyes as he went. One of the students let out a shuddering gasp, then sniffed.
'Holy shit is it really that serious?' thought Fuuma as Subaru and Karen rushed to embrace Arashi.
"It's fine, let her cry!" Yuuto exclaimed, entering from upstage right and striding down towards them. "Whatever happened- I don't care, I love you, Maudie!" He extricated her from her siblings' arms and took her into his own. Arashi recoiled, a look of disgust on her face, and for a fraction of a second, utter devastation seemed to fall in upon Yuuto and he let go of her. Taken by surprise at the unexpected move, Arashi stumbled, but recovered herself, wiping her eyes furiously. "You're perfect!" Yuuto continued, clearly trying not to sound desperate, and the air crackled with fresh pain. Fuuma wasn't sure if he liked this change or not, but didn't interrupt. "Jackson's my witness, I want to start over, fall in love again!" Yuuto cried, sounding close to tears himself.
"Calm down please," Subaru said to Arashi, though he was staring in some concern at Yuuto. "Get her some water?" he added to Karen, but before she could do anything, a muffled gunshot cracked through the air like distant thunder, making everyone jump. In the silence that followed, a few horrified squeeks rose from the audience, followed by yet more poorly disguised tears.
'Is it really that serious?" Fuuma thought again, but then remembered that same conversation with Camellia.
"It never feels as impactful to me," she said, her eyes still on the bathroom door through which the crying BTI students had disappeared. "When I'm writing those scenes it's always awful, but then afterwards I'm like, 'oh look he's suffering, that's interesting.'"
"Your heart's getting colder and colder," Fuuma replied in regretful sarcasm.
"Ha ha, if only. Actually feeling my feelings is exhausting."
Fuuma interlaced his fingers and pressed his crossed thumbs to his lips, watching the last few minutes of the scene while his audience's reaction swirled around him like ocean currents. However, he kept his gaze straight ahead, refusing to be pulled off course as the act drew to a close.
"Tarara boom de-ay, I sit in gloom all day, who gives a fuck?" Kusanagi grunted, over the shutter of Kotori's camera.
"I wish I knew," said Subaru, his arms around Karen and Arashi, and the lights all went out, bringing Fuuma sharply back to himself. The curtain call music began to play, growing louder and building as the lights came up again, revealing the cast all standing on stage holding hands. They still hadn't formally decided on how the curtain call was going to look, but they'd been doing this the last week and it was good enough for previews. The audience broke into wild applause, getting to its feet and cheering as the cast took a bow together, then waved and smiled at people they knew and hurried backstage, Kamui with his arm around Subaru, Sorata and Arashi, as well as Yuuto and Kanoe, holding hands.
The applause faded into excited chatter, and Fuuma stood up to address the students, "You can all stay for notes, if you want." The chatter increased in volume as Fuuma approached Kotori, who was putting the lens cap back on her camera in front of the stage. She beamed at the sight of him.
"This is fantastic," she exclaimed, before he could even open his mouth. He burst out laughing; she really was too sweet.
"Come see it once we're open, it'll be even better. I'll comp you tickets." Her eyes shone in the house lights.
"I'd love that, thank you!" she replied, still beaming, then, more businesslike, "I'll upload all of these tonight. Should I send them to you or your PA?" Fuuma hesitated, thinking again of Seishiro.
"Me. Nataku doesn't care about stuff like this."
"No?" Kotori asked, her eyes widening. "But he's so meticulous with everything else!"
"Publicity's not his thing," Fuuma told her in affectionate confidence, "he'll just tell me," he put on his best deadpan expression and tone of voice, "just pick them and tell me where you want them." Kotori giggled, but nodded. She then extended her hand, and Fuuma shook it.
"Fair enough. I'll e-mail you tonight, then!"
"You're the best, thank you." With one last smile and a wave, Kotori gathered up her camera and supplies, then headed out of the theater. Fuuma watched her go, feeling excited to see the pictures, and with a satisfied little sigh, he turned back to the BTI students still in the audience, all of whom froze as though his gaze were a spotlight. "Come closer," he said, imperiously, after a moment. They did so, standing up then filing into the first and second rows. "Did you like it?" he asked, once they'd assembled.
"Yes!" a young woman cried. She sounded rather congested and her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Fuuma grinned and sat on the edge of the stage, swinging his legs so his heels banged softly against it.
"Not to sound like all your drama teachers, but why?" Everyone laughed appreciatively, and Fuuma gave the young woman an encouraging smile.
"Well," she began, hesitantly but thoughtfully, "I liked all the characters, even though everyone was sort of horrible. I wish things had gone better for them, but, that's why it works." She stared up at him out of her swollen eyes, and though clearly intimidated, she didn't break their gaze. "It was just a chunk out of their lives. We followed them for five years, things happened, but then they settled down again. It was wonderful." Fuuma smiled widely.
"I can ask for no higher praise than that," he replied, and he meant it. The young woman looked stunned, but before anyone else could say anything,
"So I told him, if you put holes in the stage this close to opening night you will live to regret it, I promise you." Kusanagi's patient warning and Karen, Kakyo and Yuzuriha's laughter rang out through the theater as they emerged from backstage. However, they stopped abruptly when they saw they still had an audience. "I'm so sorry, ignore me!" Kusanagi exclaimed, mortified, while Kakyo, Yuzuriha and Karen stifled more giggles.
"Nah, you're fine," Fuuma replied, waving the words aside and getting to his feet. "They're gonna watch while I give notes. Teachable moment for everyone who wants to direct."
"Cool," said Karen, and the four of them sat down on the stage. The rest of the cast joined them in a trickle, and once everyone had assembled, Satsuki descended from the lighting booth and sat down on the stage too, slightly removed from everyone else. "First time in front of an audience!" Fuuma exclaimed, and Keiichi wolf whistled. "Yeah yeah, don't get excited though, I'm not happy," he continued, very sarcastically. Everyone laughed, and he began to give notes to his cast. Hearing the audience's reaction had filled him with new ideas, and though giving the notes didn't take long, he knew applying them tomorrow in rehearsal would. However, he was optimistic, and a half hour later he dismissed everyone in good spirits. He then retreated before anyone could talk to him again, though he paused in the lobby between the Macbeth and Yoru posters to text Seishiro.
'We had photos taken today. I'll e-mail them to you. I'd really appreciate your input'
Yuuto's insides squirmed guiltily at how impatient he felt with Kanoe, but he couldn't help it: all he wanted was to go home, but she kept stopping to talk to people on their way out. He did his utmost to stay friendly and speak politely, but he was barely aware of anything going on around him, so intent he was to avoid Satsuki. He'd barely heard any of the notes Fuuma gave them because he'd been so distracted by her, by her subtle nods, eyebrow raises and lip curls. His heart ached and he prayed Kanoe wasn't watching, then Fuuma addressed him directly.
"What?"
"When you're telling Maudie you wanna keep trying and fall in love with her all over again?" Yuuto flushed, but nodded. "I can't decide how I felt about you letting go of her, so let's workshop it tomorrow, yes?"
"What?" Yuuto asked again, wracking his brains for what Fuuma was talking about. However, when he saw Satsuki roll her eyes at the edge of his vision, he remembered. Arashi's disgust as he'd tried to embrace her and express his love had given him a second's glimpse of Kanoe if he told her what had happened with Satsuki, and it had absolutely terrified him. He forced himself to the present, where Kanoe didn't know and it was just a play. Trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, he said, "Yeah sure! No problem!" But Fuuma was already onto the next critique, and Yuuto swallowed the hard lump in his throat.
Finally, he managed to extricate Kanoe from a drawn out story of some performance of Setsuka's with a BTI student, and they drove home. "Are you all right?" she asked, as they wound their way through the green hills overlooking the sun-drenched valley.
"I'm fine," he assured her a little too quickly, and she raised her eyebrows. "Sorry," he mumbled, flushing again. "I'm just tired, honey, really." She smiled and placed her hand over his on the gearshift. Yuuto wished she wouldn't. Despite how much he longed for it, she couldn't give him the comfort and understanding he needed. He felt another wave of that bone deep loneliness and hated the mess he'd put them both in. He couldn't ever tell her. Obviously he didn't want to hurt her, but he also couldn't bring himself to disrupt what they had, because the more he thought about it the less he trusted that they, like Kirsch and Maudie, would be able to start over and fall in love again.
Fortunately, she made no further inquiries the rest of the evening. Although he was grateful, it made him all the more aware of their disconnect as they had dinner, sat on the porch with drinks and got ready for bed. He felt like they were standing on opposite sides of a gorge, the white waters of his infidelity and secrecy eroding them even further apart. On some level, he knew that his refusal to tell Kanoe, face what he'd done and take the consequences, made him a coward, but he'd take being a coward if it meant their comfortable, safe life together continued undisrupted. But was that even possible, given how it consumed more and more of his mind and heart and body?
Sometime after midnight, he lay wide awake beside Kanoe in their dark bedroom. Moonlight fell gracefully across her sleeping body, her pale skin, her long hair and her slippery nightgown, and out of the gaping space between them, thoughts of Satsuki continually emerged, along with that simultaneously terrifying and comforting thought that she was the only person who could understand him at this moment. Of course, he had no idea how she was feeling or what she was thinking except for her general hostility towards him. He also didn't trust himself to talk to her without fucking up. He flushed as his eyes strayed to his cellphone on his bedside table. What trouble could they get in that way? It might be even more cowardly than not telling Kanoe, but if he finally got some answers…
He texted Satsuki, and pressing send was like pulling a trigger.
Satsuki took another powerful hit from her pipe, then leaned back on the pillows stacked against her headboard. She exhaled the sweet smoke up towards the ceiling, and it was immediately whipped into nothing by the spinning blades of the fan. Its dull whirr and the quiet music she'd put on hours ago were the only sounds to be heard. It was very peaceful, and she closed her eyes, sinking into her pillows.
Then her cellphone vibrated. Blearily, she opened her eyes and reached for it, her body sluggish from all the pot she'd smoked. She saw Yuuto's name, and the usual prickle of irritation seemed dulled as well. She read the text with narrowed eyes.
'Hey… are you up?'
Satsuki stared incredulously at her phone for a moment before replying, 'Yes unfortunately' She felt like her thumb had typed the message of its own accord, but she didn't bother to stop it. She was too high and just didn't care.
'why? What do you want?'
Yuuto's heart sped up sharply as the replies came. He hadn't expected anything, much less anything so quickly. He bit his lip, but didn't shy away.
'I don't know'
The reply sent a ripple of anger up Satsuki's arm and into her chest. Of course he didn't know what he wanted. He never knew what he wanted: that's why he was in this situation in the first place. She was about to reply scathingly, but then more chat bubbles appeared and she held off, waiting for the full scope of the bullshit. She wished she could never hear from him again, banish him to the corners of her mind and body along with all the ugly things he brought out of her. However, she found it weirdly empowering to do this over text, to have that distance from him and barrier between them.
'I want things to be back to normal between us'
Satsuki closed her eyes as if trying to sink into the deep, dark water that filled her intoxicated mind. What did normal even mean?! He had some nerve asking for that given that he'd started all of this in the first place. You proposition your colleague for a threesome, then apparently catch some kind of feelings and then put it back on her? What the fuck? However, as the righteous anger swirled, warm and supportive, in her mind, it seemed to flip over some protective foundation stone, revealing something else, raw and nasty and untouched by light and air for a long time.
Hadn't she also had feelings for him first? Hadn't she lusted after him since her first summer at Babylon? She could still remember the first time she'd met him, chatting to Kusanagi and Hokuto at the bar of the Igarashi on some beginning night. He was so handsome in all the right ways, every detail of his face and body exactly what she looked for. Then she'd found out he was married, the first of many disappointments, and she resolved to think of him as little more than a pretty object. Until of course she'd overheard Fuuma telling that famous story of his threesome with them.
"They do that?" she'd asked, before she could stop herself.
"Oh yeah," Fuuma replied, grinning. "Didn't you know? You've been here way longer than me, how the fuck did you not?"
"I keep my hands and mouth to myself," Satsuki replied, coldly. Fuuma burst out laughing and left Satsuki to ponder the information.
Eventually, of course, she had brought it up to them. She could get it all out of her system and be done with it, except their night together had made it allmuch worse. Apparently for both of them. How could she have been so naive?
She opened her eyes and texted him, wearily, 'what the fuck does that even mean?' She watched the chat bubbles appear, disappear and reappear again.
'I don't know'
She made a contemptuous noise, though she knew intuitively that his response was honest. Probably the most honest thing he'd said to her the whole time they'd been doing this. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, she lost her motivation to reply scornfully, but before she could think of anything else to say, he texted, 'I'm sorry. I never meant for this to happen' Satsuki shuddered, knowing that this was honest too. The words were like bright sunlight on the feelings and memories she'd kept in the dark and cold and wet, and they dessicated in the sudden exposure. She waited, then her thumb seemed to move of its own accord again.
'I'm sorry too'
She had no idea what she was apologizing for, or even if she had anything to apologize for in the first place. However, it made her feel better almost immediately, and she knew she didn't want or need to see anything else he had to say.
She put her phone on airplane mode, placed it on her bedside table and lay back upon her pillows, the whir of the ceiling fan soothing her slowly to sleep.
Yuuto swallowed at her message, his eyes suddenly stinging. He put his phone down, rolled over and wrapped his arms around Kanoe. "Yuuto?" she groaned, sleepily. She rolled over to face him, her eyes still closed. "Bad dream?"
"Yeah," Yuuto replied, his throat burning. She held him close and kissed him on the forehead. He buried his face in her chest, but no tears came. He just lay in his wife's arms, breathing deeply, feeling drained and empty.
Yeah, you see what I'm saying about complicated feelings?
What do you all think? Did Yuuto make the right decision? Do you think he's a coward? Was Satsuki right to apologize? I'm curious.
I'll see you next week for the last chapter, love you all!
I think of reviews when I summon my kekkai, leave me some!