DISCLAIMER: SKIP BEAT! and its associated characters are the creations of Yoshiki Nakamura. This author claims no ownership of Skip Beat or any of its characters. All other rights reserved.
Author's Notes at bottom of the page.
Many thanks to noveisdoge for the close reading on the last chapter!
Chapter XI: Thunder, Lightning, Rain
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine
And thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace! The charm's wound up.
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Ten days later…
Yayoi Fuwa was...amused.
Kuon was sneaking past her office to join Kyoko for breakfast again.
Like most mornings, she pretended not to see him. He was very quiet, but she'd lived in this ryokan for decades and knew every creak of every floorboard—that back hallway might as well have been a nightingale floor. He had good reason to think she hadn't heard him, though. The morning was dark and rainy, dawn nearly non-existent as storm clouds obscured the sun. It was raining hard enough to form a concentrated wall of sound off of the roof tiles. But even with the deluge outside, there was no way he was getting past without her noticing.
The day after finding Kyoko crying in the kitchen, she'd found Kuon in her office doing a dogeza, begging that she not throw him out and asking that she allow him to "help Kyok- err, Mogami-san" with her duties. She'd been wondering what he would do after their little conversation, and had to admit she was impressed he'd had the courage to ask her to essentially release Kyoko back into his company. She'd done as she and Takarada-san had planned, maintaining her steely, strict demeanor, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. She assented on the condition that his attendance on Kyoko was dependent on Kyoko herself. To her surprise, Kyoko had allowed him to join her...though the things Kyoko had him doing looked more like 'punishment' than 'Kyoko's daily duties.' Indeed, the girl was showing some true inventiveness, and the ryokan was certainly reaping the benefit of the free labor. Yayoi had struggled to keep a straight face watching it all. The poor boy had replaced roof tiles, done inventory on vegetables, polished brass, taken out the trash, waxed floors. He'd refilled salt-and-pepper containers. He'd fixed some masonry. He'd even cleaned grout. And snaked the kitchen sink. Kyoko had him power-wash the boat dock, before making him carry various moss-covered rocks uphill for a new rock garden she wanted to build. When he was done with that, she made him take bags of concrete up for the new path that would lead up to it. Oh, it was clear Kyoko hadn't admitted her own feelings to herself. But they were eating all their meals together, and Yayoi could see the difference in the way she looked at him. Yayoi doubted whether she and Takarada-san would even need a ploy to throw them together. They were doing a good enough job of it on their own.
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Kuon was almost past Yayoi's door when he stepped on a particularly creaky floorboard. Fuck, he thought, she's going to come out…! But she didn't. Perhaps she hadn't heard him because of the storm, but he was grateful nonetheless. The first morning he'd come down to breakfast instead of having it brought to him, she had intercepted him and interrogated him again and he'd mumbled out answers unbecoming for a man otherwise used to dealing with inquisitive interviewers.
He and Kyoko had been having breakfast together before they embarked on Kyoko's list of chores. Kyoko hadn't protested the way he'd expected her to, but neither did she welcome him. Instead, she adopted his "American gesture" and shrugged. "I don't understand why you're doing this," she'd said. "To spend time with you," he'd replied, and she'd rolled her eyes. Ten days later, he still didn't know if he was getting anywhere. He supposed he couldn't simply expect her to fall back into his lap as she did during the matsuri, but he didn't think he'd be this clueless as to what she was thinking. She hadn't said 'no,' but she hadn't said 'yes,' either. And though she stayed silent on the true heart of their matter, she was friendly enough. He found himself playing to her, making her laugh, squeezing every bit of joy out of the way she smiled. Beneath their surface banter, Kuon perceived that she was carefully weighing him, thinking about their situation—probably more methodically and sanely than he was. Sometimes he would catch her looking at him with a reserve bordering on...fear? Hesitation? He didn't quite know. He hadn't wanted to press her, given the volatility of their prior interactions on matters of the heart. All he knew was that she didn't quite trust him and didn't quite know what to do with his flirtatious comments—but he also didn't know that the comments were entirely unwelcome. It was a perplexing situation.
And so the last week had been spent with her, but not with her, not in the way a man woos a woman. Though it wasn't all harsh labor. Once, he'd even had the honor of accompanying her for a walk into the woods to forage for branches for new ikebana arrangements in the ryokan's public spaces. Another time, he was her assistant during a tea ceremony that she gave to a group of other ryokan guests. The rhythm of it soothed him. Fujiwara-san and the rest of the ryokan staff gave them wide berth as Kyoko marched him around doing chores that others had avoided or delayed for months. The fact that it was the ryokan's slow season simply meant that more maintenance work could be done without getting in the way of guests. The work was hard, but the reward was time with Kyoko, and for that, he'd have done twice—no, ten times more of the same. In doing the work, he saw her at her most abandoned—graceful no matter how tedious the labor, mindful no matter how clueless the guest. And it was bad. Bad, he thought, because it's easy enough to dismiss love-at-first-sight as lust when you haven't seen someone in more than a decade. Not so hard to dismiss it off when you find the sight of them sorting trash adorable. He loved watching her. He loved watching her dedicate her whole self into the perfection of her task.
And yet it was also frustrating. Not once in the past few days had he been able to do so much as pick a wildflower for her. He was deemed worthy enough to hold branches she'd chosen for flower arrangements, but her movements and efficiency had cut off all avenues for him to offer her anything else. Not once had he gotten the chance to hold her hand. Occasionally she'd be careless enough to bump into him, or maybe sometimes their hands would meet when reaching for the same tool, but the time never seemed right to touch her again. He wanted to, so very badly. It was torture, a daily torture, to have her so close and yet so untouchable. And it was frustrating to do nothing and see her so elegant in a kimono as businessmen looked at her like a piece of meat when they drank the tea she prepared for them.
At least he got to have meals with her. They'd gotten into the habit of rising early and meeting in the kitchen, where she would prepare a simple breakfast for them both. Midday, they'd break for a quiet lunch, and then at dinner she'd bring him a tray. She wouldn't budge on bringing him a proper dinner. "You're still a guest, Kuon," she'd say, "even if you're acting this bizarrely." And even though he tried as hard as he could to have her stay with him to chat or even just to watch TV, she'd smile and then disappear with their trays as soon as their dinners were over.
His nights felt like purgatory, his life on pause until it was time to meet her again the next day.
He sighed. What was it about the business of love? Since coming to Kyoto, Kuon had been on mountain peaks and in deep-sea trenches, and now it seemed as if he were on an endless plain with no guidance in sight on how to get to the next destination. Next to Kyoko, time dilated and time compressed, faster and slower in turns. He could have sworn eternities passed between the Kuon Before and the Kuon After, and yet it had only been a few days.
The only question he asked himself was how much he'd be willing to cancel once his real life came crawling back. What had once been inconceivable was now palatable. Kuon Hizuri, whose one pride in life had been his acting—could he give that up? In exchange for a quiet life at a ryokan?
He was moving forward on faith—faith that somehow, it would be her, with him, someday. He had to.
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Kyoko was in the kitchen, cooking breakfast for both herself and Kuon. The fish was broiling, the soup ready. She was just making tamagoyaki for him now. She was growing accustomed to the state of confusion she lived in, but looking over her shoulder as if she had something to be ashamed of. As far as she was concerned, she had everything to be ashamed of. This was...a strange and awkward arrangement. She didn't know what to do about it. Frankly, she didn't want to know what to do about it. The fact was that she had enjoyed the past few days entirely too much. She almost felt bad compiling the list of chores. He wasn't getting paid. No...it was worse! He was paying for the privilege of staying at her ryokan! And yet he would spend entire days doing menial tasks when he should have been lounging in his suite, or perhaps exploring Kyoto and its environs. She sighed. He was so easy to be around. When they'd been children, she'd found it so easy to tell Corn everything. And now that she was grown, Kuon seemed no different. He was completely different from the Tsuruga Ren that she'd imagined. He was easy-going, free-spirited, impudent, sarcastic, and, if somewhat prone to bouts of flirtation and ahem Emperor-of-the-Night-like looks, rather adorable. Childlike, sometimes. Even sweet. Did he even know how good he looked while scrubbing grout? Or gardening. She was certain that if a picture of him picking tomatoes were posted, the entire Japanese tomato industry would see a massive surge in sales. And possibly the accompanying gardening goods industry, along with whatever brand of shirt he was wearing. But no matter how hard she tried to dislodge him from her side, he stuck to her. And she loved it. If she was honest with herself, it felt right to love it. She loved it, and she missed him when he wasn't there. It wasn't just the way her heart raced around him. It was more the way that she knew he'd be there if she tripped, or catch her if she fell. It was the uncanny feeling of having a part of herself moving in a separate body. She knew she really didn't have to eat his meals with him, but she did it anyway under the guise of 'making sure he was eating.' If he knew how she felt, she had no doubt she wouldn't survive the day without swooning in his arms. The very idea was horrifying.
She was damned if she was going to admit it. There would be no concession. She would not cede this battle to the enemy. Because he was the enemy, wasn't he? The Box that she locked every night was blasted open every morning under an all-out assault by the full wattage of his heavenly smile. The man was not playing fair.
But it was all well and good to be with him in the garden, gathering produce and weeding the beds. All well and good to do the small things that constituted those acts of daily life that everyone had to do: she could acknowledge how good it had felt to do those things with him. But from there their paths had to diverge. In a few weeks' time, she would still be Mogami Kyoko, future proprietress of this ryokan. He would still be Tsuruga Ren, Japan's #1 actor. Someone who moved in exalted circles, far above her own. Someone who had access to the world's most beautiful women. Someone who would leave. If she could acknowledge her desire to keep being with him, then she also had to acknowledge that inconvenient truth. He'd implied that he would come back to see her once he went back to working in Tokyo, but she doubted that even the great Tsuruga Ren would be able to control his calendar so completely. And he would certainly never leave his acting to stay here. She blushed at the thought. Someone like Kuon was meant for a bigger life beyond the ryokan. Certainly, the property was worth a lot. But being here with her could not possibly compare to living his life purpose as an actor. Even if he offered to stay—which he wouldn't—how could she possibly accept? He'd be miserable with her—plain, boring Kyoko—in the long run. And then the inevitable would happen and he would leave. Giving in and flinging herself into his arms would sate the craving she had for him, sure. But it would only prolong the inevitable and make the parting much worse.
And was she avoiding Yayoi-san? She was avoiding Yayoi-san. She needed to restore Kuon to Yayoi's good graces...or at least to a neutral standing. It had been more than a week since the incident with Moppu-san, and she had yet to tell her that she believed Kuon when he said the entire thing with Kana had been fake. She flipped another layer onto the tamagoyaki she was making and sighed. He would be coming down to breakfast any time now, 'bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,' as he put it the other day, teaching her a new American idiom in the process. And she would have to spend another day avoiding the question in his eyes. He had made no secret of what he wanted from her, and it had contributed to the dream-like quality of this idyll. Here was her captive prince, finally in her palace, waiting for her to say 'yes.'
She was damned if she would.
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He'd appeared right at the appointed hour, keeping to the never-late reputation he had. She'd been ready with their breakfast. She'd homed in on his eating preferences with alarming skill, alternating Western-style foods with Japanese staples. She found that while he would eat the high-end ryokan cuisine, his everyday preferences were surprisingly humble—and this, she had no issues indulging. He liked clear soups in the mornings (with grilled fish!), onigiri for snacks (though in moderation!). Omurice and curry and cream stew for dinners. Twice now, he'd asked her for hamburgers with egg, though she doubted he wanted that meal for himself.
The two of them had just sat across a table from each other in the near-deserted large dining room when the power wavered and then zapped Off. Suddenly, they were enveloped in the silence of a blackout. Luckily the majority of the ryokan's other guests would still be sleeping, and the ryokan was sparsely populated on a weekday that season, regardless. The morning was dark, leaving the room dimly lit as they sat watching as a torrential downpour whipped tree branches back and forth over a swollen, fast-running river.
"Oh no," she said.
Kuon kept eating. "What do we do after breakfast?" he asked, ignoring the fact that the power had gone down.
"I'd hoped we could put more sealant on the roof today," she said, "but with the rain that'll be impossible."
"Mm," he said, taking another bite of rice.
"And a lot of the indoor work won't go well if we don't have electricity…"
"Hmm. And with this rain, I couldn't spirit you away from chores, could I?" he said, absentmindedly.
She looked up. "'Spirit me away?'"
"Surely Fuwa-san doesn't expect you to work every single day, does she?"
"Oh no! I'm so sorry. I've...started taking you for granted." The truth was, she'd been working harder than usual because he'd been so efficient and useful. And possibly because a perverse part of her wanted to continue punishing him for the ruse he'd perpetrated on her and the household. Now that they'd settled into a bit of a rhythm, she realized that the pace had been a little extreme. No employee at the ryokan was expected to work as hard as she and Kuon had.
"Hardly. I wish you would take me for granted, hime-sama. But you still protest with your eyes even if you've given up saying it out loud. I'm just saying...maybe at some point, we could go and look at temples, perhaps?"
"Perhaps. Ummm…'hime-sama'?"
"Aren't you? My princess?" He was starting to tease her again.
Kyoko snorted. "Don't be ridiculous."
"You know you like it."
She ignored him with a 'huff.'
"'Kuon,'" he said, imitating her voice, "'As my serf, I command you to move this pile of rocks up this hill, and then when you're done, move them back down.'"
"Whatever. I did NOT make you move those rocks back down the hill!"
"Like uphill wasn't bad enough? And you had me move cement bags, too. Don't forget the cement bags."
"Only because I couldn't move them myself! And I offered to help and you wouldn't let me!"
"And then you yelled at me because I did TOO GOOD a job sweeping the path up to the tea house and then you shook leaves onto the path and messed it up again! On PURPOSE!"
"Paths to teahouses must be perfectly clean, but 'beautiful and natural, also,'" she said. Kuon sensed a lecture coming on. "If we'd left the path completely pristine, it would have been unnatural. A path naturally has leaves on it...so, we leave the leaves on it..."
"Aren't we running out of chores? You should take a break. With me. On a date? What about some temples?" he persisted. I am going to get her out on a date at some point, he thought.
"I'm not sure Yayoi-san will approve. But I don't think we should go today."
"No. Definitely not today. You'd be so cold and damp, and as much as I'd love to huddle under an umbrella with you, I couldn't risk you getting a cold like that."
"You're ridiculous."
"No, just honest."
She rolled her eyes. "Saying that again and again doesn't make it true, Kuon."
"You wound me! Fine. Temples some other time, no umbrella huddling. Then what?"
"Well, perhaps you could relax in your room. I can do summer homework in mine. We don't need electricity to do that."
Homework, Kuon thought. She has homework. Of COURSE she has homework. Kyoko was still in high school, after all, and she had to take university exams, to boot. He was surprised she wasn't in cram school like the rest of the students her age. But he wasn't about to let her simply leave him in his room. There has to be a way, he thought.
"Does your room have a massive window overlooking the river and a ton of natural light? You'll need light, you know. It's quite dark out there." He was willing to bet her room was small and dark. The staff rooms were to the rear of the ryokan, facing the hillside.
"No-o-o…" She wasn't quite sure she liked where this was going.
"Come study in my room, then. There's that large table, and all that light through those big windows. You could read on that window seat if you wanted."
"It's hardly proper to study with you, Kuon!"
"Don't you have study groups here? I always thought it would be nice to study quietly with someone. Just to keep company, quietly." And watch you while you read...
"We...do. But...I'm not very popular at school. I don't really have time for other people's games there. And I don't want to ask the Fuwas for money for cram school. So I study on my own, for the most part. It's been going...ok."
Kuon flinched, aware he had stepped on a small land mine. Resorting to a new tactic, he said, "In any case, I can bring you tea and snacks while you study."
"I do not need tea and snacks while I study."
"But maybe it would be nice to have them?"
"Kuon…"
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20 minutes later….
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She had to give it to him. He was persuasive. Or maybe just incorrigible. He'd wheedled and pouted, and when she'd walked away, he followed her all the way to her little room at the rear of the ryokan. It was neat and clean, as he expected it would be, though it certainly didn't feel like a home. He took a glance at the tiny window opening up to the retaining wall on the hillside, took in the room's blank walls, its tiny size, and its relatively spartan furnishings. With the electricity off, it was too dark to work in and rapidly becoming hot and humid despite the storm outside. "This is your room?" he'd asked. "You're the heir to the ryokan and they put you in a closet like this? Are you serious?"
"It was my choice," she'd said. The Fuwas had offered her Sho's bedroom when she'd returned. It was a suite on par with one of the nicer ryokan rooms, certainly much more pleasant. But she'd demurred, choosing instead to stay in the room she'd occupied before leaving for Tokyo. She didn't need much space, after all. Sho's room still had all his stuff in it, and her moving into it would mean having to see it all again and disposing of it. She hadn't been up to the emotional work that would take, and so she chose to stay put. Sho's room was now spare storage space for the ryokan.
"Ah ha," he said. Kuon quickly spotted her pile of workbooks, seized them, and then held them far above his head so she couldn't grab them back. With his height, Kyoko would have had to reach the ceiling.
"KUON!" she said, glaring at him. She tried grabbing them anyway, jumping upwards to swat at his arms. "This" (jump) "is" (jump) "not" (jump) "gentlemanly!"
He couldn't help the laughter that came out of him, though he was able to control the impulse to catch her in mid-flight and press her to him.
"Nope. Come work in my room. You know it'll be more comfortable."
She huffed as he continued to keep the books hostage.
So now the two of them were sitting on the wide banquette by his picture window. She'd lost the battle over the need for snacks, too, so a pot of tea stood on a tray with a box of Pocky and some cups. His long legs stretched out towards her; she was sitting cross-legged on the cushion. She had her pile of books, he had a pile of scripts. The furin chime outside clinked wildly in the wind as she looked down at her list of assignments. She had a fair amount of material to cover. The math, history, and other subjects she could handle fairly easily and had been doing at a good clip after their days of chores. These subjects always seemed straightforward to her, though this year she was also taking multivariable calculus to help her prepare for exams. The English, however, had been a university-level course she'd signed up for as a remote student. For that, she'd been assigned two Shakespeare plays to read: Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
She groaned as she flipped yet another time to the footnotes section of the volume, making a note with her pen as she looked up yet another phrase. The material was challenging to her, given the archaic nature of the language. She found herself looking up footnotes every other line.
Kuon looked up from the script he was pretending to read. "What are your assignments?" he asked. "Maybe I can help. Is there English? I see English," he added, spying Macbeth in her hands.
"Hmm," she mused. She doubted Kuon would have much reason to want to spend time helping her with homework. "Well, I have a fair amount of reading to do for English...But I'm not sure you could help much. It's not conversational English, really. For some reason I thought this literature class would be a good idea."
"I mean, not to belabor a point, Kyoko, but I am a native English speaker. Shakespeare?"
"Yes...two plays."
Kuon grinned. "Um. Kyoko. I'm an actor."
"Yes? I know."
In English, he responded, "The Bard? For an actor? An English-speaking actor? Actors love Shakespeare, Kyoko. I love Shakespeare. Back in the U.S., Dad and I would recite lines from plays back and forth. Especially once he found out I wanted to act, too. He's...the origin of so many English idioms. So much poetry is in his work. A lot of people don't know that some of the things they say every day are Shakespeare. I'd love to read the plays with you! Which ones?"
"Um. Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet."
"Ahhh. The tragedies. Wonder why they wouldn't throw at least one comedy in there. Even The Tempest for some levity, if not A Midsummer Night's Dream."
"Perhaps they wanted a serious tone for the class."
"And this is a class for high school students? Seems a little cruel to make you read two of them during summer. Even American schools wouldn't do that, and it's not even a foreign language for them."
"I am not sure whether we'll be reading more after the summer. Perhaps we'll read The Tempest later on during the year. And it's not really a high school class—I'm taking it as a remote course from a university," she said.
"Then we'd better get you settled on these, hadn't we?" He shook his head at her notes. He was getting an idea. "First things first: these are plays. They're not novels—they don't come alive until you see them on stage. Half the meaning comes from the actor's actions."
"But I do have to read them, Kuon."
"What if you acted them out? With me? I promise you it'll be more helpful than flipping back and forth to see the footnotes." The idea of a Kyoko doing readings of Shakespeare with him, even if they were just table readings—of being a Romeo to her Juliet—was more beguiling than he was willing to let on.
"I can't act."
"Not true. I heard that the acting portion of your audition actually went quite well."
This caused her to pause. "What? But I failed!"
"Only because Shachou is an idiot—"
But the memory of the failed audition came rushing back and Kyoko moved quickly to put that into another Box, more secure than the one Kuon kept breaking into. She didn't want to spend her time thinking about the audition she'd tried so hard to forget. "Anyway," she interrupted, "I can't ask you to act these out for me. Two entire plays."
"I'm not going to be acting them out for you. I'll act them out with you. It's good practice for me as an actor, too. These roles are immortal. And we can watch some film versions. Even the Kurosawa adaptation...the Zeffirelli...the Luhrman can't be helped, I guess..."
"Um…"
"You know, some people say I'm a decent actor, Kyoko." He grinned and raised an eyebrow at her.
She was looking at him curiously. She'd lectured him plenty of times since he'd arrived at the ryokan—on breakfast, on the importance of good nutrition. And as he had followed her around, he'd heard earfuls on the proper procedures of preparing for the tea ceremony...even the proper form to look for in a branch to be used for a particular kind of flower arrangement. He'd absorbed the information like a sponge. But this was the first time she'd heard him start to lecture her. He had grabbed her copy of Macbeth and was perusing it with enthusiasm, and his eyes were aglow with an eagerness she hadn't seen before during his stay at the ryokan. Certainly, in matters of certain Japanese arts, she had the upper hand. But where acting was concerned, he would always be her senpai. The locked Other Box in her mind rattled and shook a little before she clamped it down.
He could see that she still looked doubtful, so he continued, "I'll make a deal with you: I'll help you with the plays, and in return, you'll help me run lines on my scripts after we're done reading them. It will be an even exchange. I promise you'll learn better with me than with the footnotes. You can't do better than get tutoring from a native speaker who already knows these by heart."
She had to acknowledge the latter point. She blushed and then nodded her head.
Kuon smiled triumphantly. "Which one would you like to start first?"
"Which one do you like better?" she replied.
"Macbeth. Definitely Macbeth."
She motioned to the book that was already in his hand. "Why?"
"It's one of the greatest roles an actor can play. Or an actress. The greatest villain and villainess of all time. And there are so many superstitions about it! I'd love to play Macbeth in London someday. And it's perfect for a day like today…"
"Perfect?"
"You know? The opening line?"
Just then a roll of thunder followed closely by a zap of lightning shook the very building.
Kuon smirked at Kyoko, and then crouched, his hands curling into talons, his eyes narrowing...and creeping closer to her, said, "When shall we three meet again...In thunder, lighting, or in rain?"
The high keening voice he used drove a chill into her bones.
There was a scant beat, and then Kyoko gave a small shriek and scuttled backwards as his body arched over hers with blinding speed. His breathing changed. And then another voice as his face came close to hers, and a voice pitched low and deep like a monster's growl whispered into her ear, "When the hurlyburly's done...when the battle's lost and won."
And then back away from her, quickly, looking to the side: a third voice from his same mouth, softly, like a ghost, "That will be ere the set of sun."
Kyoko stared as Kuon got up and off their window seat, still bent and crouched, hands like talons, neck askew as if it had been broken and put back together oddly. He moved with a hobbling gait, as if he were an old woman, and then faced the window, which framed a wild tempest over the river. But it was with the three voices that he recited the rest of the dialogue.
"Where the place?
"Upon the heath.
"There to meet Macbeth.
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair! Hover through fog and filthy air!" And Kuon, still hunched, threw back his body and cackled like a madman, high and loud as the storm lashed the window he was facing.
Kyoko simply stared, agog. The responsible, Okami-san part of her soul was mortified at the possibility of one of the guests being disrupted by an evil cackle this early in the morning—wild storm be damned. Another part of her thrilled at it, felt as if the words he'd uttered had opened a secret chamber of malevolent magic. But all Kuon did was straighten and grin, and said "I left out the lines about Graymalkin and Paddock. Maybe overacted a little." He chuckled. "Or overacted a lot. But hearing you squeak like that was worth it." He smiled wolfishly at her. "But you see what I mean. Perfect for today, I think." He sat back down by the window, thoroughly 'himself' again.
Kyoko had read the first page before. While her English was very good, witnessing this scene in-person was far more vivid than what she'd envisioned. She was conscious of the fact that she'd never actually seen Kuon "act" before—at least not in person. She'd seen Dark Moon, of course. She saw the movie clips his fans had aggregated. But she was not a consumer of movies or dramas, much less a patron of the live theater. In fact, she realized that she'd seen very little 'acting' up close. The LME audition had really just shown her a fraction of what acting could be—she'd seen what essentially amounted to a talent show, and then she'd seen the reaction test to that awful recording on the phone. But she'd never seen a single actor switch between three characters so clearly and distinctly the way Kuon had just done. The way he'd breathed...stood...laughed. It thrilled her. It was like watching three different souls inhabit a person for fractions of a second, and then watching them all disappear into thin air. Just like the witches that they were.
Kuon picked up the box of Pocky from the table and grinned at her. "This is going to be great."
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Hi there! Thank you so much for reading, if you're reading! I really truly appreciate it. Please let me know what you think—even if you hate it, I'd love to know.
A few notes:
1. 'Thrice to mine…' - From Macbeth, Act I Scene III
2. Sweeping the garden path: From Kakuzo Okakura's Way of Tea, which I believe is in the public domain, comes the story excerpted of the tea master Sen-no-Rikyu and his son. It's on Page 87 of the Google book.
Rikyu was watching his son Shoan as he swept and watered the garden path. "Not clean enough," said Rikyu, when Shoan had finished his task, and bade him try again. After a weary hour the son turned to Rikyu: "Father, there is nothing more to be done. The steps have been washed for the third time, the stone lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled with water, moss and lichens are shining with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a leaf have I left on the ground." "Young fool," chided the tea-master, "that is not the way a garden path should be swept." Saying this, Rikyu stepped into the garden, shook a tree and scattered over the garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps of the brocade of autumn!
What Rikyu demanded was not cleanliness alone, but the beautiful and the natural also.
3. 'When shall we three meet again…' - From Macbeth, Act I Scene I
4. I don't know anything about Japanese high school curriculums, so you'll have to forgive me.