Blind Sided

-Jasmine-Fields-1979-

I Disclaim: I do not own the copyrights or trademarks of the respective authors, artists, and television programming of any Manga or Anime. Please note, with respect, that the images I use are clipped from open source images discovered on the Internet, with exception to photos pertaining to my own image and any business branding about my employers past and present.

Chapter 14

Mei didn't actually live with either of her parents. She was a grown woman living in her own rather under decorated apartment. One couch. One armchair. A lamp and a bedroom set and a barely maintained card table posing for bare minimum use as the study or dining room table.

Rarely were there ever guests to entertain – including Yamato or Kai and her own camera crew.

Whenever she felt ready for visitors to drop by, she had rules legally written into her contract for many circumstances with the potentiality to be obsessively lengthy in description. "No cameras in the bedroom. Only the kitchen. Doors open unless she was alone with Yamato. Everyone who entered did their part to clean-up the apartment. No Megumi ever allowed inside during those meetings..."

The contract had more clauses for those rules than the editors and staff wanted. They resented Mei for signing a separate contract through another Bollywood agency; this particular company had wanted to dominate ownership and the narrative between Megumi and Yamato, but Mei insisted that nobody would have a single royalty paycheck granted to them any other way. The producers hadn't wanted to sign that line in the contract. Since the payout guaranteed Megumi's highest percentage of money in the bank, with a more firm establishment in the fashion industry as more than merely advertising to high schoolers and university freshmen now... They wanted those juicy paystubs too.

All it felt like Mei did was work, study, request resources, review her languages, work, study – on a repeated loop day in and throughout half of her nights. She wasn't even certain about her nutrition and whether or not she actually ate food, even when Kai forced it down her throat from time to time.

Mei felt unbalanced and searched for her center. She didn't find it today – hadn't for weeks. She felt impossibly exhausted, but refused caffeinated drinks for the time being, especially because coffee and soda kept her up late nights and caused insomnia when she was ready to rest in her bed.

The agency required her to have recorded meetings with Megumi's mother every month during Yamato's filming, and under that contract, she had to oblige. Megumi's mother was not nice over half the time with the interviewers or interviewing questions. Most of the meetings were centered around receiving royalties for her daughter and herself. But they were reviewing her role as temporary fill-in as super gracious actress mother to Mei.

How long before royalties kicked in? When would the copyright be in effect? When would filming begin again for Megumi and why must she herself be seen with Mei, when Megumi was clearly the star? How would they edit Megumi this time? Since when? When was the last time she had been filmed? Had Megumi become more or less intolerable on the job for the majority of the staff? Would this bolster her real daughter's following? What were the next steps to advance her career? What was the next set of interview questions for Megumi? Which television station? Who was the journalist doing the review?

Their conversations were often strained and the producers from Mei's life had not, from the very beginning, exaggerated the stress she and Yamato would be under to maintain and manage their relationship. Mei, though accustomed to long days and nights dedicated to work, did not enjoy being at the beck and call of the directors today. Neither had Yamato nor Kai.

The scrutiny, heavy security and menacing glances might have intimidated other women; however, Mei was not other women. She had her own strengths and had trained hard to ace her own physical fitness exams and do well prior to entrance to the university. She made concentrated effort to discipline and recall. Her function in and skill set to translate other languages for the international media relations department at the university while working, with reduced hours at the bakery, was invaluable to the advancement of her own busily scheduled contract. Then, she would go home, study the other university courses alone and crawl into bed late – well past midnight most nights barely able to think about or prepare for the upcoming day.

"Ya hachu potzelovat' tebya."

Yamato had repeated her own words back at her into a recording device. The message made it to her during the last meeting, yet there was little space around either of them for her to approach him to make an inquiry about his own increasing language studies. She had first spoken those words to him at the beginning of the semester, not knowing now as winter break had come, gone and spring semester was already a quarter way completed, that he missed her company.

Had he realized what he was saying to her? How many others heard the transmission? Did they understand they words? Did anyone know how personal those words were to her? And would they ever get to see each other again in the middle of this mess she created and voiced with approval?

This meeting was supposed to include Kai and Yamato today and to introduce Kai formally to the entire cast and crew. While Kai signed only Mei's contract, everyone felt like there would be no cooperation at all from Kai. But they didn't know or understand or care that Kai and Mei already were familiar with how each other worked together and apart from each other. They also hadn't realized that Kai had special interest in Mei's happiness, even after the editorial phase of production to whatever ends.

Neither Mei nor Yamato had been aware of Kai's ultimate intention at all.

In the contract, Kai's role was to intervene from behind the cameras into a supporting role of Mei. He would do what was requested to benefit Mei and influence her decisions.

If she made exception to listen to him and his brother, when asking for resources, she would learn quickly that they would do anything to help her – except lie. Since Mei and lying were not synonymous or conducive to each other, Kai respected her honor – her integrity. And then his own brother vocally expressed that he didn't want to give up Mei, as an asset, to anyone in the flurry and haste of Bollywood's incorrect framing of people characterization and poor ability to discern who the real stars are. Not some actor or actress or model, so far as he was concerned.

And Kai agreed to be quick with introductions on and off camera.

~~~o*O*o~~~