Chapter Two – Seiji Comes to Dinner

Outside shot of the Tsukishima family apartment. It's evening but still light. However the sky and the concrete of the apartment block are tinted by the first warm hints of sunset.

Shizuku (off camera, faint): "Hi mom, I'm home!" (we hear the click of a door closing).

Cut to:

The kitchen. As usual the place is piled up with books, computer disks and general academic junk. The place looks worse than some teenager's bedrooms. Asako, Shizuku's mother, is cooking dinner. Shizuku comes in followed by Seiji.

Mrs. Tsukishima: "Hi dear, have a good day? Oh, hi Seiji."
Shizuku: "Hi mom." (Shizuku goes straight to the fridge) "I'm parched!"
Seiji: "Hello Mrs. Tsukishima."
Mrs. T (a little tired): "No sign of your father yet. He must be still at the library, you didn't see him on the way out did you?"
Shizuku (muffled, head in the fridge): "No mom, I saw him at lunchtime though – he said he'd probably be late, their bar-coding software is playing up again."
Mrs. T (annoyed): "Oh, and I went and broke the bank by buying some pork for dinner. Well, your father will just have to eat when he gets in – that is if you leave him any." (Shizuku shuts the fridge door, she cracks open a can of soft drink).
Shizuku: "Mom, can Seiji stay to dinner?"
Mrs. T: "Shizuku! It's very rude of you to help yourself like that and not offer your guest any!"
Shizuku: "Hmm? Oh, here, want some?" (she offers Seiji her can).
Seiji: "Um, no thanks, I'm fine." (like many young men who have not been to their girlfriends' house many times, Seiji is ill at ease on Mrs. Tsukishima's territory. He's trying to feign a relaxed pose with his hands in his pockets but his tension is visible).
Mrs. T: "Yes, Seiji can stay, just you two make sure you leave something for your father to eat later." (the Tsukishima family is not financially well off and while Mrs. T is always the perfect hostess she feels that the good quality food she has bought was for the family to eat together in private).

Cut to:

Shizuku's bedroom, the usual scholastic teenager clutter; books abound in heaps everywhere. Shizuku and Seiji are sitting on the bed. Seiji is relaxed and lounges back against the wall, his long legs folded loosely Japanese style, while Shizuku is perched on the edge, a book in her hands.

Shizuku: "Listen to this it's really neat: '…In Woking junction, until a late hour, trains were stopping and going on, others were shunting on the sidings, passengers were alighting and waiting, and everything was proceeding in the most ordinary way. A boy from the town … was selling papers with the afternoon's news. The ringing impact of trucks, the sharp whistle of the engines from the junction, mingled with their shouts of "Men from Mars!" Excited men came into the station about nine o'clock with incredible tidings, and caused no more disturbance than drunkards might have done. …' Isn't that lovely, such wonderful use of language you can almost feel you are there…"
Seiji: "Who's that by?"
Shizuku: "An English guy called H G Wells. He was amazing. He lived over a hundred years ago but he wrote the most amazing stories, fantasies and such. There was him and this French man living at the same time. Jules Verne. Between them they pretty much invented science fiction."
Seiji: "Shizuku – you are still studying for school aren't you? You know the next couple of years for us are going to be tough. The exams are no push-over and you need good grades."
Shizuku: "Oh, Seiji, we've been over this time and time again. Of course I'm serious about my studies, you know that."
Seiji: "But every day you're writing or doing research for some story, I never see you with your nose in a school book."
Shizuku: "You're beginning to sound like my sister."
Seiji: "Well maybe that's because we both care about you." (Shizuku looks up from her book. Seiji is staring at her intently, his eyes hard) "I know you say you're studying, but I never see the evidence. High school isn't a game, you won't be able to goof off to tests like you did last year in junior high."
Shizuku (annoyed): "Oh, hello? Did my sister move back in or something? Seiji, I appreciate the lecture but I know what I'm doing. Developing my writing skills is the best thing I can do."
Seiji (annoyed in turn now): "No, studying for exams is the best thing you can do. If you flunk out it will be all the more difficult to get grants for your writing work."
Shizuku (her face now softer and downcast): "Seiji I love you but sometimes I hate you too. You're always so… right (she makes a grrrrr noise of frustration). Why can't you let me be right once in a while?"
Seiji: "Get good grades at high school and I'll let you be as right as you like after that."
(his stern look breaks into a grin. In amused frustration Shizuku pokes a finger in his side, making him laugh).
Shizuku (laughing): "You're impossible!"

Mrs. T (off camera): "Dinner you two!"