Story - Love As Is
Author - Yours Truly, my dear readers.
Genre - Glass Mask, romance!
Preface - Hayami Masumi & Kitajima Maya, star-crossed lovers? Perhaps. It's been thirteen years since Tsukikage-sama cut herself off from the world, since Masumi married, since Maya re-entered the acting industry to perfect her craft. But things are changing, an old love blossoming, and no one can help Maya and Masumi but themselves. Will they...or won't they?
Key - The triple x's represent a break in time. And the bold triple x's mean a change in perspective.
Author's Notes: Some MxM action - and no, not the lemon kind! Clarification it has been FOUR years since the end of the anime. I am responsible for all the confusion since three and thirteen apparently mixed up all throughout the previous chapters. His marriage to Shiori lasted three years, because I do not follow anything after chapter 40 of the manga. In fact, I'm assuming Maya was about sixteen/seventeen during the Plum Valley encounter and I assume that Masumi and Shiori are married a year afterwards for purposes of my story.
Summing it up - Maya is now aged twenty-one and Masumi is aged thirty-three. It has been three years. Never fear, I will go back and clean up the last three chapters to make sure future readers are not confused. Public Service Announcement complete! With that cleared up, please do enjoy.
Fourth Act
"The beauty of the world has two edges - one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder." - Virginia Wo'olf
"Don't you dare tell me-"
"Again," interrupted Director , glancing between Maya and the script. "The tone was very close but it needs more chill. She is careless and cold - her anger won't burn, Maya. It will freeze!"
I dare say I heard you the first few times, Maya thought then blinked at the sheer snarkiness of the thought. It was nearing the end of the working day and she should have been wrapping up this one-on-one monologue run through by now. Instead, she felt unfocused and unsettled - her failure to verbally capture Saeki Saya was the culmination of another messy week. It had begun Monday morning after another talk forced upon her by Ayumi, followed by the gentle prodding that Rei relied upon. A lovely little double attack from the two of them had been the last thing she needed the next night. She was fine, darn it, just fine and what she wanted was to leave the topic of that man and his divorce and the way she felt about it and if they couldn't understand it, she'd finally said, then she would be forced to stop talking altogether. Usually, the threat would have been enough to silence her two best friends - and it was. What it couldn't squash was her grief, guilt and relief. What it couldn't kill was her drawn-out wallowing. What it didn't improve was her mood, and as a result, her performance was suffering.
"Again."
Maya took a deep breath and thought about the young woman she was attempting to bring to life. Cold, careless, cruel just for the sake of it. But why? Saeki Saya had parents who doted and a school full of boys and girls that both lauded her and praised the very ground she walked on. She had friends when she wanted but only if she wanted them - she preferred to manipulate everyone around her in a way that was as frightening as it was careless. Most of the people around her never realized that she was the source of their troubles, which of course, made her as untouchable as a queen on a sure throne. She could care less about them and more about the end-product of her. To be thwarted by some goody two-shoes angered her but not in the way that it would anger someone who cared. It was cold because- Ah. Then the why of it then-
Because she can. Because it's a game and they are the toys and she - I - can do whatever I like.
"Maya?"
"Yes, sir," she said with the first smile of the day. "Please let me run it one more time. Can I try something different? You stand here-" she indicated a spot in the middle of the empty practice room - "and I will approach from the side."
The director arched his eyebrows, indicating not so much surprise but appraisal, but did as he was asked. Maya took a deep breath and thought about the kind of indifference that can maim, then closed her eyes to better put on her mask. She was now disappearing into the void, all the things that made her into the young woman she was, and retreated to let a new person wash in.
"Don't you dare to tell me such nonsense," she drawled, walking slowly towards the director. He blinked as if the weight of her regard and the laziness of her voice was off-putting. "As if he cares one whit for you...you, with no family to call your own? No one to take up for you in times of need? I want you to think carefully about your situation, dear friend, as you know I always have your best interests at heart. "
The director found himself blinking and leaning backwards again, caught in the lethal fluidity of the way she now moved. This wasn't Maya - this was Saya in all her indifferent menacing glory. The look she pinned him with was both amused and contemptuous - he felt his insides respond to a sudden need to curl up and wither away. He wondered how brown eyes so warm and worried before could look darken to the coldness of a starless wintry night. No wonder this woman was wanted all over the nation for everything from historical soap operas to modern-day dramas. She was the real thing.
"You have always been alone, Yukiko-chan." He found himself frozen to the spot, gazing at the fingers that reached out to graze the side of neck. She was smiling at him benigngly - of course, the words she said belied the outcome but her smile was so kind that he couldn't have responded with the right lines had he been capable. "You might always be alone as well. Always. Why would that change for you now? Think about your situation. You will never be loved and you simply have to accept it. Don't you agree?"
Suddenly, his lead actress stepped back with a worried look. The spell was broken.
"Was that satisfactory?"
"That was exactly what I've been looking for." He arched an eyebrow. "What made sense for you?"
"She wouldn't be a tempest - she would be an ice storm," Maya said with a thoughtful look on her face. "She is angry but only because manipulating those around her is a game and the game has gone off-track. She isn't vain in the sense that Yukiko's interference is a personal affront. No. Yuki-chan is simply an obstacle presenting delay and Saya will still win in the end. She knows this so she will take her time cutting the other girl down to size."
"Good work," the director said with a satisfied look on his face, "and you are done for the day."
Thank God.
She bowed twice as he left the room, thanking him for releasing her and for the hard work. When the door closed behind her, she sat down on the floor gracelessly then lay perfectly still against the cold of the hardwood floor. The cold slipped past her clothes and settled atop her skin like another layer around her. The cold made things clear, too. Maya knew she had to do something to work herself out of the funk that she'd fallen into. Her moodiness was reaching epic proportions. Understanding Saya in this scene had been a blessing, and it told her that she was finally on her way to getting back into shape. That was good, of course, and she was confident that she could work out the rest of the character in subsequent scenes before the official practices for 'Homeroom' began.
"Perhaps I need to talk about it aloud to work my way through it," she said to her non-existant audience. "Perhaps what I need to do is work out for myself why I feel this way. I mean, there's nothing between us. There has been nothing between us for the last three years since I left Daitou and he chose Shiori. So what if we met up four weeks ago? That was an entirely unplanned event. A-and not just unplanned...unpleasant! He wasn't at all pleased or unpleased to see me - I certainly can't mean that much to him. In fact, I asked a question and he nearly took my head off with the look on his face. And he didn't even respond truthfully. It was an accident and a- um...an aberation. I need to let this go - it's not even as if I see him!"
Even though I want to.
She bit her lip against the thought but...if she were going to be truthful with herself and work out her feelings then she needed to say it.
"Even if I want to. Even though I really want to. Truthfully, I would love to be able to see him more often but then I'd have to face him. I'm not ready for that, am I? And more to the point, he does not want to see me. Whatever came between him and Shiori is his own business and I have no business digging into his life and upsetting it. Whatever it is that he felt for me before is gone and I...I have to understand that. That this play is funded by Daitou is a coincidence - it doesn't mean anything. What I have to do is- drop it. I need to drop it so that I can pull myself together and go on with my life and live a life I find worthy. I have all that I need at the moment, and while it would be absolutely lovely to have him as well, that isn't the reality."
She sighed at voicing her deepest fears. Things she couldn't find herself saying to either Rei or Ayumi, things she couldn't face in herself before - all of it true and all of it as heavy as if she'd never said them. But the heaviness was tempered by the relief that came with admitting the truth. Maya looked at the ceiling then let her eyes stray to the window. The sun was setting already. The entire roomw as washed in soft oranges and pinks - it was so pretty that she found herself marveling at the vividness of the colors for a moment. When she stopped marveling, she pushed herself to her feet and slipped the script into her bag.
One more stop before she headed out to her little car to drive home.
Maya let herself out of the ante room and made her way up the stairs that would lead to the stage wings. Zaizen Theater was old but grand, real dark red velvet trimmed in an unusual gold for the grand curtains (she had touched them the first time the director had brought her here to see the place) and dark red seats that spoke more of practicality than comfort. The night security guards hadn't arrived to shut the stage lights off and lock the place. The contrasts of the place never failed to amuse and fascinate her, but what she wanted more right now was to stand in the middle of the had been three years already.
She closed her eyes and reached back to her monologue as Saya.
Oh, to be fundamentally uncaring, Maya thought wistfully before unconsciously slipping into the lines that she'd practiced less than an hour ago.
"Don't you dare to tell me such - as if he cares one whit for you...you, with no family to call your own? No one to take up for you in times of need?" A lazy smile to pair with unfocused eyes, the same contemptuous drawl as before. "I want you to think carefully about your situation, dear friend, as you know I always have your best interests at heart. You have always been alone, Yukiko-chan. You might always be alone. Always. Why would that change for you now? Think about your situation. You will never be loved and you simply have to accept it. Don't you agree, dear friend?"
Her smile turned into a secret to be shared between she and Yuki-chan and she spread her arms wide as if offering a hug.
"Now, Yuki-chan, darling, why don't you be a good-"
"Your habits haven't changed much." Maya might have tripped over her own feet and fell had she not grabbed unto the stage curtain, that startled was she by the voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. She spun around to face the audience area, looking for whomever was speaking. No matter, he wasn't done yet. "I suppose you still practice after hours, still spend a little time after rehearsal to perfect the mask."
She knew that voice. Holy Father in heaven, she knew that voice.
xXx
"Popularity has done you well, Chibi-chan." Hayami ambled down the middle aisle, effectively stunning her into silence. He did so love it when he managed to surprise and the look on her face was worth the hour of anguished indecision he had experienced before driving to the Zaizen. Director Sakaki had kindly informed him that Maya had requested that they run through lines in the two weeks before they were due to begin official rehearsals with the rest of the cast. At first Masumi had dithered about in the office, wondering why on earth Sakaki had dropped that little tidbit. Then he'd dithered about trying to figure out why he was dwelling on aforementioned tidbit. Then he'd dithered about in getting the keys to his car, fingering the metal and flipping the bunch unnecessarily before he finally stopped dithering.
He was going to see her this evening - he understood that much about himself.
The thirty-minute drive to the theater through light traffic wasn't long enough. He managed to accomplish several things - to raise guilt over this easy caving in to his desire to see her, to create anxiety over how she would receive him after that terribly stiff cardrive nearly four weeks ago, to raise his blood pressure between worrying about the two. By the time he pulled into the nearly empty parking lot, he'd wrestled both the guilt and anxiety down. He just wanted to see her.
He wanted to see her more than anything else at the moment.
So, he'd ducked into the building without sparing either the setting sun or the janitorial crew cleaning the lobby. Masumi had walked past all that to the one place he'd thought she'd be. The stage. Of course.
"But even so, it is good to see you still keep some things the same."
She looked as low-key and pretty as ever. She looked a little thinner than she had last time he'd seen her, but that couldn't be true. Long straight hair as inky black as night, caught up into a bun that looked as if it would up and fall apart at any moment. A too-big dark grey and black plaid button down was wide open to reveal a white tank top underneath, faded form-fitting jeans that were wearing down at the knees, ragged sneakers...of course, Maya still didn't dress as if she could buy approximately half of the shares in his company and still rent a penthouse at Hotel Seiyo Ginzo for three years. And now she was standing there staring at him as if she'd seen a ghost. She was silent. And she managed to look both suspicious and alarmed.
"What are you doing here?"
Funny, he hadn't really thought about how he would explain his way out of being here coincidentally.
"I came to see you."
Okay, he breathed while just managing to bite back a grimace. That had not been the plan. Now he was reduced to telling the truth?
"Oh." She looked completely shocked. "I see."
He let himself swallow her whole with his eyes, drinking in every single bit of the young woman that he hadn't seen this close in years. That little expedition in the car hadn't counted - he hadn't been able to see her with Shiori's back still looming in his mind. But here...here...while she was standing in the bright lights and he in the dim dark, he could get as much of her as possible without coming off as a complete lunatic. Thirteen years had filled her out, of course, but she looked enough the same. His chest tightened and he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.
"How long were you watching for?"
"I came in write after the 'I want you to think carefully' part of the monologue," he said with a faint smile, "and waited to see if you would notice me. As usual, you didn't."
She arched an eyebrow, looking like the fire was coming back. Luckily, a small smile was edging away the shock.
"And, as usual, you interrupted me in the middle of work."
Before Masumi had realized it, he was smiling fully. When he did realize it, he thought about stopping but perished the thought. She was here and she wasn't booting him out yet and he would do his best to keep it this way. Though...he really had no idea what he had meant to do now that he was here, and how he was going to proceed.
"So." Maya was walking to the edge of the stage and dropping down, then she was on the ground with that obnoxiously pink knapsack at her side, and suddenly she was standing in front of him with her hands at her side and her face upturned. She looked at him carefully - ah, yes, the inspection.
"Last time I asked you how you were feeling and you gave me a roundabout answer." Masumi stared at her, startled. Maya gazed back with something akin to concern. "If I asked you the same question now, would you evade it again?"
Bloody hell. He'd forgotten how quickly this girl cut through his defenses. This close, he probably couldn't lie.
"No," he said honestly.
Her eyes softened fractionally and she rocked back on her toes.
"Then how are you?"
He thought about it.
"Better today than I have been in a long time." She looked like she was chewing that one over and Masumi worried that he might have said too much or given something important away in addition to the truth, so he distracted her. "But how have you been?"
"Better today than I have been in a long time," she quoted back at him with a tiny smile. He smiled back. For what probably lasted a minute but felt like a tiny slice of eternity, he stared at her. Every new line, every surprise curve, even the single strand of silver that he could see at her temple - all the new details that he hadn't been able to absorb when she had stood on stage were completely committed to memory before he quickly moved on to another feature. She broke the spell when she looked away, then moved a little off to his right and began to walk up the aisle to the exit doorways. "So why did you want to see me? I suspect it's about the play."
"Ah, of course." Not of course, not at all. "Sakaki had mentioned that you would be doing biweekly runthroughs with him over the script and I had hoped to catch you in the middle of a scene."
No such thing. He couldn't believe his brain's sudden shift from 'tell the truth' to 'lie through your teeth' as he followed her out into the lobby. Sometimes, he wasn't sure what motivated him to do these things. And, damn her, Maya took those words at face-value with a frown.
"Of course," she said. Was she in character right now or had her voice suddenly dropped a few degrees? He couldn't tell with her back to him. "Rest assured that I will not embarass myself or any of the benefactors, and I will more than do this role justice."
He couldn't open his mouth to say a damned thing. Which was a mistake since she spun around at the theater door, hands on hips, looking both calm and cool. Chibi-chan was no longer an 'up-and-at-'em' fighter - she was starting to remind him a little bit of Ayumi. The look on her face told him that he had just fucked up in a very major way.
"Well? Are you satisfied or will I have to swear it in blood?" Her miniature snarl had him arching an eyebrow. "Do you have anything at all to add to this conversation or am I free to go?"
"What I meant to say was that I have every confidence that you will perform this play admirably," he said softly. He tried not to raise his shoulders in a placating way, aware that he was already on thin ice. "You are one of the best actresses in the country and one of the most discerning ones as well - this role will probably be a fun challenge for you. I didn't come here because I was worried."
She looked shocked for the second time that evening.
"Then why did you come here?"
He didn't know. He hadn't really meant to. Oh, he had but he just hadn't known how much he'd really meant to. So he told the barest bit of the truth.
"Simply because I haven't seen you perform in person for a very long time. It's no secret that I admire your talent."
A lovely shade of pink was tinging her ears and now she was smiling fully. God, he'd missed that smile.
"We always start practice at 3 o'clock on Thursday evenings," she said. "If you'd like to see, then you should come by earlier."
He smiled back and was rewarded when her smile morphed into a pleased grin, but she pushed her back against the door and . He pushed the door open, walked down the steps and called out to get her attention. She looked over her shoulder, as she kept making her way to that gaudy little car she loved so much to drive.
"I will," he called.
She waved without looking back. Masumi stood on the bottom step and watched her pull out of the parking lot with a smile. A wave or an acknowledgement...either way, it had been a start.
xXx
So much for forgetting Hayami Masumi. Thanks to his appearing act yesterday, Maya had now moved from anxious despair to anxious excitement. She was in idiot, she was a fool, she was headstrong and looking for trouble. Of course, he could have simply asked the director for a more specific timeframe within which to visit and watch them practice so why on earth had she gone ahead and offered it up to him like a sacrifice on a silver platter? Just because he had driven out of his way to find her practicing in Zaizen? Surely, Maya could not be bought so simply.
Except apparently I can. She was worried and anxious and just plain flattered that he'd found a way to compliment her acting and her hard-work at the same time. No one could have understood it better than those who had watched her in the early days. Still, she should have put up a little bit more of a fight while railing at him mistakenly. That way she might have worked herself up into a nice tizzy before he set her down gently with praise. Oh, heavens.
She flipped through the magazine that Megumi had brought her on lunch break at the set for Hotelier. Her gaze couldn't settle on the article about makeup ('A Clean Crisp Daytime Look for the Working Lady') or the one about relationships ('Is He Still In To You? Ten Tell-Tale Signs') but she let the colors and the pictures absorb her for a few moments. She was going to be due back for touch-ups on her makeup at any given moment, she was supposed to have called Rei a few minutes ago, and she was wishing she had a nice cup of cold water at this moment to bring her off this unnatural high.
"Maya?"
She looked up to see a fellow cast member, Toudou Kenji, striding towards her with a newspaper in one hand and a bottle of cold juice in the other. He held out the can and, after a moment's hesitation, Maya grinned and took the can from him.
"Thank you very much, Toudou-san." She cracked the can and took a sip. "You are very kind - and you must also be a mind-reader."
"You looked bored, worried, and thirsty," he said with a wink, "and you have room enough on this bench for two. I simply thought I'd weasel my way into sharing the seat so I could read the paper."
"Mission successful then," she joked. "You're welcome to share anytime."
Toudou-san arched an eyebrow in such an obviously lecherous way that Maya found herself laughing. He joined her soon after.
"That's more like it - less worry, more fun!"
He startled her right out of her laughter but before she could respond-
"Maya, we need you in make-up!"
"Well, thank you for the juice," she said with a small bow, "and the laughter. Both were quite nice to have."
"No problem."
Maya was baffled but amused when he turned back to his paper, whipping it to straighten it before he seemed to sink his teeth right into an article. She carried her drink and walked slowly down the hallway to sit through a short fifteen-minute reapplication of the little she had on. Interesting that Toudou had picked up on her mood from across the room - how on earth had she survived on earth this long when she was still so obvious in all her feelings? Hopefully, Masumi hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary yesterday. Hopefully, she had managed to come off as completely careless and carefree. Hopefully, her heart wasn't so terribly visible on her sleeve.
Maya fully intended to ignore him - perhaps, 'ignore' was too strong a word - the next time they met. She needed to know that she had a backbone where he was concerned, and that she could be both professional and friendly but distant in the next few weeks. Official rehearsals would be beginning in the next month and although Masumi, in recent years, had become more elusive than ever he would definitely take her up on her offer. After all, he was nothing if not a shrewd business man and discerning viewer of all things theater. Maya would just have to ignore him...
The thing is, she thought to herself as she flipped open her cell to respond to a good-morning text from Rei, that now he's thrown a monkey-wrench in my plans. He probably will come to practice, which will make it harder for Plan Forget-About-Him to get underway.
For a full minute, Maya debated whether or not she would benefit by telling Rei anything about this new development. She'd struggled with the question last night as well, getting home and hugging the encounter to her like a delicious little secret that she had every intention of keeping. It was completely juvenile...hopelessly stupid and probably a little bit presumptuous. There was absolutely no reason for her to tell anyone so in the end the secret was kept. Instead, she asked after Ayumi's phantom date (God only knew whether they'd hit it off) for distraction. Ayumi couldn't loosen up in front of people that she didn't know very well to save her life. To observe her mingling in a crowd was to observe her putting on a kind of mask - she was perfectly polite, modest, subservient and extremely nice, which is exactly what Ayumi wasn't when she was around family and good friends. She had grown up like royalty in her household...translation she was opinionated, assertive, a tad bit vain and not above sarcasm. She would cut a date down to the quick at the end of the night, leaving him wondering where the sweet-voiced Ayumi had gone and why she'd left a harpy in her place.
If there was anything that would shock the dickens out of Maya, it was this - a man who managed to amuse and to ease and to charm the pants off of Ayumi (well, not literally...okay, perhaps, literally). What she needs, the brunette thought to herself, is the shock factor. He needs to keep her on her toes, as well as never take no for an answer.
Rei was quick to respond with what Maya had half expected - the man in question had been rebuffed. 'At least she was polite this time' read the text - that could mean anything from Ayumi had sent him off with a smile in silence to her having simply left the car when he'd pulled up to her residence, without waiting for him to say a single thing. She sent a sad face in response, right before the 'I told her not to do anything rash!'.
What she needed was more fun. More fun...more-
Maya had the news flash of a lifetime in between angling her head back for more eyeshadow and holding the phone as she waited for her best friend's response - what more could one ask for but a pet project that would both distract her from Masumi and get Ayumi the love experience she was in dire need of...
Maya was going to gang up with Rei to get Ayumi hooked up - by hook or by crook, the Princess was going to find herself with Toudou Kenji.