Producer Ueda's face twitches. Director Muraki raises an eyebrow.
"Change the ending?" Ueda-san's voice is just a tad high pitched. They are sitting opposite Kyoko and Yashiro. Kyoko has agreed to act in the movie but has made a request.
"Yes, Producer" she replies, "Could you please change the ending?"
"I am not sure I understand, Kyoko-san. Both Muraki and I have agreed to the script. We cannot go about changing the script at this time. I was under the impression that you are a top actress. I cannot believe you incapable of acting it out."
"Perhaps if I could explain?" Kyoko says.
Ueda-san waves a hand as if to say, 'Go ahead.'
"The story starts off dark and keeps getting darker and darker and the end is a culmination of darkness and despair. It is not that I cannot bring forth the emotion of the character. But that I don't feel that it is right"
"Kyoko-san," Muraki-san interrupts. "That is the whole point. That darkness and despair are what we want to leave audiences with. The movie will have that much more impact. It will leave a lasting impression on their minds. We do believe you are the perfect person to portray that despair."
Kyoko draws a deep breath and her face suddenly melts into one of abject misery and guilt. Muraki-san who is sitting directly opposite her involuntarily moves towards her as though to comfort her. He stops himself in time and Kyoko's face relaxes.
"Like I said," Kyoko continues, "I do not have a problem portraying the emotions. However, the message of the film seems to be that this double suicide by parents is an okay outcome, an okay solution to the guilt they feel. That simply irritates me. I cannot come to terms with that reasoning."
"Enough!" Ueda-san cannot stand it anymore. "I don't think you understand your position. You are an actress. Your job is to act. The scriptwriter writes the script. Unless you tell me you have been moonlighting as a writer, can we please keep the script as-is and move on?"
This was the opening that Kyoko had been waiting for. "About that. One of the people I know just happens to be a writer. I took the liberty of asking his help to change the ending. I brought the edited copy for you to read. If after reading this ending, you still feel unsure or that the original ending is better, I will accept it and act it out accordingly."
She hands over two copies of the edited script to the two men. They flip pages to the ending. There is silence, tense on Kyoko's part, as they read. Director Muraki is the first to finish. But he waits as Ueda also finishes reading.
Ueda-san says, "I have one question for you Kyoko-san. But first I want to hear what Muraki has to say." He is not displaying any indication on his face as to which way he is going to decide.
Muraki-san simply says, "I can make this work. I would not have thought it possible before reading that there could be an ending that would be more impactful than the original. But after reading this-"
"Yes." Ueda says, "My thoughts exactly. It is not that the ending itself is impactful but the dialogue is so cutting. And it fits better with the rest of the story. This brings me to my question Kyoko-san. Could I have the honor of meeting the writer who wrote this?"
Big Boy Burger was a small burger shop in a small city called Danville - a highway town somewhat midway between Denver and Kansas City. The tiny burger shop hardly filled up except on holiday or heavy travel days and even then the place filled up only almost to capacity. Rain was thankful that this allowed him to stay away from the kitchen most days. After a trial run during which he had set an entire oil fryer on fire, the proprietor managed to keep him away from any cooking activities. This meant that Lizzie, the only other employee handled all the cooking while Rain did all the waiting and serving during the day as well as clean up after the placed closed at night.
He worked from 10 AM to 9 PM with a 20-minute break in between for lunch. After this, he hit one of the two local bars where he drank one beer before heading home to his one-room apartment for the night. He had no car. He had no friends and met no one except at work and went out nowhere. He had signed up for work even on the weekends and that suited him and the restaurant owner just fine.
Anyone observing his life from afar would think it boring. Even his lunch and dinner were boring - some form of meat and vegetable sandwich for lunch and a version of pasta for dinner - the only two things he found difficult to screw up. However, there was one thing in his day that was not exactly strange but compared to the rest of his boring life, stood out like a sore thumb in its variety. Every day after finishing his lunch in exactly five and a half minutes, Rain took a fifteen-minute walk around Danville.
Danville was not a big town and in the three years Rain had been here he could have explored the town in its entirety if he had been so minded. But he hardly noticed his surroundings when he walked. There was a component of "running away from having to think about things" in his walking. To this end, he tried to focus all his energy on varying his walk as much as possible. The route would be different each time, his pace varied the entire time he was walking and he crossed the road at random moments just for the heck of it.
Lizzie asked him about it once, wondering what he did such a peculiar walk for.
"I get no other exercise." he had replied. "Latest studies say that the more variation in your exercise, the more calories you burn."
He had then flashed a bright fake smile at her and she had been dazzled into forgetting her entire question. Later on, she had wondered why as slim as he was, he needed to burn more calories. But somehow she had never asked. Something about his smile was rather unsettling and she was not going to risk being on the receiving end of it again if she could help it.
Today, Rain is once again on his walk but try as might, no matter how many turns and changes of paces he takes, he is not able to run away from the thoughts in his head. The thought is in the form of an image and the image chases him all through his walk. The reason for this image was the events of over a month back.
Entertainment news from a faraway country like Japan rarely ever reached Danville, part of the reason Rain had picked it. However, a month ago, a Japanese couple had been traveling through and had stopped for lunch at Big Boy.
Rain's heart had skipped a beat when he caught sight of them as it usually did when he caught sight of any remotely Japanese looking women come into the restaurant. Whether from fear or hope, he never could tell. Usually, he would then surreptitiously study them to make sure it wasn't "her". He had to be sure and the phenomenal actress that she was, he would try to be doubly sure before moving away.
This time too, Rain took to wiping an adjoining table that didn't need wiping and so was able to overhear what they were saying in Japanese.
"I can't wait for the movie to come out," the woman said. "Wisteria House, such an intriguing name."
Her partner grunted non-committally while scanning the menu card. But the woman went on.
"And Hidehito Kijima is on it as well." Rain's ears perked up at that.
The man looked up as well. "Who is the actress?" he asks.
"Kyoko-san"
"That Kyoko? I thought she was on a break or something. I heard a rumor."
The woman shook her head. "That was so yesterday, Ito-san. The latest rumor is that she has a boy-toy or something. There were pictures."
Ito frowned, "I cannot believe Kyoko-san would stoop so low. There must be some other explanation -"
"No look." the woman said and held up her phone. She was sitting on the opposite side of Rain so he could see her phone when she held it up. The details were blurry but Rain recognized her dress. And the boy in front of her. They were sitting way too close to be strangers.
The couple went on talking but Ren only heard a buzzing in his ears. He couldn't breathe. He blinked his eyes a few times but the world felt still blurry.
And now walking back to the restaurant more than a month from that day, thinking about that picture, Rain still feels out of breath as though he had been running. He looks at his watch, he is early. Perhaps he had been running. He cannot remember. He walks inside hoping that concentrating on work would push that image of the two of them away.
But Rain's past life is not pushed away so easily. Sitting there on one of the tables is a person from that past.
"Hello son," Kuu says.