"So what did you think?" Kuu asks when Rain hands him the DVD back.
"What do you mean?"
They are sitting outside at one of the local cafes in Danville. Kuu has a cup of steaming coffee in front of him. Rain doesn't have anything.
"Come on, son. It is not rocket science. I gave you a movie to watch. You watched it. I am just asking what you thought about it."
Rain glares and says, "It is not like I had a choice. You didn't believe me the last two times that I said I watched it. Why are you asking me now?"
"Because I know you watched it. You have a tell, you know."
Rain narrows his eyes, "What tell?"
"As much as I would like to keep it from you and watch you squirm, I want to tell you. It will help you improve as an actor."
"In case you haven't noticed, I am not an actor. I am a waiter.," Rain replies.
"So you don't want to know then?"
Rain doesn't say anything, obviously sulking.
"Such a child you are," Kuu says smiling but without animosity. "Let me tell you anyway. You are a fraction of a second slower to respond when you are lying. It is not something anyone but an actor would realize. And even then it took me years of watching you before realizing."
Ren stiffens and then looks away. Kuu has said the exact thing that Kyoko had figured out so many years ago. He had always been so transparent to her. Ren marshalls his thoughts. He has to stop thinking about Kyoko. He was 'Rain', the waiter who has no family, no wife, and never had another life in another country.
Kuu sighs, "I saw it too you know.,' he says. "The movie. And I realized that I was watching movies wrong all this while. I would watch the actors and observe their acting. And if a movie was particularly well made, I would sometimes get involved enough to forget to watch the acting. But this movie, from start to finish I was there- in Wisteria House. You know why? Because of Kyoko. You know towards the end when she realizes that she was also responsible, I reached out and touched the screen expecting to touch her face. Has that ever happened to you?"
"No.," Ren replies a little too quickly. And then thinks, 'Damn. Kuu would probably pick up on the fact that I am lying." He had reached out at the end when he saw Kyoko with her arms outstretched for a hug. He had remembered the feeling of her arms around him, warm and comforting. Just for a second, he had felt like he had been home. And then the illusion cracked and Rain was back.
'After so many years of successfully not thinking about her, why all of a sudden am I feeling so out of control?" he wonders. "The important thing is to hide it from this man."
Kuu noticed the slightly faster response but doesn't say anything about it. The movie was an excuse for coming to see Kuon. Kuu's agenda is a bit more than just that. Although he had gone to great lengths to obtain an advance copy of the movie and had indeed enjoyed watching it, his true motive was to try and gauge his son's mental state and if possible, soften him up for Kyoko. But seeing Kuon struggle to hide his feelings, Kuu only feels bad for his son.
'All those complicated feelings that he has now, he has been suffering with them for so long now. I wonder if I can release him of them.'
"Listen, son," he says," Kyoko never really gave much of the details of how you guys separated. We were under the impression that you had left without an explanation. It is only recently when she started talking to Julie that I heard some of what happened. Why did you hurt her before you left? You obviously loved her then. And love her still. whether you accept it or not. Did you not guess the consequences of your actions?"
Ren doesn't reply. He is silent for such a long time that Kuu wonders if he would speak.
Ren however is simply thinking, If anyone else had asked him this question, Ren could have not bothered answering. But Kuu could see right through him. That's the thing with family. They get in our faces and don't leave till they've sorted us out.
"I wanted her to stop acting," he says finally.
"Why?" Kuu asks.
"I was..." Ren stops and tries again, "You have to understand, acting was the reason that I lost everything. My acting, her acting, we could never be happy as long as this acting was there. It didn't matter that we hid our marriage or not. It didn't matter that what happened to Kyoko was an accident or not. As long as we both had our acting careers, we were doomed."
"And how did you arrive at this mind-boggling conclusion?" Kuu asks.
"I wanted nothing more than to make Kyoko happy. "
"And you did that by hurting her? Yes, it makes a lot of sense."
"Will you let me speak? You asked a question. I am trying to answer it. That day when the doctor asked me to choose between Kyoko and the baby, I..." Ren stops unable to go on, the horror of that moment flashing before his eyes once more.
"The doctor had been asking me to be a murderer. I choose one, I murder the other. That is how I felt. And after that day, every time I saw her face, I felt that moment come over me. It got so bad that I started resenting her for making me choose. It did not help that she recovered from the trauma faster than me. I tried really hard not to blame her and that only made me blame myself instead. The more I stayed with her, the more I had to choose between blaming myself and blaming her. And the day I left I just felt like breaking and destroying everything. Everything that led to that moment of choice I was given. So I figured, maybe if I said something really horrible to her, she would hate me for the rest of her life and I could go away and no longer be tempted to hate her. And if I did it in a way that stopped her from acting ever again, she could have a chance at a fresh start - a life with no acting to complicate it - a husband who loves her and kids. She could have a chance at happiness." The pain is clearly visible on Ren's face.
"You poor idiot!" says Kuu getting up, "You had all this complicated nonsense in your head. You should have gone and seen a therapist as normal people do. Instead, you have been sitting here suffering in hell while your wife has been wasting away to nothing. Congratulations on achieving the exact opposite effect of what you intended. Some actor, you are."
And Kuu starts to walk away.
"What about this young man she has been seeing?" Ren calls after Kuu. When Kuu turns around he continues, "And she is still acting as brilliantly as ever." he says bitterly.
"You should know your wife better than that," Kuu responds and then leaves leaving Ren to wonder which part he was responding to.