#85: On the Radio / ep.1
“Do you think she’ll be able to find you, Rinko?”
Almost an hour had passed since Kotone’s call.
It was Kaya’s voice, suppressing a rising laugh, that finally broke the silence inside the car.
Would Kotone come to pick Rinko up, or wouldn’t she?
It was a nasty little bet, a Game of love that Shandy had goaded her into playing.
Kotone probably knew little more than the fact that Rinko’s family home was in Hamamatsu. She had no further information. To make matters worse, they were currently in the car park of a shopping mall near Rinko’s parents’ house.
If Kotone actually managed to find her here, perhaps Rinko could believe in something called a miracle of love.
For a fleeting moment, that ridiculous fairy tale of a dream crossed her mind.
Then she immediately realised it was impossible.
Because today was Wednesday.
“…Can I turn on the radio?”
With Kaya’s permission, Rinko tuned the car stereo to the local FM station.
After an unfamiliar local advert, a jingle and a voice she had heard countless times filled the car.
“And we’re off! It’s Cheer Up, the programme here to support everyone through their afternoons. Wednesday’s presenter, Kurosu Kotone, broadcasting from FM Minato in Yokohama to a network of thirty-eight stations nationwide.”
A calm, soothing voice perfectly suited to a languid afternoon began the four-hour live broadcast.
Which meant that Takahashi Mikoto, no, Kurosu Kotone, would not be coming to pick Rinko up.
Rinko remembered Shandy’s final words.
＊
“What do you mean, a pink-hued Game of love…?”
“Oh, don’t you think it’s beautiful? I think it suits you perfectly, Rinko-san.”
Shandy had recovered with astonishing speed, as though her tears moments earlier had never happened, and now gave a quiet, knowing giggle.
“You’re going to use the Game to find out how much Kotone-san loves you.”
“Look, that’s why I—”
“Isn’t it wasteful to throw away the chance to enjoy only the sweet parts of romance? Let her roll around in the palm of your hand, bask in all the attention she gives you, and then toss her away when you get bored. That’s all there is to it, isn’t it?”
Shandy’s words, like those of a wicked witch, sent the flames of Rinko’s anger roaring.
At the same time, however, Rinko could no longer understand why she was angry.
Even if she did exactly as Shandy suggested, taking the best parts of the relationship and then throwing Kotone away, Kotone would be the one who got hurt.
Not Rinko.
“…Don’t lump me in with you.”
“That reaction is your answer. You care about Kotone-san, which is precisely why you don’t want to do something so despicable. That’s why you’re annoyed right now, isn’t it?”
“…………”
“If you really care about Kotone-san, then set the Game for her.”
“…Why?”
“Unless you understand that a love can never come true, those feelings will continue to smoulder.”
Her moist eyes gazed at Rinko with something like tenderness.
Rinko herself knew that feeling.
Just like Kotone now, she had once been suffering through a painful one-sided love.
Who had been the one to put the final nail in the coffin?
“That is the least kindness you can offer her, Rinko-san.”
＊
“Are you planning to barricade yourself in here listening to the radio?”
“I like this programme. Leave me alone.”
“Hm.”
Rinko was doing exactly as Shandy had instructed.
The bet, the Game of love she had set for Kotone, was simple.
Come and pick me up right now, by the power of love.
In truth, it was hardly a bet at all.
It was one-sided.
No matter how hard Kotone tried, she could not possibly move right now.
And because she failed to come and pick Rinko up immediately, Rinko’s heart would drift away.
A cruel twist of fate leading to a breakup.
That was the script.
“So, how about this? If Takahashi Mikoto comes to pick you up before this radio programme ends, I’ll give up on you. But if she doesn’t…”
Kaya’s hand reached towards Rinko’s thigh.
It was just as unpleasant as when a lecherous boss had touched her at a drinking party.
But Rinko told herself that perhaps this was for the best.
If she wanted to forget the city, and Kotone…
“Do whatever you want.”
“I will.”
When they had been dating, even Kaya’s vulgar smile, with its obvious ulterior motives, had made Rinko’s heart flutter.
Now, her smile, her voice, her very appearance inspired nothing but disgust.
As though to drive the point home, Kaya flashed her canine tooth and asked smugly:
“By the way, what’s Takahashi Mikoto like? If you had to compare her to a celebrity?”
“She looks almost exactly like Kurosu Kotone.”
“Haha! There’s no way she looks that much like such a beautiful woman. You’re blinded by love.”
“I like her face and her body.”
“Then I bet she’s got an awful personality.”
“…………”
Rinko had been praising Kotone to the skies because she wanted to take at least a little revenge on Kaya.
But when it came to Kotone’s personality, she could not honestly deny it.
She genuinely did not like it.
That was when comparing her to Kotone in actress mode.
But what if she stopped looking at Kotone as her oshi?
What if she looked at her simply as the person she had happened to meet, someone with whom she had gradually developed something resembling a rotten old friendship?
“She’s several times better than you, Kaya. She’s stupid, but she’s a stupid person who knows how to apologise.”
“You really say things like that? Well, I am stupid.”
Kaya’s hand, which had been caressing Rinko’s thigh, moved inwards, further and further.
Rinko had no strength left to resist.
Kotone was not going to come for her anyway.
When the radio programme ended, Kaya would drive out towards the suburbs.
There were love hotels along practically every national highway in the countryside.
It would happen sooner or later either way.
“Even if I’m stupid, I remember where you like being touched, Rinko.”
Rinko could feel her fingers moving against her through the thin fabric.
It did not feel good.
It only hurt.
“Let’s have some fun like we used to, Rinko.”
“…We can’t.”
“You don’t have to lie. Because this much—”
“Wait, wait! I forgot to mention something.”
Kaya’s fingers, moving further, were stopped by Kotone’s voice coming through the radio.
“Since summer is almost here, today’s email theme is… *lighthouses.”*
It felt as though someone had seized Rinko’s heart in their fist.
She pushed Kaya back from where she had been leaning over the passenger seat and turned up the radio volume.
Kotone’s voice was the very definition of the refined, pure actress persona she presented to the world.
But Rinko did not miss the tiny crack in her voice.
“Actually, I love them. Lighthouses.”
“Th-that idiot! What is she—”
What on earth was she planning to say, using the public airwaves for something so personal?
As Kotone’s former manager, Rinko could feel her stomach twisting painfully.
At the same time, hearing her oshi whisper the words I love them in that voice made Rinko’s thoughts feel as though they were about to explode.
“What’s with you, Rinko? You like the radio that much?”
“Shut up!” “I suppose there are many times in life when we lose our way. Even so, lighthouses remain standing for travellers who have lost their way. They tell them, \“I’m here. I’ll always be waiting for you.\””
Rinko leaned closer to the car stereo speaker.
Kotone cheerfully talked about various facts concerning lighthouses.
She sounded happier than usual, yet there was a loneliness and melancholy in her voice that only Rinko could hear.
“And, of course, lighthouses are big. You can’t simply reach them, and they’re like a flower on a distant peak, beyond your grasp. Maybe that’s why they draw us in. If I had to compare it to something… perhaps someone like an older sister I look up to… Ah, sorry. Does that make sense to anyone?”
The radio staff laughed, and Kotone began reading out messages from listeners about lighthouses.
Listeners who knew nothing about the circumstances would never realise that what they were hearing was practically a public declaration of love.
For Kotone, the lighthouse was none other than Rinko.
A sudden call from Yokohama made the lethargy weighing down Rinko’s entire body feel lighter.
Of course it did.
All this time, she had listened to her oshi’s voice, watched her on screen, and drawn strength from her.
And now that oshi was trying to tell her something, even going so far as to commandeer a radio programme to do it.
If she did not support such a courageous act, what kind of fan was she?
“Wait a second! I’m the person she’s talking about! That’s impossible!”
Rinko was utterly confused.
She wanted to encourage Kotone as a fan.
She felt a responsibility towards Kotone as her manager.
She had an instinctive refusal to being recognised by her oshi.
She had been made painfully aware that people held prejudices about Aromatic.
She no longer knew anything.
She could not even define what she was feeling.
“You’ve started talking to yourself more, Rinko. What is this, anyway? You’re still hung up on Takahashi Mikoto that badly?”
“It’s not like I’m hung up on her…”
There was no way she could answer that she wasn’t.
What filled Rinko’s mind was everything she had experienced with Kotone, the happy and the painful alike.
Even with her former lover beside her, even with fingers moving between her thighs, all she could think about was Kotone.
“…Originally, she was someone I admired. The moment I saw her for the first time, I couldn’t stop watching her.”
“That’s just like you, Rinko. You fell for me at first sight too, didn’t you?”
Rinko did not hear Kaya’s reply.
What she saw instead was the stage where she had first encountered Kotone four years earlier.
A nineteen-year-old newcomer who had stood out brilliantly despite being only a supporting actress in a play Rinko had gone to see with a friend who enjoyed theatre.
“She wasn’t even the lead, but she was so beautiful. I wanted to see her again, so I searched everywhere for her. And eventually I found her. I was so happy. Just knowing she was alive…”
“…The lead?”
Immediately after the play ended, Rinko had searched for every scrap of information she could find about Kotone.
These days, searching for Kurosu Kotone would immediately bring up her agency page and Wikipedia.
Back then, however, she had been an obscure supporting actress whose name appeared only in tiny print on the corner of a theatre flyer.
Day after day, Rinko searched the internet.
If anything, she had probably been more obsessive about searching for Kotone than Kotone herself.
Eventually she found Kotone’s newly created Instagram account, where she discovered that a drama that would become her breakthrough role had been scheduled to air.
“I was happy just knowing she was alive. I wanted her to keep moving forward, never looking back at me.”
After that, Kotone’s career took off almost before Rinko knew what was happening.
She had watched Kotone from the earliest days of her career, and she had simply been happy to see her soar into the entertainment world.
“But then she turned around and looked at me. The person I had wanted to keep looking straight ahead began looking back at me. I didn’t want her to settle for someone like me.”
“Hahaha! At your age, you’re still carrying on with this sort of painfully pure romance? That’s embarrassing.”
From Kaya’s perspective, who had no understanding of an oshi, perhaps it really was embarrassing.
But Rinko could not accept the Kotone who existed in reality.
Kotone did not use crude language. She was always smiling gently.
She had cultivated a down-to-earth public image through stories about thrift and frugality. She did not buy Birkin bags or purchase cars outright with cash.
Most importantly, she did not call sex workers to her home.
Nor did she ever, unbelievably, slap down a million yen in cash in an attempt to buy a cast member out of the industry.
“But there is one thing I know for certain.”
Everything Kotone had done so far might have seemed capricious, but she had been consistent from beginning to end.
When she bought Rinko out.
When she infiltrated the hotel.
When she comforted Rinko after her heartbreak and went to warn her sister.
When Rinko lost her job and was in danger of losing her home.
That outrageous demand Kotone had made back then.
And now, this lighthouse.
“That woman needs me.”
A fan’s duty was to support her oshi.
So if an oshi needed her fan…
“Oh, great. We ended up in the same boat after all. I used to look down on those hardcore fans who say they’d be fine being used and discarded by some band member…”
“Wait, he’s a band member too? Rinko, you’re twenty-seven, aren’t you? Time to wake up and face reality.”
“I face reality more than you do.”
“What?”
A sharp pain came from between Rinko’s legs.
Kaya had pinched her.
Rinko no longer had any reason to remain passive. She knocked Kaya’s arm away from beneath her skirt.
“I’m not becoming your affair partner.”
“I told you, it’s not an affair. Just a friends-with-benefits thing. Less than romance.”
“No.”
“Oh, really? Then maybe I’ll tell them. My father-in-law, mother-in-law, and your big brother. I’ll tell them Rinko’s secret.”
Kaya’s next move was a threat.
“Your dad is really looking forward to your wedding and having children, you know. What do you think will happen when such lovely parents learn the truth?”
Rinko quietly exhaled.
“Tell them, then. Tell them their biological daughter is a lesbian.”
“…………”
“If they’re the sort of parents who would cut ties with me over that, then so be it. Thanks for the twenty-seven years, I suppose.”
“Do you even know the meaning of ‘saving face’? At the very least, you have to value your family.”
“Then value them in my place.”
“What…?”
“After all, you’re the eldest son’s wife in the Shirai family, aren’t you? At least as far as appearances are concerned.”
Rinko packed every ounce of malice she could into the words, throwing Kaya’s own position back in her face.
Normally, she would have simply exploded with anger.
The fact that the words came so smoothly was undoubtedly because she had been sparring with that bartender.
No.
For today, at least, Rinko secretly decided to call it thanks to her rather than because of her.
“I’m so glad my big brother’s there. You know, the thing to have in the countryside is an eldest son. I’m a lesbian, so I can’t protect the family’s pathetic little reputation.”
Colour rose rapidly into Kaya’s face.
It was exhilarating.
So this was how Shandy must feel when she sparred with Rinko.
The thought made her angry at Shandy all over again.
“And besides, I might eventually become part of another family. If I stick my nose into things now, I’d only drag my brother’s reputation through the mud. That wouldn’t be very good for appearances, would it? So I’ll leave it to you.”
“Do you seriously think two women can be happy together?”
“Are you saying you aren’t happy? Even though you’re living with your beloved family?”
Without saying a word, Kaya started the kei car.
Because the child lock was engaged, Rinko could not open the passenger-side door from inside.
A moving prison.
“You said you’d wait for Takahashi Mikoto, didn’t you?”
“I changed my mind.”
That was all Kaya said before driving out of the shopping-centre car park and towards the suburbs.
Where else would they be going but the love-hotel district along the national highway?
If words did not work, Kaya intended to teach Rinko with her body.
Perhaps the Rinko Kaya had constructed in her imagination was simply a convenient fantasy, someone who would bend if the two of them became physically entangled.
From the passenger seat, Rinko looked at her former lover’s grim profile.
Strangely, she felt sorry for her.
“You’re such a dreamer too, Kaya.”
Kaya was chasing a dream.
Meanwhile, Rinko’s dream had finally awakened.
She listened to the voice of the oshi she both loved and hated, coming through the radio.
For an actress who normally performed perfectly, Kotone’s speaking pace was unusually fast.
She was anxious.
Of course she was.
The condition for getting back together was to win a Game that was impossible to win, to come and pick Rinko up right now.
Unless she had a magic Anywhere Door, it was impossible to arrive immediately.
“And now, the highway j-jam… sorry, traffic information. Kagawa-san from the Road Traffic Information Centre, please. I stumbled over that.”
After some light conversation, the road-traffic report began. There was congestion caused by an accident on the Shuto Expressway Bayshore Route, and lane restrictions due to construction on the Kan-Etsu Expressway. Then, unusually, Kotone added a question.
“Kagawa-san, what are conditions like on the Tomei Expressway? And, um, towards around five this afternoon…”
“Er, well. At present, both the Tomei and Shin-Tomei are moving smoothly, but as for what the future holds…”
“Ah, yes, of course. Sorry. I just happened to be wondering.”
She was trying to sound composed, but Kotone must have been desperately anxious inside.
Once the radio programme ended, she intended to race down the motorway in that red SUV of hers.
If she left at five, she would reach Hamamatsu before seven.
“She really is an idiot…”
Objectively speaking, Rinko was in an absolutely dreadful situation.
She was practically being abducted by her former lover and taken to a hotel.
Yet all Rinko could focus on was every little thing Kotone was doing as she desperately tried to reach her.
She was so anxious that she was stumbling over her script.
She was checking traffic conditions, something she normally never did.
She was making mistake after mistake.
The image of Kurosu Kotone, the refined and perfect chameleon actress, had disappeared.
Kotone was not perfect.
She was still an inexperienced little boat, unable to hide her agitation and carry on with a flawless performance.
If she ventured out into the open sea, sooner or later she would lose her bearings and be shipwrecked.
There was only one person who could be her lighthouse.
“Hurry up and come get me, you idiot.”
The expression reflected in the passenger-side window was a mixture of exasperation and helplessness.
And yet, Rinko was smiling softly.