quiet talk #10: Peach Sangria
“So I see. I had assumed you’d put an end to things with Kotone-san.”
The Yokohama air, which Rinko was breathing for the first time in several days, somehow felt a little more comfortable than before. Perhaps that was simply the reaction to having been exposed to the poisonous atmosphere of her family home.
Yokohama. The private room assigned to Rinko in Kotone’s flat.
With fewer personal belongings than before, thanks to the things she had left behind at her parents’ home, Rinko reluctantly made a phone call.
The person on the other end was thoroughly unlikeable, but she was also the woman who had cried in Rinko’s place. It was not as though Rinko felt no gratitude towards her at all.
She had agonised over pressing the call button.
“I told her, at least. You went to quite a bit of trouble for me too.”
“I really did, didn’t I? Surely my kindness has finally sunk in?”
Rinko hung up in irritation.
She really was hopelessly incompatible with that blonde piece of shit.
She threw the smartphone in her hand onto the bed in an attempt to vent some of her frustration, only for it to ring again almost immediately.
This time Shandy was calling her.
Rinko decided to ignore the ringing, but Shandy seemed equally determined to keep calling until she answered. The phone simply would not stop.
It became a battle of wills.
Eventually, even that grew irritating, so Rinko switched off her phone.
The instant she did, someone knocked on the firmly closed door to her private room.
The owner of the flat, Kotone.
“Rinko-chan, Shandy-sis is calling.”
“Tell her I’ve gone to bed.”
“You’ve been using the ‘pretend I’m not here’ trick for ages. You know damn well it won’t work on her.”
“No!”
“Can’t you tell her yourself? I’ve got my own work to do here.”
When Kotone invoked the word work, even Rinko found herself at a disadvantage.
She hid her personal feelings beneath the pretence of a work order and extended only her arm through the gap in the door.
“Give me your phone. You’re not allowed in.”
“Why? What’s the big deal?”
“This is my room.”
“Before that, it’s my house.”
“Then I’ll move out.”
“Fine, fine…”
After the disastrous incident earlier, Kotone had changed.
If Rinko hinted that she might end their cohabitation, Kotone tended to give in on almost anything.
For Rinko, it was a convenient development.
She reluctantly accepted Kotone’s phone, closed the door, and raised her voice.
“Nooo!”
“Come now, there’s no need to say that. I had something I really wanted to discuss with you, Rinko-san.”
A suppressed laugh, like air escaping, came through the phone.
Whatever Shandy wanted to talk about, it would hardly be anything important. Rinko assumed she was merely going to lord it over her and enjoy making fun of her, so she adopted an attitude of letting the words pass straight through her.
From her right ear to her left.
As though she had connected both ears directly with a tunnel, she deliberately turned her thoughts towards some far-off point so that nothing would register.
“Rinko-san.”
“……”
“Do you love Kotone-san?”
Rinko was just about to hang up when Shandy’s voice suddenly rang out at considerably greater volume.
It was rare for that infuriating whispering woman to raise her voice.
Reluctantly, Rinko decided to listen for just a little longer.
“If you’re planning to make fun of me, I’m hanging up for real this time.”
“I’m not so degraded that I would laugh at someone else’s love life.”
“Who the hell do you think you’re fooling? You’ve made fun of me plenty.”
There was a brief pause.
Then Shandy changed her tone.
The voice that occasionally emerged when she removed the veil of lies and secrets.
“I’m asking you seriously because this is important. You’re going to face Kurosu Kotone, aren’t you?”
Rinko stopped speaking.
Shandy was cunning.
She understood that if she abandoned her usual frivolous words, so steeped in falsehood and pretence, her statements would carry far more weight.
Indeed, Rinko sometimes wondered whether all that theatrics she put on every day existed precisely to make her serious words stand out.
Either way, it was unfair.
“That has nothing to do with you.”
“No, it doesn’t. Whoever you choose to have a relationship with is none of my business. But now that you’ve resumed living together, you can’t run away from facing her.”
Rinko understood what she was getting at.
At present, she was simply enjoying the sweet side of being loved by someone while leaving the answer to her confession on hold.
There were countless people in the world who gave someone false hope, drained every last drop of the sweet honey of their affection, and then threw them away.
For example, a certain woman who was now a mother back in Hamamatsu.
“Hey. What kind of person do you think I am?”
“Only you know what kind of person you are.”
Her argument with Shandy had reached the point where neither of them could stop without saying what they really meant.
This was the first time Rinko had finally managed to recognise her true feelings.
She did not want to put them into words so easily.
Feelings dwell in words.
Kotodama, the spirit of words.
The more you give feelings a voice, the more firmly they take root, reshaping your thoughts, your habits, everything about you.
“Are you going to face her? Or run away?”
That was why she did not want to say it.
If she fell any more deeply in love with Kotone, she would no longer know how to behave around her.
What sort of self should she show?
What sort of person would make Kotone happy?
And what sort of person would make Kotone continue to love her?
Once she started thinking about it, there was no end
A dead end with another name: the troubles of love.
Her throat felt slightly dry.
Rinko took a deep breath, breathing out the happy ache that had tightened her chest, a sensation she had forgotten for so long.
Then she answered.
“I’m not the kind of woman who stays with someone she doesn’t even like.”
“Could you be a little clearer?”
“No. And you’re the last person I want to hear that from.”
They both laughed at the same time.
Then, as though something possessing her had finally fallen away, Shandy began laughing properly.
“Hehe. We really are troublesome women, aren’t we?”
“I know. You were trying to tell me not to toy with Kotone and hurt her, weren’t you? You say it has nothing to do with you, but you’re so damn roundabout.”
“Women are cutest when they’re troublesome.”
“You’re not cute.”
“I’ll return that sentiment word for word. Besides, I’m not the one who’ll be dealing with your troublesome side.”
Serious one moment, making fun of her the next.
Shandy kept steering their conversation back and forth like a receding and advancing wave, her objective so roundabout and obscure that it was difficult to understand.
And yet, after everything they had been through together, Rinko finally understood what she truly meant.
This was Shandy’s way of offering her blessing.
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks. That’s all you wanted, right? I’m hanging up.”
“Yes. I wish you every happiness. Leave Mikoto to me, and settle for her little sister.”
Rinko immediately pressed the end-call button.
Even on a congratulatory phone call, Shandy could not resist getting one last dig in.
That woman was troublesome to the very end, incapable of thinking about anything except making fun of people.
And she was not cute.
“The call’s over, Kotone.”
Rinko called towards the closed door, assuming Kotone would be waiting outside.
There was no answer.
Normally, Kotone would have stationed herself outside Rinko’s door, trying to eavesdrop with a glass or a stethoscope.
Not this time.
“Well, what can you do…”
Rinko put her hand on the doorknob.
Before the incident in question, Rinko had never left her room to go and see Kotone herself.
She had barricaded herself inside and handled all work-related communication by phone or email.
Despite the fact that they lived under the same roof.
So this was a first.
The first time Rinko had made an approach towards Kotone herself.
The hand gripping the doorknob trembled slightly.
“…Right. This is work.”
It was work, and nothing more.
By telling herself that, Rinko suppressed the feelings threatening to escape from her throat and opened the firmly closed door herself.
Beyond the corridor, flashes of light and dialogue leaked through the small window in the living-room door.
She was watching a film or something on the screen.
Rinko steeled herself and opened the door.
The screen mounted on the living-room wall was showing footage of Kotone’s first stage performance.
“You’re lucky. You can insist that watching your own acting counts as work.”
“Occupational privilege.”
Kotone did not take her eyes off the screen. She was staring intently at the performance.
Rinko was about to return the phone and leave when something struck her as odd.
“…Hang on. This is your first stage performance, isn’t it? Was this ever filmed?”
Rinko did not know exactly how it had happened, but Kotone had made her stage debut in a minor role with the theatre company run by Hotel Maverick.
The production was An American in Paris.
The lead was the top star of the time, a former actress who, for some reason, now worked as a hotel employee: Kuze Fumika.
At Rinko’s question, Kotone nodded, looking exasperated.
“Dress rehearsal. I had them record it for me, so I could study it.”
A dress rehearsal is the final rehearsal held before opening night, performed just as it will be on the actual day.
The difference is that there is no audience, while the staff conducting the final checks are also captured on the recording.
In other words, this was a glimpse of the production just before it reached completion.
A lost production that had never been officially filmed.
Rinko had seen the play on its opening night, and that was when she had been captivated by Kotone.
Her inner Kotone otaku stirred painfully, and she could not tear her eyes away from the screen.
“…Can I watch too?”
“Mm.”
The sofas were arranged in a U-shape around the living room.
The centre sofa, directly facing the screen, was the best seat in the house.
She could see perfectly from beside Kotone.
Was it really all right to sit next to her?
Perhaps that was too much familiarity.
But…
After a moment’s hesitation, Rinko shoved Kotone aside and squeezed herself into the centre sofa.
“So? What’s it like watching your oshi’s stage performance from beside your oshi?”
“You focus on your work. I’ll focus on my oshi-goto too.”
“You really are a hardcore Kotone otaku.”
“Four years ago I had a B-seat, so I was far away from the stage. I could barely see you.”
“Lucky you. Now you’ve got the best seat in the house.”
“Don’t you ever get embarrassed saying things like that yourself?”
Rinko threw a look of contempt at the grinning Kotone beside her, then gazed admiringly at the tiny figure of Kotone on the screen.
As expected, she was a completely different person onstage and off.
Even now that she knew the person called Kurosu Kotone, Rinko was glad she could still perceive her as two different people above and below the stage.
“I never actually planned on becoming an actress.”
Inside the darkened living room, only half of Kotone’s face was illuminated.
The words she muttered seemed completely unsuited to a young actress who had been climbing rapidly towards stardom.
Rinko pricked up her ears.
“I got scouted in Shibuya. I didn’t really have anything I wanted to do in the future, so I thought, well, might as well make some memories. Then I happened to get spotted by Mibu P at an audition.”
“Wait. Mibu? You mean that…”
“Yep. The bastard you beat the shit out of.”
“Whaaat… You should’ve told me that sooner…”
Kotone’s debut work was a nonsensical direct-to-video film with a completely incomprehensible concept.
If Mibu P was the one who made it, then Rinko had, in a sense, pissed off the person who had brought her oshi into the world.
Protecting Kotone had made it the right decision.
But as an act towards the person who had introduced actress Kurosu Kotone to the world, it had been almost an act of repaying kindness with hostility.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. The guy has a bad reputation in the industry anyway. He’s a sleazy bastard, the sort who’ll try it on whenever he sees an opening. If his character wasn’t such shit, I could respect him without reservation.”
Kotone’s professionalism in separating someone’s character from their creative work seemed reassuring that day.
If it had been Rinko, she would probably have lost her temper immediately and wrecked the entire shoot.
“But did he do it to you?”
There was one thing Rinko was worried about.
When she asked hesitantly, Kotone whispered with a half-smile:
“Wanna know?”
There was no way Rinko wanted to know that.
She wanted Kurosu Kotone to remain beautiful forever.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well, even if it was only a V-cinema and I was an unknown newcomer making my starring debut… Use your imagination.”
“I said I don’t want to hear it!”
Beside Rinko, who was now a complete mess of disappointment and anger towards Mibu P, Kotone cackled as though the whole thing had nothing to do with her.
Rinko hated herself for being unable to stop imagining the scene despite herself, and clawed at her hair.
“Thanks for beating him up for me.”
“If I’d known, I would’ve fucking killed him… well, half-killed him!”
“I’m fine now. Though it is kinda funny. I can’t even tell whether he got it in or out, it was so pathetic.”
“Stop! I don’t want to hear any more! You’re destroying the image I have of you!”
“Ahaha.”
Apparently satisfied after laughing to her heart’s content, Kotone returned to the subject.
“So, the next job I did was this play. Honestly, I thought I’d quit acting once it was over. But…”
At the edge of the screen, the lead, Kuze Fumika, began singing her feelings in a ringing voice.
Then three young townswomen appeared from the wings.
Kurosu Kotone, nineteen, newly debuted.
“I had fun. Of course I had fun doing the V-cinema too, but you can’t see the audience’s faces in those, right? So when I performed live and actually saw the audience reacting, it made me really happy.”
On the stage of the dress rehearsal, with no audience present, Kotone twirled in time with the music, her long hair and long skirt swaying around her.
“I wanted to entertain people even more. Next time, I wanted to be the lead and make everyone completely absorbed in the performance. Though apparently there were some people who were more interested in the rookie than Kuze-san.”
Kotone gave a sly grin and leaned her body against Rinko’s shoulder.
Two feelings, her refusal of contact with her oshi and her refusal to be recognised by her oshi, briefly surfaced on Rinko’s face.
She ignored them and spoke.
“It was opening night. My friend was a fan of one of the supporting actors, so I went along with her. That was the first play I ever saw.”
The shock of four years ago returned vividly to Rinko’s mind.
The saxophone notes resonating through her stomach.
Kuze Fumika tap-dancing with the gentlemen around her.
The chorus of three townswomen emerging from the wings.
And among them…
No.
The most beautiful woman Rinko had ever known, not merely on a stage but in her entire life.
The rookie actress, Kurosu Kotone.
“I wasn’t interested in stage plays or dramas at all back then. I used to think, ‘What’s so fun about imaginary worlds? It’s just a waste of time.’”
“Hard to imagine that now.”
“…Yeah. That’s how beautiful you were. Kurosu Kotone was beautiful.”
“Was?”
Back when they had been oshi and fan, Rinko could say things like that without embarrassment.
Now, suddenly, she found herself ashamed.
She could no longer look away from the source of that embarrassment.
“You’re beautiful now too.”
“Hehe. That makes me happy.”
“You’re not beautiful when you make that face.”
“You’re persistent. Is being myself really so bad?”
Instead of answering, Rinko rested her cheek against Kotone’s head as it leaned against her shoulder.
If words became too powerful, and speaking them caused her feelings to harden into something permanent, then answering without words was still preferable.
“…You know how you sometimes hear stories about people saying an idol saved them?”
“Yeah. I guess. I don’t really get it myself.”
“It really happens. When I was so depressed from a horrible job or something painful that I felt like dying, looking at you gave me strength.”
Kotone buried her face in Rinko’s thigh.
She was probably just embarrassed and fooling around.
She gave a small, squirming groan of “Aah…”
She did have a cute side to her.
Her way of hiding embarrassment was just like an elementary-school child, though.
“I used to project myself onto my oshi. I’d think that maybe, even though my oshi was standing on these glittering stages now, she had struggled terribly to reach that spotlight.”
In reality, it was obvious enough to be seen from space that Kotone had earned her current position through hardship.
Rinko did not even need to hear about the incident with Mibu P. Her sheer number of appearances over the past four years was proof enough.
Kotone was a genius blessed with extraordinary looks, but she was also a hard worker who had created a version of herself worthy of those looks.
“So I thought I should work hard too. My oshi probably wouldn’t be happy about being supported by someone as useless as me. So I decided I should become someone I wouldn’t be ashamed to stand behind my oshi as.”
Rinko had confessed all this not for Kotone’s sake, but for her own.
They was powerful words meant to settle the guilt she had carried over her own past, the feeling that had manifested as her absolute refusal of recognition and contact with her oshi.
Kotone had recognised her.
Kotone had touched her.
Both had happened long ago.
There was no longer any need to punish herself because of her guilt.
“Do you remember? You said you were the ship and I was the lighthouse. I said I couldn’t do it.”
“Mm.”
“It wasn’t simply that I was refusing. Because…”
Rinko stroked the back of Kotone’s head and murmured:
“My goal in life… My lighthouse was you.”
Slowly, Kotone raised her head.
This was an adult face, different from the one she had possessed four years ago, when some childishness still remained.
Half illuminated by the reflected light of the screen, the melancholy beauty of her face took Rinko’s breath away.
“Don’t look at me so much. I can’t talk properly.”
“Do you love me?”
Kotone’s voice had changed.
It was the exact opposite of the rough, tactless Kotone.
A pure, immaculate goddess.
The actress Kurosu Kotone who stood before the public.
Of course she did.
Kotone had saved her again and again, so many times that the word love could not possibly express it all.
“I love you.”
“Thank you…”
It was a terrible performance.
Kotone could not even manage the gentle smile that came so naturally to her.
Her disappointment was written all over her face.
Rinko could no longer turn back.
Even if saying it made her feelings more firmly rooted, even if it turned the troubles of recognition refusal into an entirely different kind of trouble, if she swallowed the words already rising to her throat, she would be running away.
She had decided to face her feelings.
So she had to say them.
“…I love you too. The real you.”
“What…?”
“I love you as an actress, and I love you when you’re a fucking brat.”
The words sank into her.
They felt right.
Her past devotion to her oshi, when it had been nothing but pure admiration, suddenly seemed like an act overflowing with ulterior motives.
She hated that.
But there was no going back now.
Nor did she intend to go back.
“That love is… as my fan?”
Kotone looked so utterly confused that Rinko became annoyed.
“Who the hell would stan a fucking brat like you?”
“Wait, no! Then that love is…”
“I’m finally confessing to you, so at least think about the mood! Are you an actress or not!?”
“No, but, but…”
The actress had vanished completely.
Kotone’s beautiful face was twisted in helpless panic.
And yet, that face was more beautiful than any she had ever shown in any of her works, and Rinko could not look away.
“Stop saying ‘but’! Do it again! You said you wanted to steal my heart, remember? Where did that cheeky woman go!?”
“I-I can’t! I can’t act at a time like this… I’m too happy…”
Faced with the true form of her oshi, endlessly childish as she was, Rinko was thoroughly exasperated.
All the effort she had put into improving herself for this oshi suddenly seemed ridiculous.
“You really are an idiot! An idiot, idiot, gigantic idiot! You wooden actor!”
“Shut up! The person who calls someone an idiot is the real idiot!”
“But that’s fine.”
If the real Kotone was an idiot, then Rinko no longer had to worry about the guilt she carried from the past.
If the two of them were both flawed people, each carrying their own scars, perhaps they could finally have an equal relationship, rather than one between an oshi and her fan.
“Honestly, you’re the worst!”
“It was too sudden! Developing a character takes time!”
“You’re an actress! Improvise!”
Once Rinko made up her mind, she never thought about the consequences.
It was one of her bad habits, and one of the things Kotone liked about her.
As they say, the soul of a child remains unchanged throughout a hundred years.
Something that would never move or change.
Something that would become the light that illuminated and guided a ship heading out to sea.
“Th-then… Will you… become my lighthouse?”
“Terrible!”
“Urgh…”
“I’ll teach you! This is how you do it!”
Rinko pulled her close and stole Kotone’s lips.
Calling it a kiss would have been far too mild.
They pressed their mouths together hard, crushing those cold lips against each other.
Warmth mingled with warmth, until even breathing seemed to slip from their minds.
Rinko thought her head might explode.
Disappointment, anger, and the happiness of finally being acknowledged all became hopelessly tangled together, mingling with their saliva until her consciousness began to blur.
Her body was hot.
Breathing was difficult.
She noticed a little dampness, but she no longer cared.
It would only become wetter as things progressed anyway.
Rinko broke their kiss and looked directly into Kotone’s face.
She waited, just in case, for Kotone to respond.
She was expecting something.
“Um, so? I’ve got something I want to ask you. Is that okay…?”
Rinko almost screamed.
This is where you’re supposed to say nothing and take me in your arms!
But if she shouted, that would destroy the mood completely.
If Kotone was going to draw this out, Rinko had no choice but to play along.
“What?”
“No, this…”
Kotone held out the towel blanket she had been wearing around herself.
Her voice was high with embarrassment.
“The thing is, I’ve always wanted to watch films with my girlfriend while we’re wrapped up in a blanket together…”
“That’s what you want right now!?”
She ended up shouting anyway.
The completely unexpected answer killed the mood in an instant, and all the strength drained from her body.
“You’ve never had a normal romantic relationship before, have you…”
“Can’t be helped! The only person who’s ever fallen for the me that isn’t the fake me is you, Rinko-chan…”
Rinko had never imagined that a woman who had starred in countless date movies and played romantic roles with effortless grace could be such a hopeless amateur when it came to actual romance.
It was a devastating disappointment.
But that too was simply how things were.
She had decided she would not turn back.
And she did not want to run from Kotone’s feelings any longer.
So this was fine.
This woman was fine.
This was the woman she wanted.
“…All right. I’ll make your dream come true.”
Rinko snatched the towel blanket and pulled it over her face.
Kotone would not be able to see her expression in the darkness, but Rinko absolutely did not want her to see it.
If her face looked as though it were literally on fire, being seen like that by her oshi would be the end of her.
“Come on. You getting in too?”
“Mm…”
The tall Kotone slipped underneath the towel blanket.
The fibres tickled Rinko’s nose.
Her sense of smell picked up her own perfume, the lavender of the fabric softener, and Kotone’s scent mingled among them.
Their warmth and breath enclosed them both.
“How is it?”
“…What perfume are you wearing?”
“Peach. Don’t like it?”
“…I like it.”
“Good. Glad to hear it.”
Even after the images on the screen disappeared and the projector showed nothing but a field of blue, the two of them remained quietly nestled together beneath the towel blanket.