#108: Fallen Angel / ep.1
Nine years ago, now.
The day I first saw her, I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday.
Fifteen years old, having only just finished compulsory schooling. The moment I laid eyes on the fresh crop of new recruits lined up in the classroom, I understood exactly who the “prodigy” was that the artistic director, the stage manager, and everyone else on staff had been whispering about.
Part of what marked her out was her appearance.
Long blonde hair clung softly to skin pale as a waning moon. Amber eyes that said nothing and yet spoke volumes. A slender frame, waist set high, neither too tall nor too short. Nearly anyone who looked at her would find themselves helplessly reminded of a European porcelain doll — and helplessly moved to something close to reverence.
She was a strange presence. But not merely because of that unsettling, almost eerie beauty of hers.
“May I ask a question, Iimori-sensei?”
Introduction day. Just after the lecture for the new intake had ended, she came to find me.
Her expression, blank and doll-like, held no visible emotion in her eyes whatsoever. I found myself so distracted by that alone that I let the moment slip to gently correct her for the sheer impudence of her tone toward someone nearly two decades her senior — and, on top of that, her instructor.
“Why is everyone acting? That lecture just now was pure classroom theory, wasn’t it?”
Not understanding what she meant, I asked her to clarify, and she told me:
“There’s no need to pretend to be an eager student.”
As I gathered, she’d apparently perceived all thirty-nine of the other new students as merely pretending to be passionate about studying acting.
In a way, it was an entirely natural read.
These young hopefuls, having beaten odds of nearly twenty to one, were straining beyond their natural station, working themselves up into the kind of splendid actors who wouldn’t drag Maverick’s name through the mud.
That’s no different anywhere, troupe or not. People perform, whether they realise it or not, to suit whatever role they occupy. A class representative acts the way a class representative should; a self-proclaimed mood-maker plays the bright, cheerful part. It’s the same character-building that happens not just at school, but at home, at work, everywhere.
“Perhaps you’re performing a character too — the insolent one.”
“I’m just myself. Doesn’t matter whether this is a theatre troupe or a reform school.”
“You’re quite the contrarian, aren’t you.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
But she’d declared the earnest feelings of the other thirty-nine to be nothing but a performance, insisted there was no need to act the eager student. Which, flipped the other way, meant she considered herself entirely natural. A person existing somewhere beyond even the framework of teacher and student.
“No. As for the answer to your first question — you may simply be lacking in empathy for others.”
“I’ve heard that plenty. Apparently I don’t understand other people’s feelings.”
“Not understanding is fine, so long as you don’t intend to become an actress. That’s a different matter entirely.”
Lacking empathy makes ordinary life somewhat harder, perhaps, but it’s no real obstacle to living a normal life.
An actress, however, is in the business of wielding empathy to hold an audience captive.
“Even without an innate grasp of how other minds move, we have the accumulated insight left behind by those who came before us. Immerse yourself in as many stories as you can. Stories across every era and every culture will expand both your values and your empathy.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Sorry, that was far too abstract of me. I’m still training as an instructor myself, you know.”
“Well, you’d better get your act together. My brilliant future depends on you instructors, after all.”
She said it entirely without expression. Her rudeness and arrogance were so excessive that, even knowing I ought to correct her for the sake of the other instructors’ dignity, I couldn’t help laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I think you’re going to become someone remarkable. What was your name again?”
“Don’t ask me things you could simply look up yourself.”
“Ah, my apologies. I’ll call you by name tomorrow, then.”
Her name was Charlotte Gabriel. A girl who always stood exactly her own natural size, without pretension, without vanity, without empathy. Colourless, transparent.
But people — perhaps even I myself — will, consciously or not, try to exclude anything that strikes them as fundamentally strange. All the more so for a presence like hers, radiating that composed, imperious air.
In short, she was the nail that stuck up. And whether one traces it through history or watches it play out in real time, hammering down that nail seems to be simple human instinct, some natural law of the species.
“You’ll have read through all of Shakespeare at this rate.”
A year had passed.
She’d only attended classroom lectures for the first month after joining. Right after the first long holiday, she stopped attending altogether, and the troupe — unwilling to let a prodigy slip through their fingers so easily — had assigned her individualised instruction instead. Not realising, at the time, that special treatment would only isolate her further.
“A year’s plenty for that. Some of it still applies today, but the themes were laid on so thick it got tedious. Felt like being lectured by the Bard himself.”
“That you even understood some of it still applies to today is growth, for you.”
She’d claimed my chair in the staff office, glaring at me with eyes that seemed to demand what exactly do you mean by that? Immersing herself in stories had made her grow, yes, but that same half-formed cultivation had only sharpened her already condescending manner and her imperious, queenly disposition.
I’d meant to raise the century’s great actress. Instead, I seemed to be raising something closer to a monster. The thought sent a genuine chill down my spine.
“Say, Iimori-san. If I proposed to you, would you marry me?”
“No chance. I’ve no interest in growing tired of your beauty after only three days.”
“You’d get to savour me for three whole days, though. Isn’t that plenty happy enough?”
“Fireworks and night views are only beautiful because you’re admiring them from a distance.”
I answered joke for joke. This kind of pointless back-and-forth was, in her roundabout way, a sign of loneliness.
She couldn’t bring herself to trust others.
And yet, left alone, that loneliness overwhelmed her.
Her true driving force was loneliness, a longing for human connection, but her own sense of pride — or, more accurately, her self-protective instinct — was simply too strong. She craved somewhere to settle, and yet the moment she actually settled anywhere, she’d inevitably grow dependent on it. A once-in-a-generation talent, balanced precariously on the knife’s edge.
“By the way, have you greeted the new intake yet? Let me know if anyone catches your interest.”
“Not interested. I doubt they’re interested in me either.”
“Interested or not, it’s Maverick tradition for seniors to look after their juniors.”
Maverick’s training programme runs two years. Tradition has it that each new recruit forms a mentor-and-mentee, near-sibling bond with a senior, one-on-one, guiding them through both daily life and stage craft.
“Unfortunately, I’ve never learned anything worthwhile from my own senior. I’ve nothing worth teaching anyone.”
“Then teach them that, then. Simply don’t do to others what you didn’t like having done to you. Basic morality.”
“I was taught to do exactly what other people dislike, on principle, though.”
“You can twist logic all you like, tradition and school rules don’t bend for it.”
“Boo.”
Would she ever manage to build what might be her very first real relationship? My worry was answered not by her, but by the person who’d become her junior.
Junior in rank only — two years older than her in age. A woman with the sharp, striking looks that would have marked her out, without question, as an otokoyaku in a Kobe-style revue troupe. Kuze Fumika.
“Iimori-sensei! What on earth is wrong with that person!?”
Things had unfolded, in a way, exactly as expected, and I couldn’t help laughing that my worst fears hadn’t turned out to be unfounded after all.
She never bends. Can’t bend. Which meant her junior, Kuze Fumika, was bearing the full brunt of it. Supporting her was, in a sense, part of my job too. Penance, for having failed to correct her and raised something closer to a monster instead.
“I cleaned exactly the way I was taught and got scolded for doing it wrong! Nobody even told me the meeting time for orientation! And then in the social dance class, of all things, she threw a full tantrum about not dancing unless I played the man’s lead!”
“So, what did you do about it?”
“What do you think I did, I gave her a piece of my mind! Told her to shape up, act with some self-awareness as a Maverick performer, and that I wanted to dance the woman’s part too!”
“Good. Keep doing exactly that.”
I felt sorry for Fumika at the time, but I finally allowed myself to relax a little. Someone willing to confront that nail-that-sticks-up, that untouchable problem child, head-on with genuine complaints was a rare and precious thing. Having finally found the junior I’d been hoping for, I made sure, repeatedly, that she didn’t let go of that connection, while being careful not to trigger any obstinance.
For instance.
“What do you make of Kuze-san? I hear she’s a polite, humble, hard-working sort.”
“She’s just nagging. Awful nerve, for a junior.”
“I imagine you’re relying on someone like her out of anxiety, having nobody else you trust. She’s older than you despite being a first-year, so people probably treat her a little oddly too.”
“Hmph.”
Given her contrary streak, I never pointed things out directly. I’d search out whatever angle she might actually empathise with, and let it slip in sideways. Guiding someone that perceptive without letting her catch on to my intentions was no small feat.
“I happen to think you’re rather charming as the little sister figure yourself.”
“Wrong target for flirting, old man.”
“Well then. Who ought I be flirting with, I wonder.”
“I’ll introduce you to someone nice. Reputedly a polite, humble, hard worker.”
Chuckling, she walked off. Fumika, passing her on the way in, gave me a puzzled look.
“Iimori-sensei… my senior said there was something important about both our futures we needed to discuss, and told me to come to your room…”
“That little troublemaker, honestly…”
There’s probably no one in this world capable of steering her. Both Fumika and I were thoroughly toyed with and dragged along for the ride. Though exactly how that turned out wouldn’t become clear until years later.
Iimori paused there and refilled Mikoto’s cup with more coffee. His face, worn soft with nostalgia, held a gentle smile. This much, at least, hadn’t been an unpleasant memory.
“That turned into rather a long story.”
“No, it was fascinating. She seems to have mellowed a little since, but not really changed all that much, which feels just like her.”
“True enough. Still just as unwilling to open her heart to anyone.”
Iimori gave a small, wry laugh, and then the smile vanished. The full, brutal weight of the past Shandy had so stubbornly refused to speak of was drawing near.
“But, if anything, I’d say she was still more open to other people, back then, than she is now.”
Iimori said it quietly, then asked whether he might smoke. Mikoto nodded, and he exhaled a stream of smoke.
Cigarettes have a calming effect. Imagining a story bad enough that it couldn’t be told without one braced Mikoto for what was coming.
“…May I have one too?”
Borrowing a cigarette from Iimori, she lit it — the same brand she’d once tried exactly once before, coughed her lungs out, and never touched again. Sure enough, the smoke caught in her throat the moment it hit, and calming down was very much the last thing it accomplished.
“What I’m about to tell you is a confession of guilt, mine and Fumika’s both. I’d ask you to keep it to yourself if you can, but the choice of what to do with it is yours to make, Kurosu-san. I’m prepared to accept whatever punishment comes of it.”
“…Understood.”
Stubbing out his half-finished cigarette in the ashtray, Iimori began.
“The beginning of the misfortune was the day she was cast in a lead role.”
After the two-year training period ended, she passed the troupe’s formal acceptance exam and became a full member of Maverick. Maverick maintains affiliated theatres in Japan’s five largest cities; her posting, same as mine, was to the flagship among them — the Nihombashi theatre in Tokyo.
Her stage debut was a modernised adaptation of the Shakespeare play she’d read to the point of exhaustion, Hamlet, playing the role of a village girl. Same as any other performer, the early years of a career mean bit parts, or supporting roles at best. Simply being given lines at all counts as a stroke of luck.
At an organisation as deep in talent as Maverick, the earliest anyone could expect a lead role was, at best, their mid-twenties. There’s little room for newcomers or juniors to shine, and that’s simply taken for granted — even the newer talents, even someone as imperious as her, accepted it and worked at building the stage from the bit parts up.
Three years passed like that. Then, the year she turned twenty, the director made a decision that shattered every convention and tradition that had come before.
“This is a truly unprecedented turn of events.”
“It really is…”
My office had become, effectively, the shared secret hideout of both Charlotte and Fumika. Fumika, having been assigned to the same Nihombashi theatre a year behind, came sprinting in clutching the casting sheet for the next production, and that’s how I finally caught wind of what was happening.
The title of the next production was Amber-Colored Game of Love. Set in an authentic bar called Antiqua, the story followed a bartender who dealt, sometimes gently, sometimes sternly, with troubled customers passing through. And cast in the lead role, the bartender Shandy — a role that would, under any normal circumstance, never be entrusted to someone so junior — was a mere twenty-year-old newcomer.
“To think my senior would land the lead role…”
“I always thought the three of us would share a stage together someday, but I hadn’t expected it to happen quite this soon.”
However many times I reread the casting sheet, it still said the lead was Charlotte Gabriel. My own role sat fourth on the list — a stiff, earnest man who, on a moment’s impulse, ends up having an affair. Fumika had been cast as the woman he had the affair with.
“Should I start calling you Masayasu instead of Iimori from now on?”
“Please don’t. I’ll end up falling for you.”
“You’re welcome to—”
Fumika’s answer was cut off by the sound of the door being flung open with tremendous force. The one who came sprinting in, out of breath, was the next production’s leading actress.
“I— I got the lead! What do I do!?”