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Spring runway was over, and Mahiru was tired. Not the long-weekend-recharge kind of tired, but the “tired in my bones I need a vacation to someplace warm” kind of tired. Normally, she scheduled two weeks off directly after the end of spring runway, a plan she did again this year, which was approved, but just as she was leaving for the airport (to Singapore, no less), she received a call from Kaoruko that she knew was going to be bad news. It was a good thing she bought those refundable tickets.
“Morning, Mahiru, glad I caught you while you’re still in Japan! Listen, I am so, so sorry to call you right before your trip, but-”
“-But you need me to delay it, don’t you?”
“I can give you four consecutive weeks off in place of these two you’re missing.”
“Oh, this really is trouble if I need to cancel the whole two weeks, isn’t it…”
“Plus you can use my beachfront property in Okinawa all you’d like in the summer.”
“Oh let’s just hear it, Kaoruko…”
“Hikari is missing.”
“Missing?”
“Haven’t heard from or seen her since we got back from the airport two days ago. But that’s not all. Junna handed in a resignation letter this morning.”
“Shoot.”
“Mhmm. And Maya’s still off, I think Seiran is trying to tempt her with a better contract. Plus the whole reason I’m calling you and not Futaba is because Futaba is still torn up about that security lapse at our Tokyo show.”
Mahiru could hear the unnatural desperation in Kaoruko’s voice, and prided herself in being the one called upon in such a moment. Still, she had to twist the knife just once, if only because she wasn’t going to get to go on her vacation for some time now. “None of these sound like my job description. I plan runway sets and shows.”
“Mahiru, you know you do so much more than that. What do you want? A new title? A raise? I can negotiate.”
Mahiru sighed, happy with the acknowledgement for the time being. “We can set up a meeting after the dust settles. For now, I’ll get in touch with Nana, Karen and Claudine, I want all hands on deck.”
It was two hours before Mahiru changed her clothes, gathered her things, got a coffee, and found herself back at the HANA offices. She saw a notification from Suzu pop up on her phone as she was riding the elevator to her preferred meeting room, ’off on vacay yet?’ she asked.
Mahiru knew she meant well, but at this moment, it just felt like a punch in the gut. Still, she had enjoyed her time with Suzu on the runway tour, and didn’t want to bite back in the moment with anything sarcastic. She made a note in her calendar to invite Suzu to Kaoruko’s summer home once she cashed in that favor.
In the meeting room, in various states of exhaustion, were Aijou Karen, Daiba Nana, and Saijou Claudine. Karen was clicking away as usual on her phone, likely updating social media with posts about their final show of the runway tour and replying to comments. Her hair was tied in a casual ponytail, a hint of the little sleep any of them have gotten in the last two weeks.
Claudine was sipping a coffee and distractedly watching a news broadcast on a television mounted in the corner of the room. She turned the television off as Mahiru entered and turned to face the table, her face surprisingly bare, dark circles under her eyes that Mahiru was sure matched her own.
Nana was working on a larger tablet, scrolling through photos of each day of shows, tagging some and adding notes here and there. She also put away her work as Mahiru entered.
“Sorry I’m late,” Mahiru offered, taking a seat.
“We heard you’re missing a vacation to be here,” Nana said.
“Oh, Mahiru, that’s right, what happened to Singapore?” Karen asked.
“It will have to be delayed. Now, we have a lot of problems to take care of, and I want to be as efficient as possible. We all need a little break still, and soon enough we’ll be turning around to start on the summer catalogue.”
“Just tell us what you need us to do, Mahiru,” Claudine offered.
“Ok, I was thinking about the best way to go about this on the way over, and I think that Claudine, if you could talk to Futaba, that would help the most. She usually handles so much for us with planning, security, contracts, I don’t even know what else, and if she’s out of commission I’m no match to fill in. She’s been off her game since the security lapse at our Tokyo show.”
“Got it.” Claudine gathered her things and left the room, leaving Mahiru with the other two.
“Karen, Hikari hasn’t come in and isn’t picking up our calls. Do you think you can hunt her down and bring her back to the office? I’m not sure what’s going on, but please use a delicate touch. I’m sure Kaoruko will want to see her this afternoon.”
“Yeah, I know a few spots she likes.”
“Ok great.”
Mahiru watched Karen leave before turning to Nana. “What’s going on between you and Junna?”
Nana seemed to consider her options before answering. “We’re going through a bit of a rough patch,” she acknowledged.
“Listen, I’m not trying to pry into your business, but she just sent in a letter of resignation this morning. I was just wondering if it had anything to do with your relationship.”
Nana shook her head, confusion coloring her features. “My Junna? Resigning? No… we had been fighting… she was jealous of how close I am with Hisame, but nothing that would lead her to resign…”
Mahiru sighed, straightening her pants with her hands, an old nervous habit. “Alright. I will go speak to Junna and try to get to the bottom of this.” She put a hand up to silence Nana’s protestations, clearly trying to volunteer for this role. “If you don’t mind, please go find Tendo Maya. There’s a rumor that Seiran is trying to poach her for next year. She is not under contract to stay with us next year, but please let her know we would like advanced notice of her intentions, so we can plan.”
Surprisingly, Nana agreed to this plan without a rebuttal, and packed her things to go. “Mahiru,” she said, as she stood, “Tell Junna I will support her either way, if she stays or goes.”
Mahiru watched Nana leave, and then immediately dialed Junna on her cell phone. It rang three times before Junna answered, her voice a bit hoarse. “Hello? Mahiru?”
“Good morning, Junna. Can we meet up somewhere to talk?”
“I don’t know what there is to talk about, I handed in my resignation.”
“Think of it as an exit interview, then.”
Junna laughed, a quiet, self-deprecating chuckle. “Sure, what’s one last trip to the office? I need to hand in my badge anyways.”
“Thank you, Junna. Third floor conference room alright?”
“...What’s this, a panel interview?” Another chuckle. “Whatever. Fine.”
Mahiru ended the call and took the elevator up to Kaoruko’s office. It was true, what she said to Claudine. She felt largely like she was filling in for Futaba, and she didn’t know what she was doing.
Kaoruko was sitting at her drafting table, a plain, empty sheet of white paper stretched over it. “What am I doing?” she asked Mahiru as she entered.
“Designing the summer pieces, I hope,” Mahiru said, pouring herself a cup of tea from Kaoruko’s pot.
“Did you see the reviews of the Milan show?”
“I glanced at a couple.”
“Eclectic and with beautiful lines, but are the boundaries being pushed too far?” Kaoruko quoted, seemingly from memory. “That’s why Hikari ran away, I’m sure.”
“Isn’t that your whole thing, pushing the boundaries?” Mahiru asked. “And runway fashion isn’t for everyone.”
“Yes, yes, yes, I know all that. I can take the dumb criticisms of these pedestrian journalists, but Hikari’s still new at this, she still needs to grow a thicker skin.”
“But you still can’t design anything…” Mahiru sipped the tea, calmed as always by Kaoruko’s blends shipped specially from Kyoto.
“No! How can I work in these conditions? With everyone quitting, missing, feeling bad for themselves…”
Mahiru glanced across the room, noticing a television on mute on the opposite wall. Kaoruko must have caught her looking, as she nodded in the direction of the television and explained “Suzuki-han’s hearing is about to adjourn.”
“Suzuki… Kirin-san??”
Kaoruko nodded and turned the volume up. A news reporter filled the screen just as the building doors behind her opened and people in black suits began filing out. “Reporting live from the hearing of modeling agent and producer Suzuki Rinsho, I have just received word that he has been found guilty of child endangerment, predation, and financial mismanagement in a precedent-setting hearing. A sentencing trial is to follow. Let’s hear now from his counsel.”
The news reporter handed the microphone to a stern-looking older man, who looked straight into the camera as he spoke. “We will be appealing this ruling, this case is not over.”
With that, he handed the microphone back and was ushered behind his client into a waiting car. Kaoruko flipped the television off. Mahiru remembered Claudine watching the television in the conference room earlier and realized this was the news she was likely waiting for.
“What a mess,” growled Kaoruko.
“His appeal will fail too,” Mahiru said, though her words came out sounding less confident than she hoped. Mahiru watched as Kaoruko’s hands started sketching a bit on the paper, with what appeared to be instinct, as they were chatting. Mahiru didn’t mention it, and it didn’t appear that Kaoruko had noticed at all. Mahiru continued to sip her tea, checking on texts from Nana, Claudine, and Karen about the status of their respective missions.
Or rather, she checked for text messages. Nana reported that Maya was going to meet her for lunch at the company cafeteria, and Claudine just sent a quick text that said “chatting with her now”. There was nothing from Karen.
But not five minutes later, Karen arrived, pulling Hikari by the hand. Hikari looked as downtrodden as Mahiru was feeling at the moment, her hair long and limp, and her usual creative outfit exchanged for an oversized black button down and a pair of black cargo pants. In her hand, though, was a brochure from a local aquarium and a small jellyfish keychain.
“Were you… at the aquarium?” Mahiru asked, mainly to Karen. She stood to pour the two newcomers some tea.
Karen nodded. “It’s where Hikari always goes when she’s upset. Well, there and that tiny balcony in her office. But she wasn’t there so she had to be in front of the jellyfish tank.”
Mahiru looked at Hikari, who shrugged. Thinking back, Mahiru supposed she did notice a sort of jellyfish-like flow to many of Hikari’s haute couture dresses, at least the ones that weren’t covered in spikes and leather.
Hikari sipped the tea, then walked to a sunny patch in Kaoruko’s office and laid on the ground. Mahiru raised her eyebrows, but Kaoruko didn’t even flinch, suggesting this wasn’t the first time this had happened. Karen kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet under her on the small sofa, returning to her work on her two phones.
“Hikari, what are we going to do about summer?” Kaoruko asked, suddenly biting her lip and scribbling over the sketch she had spent the last ten minutes slowly working on. Mahiru once again deeply felt the absence of Futaba and resisted the urge to look at her phone for an update from Claudine.
“No idea. If it’s too similar, they hate it. If it’s too different, they hate it. If it’s too close to what anyone else is doing, what a mess. If it’s too different from everyone else, we’re missing the trends. I’m so tired.”
“Well I’ve gotta give a report to our board in two days, so we’ve gotta get going,” Kaoruko intoned.
“Well I can’t just make ideas come out of thin air,” Hikari replied grumpily, rolling over and hiding her face in her arms.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I’m meeting with Junna in the third floor conference room in a few minutes. Would you like to come along?”
Mahiru aimed the question at Kaoruko, but Karen and Hikari nodded as well. She expected Kaoruko to tell the other two they couldn’t come along, but she didn’t. “What?” she told Mahiru. “If Junna wants to quit, she should have to face her coworkers and explain her situation. We won’t stop her, but she can’t just sneak out of here. I don’t want her to leave if she doesn’t have to.”
Mahiru couldn’t argue with that, so all four of them made their way down to the third floor, where Junna was already seated in the conference room. Her hair was down, purple waves loose around her shoulders, and she had on a camel-colored wool coat that she didn’t seem to think was worth removing for this conversation.
“Good afternoon,” was Mahiru’s greeting.
“So you want to quit?” was Kaoruko’s.
Karen gave puppy dog eyes.
Hikari suddenly seemed very interested in her new keychain.
“I am leaving this company. I am not an asset, and I am going to go somewhere where I can actually help production.”
“What do you mean, Junna? You make our print ads, our catalogs, our digital ads, heck you do half our photo editing.”
“Half is a generous estimate! Someone else is always sending in a guest edit or we’re outsourcing a collab ad, or the photo edits are done by another department. I made one suggestion at the summer meeting about Hong Kong and that was shelved forever! It doesn’t matter, I’m just going to go there myself. I already have an offer.”
“Does Nana know?”
Both Mahiru and Junna looked over at Kaoruko, who looked as surprised as the two of them at her outburst.
Junna shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters!” Karen interjected. “Jun-jun and Nana are a pair! If you’re going to Hong Kong, we’re all going!”
Mahiru half-opened her mouth as if to protest Karen getting carried away, but then stopped as she watched the glance that Hikari and Kaoruko gave each other, that seemed to indicate an idea forming.
“Hong Kong…” Hikari said.
“Cinema, obviously,” Kaoruko continued.
“Very nostalgic,” Hikari tacked on.
Junna leaned in, seemingly forgetting her resignation for a moment. “This is what I’ve been telling you…. Warm colors, nightlife scenes, a taxi…”
“Homage!” Kaoruko said at last, spreading her hands as if presenting the concept to the room.
The three of them all nodded, content with the shared vision.
“So can we invite you to stay for at least one more season, Junna?” Mahiru asked. “We can re-evaluate at the end of summer season. We can also meet to establish firmly what your role is.”
Junna sighed and rolled her eyes good naturedly. “Sure, what’s one more season, especially if we’re finally going to Hong Kong.”
Mahiru sighed once she exited that meeting, leaving the others to excitedly plan the trip and the concepts for the designs and the shoots. She received another message from Claudine that Futaba was coming around, and would be back to talk to Kaoruko that evening.
Which just left…
Nana and Maya were in the HANA cafeteria when Mahiru arrived. It was already 2PM, so Mahiru bought herself a lunch set before sitting down at their table.
“So?” Nana asked Mahiru, before Mahiru could ask the same thing.
“Junna is staying on another season. She is downstairs with Kaoruko now, planning the summer season’s shoots… which will be taking place in Hong Kong.”
Maya’s eyebrows raised at this, but she did not comment.
“I’m going to go meet with them as well, then,” Nana said, but snuck a small thumbs up to Mahiru as she left.
Maya cleared her throat somewhat awkwardly as she sat with Mahiru at the mostly empty cafeteria. They gazed out at a rather gray sky over Tokyo, and Mahiru took a few minutes to just eat her lunch in silence before addressing Maya.
Maya, for her part, sat with her usual perfect posture, though she seemed different than before the spring season began. She seemed older, as if the situations with the stalker fan, Kirin, her mother, and perhaps some other circumstances Mahiru was not aware of had taken their toll.
“How are things, now that we’re back in Tokyo?” Mahiru asked.
Maya smiled politely, an unreadable expression on her face that frustrated Mahiru. She would have been an excellent politician. “I’ve settled back into life here,” Maya said. “I’m looking forward to resuming our work for the summer campaign.”
Mahiru nodded, and supposed there was not much use in delaying the conversation any further. Still, it was frustrating, to be “close” to Maya and still be held at arms length. They were only co-workers, she reminded herself. She couldn’t ask for more. But friendship with the others came easily, she wanted to be able to support Maya.
“I’m sure that Nana gave you a heads up of what I wanted to discuss,” said Mahiru. “There’s no obligation to renew your contract, but 3 or 4 months out is generally when talks of renewing a contract begin. We want to know your intentions, so that we can plan for next cycle.”
Maya nodded, taking a sip from her tea. “I have been approached by another agency, it’s no secret, but I do not plan to pursue that. I cannot say with complete certainty I will renew here until I discuss with my agent and lawyers, but I am very content working here. Please forward a new contract to them so I can review it.”
And with that, Mahiru let out a huge breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. Suddenly, it felt like she had been awake for days, and she slumped slightly in her seat. “Of course, I will have it sent over tomorrow.”
“Are you alright, Mahiru-san?”
Mahiru nodded. “Yes, I’m looking forward to working with you again.”
Maya smiled for the first time since Mahiru sat down. “I feel the same.”