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Futaba and Mahiru got off the train at Shinsugita Station, about a 45 minute ride south from Ginza. “We could have taken my bike,” said Futaba.
Mahiru smiled politely, but didn’t reply. She would much rather sit on the train than sit tandem with Futaba on her bike for 45 minutes while her hair blew this way and that as it hung out from the helmet.
“Ugh, any way you look at it, this feels wrong, huh?” asked Futaba as they made their way into Isogo-ku. It was a naval district, so there was a distinct feel, but as they made their way further in from the port, the feeling of the military began to disappear and they could see more and more civilians living their normal lives.
Mahiru followed Futaba down the winding roads, as if by trailing behind, she would be less complicit in the borderline crime they were committing that afternoon. The fact that they had even found Saijou Claudine had been a small miracle; especially considering the fact that it seemed the paparazzi either hadn’t found her or had some sort of deal to keep her location secret. Kaoruko had found her home address through one of her father’s connections, and the man who sent it over said it took him quite a bit of effort to track down.
Futaba followed the scrawled out directions on the scrap of paper she held in her hand, but it was Mahiru who tugged on Futaba’s sleeve to stop her, to point at the girl sitting on the swings at the otherwise quiet playground. It was mid-day, and children were still at school, and this girl was much too old to be enjoying a playground. In fact, she should have been at university or at work at this time (not that Mahiru was one to talk, as she was currently traipsing around Kanagawa herself), but it was her hair that struck Mahiru- ash blonde and wavy, gorgeous hair that identified her at once as their target.
Futaba paused for a moment, just watching the girl kick up dust with the toe of her boot as the swing moved lazily back and forth. She was entrancing without doing anything at all. Mahiru was nervous. She came here hoping Futaba would lead the way. If Futaba was unsure of how to proceed, or lured in by this girl’s enchantments, Mahiru would have to take the reins, and she wasn’t sure she could handle it- not with only one shot. They already ran the risk of getting arrested for stalking.
Mahiru cleared her throat lightly and Futaba seemed to remember their mission. She smiled sheepishly at Mahiru and they walked into the park gates. Saijou Claudine had not yet noticed them. Futaba was wearing a gray blazer and matching dress pants, and Mahiru wore an emerald sleeveless dress, but both felt somewhat silly as they walked through a children’s park. Claudine was wearing a cream-colored sundress and a sunhat, and finally looked up at them as they approached the swings, suspicion lacing her features at once with their out-of-place attire.
“Good afternoon,” said Futaba, taking a seat on the swing beside Claudine. There were only two swings, so Mahiru stood beside the swingset, on the side closest to Futaba.
“Good afternoon,” Claudine said quietly.
“Are you Saijou Claudine?” asked Futaba.
Immediately, Claudine dragged her heels in the dirt to stop her motion so she could get up.
“Please wait,” said Futaba calmly. “We only ask for ten minutes of your time. If you don’t like what we have to say, you’ll never see us again.”
Claudine glared at them, still in the process of getting up. Mahiru thought she almost looked ready to cry. “Why won’t you leave me alone?” she asked. Turning on her heel, she marched off.
Mahiru panicked, thinking of the disappointment from Karen, Hikari, and Kaoruko. “Saijou-san!” she called, her voice breaking. “Please!” She bowed, kneeling in the dirt of the playground. “Please just ten minutes! I promise we’ve got nothing to do with any tabloids or paparazzi or anything like that!”
Claudine turned around, perhaps surprised to see Mahiru yelling into the dirt. “How did you find me?” she said, her voice quiet.
“Your father, he works in international shipping, and does a lot of business for Hanayagi Corporation. We work for the fashion house HANA. We found you through that connection,” said Futaba. “It was sneaky and underhanded, and we apologize greatly, but we needed to speak with you once. Like we said, if you reject us today, we will keep your location an utmost secret and never contact you again.” This time, Futaba bowed, her face coming close to the earth beneath the swing set.
Claudine sighed. “What’s done is done. Ten minutes.”
They moved to a nearby picnic table and sat down. “HANA, then?” asked Claudine immediately, checking the time on her phone.
“Right. My name is Isurugi Futaba, assistant director at fashion house HANA. I brought the events coordinator, Tsuyuzaki Mahiru with me today. We are looking for two new models to lead a year-long campaign,” she answered, straightforward as always.
“I’m assuming you’re here because you want me to model for you,” said Claudine, “But you must know I’m retired.”
Mahiru nodded. “Well you see, one of our lead designers saw a photo of you, without even knowing your career, and well, she thought of you as something of a muse. She decided she needed to have you.” Mahiru laughed nervously. It was difficult to speak to Saijou Claudine, the girl she grew up with seeing in so many ads and even on the runways, so candidly. Even now, without makeup, and her hair unstyled, Mahiru could see she had incredibly beautiful features, a combination of her Japanese and French heritage, and her movements were full of grace and consideration. She might have been out of practice, but it seemed some things were never forgotten.
“What is your concept?” Claudine asked.
Mahiru watched as Futaba tried to temper herself. It was encouraging that Claudine expressed some interest in their project, but she didn’t want to look like they were too eager and make her nervous. “We will have two models,” Futaba said. “For our fall projects, they will represent opposite themes. Sun and moon. Light and darkness. Day and night.”
“We’ve selected a newcomer, Tendo Maya-san as the second model,” Mahiru said.
“Which role do you want me for?” asked Claudine. She stared at them in a way that seemed to imply that the wrong answer would end this meeting at once with clear rejection.
Futaba met her gaze, though her voice dropped both in tone and volume as she replied. “Darkness,” she said, brow furrowing slightly as she tried to figure out if their intuition was correct.
“Hmm,” was all Claudine said, but she didn’t leave. Perhaps she was taking the timer seriously and was biding her time until the ten minutes ran out.
“Saijou-san, why do you live out here?” asked Mahiru, surprised at herself for asking such a question. Futaba looked at her as if asking her why she was wasting their limited time with such a question, and even Mahiru couldn’t answer it, she was just so curious as to why someone as glamorous as Claudine was hiding in this small naval town.
“After I stopped working, it became hard to afford our apartment in Tokyo,” she said. “Besides, out here we’re closer to my father’s work in the bay, and it’s much easier for me to blend in near the naval district,” she said, twirling a piece of her blonde hair around her finger, “And to avoid those mosquitos.” She checked her phone again.
“Why did you stop working?” asked Futaba.
“I got bored,” she said. “I just wanted to live a normal high school life. Now,” she sighed, “Time’s nearly up. I’m retired. I don’t plan on being un-retired any time soon. You want me to move back to Tokyo for a year to work on your contract with one other model? You’ll have to pitch it a little better than that.”
Futaba nodded. “HANA is an incredibly popular brand among young and middle-aged women and it’s only growing in popularity. It’s beginning to compete with top American, Italian, French, and Korean brands among Japanese and Korean women. It is a female-owned company, run by entirely female staff in the design, runway, and print materials departments. We have incredibly competitive salaries, with monthly paydays, and can offer a salary advance if needed. We have travel opportunities to London, Paris, likely Seoul, and notably to Hong Kong this year as well.”
Futaba pulled out a contract and her card before continuing. “We are very security-minded, and we understand that you have had issues with paparazzi and invasive fans in the past. We would ensure you would always feel secure when working with us. Many of our team members are fans of your career and would be disappointed if you never modeled again. We would be honored to represent you if you came back to the industry and re-invented yourself with us.” She slid the contract and her card over to Claudine.
“Please take a look at the contract and contact me with the number on that card if you are interested. We are hoping to get started as soon as possible if you are. Truly, you are the only one we are considering for this role.”
Claudine took the card and contract and stood up from the table. Mahiru stood too, bowing once more. “I’m sorry!” she shouted, almost crying. “We didn’t mean to stalk you! I’m really sorry!”
Claudine smiled gently, and Mahiru could see a shadow of the huge smile a younger Claudine would wear in the ads that would be plastered in department store windows. “I forgive you. Please, forget this place and I will forget this incident.”
“We will forget this place,” Futaba assured her, bowing as well, “But we will hope that you do not forget us.”
Claudine made a noncommittal nod and said goodbye, leaving the park with the papers in hand. Mahiru watched her walk away, and tried to imagine her walking down a runway of her own design, wearing some imaginative dress of Hikari’s design.
“Hikari’s got a good eye,” said Futaba.
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Claudine wanted to toss out the HANA contract. She wanted to tear it into tiny pieces, toss it in a random trash bin, or maybe just into the bay. She wanted to light Isurugi Futaba’s business card up with a lighter and watch it burn. How dare they find out where she lives? How dare they come to Yokohama, find her at that park, and try to drag her back into modeling? Claudine wanted to walk to the convenience store, buy ice cream after ice cream until she changed her body shape enough that no one would ask her to model their clothes again. Claudine wanted to cry.
But Claudine hadn’t allowed herself to cry in public since she was a child, and she wasn’t going home this early in the day, so contract in hand, she walked down to the bay. It wasn’t very easy to access the bay, despite living so close. Most of the waterfront was taken up by the corporations, shipping conglomerates, or naval bases, leaving very little for public access. But Claudine knew of a small walkway near the hospital that led out to the water, just between one of the shipyards and one of the refineries. The air was rarely clear, so she slipped on her sunglasses and mask, but she didn’t mind much- she did that half the time when she went out in public anyways.
It wasn’t for the clean ocean air that she visited the bay. That would be a joke. No, Claudine liked the ocean because of the view it provided, an open, unobstructed plain of blue. It was a viridian expanse that was so terrifyingly large it could swallow her whole in a moment and not know anything had changed. Though, she supposed Negishi Bay drained into Tokyo Bay, and only after leaving Tokyo Bay would she finally reach the open ocean. Somehow, today, even looking out at the seemingly endless waves, she still felt trapped.
Mahiru’s words echoed in her mind. “Saijou-san, why do you live out here?”
Claudine tried to slow her breathing. She could feel her heart beating erratically in her chest. If I feel trapped here, how would I ever survive going back to Tokyo?
She had tried, a few times. The most recent attempt was the previous weekend. She met up with a friend she used to model with in Harajuku, and when they got separated, she had pulled down her mask to call her. Foolishly, she thought that since it was Harajuku, there would be plenty of girls with dyed hair or wigs so she wouldn’t stand out as much. Those damned mosquitos had spotted her quickly, and were determined to still make money off of her after all these years. Yachiyo had pulled her away quickly of course, but Claudine knew she couldn’t easily spend a year in Tokyo, working in the industry again.
Even the bay wasn’t helping anymore. Her hands were trembling around those cursed papers. And yet somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to throw them away. It was early, too early, but Claudine needed to be away from the sunlight. She needed to be gone before school let out or the officers got off their shifts. She needed to get home.
“Claudine, honey, is that you? You’re back early!” her mother called from the kitchen in lazy French, not bothering to use Japanese since her father was still at work.
“It’s me, I’m home,” she called, the first part in French, the second in Japanese. She set her shoes by the door, but her tone must have betrayed her distress, as her mother came to meet her, concern in her eyes. Claudine hated causing that look in her mother’s eyes, much more than feeling the distress herself. It was one of the reasons she stayed out of the house as much as she could.
“What’s happened?” asked her mother, picking up the papers that had been set aside on the entranceway steps. She reviewed them briefly, her brow furrowed. “How did they find you?” she asked.
“Through Father’s job. The girls who came by were alright though, I trust they won’t say a word.”
Claudine went to sit on the couch in the adjacent room, and her mother followed. She hated how her mother would chase after her, following her with those worried eyes. For five years she’d been at home, largely unproductive, and for five years her mother had done everything she could to support her. It made Claudine want to cry when she thought about how she would never be able to repay her mother.
“If you’re worried, your father and I can look into the matter. We can make sure-”
“I’m not worried about it,” she said, sharper than she intended. It made her want to cry. She wanted to embrace her mother, and she was snapping at her instead.
“Alright,” her mother said, patiently. “I just… la mamie down at the convenience store showed me that nasty tabloïde, I know you’ve been on edge,” she said, calmly stroking Claudine’s hair.
“I was thinking of taking the job, actually,” Claudine said. She wanted to take back the words as soon as she said them. She didn’t want to take the job at all, truthfully, but something was building within her for years now, and it was ready to burst.
“Claudie, no,” cooed her mother. “You don’t have to do that. If you’re thinking of doing this for father’s medical bills, please don’t worry, we’ve already discussed it, we’ll manage just fine.”
“It’s not just for that,” said Claudine. She pulled her knees up onto the couch. “I’m 23 this year. I haven’t done anything productive in five years. I don’t have any skills aside from what I know from modeling. I think it’s time I get off my butt and do some work.”
Claudine didn’t mention how she couldn’t stand the concerned gaze of her mother following her around the house, or the furrowed brow of her father as he balanced the check book, or the suffocating feeling of the bay as she stared at its endless waves. She didn’t mention that she thought she might disappear if she stayed hiding any longer.
Claudine’s mother looked in her eyes, not with pity, but with an expression of pure love. “My daughter, if this is what you would like to do, your father and I will support you completely. We always have. But please make this decision for yourself. Don’t do this because of us.” She laughed lightly. “If you told us your dream was to start over and become… an air hostess, you know we would support you. We would always.”
“Merci, maman.”