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She is expecting the call, of course. She's just unsure of who exactly it will be from. It's Claudine, in the end, who is the most up to date on headlines or Tweets or whatever source was updating on the Tokyo theater scene happenings. The phone rings a couple times from its spot on her nightstand, and Yachiyo turns over in bed to answer it, still in pajamas despite the late morning hour, despite the fact that she should have been at work by now.
"Mm?" she answers the phone, not exactly dignifying Claudine with a greeting.
"Yachiyo, what the hell?" Claudine, in comparison to Yachiyo, sounds fully awake. Yachiyo knows that Claudine first needs to berate her, so she stays silent as she gets it out. "You didn't tell me? I had to find out from this stupid tabloid? And what were you thinking? This is a dream role!"
Yachiyo sits up a bit, trying to gauge through her still-closed shades what the weather is like outside. Overcast, it seems. "I don't really know," she says, noncommittally.
Claudine takes a deep breath, loud enough that Yachiyo can hear it through the phone. Yachiyo wonders how many times they've had these kinds of conversations that she can predict the general outline that they will follow by now. How many times has she disappointed Claudine? Or is it just that she is conflating this with conversations with her mother? She can't be sure. "Are you alright? You're not sick, are you?" Claudine asks.
"No, I'm fine." She really is, aside from the tremendous guilt of letting everyone down. Even now, the day after, her hands are shaking as she tries to find words to explain to Claudine why she declined the role. She's certain the tabloids will have theories - that she secretly hates the other lead, that she does have an illness or a scandal, that her mother is once again meddling in her affairs, but the truth is much simpler. "I just… didn't want it."
"What? You got the lead in Romeo and Juliet opposite Akira Yukishiro and you just… didn't want it?"
She doesn't know how to express that yes, that's exactly it. That now that it's over, she wonders why exactly she auditioned, because she didn't really want to do that, either. She supposes it was an old affection for Akira more than anything, mixed with the way she was raised - the fact that she was always expected to be on the stage. She hears Claudine sigh through the phone. "Listen, Yachiyo, if you really didn't want it, I'm glad you're not forcing it. I only want you to be happy. But are you going to be ok? Will your mom be upset? Do you have a job lined up, as a backup?"
These three questions bring her back to reality as truthfully, she doesn't know. "I'm fine, I told you. And my mom is overseas, so I think with some luck this will go under her radar. And I'll figure something our for work, please don't worry."
Truthfully, Yachiyo doesn't do much for the rest of the day, or the next day, paralyzed by fears of her mother calling her, giving her a lecture that made Claudine's look tame in comparison. Her mother could probably pull strings to get Yachiyo back in the production, even. And so, she performs a constant cycle of laying on her bed for a few hours, using the bathroom, drinking a glass of water and maybe eating a snack, checking her phone, and then repeating. She might flip on the television for an hour or two, or order delivery, but not much changes for three days. That's when Michiru arrives.
"You need a shower," Michiru assesses, once Yachiyo opens the door and lets her in. She's dressed in black pants and a trench coat, her sleek bob perfectly framing her face. In comparison, Yachiyo feels unkempt, in her days-old pajamas and her hair mussed from laying in bed.
"Did… Are you here because…" she can't make the words work right, ironic after a lifetime on the stage, but she knows why. She can't make Akira's name come out of her mouth.
"It's fine, I can wait, go shower and get dressed."
She does as she is told, perhaps from some distant memory of Michiru as her senpai when they were both at school. Or perhaps that didn't matter, she just wanted direction. She had spent her whole life on the stage, reading from a script, following stage directions, listening to teachers and directors and others in control of the productions, that now that she had just quit, she isn't sure how to move her body, how to arrange her life.
Once she is out of the shower and dressed, she sees Michiru has cleaned up a bit of the trash she'd left around her apartment. It's in a high-rise building, relatively modern, and her view looks out on the expanse of Tokyo. It's not in the most expensive neighborhood, but it becomes increasingly obvious to her that she can't continue to live here unless she makes some money.
"I want to help you," Michiru says, as Yachiyo fills a glass of water and comes to sit at the kitchen table. It feels strange, like she's a guest in her own home, but she feels like a guest in her own body as well.
"For Akira?" she almost gags on the name, this time, trying to force it out. She knows Michiru and Akira are close, she wouldn't put it past Akira to send Michiru to check on her to ease her conscience, or something like that.
Michiru cocks her head a bit at that, but denies this. "No, it's because we're a little bit alike. I also… quit," she declares. "I quit the stage, and I am happier for it. But it's not easy, when it's all you know."
Yachiyo sips the water, glancing at her phone to make sure there is no missed call from her mother. "I need to do something else," she says, projecting confidence she hopes will displace the emptiness inside of her. She is glad to leave, glad to be done with acting. She was not meant for the stage. But she mourns it, still. It was so many years of her life, it was all she's ever known.
"You need a job," Michiru says. "Both because you'll need some money, sooner or later, and because you need to get out of this apartment."
She gets out her nicest coat and follows Michiru, going down the elevator for the first time in days. It's a crisp day in late autumn, and her hair blows in the wind, but Michiru winds them down one alley and then another, until they arrive in the part of her neighborhood known for the artisan shops. "Come on, someone has to be hiring," Michiru encourages.
But Yachiyo doesn't know where to start. She doesn't have any skills. She has only ever worked on a stage, as an actress. She looks from a tea shop to a chocolatier to a florist, unsure how she would be an asset to any of these businesses. Finally, Michiru gives her a little shove as they pass a bakery. "Look, they have a sign!"
It's true. There is a sign in the window, handwritten in beautiful script, that says 'hiring front of house staff'. Yachiyo enters, a little bell over the door jingling as she walks in. Michiru waits outside, and Yachiyo has a feeling she is going to backtrack to buy some chocolates.
Inside, the small building matches the exterior with rich wood on the walls and counter, with matching tables and chairs. There is a glass case of pastries and the scent of roasted coffee in the air. The sound of light piano music is playing from a vintage record player. "Hello, can I help you?" asks the shopkeeper. She's about Yachiyo's age, with shoulder length brown hair and bright blue eyes.
"I was inquiring about the job," Yachiyo says.
The woman puts aside the cloth she was using to clean off the counter and stands up straight to greet Yachiyo. "Oh, great! Well, my name is Koharu Yanagi, and this is Yanagi Bakery. It was my grandfather's, and then my father's, but my parents are working on the second location right now. My little sister works here as well, but we really need a third employee. Someone to help with the register, the final decorations on the pastries, waiting on the customers, and preparing the coffees. Do you have any experience with that?"
"My name is Yachiyo Tsuruhime," she introduces. "Unfortunately, I have limited experience."
She expects Koharu to let her down gently, maybe direct her to another place that is hiring, but she nods. "That's ok, our register is pretty simple. We would be willing to train you, so long as you can accommodate our schedule. Since we're a bakery, we open pretty early, but when we really need the help is during our busiest hours, from about 7AM-2PM."
"Yes, I mean, I can come anytime, really." Truthfully, she hates getting up early. She prefers to stay up late, to sleep in, to run the opposite schedule, really. But what choice does she have right now?
Koharu ushers her behind the counter, to hand her various paperwork to fill out and return. She gives her a tour of the bakery, even, before she leaves. She informs her of her salary - worse than what she was making on stage, but with more consistent pay days - and then she departs, finding Michiru nearby with a tea and a bag of bonbons. "You did it," she says, smiling. "Let's go get dinner to celebrate."
For a moment, Yachiyo wonders if Michiru means to invite Akira, but her fear passes as Michiru just turns into a nearby ramen restaurant and punches her obviously-memorized order into the ticket machine. Once they are seated, Michiru turns to her. "Now, you can't go back," she says.
"What?"
"To the stage." Michiru is looking at her with a strangely serious expression. "Your mom will probably try to convince you, so will Saijou-san and Akira. Don't listen to them."
It feels at odds with everything she knows to hear Michiru counsel her not to listen to Akira. Previously, when Yachiyo spent every day with Michiru and Akira, Akira's word was law. Michiru wouldn't dare go against her. She supposes things change. "Why did you leave?" she asks.
There's a pause as their ramen is served, and Michiru seems to contemplate her answer as she stirs together her noodles and toppings. "I knew I could never find what I wanted in the stage. The fulfillment that people like Akira get from the stage… that was never going to be mine. I would always be reaching and reaching and never able to grasp it."
They eat in silence for a few minutes as Yachiyo tries to grasp what Michiru is saying. She feels it too, to a degree. Akira is comfortable on stage. She has found her calling. Yachiyo was always acting twice over. She was acting as an actress, and that actress was playing the part on stage. She was acting as the daughter her mother wanted, the daughter who wanted to perform on stage, and that daughter performed the roles. But to lose both at once - the double unmasking - that was whiplash, and now she wonders how long it's been since she was really just herself.
But there's that other part of what Michiru is saying, the reaching. Because what else has Michiru ever reached for but Akira? She bites her lip, realizing that as much as this is a declaration of a career change, it's also a decision to give up a one-sided love. By leaving the stage, is Yachiyo giving up on Akira as well?
Yachiyo returns to the bakery two days later and meets the little sister, Sakura Yanagi, who gives her an apron and shows her how to work the register. Koharu is there too, rushing around in the back, putting things into and out of the oven, taking deliveries and telephone orders, and refilling some of the ingredients as they ran low.
"Can you brew a new pot of coffee?" Sakura asks.
Yachiyo assumes this is something she should know how to do without training, that anyone off the street presumably would know how to brew a new pot of coffee, but she shakes her head. "Can you show me once?" she asks.
Sakura is younger than her, she can tell, and perhaps has never had to train anyone in anything, so she seems to get a little satisfaction in being the more experienced one for once, and Yachiyo is grateful, at least, that she is patient in showing her every mundane detail of their job. And Yachiyo does her best to remember it all, she really does, but this is a whole new world. Nothing in the bakery is like it is on the stage. If she ever once acted in a show with a bakery, she never did anything close to what she is doing here. And at school, in the dorms, she admittedly couldn't be bothered to help with anything domestic.
She starts to write down reference notes to herself for the register after the third time she has to call one of the sisters over for help. It's incredible, this feeling of failure. How long has it been since she has tried to do something and has had no idea where to even start? Her whole life has been the theater since she could even form memories, so even if she was starting a new project, she always had a frame of reference, she'd already seen the show or read the script or knew the genre, at the very least she knew the familiar patterns, the auditions, rehearsals, performance. Here, she is clueless. It is uncomfortable, disorienting, but not exactly a bad feeling to stretch muscles she has never used. She doesn't hate being terrible at something, for once.
"You can take a break, Tsuruhime-san," Koharu tells her. "Please take a pastry or a sandwich and a drink."
She does as she is told and she sits at the small table in the alley behind the bakery, the walkway barely big enough to move through, where all the shops kept their trash and their used cooking oil and delivery crates waiting to be picked up. She watches a man a few shops down light a cigarette and lean against the wall of his shop, obviously taking a break from some hard labor from the way he is sweating. She sips on her tea and thinks about her mother smoking cigarette after cigarette, driving Yachiyo around to auditions, her mood for the rest of the day dependent on how well they went.
And Yachiyo always wondered which was worse: getting cast in the play she didn't really want to be in, or facing her mother afterwards if she didn't perform. Of course there were exceptions, of course there were roles she really did covet, but it was easy to forget those, easy to forget the highs when she's dwelling on the lows. Don't ever go back, Michiru had warned her.
She bites into the pastry. It's delicious, a crisp dough filled with tart apple slices and cinnamon and sugar. She checks her phone. Given the time that has passed since the casting was announced, she's not exactly surprised to see the two missed calls from her mother. It's late morning, which means it must be unbelievably late in Prague, or perhaps her mother was in the habit of waking extremely early, determined to complete a routine of exercise, skincare, and other essential self-care tasks before starting her day. There is no voicemail, but she opens the message app to see a long wall of text from her mother. She skims it, her eyes glazing over most of the text and just picking out phrases here and there.
"I was afraid of something like this when I left… considered your options… carelessness… is this because of some man?"
Yachiyo almost laughs aloud at the last phrase in her mother's message. A man? She thought she left the production for a man? She turns off the screen and tucks her phone back into her apron pocket, resuming eating the pastry though with less enthusiasm this time. She shouldn't be surprised her mother has no idea she's attracted to women, her mother knows nothing about Yachiyo, doesn't want to know anything about Yachiyo, but still.
Some man had impregnated her mother and ended her stage career. Some man had shirked his duties as a father, leaving Yachiyo and her mother in the care of her grandmother. Some man was the impetus to Yachiyo being both the bane of her mother's existence and her salvation - the reason she was cursed to live a life she hated and her ticket out: her little genius child who could memorize any play and perform any role.
No. She had quit, but it wasn't because of some man, or even because of some woman. It was because of the stage itself, which had, over time, grown to represent more than itself. It had been something about to swallow Yachiyo whole. She gathers her plate and cup and returns inside to finish her shift.
The bakery is near Yachiyo's apartment, which is convenient for coming and going. It's also close to the theater, so she's not exactly surprised when she finally sees a familiar face. By the time Fumi Yumeoji enters, Yachiyo has the basics down. She's still terrible at decorating the pastries, but she can work the register, brew coffee, use the dishwasher, and anticipate the needs of customers at the tables. It's been about a week since she's started, and the sisters have given her a gift: an engraved name badge with a teddy bear charm on it.
"Yachiyo?" Fumi asks, coming to the register. It's a little busy, at the tail end of the morning rush, and Fumi looks like she's on her way into work, but she smiles kindly. "It's good to see you."
"Good morning," Yachiyo greets her, unsure of what to say. She doesn't hate Fumi, not at all, but there's the pain in her chest all the same. Fumi only went to Siegfeld for a year, quitting the acting training program early due to family issues, but she knew she stayed close with Akira.
"How are you? I was shocked when you didn't accept the role of Juliet."
Yachiyo doesn't really know what to say. Fumi is in scrubs, likely working at the municipal hospital a couple blocks away. She didn't know she was in the medical field. "I needed a break," is all she offers.
Fumi glances behind her, noticing a couple people beginning to form a line. "Well, I just came to pick up some treats for everyone on my unit, since it's the end of the week. I'll take 4 coffees and a dozen assorted pastries."
Yachiyo begins preparing the order, glad for something to do. It's simple enough, by now, to pour the coffees and add them to the container, and assemble the pastry box and fill it.
"I really didn't expect you here of all places, though," Fumi says. "I thought you'd follow your mom overseas, or take a role in another show."
Yachiyo doesn't know what to say to this. She knows Fumi well enough as acquaintances, but not well enough to explain how she would never follow her mother to another room, let alone another continent. She shrugs, aware that again this is a poor response for the effort that Fumi is putting into the conversation, and then the rings her up on the register. Fumi pays with her phone, and takes her boxes. "Well, take care, Yachiyo, I'm glad to see you!"
The next day is Saturday, and though business is steady, it's nothing like on the weekdays, when people come to get boxes and boxes of treats to share with their coworkers. Now it's just one or two coffees, and one or two pastries, served on china, for patrons at the wooden tables. Most of Yachiyo's work is brewing coffee, running the dishwasher, and changing over the vinyl records if the music stops.
What she doesn't expect is for Fumi to return, just one day later. And this time, Akira is beside her.
Akira looks every bit as beautiful as Yachiyo remembers, her hair glossy and luminous in the morning sun as she stands taller than those around her. She's wearing a long gray coat and a white fluffy scarf, and Fumi looks to be wearing the same scarf in dark brown. Yachiyo thinks it's cute, or maybe she hates it. She can feel her hands shaking as Akira comes closer to the front of the line, as she will be standing face to face with the woman she would have been on stage beside. Distantly, she wonders if Akira feels betrayed. Since she'd declined the role, she'd always assumed that it hadn't affected Akira. Akira could shine beside anyone, after all, and Yachiyo turning down the role was only about herself. But it's different to think that when Yachiyo is by herself than to convince herself of that standing face to face with Akira.
Fumi steps to the counter first, Akira still off to the side distracted by the menu. "Hi, again," she greets. "Everyone loved the breakfast so much yesterday, I really didn't get to try any of the pastries myself. I decided to come back, with Akira this time."
At the sound of her name, Akira comes to the register, and finally seems to notice Yachiyo. Had Fumi not told her? Was this some kind of set up? To embarrass Yachiyo, perhaps? Akira stops short, and grimaces a bit, and then schools her face back to neutral. Yachiyo wonders if she's upset, if she really had made Akira's life more difficult in her choice to leave the production. "How can I help you?" she tries. It's hard, not to act. She wants to play at being a shopgirl rather than really being one. But isn't all customer service acting, really? But maybe it shouldn't be, at least not to Akira, she reasons. But even back then, even at Siegfeld, wasn't she acting that whole time? Has she ever just been Yachiyo to Akira, just once?
"A… green tea," Akira says, foregoing a greeting, for which Yachiyo is grateful. She nods, turning away to where the kettle is sitting on the portable heater.
In her peripheral vision, she can see Fumi whispering something to Akira, perhaps berating her for saying the wrong thing. This likely was a setup, after all. Yachiyo tries to keep them partially in her vision, but she then she misses the cup, hot water scalding the back of her hand. She flinches, but avoids crying out.
"Careful," Sakura says, taking the kettle from her hand. "Do you need to take a break?"
"I'm fine," she says, more forcefully than she means to.
Sakura nods, and finishes pouring the tea. "Well, finish with these customers, and then at least rinse that with some cold water."
Akira accepts the tea, her eyes locked on the pink skin of Yachiyo's hand as she taps on the register. "Anything else?" she asks, biting her cheek to keep her emotions in check. She doesn't even know why she feels emotional, really. She shouldn't be surprised to see Akira. She is blocks from the theater. She couldn't expect to never see her again just because she left the show. And would she want that? A life without Akira….
"The apple pastry, and the cheese danish, I think, please," Akira says.
"And just a black coffee for me," Fumi adds. Yachiyo collects the rest of the order and punches it into the register.
Akira watches her closely the whole time, and looks as if she wants to say something, but for some reason she holds back. Fumi looks between them, twisting a ring around her pinky nervously. "It's good to see you again, Yachiyo," she says. "Please don't be a stranger, you can call or text anytime, we'd love to see you for dinner or to get a drink."
Yachiyo risks a glance up at Akira, trying to assess if this is true. If Akira would really want to see her again, but Akira's visage is inscrutable. Yachiyo is forced to look away, her eyes drawn to Akira's hand, which opens and closes on nothing for a moment, before reaching for her tea.
"I'm going to get a table over there," Fumi says, taking her coffee and the pastries, and walking off. It's just the two of them, trapped in a moment of crystallized time.
Yachiyo tells Akira the total, and Akira pulls out her phone to pay. This is new. Akira didn't used to use anything but cash. Fumi must have changed her, she thinks. Still, Akira doesn't say anything. Not about her leaving the cast, or about this new job. Finally, as the receipt prints and Akira takes it and her coffee, she smiles gently. "You look good," she says.
And then she's turning away, and Yachiyo is turning away, and Sakura has taken over at the register, and she's out behind the building, and it's quiet now, and cold. She looks good? It had to be a joke, certainly. She'd never known Akira to make jokes, but she'd never known Akira to wear a matching couples outfit or use tap-to-pay, either. Times change, she supposes.
It's not long before Koharu finds her, clicking her tongue in consternation at Yachiyo standing outside without a coat. "Was that your ex or something?" she asks, leading Yachiyo back into her small office. It's cluttered, with papers everywhere, and just enough room for the two of them to sit, but she grabs an ice pack and wraps it in a cloth and hands it to Yachiyo for her hand.
"Who?"
"The woman who looks like a model. Sakura said you burned your hand over her."
Yachiyo shakes her head. As if she and Akira had dated. "No. Just a former classmate."
"Sure…" It's later in the day now, and there is less to do, so Sakura can likely handle the front of the house by herself for a bit. Or she'd come back and ask for help. Either way, Koharu seems fine to spend a few minutes with Yachiyo. Which is nice, she realizes. She's been working nearly every day since she started, which has been good for keeping busy, but she hasn't actually sat and spoken with anyone.
"We were supposed to work together this season," Yachiyo says. "On stage. We were cast as the leads. Only I turned down my role."
Koharu raises her eyebrows at this, then smiles a little. Perhaps putting together why Yachiyo is so terrible at everything in the shop. "You're an actress," she says.
Yachiyo shrugs. "Was."
"Were you in anything I would know?"
She wracks her brain, thinking of the most popular titles. Sleeping Beauty. King Arthur. Antigone. King Lear. "No, probably not. I just was in them because my mom kinda was influential in the scene. Now that she's moved away, there's no reason to continue." There's a choking feeling in her throat, around this half-lie, because she's acting even now, when she has no reason to. Why can't she just be her true self to just one person?
"I bet you're just being modest. I mean you just said you got the lead in that play you declined, what was that?"
Yachiyo pauses, a little alarmed at how quickly Koharu has seen through her. Is she just losing her touch? Or is it impossible to act, when she's not around other actors? Or is Koharu just special? "Romeo and Juliet," she admits, her voice a little quieter than before.
Koharu smiles, with some satisfaction. "I knew it would be something I've heard of! I might be just a baker, but I'm not culturally inept!"
Yachiyo is awake in bed, somewhere in the timeless space between midnight and morning. It's been days since she saw Akira at the bakery, but this night, like every night since, she's laid awake, replaying the scene, combing through the details, scratching her nails against the back of her left hand to feel the residual burn, to prove that it all had happened.
This morning, at least, she drifts in and out of sleep, her eyes heavy, knowing that she needs to get up in just a few hours to go back to the bakery.
She has a dream, or maybe a memory, of her mother this time.
"Mom, I don't want to go," she whines. She can hear herself whining. She can't see herself exactly, but she isn't this version of herself, either. She's over her shoulder, watching.
"You will go, and you will be brilliant." Her mother is in her red blazer, the one that always got her looks as they walked down the street. She had her matching red lipstick on as well. They're in her office, at Siegfeld, though Yachiyo isn't even old enough to attend the junior school yet. Now, her mother crouches down a bit, her expression gentler. "Remember, Yachiyo. You're the best. You're different. The other children can't hope to understand you. Of course it feels lonely right now."
She wakes up with the sheets tangled around her. She checks the time and realizes that somehow she's overslept. After all these sleepless nights, it's finally caught up with her and she's missed the start of her shift. She can hear rain pelting on her window, probably freezing cold, and she sinks back into her bed. She grabs her phone from the nightstand to see three missed calls: two from Koharu and one from her mother.
She calls Koharu back. "Yachiyo, is everything alright?"
Koharu trusts her, she realizes. She's shown up to work on time for three weeks, even taking extra shifts, so there's no reason Koharu would fire her for simply oversleeping. But still, with the memory of her dream sitting with her like a bad taste in her mouth, and the rain pouring outside, she feels weighed down, unable to move. "I overslept," she admits. "I am not feeling great today."
"If you're getting sick, it's better to rest," Koharu cautions. "We're slow today because of the rain anyways. I'll mark you sick today, and if you want to take Sunday's shift for extra time, we can talk about it when you get back."
"Sure, thank you."
When she gets off the phone with Koharu, she gets in the shower. It feels awful, even dragging herself into the bathroom, but as the hot water hits her, she starts to feel better. She wonders how much of the dream was real. How much of her childhood was her mother telling her she was unrelatable, set apart? She had been acting, even then, she knew, acting since she was conscious of it, always trying to be the version of herself that would please her mother. She was the reason for her mother's misery, so she ought to make herself useful, at least.
Akira had some thoughts about that, back at Siegfeld, she remembers. Pressing her to do something for herself, for once. They had argued about it, even. It's all hazy, just like the memories in her mother's office. She purposely obfuscates things like that, she knows, so that she can continue stepping on the stage. All that matters is the role. Consuming the plays, learning how to act, understanding each character and their motivations, that was all. Everything else was frill.
After the shower, she dresses, just in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and does a load of laundry. The apartment is filthy, and she realizes she ought to do something about it. She spends the morning cleaning the kitchen, taking out the trash, making her bed, and finishing the laundry, until there is a knock on the door.
She answers it and again it is Michiru. Of course, almost a month has passed since the last time she has come by, but Yachiyo has had no visitors in the interim. This time, Michiru is wearing a black beret, matching black velvet gloves, and a plum colored capelet as she enters, and when she takes it off, Yachiyo sees a brilliant sapphire necklace at her throat.
"Oh, do you like it? It's part of my new collection." She gestures at the necklace.
"You made it?" she asks. Both of them have skipped greetings, but Michiru enters all the same, taking her boots off and hanging her outerwear in the coat closet.
Michiru nods. "You knew I was a jeweler, no? Though I guess you've never been to the shop. You should come by sometime."
Yachiyo nods, putting away a few of the dishes which had been drying. Michiru looks around, apparently assessing the state of the apartment. "Why are you here?" Yachiyo asks.
"Saijou-san called me, concerned," she says.
"Claudine did?"
Michiru nods. She takes a seat at the kitchen island, her expression neutral. "I thought you would be at work, but I walked past there first, and you were out, so I guess she wasn't completely wrong to be worried."
"Why didn't she just call me herself?"
"She's in France, in a major production. Let her sleep at night," Michiru says. "Besides, you never pick up your phone anyways. You screen everyone's calls. She called me because she apparently has also been texting you with no reply."
Yachiyo can't help but feel a stab of guilt at these last two accusations. She had not been checking her texts recently, and so she opens her phone now to a slew of texts from Claudine from the past week.
Claudine: Fumi says she and Akira saw you at a bakery?
Claudine: Are you a barista now??
Claudine: How was seeing Akira? Do you still like her?
Claudine: btw, has your mom called you yet?
Claudine: Listen, I know i'm blowing up your phone to no reply, but just write me back to lmk you're alright?
Claudine: i stg, do it or I'll send Fumi back to make sure you're not dead.
"What am I supposed to do?" she asks Michiru, unsure of what she's asking about, exactly. It was easy enough, for a couple of weeks, to learn something new, to get distracted by the novelties of failing, of difficult tasks, but now that she understands the job, there's too much time to think, and too high of a risk of seeing Akira and Fumi again. There will be no clean break from one life to the next, not when her life as a stage actress was started before she was even born, truly.
Michiru purses her lips, as if considering the unspoken parts of Yachiyo's question. She always was the most clever, of everyone at Siegfeld, Yachiyo thinks. "Is this about the stage, or is this about Akira?" she asks.
But how can she extricate one from the other? The stage is Akira, and Akira is the stage. Akira doing what Yachiyo did - quitting - is unfathomable. All of her regrets and desires are tangled together, and she feels longing and shame for what she thought she once wanted, for what she pretended to be for so long. And she wants it now still, or at least some of it. Not to stand on the stage, never again, not that, but to be held in the spotlight of Akira's gaze. "It's impossible for someone who has turned away from the stage," she says. She is in uncharted water. Her mother never allowed for a future where she wasn't an actress. She doesn't know the lines for this part.
"Maybe," Michiru says. "Maybe not."
There's a silence between them then, neither brave enough to continue the conversation. "You can tell Claudine I'm alive," she says, "I'm sorry to take you from your work."
Michiru smiles. "It's nice to take a long lunch now and then," she says. She stands, but doesn't turn to go right away. "Listen, Yachiyo. I… know we're not really close, we haven't kept in touch, but I remember your mom, back when we were in school."
Yachiyo stiffens, taking back her prior assessment, hating now how clever Michiru is. Michiru continues, "Just remember, your worth isn't tied to how good you are at your job, or how much you make your mother famous or whatever." She nods, a little awkwardly, and then turns back to the doorway to leave.
"I'll come by sometime," she says, realizing she sounds kind of pathetic as she says it. "To the jewelry store."
Michiru smiles at this, then, and hands her a business card. "Please do."
Once Michiru leaves, Yachiyo goes to her closet, the last place she hasn't cleaned. It's rarely touched - most of her day-to-day items are not stored away, but she knows why she's saved this area for last. Inside, there are boxes and boxes of costumes, and more saved on hangers and encased in plastic. On the shelves, there are awards plaques three deep, and stacks of DVD recordings of her performances. She's afraid to go near the stuff, afraid she'll throw it all away in a moment of adrenaline and then regret it, or afraid that she'll watch one of the DVDs in a moment of nostalgia and then destroy it as she remembers what it was like to pretend to want to be in the performance in the first place.
In the end, she moves the awards and the DVDs into their own box, so that everything is out of sight. This is enough to stay her hands, she hopes.
When she returns to work the next day, it's just as rainy as the previous day, and there's a strong chill in the air. The bakery is warm and cozy, and they do have a steady stream of customers, but the weather seems to be a deterrent from the busy peak they had earlier in autumn, and so she and the sisters have a little more time to relax.
"Your friend was back," Koharu says, as they wipe down the wooden tables between customers.
"My friend?"
"Sorry. Your former classmate. The really hot one."
"Oh."
Koharu seems to be looking for some kind of reaction from Yachiyo, but she isn't sure what kind to make.
"I told her you quit," Koharu says, after a beat.
"You did?"
Koharu shrugs. "You seemed bothered when she showed up last time, so I thought a little white lie would be alright," she says, smiling.
Yachiyo takes this in, and laughs a little. Akira will think she's a quitter at everything now, she supposes. The play and the bakery both. "Thanks," she says.
It's easy to delude herself that she can actually separate the before and after of her life, that she can just put her performances in a box in her closet and move on to her life at the bakery. Even if she's still terrible at anything that isn't pouring coffee or working the register. Even if she still gives every customer a second glance, half expecting someone from the theater. And even if she's still, maybe, acting.
At the end of the day, Koharu opens a bottle of kombucha from a distributor. "Let's try a glass, he sent a new sample. If it's good, we get a discount to carry it here."
They drink, pretending it's an after-work cocktail, and listen to Sakura talk about her weekend plans. "My friends and I were thinking about going to see the Romeo and Juliet previews," she says. "I hear the show is going to be really good!"
Koharu makes eye contact with Yachiyo, but Yachiyo turns to Sakura. "That woman that I almost burned my hand serving last week? That was the woman playing Romeo," she says, conspiratorially.
"Seriously?" Sakura says. "No wonder you freaked out a little! How did you know?"
Yachiyo smiles. "I knew her a long time ago."
Sakura's eyes are wide now. "She was so cool looking! I should have known she was famous."
Later, as Sakura is mopping the front, Koharu comes up to where Yachiyo is in the back, wrapping up the day-old pastries to go on discount the next day. "You must have been a good actress, lying to her so quickly," Koharu says.
"I didn't lie."
Koharu shrugs, considering this. "I guess you didn't." She starts wrapping the pastries as well, her hands more practiced, the motions almost thoughtless. "I guess maybe I just imagined something, like a past for you, like a backstory."
The idea that Koharu considers Yachiyo at all when not directly talking to her is a revelation. The idea that she imagines things about her, that she is curious about her is nearly unfathomable. She is so taken aback by this phrase that she fumbles one of the pastries, catching it at the edge of the table. "You… what was I like?" she asks, suddenly selfish.
Koharu laughs, a little self-consciously. She meets Yachiyo's gaze and then returns to the wrapping, her cheeks blushing a little. "My imagined version? I don't know… you were in a lot of roles on stage, you were really good, of course. Maybe you and that other woman kind of came and went in each others' lives here and there, but the timing was always off. It's… hard to say it out loud, it's embarrassing kind of."
It is embarrassing, Yachiyo thinks, to be seen. How could Koharu know her so well, without knowing her at all. When had Yachiyo ever given her authenticity, and yet she derived so much from the few weeks of her working at the bakery. Because, really, her assessment wasn't far from the truth at all. She can't help but look at Koharu, really see Koharu, because who had really looked at her with such care in years? And Koharu had all but admitted she understood her attraction, had understood what it is like to want but not quite be able to have.
Impulsively, she leans forward, until her lips meet Koharu's. She's rarely one to initiate, but she's so surprised after Koharu's admission that she can't help but feel like she needs a bold confession of her own. And Koharu kisses her back, or at least, she doesn't pull away, the two of them suspended for a moment, until time seems to start again with one of the alarms from the oven cleaning cycle.
Yachiyo pulls away first, or maybe it was Koharu. The kiss itself had been tame, just lips and a hint of tongue, but now Yachiyo is all too aware of how Koharu is her employer, of how they are friends, how they can share conversation and a drink, but she took it too far, she never knows the line. "I'm sorry," she says, unsure if she just means about the kiss, or something greater, something indescribable.
Before Koharu can reply, she quickly sheds her apron, grabs her phone, and goes out the back, even though Koharu is calling after her, even though she knows she is being childish and dramatic.
It takes a week for Koharu to stop calling. With each missed call, and each voicemail, she feels worse, knowing that she had a good thing, something that didn't make her feel the same highs and lows as the stage, something normal, and she ruined that too. The voicemail from Sakura makes her feel the worst, strangely enough.
Hi, Yachiyo. It's Sakura, from the bakery. I'm just calling to check on you, and well… I'm sorry if I did anything to upset you. I didn't mean to bring up that friend of yours if you had bad feelings, so I apologize. We'd love to have you back at the store anytime. Well um, I hope you're alright. Bye.
Eventually, as predicted, Michiru comes to her door, but she doesn't want to see Michiru. She doesn't want to explain to Michiru how she bungled the job, how she's not like Michiru, she can't just leave the stage and adapt to normal life. Michiru knocks and rings her bell a dozen times, but eventually gives up. She texts her instead.
Michiru: I know you're in there. The girl at the bakery told me you haven't been coming to work. I haven't told Claudine, but she's going to hear about it sooner or later. Call me, we can get dinner.
She doesn't reply.
Yachiyo can't explain why on the tenth day after she's left the bakery, with all normal food except instant noodles cleaned out of her kitchen, she feels the compulsion to open the box. But she does, crawling on hands and knees on the closet floor to crack the lid on the most recently sealed box. The DVDs are all stacked on their sides, she can read the hand-scrawled titles easily, even in the dim light.
Beauty and the Beast (2019-Autumn)
Robin Hood (2020-Autumn)
Antigone (2022-Winter)
King Lear (2022 - Summer)
Elysion (2018 - Winter)
There are dozens of others, but she takes out Elysion, of course she does. She walks back to the living room and puts it in the DVD player, knees to her chest on the floor as she waits for it to begin. She doesn't know why she's doing this, she knows she'll feel worse after watching. She supposes some people drink, or smoke. This is her vice.
It makes her smile, a little, to see them all still on stage: herself, Akira, Michiru, and Mei Fan. They weren't bad, exactly, but they weren't nearly at the level they would come to be at professionally. Akira is fantastic, but she is still immature. Yachiyo is doing everything correctly, but she's imitating everyone she's ever seen on stage. Back then she had no idea what it was to have her own voice, her own character on stage.
But still, she watches the show enraptured, waiting for the promised moment, the embrace of her character and Akira's.
Did you know, I wonder... That I was not only the goddess of the harvest, but of love, too? I had forgotten.
I knew, Earth Goddess. You are kinder than any other being. It was to protect yourself that you sealed away your memories.
She cringes at the memory of how desperate she was to perform that scene with Akira at the time, how much she wanted to be held with care and affection. It didn't matter if the words were from the script, she wanted to hear Akira tell her that she was kind, that she knew her. It's embarrassing that even now, watching, she still feels a thrill of excitement thinking of Akira and that scene. She didn't quit Romeo and Juliet due to Akira, of course, but she thinks it's just as well, if after all this time she still harbors a crush that hasn't matured any more than a schoolgirl's.
The scene ends and so does her reason for watching the play. She doesn't want to hear her own monologue. She doesn't want to see the curtain call, or the audience clapping. It's all meaningless. She ejects the DVD, and puts it back in the case, returning it to the box. But opening the box again she jostles the awards, and one of them - an engraved crystal award in the shape of a star - falls into the box and breaks. She reaches for it instinctively, remembering when she won it. It was the award that got her into Siegfeld, presumably. Her mother had even taken her out to eat that evening, smiling the whole time.
One corner of the star cuts her palm as she reaches for it, and she pulls her hand back, cursing her own stupidity at reaching into the box blindly. Her hand is bleeding now and she rushes into her kitchen, trying to staunch the wound with a kitchen towel.
She knows it's no good, not really. That she needs gauze, and some antibiotic ointment, but she doesn't have anything like that. She doesn't even have food in the house. Annoyed, frustrated, unfulfilled and with memories of Elysion still fresh in her mind, she grabs her keys and takes the elevator downstairs.
It's cold, much colder than she anticipated. It's not yet snowing, but she thinks it's only a matter of time. The closest convenience store is closed, and she doesn't want to go to the one close to the bakery, just in case Koharu is out this late, so she turns the other way, closer to the theater, and goes to the convenience store two blocks in that direction.
It's quiet inside, brightly lit but without many customers. She goes to the aisle with the first aid supplies, and, kitchen towel still wrapped around her hand, puts a few items in a basket.
"Yachiyo?"
She nearly jumps from shock at hearing Akira's voice behind her. She doesn't dare turn around. She doesn't move at all. She's a prey animal, caught in Akira's sights.
"Yachiyo, are you alright?"
She can feel the blood rushing in her ears. She can feel tears hot behind her eyes. Only Akira could provoke such an emotional reaction just with two lines. That is the power of such an actress, Yachiyo thinks. Remotely, she is aware of herself, of her pajama bottoms that might have a drop or two of blood on them, of her long sleeve shirt that is far too thin for the weather, of the stupid towel around her hand. Akira had said she looked good last time they had met. What would she think of her now? She tries to say 'I'm fine', thinks her mouth even forms the shapes, but no sound comes out. She feels Akira take the basket from her and walk to the checkout. She follows a few steps behind.
Akira cashes out her own purchases and Yachiyo's, tucking them both into a bag she had stored in her pocket. Then, as if she has all the time in the world, she turns back to Yachiyo. "Want to come over for a bit?" she asks. "My apartment is just in the next building."
Yachiyo's voice comes back all at once, and she feels indignant, defensive. She wants to reject, to run away, to prove something that she couldn't quite put a name to to Akira, but she tries to swallow everything down. It's too bright under the fluorescent lights of the convenience store. "I'll be fine to make it home," she says.
"That's not what I asked."
This assertive side of Akira feels new, and as Yachiyo raises an eyebrow, Akira matches it. Yachiyo nods in concession, and Akira smiles, just a little, and it's nostalgic.
"Why are you out here so late?" she asks as they walk, crossing the street in the blustery wind to the high-rise apartment across the way.
"Cut my hand," Yachiyo admits. "Broke a glass."
She wonders if Akira is thinking of her scalded hand at the cafe, of her inability to keep her hands intact, and thinks that perhaps Akira would be amused to know that both situations were caused by Akira herself. Or the stage. Or the stupid thing that is Akira and the stage together.
They ascend an elevator, just to the fourth floor, and Akira uses a key fob to unlock the door.
"Did they have the raspberry flavor?" asks someone from inside. Fumi.
"They did," Akira confirms. "Yachiyo was there, I invited her over."
Fumi comes to the doorway, wearing a set of designer pajamas Yachiyo recognized from an ad campaign. "You came!" she's smiling, as if she wanted nothing more than for Yachiyo to interrupt her evening.
"Can you help her bandage her hand?" Akira asks.
Fumi's brow furrows, but she nods, pulling her hair up into a loose bun and washing her hands in the kitchen sink. Distantly, Yachiyo recalls she's a nurse or something like it. That she, too, quit the stage, though not by choice. "Come here, let me see," she says, not even bothering to ask about the cause. Akira hands over the bandages, and Yachiyo takes off her shoes, following Fumi to the kitchen.
Fumi rinses off her bloody hand, then applies the antibiotic ointment and wraps her palm in clean gauze. She rinses off the bloody towel and hangs it to dry over their washing machine. "There," she says, nodding at her success. "Do you want a painkiller?"
Yachiyo shakes her head. It hurt, certainly, but it was fine. Just the ache of then rushing into now, she supposes.
"We were going to eat snacks and watch a movie," Akira says. "You should join."
And it feels too cold to go home, so she does, sitting on the couch with them, Akira in the middle, Yachiyo conscious of the way Fumi and Akira are holding hands. She is certain to keep inches of distance between herself and Akira, not to let herself impede too much into Akira's space, but she imagines that she doesn't, imagines that she closes the gap, that her body also touches Akira's. She feels like a leech, stealing the warmth and intimacy of this apartment, to fulfill herself when she has none of her own to spare. She's taken their food because she has none of her own. She knows she only accepted Akira's invitation because she was worn down by a week of feeling bad about herself, a week to covet Yukishiro Akira.
She gave up the stage. She wonders if she gave up her chance to have what Akira and Fumi are experiencing.
Two days later, Yachiyo gets a text from Fumi. She's back at home, back to her non-schedule of sleeping, waking, eating a cup of instant noodles, watching some recording of a stageplay of years gone by, and repeating the cycle instead of doing anything productive. That afternoon, instead of reaching for another DVD, she had taken out one of her old costumes, her hands running over the stitching, the beadwork, wondering if it was beyond repair. She thinks, perhaps, she still has the skill to fix it, but not the tools. She would need a needle and thread, at least, and that would require leaving the apartment.
Fumi: Hi! Sorry if this is overstepping, but I wanted to let you know about this place, in case you were looking. My little sister goes here, and it helps so much. Think about it!
Attached to the text is a link and when Yachiyo clicks it, she pulls up a clinic in the next neighborhood, two train stops away, staffed by kind-looking therapists. She bites the inside of her cheek, thinking about the last time she was taken to 'speak with someone'. She had been young, 7 or 8 maybe, going at her mother's behest, and asked endless questions about Chitose.
She leans forward, the dress she had been preening over crumpling between her folded legs and her chest. She rests her head on the soft velvet, closing her eyes. It wouldn't be so bad, she thinks, so talk to someone, to have an outside opinion on all the things running through her head. Maybe that person would tell her she is at fault, that she is ruining her life and the lives of those around her, but it might make her feel better still, because she could stop second guessing everything.
Either way, she knows she can't keep living closed off in her apartment. There's only one DVD left in her pile, and she pops it in the player. Tomorrow she will take a shower. Tomorrow she will clean up this mess. Tomorrow time will have to start again.
True to her word, the next day, Yachiyo spends the morning getting herself and her apartment presentable again, and then she walks to the bakery. Koharu is there, and Sakura, and she bows to them both as she enters. Sakura comes out from behind the counter, rushing up to hug her. "You're alright!" she says, relief evident in her voice. "What happened to your hand?" She pulls at Yachiyo's wrist, inspecting the bandage.
"Sakura, leave her be," Koharu says, and Sakura backs off at her sister's command. Koharu almost meets Yachiyo's eyes but averts her gaze at the last second. Yachiyo can't blame her. "Want to meet in my office?" she asks.
Yachiyo nods, appreciative of the privacy. She doesn't really want to have this conversation, but she needs to straighten out her life. She sits in Koharu's cramped office, overflowing with papers, coffee samples, half-drunk cups of tea, and other bits and bobs. Koharu sighs as she sits, but a small smile crosses her face once they're settled. "You came back," she says.
Yachiyo nods. "Koharu, I'm sorry. For quitting. And… for kissing you."
"I forgive you for quitting. You don't have to apologize for kissing me. I'm a grown woman, I would have told you if I didn't want it." She bites her lip. "Honestly, it's me who was unprofessional," she says.
Yachiyo shakes her head. "It was a bad idea. I shouldn't have."
Koharu smirks. "Was it that bad of a kiss?"
"No! I-"
"I'm just teasing you. I know your heart is somewhere else."
"I hope I didn't leave you in too much of a bind in the store."
Koharu shakes her head. "We had an old employee come back soon after you left. It was good timing, in the end. Please don't fret, I just want you to be alright."
Yachiyo doesn't know what to say to this. She doesn't have a reference for alright, isn't sure when she has ever been alright. Perhaps standing beside Akira is alright, she thinks, but standing too close to the stage is not. And what is there to do, when Akira and the stage are inseparable?
"What do you like to do?" Koharu continues.
This question stills her, mostly because she wonders if she's ever been asked it. What are you good at? What are your skills? What talent do you have? Those are the questions she expects. What did she like? She liked to spend time with her friends, she liked to stay up late, she liked to read and watch dramas, she liked to dress up, she liked to imagine wild scenarios.
"I like costumes," she says, wondering if she formed the thought before or after she says the words. It feels so indulgent she almost wants to take it back, but the words hang in the air between them, as Koharu seems to chew on them for a moment.
"Do you know the dumpling place that's across from the station? The one next to the library?"
Yachiyo nods.
"My old sensei runs a little shop in the basement there. You should swing by sometime. I think she's trying to work less now that she's getting older, she'd probably love an apprentice."
Yachiyo leaves soon after, but not before properly greeting Sakura. She sees the other worker, a kind-looking woman with the nametag Hisame, handling the equipment with more care and dexterity than Yachiyo ever did. And Sakura stops her on the way out, dropping her engraved nametag with the teddy bear charm into her hand, telling her to take it to her next job to remember them by.
When she gets home, Michiru is there, waiting in the lobby. They walk upstairs together, and Michiru raises her eyebrows at the clean apartment. "Wow, look at you," she says. Yachiyo ignores her and puts tea on for them both.
"I heard you spent the night with Akira and Fumi," Michiru says, and Yachiyo almost chokes on air from the phrasing.
"I was at their place the other night, if that's what you mean," she says.
Michiru smiles that little cat smile of hers, satisfied with this confession, somehow. "When are you seeing them again?" she asks.
Yachiyo doesn't know what she means. She hasn't made any plans with them, only saw them from convenience, or maybe happenstance that night. She shrugs. "Maybe never."
"I wouldn't count on that."
The next week, Yachiyo finally gathers the courage to go to the clinic. Just as she's getting off the train, she gets a call from an unknown number. Wondering if it's the clinic staff confirming her appointment, she picks it up. "Hello?"
"Yachiyo? Is that you?"
"Mom?" She sees the building, just outside the station, and ducks into the lobby, away from the endless foot traffic on the sidewalk and the blustery weather. It's still busy inside, plenty of people coming and going from the various clinics inside, so she doesn't feel bad having a quiet phone conversation away from any of the quiet areas.
"Yachiyo, you're not on the guest list at the Tokyo Theater Winter Gala."
She wants to hang up right there, but something forces her to hold the phone to her ear, forces her to answer, like familiar obligation, compulsion, years and years of expectation to do as her mother asked. "I know," she says.
"What? You've gone every year since you were 13."
"I know," she says again, not to frustrate her mother, exactly, just because she doesn't have anything else to say.
"Did you check about why you didn't get an invitation? Certainly they've just forgotten."
"I imagine it's because I didn't perform on stage this year." It's all so obvious to her, she can't imagine why it's perplexing to her mother. Why should she get to go to the party when she didn't put in the work?
She hears a grunt or growl of frustration over the phone. "When are you getting back to work?" she asks. "Have you been to auditions yet?"
"No." It's too hard to say that she can't imagine herself on the stage ever again. And she's not sure if it's because of the terrible weight of her mother's expectations, or because it means saying goodbye to Akira.
Her mother continues to berate her for some time, and by the time Yachiyo hangs up, she realizes she has tears in her eyes. She tries to wipe them with her scarf, but they fall anyways, and she is red-faced and trembling a bit as she makes her way up the stairs to the clinic where she has her appointment.
In the hallway, she passes another woman who appears to be leaving the clinic. "Oh, please, take this," she says, handing Yachiyo a handkerchief. She's sweet, short and blonde and wow she resembles Fumi.
"Thank you," Yachiyo says, wiping at her eyes more deftly than she could do with her scarf.
"Are you alright?" The woman asks.
Yachiyo nods. "Just a bad phone call."
The woman nods, and smiles a bit, sadly. "I hope it gets better."
And in the end, the session with the therapist is good, or at least Yachiyo thinks it's a good start. They can't talk about everything, it would be impossible, but just having someone say some of her thoughts back to her helps her hear how some of them make very little sense. She schedules again for the end of the week.
And before that second appointment, she visits the sewing shop Koharu told her about. It's just as she described, down a rickety set of stairs under a delicious smelling dumpling shop. She's instantly taken in by the place - there's all sorts of notions, from ribbons to appliques to rhinestones to tassels, and the costumes on display include everything from idol costumes to takurazuka costumes to kabuki costumes. The woman behind the counter watches Yachiyo with a stern sort of gaze, but Yachiyo is both too impressed by the store and too used to such a look from years in theater for it to have its usual effect.
"Can I help you?" the shopkeeper asks after a moment.
"I was told by Yanagi Koharu-san that you might be hiring a part-timer," she says.
The woman raises an eyebrow, appraising Yachiyo, and then tilts her head strangely. "Tsuru…hime-san?" she asks.
Yachiyo can feel her jaw clench. Had this woman known her mother? Her grandmother? She nods, stiffly. "Yachiyo Tsuruhime," she says, bowing.
There's a bit of a smile on the woman's face now. "I saw you, several times. A 'once in a generation talent', they said. Probably true." She stands, stepping out from behind the counter. She's just barely taller than Yachiyo. "But you never wanted any of that, did you?" Her expression grows serious again, and Yachiyo feels a lump in her throat at being understood by a stranger in a way her mother would almost certainly never understand her.
She shakes her head, trying to speak past the emotion. "No," she says. "I think I will be happy just to make the costumes," she says.
"Sawa Souda," the woman introduces, and nods, as if a decision has been made. "I'll accept you as a two-week trial. Come back tomorrow around noon."
After the second appointment with the therapist, Yachiyo walks down to the train platform to ride home. It's chilly, and even below ground she's shivering, thinking of getting home so she can take a warm shower and get in her pajamas.
"Yachiyo?"
Akira stands before her, all glittering brilliance and silver hair, and Yachiyo has to take a moment to understand how this has happened. But she did take the train two stations down. Towards the theater. Where Yachiyo is in the middle of her performance.
She wonders when Akira became so informal with her, wonders why her mouth hesitates around the word 'Akira'. What a strange irony it is that Akira is more at ease being casual between them. "Akira," she chokes out, after a too-long pause.
"I'm glad to see you," Akira says, her smile genuine. Her cheeks are red from the cold but the rest of her face has that very bland, freshly-scrubbed of makeup look distinctive of those working in theater. Once off stage, it's a ritual to take off that heavy layer of stage makeup before heading home, but for someone like Akira, gorgeous at a cellular level, even stripped bare she turns heads. "I was going to meet Fumi for dinner near your apartment, actually. Want to come?"
"Oh. Sure." She had wanted to go home. She had wanted to get out of the cold. But when it's Akira, she doesn't mind changing plans.
So they get on the train and sit quietly, mindful of the commuters resting after a long day. And after the two stops they get off, walking down the winding alleyways near Yachiyo's apartment, passing the candyshop and the coffeeshop and the bookstore, and all the little shops she always thinks it will be nice to stop into but never actually visits.
Akira leads her into a small bar and they take a table near the back. Akira checks her phone after they sit and sighs, shrugging off her coat and putting her phone and her bag down. "Fumi's running late, so I'm glad you came," she says.
And it's just the two of them, tucked in this quiet corner, away from the cold night, and Yachiyo wonders how this has come to be. The therapist had told her that Akira and the stage weren't connected, that it was possible to untangle the two, but she still isn't sure if that is true. They order drinks and the old woman who owns the bar brings them edamame and nuts to snack on, and Yachiyo is still tense, still unsure of herself, but she finds herself loosening a bit as the night goes on.
"Are you feeling better?" Akira asks, with concern but not condescension, and Yachiyo wants to kiss her, but knows better now. Koharu had been a lesson.
"Yes, I am."
When Fumi gets there, the conversation speeds up. Fumi's efficiency carries into everything, and she checks on Akira's condition, Yachiyo's life, the dinner menu, and dozens of other things in record time. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold and she is cute too, Yachiyo sees, a good pair for Akira: more understated, but also more outgoing.
It's not until the end of the night, when they're leaving, when Akira puts a hand on Yachiyo's back as they're walking out, and Fumi adjusts Yachiyo's scarf out on the sidewalk that she thinks she might really have feelings for them both. Not admiration, not jealously, not missing the stage, but a true, deep longing to be a part of the intimacy they share. It hurts to leave them and walk home alone.
The next morning, Yachiyo stops at Michiru's jewelry shop before reporting in to the sewing shop. Michiru's shop is beautiful: glittery, opulent, and yet understated at the same time, just enough pieces to catch the eye and leave her wanting to see more.
Michiru is sitting at a small table behind one of the displays, working on a new piece, magnifying glasses on. She flips them up to greet her customer, her expression changing to surprise seeing Yachiyo. "Welcome!" she greets.
Yachiyo nods, taking in the shop. It amazes her that Michiru has created all of this with her hands, that from a vision in her mind, she has made such stunning creations. "This is incredible," she says.
Michiru smirks. "Thank you," she says. "I told you to come visit." She puts on a kettle for tea and they sit together in the back, Michiru putting out a small 'be back in 30 minutes' sign on her shop door.
The office is comfortable, filled with beads and gems and tools, similar enough to a costume workshop that Yachiyo can relax, but her words are caught still. "What is it?" Michiru says, serving them each a cup of tea.
"I think I have feelings… For Akira. Maybe for Fumi, too." She knows it's just another obstacle for her to overcome, that after everything, she's fallen in love with women already in a relationship. But if anyone could understand her, it's Michiru, who she knew loved Akira for years. She wonders if it's cruel to bring such a problem to Michiru, but she smiles at this confession.
"You shouldn't be ashamed for liking someone," Michiru says.
And that's all there is to it. No quip, no teasing, just a genuine thought that her feelings should be cherished. This, of anything, flusters her more than Michiru's teasing would have. "I am starting a new job," she says, to change the subject mostly. "At the sewing shop near the station."
"Souda-san's place?"
Yachiyo nods. Michiru looks like she approves. "That's what it was really about the whole time, wasn't it?" she asks.
"What?"
"You learned how to act so you could make the costumes better," she says.
And that's not at all what it feels like, right now, but she wonders if it's a little bit true, in the end. That she needed all the years on the stage to get here, that they were inevitable. She didn't choose the stage, it was decided for her, but choosing to walk away allowed her to see things differently. She will always be a stage girl, in a way, just like Michiru. "Maybe I did," she agrees.
The first few days of work are good - she gets along much better than she did at the coffee shop. It's not easy, not at all, but it's not unfamiliar. Souda-san shows her how to improve her skills, but mostly she leaves Yachiyo alone with tedious, delicate repair jobs, saying she prefers to just mind the store 'in her old age'. And that's fine with Yachiyo. She can sit all day in the back room with dramas playing on the television, picking out and replacing bad stitching, working carefully on delicate silks, tailoring to specific measurements, asking Souda whenever she doesn't know the best way to manage something, living on dumplings from the shop upstairs.
At the end of the week, she has another therapy appointment, and dashes into the lobby to get out of the sleet that's coming down outside. She accidentally bumps against the woman who loaned her the handkerchief, causing her to stumble a bit.
"My apologies!" she says, steadying the other woman. "Are you alright?"
She nods. "I'm fine. Please don't worry."
Yachiyo looks at the clock. She still has fifteen minutes before her appointment. "Can I buy you a coffee to apologize? You gave me a handkerchief before as well."
The blonde smiles, nodding. "I'm glad you seem better today. I'm Shiori Yumeoji."
"Yachiyo Tsuruhime. Are you related to Fumi?"
Shiori's eyes light up as they walk to the coffee bar in the lobby of the building. "Yes! She's my older sister!" They order and sit at a small table under a curved glass window, insulated from the weather but able to see the precipitation continue to fall outside.
They don't talk about why they're each in therapy. They don't know each other that well. But Shiori is happy to talk more and more about Fumi, it seems. "My sister is the best. She's a nurse, and she works as one because I was sick a lot as a kid. It made me feel awful, like I took away something from her, making her always have to be so responsible. But she never became resentful, she grew up to be so brave and kind and wonderful, just like she was then."
And Yachiyo is inclined to agree. Fumi didn't leave the stage by choice, she was forced away, but she also found her path. "Yeah, she really is."
"Do you know my sister well?" she asks.
She shakes her head. "I knew her for a year at Siegfeld, but now, just through Akira Yukishiro," she explains.
Shiori smiles. "Well they're almost inseparable now, so you'll probably see her more and more."
As she's leaving her therapy session later, Yachiyo sees a new text.
Fumi: Heard you met my little sis. She's a little scatter-brained but very sweet. Anyways, I'm going to see Akira's play again this Saturday night, want to come with?
She doesn't answer right away, contemplating this the entire trip home. Did she want to see the play? She had quit, this was her stage she would be viewing, the performance that she never completed. She could be an audience to her own departure from the stage. And yet a part of her, a small voice, wanted to go, just to sit beside Fumi, to see Akira shine brilliantly.
At some stupid hour, probably when Fumi was dead asleep, she answers her. "Ok."
After the two week trial, Souda takes her on permanently at the sewing shop. She rarely has to deal with the customers, she's almost always in the back room working on costumes. And the hours are late, late morning to evening. It's perfect, or as close to perfect as she can get, she thinks. On her break, she returns a call from Claudine, who had called her a couple times in the past couple days.
"Yachiyo? Oh good, finally! How are you?"
"Good, actually." She tells her about the new job, about the old job, about Michiru. Claudine listens to it all, asking questions at the right parts, gasping at the kiss, laughing at the end.
"A costume shop, of course," she says. "I can picture it perfectly."
"Do you think I should go? To the play?" she asks. She'd already agreed, but she could always cancel, say that Souda needed her to work late or something.
But Claudine agrees almost immediately. "Yes," she says. "Go to the play, enjoy your life. Fuck your mom's opinions on your career," she finishes.
Claudine talks a bit more about her own career, her weekend travels, but then she yawns, and Yachiyo wonders if she's keeping her up. "I ought to get back to work," Yachiyo says, knowing her break ended a little while ago.
"Sure. Oh, and Yachiyo?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm happy for you."
Fumi meets Yachiyo outside the theater, and they get seats in the front row of the balcony. It's jarring, to be here and not be in the greenroom, in the dressing room, in the wings. It's also freeing. She has no responsibilities. She is only here to be entertained. She has no obligations to anyone but herself and Fumi.
And when Akira comes onstage, she forgets everyone else in the theater. Seeing Akira like this is different from standing next to her, this was Akira in all her glory. Fumi can feel it too, she can tell, and Fumi reaches for Yachiyo's hand. They stay like that, linked, knuckles almost white for the rest of the first act.
At intermission Fumi lets go, blushing a bit, but recovers quickly. "That was even better than last time I saw it. I think she was going to her limit because she knew you were coming," she says.
Yachiyo wonders if that is true. If even here, just watching, she can pull Akira to greater heights. She and Fumi are similarly hypnotized for the second act, and Yachiyo lets Fumi pull her along after the show, to the certain place where the stage door opens, to where they can reunite with Akira.
It's chilly, waiting out here, less comfortable than being part of the cast, but there's a sort of excitement to this anticipation that is hard to match. After about ten minutes, Akira emerges, bare-faced and holding a small bouquet, and passes through a small crowd of fans, signing autographs here and there, until she reunites with the two of them. "You came!" she says.
Yachiyo nods, unsure if she can trust herself with speech and not sound like one of the fans begging for an autograph. But it's more than that. She knows Akira, and she knows the stage. She understands just how high a level the performance she witnessed was, and what an exceptional person Akira is to pull it off. For Akira to look back at her is just too much.
They go to a wine bar, and to their surprise, Shiori is there with a couple friends. Fumi immediately goes off to greet her sister, and Yachiyo has a moment alone with Akira. "What did you think?" Akira asks, her curtain of silver hair catching the light in a distracting way.
Yachiyo's brow furrows, wondering how to say it. She hopes she can buy the DVD, to watch the recording over and over again, like the others in her collection. She nods. "It exceeded my expectations."
Akira smiles. "I had hoped to share the stage with you, but it was enough that I could show such a performance to you and Fumi both," she says.
"I was happy to watch it." And she means it. She'd watch it again and again.
Akira clears her throat, suddenly looking more nervous than she's been all night. "I was wondering if you'd want to go on a proper date with Fumi and I," she says, "Maybe next week, after the last performance?"
Yachiyo can hear every heartbeat thudding in her chest, knows the pause that stretches between them only serves to increase the drama of the moment. She needs to deliver her line. But her mind is almost blank. What is she answering? A date? "I would love to," she recovers, just in time.
Akira smiles, not the grandiose stage smile, but a private smile, just for them. She leans forward and kisses Yachiyo, just for a second or two, catching Yachiyo's bottom lip before she pulls away.
"My apologies, I got carried away," she says. "I look forward to the date. Shall we find Fumi?"
And Yachiyo has no choice but to agree, to follow along with Akira, the taste of her still on her lips.