Bon evening. This is Tsukinomori Mizuki.
I’m a very ordinary Broadway actress, with one French and one Japanese parent. If there is something that sets me the tiniest bit apart from others, it’s that I am blessed with a beloved husband and children.
At the moment I’m in Kyoto, Japan, for two very simple reasons. Firstly, I was offered a part in a musical by a Hollywood film crew based on my Broadway work, and secondly, it sounded fun, so I accepted it.
Recently, too, I’d discovered a young, talented girl, full of potential. I wanted to lend her a hand and encourage her, but unfortunately things didn’t go to plan.
I knew why her mother, Amachi Otoha, was trying to stop her from entering the world of acting. However, her mother was one person, and she was another. For Otoha-san to place such restrictions on her daughter’s life was unjustified, and there was no reason determination couldn’t trump misfortune.
It was perfectly natural for a teenage daughter to experience insecurity and hide things from her mother. I’d always seen it like this: eventually she would make up her mind, fly from her parents’ nest, and begin making her own life.
I’d raised Mashiro following this principle too. She’d started walking her own path. Then, when she got hurt and locked herself away, I decided I would do my best to support her mentally without going so far as to meddle. I would watch over her, without pushing, until she was ready to stand up again by herself.
You had to pick your own path in life. I’d done that, and I wanted Mashiro to do the same. With my eldest, Mikoto, I had regrettably done too little, which is how he ended up where he is now.
That was where I had been coming from, and that was why, when I watched Iroha-chan fly out of the room, my mind froze and I could only watch her go with my mouth gaping open like a fool.
“I hope you’re happy.”
I jumped as I felt a strong grip on my shoulders, and instinctively grimaced. Glaring at me was the high school student, here on her class trip, who’d joined our little troupe partway. If I remembered correctly, her name was Otoi-san. I could feel her seething, something I never would have thought possible of the sloth-like girl sipping lazily at her cream soda. Her eyes held the sharpness of one who had killed many, whether demon, soldier, or assassin.
“We’re goin’ after her. You’re helpin’.”
“Y-Yes... I am worried...worrying too. She can’t go lost.”
“Yup.” Otoi-san sucked hard on her straw, downing the entire remainder of her cream soda in a split second. She must have had the lung capacity of a fearsome beast. Crushing the plastic cup in her grip, she threw it towards the trashcan and landed a perfect three-pointer before racing from the room.
Just before I followed, I turned to Otoha-san. “You don’t go?”
“No... I have a feeling I’m the last person she wants to see right now.”
“If you know everything, why do you not accept her?”
“Do I really have to explain myself? This has nothing to do with you. And you have chosen a path drastically different from mine.”
I felt a high, invisible wall between us. I knew anything else I said would be wasted effort, fall on deaf ears, and make no difference.
I turned my back to her, but I wanted to leave her with one last cutting remark.
“You hold on to the past. You hold it over another person’s life. That is how the adults you hate work.”
“Yes. I’m well aware of that,” Otoha-san snapped back.
If she was going to fight back, there was no more meaning in my saying something anymore.
I ran after Otoi-san from the room.
✦ ✦ ✦
I caught up with Otoi-san just before she went down some stairs. We asked a staff member passing by for information on Iroha-chan, worked out the direction she was running, and then we were able to estimate her course. It sounded like she had left Ghost Mansion and gone outside.
“Ugh. Runnin’ ’round all over the place sure is a pain.”
“I think the same. I thought I could become an adult, a lovely lady, and just sit for all my life. Sweating, breathing badly, it is for teenagers.”
“I wish they sold shoes that took y’to wherever y’wanted while y’slept, y’know?”
“There would be no exercise. You would be fat very quickly. It’s dangerous.”
I didn’t know if she understood what I was saying or not, but while we quarreled, we made it outside. When we ran, I looked at Otoi-san to ask her a question.
“Otoi-san. You know a lot about Iroha-san. You are a wise person about her. I’m not wrong?”
“I guess I know some stuff.”
“I thought, even if they are against each other, or their values are not the same, a parent and child can understand each other if they talk. Because it’s family. It is naive and shallow and too much ideals. Now I’m embarrassed. I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You really stuck your nose in.”
“I know very well about Otoha-san. I have confidence. But about her relationship with her daughter, I’m a beginner. A virgin. I have not enough knowledge.”
“You’re an actress. I thought you’d get it.”
“What does this mean?”
“Kohinata understands other people’s emotions too well.”
“I see. From her ability to completely become a role, yes?”
It took me less than a second to know what she meant. There were some talented actresses out there whose roles seemed to possess them like a spirit. I was one of them, and when it came to that level of immersion in a role, I knew Iroha-chan experienced it much more deeply than me. And also, much more cruelly.
It was Iroha-chan’s talent, but also her weakness. I wanted to guide her, because I sensed that the role she played lacked a lot of who she really was, and that it was a waste.
“But even then, going this far is abnormal, isn’t it? Even if you are understanding well your mother’s feelings and empathizing, there are always things you want to do yourself. Can people become this selfless?”
“You stupid or somethin’?”
“Oh... A very blunt blow.”
Her harsh response was actually refreshing. Being an actress, I was always surrounded by people careful of my mood, being humble, sycophantic, and sometimes sparing with the truth. They built me an echo chamber where my ego would grow and grow. It’s hard to choose the right words in Japanese, but I think it is clear what I want to say.
What I mean is, it felt good to hear Otoi-san be so frank with me. No one else had dared in a long time.
“Me ’n’ Aki’d have a way easier time of stuff if Kohinata weren’t like this.”
“‘Aki’...a familiar way to call him. I feel the meaning is deep.”
“I guess. I’ve known him for ages. Since junior high.”
“A deep relationship with Ooboshi-kun. Hmm. Friends with benefits. An ex-girlfriend. Or one-night standing?”
“Nah, none of those. Though thinkin’ about it, I guess y’could say it’s somethin’ similar.”
“Oh. Yes, lots of new impulses in puberty. It can be dirty.”
“Like I said, it’s nothin’ like that.”
I had my hands clasped to my cheeks and was squirming with excitement when Otoi-san hit my head with a karate chop and cracked my skull. But that is a metaphor, of course. I need to stop playing around now.
My seriousness levels were getting closer and closer to zero, so I pulled them up to about thirty percent.
“Is it good, or possible for me to ask in detail?”
“Uh... I mean, I don’t really wanna think ’bout those days.” Otoi-san pursed her lips, and because of the principle of leverage, the lollipop stick in her mouth pointed upward. Her eyes softened like she was looking at a place far away, and then she continued. “He’s got talent, but it’s more than that. It was ’cause of that same talent that he turned so tragic...’n’ he didn’t even realize.”