“Jipang TV will launch their brand-new late-night news program, Newsment, weekday nights starting this spring! Hosted by announcer Kadomatsu Nobuo and co-hosted by model talent Kizaki Ryou, Newsment will include a colorful cast of commentators and dive deep into trending news topics around the globe. It marks the first time in a decade that Jipang TV has branched out from variety entertainment programming.”
“Thus far, Asabi TV has dominated the 10 p.m. timeslot with The News. Only time will tell if Newsment can put an end to their reign,” Ushio read aloud from the sports section of the newspaper.
“Cool,” I replied dully. Now that the press release was public, every news outlet under the sun was covering it, so I already knew all this.
“Is this your competitor?”
“Any show in the same time slot is a competitor.”
There were only so many viewers and we all fought for a piece of the pie, but obviously, no amount of squinting at graphs could give you a point-by-point breakdown of what landed and what tanked. At times, the smallest offhand joke made the numbers spike; at other times, meticulously crafted pre-recorded segments made them flatline.
My producer, Shitara, once likened it to getting a report card: important, but not the end-all be-all. Of course, if our viewer count started to enter the danger zone, we’d be looking at a revamp of the content and/or the hosts, and if that didn’t get the numbers to budge, the whole show would go bye-bye. Then another show would inevitably come along—something “new,” but not too different—to fill the empty slot. On TV, nothing was permanent.
“But I mean, this one’s the same genre. Doesn’t that concern you?” Ushio asked.
“For a news show, it sounds pretty avant-garde, so it’s not gonna be my fault if they steal our viewers. If anyone’s to blame, it’d be Asou-san.”
The News was unmistakably Asou Keiichi’s baby. He was the star headliner, and the viewers tuned in for no other reason than to see him.
“Since we started before they did, I expect they’ve paid close attention to our format and commercial placement for research purposes, but we can’t do much until we know what exactly we’re dealing with,” I continued. “Besides, we only just overhauled this show last year, and Shitara himself has said we can’t start tweaking it this early on.”
“Huh. I thought you’d be more upset about it,” Ushio mused, sounding surprised. “I swear, I’ll never understand what triggers your competitive side.”
“I don’t need you to understand me, pleb.”
“Whatever you say, dear. Now, could you help me out with my plebeian work?” He handed me—or rather, forced upon me—a yard of blotchy dark fabric.
“What is this?”
I unfolded it to find that it was embroidered here and there with colored thread to form the shape of what looked like fireworks. But there were only a sparse few, so it was most likely incomplete.
“Well?” I prompted him.
“It’s for a department store—can’t say which one yet, but they wanna use it in a commercial for a big blowout sale. See, I’m doing stop motion with each individual stitch, and I want it to look like they’re going pop, pop, pop, one after another.”
“How many will there be?”
“Oh, I dunno… Enough to fill the fabric, I guess. Just do one for me, okay? I want each one to look as unique as possible, so I’ve been asking everyone I know to pitch in.”
What, like a round-robin? “You’re a masochist.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you, Kunieda-kun?”
“Cram it.”
“Actually, if anything, you’re the mas—”
“I said cram it! Or I won’t help you!”
“Okay, I’m sorry. Seriously, please help me. I need you.”
His acting skills needed work, and the matter-of-fact way in which he held out the embroidery needle genuinely pissed me off.
“Wow, Kunieda-kun, you’re so good at this! Go figure!”
“I’m literally going to stab you if you don’t stop.”
And so a new firework joined the fray of concentric circles, one tiny stitch at a time. The labor itself was easy; no, the real challenge was having to pause after every stitch to let Ushio take a photo. And I mean every stitch. If this was for a commercial, then he’d only get thirty seconds of footage at most, and that’s not even factoring in the post-production cuts, marketing copy, and paid actors. But as painfully inefficient as it seemed in my eyes, Ushio would happily spend an entire day on just a single second of footage.
Not only that, but apparently this mottled mix of deep navy blues was his own doing. Why did he feel the need to do everything himself? Couldn’t he have simply bought pre-dyed fabric?
“You sure love your painstaking little details, don’tcha?”
“Love ’em? Nah,” he shrugged casually. “Do I really strike you as the fussy type?”
No, he certainly didn’t. Whether it was the food on his table, the clothes in his closet, or the roof over his head, he was perpetually laid-back. Perhaps downright apathetic was a better term. That was what made him so relaxing to be around. Even when he cooked, it was never something gourmet. “But still…”
“I wanted to do fireworks since it’s summer, and when I thought about how I’d go about it, this was what I came up with. End of story. Even if something’s hard or takes a long time, that’s no reason not to do it, right? I mean, it sucks, but it’s not like I can’t afford it or something.”
Ushio’s first priority was the outcome he wanted to achieve; his chosen means to that end held no special significance. Be it clay, puppets, or stitchery, he simply chose whatever fit his vision the best. And that vision was further refined in his mind, over and over, until at last he started the development process. How did he make it look so easy? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
Never in my career had I ever stopped to ask myself what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to do well, of course—I was motivated every day I went in to work. But I only ever did as I was told. As the screen displayed footage someone else edited, I read out scripts someone else wrote while following the rules of intonation that someone else had established. I offered someone else’s perfectly polished commentary on someone else’s chosen theme, all on a schedule someone else planned out.
Granted, my job was not something just anyone off the street could do, and that’s why I liked it. I was satisfied and secure. But whenever I watched Ushio at work, it made me think. What was I doing with my life? What was I achieving with my joyless hard work and ostentation? Trying to answer these questions would fly in the face of everything I’d built over the years, so I put an end to my meandering train of thought and silently focused on my needlework.
“There, all done.” I thrust the fabric back at him, needle and thread still dangling from it.
“Great job,” he murmured, impressed. “You made a perfect circle and it’s evenly spaced from the others.”
“That’s it, butter me up.”
“You really can do just about anything, huh?”
“You only just noticed?”
“Anyway, now that you’re in a good mood, we need to talk.”
“About what?”