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Fumi watches the kettle on the stove top, slowly, imperceptibly heating up thanks to the flame under it. Personal understanding and general wives tales suggest this is a bad idea. The pot boils less when it’s watched. But physics very quickly cuts this idea down. The kettle, the pot, the whatever receptor of water that can be placed over an open flame or other such heat source will heat up at a regular rate (presuming a regular flame), and begin to boil whether time is spent observing it or not.
Fumi’s phone buzzes.
There’s nothing to do besides watch the kettle. The gas grill is weak and inconsistent at best. The landlord promised to look into buying a new one for the place, said it was too old anyway, but an electric kettle comes up to the top of the list of things for Fumi to buy when she gets the chance.
There’s three days, still, until she starts at her new school. Three days to settle into the apartment she’d struggled to find, three days to partition out her school stipend for off-campus living and the amount her parents had given her to help out. Three days to start looking for a part-time job, three days to prepare herself for Rinmeikan’s curriculum. Three days.
Three days since she’d left Siegfeld, actually.
The whole outline of it had been a blur, actually. Drop out of school, move back home until it got too close to a holiday break, then bolt at the first sign of Shiori’s return. That had been the plan. Her parents had suggested Rinmeikan instead. General Education Department. But they had a performance department, after all. The message had been clear enough: you’re really giving up? After everything? After leaving to go to Siegfeld in middle school, Shiori only a few steps behind?
Stage girls die every day. Return to a life of normalcy. Of non-stageness. Of spectatorhood. That was fine. That was fine for Fumi. It was her path, after all. Fumi the stage girl was no more.
Her phone buzzed again. Would her parents reject her request to change it? Would they give the new number to Shiori? Had they already caught onto the fact that her promise to have a conversation with her about the impending transfer had been a lie? That she’d told nobody at all?
She should shut her phone off. Michiru’s already called twice, Shiori six times (had been texting her since five this morning), and Yachiyo once.
She should put it on silent, at least. The buzzing was frustrating. The notification noises were downright irritating.
She deserved this. Care and concern always become jealousy and hatred. she knew that much from herself. It was only a matter of time for them as well. It was what she deserved, anyway. In medieval Catholicism, self-pain was a valid form of sin retribution. Was this not the modern equivalent of wearing an itchy shirt for weeks on end? Knowing that people cared about you enough to reach out, but refusing to bridge the gap of your own self-isolation.
She hasn’t read them, because she hadn’t had enough respite yesterday to shut off her read receipts between Shiori calling her and Michiru calling her and Mei Fan calling her, leaving roughly 20 messages single-handedly about how she had desecrated the position of Edel.
They didn’t seem to understand. She’d cut the cancer off at the root. That which was rotten at Siegfeld. It was a favor, the small mercy she could provide in spite of her—everything about her. To reach out now, to open up in any way, explain at all, would be to turn around and poison them further.
Akira’s technological ineptitude has, for the first time, become a boon in Fumi’s life. Keeping her impending departure from the King of the Edels had been the hardest part of the whole thing, between finalizing her transfer without the school board notifying her, to moving things out of her dorm room without question or notice.
Shiori’s text previews today range from impassioned pleas for her to answer her calls, to begging for an explanation, to just begging for some indication she was okay and alive. Michiru’s texts for today were seemingly lighthearted requests for her to call back, so they could chat. And Yachiyo, who had decided to give a single phone call and single text today, had simply said “fr???”
Her final performance was garnering rather mixed reviews, it seemed.
She gives up on the kettle, because it doesn’t seem to be boiling any time soon. Maybe those old wives and their tales were right. Physics is generally a wash, anyway.
Her new uniform is hanging. Came in yesterday and she knew that it, at least, should be well taken care of. But otherwise she’s been living out of her suitcase. It’s not like she can’t unpack it (she’d struggled for more than two hours yesterday putting together a dresser. The job was done), but it’s more transient than that. Perhaps it hasn’t sunk in yet. That’s she’s left Siegfeld. That she won’t go back. That she’s here now, for a while at least.
Shiori texts her again, asks if she’s studying. If she’s in school. She’s not asking where anymore. Should that be a victory? She should be in class right now. Does her teacher notice that Shiori’s on her phone? She was Frau Jade, after all, so maybe they’re giving her a bit of a break. Maybe they recognize that any blindside they receive was received tenfold by Shiori.
Her phone vibrates again, not from Shiori this time. From a text conversation that was last used a year ago, when they were both still first years. Fumi had found a book from the library on the time period of a play they were performing. They’d both been searching on different floors, so now they could meet by the checkout. The conversation had been almost entirely one-sided, outgoing messages from Fumi. Things that didn’t need replies.
cowsrs
Fumi stares at it for a moment before Akira sends a followup.
cowsrd
The meaning is clear enough. The kettle begins to boil, a high-pitched screaming process. And Fumi sighs, stands up, picks her phone up with her. Three more days.