Chapter Text
The thing with Masumi Hayami was, that he was so good at compartmentalizing his inner and outer worlds, that he sometimes forgot those two worlds co-existed in a single reality and could possibly one day collide and spin out of his control. His inner world was protected under the starry sky of a warm summer night. There lived a version of Maya that smiled at him, welcomed his presence, and reached for him when she was about to fall. Of course in this reality he was not Masumi Hayami, but Mr. Purple Rose, which explained why the petite 18-year-old actress could tolerate him, and even let him tease her without bursting into rageful tears.
Because in his outside world of silent eternal winter, he was the cold-hearted Vice President of Daito Entertainment Masumi Hayami, that bastard no one liked but everyone sucked up to. Everyone that was, but those closely connected to Tsukikage Chigusa, and especially Maya. To her, he was the devil incarnate, set up to bully her beloved teacher and keep her troupe on the ground, all to satisfy his own mercantile agenda and possibly his personal sadistic deviance as well. Of course, he couldn’t deny all of her accusations when it came to sabotage and corruption of the press, which didn’t help his chance of redeeming himself. It was just his luck to have fallen in love with the one young woman alive who had sworn to hate him forever. Possibly on a full moon.
Those two worlds could not collide, he had thought. His interactions with Maya as Mr. Purple Rose were always done by proxy, and the florist he’d bribed to be constantly reordering a stack of fresh violet roses just in case he might need them was the only link joining the two worlds, and the man was currently an exchange student from the U.K who didn’t speak much Japanese and he knew Maya couldn’t align two words in English to save her life.
Of course, this meticulous plan to keep his two distinctive lives separate had crumbled spectacularly when Masumi spent a weekend with Maya at his lake house as Mr. Purple Rose, during which all of his deepest fears slapped him in the face one by one until he surrendered to the realization that the young actress had at some still unknown point of his life somehow managed to capture his heart. Still, as Masumi couldn’t bear reality for too long without a healthy dose of denial and escapism, he had thought he could just go back to Tokyo, attend the board meeting on the Kabukiza renovation project, and pretend the entire weekend had been little else than an elaborate dream.
And then he went to see the auditions. That’s when he had to admit how much of a fool he had been.
Only a fool would think those days of summer at the lake could just exist in the vacuum and never resurface. These had not simply been vacation days, but an immersive rehearsal. As he stood near the gate of the theater, watching the audition from a distance, he knew the second Maya’s Helen walked on stage that he was in for months of torture and reenactment of his sacred moments with the young woman he had finally admitted to himself was the first, and possibly only true love of his life. Her gestures, her expressions, the ways she went and searched for her mother and fell to the floor banging her fist on the wall in despair and loneliness, everything in her performance reminded him of their interactions. How she had stuck her hand in the window frame that final night and burst into tears. How he had comforted her too, through his own storm of emotions. How they had decided to spend the night sleeping next to each other, and he had known what it was like to fall asleep to the sound of Maya Kitajima breathing in the dark master bedroom, her hair still fresh from the bath water they had shared. He should have known then that those were memories doomed to haunt him for the rest of his life, never to be repeated.
He walked out of the theater.
Of course, she won the audition, ex aequo with Himekawa Ayumi, and of course, everyone was surprised but him. That he felt Maya should have been handed the part as a public announcement made by the prime minister in a nationwide live stream while commoners showered her with rose petals and the entire Himekawa clan bowed to her feet was maybe a tad eccentric, but he couldn't help it. He saw the whole audition process as an obsolete ritual at this point. That Golden Child Ayumi had managed to rise to her level…well, that nepo baby always did have talent, he’d give her that. Good on her.
Masumi’s ludicrous fantasies notwithstanding, the announcement was still grand enough for the industry standards. A Miracle Worker premiere was after all the show designated to introduce the crowd to the brand new Daito Town Complex in Shibuya, and the capitalist beast of a building was towering ten stories high to provide future customers with restaurants, designer boutiques, book stores and of course, several theaters and a huge stage at the very top floor, so the marketing team was working overtime selling the opening play. Another reason why Maya had to get that part and finally get the recognition she deserved, and when the two young actresses shook hands with twin determination in the face of their upcoming competition, the flashes didn’t disappoint. Masumi did notice however a tiny change in Maya’s countenance then, something like a hidden wince, and he knew the Himekawa princess hadn’t held back her grip. The fight had already started for her, while Maya’s competitive spirit was practically nonexistent, except whenever Masumi provoked her into spiteful stubbornness. So he walked over to her intending to do just that. As always when it came to her, he went on instinct and hoped not to cause a disaster that time, like a moron.
He caught her already halfway to the exit and fought the urge to ruffle her hair when he called :
“Oh, but if it isn’t our new star I see here.” He really shouldn’t be so obviously cheerful to finally get to talk to her again “Congratulations on the audition. This play is an important opener to his venue, I hope you’ll do your best.”
He had put his best honey in that tone. Warm, friendly, even inviting. But as always, his joy of seeing this adorable creature seeped in, and of course to her it sounded like mockery. He knew what to expect from her too. Nevertheless, his stomach dropped when he saw the affronted look on her face at the simple sound of his voice, how tense her shoulders went as he walked closer, and before he could even finish his greeting, she had turned her head away from him in a snobbish expression that really, really didn’t suit her.
“Oh yes, of course.” She replied to the air around her with the blatant sarcasm that was the threadmark of their conversations “I will do my best to make sure Hayami Masumi doesn’t have a reason to mock me.”
Her tone should not have upset him. He knew she hated him, just like he knew that the last memory she had of him was when her church got destroyed and she called him a bad omen for delivering the news, and how their arguing got them both thrown out of Tsukikage's hospital room. But something in her tone stung nonetheless and Masumi felt himself growing cold from it. Bantering was one thing, and if he was honest he reveled in it, but now she was being openly rude. If she wanted to have any chance at a serious career in this industry…Yes, that was it. He had to teach her a lesson, should she hate him for it.
That was what he told himself. That it had nothing to do with the slap in the face that was this reminder that he was not her beloved fan here. That he was not welcome to talk to her, to be near her, to touch her. That he was back to being Masumi Hayami, the man she hated, when ever since that fateful weekend at the lake, he had in blissful denial counted the days until their reunion, and wanted one thing more than any other: to meet her eyes again. That was what he told himself: that if he cupped her chin to make her face him, it was purely out of professional interest.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” Her eyes flashed with fear, and their light pierced his heart. She had not expected him to touch her like this. “I am Vice President of Daito Entertainment Hayami Masumi.” His own name tasted bitter on his tongue, and he could barely recognize his voice but he had to keep going “I personally do not care if you hate me ( lies ), but if you want to live in this world, my world, good behavior is almost as important as talent.” He saw her lips part but maintained eye contact at all costs. “Here you must always show courtesy to others, and make connections, no matter how you feel. Especially people involved in production. If you can’t do that much you can forget about acting altogether!” He saw tears welling up in her eyes, and released her immediately, hiding his shaking hands behind his back. Her palm went to cover her chin, but her eyes didn’t leave him.
He tried to calm down, he really did, but his breathing kept speeding up, as she stood frozen in shock, facing him. Unshed tears brightened her eyes accusingly, and her lips parted enough that he could see her front teeth. There was a faint red mark where his fingers had been and he felt bile threaten to rise up his throat. He had manhandled her once more, probably hurt her, and scared her. He should say something. Do something.
He turned his heels and retreated back to the reception hall to hide. He left her there, alone in the lobby. The reasonable part of him kept insisting it was a lesson she needed. It didn’t make him feel any better. His hand still burnt with the memory of her cheeks, soft and pliant and trapped between his fingers. He stretched his palm to try to banish the feeling.
The image of a blindfolded young woman climbing a tree came to him. Extending her hand to find him, she had caressed his face with such tenderness, and he had had to stop her when panic rose within him that she might recognize his features. He had never known her to be able to show such affection. No later than a year ago he had called her out on the immaturity of her young Cathy, still a stranger to passion. And yet for her fan, she had opened in ways that had made Masumi want to flee to the safety of Tokyo and to the eternal winter of his life there.
He had to stop this folly. He had to stop being in situations that reminded him so much of that time at the lake house, while he still had some remnant of sanity to hold on to. It wasn’t as if there were any real hopes of his feelings ever being returned in the first place. What affection she had shown him at the lake house that summer had been for her fan alone. Not for him.
It’s pathetic enough that you are in love with an actress 8 years younger than you who despises the very sound of your voice, at least take your own advice and keep your feelings in check, Masumi!
He kept repeating his new resolution of self-control like a mantra to protect himself from harm, but when the time came for Maya to actually rehearse with other cast members, it happened again. This time, it was seeing her struggle with Himekawa Umeko that triggered the memory of a sink, soap water, and her wrists. Of beating hearts and labored breaths and flushed cheeks. He used to revel in watching Maya’s performances, and even seeing her rehearse she was a sight to behold, but Masumi came to the realization that regarding her Helen, he had to limit his exposure to that sweet torture, for his own sanity. He decided not to watch the rehearsals again.
He behaved himself and stayed away from his blissfully ignorant idol for as long as he could bear, namely for the three months of preparation for the play, but there was no avoiding the premiere. Even if his last shred of sanity would depart at seeing Maya’s Helen on stage in front of hundreds of people, he would never miss it.
It was a double premiere at that, with Himekawa’s Helen first and Maya’s second. He had heard people say Himekawa’s Helen was perfect, and so he had once pushed his curiosity so far as to go to one of the young prodigy’s rehearsals, to see if another Helen would trigger the same memories in him. But nothing happened when Ayumi fought with her mother. Nothing happened when she cried. Nothing happened when she held her Anne Sullivan tight. It was a very nice performance, a perfect rendition of the script. It was the same play, the same character, and yet it did nothing to him. So when the premiere started with Ayumi’s performance, he didn’t bother to get a seat. That wasn’t the Helen he wanted to see first. There would be other nights. His premiere was Maya’s and Maya’s alone.
When it dawned on him that such a declaration was so reminiscent of that of a stupid lovestruck teenager, and should never be uttered aloud, he was already walking around the main lobby on the 10th floor, the last people to enter the dark room eyeing him with disapproving confusion when they saw he wasn’t going to follow them in. Never mind the plebians , Masumi thought with a stupid grin on his face, because what he saw in the now deserted lobby made his choice to snob Ayumi Himekawa’s premiere all the more worth it. At long last, his three months of good behavior were rewarded.
She was short, she was plain to anyone without a soul, and she was stuffing her face with red bean jam taiyaki cakes.
Excellent choice, Chibi-chan.
xxx
Three months. The scent has lasted three months.
Maya sighed in between bites of her taiyaki. Stress eating was only second best to her most recent remedy to anxiety: the pillowcase she had shamelessly stolen from the Lake House.
Back in July when she woke up that Monday morning, she’d known she would find the house empty and yet, she still felt bathed in a scent that had been her anchor for a full weekend. The fresh fragrance of laundry powder, mixed with the mint and tobacco of his breath fanning her in her sleep, and that cologne he wore that she had decided smelled of cedarwood, perhaps with something peppery too that she couldn’t identify. And of course, beneath it all, that warm aura that could only belong to a single person in the world, unique and magnetic. All of those scents were tangled in a purple cloud around her and she had curled back between the sheets, fresh tears wetting her blindfold. He was gone.
She had climbed down the stairs to find the breakfast table ready for her, and as she had groped around the dishes, her fingers had found an envelope next to a chair. She knew it must have been for him, and took his unspoken advice to untie her blindfold, blinking several times until her swollen eyes had acclimated to the morning light.
In the envelope, the note read :
“Kitajima Maya-sama,
Words cannot describe how happy I was to see your Helen grow within a few days in my company. I wish I could have stayed longer. If you must rehearse more, I beg you to be as careful as possible, but if you are confident in your Helen, please rest and reflect on what you have learned until the audition this Thursday. And please, I beg you to treat your wounds regularly, to avoid any scars. An actor’s body is their livelihood after all. I will count the days until I see you on stage again.
Faithfully Yours,
Your Fan”
Even his elegant handwriting and the polite tone of the letter couldn’t have hidden the admonition and worry laced within each word, and she had decided to obey him.
She’d spent the day retracing her steps, trying to find that tree again, the one they’d climbed, but it was so difficult to know where to start. She even went for Takoyaki by the pier, and all the while, Mr. Purple Rose was in her thoughts, like an imaginary friend walking next to her. Only he hadn’t been imaginary. It had all been real, hadn’t it? The games they played, the tree they climbed, the food they ate, the night they shared, it had all been real. Her dear fan had come for her and had stayed with her for an entire weekend, instead of being with his friends or his family. He had held her, comforted her, treated her wounds, and protected her. Would she ever meet him again, like this? With everything, she couldn’t understand why he would insist on staying anonymous, even after she’d made her affection clear to him after she gathered her courage and brazenly invited him to share a bed with her. Would he see her as a burden if she knew his identity? She would never impose on him, or abuse his hospitality. Sure, she had broken so much of his stuff, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to have been thrown out of the house first thing when he saw her, but he hadn’t. But now that she could see again, and the house was empty once more, a part of her kept nagging at her that it had not been real at all. That in her solitude, in Helen’s bubble, she had imagined it all. That no one could be so kind to her like that, just because he liked her acting. This man must have been a sort of angel, too good to be true.
Only his scent, this had been real. Angels don’t smoke cigarettes.
So when she had come back to the house, just before the Yamashita had come back to do some cleaning and repair the broken window, Maya had taken her dearest fan’s pillow and stripped it out of its pillowcase, which she tucked carefully in an inner pocket of her traveling bag. In the process, she made an important discovery: a single strand of hair on the pillow. She had held it high to examine it through the sunlight and saw that it was long, straight, and had a lovely copper undertone, not exactly typical Japanese black, but a tad lighter. It probably shone under the sun too.
She knew he had told her not to investigate, but she could know that much, couldn’t she? She wasn’t exactly rummaging through his papers. This was just a strand of hair. Just a piece of information that she couldn’t help but stumble upon, and file away within her heart, along with her mental description of Mr. Purple Rose :
Mr. Purple Rose: The Man, the Mystery, the Legend
Gender: Male
Name: Unknown
Age: 20-something
Height: About 6 feet tall?
Built: Fit, muscular, probably size M, I don’t know, where do I write “can carry a 45 kg girl like an infant without flinching?”
Face: smooth skin, high cheekbone, strong jawline (I almost cut myself caressing that face)
New ! Hair : Thick, falls on his brow, dark brown with copper undertones.
Voice: reportedly calm and soft
Laugh: prefers to chuckle, but I feel like he could be surprisingly loud sometimes.
Scent: Divine (warm scent, peppery cedarwood cologne, laundry powder, tobacco and mint)
Handwriting: Elegant, definitely varies on mood though
Personality: Kind, generous, intelligent, thoughtful, protective, slightly patronizing, and CHILDISH , I mean Oh my God can you not!
She had replaced his pillow with the one in the guest bedroom and had even gone out of her way to start a laundry of the guest room sheets, throwing a clean pillowcase into the mix, with the excuse of the previous night's storm and the broken window serving her perfectly. Her conscience told her it was terribly rude to steal from a man who had already given her everything, but she couldn’t help it. Maybe one day, she’ll return it to him.
If they ever met again.
She left the lake house on Wednesday afternoon, ready and glad to have taken Mr. Purple Rose's advice and rested for the auditions, but as the train started, a well of emotions came rushing to the surface as the Lake House and its dreamy surroundings faded into the distance. Tears fell on her skirt without warning, like they always do for her.
To the Yamashita, she had given an envelope, with a letter of her own, knowing that they would know how to deliver it:
Dear M. Purple Rose,
I know you told me not to investigate, but you did not tell me not to write to you. I am not very good at writing letters, so please, forgive me for my awkwardness.
I should probably say so many things, and later when I leave, I will regret not writing more but I must say this: Thank you.
Thank you for meeting me at last after three years. Thank you for staying with me, for protecting me, for taking care of me, for keeping my Helen company. Thank you for everything. I hope that you’ll allow me to meet you again, someday.
I’ll cherish these memories for the rest of my life, and I promise to never disappoint you. Please, if I pass the audition, come and see my Helen this fall!
Yours sincerely,
Kitajima Maya.
She had not found the courage to confess her theft. Surely, she thought, he would find me too weird for wanting to take a piece of him back with me, his pillowcase of all things. She didn’t want him to think she was some kind of pervert. On second thought, she wondered if stealing a pillowcase to later sniff someone’s scent to her heart’s content didn’t qualify her as a creep. Better not to mention it to anyone. This sort of detail belongs to the realm of secrets, strange dreams, and confusing sensations, and she preferred not to even think of those.
Rei had been doing the dishes with Sayaka in the apartment when she arrived that evening. Tsukikage had not left the hospital, and Sayaka had let Mina and Taiko go back to their flat on the second floor of the bakery for the night without her to keep Rei company in Maya’s absence. As soon as they had heard Maya’s coming home, they had left the dishes aside to greet her warmly, eager to know about her time in the countryside, and how her research for Helen’s role had gone there. They had certainly not expected to see Maya rushing to tell them all about her encounter with her mysterious fan.
“You met him!” Sayaka had exclaimed, her eyes shining with stars at the revelation “Your galant fan who always pays for Tsukikage-sensei hospital bills, and who sponsored your high school tuition?”
So a tale of that weekend had begun, and with each new detail she recounted to her dear friends, Maya felt reassured that everything had not been just a dream. He was real, and he had bandaged her feet and helped her climb a tree and bought her takoyaki and took her on a boat - as Helen. As Sayaka helped Maya unpack, as she talked, Rei went to the fridge to fetch the pitcher of fresh roasted barley tea that she set on the small table with tall glasses.
“Rei, Sayaka…he was so nice to me, he protected me. He always chided me for not being careful enough, but every time I answered, he laughed. He was so gentle, so kind…” She didn’t even try to stop the tears from falling yet again, her heart bursting with all the refreshed memories rushing to the surface, and Rei handed her a handkerchief without even thinking, used to Maya’s fit of emotions after nearly four years of cohabitation. “I don’t know what I could possibly have done to deserve such an amazing person taking care of me!” She buried her face in her hands.
“He had always watched you, for more than three years now! He must adore you!” Sayaka reassured her. Clearly, the young woman who still clung to her trademark double braids thought the entire thing was the most romantic encounter in the entire history of humankind.
“That’s true Maya,” Rei said, pouring tea in three glasses and pushing on toward the actress who fought hiccups in front of her “He must care for you greatly. But…Maya. He never revealed his identity, not even then?”
Maya shook her head no, and took a long swig of her tea. “Why? With what you just told me, he seemed to enjoy spending time with you. If he likes you so much, why wouldn’t he let you see him?”
Sayaka, being faithful to her shameless self, asked: “Was he…did he seem strange or…I don’t know…ugly?”
To this, Maya slammed her glass on the table and promptly said “There is no way for him to be ugly! Not that it matters, you know I don’t care about who he is or what he looks like! But from what I felt next to him…” she felt heat prickle her cheeks but went on anyway, somehow summoned to Mr Purple Rose defense “He seems to be in his twenties, or maybe early thirties at best, and he’s tall, has high cheekbones and a smooth face, thick shiny brown hair, and he even smelled nice!”
There was a few seconds of silence in the one-room apartment. Then Sayaka deadpanned: “Are you kidding me?”
“What?”
“So you’re saying he’s hot? On top of everything else ?”
She must have been making a strange face, because Rei stared at her for a good ten seconds before saying, a small smile slowly stretching her lips “I see…well in that case, I still wonder why he’s being so mysterious about all of this.”
“I wish I knew too,” Maya said and she let Rei refill her glass, “Maybe he's a Yakuza boss or something. Judging from his house and his gifts, he must be quite rich, and he’s strong too…”
“Are you saying this because he could carry you?” Rei deadpanned “Because even I can do that.”
“First of all, no you can’t, not that easily, Rei” Maya pouted as Sayaka chuckled in her tea. “And second…well, I don’t know but he really did seem strong.”
“So, a Yakuza boss then…” Rei mused, unconvinced
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe he’s famous, and he doesn’t want you recognizing him.” Sayaka offered as she took a sweet from the little basket at the center of the table. That gave Maya pause, but she went back to her tea
“That could be it, Maya” Rei said. “Maybe he is famous. Or maybe…”
“What? Maybe what, Rei?”
“Not just famous. Maybe you know him.”
The three women stared at each other for a moment, Maya’s glass raised in mid-air. It was as if her heart had stopped beating.
“That makes sense, Maya.” Rei continued. “He does seem to know a lot about you.”
“Is there anyone we know that could be him though…” Sayaka mused. Suddenly, she got on her feet and fetched a basket with stationary and colored pencils they often used to design future props and costumes.
A sketchbook slammed on the table and with a pencil in hand, she started drawing.
“So you say he’s tall…was he thin or muscular? Or fat?”
“Muscular, I think. But not so much either, he was sort of lean” Maya found herself looking over Sayaka’s shoulder as her friend started sketching. “Yes, and he had high cheekbones and a sharp jawline…”
“Ooooh, how do you know that, Maya-chan?” Maya blushed crimson and Sayaka giggled.
“Sayaka, stop teasing her!” Rei chided.
“I can’t, it’s too easy. So you said his hair was longish?”
“Yes. I mean, it stopped at the nape of his neck but there was still a big fringe falling on his forehead”
“And it’s thick, brown, and shiny you said?”
“By the way Maya, how do you know that part?” Rei asked.
Maya tried to blink in a play at cluelessness, but Rei insisted "How did you know the color of the hair if you couldn't see the entire time?"
"Oh, that's right, I hadn't thought about that. How did you know Maya?" There was a greedy glint in Sayaka's eyes when she said it and Maya blushed a shade darker
“I found a strand on his bed”
“WHAT?” Sayaka screamed, while Rei just gaped at Maya. She had not recounted how her last night had ended. Someone, it had seemed too private to share “You went to his bedroom?” Sayaka couldn’t stop grinning at that new juicy piece of information. Rei tried to look fierce, but amusement shone in her voice when she said "Maya, that wasn't very respectful of you. After everything this man did for you, too!"
"Oh yeah right," said Sayaka "like you wouldn't have wanted to see the bedroom of the tall, young, and handsome rich man who keeps paying your bills and sending you flowers!"
"R-right!" Maya tried to sound as self-righteous as possible, but she couldn't possibly face her friends knowing there was a pillowcase belonging to said man and his bedroom, nearly folded and hidden in a pocket of her travel bag. And so she decided that her hidden square of cloth imbued with Mr Purple Rose's essence would remain her secret, she decided at that exact moment. While she took this resolution, Sayaka was still adding colors and details to her sketch.
“And you said he’s a smoker, right?”
“Yes,” Maya confirmed as she saw her friend add a cigarette between her mystery man’s fingers.
“Done! I think I drew all the details we have. Rei, come over here and take a look.” The three young women sat in front of the approximative portrait of the faceless Mr Purple Rose. “You said he had a jacket on with a rose when you met him, so I added that too.”
Maya felt surprisingly uneasy looking at that portrait. The tall frame, the haircut, the suit, the cigarette, even the cheekbone seemed awfully familiar. Next to her, Rei furrowed her brow and Sayaka squinted as if trying to use some kind of scrying method to uncover the mystery of Mr. Purple Rose behind her own drawing.
“He looks like…” Rei started.
“Hayami Masumi!” Exclaimed Sayaka.
The room fell silent. Sayaka, Rei, and Maya exchanged incredulous looks and for a moment it felt as if a bubble was slowly growing in the middle of the room. A fragile soapy bubble with shiny ripples and the name Hayami Masumi written all over it until Maya cracked first and burst into a fit of laughter. Then all hell broke loose in the apartment, Sayaka trying to hide under the sketchbook, and Rei lying on the tatami in tears.
“I was going to say…” The androgynous actress tried to say in between hoots of laughter “That he looked like half the high-standing salarymen in the country”
“Sayaka!” Maya chided with actual tears leaking out of her eyes “Don’t scare me like that again.”
“I’m so sorry.” The youngest whimpered, still buried under the book “Kill me, please.”
“Can you imagine” Maya screamed, rolling from her cushion to the tatami “Hayami Masumi.” she found Rei’s eyes for support “Sending me roses?” They both crackled uncontrollably.
Suddenly, a fist went banging at their door “ARE YOU GOING TO STOP ALL THIS NOISE HERE? IT’S PAST NINE IN THE EVENING!”” The old landlady screamed, and all three actresses covered their mouths to smother the sound. “Sorry, ma’am!” Rei managed to articulate before her voice failed her. Maya had to paddle in the air with her feet to keep herself from howling.
“THIS ISN’T A HENHOUSE!”
Her crimson forehead on the tea table, Sayaka bit her fist to stay quiet through her shaking breath as a hysterical whimper left Maya and Rei wiped her eyes with mirth.
So when the actual Hayami Masumi came to congratulate her on her victory after the results of the audition, the memory of Sayaka’s blunder came back to her without warning and she had to turn her head and bite her cheeks to keep from laughing. To think that this man, this heinous man who seemed to always rejoice in mocking her and seeing her in painful situations, on top of harassing Tsukikage sensei, could possibly be the same man who climbed a tree with her was ridiculous to no end. She kept her tone clipped and her eyes anywhere but on him.
But then he grabbed her chin and made her face him.
They had bantered before. He had mocked her before. He had been cold to her, yes but never before had he been so openly angry. She knew what anger looked like on him of course. She had seen it when he discovered the bamboo rods keeping her partially immobile when she rehearsed for her part as a Porcelain Smile. He had also seen how his gaze had burned his employees when Maya had found out all too late that her script had been switched, seconds before being called on stage.
He had never looked at her this way.
She couldn’t tell how long it all lasted, really. From the moment his eyes had captured hers, all sounds and movements around them were drowned in the background, and she was held at the bottom of a lake, frozen. Part of her brain registered what he was saying to her, and later she would recall each word and repeat them over and over in her mind, but her most immediate attention was on the fact that he was screaming and she didn’t seem to be breathing. When she forced herself to take air again, he was standing so close to her that she inhaled his breath directly into her lungs, her tongue tasting a mix of tobacco and menthol that burned her throat and made her heart jump in her chest. His eyes were a storm with tones of green darkened by clouds, with an almost feverish light glazing them. Why was it so painful to breathe? She felt tears prickle at the corner of her eyes, her heart beating so loud in her chest that she knew he must hear it too. Her knees were going to buckle, she was held up solely by the strength of his fingers on her jaw.
Suddenly, Hayami-san seemed to snap out of his fury, and his eyes lost some of their darkness, revealing lighter shades of the green she had thought she had imagined seconds before. Her mind was still empty, screaming with echoes of her panicking heart putting her entire body on high alert, and she could only feel, and look and take in every little detail. How swiftly he released her. How a bead of sweat had pearled on his brow in that short time. How her cheeks burned where he had touched her. How his lips parted, as if he was as taken aback by his outburst as she was. How quickly he had gone from a furious flush to a livid ashen complexion. How abruptly he left before she even thought to compose herself to throw a comeback.
Come to think of it, there was nothing she could have said in good faith. She didn’t know why exactly, but even as outraged as she was by his display of violence, something in the pit of her stomach told her he might have been right.
“He was right.” Confirmed Rei later that day when Maya took her aside during the troup celebration of her winning the audition. “He gave you valuable advice, Maya. I don’t particularly care for Daito either, you know, none of us do here, but I would never blatantly disrespect a director or a producer, not even Onodera, and you know what he did to our props for the Nationals. When we’re so dependent on people producing us and working with us, we can’t afford to make enemies.”
Maya had leaned over the sink, pondering this over. So, Hayami was right, huh? She didn’t exactly like the sound of that. What Rei said next snapped her out of her reverie.
“It’s strangely fair play for him to give you this advice.” She said, her can of beer resting on her chin “If he wanted you to fail, he could just watch you insult higher-ups and get black-listed before your career even began. He must really value you as a rising talent.”
Maya had to blink a few times to disperse the fog this new revelation had created. Hayami Masumi…wished for her to succeed as an actress? He valued her?
“I’m going to need one of these drinks if I want to process what you just said here, Rei.”
“Tsk. You’re 18 Maya, you can’t drink for another 2 years.”
Maya looked up to raise an eyebrow at her tall masculine friend “You’ve just flipped my nearly four years of certitude about Hayami Masumi, Daito’s demon, a man I had sworn to hate forever, on its head. Tsukikage sensei isn’t here. I’m having a beer.”
Rei held her gaze for a moment, then stepped into the main room of the apartment and declared to Mina, Sayaka, and Taiko “Girls, Maya’s going to drink tonight!”
Cheers erupted in the room, and Maya sat on one of the cushions as Mina poured her a glass of cold beer. They didn’t even answer when the landlady came banging at the door. They had left a note earlier that day that there would be noise, after all. Maya gulped down the bitter drink like you swallow medicine, and Taiko had to stop her from drinking everything all at once.
Masumi Hayami didn’t want her to fail?
He was rooting for her success?
He valued her as a rising talent?
But if that was so…then what was his deal with her? Why was he constantly mocking her?
Like a phantom limb waking up to nag at her, she felt the ghost of a hand ruffling her hair. Like a playful child.
She drank again.
Maya lived for the next three months with her questions swarming in the back of her mind at night, to ponder over when she wasn’t taken by Helen’s character and her struggles with the cast and crew of the play. Questions about the two most mysterious men in her life: Mr Purple Rose, and Hayami Masumi.
Then on the day of the premiere, one of them decided to come and sit next to her, just as she was about to choke on a red bean jam Taiyaki.