The spotlight painted little blotches of random colours onto Kunie’s strained eyes, making it difficult to read the script in her hands. Blinking didn’t help.
She missed her line a couple of times. At the end of rehearsal, she apologised to everyone for not being off book yet. Sahana squeezed her hand in sympathy but walked off with Toyomi, discussing future dates with him.
Kunie stood alone for a moment before taking out her phone and messaging Masami.
Hey, could u help me with my lines? Sry in advance.
She couldn’t help but chuckle at Masami’s stilted use of complete sentences and big words.
There is no need to apologise. That would be quite enlivening. When shall we converge? Please keep in mind that I have little experience in acting.
They ‘converged’ on Saturday morning. Masami had been in Kunie’s home before. She had frequently, well, frequented it with Sahana. Somehow this was different.
Kunie’s cramped Western-style house had one story, a black skillion roof and white concrete walls. Most of the inside was messy, with clothes, towels and empty bowls littering the rooms.
However, when Masami followed Kunie into her room, she dropped her jaw. Just a little. Heh, as if she was going to return to weird and awkward chaos mode. The room was spotless. It had never been spotless.
Despite Masami’s attempts at subtlety, Kunie read her expression easily. ‘I cleaned up before you came here.’
The two sat down on opposite ends of a low, large table in the middle of the room. Kunie took out her script and beckoned for Masami to sit closer. When she saw the other girl’s wide eyes, she chuckled. ‘What? I’ve only got one script.’ She leaned in closer. ‘Or can you read upside down from all the way over there?’
With a shrug of forced apathy, Masami shifted her butt closer to Kunie. ‘You’ve got a lot of lines,’ she said as she skimmed over the first page.
‘Yeah. Maybe I should get these lines engraved on my tombstone. Then I can finally remember them when I inevitably die of embarrassment.’ A look of concern from Masami. A look of comfort from Kunie. ‘I’ll be fine. You know me. A study session or two with you and I’ll get these memorised in no time.’
A few slow breaths from Masami and she was able to convert that proximity-induced blush on her face to complete determination.
‘Glad to be of help. Let’s get started.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink or a snack or something?’
Masami slammed her hand on the script on the table. ‘Let’s. Get. Started.’
‘Yes, Mrs Morokuzu.’
‘Mrs?’
‘You could get married.’
A small laugh was wrung from Masami’s lips as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I doubt that will happen. Not unless I’m totally wrong about…’
‘Wrong about what?’
‘... Whether I’d look good in a wedding dress! Hahaha!’
Damn Kunie had to put her hand on Masami’s shoulder. The poor girl overheated! ‘You would look great in a wedding dress.’ Kunie, if you don’t get that hand off her, I swear Masami will burst into flames. Either that or completely freeze over. The usual hell or hell after a big surprise: pick your poison.
Well, luckily Kunie did let go of her and began practising her lines. At first, Masami was taken aback by Kunie’s expressive delivery, too distracted to remember to read the next line. The number of times Masami apologised was a whopping… three. Okay, that doesn’t sound like much but, considering they were at the beginning of page two by that point, three mishaps were a lot.
Then they got to a stage where they both said the lines like they weren’t reading off a script. Kunie even found herself laughing at Masami’s performance of a comedic character.
‘You sure you’ve got no acting experience?’ she asked her while wrapping an arm around her back and rubbing her shoulder.
The return of Masami’s blush painted Kunie’s face a similar hue. As soon as this happened, Kunie let go and coughed. She was tempted, very tempted, to put her arm back around Masami, but she kept away and returned to looking over her lines. Still, the heat wouldn’t leave her cheeks alone. What was happening to her?
That just had to be the time I got all my red string all tangled. Kunie’s thoughts turned to that Takarazuka actress as questions tugged on her heart, vying for her attention. Was her blush from that musical performance, which involved hot lights and a general feeling of excitement, related to her blush at that moment? Why was she blushing now, anyway? What excuse did she have this time?
She puffed out air like she had eaten too much food and pushed the questions away, going back to this damn script. Her voice was noticeably weaker as she tried to read out her lines. In fact, one could say it was hoarse with emotion. What exact emotion it was evaded Kunie’s scattered mind.
‘You okay?’ Masami said, this time putting her hand on Kunie’s shoulder. Kunie nodded with her eyes closed, inadvertently earning a grin from Masami.
‘Adorable,’ Masami let slip.
The blush on Kunie’s face spread throughout her entire body. ‘What?’
‘Oh, uh, this character.’ Masami pointed to a name above a line in the script. ‘He’s very likeable, don’t you think?’
‘I... guess...’
Even I wasn’t sure what would make the character of Old Man Takada, the grumpy fisherman with a hook for a hand, adorable. At least Kunie didn’t press further.
Upon finishing the script twice, the pair high-fived each other. Masami looked at the time on her phone and stood up, bowing as she said goodbye.
She noticed the disappointment on Kunie’s face and grabbed her hand, giving it a light squeeze before letting go and heading out of her room.
Kunie kept looking at her now empty hand while I got to work untangling the red string.
ns 15.158.61.51da2
