| *the scene begins in Haruto's apartment* |
| |
| Haruto | ... |
| Is it morning already? |
| My alarm's... off. It's way past practise already. |
| (There's no point in contacting Reni-san now... Man, it's so hot...) |
| |
| *blip* |
| |
| Haruto | (My fever's gone down, at least. I still feel sluggish, though.) |
| Haah... |
| (Geez, and I promised the cold would be gone by today...) |
| |
| *ding dong* |
| |
| Haruto | Huh? A delivery at this time? |
| Hello? |
| Shifuto | I've got a package for you! |
| Haruto | ... |
| (Is he trying to fake his voice? I can see you over the intercom, you know...) |
| |
| *Shifuto opens the door* |
| |
| Shifuto | Huh? I thought you'd be at least a little surprised. |
| Haruto | I could see you clear as day on the screen— *cough* *cough* |
| Shifuto | How's your cold? |
| Haruto | It's better than it was yesterday, but I still have a slight fever. Go home before you catch it. |
| Shifuto | I do actually have something for you, though. I'll leave it on the table? |
| Haruto | Hey, who said you could come in?! |
| Shifuto | Have this nutritional drink before you go back to bed. It won't take long to prepare. |
| Haruto | What? |
| Shifuto | Reni-san was super generous and gave me a bunch of money, so I bought the most expensive one I could find before I flew over here by taxi. |
| C'mon, back to bed with you. |
| Haruto | (Reni-san did that...?) |
| ...It's so bitter. |
| Shifuto | Hey, I'm gonna use your kitchen for a sec. |
| Haruto | I never said you could— |
| Shifuto | Whoa, I've never used an induction stove before! Your place is real fancy. |
| Haruto | (Geez, he's not listening to me at all.) |
| When I first came to Tokyo, I lived in a smaller apartment with only one room and a kitchen. |
| GOD-za is pretty generous with its merchandise royalties and stuff, so once you get popular, your income also rises pretty quickly. |
| Well, I took a lot longer to get popular than you did, but anyway. |
| Shifuto | Ooh, you only told me a little bit before, but can you tell me more about why you joined GOD-za? And about when you were still pretty low on the ranks? |
| Haruto | Hell no. |
| Shifuto | Whaaat? Then what about your hometown? Or your parents? |
| Haruto | Why do you want to know all of a sudden? |
| Shifuto | It's not really sudden or anything. I just want to know more about you. |
| Parents can be a dicey topic, y'know? Not everyone wants to talk about them. If you're careless about the topic, you can really hurt some people, so I don't just ask anyone about 'em. |
| You never tell me about yourself. I want to step into your world and get to know you more. |
| And, like, Lutz is Cain's adoptive brother, right? That's way different from being childhood friends or regular friends. |
| A lot of Lutz's lines suggest that he knows everything about Cain, but when I try to say them, I feel like my delivery's always a little off. |
| I don't know anything about you from before I joined GOD-za. |
| That's why I want to know more about you. It'd be good for my acting, too. |
| Haruto | ... |
| Shifuto | Plus, when you're sick or kind of out of it, don't you ever feel like spilling your guts to someone and telling them something you wouldn't otherwise? |
| You might feel better if you do that. Oh, and I can pretend I didn't hear a thing if you want me to later. |
| All right, it's done. |
| Haruto | What is this? Rice porridge...? |
| Shifuto | Yep! Gotta have rice porridge when you're sick, right? |
| Haruto | I almost expected you to bring croquette udon or something. |
| Shifuto | Nah, it'd be hard for a sick person to digest fried stuff, right? |
| Haruto | I never thought I'd hear the guy who barged into my house speak so much sense. |
| Shifuto | Aw, you're so mean! |
| Oh, I made you some tea as well. Your kettle's really well-loved, huh? |
| Haruto | Yeah, I brought it with me to Tokyo. It's kind of like the only friend I have with me from back home. |
| |
| I was born in a small town in Kansai that was not quite city, but not quite country. |
| The people there were extremely friendly and always nosing around in each others' businesses, and the town festivals were always very lively. Both my family and my neighbors were all very proud of our town, and in turn, I felt great pride in that. |
| One day, my mother was watching an operetta on TV, and I happened to look over. The moment I set eyes on that performance, I was deeply entranced. |
| I would try to copy their dances, and my mom watched with great joy and encouragement. |
| Their world was like a dreamscape of beauty and grace, the polar opposite of who I was, and the town I had grown up in. |
| I wanted to enter that world, to also become beautiful. |
| As I grew older, the admiration I held for that world only grew stronger. I even began to think that maybe if I had just been born somewhere else, I could have been a denizen fit for that world, and the thought poked at me like a thorn. |
| It didn't help that I also felt like I was betraying my beloved hometown, the one that all my family and friends live in. I felt crushed. |
| I would memorize the songs and lines from their performances by watching their videos over and over again, but every time I sang or recited them to myself in private, my non-standard accent and intonation would ruin it. So, I began to also teach myself how to speak standard Japanese in secret. |
| Whenever I accidentally slipped into standard Japanese while speaking to the townspeople, they would make fun of me for it, and that only served to strengthen my resolve in leaving town. |
| So, I decided to move to Tokyo and pursue acting after I graduated high school. |
| When my classmates found out, they laughed. My teacher also told me that I would never make it. |
| My mother was also against me moving to Tokyo, but I never gave up. Eventually, she told me, "don't come back if you don't make it. I wouldn't even want to see your face." |
| Moving out meant that I had to be prepared to never see my family again. On the day I left, my mother called out to me as I was about to step out the door. |
| "Someone gave this to me, but I don't need it and throwin' it out is a pain, so you take it." |
| "Well, carryin' it with me will also be a pain." |
| "It's fine! If you don't end up usin' it, just chuck it out." |
| "Ugh, it's so heavy." |
| I eventually gave into her badgering and boarded the high-speed bus with her gift in my arms. |
| It had been haphazardly stuffed into a bag, and the packaging had already been opened, but I could tell that the electric kettle inside was practically brand new. |
| My mother sure had a funny way of showing her love, but I appreciated it all the same. |
| I swore to myself that I would make it big as an actor.[1] |
