The place I had actually moved to was Kawasaki, not Tokyo.
I wasn’t lying. Japan was Tokyo, and Tokyo was Japan anyway.
People called Osaka “Tokyo” whenever it was convenient, so calling Kawasaki—right next to Tokyo—by that name was no problem at all.
The sudden move had partly been because of high school, but more than that, our family home had been too small for Saito and me to live in together.
One of us had to leave for both of us to be comfortable, and since Saito had no money, I was the one who took it on.
My new place was a 3LDK apartment, just under a thousand square feet.
It was too spacious for a kid about to start his first year of high school to use alone, and the rent was expensive to match. But this was exactly what I had saved money for.
Besides, once I factored in taxes, spending this much was actually better for me.
I stared blankly at the ceiling.
Lying in bed and sorting through my thoughts was part of my work routine, but this time was different.
The longer I went without writing, the more anxiety crept in, so I was forcing my mind to go blank.
If you were wondering, “Then why don’t you just write?” congratulations. You were a healthy person who had never been mentally ill.
What I felt was a kind of compulsion.
I had followed the same pattern for nearly nine years, and now that I was breaking it, my brain was screaming.
If I let it fool me and calmed my brain by writing, I would just produce another piece of garbage.
For now, the right answer was to quietly rest.
Asking Ryota how to have fun had been a failure, but separately from that, I was not the sort of person who listened well to others.
Even if Ryota had given me proper advice, I probably would have done whatever I wanted anyway.
Turning on my computer would make me think about writing, so browsing the internet was out. Maybe I should watch TV.
For the first time, I turned on the television I had not so much as looked at since buying it.
The moment it came on, there was a news program. I changed the channel. A variety show. I changed it again. Another variety show. I changed it once more.
Hm. Strange. New media was still in its infancy, so old media should have been at the height of its power. Why was there not a single program worth watching?
No wonder you washed-up losers got left behind.
[Then, for this shoot—]
[Yes. The director—]
After flipping through channels for a while, I froze. I had heard a familiar voice.
Amid the chatter of people on a film set, one woman stood out as she brightly led the conversation.
It never stopped feeling strange whenever I saw her. The Rei I knew had been so ground down by poverty that she had looked half-dead.
After leaving Saito and me, Rei had become an actress.
She had once told the story on a late-night variety show. Apparently, being scouted on the street had prompted her to rethink her life.
Rei had given birth to me in her second year of high school.
That made her thirty-two now—a full thirty-two, with four months still left until her birthday.
Her kid was about to start high school, yet she was still young. She was right at the age when an actress ought to be thriving.
Rei and I had never contacted each other even once.
The reason was simple. Neither of us knew the other’s number.
I knew Saito’s number because he had never changed it, but Rei did not seem to contact him either.
I was not hurt by it. If anything, I felt vaguely guilty.
It was like seeing the girlfriend of a pathetic friend.
You really should have treated her better, Saito.
I used the remote to turn off the television.
Maybe I should watch a movie.
Hearing about Rei for the first time in a while had revived my urge to watch one.
A search on a portal site showed several movies in theaters, including one with Rei in the lead.
Rei’s acting range was narrow. That made all of her movies feel much the same, so I hesitated, but the other films looked completely hopeless. There was no real choice.
I went to the bathroom and took a shower.
A familiar face stared back at me from the mirror.
It was not familiar because I had seen it for nine years. It was familiar because I had seen it long before that, too.
My parents, nationality, and name had changed, but my face had stayed the same.
I had no idea how that was possible.
Then again, ending up in another life was already strange enough. Why would having the same face be a big deal? I did not dwell on it.
I changed into clothes for going out and left the apartment.
Pulling my coat closed, I grumbled to myself.
Why did Japan have to brag about having four seasons too? I wished somebody would steal the damn things.
The movie theater was close to my apartment. I bought a ticket as soon as I walked in.
The movie was called <Fish, Sky Lanterns, and Ramune>.
Judging by the director and cast, it was obviously going to be a human-interest drama centered on a female lead with a past.
Since it was set on an island, she would probably untangle the knot in her heart through tears at the end, then stare out at the horizon. Predictable. So predictable.
Praying it would somehow prove me wrong, I went to the snack counter and bought food.
In my former life, I never ate at movie theaters.
When I was underage, I had been an orphan, so money was tight. Once I became an adult and started earning money, I simply did not eat there. I had never had much of an appetite.
But things were different now. Maybe it was because I was still growing, but no matter how constantly I put food in my mouth, I was always hungry.
With caramel popcorn tucked under one arm, I walked into Theater Two while taking a bite from a hot dog made with locally famous ham.
Row F, aisle seat. It was my favorite spot.
The request to refrain from using phones and the emergency-exit instructions played, and then the movie began.
…
The movie ended.
This was the first time I regretted not having Rei’s number.
Rei. You need to develop a better eye for scripts.
Trying something new to broaden your acting range was fine, but the story was such garbage.
Nothing in particular lingered with me, yet I stayed seated until the end credits finished rolling.
If the story had gone exactly as I expected, I would not have been this dumbfounded.
But it had crammed a pathetic excuse for a thriller into a human-interest drama, and I could not focus on the story at all.
The director must have caught so much flak for always making the same kind of movie that he had tried something different. At this rate, he would have been better off sticking to human dramas.
At least then, I would have gone home admiring the way he had finally broken through his limits by doing the same thing ten thousand times.
The thriller portion was poorly put together, and the direction and editing were atrocious.
It felt as if they had stopped editing halfway through, which made me wonder whether this was even a finished product.
So, if I had to put it into an analogy, it would be this.
“This isn’t some film student’s assignment rushed out at the last minute to meet the submission deadline. You seriously thought you could charge money for this? Have you no shame?”
That was the sort of comparison I could make.
…In my own defense, I had not thought it quite that harshly.
Calling it trash that was not worth charging money for was too cruel.
We creators were supposed to have some professional solidarity with one another. I had thought about it more gently than that.
Did this guy suddenly get sick of filming halfway through? And, Did he lose his mind? Just those things.
I turned my head to look at the speaker.
In the aisle seat across the way in Row F, a girl glared at the screen in the theater everyone else had long since left.
I silently marveled.
She looked around fifteen, about the same age I appeared to be, and she was strikingly pretty.
Calling her a cool, aloof beauty would make the image clear enough.
It was not easy for a short bob to suit someone that perfectly. Maybe that was why she left such a strong impression.
Perhaps she felt me looking at her, because she turned her head in my direction. I reacted too late. Our eyes met.
I quickly lowered my head and left the theater.
She had been the first one to talk to herself in public, so we were even. Still, it was better not to start needless trouble.
I sat down in the theater lobby and stared blankly at the ceiling again.
It had been deeply unsatisfying.
There were different kinds of garbage movies.
There were movies that were garbage because their stories were bad, and there were things that were garbage rather than movies.
<Fish, Sky Lanterns, and Ramune> was clearly the latter.
It was not a movie.
It was not enough to satisfy the urge to watch a movie that had finally resurfaced after so long.
That meant I needed to see another one.
I bought a ticket for the movie with the soonest screening.
The synopsis had looked weak, so I had passed it over in favor of <Fish, Sky Lanterns, and Ramune>, but that no longer mattered.
There was no way it could be worse than <Fish, Sky Lanterns, and Ramune>. Surely it would be better made.
*****
I had my own theory about creative work. It was the theory that the number of attempts mattered more than talent.
Of course, it was a theory that only applied to story-driven fiction, but why was I suddenly bringing this up?
Because I had once again realized that my theory was right.
I watched four movies today. Aside from <Fish, Sky Lanterns, and Ramune>, every one of them had been made by a rookie director.
And not a single one of them satisfied me.
Come to think of it, <Fish, Sky Lanterns, and Ramune> had at least been a movie. These bastards were the things that were not movies.
Writing novels did not require a production budget, so before making movies next time, I hoped they would write something first and build up some experience points.
My mistake had been getting stubborn halfway through and deciding to see who would win.
When something looked obviously bad, it was usually bad. Plenty of my own novels had been filtered out the same way.
Still, watching four movies had satisfied my craving.
It was not a quantity-over-quality strategy. It was just that after properly experiencing what a movie imitation looked like, <Fish, Sky Lanterns, and Ramune> seemed positively angelic by comparison.
I had arrived at the theater early in the morning, but it was already time for dinner.
I was so hungry I had no energy left, so I ordered something to tide me over at the snack counter.
A ham sandwich. It would keep me going until I got home.
Growing bodies were terrifying. They would not even move unless you supplied them with fuel.
I opened my mouth as I walked down the stairs.
I was about to take a huge bite out of the ham sandwich, but as everyone knew, accidents happened precisely when you let your guard down.
Someone bumped my arm and shouted.
“I’m sorry!”
At the same time—
Thud.
A hollow sound of impact echoed through the building.
Perhaps she had heard it, because the girl hurrying down the stairs stopped in her tracks.
“…”
“…”
Silence fell.
I froze in place with my mouth hanging open, and the girl did the same.
Our eyes met. I recognized her face.
The girl who had exploded in anger after watching <Fish, Sky Lanterns, and Ramune> earlier.
It was our second meeting, but I was not particularly happy to see her.
Give me back my ham sandwich.
Yukimura Mai