January 8, 1989.
The first day of the Heisei era.
There was no festive sense of a new age beginning.
Instead, Tokyo seemed to have fallen silent beneath a sudden blanket of snow.
With the passing of Emperor Showa, a vast shadow of self-restraint and mourning had settled over the entire country.
Shibuya Crossing had lost its usual roar.
Department-store windows had taken down their bright, colorful displays and replaced them with solemn black-and-white drapes.
Even the pachinko parlors—normally among the noisiest places in the city—had pulled down their shutters for the day.
9:30 a.m., NHK Broadcasting Center.
The enormous gray complex in Jinnan, Shibuya, headquarters of Japan’s public broadcaster, stood at the very heart of the country’s solemn mood.
Even footsteps seemed muted in the corridors.
Everyone wore dark suits.
Faces were grave, voices lowered, as though speaking too loudly during a period of national mourning would itself be an act of disrespect.
Shin Kitahara entered the third-floor waiting room carrying a cloth bag.
Today was an additional round of auditions for NHK’s Taiga drama Kasuga no Tsubone.
More than a dozen people were already waiting inside.
Most were young men.
A few were minor idols who had appeared in late-night television dramas.
They wore fashionable broad-shouldered suits, their hair meticulously shaped with gel.
Nervousness showed on their faces, but there was still something unmistakably bubble-era about them—restless, flashy, and eager to be noticed.
Shin didn’t look for a seat.
He headed straight for the changing room.
Ten minutes later, when he stepped back out, the waiting room seemed to freeze for a second.
His modern clothes were gone.
In their place was a formal dark-brown montsuki haori hakama.
He had gone all the way to an old shop in Asakusa the previous day specifically to rent it.
It might have been rented, but the fabric was heavy and the tailoring excellent.
Shin had spent half an hour that morning arranging the collar and obi, making certain every fold sat exactly where it should.
Among a room full of young men in modern suits, he looked completely out of place.
Shin quietly walked to a corner, brought his knees together, straightened his back, and settled into formal seiza—even though there was no tatami beneath him, only the hard surface of the chair.
He closed his eyes and rested both hands lightly against his thighs.
[Equipped: Annotated Notes of a Disgraced Historian]
[Equipped: The Songstress’s Abandoned Silver Zippo]
[Dual Equipment Effects Activated]
The heavy, suffocating atmosphere of the early Edo period seemed to settle around him, cutting him off from the whispers nearby.
“Who’s that guy?
Did he seriously change into a full costume just for the audition?”
“He’s probably here for Masasada Inaba too.
Isn’t that a little over the top?”
“What a show-off.”
None of it reached Shin.
In his mind, there was only one image:
A samurai kneeling outside his mother’s room.
…
“Next, Kenta Tanaka.”
A staff member opened the door and called the name.
A young idol with dyed brown hair stood, adjusted his tie, and confidently walked inside.
Less than two minutes later, the door opened again.
The idol came out looking thoroughly humiliated, his face burning red.
He had obviously been scolded.
“What happened?” someone behind him whispered.
“They made me sit in seiza.
I couldn’t keep my balance once my legs went numb, so I wobbled.” The idol gritted his teeth.
“And that examiner was terrifying.
He kept staring at my socks.”
“Your socks?”
Everyone looked down.
Beneath the idol’s suit trousers was a pair of white socks covered in cartoon characters.
During a period of national mourning, at NHK of all places, wearing cartoon socks to audition for a historical drama might as well have been the words UNPROFESSIONAL stamped across his forehead.
The next several candidates didn’t fare much better.
One stepped directly on the threshold while entering.
Another bowed at the wrong angle.
A third threw everything he had into the performance, only to ruin it the moment he opened his mouth with a light, modern way of speaking.
NHK’s examiners weren’t commercial-TV producers who could be won over by a handsome face.
Most of them were old veterans who had spent their lives studying classical theater and historical performance.
They noticed everything.
An elderly sigh drifted from inside the audition room.
It wasn’t loud, but the disappointment in it was unmistakable.
The waiting room instantly became even colder.
“Next.
Ota Agency, Shin Kitahara.”
Finally.
Shin opened his eyes.
The light in them disappeared almost completely, leaving behind the stillness of a dry, abandoned well.
He rose.
Rather than rushing toward the door, he first adjusted the hem of his hakama and checked that nothing had fallen out of place.
Only then did he walk forward.
…
The audition room was spacious and covered in tatami.
Three examiners sat at the far end.
In the center was a gray-haired elderly man wearing black-framed glasses: Hashimoto Ryutaro, a veteran casting director highly respected in the world of Taiga dramas.
All three men looked exhausted and thoroughly irritated.
Shin said nothing.
He stopped at the entrance instead of simply walking in and gave a deep formal bow.
A guest’s bow.
Then he entered using traditional suriashi, keeping the soles of his feet close to the tatami as he glided forward without a sound.
Every step was controlled and steady.
His upper body barely moved, making it seem as though he were floating across still water.
Hashimoto, who had been massaging his temple, stopped.
He raised his head and stared sharply through his glasses at the young man entering the room.
Shin reached the designated cushion.
He didn’t simply drop onto it.
His left foot moved back first, followed by his right.
His body descended slowly and steadily, like a mountain lowering itself into place.
He settled onto his knees.
Back straight.
Hands resting naturally on his thighs.
Fingers slightly curled.
The entire movement flowed without a single unnecessary wobble.
Even the fabric of his clothing barely made a sound.
“Shin Kitahara, Ota Agency.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”
His voice was low and steady, without the light, restless cadence of a modern young man.
Hashimoto set down his pen and straightened in his seat.
“Kitahara-kun, was it?”
He flipped through Shin’s résumé, saw Producer Ishida’s recommendation, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Someone recommended by that old fox Ishida…”
Hashimoto looked over Shin’s formal attire.
“Since you’ve gone to the trouble of coming dressed like this, I assume you understand the proper manners.
Today’s test is simple.”
He removed his glasses.
His gaze sharpened.
“No dialogue.
Imagine you’re kneeling before Kasuga no Tsubone.
She has just told you that, for the stability of the Tokugawa family, you must send your only son away as a hostage.”
“You will listen.”
“Nothing more.”
Listen without speaking.
That was one of the hardest things an actor could be asked to do.
With no dialogue, it was easy to become lifeless.
React too strongly, however, and the performance would become fake.
“Begin.”
The command fell.
Shin didn’t immediately change his expression.
He only lowered his eyelids slightly and fixed his gaze on a single line in the tatami.
[Historian’s Notes – Empathy at Maximum]
In that instant, he heard it.
A voice that didn’t exist.
The cold, forceful voice of a mother declaring his son’s fate.
Just as she had once decided his own.
The room became deathly silent.
Two.
Five.
Shin’s face remained like a mask, without the slightest visible ripple.
But gradually, Hashimoto noticed something.
His breathing had changed.
What had been calm and steady became heavier—restrained, suffocating, as though something were lodged inside his lungs.
Then Shin’s left hand, resting on his knee, moved.
It didn’t clench into a fist.
A fist would have meant anger.
And Masasada Inaba did not dare to be angry.
Instead, his fingers slowly tightened around the fabric of his hakama.
Little by little.
His knuckles whitened.
For a single instant, a vein rose along the back of his hand.
Only an instant.
Then his fingers went slack again.
Like the tiny spark of rebellion that had just ignited inside him had been drowned beneath the freezing weight of loyalty and filial duty.
Shin slowly raised his head.
There were no tears in his eyes.
Only a hollow emptiness that made the room feel colder.
It was the emptiness of a man stripped of his dignity as a father and as a human being, leaving behind nothing but the shell of a samurai.
Then Shin lowered his head once more.
His forehead touched the tatami as he performed the flawless bow of a loyal retainer.
“Hai.”
Yes.
The answer was as soft as a sigh.
Yet it seemed to fall into the room with the weight of lead.
…
“Good.”
Hashimoto’s voice finally broke the silence.
Shin remained bowed for another three seconds before slowly sitting upright.
He released the suffocating state he had drawn himself into, and clarity returned to his eyes.
The three examiners exchanged looks.
The assistant director on the left murmured, “For a moment there, I thought I was looking at one of those old-school actors from the early Showa period.”
Hashimoto put his glasses back on.
He picked up his pen and drew a heavy circle around Shin’s name on the résumé.
Then he looked at Shin.
For the first time that day, his stern expression softened into something almost warm.
“You can sit still.
You know how to sink into silence.
And you look like someone who belongs to that age.”
Hashimoto closed the folder.
“Too many young actors these days can’t stay still for five seconds.
Very few can act the word endurance all the way down to the bone.”
He gave Shin one final look.
“Stay behind and have your measurements taken.
Your wig will need to be custom-made.”
That was it.
The role was his.
“Thank you very much!”
Shin bowed deeply once again.
When he left the audition room, he didn’t leap for joy or pump his fist in celebration.
His knees simply hurt.
He had knelt far too seriously.
But even that ache felt strangely satisfying.
Real.
Back in the waiting room, the idols were still touching up their makeup and practicing what they probably thought were handsome expressions while anxiously waiting for their turns.
Shin picked up his cloth bag and walked past them.
Then he stepped out through NHK’s doors.
Snow was still falling outside.
Yet somehow, the air seemed fresher than before.
Shin slipped a hand into his pocket and touched the historian’s notebook.
Silently, he spoke to the long-dead scholar who had left those bitter words behind.
“Old man…
I gave your resentment a voice.”