“Heyoooooo, folks. It's a comfy Sunday afternoon, we’re sitting here at 3:30 p.m.. That's right all and this here is JiJi, as you all know and love, but hey, ladies, feel free to call me Jiro Sato. Haha, anyways, knowing that I’m wise like no other, you must also know that the tunes we’re spinning today are top-shelf sellers. Now let's kick it as we drift off into funky town, all morning, and now all afternoon. Haha, let's groove!”

Emiko was huddled over a floor table, her legs having abandoned the traditional kneeling stance of seiza, in favour of comfortably stretching her legs out as her hands moved hard at work scribing text onto a piece of paper in precise focus.

I was seated opposite her, a cup of tea resting above my folded knees as I sipped it, the rest of the tea set sprawled out across the table, including her barely touched cup of green tea.

After consulting with me, Emiko had decided we’d be better off practising at her place instead of going to rehearsals, and Director Ttio who had already agreed to leave everything up to Emiko’s intuition, had little else to say about it.

“Sorry about this,” She apologetically muttered, her eyes still focusing on her paper, “just need one more second to finish this. My parents start threatening my acting career when I slack on homework, and this is due tomorrow, sooo…”

Her room was less plain than I had expected it to be, though perhaps my view of that is a tad bit wrapped. The pure white of my room is comparatively featureless to the posters and landscape paintings that dot her walls, hiding the drab beige wall colour beneath them.

You could learn a lot about someone based on their room, assuming they have the creative freedom to actually decorate it. For example, the posters on her walls were of movies and plays, not too dissimilar to Director Ttio’s office. However, the key difference was that these were of the more unpopular variety, and only just about crossed the line between niche and bad.

I had spent a fair amount of my free time studying this new world of acting I was being inducted into, while my memorisation of the script was partly done because of Hatsuko’s instruction, this background research was to satisfy my own curiosity.

After all, I dislike being unprepared or caught off-guard with sudden probing questions. So to ensure that Seina’s lies and I suppose even my own now, remain watertight, I’ve strived to learn as much as I can.

And it is because of this that I recognise a few of the plays and movies on Emiko’s wall. Yes, they’re niche, but more interestingly is the reason they’re considered a niche rather than garbage.

Their technical aspects.

That’s the sole reason. The plays are all well known for being the pioneers of the modern play scene, being the first to utilise surround sound systems, 3D imaging, rotating stages, digital backgrounds, wind effects, and in some cases smells.

So while the plays might have flopped commercially, or acted out poor stories. They were the pinnacle of live action and technology intermingling together in an attempt at unseating movies and returning the throne of storytelling back to the playwrights.

Of course, the mere fact I am calling them niche shows that they never achieved that goal. And it is in no small part the fault of these movie posters next to them.

Emiko must have a strange sense of humour, to showcase these plays next to the movies that overshadowed them and held the door out of obscurity closed tightly against them.

Or maybe it's a challenge? Her announcement to the world of her room that she sees the failings of the past knows the history of whys and hows, and will one day create a play that covers these shortcomings, that is able to break out from that door and batter the lethargic movie industry off of its first place pedestal.

“Hold on, please. 5 more minutes and I’ll wrap this up, promise.” Emiko spoke, her tone becoming increasingly full of worry and displeasure at the thought of neglecting me.

Or maybe she just loves movies too.

The most obvious answer is usually the correct one, even if it is a little boring.

She was more relaxed here, not as full of nerves or jumping with anxiety at every word or gesture I did. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising, this is her room, after all. With her music playing, and her familiar floor she’s seated on.

People are often more comfortable in their own areas. It's hard not to be; surrounded by the things you yourself have chosen, and with the amenities that your desires have forced your hand into buying.

I preferred her like this. It was nicer, more calming.

Stranger to this room, guest in her life. But not a total outsider, not in this moment, not right now.

Emiko cleared her throat, readjusting her head slightly to shift her black fringe out of her eyes so she could lock eyes with me and flash a teasing smile, “You know Seina, you make for really good decor.”

It was true, I really was good decor. Sitting here quietly, not a word or movement made other than the methodical slipping of this tea; the perfect background piece, maybe I should have begun my acting career as a background character, one of the many faded faces in the crowd of a movie.

I smiled, a slight angle in my lips as I took another slip from my cup, my face returning to neutrality as the tea smoothed over my tongue.

“Wow, I had no idea I was that funny.” Emiko commented, watching me from the corner of her eye with a grin and stifled chuckle.

I tilted my head in confusion, lowering the teacup back down to my lap. “Hmm?” Was the sole noise that fluttered from my voice box, a drowsy butterfly of sound unsure of anything.

Oh-

Unsure until I was sure.

I looked down at the teacup nestled in my hands, its warmth long dispersed into my hands and up my arms. The leisurely swirls of its green liquid swaying back and forth like the river that meets the ocean and gets tangled up in the domineering tide.

I smiled.

Not Seina, not an actress, or a person, or a false facade that hijacks my emotions.

But me

I. Had. Smiled.

The void I… am… had smiled?

“Annnnnd, done!” She slapped her pen onto the table, and straightened her posture, before tidying up her homework and tucking it away in her school bag. “Phew, fuck- I mean, flip homework. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have sworn in front of you.” She quickly excused herself, a creeping worry crawling onto her face that I’d take offence at her slip up that could only have happened thanks to her relaxed state of mind from being tucked safely in her room.

I nodded, grateful for the subject change, “I don’t mind swearing.” I clarified a return to form as my heart settled and the emptiness came back in.

Yes, a return to form.

It's better this way, I’m sure of it. Seina is sure of it. We’re all sure of it.

The felled tree can never be unfelled. The axe tedious in its swings, each arc a drop of ink onto the death certificate, signing it evermore. It may not remember its movements, forgotten as the tree is carted away, but it is not forgotten.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

A crack has formed.

Try to forget it.

“Ok, good, I was worried there for a bit.” Emiko let out a sigh of relief, the oxygen rushing into her lungs now that her breath was no longer held. “So, Seina… how do you want us to start?”

It is not forgotten.

Never.

“Could you elaborate?” I asked, earning a grin from Emiko as if I had just walked right into a trap she’d set for me.

“Alright!” She leapt up from the floor and drifted over to a cabinet almost as tall as she was, which wasn’t saying much to be honest. Opening the second drawer from the top, she took out a notebook, a handful of movies, and the script of Us of I, and placed them all on the table, filling it right back up again.

“Here we go! You’ve got three options on the table. Number 1!” She picked up the notebook, “We begin with your stage knowledge, so camera positions, lighting angles, music timings, audience viewpoints. It sounds- ok, useless, but trust me on this. The stage is half of the play, knowing the ins and outs of it means you can capitalise on it.”

She paused her speech and spread her hands out like an overly enthusiastic corporate CEO about to announce the latest piece of software at a tech convention, all the while knowing full well that the product was more marketing buzzwords than anything substantial.

However, Emiko’s speech was forged with the veteran backing of all her years of acting.

“Imagine this… You’re on stage, techy number one hits you with the lights, the audience can see you perfectly, but you’ve now lost your vision. However, because you’ve taken the time to learn the stage, you’re able to continue the show, not only without issue, but able to improve it. You step directly with the lights in perfect sync, the visuals are almost supernatural, the soundtrack begins, but you already knew that. Your movement, your scene begins on beat since you were prepared for it. And as the climax of the show ramps up- bang! Your eyes meet the audience. You’ve studied each row, you know exactly where they are, each of them thinks you’re staring directly into their soul, you’ve entrapped them, they’re hypnotised, completely under your spell!” She finished, her steady pacing along her room stopped, and she jumped to me with a smirk and half a ton of fanaticism.

This was the real Emiko, not that nervous wreck that jumped like a puppy afraid of fireworks. No, this here was the real her. A girl completely and utterly infatuated with acting, this is an obsession, not focused purely on the actor, but with all the moving parts of the stage.

“Number 2!” She continued, returning the notebook to the table and picking up the script of the play. “Your script knowledge! And I’m not speaking about basic memorisation, no, every actor worth something does that. I mean understanding not just the lines, but the words within them and the meanings behind those words. Full comprehension of the directors’ and the playwrights’ intention.”

Another pause, equally as dramatic, but she was no CEO now, but instead a grizzly librarian who’s worked one too many years and had gone crazy because of it.

“You’re playing a character, how do you act as them? Oh, you can read the lines, but what does that mean without the meat behind it, think a pork bun. Even if it's great on the surface, it's disappointing to take a bite and just end up with pasty. So, you need your research, why did they say that line, why are they acting like this? If they’re angry, why? If they’re happy, why? If they’re- look, it's a whole lot of whys, you get that. But to answer those questions, you need to speak with the people behind the script, understand their reasons, perhaps if you learn about what makes them tick, you can start to see how they ended up creating your character-” She halted in the middle of her sentence, a small dot of awkwardness on her face, “Before you say it, yes I did help write Us of I, but no, the characters were all the Director. I can only help you understand the meanings that I see in them, but literature is subjective, so even I could be off on things…”

She trailed off before catching herself and jumping right back in, her passion ramping up to 11, “Right, you get the picture. To perfectly embody a character, you have to understand them. Simple, yet it's easily the trickiest thing to pull off.”

How young was she? 16, wasn’t it? A high school girl able to rattle off acting advice as if she were a hardened professional of 20 years. Even if this was her passion, even if she has been acting since she was a child. This wasn’t a feat accomplished without something driving you, how long has she studied to reach this point? How many hours were sunk into movies, into plays, into learning the cogs and gears behind the world of acting?

And what is her end goal?

“Number 3! Our most obvious one of the bunch.” Emiko declared, putting the script down and replacing it with one of the movies on the table. “Acting!” She announced with none of the fanfare I had expected, it was intentional, clearly a little joke about how obvious this one was.

“Acting is more personal, everyone has little quirks and skills that come together and make up their acting abilities as a whole. You can study the olds and greats, the new and bolds, see what tricks they use and attempt to imitate them. Or you could take the route of the tried and tested, delve deep into the different acting methods; improvisation, method acting, Chekhov’s method, and all the rest. And you’re not just refining your acting, but enhancing it! Stir your emotions, relive your old memories, place part of yourself into your character, dammit, if all that fails just become your role!” Her voice continued louder and louder with each word, her voice increasing the tempo as she spoke, and as she finally concluded her long and detailed speech, the sweat on her forehead became striking, and the sound of her rapid breathing cut over the radio as her chest rose and fell.

Amazing, I understood why Director Ttio fully trusted her to teach me. Her knowledge of the stage, understanding every detail down to the exact time, the schedule mapped out totally in her mind. That ability to read the characters, to peer deep into the whys and hows of both the directors’ intention, and the comprehension behind their motivations. And the understanding of the very fine details of acting itself, the baseline dictionarial insight into the different methods one can use, and what can be done to put yourself into your character.

Yet, all of this left me with one colossal question.

If this is the level of knowledge behind Emiko’s acting ability.

Then what summit of erudition does Kaede Esumi stand upon?

And how could I possibly match it?

“So, which one do you want to focus on today?” Emiko asked while throwing herself onto the floor and fanning herself with a heavy breath.

“Today?” I queried with an impassive glance.

She righted her head and turned to me, “Yeah? We have until next Saturday to get you up to speed, so how about coming over after school? Hey, while we’re on the topic, which high school do you attend?”

“I don’t go to school.” I replied, earning a curious look from her, “I work full-time as an actress.”

A half-truth, close enough to be glossed over. The situation I was selling her on is very uncommon, but not impossible. Compulsory education ends after junior high school, meaning that a student could choose to not enter senior high school that starts at ages 15 or 16, and instead begin focusing on a career.

It is an extremely unlikely scenario as roughly 97% of students go on to senior high school, but as the lie Hatsuko has spun is that I am an experienced actress, it makes it a little more believable.

“Woah,” She muttered, then shook her head and bluntly asked, “Then how did you fuck up so badly yesterday? I- sorry, I was supposed to say that a bit more kindly, I was just caught off guard...” She finished with a sideways smile that was begging me not to get mad at that comment.

As if I cared the slightest bit.

“It's the truth, I’m not upset. I’m simply used to… less emotional roles.”

We were getting dangerously close to Emiko unravelling the lie, and if that was revealed, it likely wouldn’t be long before the lie about my age was also laid bare, and Hatsuko became aware of it all and pulled me off the job, or was kicked off it herself.

“Half the roles out there are emotional roles, more than half really. Almost 99% of them, in fact.” She continued, not with disbelief, but more confusion on how I was consistently landing the slim 1% of roles that require no emotions.

“I’m lucky.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“This is my first acting job.”

And there goes the lie.

Maybe it's because it was me speaking, and not Seina. It would have been easy to use her to lie, but, this wasn’t my lie, continuing it felt pointless. I felt pointless, purposeless, empty and vacant.

No, that’s not entirely true. The lie has a purpose, even if I do not; it was the foundation of how Hatsuko got me this job, this role that I still am not certain I can pull off. This role that I am not even sure I want to do.

This could be my ticket out of it. If I let Emiko blow the lid off of this lie, Director Ttio will get mad at Hatsuko, I’ll get fired, and I can simply return back to my life.

Spending the days pretending to be perfect Seina, acting out the dream girl of clients I care nothing about, drifting through life, a cigarette in my hand to poison myself, and a void in my soul.

Is that really what I want?

Do I even want anything?

Can a void, the rotting remains of a person like her, like Seina, want?

No, they cannot. I cannot. I do not deserve to have desire, broken mirror that I am. Impure, worthless, scattered personality that exists only when I reflect what little lingers of Seina within me.

I am not even worth death. Though I beg for it all the same.

Do not forget you’re nothing, little void.

And I do not forget; not even as I am carted away.

But that nagging desire remains all the same.

To become you.