“Ayo-yo-yo! It's one of those alluring Wednesdays, ha, you know what I mean, ya. I’m JiJi, the man of the hour, every hour, and every every hour. Also known as Jiro Sato, and as we are all self-aware today, let’s skip the already-established points and get into the juicy juice of-.”

The voice suddenly cut, and Emiko muttered a curse word to herself before getting back to realigning the radio's antenna, twisting and turning it to find that perfect spot that had so far eluded her.

We were both at Jonpexi in that office-like room on the second floor, unpacking the various items, equipment, and fabrics that Hatsuko and I had dropped off last week.

In truth, the majority of the items were already unpacked during the week. Emiko had padlocked the room and was using it even when I was absent at the Ha:Yami Club, and she hadn’t been idle for that time either.

But there was a limit to what she could do alone. Some of what we bought was fairly heavy or, at the very least, required two hands to set up without hassle. This was the primary reason why Seijun was also here. He had jumped at the chance to come with us, the convenient excuse of a man’s strength being more than enough for him to justify his attendance.

I don’t think he has any ulterior motives. At first, I wondered if he had a crush on Emiko, but that thought was dashed quickly enough, he genuinely seemed to simply enjoy hanging out with her, and he was proving himself useful. So I had no complaints to make.

“So-o knowi-ing I’m wise lik-ke no other-” The radio host’s voice spat out as its clarity spiralled up and down with Emiko’s fiddling of the antenna. Her face was one of pure concentration as she drew closer and closer to finding that sweet spot.

I had a goal today, one separate from merely furnishing this room, and that’s to study her; to use this shared language of familial love to decipher the fundamentals of her acting, to search for the crux of her character, and to unravel the quintessence of her emotions.

It’s the necessary arrangement to put Kaede’s advice into practice, to force Emiko to break character and push her into performing a scene that resides within her reality.

To perform as Yuki, she must not perform at all.

“Yes!” Emiko cried as the radio began playing without any stutters or interference. Her tinkering with the antenna finally paid off. “I got it.” She continued to herself, the frustration leaving her in waves as she let herself collapse to the ground in mental exhaustion.

The outside day was grey, a bleak dullness that stationed itself above an effervescent Tokyo alight with activity like a trench suddenly the host of a primed grenade thrown over from no man's land; everyone scrambling to be somewhere, all propelled by the enclosing dread of losing more than merely your life, but your livelihood.

There was no rain today, the ground remained dry, and no typhoon lingered on the horizon, watching the city with warming waters and rising airs. That could change with a single scene, but only if Kaede were here; without her, reality remains unchanged, a panorama of consistency left the same until she rewrites the rulebook.

A truant sun was stowed away behind misty clouds, its brightness smothered by the overcast sky. It was the perfect day for industrial creation. The pollution that bellowed out in smokestacks was taken by the hand and mixed in with the fog of a hazy skyline, becoming invisible to the naked eye. This factory was in full swing, the machines running an inch before the breaking point, and yet there wasn't a soul alive who was aware of the end product.

But it continued regardless, and this raised the question: What would be melted down, moulded, and reforged in this factory that we toil inside?

Whatever it was, it would not be an actress, that is for certain.

“Seijun, can you put the TV over there,” She instructed, her hand directing him like a conductor leading an orchestra. “Seina, do you need any help with the curtains?” She asked, her voice coming from on high like a factory floor manager atop the catwalks, the entire production line in view.

I was installing the blackout curtains we had purchased, though installing was a generous word. These curtains weren’t meant to be opened, so that removed the need for a curtain rod, making the whole installation process as trivial as it possibly could be.

My hand drew back, a hammer held in my grasp. No hard hat on my head; nevertheless, I laboured away inside this factory of three, constructing the boundary that would hold this workshop of creation. The hammer came down, knocking the nail into the wall and pinning the blackout curtain to its position where it would persist until the play reached its finish, and this room lost the meaning of curtains drawn.

“No, I’ll be fine.” I replied to Emiko, two-thirds of the curtains already set into their positions, and the rest coming along with the steady progress of a conveyor belt.

She gave a nod and got to work on another segment of this integrated site. Emiko pulled open the lid of a disorderly box of hanging lights that were packaged together in the same manner that one might haphazardly throw iron ore into a train, and then just as the iron is tossed into a blast furnace, she started tossing the lights above the curtains, wrapping them around the nails so that when fed electricity, they’d paint the room in an assortment of colours no different from the furnace as its flame fills the steel mill.

The time passed slowly. Each of us three focused on the tasks assigned, our shifts of construction rarely pairing us together; and as my last curtain was nailed to the wall and the final traces of the outside world were blocked off, Emiko hit the switch, and a new kind of light emerged.

Red, orange, and yellow, the ensemble of harmonising colours merged and rippled out across the room, tainting it as the blaze in the fireplace does in the living room. All covered over in that same shade of dye like a layer of soot across a manufactory’s floor. This workshop of creation kept its core intact, a continuous reminder that Jonpexi is a factory and will always remain one; It is only the product that has changed, from microchips to actors.

But the yield won’t be actors today, though tomorrow is a little less certain.

The lights flipped. Emiko’s hand toyed with the switch, and the colour changed to a mellow yellow, gentle on the eyes and reminiscing in its familiarity. That same tint that hovers over the side entrance of the Ha:Yami, this time that I still live within, even if I’m drifting away further and further with each sunrise.

“Hey, Seijun, how are you doing?” She asked, her stare twisting around towards him as he was in the middle of finishing his task of setting up the TV.

“Working like a dog, boss.” He replied, an obvious joking tone to his words as if he’d accepted his role as a worker beneath an overbearing manager.

“You’re not getting that raise, by the way.” She teased back, playing into the bit.

“Oh no, how will I support my poor family.” He continued with an over-exaggerated swoon from his made-up tragedy. Then, as the TV suddenly clicked on, he turned to Emiko with a thumbs up, “TVs done, boss.”

“Ok, good. Come and help me with this table please.” She asked, awkwardly attempting to shift a table closer to him so they could place the TV on top of it, “Oh, and Seina, could you please move the rug there,” She pointed as Seijun came over to her, “And put the bean bags on top of them, thank you.”

I nodded before following her instructions, laying the fluffy rug out on the floor, and piling the four bean bag chairs atop them in a row. It didn’t take long, and soon enough, the whole room was drawing closer to coming together as originally envisioned.

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It took another forty-minutes before we could close the book on this project. A success without doubt, the room blacked out, painted in light, and decorated to the tipping point of transforming from a factory to a house.

Posters lined the empty walls, fairy lights ran across the roof, and the leftover desks and cabinets were filled with books, movies, papers, and whatever else Emiko could justify storing here. The centre of the room was left wide open, just a single mat to identify it as the makeshift stage that it had been deemed as- the ideal place to showcase acting and script reading while others watched and took notes.

Everything else was pushed against the walls. One side held the TV and the four bean bag chairs, and another had a mini-fridge, microwave, and charging station. The last two walls were where all the leftover items were, easily usable for anything someone could think of at the moment, whether it be reading, writing, chatting, eating, or even sleeping- if they were that desperate.

“I’m so glad we got a fridge,” Emiko sighed in relief, her hand digging through the beverages until she found her stock of canned green tea, “Do you guys want something?”

“I’ll take a soda, any flavour if it's sweet.” Seijun called out as he lay back on one of the bean bag chairs next to me.

I had no preference for drinks, so I declined the offer and watched as Emiko shrugged and retook her seat between us.

Seijun popped up the lid of his drink and took a sip, “Hey, this is pretty nice. Who chose this?”

Emiko raised her hand to his question, and the two quickly fell into casual chatting that mainly consisted of them discussing the script and Emiko filling in any of the gaps in Seijun’s comprehension.

I stopped listening to their words after the first few sentences. My focus instead became totally zeroed in on Emiko, studying how she moved, spoke, reacted, and displayed her feelings.

This precious sister of mine, and also the woman I must keep at my pace.

However, what can I do to keep her at my pace? Kaede had given me her advice, organised and insightful as she is, and I know she is correct. But the difficulty of the mountain route didn’t disappear just because I have a map, I still have to put thought into it. And though this may have once been a factory, there is no blast furnace to reforge her from iron to steel, from Yuki to Emiko.

To prevent her stumble, and encourage her to abandon the fictitious performance of Yuki, what can be said to break her out of character?

There is an effective saying that might work well. It's a simple one, or at least it is to whisper it, even if I don’t quite understand its meaning. It’s the first option I have, the chance it will work is small, but it is still worth debating, after all, everyone knows the power of saying…

I love you.

Potent that can’t be denied, and perhaps its result would be amplified if it came from her sister. It would certainly be a blow against the quintessence of her emotions, yet I can’t see it measuring up to Kaede’s example; maybe if Emiko was a boy, but that’s just fantasy.

Then what if I stick to Kaede’s example wholly? The second option; mutter her name and pull her from Yuki into herself with the disillusion of the scene, attack the crux of her character directly. The chance of success does exist; however, what if it confuses her more than anything? Kaede was confident Emiko will remember her lines, so it won’t be a total waste. The choice might be underdeveloped, but it's not worthless, similar to slag left over from the smelting of steel; it seems useless, but it still holds purpose in the making of cement and laying of roads. So it remains an option.

Nevertheless, with those being stated, I can only think of one more idea.

The fundamentals of her acting, the third and final option. The reason why she acts in the first place; To blur the lines between the spectators in the audience, and the world on the stage. To have a hand in that creation, and to visualise entire worlds taken from words to reality.

A reminder of her motivation, of why her performance must be kept at my pace lest she slip and fall further away from her dream.

It's the best option, the easiest way to rip her from her character and reshuffle her own emotions into appearing like Yuki’s. It would be tough love, the dislodging of her mindset, but it would work. Her performance would be elevated to a new level, fueled by the genuineness of her emotions; this underlining fact that her dream will die if she can’t act; her belief in this divine power that humanity possesses called creation, yet it will stay a belief if she cannot take hold of it and live it.

So, if I want to break her character, then there is only one phrase I need to say…

I want you to succeed. If you're an actress, please prove it. Don’t forget about your dream, Emiko.

If you are to pursue this goal, Emiko, there can be no half-measures.

However, there is one issue. It has to be tested first, and if I said the entire phrase in the test, she would build up an immunity to it for the opening night. So it is fortunate that the run-through is planned for this weekend, the perfect experiment to see whether I can raise Emiko’s acting skills a level above and keep her at my pace.

All I have to do is encourage her memory, and everything will occur as Kaede said it would; Don’t forget about your dream, Emiko.

And she won’t forget, not even as the acting of Yuki fades away and is replaced by her own emotions- emotions that will fuel her performance like the spark in an engine.

“Seina- Hello, did you hear what I asked?” A voice implied, knocking me from my thoughts.

“Hmm? Sorry, I was distracted.” I replied wide-eyed and a little bit flustered at being caught off guard by the sudden question.

“Don’t be too hard on her, Seijun. She does this a lot.” Emiko spoke up in my defence, though Seijun seemed betrayed by this.

“I wasn’t being hard on her. I was asking a question.” He fired back, but it was said too late for him to realise that Emiko was messing with him and never meant it in the first place.

“Ask your question then.” She chirped back, fully aware that she’d won this contest of verbal literature.

“Seina,” He began, shaking his agitated emotions aside, “She said you paid for most of this stuff, what type of part-time job do you have to afford this?”

A terrible question, one that had to be redirected immediately before the lie was uncovered.

“It’s a good one, but uninteresting.” I spoke with a rare haste. The words were said so quickly one couldn’t help but gloss over them and be left unable to read into their meaning before the next topic was reached, “What about you, Seijun? There must be something exciting you do. You’re eighteen, aren’t you? Have you decided what career path you’ll take?”

He seemed taken aback by my question as if he expected to be the only one asking things, and the spotlight now being shifted to shine on him and his future caused an awkward fidget to settle in, and his answer gradually turned into rambling and excuses that I swiftly tuned out.

After he recovered himself, the two of them slipped back into more conversation. Emiko prompted me here and there while Seijun wisely avoided asking me any more questions, and the realisation that his lack of planning for the future was a sore spot for him became plainly apparent.

It didn’t take long before a message on his phone whisked him away from Jonpexi, and Emiko and I were left alone, debating whether it was time to call it a day. However, she soon showed she had other plans before that moment came.

“Seina, one more thing before you go.” Emiko opened her words with a nervous glance, it wasn’t too extreme, but it was present, “I quit being managed by Hatsuko.”

I already knew this, Hatsuko had told me last week. I was curious why Emiko took so long to say anything about it, but it's a minor matter, and judging from her posture, she does seem regretful about not telling me earlier.

“Oh, when was this?” I asked, my voice played up and acted, the question spoken as if I didn’t already know the answer.

“Last week.” She stated, a pause in her sentence before she continued on again, “You know I can’t work with someone like her. She disgraces the craft of acting, and I don’t want to be anywhere near when it catches up with her.”

She took a breath, her voice sharpened with a harsh edge at being reminded of Hatsuko’s existence. The very fact that she counters Emiko’s naive viewpoint of the world of acting being fair must still chip at her.

“If you’re worried I’ll say something about the lie Hatsuko told about you, please don’t be. I promise I’ll keep it a secret. It wasn’t like you asked her to do it.” She added on, misjudging my quiet reflection as anxiety.

But the truth is, my reflection was never centred on this faraway lie.

“I wasn’t worried, Emiko. I trust you, remember?” I replied, a warm smile on my lips, the same one a sister would have, no doubt about that.

My every action was made to push her across that finish line. The quiet of my reflection was spent not on anxiety but on helping her achieve her goals, the sister I perceive her to be.

The third option has been chosen, all to break her out of character and remind her the focus is on her dreams.

To prove that plays can surpass movies, she must be more than an actress.

She must be herself.