Second Serenade: Chapter 33

Previous TOC Next

At first, Director Yamaoka had rubbed him the wrong way—but as Kakegawa got to know him, he realized the man was surprisingly interesting. The type he’d never encountered before—what you might call a full-blown force of nature. The man had no sense of propriety, no concept of money, no manners, and terrible taste. But when someone was that far gone, you couldn’t even be annoyed anymore. It was almost admirable.

In the early days of shooting, the crew’s attitude toward the amateur actor was noticeably chilly. Only a few younger staff members made the effort to speak with Kakegawa. He could feel the awkwardness in the air, so he made a point not to push himself forward. Most of the time, he simply sat quietly off to the side, watching the shoot until his turn came.

That day was no different—Kakegawa sat alone on an upside-down beer crate in a corner of the studio, observing the scene. The shot before his own featured an actress and a child actor, and they just weren’t syncing up. They’d already run over schedule by more than an hour.

Kakegawa checked his watch: 6 p.m. At this rate, even if his own scene went smoothly without any retakes, he probably wouldn’t make it back to his apartment until after eight. He sighed in frustration, half fed up—when one of the mid-level staffers casually spoke to him from behind.

"Don't you think Director Yamaoka is the kind of man who was born to be a director?"

The man speaking—Murashita—was in his mid-thirties, tall and soft-spoken. He mainly handled props and their placement, and among the senior and mid-level crew members who tended to be cold toward Kakegawa, he was the only one who ever spoke to him.

"Well, I guess so..."

From the opposite side of the studio, Yamaoka's shrill shouting echoed loud and clear. The young actress on set, being forced to redo the same take over and over, looked on the verge of tears, her face twisted with frustration.

"If a guy like that tried to make it in regular society, it’d be a disaster. At best, he’d be a yakuza—or maybe some woman’s leech."

Murashita said it with such a straight face that Kakegawa couldn’t help laughing. Seeing him laugh, Murashita gave a sly, meaningful grin.

"I’ve worked with him a few times now, and even though he’s like that, there’s something about him when he’s shooting a film. It’s strange—you end up thinking, damn, he’s good. Just one word from Yamaoka and the actors suddenly come alive, completely change. I really do think the guy’s got talent. But once he steps down from the director’s chair, he’s just a drunken thug."

"Yeah, you’re right..."

Kakegawa thought back to how the man would find any excuse to drink and wreak havoc. Murashita chuckled faintly, just with the corners of his mouth.

"I think you’ve got talent too. That’s why you should try taking this a little more seriously."

Someone called his name from afar, and Murashita raised his voice in reply: “Be right there!”

“Well then, hang in there,” he said, giving Kakegawa’s shoulder a friendly slap.

Kakegawa kept his head down, unable to raise his face. He was glad Murashita had walked away. His face was burning, and he didn’t want anyone to see it like that.

He made sure no one was around, then got up from the beer crate he’d been sitting on. Darting into the washroom, he splashed his face with water—again and again. His makeup came off, and his carefully styled hair, now wet, clung limply to his forehead. The reflection in the mirror was so pathetic he wanted to punch it.

People who take things seriously... they can tell when someone’s just coasting. Kakegawa had been convincing himself it didn’t matter whether the movie succeeded or failed. Telling himself it was just a one-time thing and had nothing to do with him. He’d been plucking that thought like a string over and over in his mind.

But for the people genuinely pouring their efforts into making this film, that kind of attitude must have been downright offensive. Of course the crew had gotten angry. Of course they’d ignored him.

It was mortifying—realizing he’d pretended not to notice until someone kind had gently pointed it out. And how stupid he was to think he could keep faking it to the very end.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

Filming often dragged on late into the night, and being dragged out for drinks by the director afterward was gradually becoming part of the routine. Alcohol was a strange force—it could soften a person’s demeanor, and at the same time, draw out truths no one expected to hear.

At first, the staff had largely ignored the amateur actor, but as shooting progressed and Kakegawa began to show real dedication to the role, they started to acknowledge him here and there with a word or two.

Still, there remained a certain awkwardness between Kakegawa and the crew—like a lingering trace of discomfort that never quite went away, even when it felt like they were warming up to him. But once the drinking sessions began, the staff—once they had enough liquor in them—started getting unusually chummy with Kakegawa.

That day was no different. When Kakegawa pleaded, “I’ve got a first-period lecture tomorrow, so I’d really like to skip tonight,” the director simply waved him off with, “So what if you repeat a year or two?” and shoved him into their usual hangout, the bar called AO.

Whenever they went there, the director would drink like a man possessed, go on a rampage, and pass out dead drunk. Until he finally collapsed, no one could handle him. Kakegawa, half in disbelief and half impressed, often wondered how a place could keep welcoming such a disastrous customer with open arms—until, sure enough, someone let slip that the bar owner was the director’s cousin.

Once he was pushed all the way inside, Kakegawa had no choice but to surrender. Grasping the glass of beer poured for him, he focused all his energy on figuring out how to make a single drink last the entire night without affecting tomorrow’s class.

“Memorizing your lines is the most basic thing for an actor, you know,” said Taneyama—a longtime staff member who’d worked with the director since his very first film. Before Kakegawa realized it, the man had plopped down beside him and was holding out a beer bottle with a casual, “Here.”

He couldn’t exactly refuse—he wasn’t incapable of drinking. So he emptied what was left in his glass in one go and held it out toward Taneyama.

“Now that’s how you drink,” Taneyama said, narrowing his eyes in satisfaction. This was the same man who hadn’t even returned Kakegawa’s greetings in the beginning.

“When the director first brought you in, I thought you were some stuck-up punk and didn’t like you at all. But after getting to know you, you’re actually a decent guy. No matter how long filming drags on or how many times you have to redo a scene, you don’t complain or whine. A real man should be like that. You’ve got character, even though you’re young.”

He swayed the still-heavy bottle in his hand, clearly hinting that Kakegawa should hurry up and empty his glass again. Their faces nearly touching over the brim of the cup, Kakegawa smiled wryly to himself, keeping it strictly internal.

“Taneyama-san, I’d like to talk to Kakegawa-san too, so don’t hog him all to yourself,” said a younger staff member around Kakegawa’s age, cutting in.

Taneyama responded by kicking the younger guy in the back with his heel.

“The hell did you just say, you little punk? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a conversation here? And what’s this ‘I want to talk’ crap? What are you, gay?”

Cup after cup, they kept pouring drinks until Taneyama finally drank himself under the table. Watching him go down in drunken defeat, Kakegawa let out a quiet sigh. He reeked of booze—he could tell even without anyone saying so.

Lying flat on his back, Taneyama snored away loudly. The younger staff member leaned over and stuck his tongue out dramatically at the drunk’s face before sliding into the now-vacant seat beside Kakegawa. He was clearly more than halfway gone himself, and the way he looked at Kakegawa had a strange glimmer—his eyes unusually moist.

“We see each other all the time on set, so this might sound weird, but… I dunno, Kakegawa-san, you’re kind of hard to approach. You’ve got this… presence, I guess? But I think I get why the director dropped the last actor just to bring you in. It’s like—you can’t take your eyes off you. You want to keep watching. The old-timers might not get it, but…”

He gave a warm, boyish grin.

“Whatever you wear, whatever you hold—it just works on you. You look the part. Honestly, even as a guy, I find myself kind of dazzled. I bet the girls don’t stand a chance.”

His gaze was unfocused, almost as if he weren’t looking at Kakegawa at all, but past him—at something only he could see.

“Do you like me?”

“Well, yeah, of course…”

The young staffer’s mouth curled into a sheepish grin.

“What would you do if I tried to hit on you right now?”

“Huh? Me? Hit on me…? I, uh… huh?”

The staffer stammered like he had the hiccups, his pink cheeks turning beet red. Kakegawa laughed, amused by his reaction. Once the staffer realized he was being teased, he scratched his head with a face that was still bright red.

“Come on, that’s not funny. You’re mean, Kakegawa-san.”

“Oi, Kakegawa!”

The young staffer was yanked back by the scruff of the neck and dragged away. Taking the now-empty seat beside Kakegawa was the last person he wanted to see right now. The director’s outfit today—a black glittery shirt and white slacks—gave him the look of a wannabe gangster.

Director Yamaoka leaned in and grinned at Kakegawa. Click—too late. He’d been caught. Yamaoka had one nasty habit: if he got drunk while in a bad mood, he’d start rampaging. But if he was in a good mood when drunk, he’d launch into endless stories from his past. Tonight, it seemed to be the latter.

There was one time Kakegawa had to listen to the entire History of Director Yamaoka whispered in his ear until morning. He’d once heard someone say, “I could write the guy’s autobiography,” and frankly, it wasn’t far from the truth—Kakegawa knew firsthand.

If he started nodding off in the middle of the story, the director would shake him awake to continue. If he tried to slip away under the excuse of needing the bathroom, the director would follow him. He couldn’t escape until the guy finally passed out.

“I was anxious back in college too, y’know. There’s no guarantee you can make a living off movies…”

I’ve heard this one before, Kakegawa thought, but he nodded along anyway. As long as you kept your eyes open and stayed nearby, the director was satisfied. So Kakegawa let the words wash from one ear out the other, and started mentally reviewing tomorrow’s dialogue.

“After college, it was hell trying to get people to come to amateur film screenings. Just selling the tickets was brutal. I dug out my high school alumni list and went door-to-door selling to anyone who still lived nearby. I knew it was a nuisance, but I was desperate.”

Director Yamaoka sniffled mid-story—he had a surprisingly weepy streak.

“Some folks bought tickets and said good luck, which was nice. But others were just plain nasty. One of them was this guy—he was a year below me in high school and college, I think… Hashi… Hashimoto, that’s it…”

The name snagged on Kakegawa’s eardrum.

“He was technically my junior, but I repeated so many years we ended up graduating together. I went to his place to sell a ticket, and at first, he seemed polite and soft-spoken. Lived in a fancy apartment. I thought it’d go well. But then, right there at the door, he starts lecturing me.”

The director sighed, as if reliving the moment.

“Handsome guy, I’ll give him that, but he had this snooty, snide way of talking. Said, ‘I’ll buy your ticket this once, but don’t come back. It’s a bother.’ Then he dropped the money on the floor, like he was tossing me a bone. And get this—he tore the ticket in half right in front of me. I seriously thought about punching him out. After that he went on and on—‘stop messing around,’ ‘face reality,’ blah blah blah. I swear, I went home and cried. Just couldn’t take it. He didn’t know anything about me. It pissed me off so much. That’s when I decided—I’m going pro. I’m gonna show that bastard someday.”

It had to be that Hashimoto. Kakegawa could practically see the guy in his mind—how he must have spoken, how he must have looked.

“I know Hashimoto-san.”

“Huh? Wait, don’t tell me you two are related!”

The director turned around, eyes still red, panic on his face.

“I’ve heard that story from Hashimoto-san too. Said some guy came trying to sell tickets, so he gave him a scolding. That was you, huh?”

“That bastard… I oughta go burn his house down.”

Yamaoka clenched his fist, grinding his molars.

“Hashimoto-san really is a jerk.”

“Right? I knew it! I knew I wasn’t the only one who thought so! He is a jerk!”

The director shook Kakegawa’s hands vigorously, as if he’d found a powerful comrade-in-arms. It was a small, petty victory, and Kakegawa gave a faint, bitter smile.

He closed his eyes. He wondered, just for a moment, how much longer Hashimoto’s face would keep appearing so clearly in his mind.

Previous TOC Next