Omi and the rest of Autumn Troupe are sitting in their living room. He stands up, it's his time to deliver his [Portrait]. These are their regrets and if they ever want to understand each other, they need to talk. These are things they need to know about each other.
But nobody else, not even the rest of the company, needs to know them as well as they need to know each other.
"I’ve been living for him ever since that one day.
The two of us used to be part of a biker gang, back in the day.
He and I ran the Wolves, the toughest gang in West Tokyo. I was Omi the Crazy Wolf, and he was Nachi the Crazy Fox.
It was a jungle out there. You couldn’t tell friend from foe. Nachi was the only guy I could trust to watch my back.
He was my best bud and my most trusted partner.
One day, Nachi was unusually sheepish about something. Said it was a dream he’d had since he was a kid."
Omi's voice shifts, rougher, more akin the vocal pattern he was using last week, "I know it ain’t a dream a guy like me deserves to have, but I ain’t given’ up on it."
Back as himself, now. "I asked him what it was, but he kept dodging the question. I figured I’d get him to spill one of these days, but then it happened.
We came under attack by a rival gang when we were out on a joyride.
Our bikes spilled hard. My landing was so rough, I was laid up for a month. The damage to my jaw left a lasting scar.
Nachi had it even worse. He landed so bad, he died of blood loss right after he got taken to the hospital.
As soon as I could move again, I set out alone to avenge Nachi.
I destroyed the team that attacked us, and then I left the Wolves. That was the last time I had anything to do with biker gangs.
No more bikes and fights for me. I led a normal school life. But nothing I did could light a fire in me anymore.
I started to feel guilty any time I felt happy about anything.
I visited Nachi’s grave on the anniversary of his death every year since then. This year, I happened to run into his parents there.
Hadn’t seen them since Nachi’s funeral. I wasn’t sure how to express how sorry I was. But you know what they did? They reminisced with me." There's a gentle, confused chuckle. Like he can't even believe that happened. Shouldn't they have hated him?
His voice goes gentle for these parents, "If only Nachi had turned over a new leaf like you did, Fushimi, he might be on stage right now."
"I’m sorry, what?"
"Oh, didn’t he tell you? He always dreamed of being an actor one day. He fell in with the wrong crowd, but he never stopped loving plays," that same gentleness echoes before he goes back to his own voice.
"I could see that sheepish look on Nachi’s face all over again.
Here I was, a guy with no ambition just wasting my life away, while Nachi had hopes and dreams.
Yet I survived and he didn’t.
I was crushed by the unfairness of it all.
That was when I decided to become an actor. For him. Maybe it would help him rest in peace."
--
Oh. This was why they didn't want to be perceived.]
Edited (i forgot a sentence) 2021-02-23 04:20 (UTC)
[Douman turns to stare at Omi for a moment. So deep down, there really was darkness. They weren't mistaken. A man, carrying sins and regrets like an albatross across one's back.]
[What Omi told him before, wasn't a lie. But it was missing some very key details that this monologue outlines.
He's simply a man who is trying, desperately, to help his partner rest in peace. Between the motorcycle accident and finally realizing that his friend had an unfulfilled dream- it's the reason he's an actor.
It's somehow uncomfortable to be looked at like this, but he doesn't back away.]
[A mask, indeed...but then it's Douman's turn, and the scene warps-]
[There is a man kneeling in the middle of a room in the night. The man is Ashiya Douman. They stare at the wall across from them, with wide, weary eyes, their body tensed, like expecting a threat.]
[A person steps out of the shadows, bending down to embrace them, clawed fingernails digging deep into their shoulder.]
[The person in question is Ashiya Douman.]
[And Douman bends in to whisper something into the first Douman's ear. A single hissed sentence, a simple statement, said as fact.]
["If things remain as they are, you'll never once surpass Seimei."]
[And instantly, the rush of emotions comes. Sorrow. Terror. Fear. Anger. Hatred. Jealousy. Unbelievable despair. It comes like a roaring tide, and the first Douman starts to weep, and weep and weep, and howl like the world itself is ending, and things start to crash together in static, and it is impossible to tell where one Ashiya Douman begins and the other ends and-]
[And suddenly, where there were two, there is just one. Ashiya Douman, kneeling quietly in the middle of a moonlit room.]
[Just smiling to themselves. Their eyes open, dark.]
[Comfortable.]
[The Douman of real life draws back, scowling and looking away.]
[Omi does very little on his own. It's that feeling of "I need to step up" or "I can't just ignore this" that tends to move him. This last play Autumn performed, that was the first time he volunteered himself for the leading position.
He does not understand this memory. Why are there two of them- where did the first one go? Was it because what the shadow version said was true? Did they accept what they were told after the rush of emotions.
[Douman seems to freeze in place, stiffening at the embrace. Why is this happening? What did they do, to warrant this? Omi is someone to toy with, to play with, have sex with, so why...why...]
[Isn't this nice? To let people believe in a lie? To let them share emotions, to entrap them within them? Why doesn't it feel nice? What is this uncomfortable sensation, this stifling, constrictive feeling?]
[Douman doesn't understand. They can't understand. There is no capability to understand...is there?]
You... [A gritting of the teeth - Douman lets out a choked noise.] Omi...
[They pull back...only to crash lips against lips.]
[Its meant to distract them from the weight of strange feelings in their chest. But it doesn't seem to be doing much at all.]
[It feels like it should help. Physical pleasures are always worthwhile, for a hedonistic soul like theirs.]
[And yet the irritation grows when nothing feels resolved. Douman breaks it finally, resting their head on Omi's shoulder, expression hidden as they murmur.]
...Let's go back to our room. [Their arms move around the other's waist, grip tightening.] Please.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
W2 MEMSHARE
[Its a clown who, upon entering the kitchen and seeing Omi, just stops and freezes, like a deer in headlights.]
Omi... [A pause.] No, I need to be somewhere else...
[They make to turn around and leave.]
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Omi is going to go after them.]
What's wrong?
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[Says Douman, hurriedly, though they don't even seem to know where they're going. Just Away.]
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--
Omi and the rest of Autumn Troupe are sitting in their living room. He stands up, it's his time to deliver his [Portrait]. These are their regrets and if they ever want to understand each other, they need to talk. These are things they need to know about each other.
But nobody else, not even the rest of the company, needs to know them as well as they need to know each other.
"I’ve been living for him ever since that one day.
The two of us used to be part of a biker gang, back in the day.
He and I ran the Wolves, the toughest gang in West Tokyo. I was Omi the Crazy Wolf, and he was Nachi the Crazy Fox.
It was a jungle out there. You couldn’t tell friend from foe. Nachi was the only guy I could trust to watch my back.
He was my best bud and my most trusted partner.
One day, Nachi was unusually sheepish about something. Said it was a dream he’d had since he was a kid."
Omi's voice shifts, rougher, more akin the vocal pattern he was using last week, "I know it ain’t a dream a guy like me deserves to have, but I ain’t given’ up on it."
Back as himself, now. "I asked him what it was, but he kept dodging the question. I figured I’d get him to spill one of these days, but then it happened.
We came under attack by a rival gang when we were out on a joyride.
Our bikes spilled hard. My landing was so rough, I was laid up for a month. The damage to my jaw left a lasting scar.
Nachi had it even worse. He landed so bad, he died of blood loss right after he got taken to the hospital.
As soon as I could move again, I set out alone to avenge Nachi.
I destroyed the team that attacked us, and then I left the Wolves. That was the last time I had anything to do with biker gangs.
No more bikes and fights for me. I led a normal school life. But nothing I did could light a fire in me anymore.
I started to feel guilty any time I felt happy about anything.
I visited Nachi’s grave on the anniversary of his death every year since then. This year, I happened to run into his parents there.
Hadn’t seen them since Nachi’s funeral. I wasn’t sure how to express how sorry I was. But you know what they did? They reminisced with me." There's a gentle, confused chuckle. Like he can't even believe that happened. Shouldn't they have hated him?
His voice goes gentle for these parents, "If only Nachi had turned over a new leaf like you did, Fushimi, he might be on stage right now."
"I’m sorry, what?"
"Oh, didn’t he tell you? He always dreamed of being an actor one day. He fell in with the wrong crowd, but he never stopped loving plays," that same gentleness echoes before he goes back to his own voice.
"I could see that sheepish look on Nachi’s face all over again.
Here I was, a guy with no ambition just wasting my life away, while Nachi had hopes and dreams.
Yet I survived and he didn’t.
I was crushed by the unfairness of it all.
That was when I decided to become an actor. For him. Maybe it would help him rest in peace."
--
Oh. This was why they didn't want to be perceived.]
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[Oh.]
[Now that's the full story, isn't it.]
[Douman turns to stare at Omi for a moment. So deep down, there really was darkness. They weren't mistaken. A man, carrying sins and regrets like an albatross across one's back.]
...Your dream wasn't your own?
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He's simply a man who is trying, desperately, to help his partner rest in peace. Between the motorcycle accident and finally realizing that his friend had an unfulfilled dream- it's the reason he's an actor.
It's somehow uncomfortable to be looked at like this, but he doesn't back away.]
Not at first.
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[How very interesting.]
How does it feel, wearing someone else's mask?
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[He grew to love the stage, and the people he shares it with.
How should he put it...?]
At some point, it became both of ours.
[It's not just Nachi's dream anymore.]
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[A mask, indeed...but then it's Douman's turn, and the scene warps-]
[There is a man kneeling in the middle of a room in the night. The man is Ashiya Douman. They stare at the wall across from them, with wide, weary eyes, their body tensed, like expecting a threat.]
[A person steps out of the shadows, bending down to embrace them, clawed fingernails digging deep into their shoulder.]
[The person in question is Ashiya Douman.]
[And Douman bends in to whisper something into the first Douman's ear. A single hissed sentence, a simple statement, said as fact.]
["If things remain as they are, you'll never once surpass Seimei."]
[And instantly, the rush of emotions comes. Sorrow. Terror. Fear. Anger. Hatred. Jealousy. Unbelievable despair. It comes like a roaring tide, and the first Douman starts to weep, and weep and weep, and howl like the world itself is ending, and things start to crash together in static, and it is impossible to tell where one Ashiya Douman begins and the other ends and-]
[And suddenly, where there were two, there is just one. Ashiya Douman, kneeling quietly in the middle of a moonlit room.]
[Just smiling to themselves. Their eyes open, dark.]
[Comfortable.]
[The Douman of real life draws back, scowling and looking away.]
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He does not understand this memory. Why are there two of them- where did the first one go? Was it because what the shadow version said was true? Did they accept what they were told after the rush of emotions.
Omi has not really let go of Douman's arm yet.]
... Were they both you?
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[Douman's face is...unreadable.]
[After a moment, a smile cracks over their face, but it feels like more of a customary thing, a thing they have to do, at any time, at any day.]
What do you think?
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That other one doesn't really seem like you.
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[Douman pauses...and then laughs - a cold, cold laugh.]
I see, I see! Mmm, how very interesting.
[No confirmation?]
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Still, Omi wants to believe in them. So.
Here he is. He hasn't backed away.]
This sharing memories thing is why you're avoiding me, right?
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[The tone is almost mocking, insulting, but despite that...]
[Douman isn't stepping away, either.]
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He steps closer and pulls them into a hug.]
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[What...?]
[What is this?]
[Douman seems to freeze in place, stiffening at the embrace. Why is this happening? What did they do, to warrant this? Omi is someone to toy with, to play with, have sex with, so why...why...]
[After a moment, Douman says, a little hoarse:]
I...don't understand.
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What do you think?
[He'll echo it back, softer, gentler.]
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[A repeat of the question. Confusion abides. And then a heat, a warmth in the cheeks, but there's a rise of anger, too, as what says next-]
Are you mocking me...?
[Why would it be anything else? Why would anyone do this to them, for any other reason?]
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[Maybe he sees a little bit of himself there, in those memories. In those dark thoughts given form.
Maybe this is something he wished somebody would've done for him back then.]
I care about you.
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[...They should be taking pleasure in this.]
[Isn't this nice? To let people believe in a lie? To let them share emotions, to entrap them within them? Why doesn't it feel nice? What is this uncomfortable sensation, this stifling, constrictive feeling?]
[Douman doesn't understand. They can't understand. There is no capability to understand...is there?]
You... [A gritting of the teeth - Douman lets out a choked noise.] Omi...
[They pull back...only to crash lips against lips.]
[Its meant to distract them from the weight of strange feelings in their chest. But it doesn't seem to be doing much at all.]
[Maybe more is needed.]
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So he lets them. He kisses back. Do they need this? Is it helping?
Is it nothing more than a distraction?
Omi is willing to follow their lead.]
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[And yet the irritation grows when nothing feels resolved. Douman breaks it finally, resting their head on Omi's shoulder, expression hidden as they murmur.]
...Let's go back to our room. [Their arms move around the other's waist, grip tightening.] Please.
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