J!Actress Anon(3): Till the shadows stretch thin before us
Lightly edited but unbeta’d.
Till the shadows stretch thin before us
g. 1675. Ohno Satoshi/Horikita Maki (Arashi).
Prompt: They put up a bread shop together (reference to Horikita Maki's VIP Limousine guesting) Originally here.
Years later, long after he’s retired from singing and dancing and being on TV for more hours than he could ever sleep in a day, and long after he knows Horikita Maki has decided to forgo the full-time acting career, making only the occasional cameo in a high profile movie or drama, he decides to give her a call. It takes some effort, something he’s grown unaccustomed to in his new easy life, but he finally manages to get Jun on the line long enough to wrangle the number out of him. After scribbling it down on the corner of his current canvas, paint still wet across his nose and cheeks, he dials the number without a moment’s hesitation despite the fact that it is nearing midnight.
She picks up in three rings. “Hello?”
“Maki-san?”
“Who-?”
“Do you want to open a bakery with me?”
And just like that the memories of a man, still so much a boy with soft cheeks and a sleepy, winsome smile, and a woman, still a girl playing dress-up, and a sudden declaration in the back of a limousine come flooding back to her.
“Yes,” she says. “I’d like that very much.”
*
Their first decision isn’t to find a location, no, not even the bread they will sell, Ohno is quite firm on the matter. “This,” he says, bringing his thumb to a curled index finger, “is the most important decision.”
They spend three hours looking through various kitchen supply shops, and it is on their fourth store that Ohno finally finds a tong worth testing out. He presses softly first, then with all the strength he can muster, while Maki watches on appreciatively, if wryly.
“This,” he says, holding up the tong toward her. “This is good.”
Instead of spending another four hours deciding on a color, Maki makes the executive decision to buy one of each-blue, red, green, yellow, purple.
“And this one,” he says, holding up a sixth. It is a pearly, shiny white. “This one is just for us.”
*
There aren’t many bakeries by the sea, but maybe that’s exactly why they buy the dilapidated shack on the beach. It takes a month to renovate the outside and what will become the storefront, and a good amount of money, but the stove, though old, is made of cast iron. “Perfect,” Ohno says, so they put down their money and wait.
They have money to spare and nowhere else to be.
*
Maki watches with her chin in her hands as Ohno kneads dough, outside in, outside in, sprinkle some flour, flatten and repeat again. By the end of the first batch, there is a thin layer of flour everywhere-his hair, across his nose and cheeks, all over the front of his shirt and even, he notices, the tiniest bit atop her eyelashes. He tells her to close her eyes so she does, and he blows carefully across them.
He knows to adjust the ingredients and heat of the stove for humidity, and he does everything by sense, by feel, as if years on the sea have made him one with all the water in on Earth.
“Is there anything you can’t do, Ohno-san?” Maki asks curiously, seriously, as he adjusts the amount of liquid to add to her own mound of dough.
“Decorate,” he replies just as seriously, before splitting his dough into two carefully molded shapes.
Her skepticism remains until the smell of freshly baking bread fills the tiny kitchen. She drinks it in eagerly, hungrily, but he warns her not to open the oven door. It will let in more humid air. So she sighs and breathes and feels faint with happiness, busies herself with wiping down the countertop and sweeping the flour off of his hair and cheeks and nose.
Ten minutes later, Maki finally understands what Ohno means. The first pizza bread is layered with uneven explosions of ketchup and mayo. Ohno, whose hands are normally so dexterous, so artistic, seem clumsy and far too large with the condiment bottles in hand.
“I don’t understand,” Maki says in a voice that wavers between incredulity and amusement.
“They’re not paintbrushes,” Ohno says petulantly, watching as Maki swiftly criss-crosses fine lines of ketchup and mayo with ease. Maki is hovering above the last piece of bread with ketchup bottle in hand when she turns to him thoughtfully.
“Why can’t they be?”
*
Their grand opening is not so grand and the smell of bread gets lost in the salty ocean spray, but somehow it’s satisfying enough when a little girl looks up at them with a mouthful of Ohno’s painted pizza bread, crumbs dotting her smile, and says, “Yum!”
“Say thank you,” her mother chides gently, and she does, although it sounds more like “Fyankoo.”
Nino drops in just as they are about to close and demands all the leftover bread for free. They sit with him as he devours every piece-the grilled vegetable croissant, the honey and brown sugar toast, the tomato and mozzarella bread. He tells them all the news they haven’t much missed and they, in turn, tell him about the sunrise over the sea and the wide smile of their first customer.
Nino’s eyes flicker between their faces and all around the room as they speak, never being one to sit still, and he interrupts them casually, never one to remain polite in front of friends. “That painting-it’s the first one you won an award for, right?”
Ohno follows Nino’s eyes, but truth be told, he’s lost count of how many of his pictures and paintings have won awards. Instead, he points to the other side of the room where all of Maki’s developed photographs hang along the wall.
“Maki took that one yesterday.”
It is a photo of two shadows on the sand just in front of the bakery steps.
“It’s nice.” He swallows the last of his free bread and walks up to the photograph, scrutinizing it from every angle. “I’m taking this,” he says, unhooking the frame from the screw and leaving with a casual wave over the shoulder and a 10,000 yen note on the table.
They don’t need the money, but it’s a sweet sentiment.
“I can print another photograph,” Maki suggests long after Nino leaves.
Ohno turns from where he’s been staring at the empty hook at the wall and shakes his head with a smile. “It won’t mean as much, then.”
*
Jun stops by when he has the time, which he usually doesn’t. Still, they always welcome him with open arms and freshly baked yakisoba bread. He comes in with Mirei one day and, as Maki and Mirei catch up by themselves, Jun licks sauce off his lips and asks, “What’s the point of the tongs in the front when you specially serve each customer exactly what they’re looking for?”
“They’re the most important part of this bakery,” Ohno replies, stealing the last bite of the pastry. The five tongs sit gleaming, still brand new-blue, red, green, yellow, purple.
Jun smiles. “The last bite is my favorite part of the bread.”
“I know.”
*
Aiba stops by the most frequently, and always brings his daughter. It’s the only way they will be guaranteed free bread.
Aiba munches away blissfully as Ohno and Sarah color on the floor. “If you don’t hurry, I’m going to eat your piece, too,” Aiba warns as Maki refills his tea with a smile. Everyone but Sarah knows it’s an empty threat.
“Daddy!” Sarah whines. “Ohno jii-chan, make daddy stop.”
Ohno half-heartedly tells Aiba to stop teasing his daughter, but mostly he concentrates on getting Sarah’s eyes right.
Her eyes are like sunflowers, wide, blooming, and full of life. Just like her mother.
Later, they watch Aiba and Sarah leave the bakery, hand-in-hand and making two sets of uneven footprints across the sand, the shadows stretching out in front of them.
“Why did you never get married, Ohno-san?”
He smiles a sad, lopsided smile. “No one ever wanted to open a bakery with me.”
*
They don’t get married, but they do move in together. They spend almost every waking hour together so it just makes sense. They get up before the sun to bake and decorate and fill the storefront and all day is spent together with many cups of tea and far more time alone together than tending to customers. Some nights Ohno sets out on his boat under the pretense of fishing. There are no fish in this sea, and anything he catches he will have to set free anyway. He likes instead to lie back on the boat and be rocked back and forth by the waves. Sometimes Maki will join him, watch as he sketches by lamplight or lie back with him and point out constellations in the wide expanse of stars above. Other nights Maki will stay behind on the beach, taking photographs of the tiny glow of his lamp on his faraway boat.
Most nights they stroll along the beach making uneven footprints in the sand until their shadows stretch out long and thin in front of them. Maki always laughs and wishes for the days they could eat as much bread as they liked yet still remain so skinny. Ohno pinches the skin on her waist and declares he likes her better this way.
*
Sho is the last to ever visit. Ohno doesn’t begrudge him for it, understands his intent without question. Still, Sho’s presence is like the welcome, warm embrace of the wind.
“You’re darker than ever,” Sho mutters into Ohno’s shoulder. Ohno smiles and Maki laughs and goes to get some tea.
Sho points to the Maki’s side of the wall, where there is still an empty hook in the middle of it. “What’s missing?” he asks.
“Nothing.” Ohno smiles.
Sho settles into a table just as Maki brings out the tea, the same table Nino, Jun, and Aiba have sat in before him.
It’s a table for six.
Till the shadows stretch thin before us
g. 1675. Ohno Satoshi/Horikita Maki (Arashi).
Prompt: They put up a bread shop together (reference to Horikita Maki's VIP Limousine guesting) Originally here.
Years later, long after he’s retired from singing and dancing and being on TV for more hours than he could ever sleep in a day, and long after he knows Horikita Maki has decided to forgo the full-time acting career, making only the occasional cameo in a high profile movie or drama, he decides to give her a call. It takes some effort, something he’s grown unaccustomed to in his new easy life, but he finally manages to get Jun on the line long enough to wrangle the number out of him. After scribbling it down on the corner of his current canvas, paint still wet across his nose and cheeks, he dials the number without a moment’s hesitation despite the fact that it is nearing midnight.
She picks up in three rings. “Hello?”
“Maki-san?”
“Who-?”
“Do you want to open a bakery with me?”
And just like that the memories of a man, still so much a boy with soft cheeks and a sleepy, winsome smile, and a woman, still a girl playing dress-up, and a sudden declaration in the back of a limousine come flooding back to her.
“Yes,” she says. “I’d like that very much.”
*
Their first decision isn’t to find a location, no, not even the bread they will sell, Ohno is quite firm on the matter. “This,” he says, bringing his thumb to a curled index finger, “is the most important decision.”
They spend three hours looking through various kitchen supply shops, and it is on their fourth store that Ohno finally finds a tong worth testing out. He presses softly first, then with all the strength he can muster, while Maki watches on appreciatively, if wryly.
“This,” he says, holding up the tong toward her. “This is good.”
Instead of spending another four hours deciding on a color, Maki makes the executive decision to buy one of each-blue, red, green, yellow, purple.
“And this one,” he says, holding up a sixth. It is a pearly, shiny white. “This one is just for us.”
*
There aren’t many bakeries by the sea, but maybe that’s exactly why they buy the dilapidated shack on the beach. It takes a month to renovate the outside and what will become the storefront, and a good amount of money, but the stove, though old, is made of cast iron. “Perfect,” Ohno says, so they put down their money and wait.
They have money to spare and nowhere else to be.
*
Maki watches with her chin in her hands as Ohno kneads dough, outside in, outside in, sprinkle some flour, flatten and repeat again. By the end of the first batch, there is a thin layer of flour everywhere-his hair, across his nose and cheeks, all over the front of his shirt and even, he notices, the tiniest bit atop her eyelashes. He tells her to close her eyes so she does, and he blows carefully across them.
He knows to adjust the ingredients and heat of the stove for humidity, and he does everything by sense, by feel, as if years on the sea have made him one with all the water in on Earth.
“Is there anything you can’t do, Ohno-san?” Maki asks curiously, seriously, as he adjusts the amount of liquid to add to her own mound of dough.
“Decorate,” he replies just as seriously, before splitting his dough into two carefully molded shapes.
Her skepticism remains until the smell of freshly baking bread fills the tiny kitchen. She drinks it in eagerly, hungrily, but he warns her not to open the oven door. It will let in more humid air. So she sighs and breathes and feels faint with happiness, busies herself with wiping down the countertop and sweeping the flour off of his hair and cheeks and nose.
Ten minutes later, Maki finally understands what Ohno means. The first pizza bread is layered with uneven explosions of ketchup and mayo. Ohno, whose hands are normally so dexterous, so artistic, seem clumsy and far too large with the condiment bottles in hand.
“I don’t understand,” Maki says in a voice that wavers between incredulity and amusement.
“They’re not paintbrushes,” Ohno says petulantly, watching as Maki swiftly criss-crosses fine lines of ketchup and mayo with ease. Maki is hovering above the last piece of bread with ketchup bottle in hand when she turns to him thoughtfully.
“Why can’t they be?”
*
Their grand opening is not so grand and the smell of bread gets lost in the salty ocean spray, but somehow it’s satisfying enough when a little girl looks up at them with a mouthful of Ohno’s painted pizza bread, crumbs dotting her smile, and says, “Yum!”
“Say thank you,” her mother chides gently, and she does, although it sounds more like “Fyankoo.”
Nino drops in just as they are about to close and demands all the leftover bread for free. They sit with him as he devours every piece-the grilled vegetable croissant, the honey and brown sugar toast, the tomato and mozzarella bread. He tells them all the news they haven’t much missed and they, in turn, tell him about the sunrise over the sea and the wide smile of their first customer.
Nino’s eyes flicker between their faces and all around the room as they speak, never being one to sit still, and he interrupts them casually, never one to remain polite in front of friends. “That painting-it’s the first one you won an award for, right?”
Ohno follows Nino’s eyes, but truth be told, he’s lost count of how many of his pictures and paintings have won awards. Instead, he points to the other side of the room where all of Maki’s developed photographs hang along the wall.
“Maki took that one yesterday.”
It is a photo of two shadows on the sand just in front of the bakery steps.
“It’s nice.” He swallows the last of his free bread and walks up to the photograph, scrutinizing it from every angle. “I’m taking this,” he says, unhooking the frame from the screw and leaving with a casual wave over the shoulder and a 10,000 yen note on the table.
They don’t need the money, but it’s a sweet sentiment.
“I can print another photograph,” Maki suggests long after Nino leaves.
Ohno turns from where he’s been staring at the empty hook at the wall and shakes his head with a smile. “It won’t mean as much, then.”
*
Jun stops by when he has the time, which he usually doesn’t. Still, they always welcome him with open arms and freshly baked yakisoba bread. He comes in with Mirei one day and, as Maki and Mirei catch up by themselves, Jun licks sauce off his lips and asks, “What’s the point of the tongs in the front when you specially serve each customer exactly what they’re looking for?”
“They’re the most important part of this bakery,” Ohno replies, stealing the last bite of the pastry. The five tongs sit gleaming, still brand new-blue, red, green, yellow, purple.
Jun smiles. “The last bite is my favorite part of the bread.”
“I know.”
*
Aiba stops by the most frequently, and always brings his daughter. It’s the only way they will be guaranteed free bread.
Aiba munches away blissfully as Ohno and Sarah color on the floor. “If you don’t hurry, I’m going to eat your piece, too,” Aiba warns as Maki refills his tea with a smile. Everyone but Sarah knows it’s an empty threat.
“Daddy!” Sarah whines. “Ohno jii-chan, make daddy stop.”
Ohno half-heartedly tells Aiba to stop teasing his daughter, but mostly he concentrates on getting Sarah’s eyes right.
Her eyes are like sunflowers, wide, blooming, and full of life. Just like her mother.
Later, they watch Aiba and Sarah leave the bakery, hand-in-hand and making two sets of uneven footprints across the sand, the shadows stretching out in front of them.
“Why did you never get married, Ohno-san?”
He smiles a sad, lopsided smile. “No one ever wanted to open a bakery with me.”
*
They don’t get married, but they do move in together. They spend almost every waking hour together so it just makes sense. They get up before the sun to bake and decorate and fill the storefront and all day is spent together with many cups of tea and far more time alone together than tending to customers. Some nights Ohno sets out on his boat under the pretense of fishing. There are no fish in this sea, and anything he catches he will have to set free anyway. He likes instead to lie back on the boat and be rocked back and forth by the waves. Sometimes Maki will join him, watch as he sketches by lamplight or lie back with him and point out constellations in the wide expanse of stars above. Other nights Maki will stay behind on the beach, taking photographs of the tiny glow of his lamp on his faraway boat.
Most nights they stroll along the beach making uneven footprints in the sand until their shadows stretch out long and thin in front of them. Maki always laughs and wishes for the days they could eat as much bread as they liked yet still remain so skinny. Ohno pinches the skin on her waist and declares he likes her better this way.
*
Sho is the last to ever visit. Ohno doesn’t begrudge him for it, understands his intent without question. Still, Sho’s presence is like the welcome, warm embrace of the wind.
“You’re darker than ever,” Sho mutters into Ohno’s shoulder. Ohno smiles and Maki laughs and goes to get some tea.
Sho points to the Maki’s side of the wall, where there is still an empty hook in the middle of it. “What’s missing?” he asks.
“Nothing.” Ohno smiles.
Sho settles into a table just as Maki brings out the tea, the same table Nino, Jun, and Aiba have sat in before him.
It’s a table for six.