Shitenhouji Story--Part 4
Shitenhouji Story--Koharu
Fandom: Prince of Tennis, AU Project
Pairing (if any): general, Shitenhouji ensemble (Koishikawa, Kenya, Shiraishi, Yuuji, Kintarou, Koharu)
Rating: PG (mild swearing)
Shitenhouji Story
Koharu
“Hey, Shiraishi! Can I act this time?”
“Er, I don’t think you’re ready to start acting yet, Kin-chan,” Shiraishi consoled. He hoped that he was letting the boy down gently. Indeed, Kintarou had improved in leaps and bounds since he’d first joined them. For one thing, he had gotten into the habit of bathing regularly, something Shiraishi highly doubted he’d done much before. He had also gotten a lot more... controllable, more capable of organized activity. He didn’t get lost half so much as he used to, nor did he interrupt so often. He was getting to be quite a good acrobat, his dancing skill was coming along, and his singing would surely get there eventually. Still, Shiraishi didn’t think it was time yet for Kintarou to take the stage as an actor.
“Oh, come on!” Kintarou pleaded, grinning up at Shiraishi from ear to ear. “I’d be great at it, I promise! And it looks like so much fun!”
It was hard to turn the boy down, it really was. “Kin-chan, have you learned to read yet?”
The grin slid off the boy’s face as he looked away guiltily. “Well, kind of,” he answered evasively, though he really had barely learned at all. He couldn’t even recognize all of the kana yet.
Shiraishi gave Kintarou an indulgent smile. “Kin-chan,” he sighed, “you can’t be an actor if you can’t read. How would you learn your lines?”
Kintarou seemed to think about that for a while. “You could tell them to me?” he suggested slowly, accompanying it with a hopeful smile.
Shiraishi shook his head. “You wouldn’t remember them. Besides, Kin-chan,” he began before the boy could argue again, “This time we have to make sure we get it just right, since we have people to impress today.”
“Aw, I could do fine,” Kintarou complained, but he was starting to relent, at least. He was pouting more than arguing anymore.
“Yuuji’s nervous enough as it is,” Shiraishi reminded, before deflecting Kintarou’s attention toward a more constructive outlet. “Go help Ken-chan set up the set, would you? He always has trouble with the heavy things.” That should distract him. Sure enough, he bounded off again, lifting the cart Ken-chan had been dragging behind him over his head and running away with it like it was a kite.
It wasn’t only Yuuji who was nervous, of course. Everyone was at least a little on edge--except for Kintarou, of course, who was never really bothered by anything--due to the added pressure of the company. Shitenhouji had never been in town at the same time as another troupe before, which Ken-chan and Yuuji always insisted was to their benefit. The competition would have been stressful enough. Imagine Shiraishi’s surprise, then, when the other troupe offered instead to collaborate!
It wasn’t going to be anything especially complicated, considering there was such little time to prepare. The first half of the show would be Shitenhouji’s, which they’d decided to fill with mostly singing and dancing, and a few comedy sketches. The second half would belong to the other troupe, to do with as they liked. That way, each group could watch the performance of the other. It seemed a very reasonable arrangement.
Shiraishi would be lying if he claimed not to be nervous. It was very important to him to make sure this performance went perfectly. He had all of their basic skits memorized, and practiced the lines and movements ten times a night every night, but he should not get complacent. They weren’t doing anything new this time, but there was always the possibility that something could go wrong. Still, there was something very thrilling about the whole business. The challenge would certainly make it interesting.
Ken-chan and Kintarou were talking again about why Kintarou shouldn’t act this time, having finished with the sets. Kenya was zipping around from place to place, checking on this or that, muttering his lines under his breath. Yuuji was going over the scripts again, looking like he might vomit. It was almost time.
Well, here went nothing.
*
“That. Was. Awesome,” Kenya glowed, sitting in the audience next to Shiraishi. The other troupe was going on soon--apparently they were going to do a straight play. “Seriously, I don’t think we’ve ever been this awesome!”
“Yeah, who’d have thought?” Ken-chan added, sitting down on Kenya’s other side. Kenya punched him, but he was still grinning.
“That was so much fun!” Kintarou had squeezed in between Kenya and Shiraishi, practically sitting on both of their laps before Kenya finally budged over. “Hey, Shiraishi, did you see me, did you see their faces when I did the jump with all the spins in it? I thought their jaws were gonna fall off! That was great! We should do this every day!”
“Inside voices, Kin-chan,” Shiraishi reminded him, but he couldn’t deny that the overwhelming enthusiasm was very cute.
“But we’re outside!”
“There are a lot of people around, and you want to make sure not to bother them.”
“Aww, come on...”
“Kintarou,” Shiraishi warned, touching his bandages.
The boy stopped dead. “Ok!” he squeaked, his voice back down to manageable levels. “Ok! No poison!” And he stayed still, the very model of an obedient child.
He couldn’t quite remember how Kintarou had become convinced that Shiraishi would poison him if he misbehaved. Perhaps it had been something Shiraishi had said. Still, however it had started, it had a wonderful effect. Of course he would never, ever actually expose Kin-chan to the poison--the very idea was occasionally the stuff of Shiraishi’s nightmares--but it didn’t hurt anyone to pretend that he might, and it worked marvelously for keeping Kintarou in check. Most of the time he minded authority for authority’s sake, but the boy could easily outmatch any of them, if he ever tried hard enough, and seemed to be getting stronger and more skilled every day. If he was ever to realize that, there would be no stopping him. Nonetheless, he was terrified of Shiraishi’s left arm. In fact, sometimes it was disheartening, the lengths to which he would go to avoid it, but at least it gave Shiraishi some leverage, and at least there would never be any accidents. Shiraishi patted Kintarou’s head with his good hand and left it at that.
“It really was a good show, though,” Yuuji added, sitting on Shiraishi’s other side. “The audience definitely liked it.” He looked very relieved to have it over with, smiling more honestly. “I wonder what sort of play the other troupe is going to do...?” But the crowd had started to go quiet, and the lights had started to dim, so any further comments went unsaid.
The curtain opened on two actors, one of whom was dressed as a woman. The actor playing the woman wasn’t what Shiraishi would call pretty, but some things couldn’t be helped, he supposed. This was probably going to be a love drama of some sort, judging from the setting, and sure enough the players soon began pining over their ill-fated love, lamenting that the girl’s father would never allow them to marry, and such things. The costumes were nice, true, but the plot thus far seemed very formulaic. The leading man was rather unspectacular, in Shiraishi’s opinion. The heroine, meanwhile, was pouring a great deal of emotion into her lines and movements--however, the material itself was rather unspectacular as well.
“Oh, Haruko!” the leading man warbled, “We are so unfortunate! For I love you with a heart that cannot be contained, and yet it cannot be!”
“Oh, Takeyama-sama!” the heroine warbled back, “My sleeves have not once dried from the tears I shed upon them!”
Yuuji leaned over slightly and muttered to Shiraishi, “I’ve seen better.”
“I think we’ve done better,” Shiraishi whispered back. Shitenhouji used to do dramas. Kenya perhaps was never very good at being a serious lead, but he would at least be much more interesting than this actor, and Shiraishi was sure he himself had played a heroine like this at some point before.
“Mm, that’s debatable,” Yuuji hummed, a little unfairly, Shiraishi thought. “The onnagata would be pretty good, though, if the script was decent,” he added, more fairly. Yuuji was right about the script, at least. He did have good taste in storytelling, if nothing else. “Real pity.”
The scene ended uneventfully and the next started, not much better than the first. This one included the heroine’s father, played by a man with a weak voice who was altogether unthreatening. Also, he seemed to think that his acting would improve if he excessively exaggerated all of his movements, nearly losing his wig whenever he shouted and making the sets shiver with his footfalls. The leading man wasn’t in this scene, but the heroine was, crying piteously as her father declared that she ‘must never see that man again’ or some such nonsense.
It was a talent, Shiraishi must admit, that the heroine could produce such copious tears on cue, even with the fellow actors providing so little to effectively cry at. That unfortunately did not change the fact that there was altogether too much crying in this play in the first place. The heroine gave an impassioned soliloquy informing the audience of her plans to elope with the hero, and then the scene was over. As she exited, Shiraishi thought he noticed her actor glance out at the audience and frown slightly.
On Shiraishi’s right side, Kintarou fell asleep.
It did not bode well.
“Hey,” Kenya hissed over the top of Kintarou’s sleepy head. “Think maybe we ought to leave?”
“That would probably be very rude,” Shiraishi whispered back, frowning. After all, this was supposed to be a joint venture, and it wouldn’t do to cut and run, as dull as this may be. The other troupe no doubt would think very ill of them.
“Not to mention we wouldn’t get our cut,” Ken-chan added across Kenya in a low voice, practical as always.
Kenya pulled a dreading face and, glancing meaningfully at Kintarou, hissed ominously, “But what if Kin-chan here starts snoring?”
“I suppose we’ll just have to wake him up if that happens,” Shiraishi suggested, sighing. He really wasn’t looking forward to such an event. Kintarou did not wake quietly. Still, in life one ought always to pick the lesser of two evils.
The next scene began, and Kenya fell silent.
The lead and the heroine were on stage again, declaring their eternal love for each other and their plans to elope, in case the audience had not paid attention at the end of the previous scene. It was unnecessary dialogue and it wasted time, in Shiraishi’s opinion, but this play had very little in its favor to begin with. If one was to cut it down for efficiency, there would be little but a few sentences left. That might have been perfect, though, for a story such as this.
A broad dramatic gesture from the lead actor--“Tonight!”--tapped the set and set it teetering.
“We didn’t build that one,” Ken-chan muttered, eyeing it warily.
Suddenly, before even the next line, it toppled, the entire weight of it crashing down on the lead actor’s head.
Kintarou woke up.
The actor playing the heroine quickly ducked to check on the man, taking his pulse and frowning. A few seconds later, he lifted the other actor by his under-arms and dragged him unceremoniously off the edge of the stage. Surprisingly, however, he came right back again to stand in the center of the stage, even though the show had to be over by that point. With the lead actor out of commission, it was the end.
Except that, out of nowhere, the actor produced a chonmage wig, swapped it for his long princess one, which he somehow managed to stow away, and continued the play exactly where the lead actor had left off. “Tonight!” he cried in a manlier voice, with much more feeling than his predecessor, “Tonight, Haruko, we two shall finally be free!” He threw an aching look at stage left, where no one was standing, and sighed breathlessly, “How I have longed for your touch, to feel your embrace!”
A hesitant glance either direction told Shiraishi that he was not alone in having absolutely no idea what was going on. Kintarou was looking wildly around as though he thought he’d missed something, while Kenya’s face was twisted up in confusion. Ken-chan’s head was tilted to one side, an eyebrow raised. Yuuji’s jaw had come unhinged.
In a blink, however, the actor had managed to switch wigs again, once more the heroine. “Oh, Takeyama-sama!” she pined, “I too have dreamed of this day! And yet I had never thought I would have the courage to thus defy my father! His wrath may yet prove too great!” and she began to cry again, a bit more exaggeratedly than before.
Switching again--how was he managing this?--the actor was now the hero, tears miraculously gone, consoling the empty space that would be his partner, “Fear not, my darling!” he announced triumphantly, “For our love shall protect us from evil!”
There was a snorting sort of noise from Shiraishi’s left. Yuuji was stifling back laughter, his shoulders shaking from the effort. Shiraishi had never seen Yuuji laugh before. He was very good at making other people laugh, of course, and could read an audience better than anyone, but seldom laughed himself. He was always very picky about his humor. And yet, here he was, about to pop from this bizarre performance. Shiraishi didn’t know what to think of it.
“Oh, Takeyama-sama!” the heroine--for, somehow, the actor was playing the heroine again--squealed girlishly, wiggling her hips in a gleeful impromptu dance.
The whole audience was laughing this time, Shiraishi included. What on earth had happened to the play?
After a few more over-the-top “Oh, Haruko!”s and “Oh, Takeyama-sama!”s, which the actor might have thrown in simply for fun, the hero finally declared, “I can stand it no longer! Come to my arms, Haruko! Now we shall be one!”
They didn’t call him Naniwa’s Speed Star for nothing--Kenya’s hand was clamped over Kintarou’s eyes faster than thought, with Shiraishi’s own hands covering the boy’s ears as quick as he could manage.
It wasn’t too inappropriate, of course--there was only one actor, after all--but he did turn his back to the audience, wrap his arms around himself, and make disturbing squelching noises and moans as he wrestled himself to the stage floor, ending the act. The audience roared with laughter, and Kintarou demanded to know what he had missed. Everyone was still cracking up even after the stage was empty.
Yuuji was nearly in tears by this point. “That,” he choked, barely able to form words he was laughing so hard, “that was brilliant!”
Kenya was having a giggle fit as well, grinning from ear to ear, but he could pull himself together long enough to cough out, “Jeez, Yuuji! I’ve never seen you like anybody this much!”
Yuuji waved it off, still laughing, his head turned the other way.
It was a little longer before the last act started, and there was some audible shuffling. Perhaps the actors had to adjust the script due to the accident. Still, eventually the actors filed in. The heroine was in tears again, sobbing piteously, but this time the audience seemed to find it funny. The actor playing her father threw down a dummy dressed as the hero, shouting thinly that he had killed the hero for so defying him, which only made the heroine cry louder, her voice reaching ridiculous levels. Then her father threw her a knife and declared that if the heroine had any respect for the family honor, she’d follow him. He then proceeded to stomp off the stage, to the laughter of the crowd.
The heroine warbled her final soliloquy with mock-despair, bemoaning her fate in much too exaggerated a way to be serious and probably embellishing it as she went to make it better. She tied her knees together in the traditional woman’s suicide pose with melodramatic movements, and finally, crying, “I will see you soon, my darling~!” stabbed herself brutally in the neck.
Next to Shiraishi, Kintarou gasped loudly. “She died?!” Shiraishi shushed him.
It seemed to take the heroine ages to die. Upon stabbing herself, she let forth an agonizing, strangled yell that went on far too long. With shaking hands, she dropped the knife and went into convulsions, continuing to make choking noises, for at least a minute. Finally, she slumped, limp, twitching sporadically, before finally, finally remaining decisively dead.
The audience exploded with laughter and cheers. The actor grinned widely before exiting the stage, and the crowd kept laughing for some time before starting to clear out.
“Well!” Shiraishi smiled, in much better spirits than he had expected to be at the beginning of the performance. “Shall we begin cleaning up?”
*
Shiraishi had hoped to congratulate the other troupe on a job well done, but when he came backstage, he apparently had walked in on an argument.
“Way to ruin the show!” the actor who had played the father wheezed at the other, taking off his wig.
The actor who had played the heroine, even homelier in person, had also taken his wig off--his hair was almost as short as a monk’s under it--and was dragging their third member off to the side where some costumes were piled. “You don’t honestly think it’s my fault that Toshi got hit by the stupid set!” he complained, incredulous.
“They laughed at us!”
“It was funny!”
“It’s supposed to be a tragedy!”
“Well no one was liking it!”
The first actor clapped a hand to his forehead and heaved a huffing sigh. “Why couldn’t you just wait for Toshi to wake up instead of going off on your own like that, anyway? You always make it ridiculous whenever you go off on your own!”
“Toshi’s not waking up for another three hours and roughly twenty-three minutes, judging from how hard he was hit. You try getting an audience to wait around that long,” the other countered precisely, putting his hands on his hips. “Besides, ‘the show must go on!’ I had to improvise! And they liked it anyway!”
“Dammit, Koharu!”
The one called Koharu noticed Shiraishi then, and, looking embarrassed, tried to flag down the other actor, “Um, Captain...”
“Oh!” The first actor, apparently the leader, turned around. Seeing Shiraishi, his anger was quickly replaced with an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry about that. You must think us very rude. Shiraishi-kun, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Shiraishi replied to the immediate question, then went on as politely as possible, “and please, don’t worry about it.”
“That was a very nice performance you and your group gave this evening!”
Shiraishi was about to modestly deny the praise when Yuuji’s head popped around the corner, looking concerned. “Captain, you ok back there? We thought we heard--" but Yuuji stopped abruptly, eyes widening. They were fixed on a point somewhat past Shiraishi--oh. Oh.
In a slightly louder voice, intended for everyone, Shiraishi commented, “My colleague Yuuji was very fond of your performance today. He said it was the best he’d ever seen.”
The one called Koharu ducked around his captain to get a better look. Indeed, thought Shiraishi, a very homely face, even with the excessive makeup, but that wasn’t any of Shiraishi’s business. The actor took several mincing steps toward Yuuji before his face finally split into a wide smile. “Oh!” he squealed, waving his hands excitedly. “You were the clever one, who did that great comedy bit in the second number!”
Yuuji’s face turned beet red. He swallowed hard. That had been it, after all. Shiraishi had thought so.
“And wow!” Koharu leaned in closer, smiling wider. “You’re super-cute up close! What’s your name, again?”
“Hi-Hi-Hi-Hi-Hi-Hitoji,” Yuuji stammered awkwardly, spitting the whole thing out in one breath as soon as he could manage, “Hitojiyuuji.”
“Well, Hi-Hi-Hitoji,” Koharu joked, smiling cheekily, “how’d you like to buy me a drink? Maybe we could go somewhere and...talk?”
Lighting up, Yuuji threw a quick look at Shiraishi, as though asking permission.
Far be it from him to get in the way. “Have fun,” Shiraishi offered, smiling. “Be at camp in the morning.”
A grin ghosted across Yuuji’s face before he took a quick, deep breath and arranged his face into a cavalier smile, eyes only on the other actor. “It would be my pleasure,” he said in a put-on noble voice, bowing deeply. “Shall we be off?”
Giggling girlishly, Koharu, still in a woman’s kimono, took Yuuji’s arm and made to leave, but his captain called him back. “Oh, right, Koharu, before you go, what was the take today?”
Koharu stopped and turned around, pouting. “70 coppers. I already counted,” he sighed boredly, but then rattled off the rest without pausing even a moment for thought: “If you want to divide it straight down the middle, each troupe would get 35 coppers. Given that we have three and our dear company has five, among our group that would come to 11 each with a remainder of 2, and among theirs it would come to exactly 7 each. If you want to divide it evenly among each player, we’d all get 8 coppers each with a remainder of 6. If you want to divide it up by individual appearances on stage, during the first half Pretty-boy Captain-san, Speedy, and Cutie here each were on stage about 1/4 of the time, with Quiet-san and the boy splitting the last 1/4 between them. As for us, I was on stage 1/2 the time, you about 1/3, and Toshi sadly abbreviated to roughly 1/6 of the stage time. Working with the starting point of 35 coppers to each group, Shitenhouji’s main three would each get 9 coppers, with the other two each getting 4, while in our group, that would amount to 12 coppers for you, 17 for me, and 6 for Toshi. How you wish to go about dividing it all, I leave for you captains to discuss. Now will that do?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The man waved them away, and they were off. As they left, Shiraishi could hear Yuuji say, in all seriousness, “That was amazing.”
“Sorry about Koharu,” the captain now apologized to Shiraishi, wringing his hands. “He’s...”
“He’s a genius,” Shiraishi said, astounded. “How did he do all that math so quickly?”
“Oh, he’s Empowered,” the actor wheezed offhandedly, shrugging. “About the only thing he’s good for, really.”
The way he so easily dismissed his colleague made Shiraishi a bit uncomfortable. “We were quite impressed with his performance, actually.”
“Well, yes,” the other captain replied with a pained expression, “but you’re comedians. We’re supposed to be actors. You understand, don’t you?”
*
“Oh, I love boke-tsukkomi routines!” Koharu enthused, eyes shining, hands balled up in happy fists under his chin. But then he frowned and pouted. “I would do them myself, you know, it’s just that I can never find a straight man. I mean, you saw them.” He rolled his eyes and knocked back his sake. “They’re all just a little too straight, if you know what I mean.”
Yuuji snorted at the memory. “Yeah, I do know what you mean.” He took a sip of his drink, thinking about it. “They guys I’m with--they’re the nicest guys I’ve ever met, seriously, and I’m really glad to be with them--but, well, they’d probably know a joke if they heard one, but they couldn’t tell one to save their lives.”
Suddenly, as though lightning had struck, they looked at each other. Yuuji grinned. “Koharu, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Koharu returned the grin mischievously. “I think so, Yuu-kun, but where are we going to find a goat and some silkworms at this hour?”
*
Shiraishi ensured that everyone was up early the next morning to pack up camp. He did not want to stay in this town any longer than necessary.
Yuuji shambled up the path toward camp, holding hands with the actor from the night before, who was carrying a bag and grinning. When they got close, Yuuji smiled sheepishly, gesturing toward Koharu. “He followed me home, Captain, can I keep him?”
~
Fandom: Prince of Tennis, AU Project
Pairing (if any): general, Shitenhouji ensemble (Koishikawa, Kenya, Shiraishi, Yuuji, Kintarou, Koharu)
Rating: PG (mild swearing)
Shitenhouji Story
Koharu
“Hey, Shiraishi! Can I act this time?”
“Er, I don’t think you’re ready to start acting yet, Kin-chan,” Shiraishi consoled. He hoped that he was letting the boy down gently. Indeed, Kintarou had improved in leaps and bounds since he’d first joined them. For one thing, he had gotten into the habit of bathing regularly, something Shiraishi highly doubted he’d done much before. He had also gotten a lot more... controllable, more capable of organized activity. He didn’t get lost half so much as he used to, nor did he interrupt so often. He was getting to be quite a good acrobat, his dancing skill was coming along, and his singing would surely get there eventually. Still, Shiraishi didn’t think it was time yet for Kintarou to take the stage as an actor.
“Oh, come on!” Kintarou pleaded, grinning up at Shiraishi from ear to ear. “I’d be great at it, I promise! And it looks like so much fun!”
It was hard to turn the boy down, it really was. “Kin-chan, have you learned to read yet?”
The grin slid off the boy’s face as he looked away guiltily. “Well, kind of,” he answered evasively, though he really had barely learned at all. He couldn’t even recognize all of the kana yet.
Shiraishi gave Kintarou an indulgent smile. “Kin-chan,” he sighed, “you can’t be an actor if you can’t read. How would you learn your lines?”
Kintarou seemed to think about that for a while. “You could tell them to me?” he suggested slowly, accompanying it with a hopeful smile.
Shiraishi shook his head. “You wouldn’t remember them. Besides, Kin-chan,” he began before the boy could argue again, “This time we have to make sure we get it just right, since we have people to impress today.”
“Aw, I could do fine,” Kintarou complained, but he was starting to relent, at least. He was pouting more than arguing anymore.
“Yuuji’s nervous enough as it is,” Shiraishi reminded, before deflecting Kintarou’s attention toward a more constructive outlet. “Go help Ken-chan set up the set, would you? He always has trouble with the heavy things.” That should distract him. Sure enough, he bounded off again, lifting the cart Ken-chan had been dragging behind him over his head and running away with it like it was a kite.
It wasn’t only Yuuji who was nervous, of course. Everyone was at least a little on edge--except for Kintarou, of course, who was never really bothered by anything--due to the added pressure of the company. Shitenhouji had never been in town at the same time as another troupe before, which Ken-chan and Yuuji always insisted was to their benefit. The competition would have been stressful enough. Imagine Shiraishi’s surprise, then, when the other troupe offered instead to collaborate!
It wasn’t going to be anything especially complicated, considering there was such little time to prepare. The first half of the show would be Shitenhouji’s, which they’d decided to fill with mostly singing and dancing, and a few comedy sketches. The second half would belong to the other troupe, to do with as they liked. That way, each group could watch the performance of the other. It seemed a very reasonable arrangement.
Shiraishi would be lying if he claimed not to be nervous. It was very important to him to make sure this performance went perfectly. He had all of their basic skits memorized, and practiced the lines and movements ten times a night every night, but he should not get complacent. They weren’t doing anything new this time, but there was always the possibility that something could go wrong. Still, there was something very thrilling about the whole business. The challenge would certainly make it interesting.
Ken-chan and Kintarou were talking again about why Kintarou shouldn’t act this time, having finished with the sets. Kenya was zipping around from place to place, checking on this or that, muttering his lines under his breath. Yuuji was going over the scripts again, looking like he might vomit. It was almost time.
Well, here went nothing.
*
“That. Was. Awesome,” Kenya glowed, sitting in the audience next to Shiraishi. The other troupe was going on soon--apparently they were going to do a straight play. “Seriously, I don’t think we’ve ever been this awesome!”
“Yeah, who’d have thought?” Ken-chan added, sitting down on Kenya’s other side. Kenya punched him, but he was still grinning.
“That was so much fun!” Kintarou had squeezed in between Kenya and Shiraishi, practically sitting on both of their laps before Kenya finally budged over. “Hey, Shiraishi, did you see me, did you see their faces when I did the jump with all the spins in it? I thought their jaws were gonna fall off! That was great! We should do this every day!”
“Inside voices, Kin-chan,” Shiraishi reminded him, but he couldn’t deny that the overwhelming enthusiasm was very cute.
“But we’re outside!”
“There are a lot of people around, and you want to make sure not to bother them.”
“Aww, come on...”
“Kintarou,” Shiraishi warned, touching his bandages.
The boy stopped dead. “Ok!” he squeaked, his voice back down to manageable levels. “Ok! No poison!” And he stayed still, the very model of an obedient child.
He couldn’t quite remember how Kintarou had become convinced that Shiraishi would poison him if he misbehaved. Perhaps it had been something Shiraishi had said. Still, however it had started, it had a wonderful effect. Of course he would never, ever actually expose Kin-chan to the poison--the very idea was occasionally the stuff of Shiraishi’s nightmares--but it didn’t hurt anyone to pretend that he might, and it worked marvelously for keeping Kintarou in check. Most of the time he minded authority for authority’s sake, but the boy could easily outmatch any of them, if he ever tried hard enough, and seemed to be getting stronger and more skilled every day. If he was ever to realize that, there would be no stopping him. Nonetheless, he was terrified of Shiraishi’s left arm. In fact, sometimes it was disheartening, the lengths to which he would go to avoid it, but at least it gave Shiraishi some leverage, and at least there would never be any accidents. Shiraishi patted Kintarou’s head with his good hand and left it at that.
“It really was a good show, though,” Yuuji added, sitting on Shiraishi’s other side. “The audience definitely liked it.” He looked very relieved to have it over with, smiling more honestly. “I wonder what sort of play the other troupe is going to do...?” But the crowd had started to go quiet, and the lights had started to dim, so any further comments went unsaid.
The curtain opened on two actors, one of whom was dressed as a woman. The actor playing the woman wasn’t what Shiraishi would call pretty, but some things couldn’t be helped, he supposed. This was probably going to be a love drama of some sort, judging from the setting, and sure enough the players soon began pining over their ill-fated love, lamenting that the girl’s father would never allow them to marry, and such things. The costumes were nice, true, but the plot thus far seemed very formulaic. The leading man was rather unspectacular, in Shiraishi’s opinion. The heroine, meanwhile, was pouring a great deal of emotion into her lines and movements--however, the material itself was rather unspectacular as well.
“Oh, Haruko!” the leading man warbled, “We are so unfortunate! For I love you with a heart that cannot be contained, and yet it cannot be!”
“Oh, Takeyama-sama!” the heroine warbled back, “My sleeves have not once dried from the tears I shed upon them!”
Yuuji leaned over slightly and muttered to Shiraishi, “I’ve seen better.”
“I think we’ve done better,” Shiraishi whispered back. Shitenhouji used to do dramas. Kenya perhaps was never very good at being a serious lead, but he would at least be much more interesting than this actor, and Shiraishi was sure he himself had played a heroine like this at some point before.
“Mm, that’s debatable,” Yuuji hummed, a little unfairly, Shiraishi thought. “The onnagata would be pretty good, though, if the script was decent,” he added, more fairly. Yuuji was right about the script, at least. He did have good taste in storytelling, if nothing else. “Real pity.”
The scene ended uneventfully and the next started, not much better than the first. This one included the heroine’s father, played by a man with a weak voice who was altogether unthreatening. Also, he seemed to think that his acting would improve if he excessively exaggerated all of his movements, nearly losing his wig whenever he shouted and making the sets shiver with his footfalls. The leading man wasn’t in this scene, but the heroine was, crying piteously as her father declared that she ‘must never see that man again’ or some such nonsense.
It was a talent, Shiraishi must admit, that the heroine could produce such copious tears on cue, even with the fellow actors providing so little to effectively cry at. That unfortunately did not change the fact that there was altogether too much crying in this play in the first place. The heroine gave an impassioned soliloquy informing the audience of her plans to elope with the hero, and then the scene was over. As she exited, Shiraishi thought he noticed her actor glance out at the audience and frown slightly.
On Shiraishi’s right side, Kintarou fell asleep.
It did not bode well.
“Hey,” Kenya hissed over the top of Kintarou’s sleepy head. “Think maybe we ought to leave?”
“That would probably be very rude,” Shiraishi whispered back, frowning. After all, this was supposed to be a joint venture, and it wouldn’t do to cut and run, as dull as this may be. The other troupe no doubt would think very ill of them.
“Not to mention we wouldn’t get our cut,” Ken-chan added across Kenya in a low voice, practical as always.
Kenya pulled a dreading face and, glancing meaningfully at Kintarou, hissed ominously, “But what if Kin-chan here starts snoring?”
“I suppose we’ll just have to wake him up if that happens,” Shiraishi suggested, sighing. He really wasn’t looking forward to such an event. Kintarou did not wake quietly. Still, in life one ought always to pick the lesser of two evils.
The next scene began, and Kenya fell silent.
The lead and the heroine were on stage again, declaring their eternal love for each other and their plans to elope, in case the audience had not paid attention at the end of the previous scene. It was unnecessary dialogue and it wasted time, in Shiraishi’s opinion, but this play had very little in its favor to begin with. If one was to cut it down for efficiency, there would be little but a few sentences left. That might have been perfect, though, for a story such as this.
A broad dramatic gesture from the lead actor--“Tonight!”--tapped the set and set it teetering.
“We didn’t build that one,” Ken-chan muttered, eyeing it warily.
Suddenly, before even the next line, it toppled, the entire weight of it crashing down on the lead actor’s head.
Kintarou woke up.
The actor playing the heroine quickly ducked to check on the man, taking his pulse and frowning. A few seconds later, he lifted the other actor by his under-arms and dragged him unceremoniously off the edge of the stage. Surprisingly, however, he came right back again to stand in the center of the stage, even though the show had to be over by that point. With the lead actor out of commission, it was the end.
Except that, out of nowhere, the actor produced a chonmage wig, swapped it for his long princess one, which he somehow managed to stow away, and continued the play exactly where the lead actor had left off. “Tonight!” he cried in a manlier voice, with much more feeling than his predecessor, “Tonight, Haruko, we two shall finally be free!” He threw an aching look at stage left, where no one was standing, and sighed breathlessly, “How I have longed for your touch, to feel your embrace!”
A hesitant glance either direction told Shiraishi that he was not alone in having absolutely no idea what was going on. Kintarou was looking wildly around as though he thought he’d missed something, while Kenya’s face was twisted up in confusion. Ken-chan’s head was tilted to one side, an eyebrow raised. Yuuji’s jaw had come unhinged.
In a blink, however, the actor had managed to switch wigs again, once more the heroine. “Oh, Takeyama-sama!” she pined, “I too have dreamed of this day! And yet I had never thought I would have the courage to thus defy my father! His wrath may yet prove too great!” and she began to cry again, a bit more exaggeratedly than before.
Switching again--how was he managing this?--the actor was now the hero, tears miraculously gone, consoling the empty space that would be his partner, “Fear not, my darling!” he announced triumphantly, “For our love shall protect us from evil!”
There was a snorting sort of noise from Shiraishi’s left. Yuuji was stifling back laughter, his shoulders shaking from the effort. Shiraishi had never seen Yuuji laugh before. He was very good at making other people laugh, of course, and could read an audience better than anyone, but seldom laughed himself. He was always very picky about his humor. And yet, here he was, about to pop from this bizarre performance. Shiraishi didn’t know what to think of it.
“Oh, Takeyama-sama!” the heroine--for, somehow, the actor was playing the heroine again--squealed girlishly, wiggling her hips in a gleeful impromptu dance.
The whole audience was laughing this time, Shiraishi included. What on earth had happened to the play?
After a few more over-the-top “Oh, Haruko!”s and “Oh, Takeyama-sama!”s, which the actor might have thrown in simply for fun, the hero finally declared, “I can stand it no longer! Come to my arms, Haruko! Now we shall be one!”
They didn’t call him Naniwa’s Speed Star for nothing--Kenya’s hand was clamped over Kintarou’s eyes faster than thought, with Shiraishi’s own hands covering the boy’s ears as quick as he could manage.
It wasn’t too inappropriate, of course--there was only one actor, after all--but he did turn his back to the audience, wrap his arms around himself, and make disturbing squelching noises and moans as he wrestled himself to the stage floor, ending the act. The audience roared with laughter, and Kintarou demanded to know what he had missed. Everyone was still cracking up even after the stage was empty.
Yuuji was nearly in tears by this point. “That,” he choked, barely able to form words he was laughing so hard, “that was brilliant!”
Kenya was having a giggle fit as well, grinning from ear to ear, but he could pull himself together long enough to cough out, “Jeez, Yuuji! I’ve never seen you like anybody this much!”
Yuuji waved it off, still laughing, his head turned the other way.
It was a little longer before the last act started, and there was some audible shuffling. Perhaps the actors had to adjust the script due to the accident. Still, eventually the actors filed in. The heroine was in tears again, sobbing piteously, but this time the audience seemed to find it funny. The actor playing her father threw down a dummy dressed as the hero, shouting thinly that he had killed the hero for so defying him, which only made the heroine cry louder, her voice reaching ridiculous levels. Then her father threw her a knife and declared that if the heroine had any respect for the family honor, she’d follow him. He then proceeded to stomp off the stage, to the laughter of the crowd.
The heroine warbled her final soliloquy with mock-despair, bemoaning her fate in much too exaggerated a way to be serious and probably embellishing it as she went to make it better. She tied her knees together in the traditional woman’s suicide pose with melodramatic movements, and finally, crying, “I will see you soon, my darling~!” stabbed herself brutally in the neck.
Next to Shiraishi, Kintarou gasped loudly. “She died?!” Shiraishi shushed him.
It seemed to take the heroine ages to die. Upon stabbing herself, she let forth an agonizing, strangled yell that went on far too long. With shaking hands, she dropped the knife and went into convulsions, continuing to make choking noises, for at least a minute. Finally, she slumped, limp, twitching sporadically, before finally, finally remaining decisively dead.
The audience exploded with laughter and cheers. The actor grinned widely before exiting the stage, and the crowd kept laughing for some time before starting to clear out.
“Well!” Shiraishi smiled, in much better spirits than he had expected to be at the beginning of the performance. “Shall we begin cleaning up?”
*
Shiraishi had hoped to congratulate the other troupe on a job well done, but when he came backstage, he apparently had walked in on an argument.
“Way to ruin the show!” the actor who had played the father wheezed at the other, taking off his wig.
The actor who had played the heroine, even homelier in person, had also taken his wig off--his hair was almost as short as a monk’s under it--and was dragging their third member off to the side where some costumes were piled. “You don’t honestly think it’s my fault that Toshi got hit by the stupid set!” he complained, incredulous.
“They laughed at us!”
“It was funny!”
“It’s supposed to be a tragedy!”
“Well no one was liking it!”
The first actor clapped a hand to his forehead and heaved a huffing sigh. “Why couldn’t you just wait for Toshi to wake up instead of going off on your own like that, anyway? You always make it ridiculous whenever you go off on your own!”
“Toshi’s not waking up for another three hours and roughly twenty-three minutes, judging from how hard he was hit. You try getting an audience to wait around that long,” the other countered precisely, putting his hands on his hips. “Besides, ‘the show must go on!’ I had to improvise! And they liked it anyway!”
“Dammit, Koharu!”
The one called Koharu noticed Shiraishi then, and, looking embarrassed, tried to flag down the other actor, “Um, Captain...”
“Oh!” The first actor, apparently the leader, turned around. Seeing Shiraishi, his anger was quickly replaced with an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry about that. You must think us very rude. Shiraishi-kun, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Shiraishi replied to the immediate question, then went on as politely as possible, “and please, don’t worry about it.”
“That was a very nice performance you and your group gave this evening!”
Shiraishi was about to modestly deny the praise when Yuuji’s head popped around the corner, looking concerned. “Captain, you ok back there? We thought we heard--" but Yuuji stopped abruptly, eyes widening. They were fixed on a point somewhat past Shiraishi--oh. Oh.
In a slightly louder voice, intended for everyone, Shiraishi commented, “My colleague Yuuji was very fond of your performance today. He said it was the best he’d ever seen.”
The one called Koharu ducked around his captain to get a better look. Indeed, thought Shiraishi, a very homely face, even with the excessive makeup, but that wasn’t any of Shiraishi’s business. The actor took several mincing steps toward Yuuji before his face finally split into a wide smile. “Oh!” he squealed, waving his hands excitedly. “You were the clever one, who did that great comedy bit in the second number!”
Yuuji’s face turned beet red. He swallowed hard. That had been it, after all. Shiraishi had thought so.
“And wow!” Koharu leaned in closer, smiling wider. “You’re super-cute up close! What’s your name, again?”
“Hi-Hi-Hi-Hi-Hi-Hitoji,” Yuuji stammered awkwardly, spitting the whole thing out in one breath as soon as he could manage, “Hitojiyuuji.”
“Well, Hi-Hi-Hitoji,” Koharu joked, smiling cheekily, “how’d you like to buy me a drink? Maybe we could go somewhere and...talk?”
Lighting up, Yuuji threw a quick look at Shiraishi, as though asking permission.
Far be it from him to get in the way. “Have fun,” Shiraishi offered, smiling. “Be at camp in the morning.”
A grin ghosted across Yuuji’s face before he took a quick, deep breath and arranged his face into a cavalier smile, eyes only on the other actor. “It would be my pleasure,” he said in a put-on noble voice, bowing deeply. “Shall we be off?”
Giggling girlishly, Koharu, still in a woman’s kimono, took Yuuji’s arm and made to leave, but his captain called him back. “Oh, right, Koharu, before you go, what was the take today?”
Koharu stopped and turned around, pouting. “70 coppers. I already counted,” he sighed boredly, but then rattled off the rest without pausing even a moment for thought: “If you want to divide it straight down the middle, each troupe would get 35 coppers. Given that we have three and our dear company has five, among our group that would come to 11 each with a remainder of 2, and among theirs it would come to exactly 7 each. If you want to divide it evenly among each player, we’d all get 8 coppers each with a remainder of 6. If you want to divide it up by individual appearances on stage, during the first half Pretty-boy Captain-san, Speedy, and Cutie here each were on stage about 1/4 of the time, with Quiet-san and the boy splitting the last 1/4 between them. As for us, I was on stage 1/2 the time, you about 1/3, and Toshi sadly abbreviated to roughly 1/6 of the stage time. Working with the starting point of 35 coppers to each group, Shitenhouji’s main three would each get 9 coppers, with the other two each getting 4, while in our group, that would amount to 12 coppers for you, 17 for me, and 6 for Toshi. How you wish to go about dividing it all, I leave for you captains to discuss. Now will that do?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The man waved them away, and they were off. As they left, Shiraishi could hear Yuuji say, in all seriousness, “That was amazing.”
“Sorry about Koharu,” the captain now apologized to Shiraishi, wringing his hands. “He’s...”
“He’s a genius,” Shiraishi said, astounded. “How did he do all that math so quickly?”
“Oh, he’s Empowered,” the actor wheezed offhandedly, shrugging. “About the only thing he’s good for, really.”
The way he so easily dismissed his colleague made Shiraishi a bit uncomfortable. “We were quite impressed with his performance, actually.”
“Well, yes,” the other captain replied with a pained expression, “but you’re comedians. We’re supposed to be actors. You understand, don’t you?”
*
“Oh, I love boke-tsukkomi routines!” Koharu enthused, eyes shining, hands balled up in happy fists under his chin. But then he frowned and pouted. “I would do them myself, you know, it’s just that I can never find a straight man. I mean, you saw them.” He rolled his eyes and knocked back his sake. “They’re all just a little too straight, if you know what I mean.”
Yuuji snorted at the memory. “Yeah, I do know what you mean.” He took a sip of his drink, thinking about it. “They guys I’m with--they’re the nicest guys I’ve ever met, seriously, and I’m really glad to be with them--but, well, they’d probably know a joke if they heard one, but they couldn’t tell one to save their lives.”
Suddenly, as though lightning had struck, they looked at each other. Yuuji grinned. “Koharu, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Koharu returned the grin mischievously. “I think so, Yuu-kun, but where are we going to find a goat and some silkworms at this hour?”
*
Shiraishi ensured that everyone was up early the next morning to pack up camp. He did not want to stay in this town any longer than necessary.
Yuuji shambled up the path toward camp, holding hands with the actor from the night before, who was carrying a bag and grinning. When they got close, Yuuji smiled sheepishly, gesturing toward Koharu. “He followed me home, Captain, can I keep him?”
~