iverin
in
zekkouchou
[SEISYuN] Prelude--JE
Title: SEISYuN: Prelude
Fandom: Johnny's Entertainment
Characters: TOKIO (in SEISYuN PV-verse, AU)
Rating: PG for language
Summary: Five men have five very different stories, but share a common passion: They want freedom. What moves us to put aside who we have always been and to become heroes?
Notes: This is my take on the backstories of the characters in the SEISYuN video. Information on the PV's story is here, translation of the lyrics are here. Fic SCRUTINIZED by glittercrush, who I sincerely thank for her time and trouble!
SEISYuN-verse Timeline:
Deus ex Machina
Rising Sun
SEISYuN: Prelude
TOKIO's SEISYuN PV
For luxvesperis and vicechan. Thank you both for your love of TOKIO and your willingness to share it with me.
Believe in eternity, the future, and tomorrow.
*****
His wife and children have been gone for years. He wasn't there when they were taken, and he has almost blocked it out by now. It's just a void, a numbness, a sort of longing that creeps up on him when the sunbeams catch the multitude of meandering dust mites in his untidy home.
He holds his head between his hands at the end of another empty day and he wonders why he does it. He wonders why he doesn't end it, when he knows he could.
He looks at the desk, at the computer with the smashed-in screen, now coated with dust. Beside it there is a gun with a single bullet.
He frowns and sighs, the wrinkles that make him look far older than he is settling into new lines as he stands. Slowly, deliberately, he walks over to the desk, hand outstretched. He sees where he idly traced a word--"eternity"--and smears his tired fingers across it.
The fingers that brought joy to his life when normal folk were still allowed to make music for joy. The fingers that reach for the gun.
He pops the clip out and sees that he remembered correctly: One bullet. His last neighbor gave it to him when he himself was dragged off, the softly spoken parting words of "you never know" lingering on his lips. Resigned, he holds the gun comfortably in his hand, its metal cool against his palm.
It doesn't take him long to survey his near-empty home, stripped down to the bare necessities. The electricity barely works, he recalls, and he ducks under a dangling bare light bulb and enters the bedroom.
Under his futon, there is a set of stairs. They were there when he moved in, of course, but he never thought to use them.
When they came, he had a reason.
When things started to go wrong, he made a small refuge. Books he loved, trinkets and photos and his beloved guitar were hidden in there, the only things constantly dusted and cared for among all his possessions.
He descends the stairs, gun still in hand. At the bottom, there's another bare-bulbed light. He pulls the chain, illuminating a room full of amateurish gadgets that he's cobbled together over the last few years.
The chair is worn, olive green, and at least three decades old, but it works. The wheels squeak as he pulls it out and takes a seat.
The gun is carefully set aside.
He flips a switch, and the contraptions before him light up, whir, rattle. They're nothing like the sentient machines that roam the streets and destroy lives. They're his own work, his secret.
And now, his lifeline. He's prepared for this. The piece of crinkled paper sits under a microphone. It has waited two years for him to break.
For his courage to rise up above the fear.
Now is the time. He moves the microphone nearer his lips, clears his throat, flips one final switch...
And begins.
"If anyone is listening... I can't be the only one. We're at a point when we have to stand..."
=====
Taichi stands bemused amongst scattered electrical components and stone. Mere hours ago, the building he stands in had a wall, where now it is open to the air. He supposes they may have bombed it, or battered it, but the logistics overwhelm his brain.
"Ahhh..." It's less of confusion, less of astonishment, more of a resignation and acceptance of the inevitable. He'd known it would come, and he made his decision accordingly.
"It's a shame," he says to no one in particular as he scoots around white plastic with his toe--a fragment of the keyboard he'd had for five years. The black piece next to it was formerly a part of his newest purchase. His turntable is broken in two. His recording equipment has its readouts shattered and its switches snapped off.
He's surprised that it even looks remotely like a studio now that they're done with it.
He stands back for a moment, surveying the damage again as he wipes the sweat from his forehead with the edge of his scarf. What was in the past is over, he thinks, and he'll have to move on.
He had prepared for it, and he's glad now that he had that sort of foresight. His former manager had always called him smart, but after the takeover Taichi had begun to go about his riskier activities with a healthy dose of paranoia.
When they said to stop making music--they called it "organic" of all things--he refused to listen. He pandered to their rules and their tastes and hoped they would leave him be. On the side, in his own time, he made the music people wanted to hear.
The rough, metallic, militaristic music they wanted was easy for Taichi to write. Simple keys, no variation--little thought required. It was designed to entrance and demoralize, not to entertain or inspire. He hated it, and he hates it now. Freedom of thought and expression has been his passion for his entire life.
He refuses to let go of it. That is why he's here. The rubble is a fact of life. The destruction of his tools would have come sooner or later. But he had prepared.
Behind the half-collapsed desk, hidden beneath the torn remains of a high stool, is a hole just wide enough to put a thick binder in and as deep as he can reach. He fishes out the items one after the other, even as the wind stirs debris into the air. He's almost smiling.
Carefully, almost lovingly, he opens the binder. Inside are dozens of minidisks--backed-up recordings of everything he has ever written and loved. They are his treasure. The box that was above them is heavier than it looks, but also precious. From it, he pulls a small radio and his MD recorder. They're old, but they have never failed him like the newer technology does.
He dusts off a little spot on the floor before putting the radio down and flipping a switch. The box hums softly for a moment before settling into its usual static. He honestly doesn't hope for much, but he has a gut feeling that something will come along.
For a moment he looks at the ceiling thoughtfully, as if making a last minute change to a speech. He holds a small microphone near his mouth and dictates into the MD recorder:
"My name is Kokubun Taichi. I was born seventeen years before the takeover began. I have been a professional musician for nine years. I'm doing this in the hope that someone will find it one day--when things are better and you can enjoy things as we once did. It's best to listen to how it used to be when you're trying to start again, isn't it? I leave--"
The radio crackles, and Taichi thinks he hears a voice. For a moment he stares at it, but the static quickly resumes its dull roar.
"--I'm leaving everything I've written. I'm not sure it will be of much use to me in my lifetime, but I think it will be beneficial someday. I'm happy to share it. I'm happy to have made it.
"So. Please accept this, enjoy it, and share it with others. We have hope. Your future will be the result."
He clicks off the MD just as the radio crackles to life again. As a voice fades in, he tucks his newly recorded disc into the empty first pocket of the binder.
"--to stand up against them. I believe we can. We are our hope."
Taichi smiles again at the familiar tune playing while the broadcast ends.
=====
He's been on a farm all his life and has never seriously wanted to do anything else. He rushed through high school, gave up all of his momentary, crazy ambitions to be a professional surfer (which he still laughs about), and came back to help his parents. They should have retired last year, but things got in the way.
As it stands, Yamaguchi Tatsuya is alone.
He can't say he's too down about it. His parents lived good lives and he was happy to work beside them. He learned the value of hard work, how to take care of himself, how to fend for himself in any situation. He's grateful for all of it, and it's why he always smiles. He likes working hard. He likes staying busy.
It has gotten progressively harder as the years have gone on, and he'll admit that readily. Things aren't as easy to come by as they used to be. Prices are erratic. He can never tell when he's going to have enough money to live comfortably.
But comfort is a relative term. His parents chose to live out in a rural area for fun, really; for the thrill of self-sufficiency. It was a flavor of times long past with meager modern conveniences when it got too rough. There were bad seasons, accidents, and crises, but they always made it through. They never gave up, and Yamaguchi still doesn't. To him, comfort is being able to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
He never expected to be stuck without a real purpose.
Even when things got bad in the cities and people started moving out to the rural areas to simply stay alive, he thought he'd always be one step ahead. Then more people came and he had to give up his recreational coaching and sports leagues to keep the farm going. Crops were stolen, as were livestock.
He kept going.
The machines claimed all of the land for their causes, forcing people to produce fuel materials and leaving only small bits of arable land on which the barest necessities for life could be grown. They took his parents away to do god only knows what.
He kept going.
One of the neighbors did something particularly idiotic; the machines razed the entire area to "teach him a lesson". Yamaguchi lost his crop and most of his dear animals.
He sits on the porch now, and wonders where to go.
He's grateful that the house is intact, as is most of the barn. Things can be salvaged, but it's not much of a life. All he really knows is that he refuses to sign up to be part of the government legions in the city, the ones keeping good people like himself from breaking away from the tyranny. He sees the units patrolling off in the distance and wonders if there's a way to make a change.
To him, the essence of life is doing what you can and what you will to its absolute fullest. He feels pretty stagnant right now.
He dusts his hands off on his jeans and heads back inside the house. The modern conveniences are all gone, removed by his increasingly paranoid father in the last days that he lived on the farm. Like so many of the braver souls in his generation, Yamaguchi keeps an outdated radio around, one that barely picks up anything. It reminds him of when things were really enjoyable and he likes to turn it on and pretend there's rock and roll playing, something he can air guitar to or sing along with.
Today, surprisingly, there's a soft melody and a calming voice.
It's the second time in a week that the same voice has broadcast. Yamaguchi is amazed that the guy hasn't been caught yet. It's the same veiled call to meet up at a bar in Tokyo, something only his generation can decode based on those familiar chords.
The Indie hit by a ne'er do well band talks about purple roses and champagne in the middle of the filth of the city--life and vibrancy that are just memories now. It's like a rallying cry for monochrome souls.
Yamaguchi laughs for a moment, then picks up a rucksack and begins filling it with odds and ends.
I've got nothing else, he thinks. I might as well see what's still out there.
=====
From mid-afternoon 'til as late as he can get away with, Matsuoka welcomes anyone and everyone to his bar. He refuses to be an informant; in fact, he refuses to say much to anyone. This tacit confidentiality brings in revolutionaries seeking a discreet meeting spot. On the other hand, it also means the government comes in unquestioned and unhindered. That part of Matsuoka's attitude is what keeps him in business. He sees nothing, he hears nothing.
He'd be lying if he said he was completely neutral, though. Like anyone else, he has at least a little hope for the future. He keeps the revolutionaries safe as much as he can. He has a secret back room and blacked out windows. He has a radio in his tiny apartment over the bar, but he never uses it. Unlike his bar patrons, he knows it'll never change.
He tries to hold on to optimism anyway.
His jokes are silent, but many. His bar tricks bring melancholy half-smiles to faces, and he's secretly grateful for that. Color has been missing for years and the pink and red of quirked lips is a nice dose of sanity. He does what he can without seemingly seeing or hearing a thing.
Matsuoka isn't blind, though. He tries not to laugh every time some new wannabe revolutionary walks in. He can tell right away who might actually make it.
One of the people he has pegged for success is the short, bright-eyed one that comes in every other day. The man sits at the far end of the bar and drinks light drinks, half-water, tracing designs on the steel surface and making odd patterns with his fingers. Matsuoka thinks the guy is miming playing a piano, but he can't be too sure. He might just be crazy.
The one with the plaid scarf looks pretty promising too, even though he only comes to the bar twice. He's got a little bit of a serious air, and he's built and tanned. Dedication is important, and so is practical experience in working your ass off. He looks like a fighter to Matsuoka.
Matsuoka knows that the one who looks 50 leaves coded messages on the bathroom walls, and he knows something is up. He figures that guy must be the voice on the radio, even if he hasn't so much as spoken in the bar. He's got the look of an old soul, but a youthfulness and hope in his eyes that would be confusing if times were different.
It's because of this old guy that Matsuoka has been doing brisk business. He's heard rumors about the song that's been played, something written about the bar long before he took over ownership. He hasn't heard the whole thing, but what he has heard makes him laugh.
Nobody looks up when the patrol group bursts in. From the sound, Matsuoka can tell that it was the guy by the window, the one who always looked paranoid but probably only has a few hours left to be that way. He'll be brainwashed or dead by nightfall, just like the others who get caught.
But the damn machines knock the door off the hinges on the way out, and the bar's proprietor struggles to confine his irritation to an eyebrow twitch.
With barely a pause, the conversations start again, a dull hum accompanied by the clinking of glasses on the tabletops. Matsuoka wonders when such absurd acceptance became normal.
Suddenly, whether out of annoyance with the commotion or the desire for some sort of amusement in dull Tokyo life, Matsuoka Masahiro finally walks to the bathroom to read the messages on the wall.
Over the rows of highly processed, low-quality liquor (the only stuff they can get now), the nightly propaganda hour finishes. Nobody looks up.
The voice of the machine government's golden boy comes on. His tone is low and desperate, enthusiastic, dangerous.
The man who looks 50 smiles.
=====
Everyone in Japan knows Nagase's face. They're required to have a TV and to keep it tuned to the government channel at least seven hours a day. If they do this, they're bound to see him and to know him.
And, understandably, to hate him.
Nagase is the human face of the regime, the oppressors. He is the enthusiastic voice of recruitment into the forces that control free thought and all things organic. He's the pretty boy they picked and gave a choice to:
"You work for us, send out our words with your looks and charisma, and we let you live."
Over the years, Nagase has learned to solidly project an image of hope and faith in the government. "Order and control is the future," he has learned to say. "Structure is necessary and thought is obstruction." This has kept him out of the real brainwashing seminars. It's just smart living, in his opinion. Survival.
On the streets, he can pick out the dissenters at a glance. They look at him as though he is evil, as though it's all his decision, as though he really wants them all to join the legions and become puppets. He finds this reaction gratifying.
As long as he can make some of them hate him, the resistance will thrive in pockets. Perhaps if his broadcast is particularly good--if it really gets them stirred up--they'll band together and make a stand. And maybe, just maybe if they do that, one government squad might get taken out, disrupting communication. If they can break the machines' tight network, they'll no longer be able to wield an iron fist. And then, from there, humanity can try to take their world back.
Nagase is a dreamer sometimes. He just hides it well.
Like the rest of them, he has been biding his time. He has his radio masterfully hidden in his government dormitory. He has a few pieces of clothing in the old style. He remembers music and playing it and loving it. He remembers vices like real drinking, smoking, and sex with actual people. He's just like all the other fighters.
He just hides it better than they do.
"It's the right thing to do," Nagase says, winking at the camera. He learned over a year ago to not show how nauseous such statements made him. It is his job. It is work. It keeps him alive.
The human crew members yell out, "Cut!" and Nagase relaxes. His eyes dart to the sentient overseer and it gives the unnatural nod that means Nagase gets to live another day. Up 'til today, he has lived by the belief that one more day is all he needs. As long as he could go from one to the next, there was a chance that things would change.
He hurriedly peels off the dull silver jumpsuit they have him don for the biggest broadcast of the evening. He has been doing this for years, but the disgust feels fresh nightly.
When the studio clears after the broadcast he lingers, presumably to take his usual ionic shower. Today he has chosen to go last, graciously letting his co-stars precede him. He sits in the stark white relaxation area, pretending to study the massive script for their yearly "instructional drama". He has no intention of filming it.
When he is alone, he utters a low mantra, something like the prayers they used to have, then sits down at his broadcast desk again. Everything is in position.
Nagase laughs and jerks the camera closer. When he knows that the screens all over Japan will be filled with his defiant face, he takes a deep breath and hits the necessary buttons. His image resolves on the monitor.
"Good evening, Japan. You know my face, and you know my name. You're used to listening, so don't stop now. If you've heard it, you've been thinking. The broadcast. The call. Get off your asses. It's time to rise up.
"Leader has spoken. I'm moving, and so should you. I'll see you, and I'll bring the goods. Screw the government. We're at a crossroad now. We ought to take our lives back.
"For the future."
He flips the switches off. For a moment, while the lights fade, he hopes that someone, anyone, realizes that it wasn't some damned government trap.
He smiles, and shrugs on his padded vest.
Then he runs.
*****
信じるのさ 永遠と未来と明日を
NOTE: Rising Sun is my take on the beginning of the takeover, the event that all of these men refer to.
If you're a member of to_ki_o, there's a translation of both the song AND the PV here, and it's incredibly moving. I would suggest giving it a look.
This piece is an intentional style and voice exploration; these elements shift as the character in focus changes. Frustrating from a professional writing perspective, I'm sure, but completely intentional. There were multiple rounds of editing on this to try to keep it cohesive, and if it failed... XD I don't know what to say other than that I tried.
Fandom: Johnny's Entertainment
Characters: TOKIO (in SEISYuN PV-verse, AU)
Rating: PG for language
Summary: Five men have five very different stories, but share a common passion: They want freedom. What moves us to put aside who we have always been and to become heroes?
Notes: This is my take on the backstories of the characters in the SEISYuN video. Information on the PV's story is here, translation of the lyrics are here. Fic SCRUTINIZED by glittercrush, who I sincerely thank for her time and trouble!
SEISYuN-verse Timeline:
Deus ex Machina
Rising Sun
SEISYuN: Prelude
TOKIO's SEISYuN PV
For luxvesperis and vicechan. Thank you both for your love of TOKIO and your willingness to share it with me.
Believe in eternity, the future, and tomorrow.
*****
His wife and children have been gone for years. He wasn't there when they were taken, and he has almost blocked it out by now. It's just a void, a numbness, a sort of longing that creeps up on him when the sunbeams catch the multitude of meandering dust mites in his untidy home.
He holds his head between his hands at the end of another empty day and he wonders why he does it. He wonders why he doesn't end it, when he knows he could.
He looks at the desk, at the computer with the smashed-in screen, now coated with dust. Beside it there is a gun with a single bullet.
He frowns and sighs, the wrinkles that make him look far older than he is settling into new lines as he stands. Slowly, deliberately, he walks over to the desk, hand outstretched. He sees where he idly traced a word--"eternity"--and smears his tired fingers across it.
The fingers that brought joy to his life when normal folk were still allowed to make music for joy. The fingers that reach for the gun.
He pops the clip out and sees that he remembered correctly: One bullet. His last neighbor gave it to him when he himself was dragged off, the softly spoken parting words of "you never know" lingering on his lips. Resigned, he holds the gun comfortably in his hand, its metal cool against his palm.
It doesn't take him long to survey his near-empty home, stripped down to the bare necessities. The electricity barely works, he recalls, and he ducks under a dangling bare light bulb and enters the bedroom.
Under his futon, there is a set of stairs. They were there when he moved in, of course, but he never thought to use them.
When they came, he had a reason.
When things started to go wrong, he made a small refuge. Books he loved, trinkets and photos and his beloved guitar were hidden in there, the only things constantly dusted and cared for among all his possessions.
He descends the stairs, gun still in hand. At the bottom, there's another bare-bulbed light. He pulls the chain, illuminating a room full of amateurish gadgets that he's cobbled together over the last few years.
The chair is worn, olive green, and at least three decades old, but it works. The wheels squeak as he pulls it out and takes a seat.
The gun is carefully set aside.
He flips a switch, and the contraptions before him light up, whir, rattle. They're nothing like the sentient machines that roam the streets and destroy lives. They're his own work, his secret.
And now, his lifeline. He's prepared for this. The piece of crinkled paper sits under a microphone. It has waited two years for him to break.
For his courage to rise up above the fear.
Now is the time. He moves the microphone nearer his lips, clears his throat, flips one final switch...
And begins.
"If anyone is listening... I can't be the only one. We're at a point when we have to stand..."
=====
Taichi stands bemused amongst scattered electrical components and stone. Mere hours ago, the building he stands in had a wall, where now it is open to the air. He supposes they may have bombed it, or battered it, but the logistics overwhelm his brain.
"Ahhh..." It's less of confusion, less of astonishment, more of a resignation and acceptance of the inevitable. He'd known it would come, and he made his decision accordingly.
"It's a shame," he says to no one in particular as he scoots around white plastic with his toe--a fragment of the keyboard he'd had for five years. The black piece next to it was formerly a part of his newest purchase. His turntable is broken in two. His recording equipment has its readouts shattered and its switches snapped off.
He's surprised that it even looks remotely like a studio now that they're done with it.
He stands back for a moment, surveying the damage again as he wipes the sweat from his forehead with the edge of his scarf. What was in the past is over, he thinks, and he'll have to move on.
He had prepared for it, and he's glad now that he had that sort of foresight. His former manager had always called him smart, but after the takeover Taichi had begun to go about his riskier activities with a healthy dose of paranoia.
When they said to stop making music--they called it "organic" of all things--he refused to listen. He pandered to their rules and their tastes and hoped they would leave him be. On the side, in his own time, he made the music people wanted to hear.
The rough, metallic, militaristic music they wanted was easy for Taichi to write. Simple keys, no variation--little thought required. It was designed to entrance and demoralize, not to entertain or inspire. He hated it, and he hates it now. Freedom of thought and expression has been his passion for his entire life.
He refuses to let go of it. That is why he's here. The rubble is a fact of life. The destruction of his tools would have come sooner or later. But he had prepared.
Behind the half-collapsed desk, hidden beneath the torn remains of a high stool, is a hole just wide enough to put a thick binder in and as deep as he can reach. He fishes out the items one after the other, even as the wind stirs debris into the air. He's almost smiling.
Carefully, almost lovingly, he opens the binder. Inside are dozens of minidisks--backed-up recordings of everything he has ever written and loved. They are his treasure. The box that was above them is heavier than it looks, but also precious. From it, he pulls a small radio and his MD recorder. They're old, but they have never failed him like the newer technology does.
He dusts off a little spot on the floor before putting the radio down and flipping a switch. The box hums softly for a moment before settling into its usual static. He honestly doesn't hope for much, but he has a gut feeling that something will come along.
For a moment he looks at the ceiling thoughtfully, as if making a last minute change to a speech. He holds a small microphone near his mouth and dictates into the MD recorder:
"My name is Kokubun Taichi. I was born seventeen years before the takeover began. I have been a professional musician for nine years. I'm doing this in the hope that someone will find it one day--when things are better and you can enjoy things as we once did. It's best to listen to how it used to be when you're trying to start again, isn't it? I leave--"
The radio crackles, and Taichi thinks he hears a voice. For a moment he stares at it, but the static quickly resumes its dull roar.
"--I'm leaving everything I've written. I'm not sure it will be of much use to me in my lifetime, but I think it will be beneficial someday. I'm happy to share it. I'm happy to have made it.
"So. Please accept this, enjoy it, and share it with others. We have hope. Your future will be the result."
He clicks off the MD just as the radio crackles to life again. As a voice fades in, he tucks his newly recorded disc into the empty first pocket of the binder.
"--to stand up against them. I believe we can. We are our hope."
Taichi smiles again at the familiar tune playing while the broadcast ends.
=====
He's been on a farm all his life and has never seriously wanted to do anything else. He rushed through high school, gave up all of his momentary, crazy ambitions to be a professional surfer (which he still laughs about), and came back to help his parents. They should have retired last year, but things got in the way.
As it stands, Yamaguchi Tatsuya is alone.
He can't say he's too down about it. His parents lived good lives and he was happy to work beside them. He learned the value of hard work, how to take care of himself, how to fend for himself in any situation. He's grateful for all of it, and it's why he always smiles. He likes working hard. He likes staying busy.
It has gotten progressively harder as the years have gone on, and he'll admit that readily. Things aren't as easy to come by as they used to be. Prices are erratic. He can never tell when he's going to have enough money to live comfortably.
But comfort is a relative term. His parents chose to live out in a rural area for fun, really; for the thrill of self-sufficiency. It was a flavor of times long past with meager modern conveniences when it got too rough. There were bad seasons, accidents, and crises, but they always made it through. They never gave up, and Yamaguchi still doesn't. To him, comfort is being able to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
He never expected to be stuck without a real purpose.
Even when things got bad in the cities and people started moving out to the rural areas to simply stay alive, he thought he'd always be one step ahead. Then more people came and he had to give up his recreational coaching and sports leagues to keep the farm going. Crops were stolen, as were livestock.
He kept going.
The machines claimed all of the land for their causes, forcing people to produce fuel materials and leaving only small bits of arable land on which the barest necessities for life could be grown. They took his parents away to do god only knows what.
He kept going.
One of the neighbors did something particularly idiotic; the machines razed the entire area to "teach him a lesson". Yamaguchi lost his crop and most of his dear animals.
He sits on the porch now, and wonders where to go.
He's grateful that the house is intact, as is most of the barn. Things can be salvaged, but it's not much of a life. All he really knows is that he refuses to sign up to be part of the government legions in the city, the ones keeping good people like himself from breaking away from the tyranny. He sees the units patrolling off in the distance and wonders if there's a way to make a change.
To him, the essence of life is doing what you can and what you will to its absolute fullest. He feels pretty stagnant right now.
He dusts his hands off on his jeans and heads back inside the house. The modern conveniences are all gone, removed by his increasingly paranoid father in the last days that he lived on the farm. Like so many of the braver souls in his generation, Yamaguchi keeps an outdated radio around, one that barely picks up anything. It reminds him of when things were really enjoyable and he likes to turn it on and pretend there's rock and roll playing, something he can air guitar to or sing along with.
Today, surprisingly, there's a soft melody and a calming voice.
It's the second time in a week that the same voice has broadcast. Yamaguchi is amazed that the guy hasn't been caught yet. It's the same veiled call to meet up at a bar in Tokyo, something only his generation can decode based on those familiar chords.
The Indie hit by a ne'er do well band talks about purple roses and champagne in the middle of the filth of the city--life and vibrancy that are just memories now. It's like a rallying cry for monochrome souls.
Yamaguchi laughs for a moment, then picks up a rucksack and begins filling it with odds and ends.
I've got nothing else, he thinks. I might as well see what's still out there.
=====
From mid-afternoon 'til as late as he can get away with, Matsuoka welcomes anyone and everyone to his bar. He refuses to be an informant; in fact, he refuses to say much to anyone. This tacit confidentiality brings in revolutionaries seeking a discreet meeting spot. On the other hand, it also means the government comes in unquestioned and unhindered. That part of Matsuoka's attitude is what keeps him in business. He sees nothing, he hears nothing.
He'd be lying if he said he was completely neutral, though. Like anyone else, he has at least a little hope for the future. He keeps the revolutionaries safe as much as he can. He has a secret back room and blacked out windows. He has a radio in his tiny apartment over the bar, but he never uses it. Unlike his bar patrons, he knows it'll never change.
He tries to hold on to optimism anyway.
His jokes are silent, but many. His bar tricks bring melancholy half-smiles to faces, and he's secretly grateful for that. Color has been missing for years and the pink and red of quirked lips is a nice dose of sanity. He does what he can without seemingly seeing or hearing a thing.
Matsuoka isn't blind, though. He tries not to laugh every time some new wannabe revolutionary walks in. He can tell right away who might actually make it.
One of the people he has pegged for success is the short, bright-eyed one that comes in every other day. The man sits at the far end of the bar and drinks light drinks, half-water, tracing designs on the steel surface and making odd patterns with his fingers. Matsuoka thinks the guy is miming playing a piano, but he can't be too sure. He might just be crazy.
The one with the plaid scarf looks pretty promising too, even though he only comes to the bar twice. He's got a little bit of a serious air, and he's built and tanned. Dedication is important, and so is practical experience in working your ass off. He looks like a fighter to Matsuoka.
Matsuoka knows that the one who looks 50 leaves coded messages on the bathroom walls, and he knows something is up. He figures that guy must be the voice on the radio, even if he hasn't so much as spoken in the bar. He's got the look of an old soul, but a youthfulness and hope in his eyes that would be confusing if times were different.
It's because of this old guy that Matsuoka has been doing brisk business. He's heard rumors about the song that's been played, something written about the bar long before he took over ownership. He hasn't heard the whole thing, but what he has heard makes him laugh.
Nobody looks up when the patrol group bursts in. From the sound, Matsuoka can tell that it was the guy by the window, the one who always looked paranoid but probably only has a few hours left to be that way. He'll be brainwashed or dead by nightfall, just like the others who get caught.
But the damn machines knock the door off the hinges on the way out, and the bar's proprietor struggles to confine his irritation to an eyebrow twitch.
With barely a pause, the conversations start again, a dull hum accompanied by the clinking of glasses on the tabletops. Matsuoka wonders when such absurd acceptance became normal.
Suddenly, whether out of annoyance with the commotion or the desire for some sort of amusement in dull Tokyo life, Matsuoka Masahiro finally walks to the bathroom to read the messages on the wall.
Over the rows of highly processed, low-quality liquor (the only stuff they can get now), the nightly propaganda hour finishes. Nobody looks up.
The voice of the machine government's golden boy comes on. His tone is low and desperate, enthusiastic, dangerous.
The man who looks 50 smiles.
=====
Everyone in Japan knows Nagase's face. They're required to have a TV and to keep it tuned to the government channel at least seven hours a day. If they do this, they're bound to see him and to know him.
And, understandably, to hate him.
Nagase is the human face of the regime, the oppressors. He is the enthusiastic voice of recruitment into the forces that control free thought and all things organic. He's the pretty boy they picked and gave a choice to:
"You work for us, send out our words with your looks and charisma, and we let you live."
Over the years, Nagase has learned to solidly project an image of hope and faith in the government. "Order and control is the future," he has learned to say. "Structure is necessary and thought is obstruction." This has kept him out of the real brainwashing seminars. It's just smart living, in his opinion. Survival.
On the streets, he can pick out the dissenters at a glance. They look at him as though he is evil, as though it's all his decision, as though he really wants them all to join the legions and become puppets. He finds this reaction gratifying.
As long as he can make some of them hate him, the resistance will thrive in pockets. Perhaps if his broadcast is particularly good--if it really gets them stirred up--they'll band together and make a stand. And maybe, just maybe if they do that, one government squad might get taken out, disrupting communication. If they can break the machines' tight network, they'll no longer be able to wield an iron fist. And then, from there, humanity can try to take their world back.
Nagase is a dreamer sometimes. He just hides it well.
Like the rest of them, he has been biding his time. He has his radio masterfully hidden in his government dormitory. He has a few pieces of clothing in the old style. He remembers music and playing it and loving it. He remembers vices like real drinking, smoking, and sex with actual people. He's just like all the other fighters.
He just hides it better than they do.
"It's the right thing to do," Nagase says, winking at the camera. He learned over a year ago to not show how nauseous such statements made him. It is his job. It is work. It keeps him alive.
The human crew members yell out, "Cut!" and Nagase relaxes. His eyes dart to the sentient overseer and it gives the unnatural nod that means Nagase gets to live another day. Up 'til today, he has lived by the belief that one more day is all he needs. As long as he could go from one to the next, there was a chance that things would change.
He hurriedly peels off the dull silver jumpsuit they have him don for the biggest broadcast of the evening. He has been doing this for years, but the disgust feels fresh nightly.
When the studio clears after the broadcast he lingers, presumably to take his usual ionic shower. Today he has chosen to go last, graciously letting his co-stars precede him. He sits in the stark white relaxation area, pretending to study the massive script for their yearly "instructional drama". He has no intention of filming it.
When he is alone, he utters a low mantra, something like the prayers they used to have, then sits down at his broadcast desk again. Everything is in position.
Nagase laughs and jerks the camera closer. When he knows that the screens all over Japan will be filled with his defiant face, he takes a deep breath and hits the necessary buttons. His image resolves on the monitor.
"Good evening, Japan. You know my face, and you know my name. You're used to listening, so don't stop now. If you've heard it, you've been thinking. The broadcast. The call. Get off your asses. It's time to rise up.
"Leader has spoken. I'm moving, and so should you. I'll see you, and I'll bring the goods. Screw the government. We're at a crossroad now. We ought to take our lives back.
"For the future."
He flips the switches off. For a moment, while the lights fade, he hopes that someone, anyone, realizes that it wasn't some damned government trap.
He smiles, and shrugs on his padded vest.
Then he runs.
*****
信じるのさ 永遠と未来と明日を
NOTE: Rising Sun is my take on the beginning of the takeover, the event that all of these men refer to.
If you're a member of to_ki_o, there's a translation of both the song AND the PV here, and it's incredibly moving. I would suggest giving it a look.
This piece is an intentional style and voice exploration; these elements shift as the character in focus changes. Frustrating from a professional writing perspective, I'm sure, but completely intentional. There were multiple rounds of editing on this to try to keep it cohesive, and if it failed... XD I don't know what to say other than that I tried.