Fifthmus Fic: dreams the way we planned 'em (for mmmdraco, from bookshop)
TITLE: dreams the way we planned 'em
AUTHOR: Aja (bookshop)
RECIPIENT: Kimmie! (mmmdraco), requests
PAIRING: Waya/Isumi, Akira/Hikaru, Rachel/Finn
WARNINGS: this is a Glee. Crossover. a Glee Crossover, people, which means it is going to be cheesy, unrealistic, and ridiculously over the top, and also it will contain singing.
SUMMARY: In Shibuya, Rachel's had enough.
NOTES: my personal feelings toward Glee aside, this was ridiculously fun to write. Thanks, Kimmie, for hosting the challenge and for the delightful prompt. :) I hope you enjoy this!!! Thanks also to my fantastic beta, arboretum, who was AMAZING with the research until I ran out of time to have the whole thing beta'd. All the crappy parts of this are my own.
Little known fact about Rachel: she's been speaking fluent Japanese since she was six. It was the Millennium New Year's Eve broadcast, and Rachel had been watching the ball drop with her family at various points all over the globe for the last three hours. When they showed Japan, Rachel was pleased at how much it looked and sounded just like an American rock concert. Conveniently, there were no Asians on the screen to disrupt the illusion. And while Rachel had no particular care for rock music, even at the precocious age of six she felt a kindred tug of understanding when Aerosmith sang--not that she was all that fond of watching other people sleep, but she did sometimes feel that life was so exciting it was a shame that sleep seemed to be a non-negotiable part of it.
Moved by this newfound wisdom, she listened when Steven Tyler went on to declare to the world that Japan was the "future of pop culture, man, it's where they still care about music and not all this beep beep and crap, if you get what I'm beep-ing saying."
Rachel had turned to her dads with sparkling eyes--when she was old enough to understand the concept of anime, she would refer to it as her "chibi-face"--and said, "Fathers? I want to learn Japanese."
"Of course, dear," Dad said, beaming down at her. "Anything you want."
"You never know when something like that could further your career," said Other Dad.
"Honey, are the schnitzels ready?" said Dad.
"And the egg nog!" said Other Dad.
"Excellent!" said Dad. Then, looking at Rachel, he added with a wink, "I mean, sugoi, desu ne?" And then he had Rachel practice saying it until she could do it perfectly. Sugoi, Rachel thought as she watched the ball drop. One day, I will be sugoi.
When she lands the role of Elphaba in the 28th limited run world tour of Wicked, she is grateful she's kept up her Japanese. By the time they've hit Singapore, none of the other cast members are speaking to her, so she makes a habit of conversing with the gaffers and the grips, until she realizes that their English is largely limited to things like "drop curtain on cue one" and "lift the witch on the High E." Knowing how to say "Yes, of course you can have my autograph!" in thirty-two languages doesn't really help cross the language barrier in these types of contexts, so Rachel looks forward to Japan.
By Tokyo, only general exhaustion keeps the rest of the cast and crew from violating their Equity contracts and going on strike when Rachel suggests Secret Hanukkah. Someone sticks the tour brochure in the edge of her theatre mirror. Her face beams back at her in bright green greasepaint--quite festive, except that the poster title has been changed to read Wacked: starring Rachel Berry as Herself. Undaunted, Rachel turns to her co-star, Mira, who's playing Glenda until she gets too pregnant to fit into the lift harness, which should be any week now. Rachel feels she's been very stubborn about keeping her part as long as possible; she might as well step out of the way and head back home to Scranton, Pennsylvania, and let her truly dedicated and non-pregnant understudy take over. Perhaps Rachel's feelings on the subject have led to some moments of friction between them, but it's nothing, she knows, they can't put aside long enough to achieve peace and harmony within the--
"Will you please just shut up?" Mira says, dipping into the cake of Base 2 so violently that she gets more on her fingernail than on the applicator.
"Look," Rachel says, swallowing and attempting to make eye contact with Mira in the mirror, difficult as that may be while Mira is attempting to do her own makeup, and Rachel will never understand why twenty-eight run tours should have a lower makeup budget than first-runs. At least no one expects Rachel to paint her own face green, but Mira is the gorgeous type who could go onstage with nothing more than a little blush and still look like she's just narrowly avoided having a house fall on her. "I know we've had our differences, I don't deny that, and I take full responsibility for my share of the conflict--"
Mira snorts.
"--but if we could just put that aside for the sake of what we're trying to accomplish," Rachel continues, "as a group, I think we could really do great--"
"Are you out of your mind?" says Mira, turning to her, one half of her face covered in foundation, the other half splotchy and still freshly scrubbed. "What exactly do you think any of us are trying to accomplish here, again?"
"Well," says Rachel uncertainly. "Theatre?"
Mira glares at her. "I'm trying to accomplish getting enough credits on my Equity card to apply for select membership status. Lisa--" the dedicated, non-pregnant understudy-- "is trying to get into the JET program so she can leave the show and make some actual money for once. Hitoshi, the director? He's only doing this tour because he got turned down to do Sweeney Todd at La Jolla."
"But--but the fans of the show, to them it's not just--"
"Maybe there's some of that glowy crap in a first-run, honey," Mira says, turning back to the mirror and cutting a sidewise glance over at Rachel that makes Rachel feel defensive and sad for her all at once. "But on the twenty-eighth? All the real fans of this show are just waiting for a Broadway revival. The only people out on that audience who care about magic are the ones who are too young to know any better, or the crazy ones who've got nothing better to live for than a night at the theatre watching a show they've seen twenty-eight times before."
"That's not true," Rachel says, but in the mirror she sees her lip begin to wobble.
"Deal with it," Mira says, swiping a ribbon of pink across her lips. "The only one who still seems to think this is actually about the magic of theatre is you. The rest of us just want to go home. Maybe do some gigs that don't involve having to do your own coin laundry twice a week."
Rachel looks at herself in the mirror. "Fine," she says, pulling her lips steady, controlling the throb of the muscles in her cheek. "Then I want to go home, too."
____________
She doesn't think they'll fire her for this. Maybe. Not really. Probably not.
She shivers. Either way, it doesn't matter. She's done. She quits. It's not the same as it was when she was in high school. It hasn't been for ages. Rachel's always known that, but she's always been the best around at doggedly ignoring the obvious at all costs. It's not really denial, because Rachel's not crazy, she's more self-aware than anyone will ever credit her for. It's just that she wants to believe. She's never stopped. Rachel has never stopped believing. But now, sitting on a train somewhere on the edge of Shibuya, she's trying to hold on to that feelin.
But it's gone, gone, gone.
Rachel rides the train around Tokyo because she does not know anything better to do with herself. The truth is, she does miss home. She misses her dads. She misses her dog. She misses Finn, with his big hands and warm smile. She huddles beneath her special Wicked cast members only jacket. On her first trip to New York when she was thirteen, she would spot the performers wearing them on their way home from rehearsals or even performances. They were impossible to miss. They stood out like varsity jackets on a team of high schoolers, only these were a hundred times more important. These said Broadway cast member. These said first-run. These said Equity. They said I've arrived.
Only Rachel doesn't feel like she's arrived particularly anywhere, except at Ebisu station, where most of the mass of people shoved into the train with her are getting off. She stands, wondering vaguely if she should get off too, and the wave of people jostles her toward the door before she can make up her mind. As they flow past her onto the platform, she grabs hold of the nearest pole and clings to it. She can't remember what's at Ebisu, even though she has memorized the map of Shibuya she has tucked inside her scrapbook back in her hotel room. It's full of pictures and places and postcard souvenirs of the tour. There are fewer pictures of people. But screw them. Rachel can do whatever she needs to do on her own. It's not as if she needs the rest of the cast to like her.
Needed. She doesn't have a cast anymore. She's quit.
She closes her eyes and hums a snatch of, Why, oh, why, oh, why, oh, did I leave Ohio? Maybe I'd better go--
"Hey, lady, either get off or quit blocking the doorway, make up your mind!"
She opens her eyes and sees two boys shoving past her into the train. The taller one--more of a man, really--is elbowing his friend. "Shhh," he says. "Don't be rude." The other one, younger and shorter, just rolls his eyes and sits down opposite her in the empty compartment.
"Oh," she says. "I'm sorry." She sits down. Then she adds, in a long string of perfect Japanese, "It's just that I've been through a long day, and I thought I knew my way around, but it turns out that when you've just quit your performance troupe it's a little hard to know where you want to go, so I thought I would just wander around until I found out, but that doesn't seem to be working very well, does it?"
The older one says kindly, "It's no problem, really. You speak excellent Japanese."
"You don't have to be so nice to every girl you meet," the younger one mutters. He's towheaded, and his hair sticks up every which way. Rachel wonders if he can even see past the clumps of it that seem to perpetually fall into his eyes. He's clad in a strange combination of denim and camouflage, and eyeing her with a combination of suspicion and curiosity that makes his companion seem even more quiet and well-behaved by comparison.
"Relax, Waya," the taller one says, still smiling at her. Waya lets out an exasperated huff which he ignores. "I'm Isumi," he says. "This is my friend Waya." She likes his voice--soft and courteous. Waya's is harsh at the edges. Something about him reminds her a bit of Puck, and maybe this is why she sits up straighter, so her shoulders go up and her chest goes out. She's only human, after all. She likes to watch them notice and then try to act like they haven't.
Waya definitely notices. His jaw goes slack and he grabs Isumi's arm like he needs it for support. Isumi just keeps smiling that soft smile. "Would you like directions?"
"I don't need directions," she says. Then she feels the sudden bright spark of adventure, the one she hasn't felt since the early months of the tour, and adds, "But maybe if you would tell me where you're going, I could come with you?"
"You can't come," Waya says quickly. "It's, um. A Host club."
"Waya!" says Isumi.
"A love hotel!"
"Waya!"
"No, really, Isumi and I are--" Isumi's composure breaks and he clamps a hand over his friend's mouth. Rachel laughs.
"Waya and I are on our way to a Go tournament," Isumi says. "You're welcome to come with us."
Waya is squirming so energetically that Rachel figures a Go tournament, whatever that is, is probably male-only. It's definitely not something her tour books have mentioned, which sounds like exactly what she needs right now. Who knows? It might even be fun.
"Thank you," she says. "I'd love to."
____________
On the way to the tournament (Go Institute, Isumi explains), Rachel mostly listens, Isumi mostly talks, and Waya mostly sulks. Still, she likes them both. She likes the way Waya is sharp and alert and constantly watching her as if she might try to steal Isumi away from him if he lets his guard down. At that, she admits, she might just, because Isumi is tall and handsome, and his hands aren't big like Finn's, but he has the same kindness in his looks, the same fresh-faced innocence that Finn has never managed to outgrow, even though they're both reaching the age where they're supposed to have become cynical and jaded. Rachel supposes this is it, her big point of no return; except that she's four thousand miles from home, about to go see a thrilling board game tournament with two complete strangers, and she feels like laughing instead of crying. That doesn't really seem all that cynical.
The tournament is a subdued affair, with a room full of mostly men, as she predicted, and a stage where two teenagers sit at a table. Behind them is a screen projecting the board that sits between them. When they move to begin the game, Rachel sees how graceful and practiced their hands are, and suddenly they seem much older than they look. This is an exhibition game, apparently, so a third person--to Rachel's satisfaction, a young woman--emcees the match and explains what the players are doing.
"That's Nase," Waya says, leaning over Isumi to talk to Rachel's elbow. "The players are Shindou and Touya. They're the best their age in Japan."
"Aren't they your age?" Rachel asks him, shooting him a smirk. He scowls. He's grudgingly accepted that she's not going to hypnotize Waya with her feminine assets and lead him away somewhere, but he's still too easy to rile up. It makes Rachel feel like a high schooler again.
"Shindou and Touya are different," Isumi says gently, rescuing Waya from his own irascible retort.
Rachel is going to ask how, but the game is starting, and she loses her chance.
The first move belongs to Shindou, the one with the platinum-and-charcoal hair. He looks as if he should be playing around at a gaming saloon somewhere, not studying the board with the solemnity of a pallbearer. When he makes his first move, however, there's a ripple of surprise from the audience, including from Waya and Isumi, and Shindou sits back and smirks across the board at his opponent. Nase, the emcee, explains with a note of humor in her voice that Shindou has just used an opening position that fell out of favor in the eighteen hundreds because of its unstable position relative to the opponent's territory. Most of that goes over Rachel's head, but she doesn't miss the way Shindou's opponent, Touya, is looking right at him and smiling.
That grabs Rachel's attention, and before long the game does too. She creates a story in her head from the looks that fly between them and the way their hands curve around stones and shape lines on the board. She understands very little of the Go terminology--quite literally, since she hasn't exactly studied up on japanese board game vocabulary over the years. But it's easy to get swept up in the drama of moves with the commanding sound of stones slapping boards ringing out over the room, and gasps whenever one of them moves somewhere unexpected. The Hand of God, the emcee explains, half in amusement, half in reverence, could be just around the corner, and Rachel doesn't need to know what the Hand of God is, exactly, to tell that it's worth playing for.
The thing that is easiest for her to see, with or without the emcee narrating the game, is that the players, Shindou and Touya, have been playing together for many years. At one point, Shindou, the blond, does something strange and taps the side of the board with a fan that has been lying untouched on the table. Rachel doesn't understand what that means, but Touya, when he sees it, smiles again, a sad, fond smile. Since it's an exhibition game, the atmosphere seems to be less about competition and more about explaining Go to the people who have come to watch; but there is something behind the way Touya looks at Shindou holding the fan that goes beyond competition or entertainment.
When it's over--Shindou wins by resignation, and this must be a big deal because the audience applauds as though some sort of torch has been passed--the two of them still sit across from each other, holding each other's gazes. It's definitely a moment. A dark plume of jealousy flares up inside Rachel for a moment. She knows exactly when the last time she felt so connected to the music, but she hasn't seen anyone from New Directions in years. She still remembers the way her heart had caught, jammed in her throat, the first time she sang "Don't Stop Believin" with Finn. That feeling is still so raw she can capture the echoes of it even now, the way it makes her pulse race and her voice close up.
"Different, huh?" she says.
Isumi smiles at her. "They've been playing together for a very long time," he says.
"They're obsessed with each other," Waya adds. "But brilliant. Like, insanely brilliant together."
Rachel has to close her eyes against the wash of emotion that calls up within her. "My gay dads always say they achieve more together than when they're apart," she says with forced cheerfulness. "I guess it's the same with them."
Waya says, "Shindou? Touya? The same as--oh, man, that explains so much," and promptly goes into a choking fit, but Isumi's smile just grows as if she's not saying anything he hasn't already figured out.
"It's easy to succeed when you have someone who believes in you," he says. He gives Waya a glance full of meaning, but Waya is still having dramatic coughing spasms and misses it. "And it's easy to believe in what you love."
Rachel thinks about that.
Then she gasps.
"That's it!"
Isumi and Waya exchange looks.
"I know what I have to do!" says Rachel. "Thank you, thank you both!"
She begins to rush out of the auditorium, but on second thought she rushes up to the stage instead. Touya and Shindou are just getting ready to leave after the post-game discussion. She waves them down.
"Okay, I know you don't know me but I just wanted to say that was really--really--inspirational," she says. "Plus, that whole Hand of God thing, that's just, it's inspiring, so I wanted to say thanks for the, uh, inspiration. And also you--" she points to Touya-- "should really ask him out already because whatever's going on with the two of you is so thick I could cut it with a butter knife. And, uh. That's all."
They stare at her for a moment, before Shindou calmly reaches over and tucks his fingers between Touya's own. In his other hand, he is clutching the fan. "Thanks," he says. "I think we can figure the rest out from here."
Touya's face turns bright pink. Shindou just looks smug. In the audience, Rachel can hear Waya yelling, "I knew we shouldn't have brought her along! You thought they were insufferable before, now we'll never be able to get the two of them away from each other!"
Rachel beams. She has her phone out of her pocket before she is out of the building, and she's calling a number she didn't know she still had memorized until just this moment.
____________
"You want to what?" says Hitoshi. "Young lady, it's a miracle we're not firing you right now, do you underst--"
"Yes, and I'm sorry, but I just think it would help the tour so much if we could all remember what it was like to sing this show because we loved it," she says, clasping her hands in front of her lap. "When we couldn't stop singing 'Popular' in the shower and we watched bootlegs of Chenoweth and Menzel until our eyes bled and we had twenty different techno remixes of 'Defying Gravity' on our ipods--"
"Most of which were completely illegal and made no profit whatsoever for--"
"Look," Rachel says. "You're on the twenty-eighth tour of a show that's been playing since the Zeroes. Do you really want to pick up that gig in LA? You want to get their attention? Sell out the rest of the tour."
Hitoshi stops tapping his pencil. His eyes narrow.
"You want to do a reduced-price sing-along," he says. "In English. And this is miraculously supposed to make money."
"Yes," she says. "A sing-in. All of us, sitting in the audience, singing with them. It'll be just like the opening night of Rent."
"Except that if I recall correctly, someone had to die for that little phenomenon to occur," Hitoshi says. "Are you volunteering?"
"I know it's a gamble," Rachel says desperately. "But I just think that it would help people remember what it was like to love the show! More importantly, it will help us remember."
Hitoshi hesitates. He looks faintly guilty, and Rachel knows he's remembering that once even he was a star-struck stagehand who got his break directing summer stock productions of Pippin in Osaka.
She pulls out her trump card. "And there's one other thing," she says. "You'll make money on this performance, because I'm going to be sitting this one out."
"What?" says Hitoshi.
"See," Rachel says, "I have this friend."
____________
"KURT HUMMEL?" Mira shrieks. "Kurt Hummel is coming here? How did you get Kurt Hummel? Oh my god, we're going to be doing duets." She looks like she might actually faint. "I can't believe you're giving up your part to Kurt Hummel."
"This is really generous of you," says Lisa the non-pregnant understudy. Apparently she'd gotten an ovation from the audience after Rachel had walked out in makeup. Rachel's happy for her, really, she is. But she's not giving up her crown any time soon.
"It's just for the one night," Rachel says. "And I'll be singing along in the audience. Kurt and I go way back, you know. I taught him everything he knows about how to perform."
"Right," says Mira.
____________
"Oh my god, Rachel Berry!" Kurt is exactly like he was the last time Rachel saw him, but she already knew that. The tabloids have never let her forget it. "I can't believe it! This girl taught me everything I know about how to perform!"
Rachel beams around the room.
"This is so exciting! Did she tell you I've wanted to do Elphaba since I was like eight? Oh my god." He does a cheerleader clap. "This is going to be a-ma-zing."
Kurt's the kind of person whose hugs somehow make you feel warmer all over, and it's not til he's got his arms around her that she realizes how long its been since anyone has hugged her at all.
"Honey, I brought someone for you," he says.
She pulls back. "What?"
Kurt flashes that dimple-filled, teethy smile, the one People had dubbed Most Charming of the year last December. "I know you didn't ask, and I know I didn't exactly get it approved, but I just couldn't stop thinking, what's a reunion with just two people?"
Rachel's heart stops. He couldn't--he hasn't--
"Rachel?"
In a million years, she knows, she'd still know that voice anywhere, even a million miles from home. His voice as warm as his hands.
She turns. In the doorway, still holding on to their suitcases, is the bedraggled and jet-lagged Glee club of 2010, and in the center of them, wearing a thin smile, is--
"Finn." She says it again. "Finn!"
He catches her in his arms, and Kurt's hugs may be great, but Finn holds her like he's missed her, and it's all the difference in the world. Over Finn's shoulder, Quinn, still radiant, is rolling her eyes. It's like Rachel's never been away.
Artie--Artie!--has honed in on the piano like a magnet, before she can even pull herself away from Finn to reach him and hug him. He lifts the lid and pushes the bench out of the way, and Rachel doesn't know when he learned to play the piano, but she's never heard anything lovelier than the opening chords of...
"Just a small town girl," Finn sings, his arms still wrapped tight around her, "Livin' in a lonely world."
Rachel looks up at him and laughs. Kurt joins in and sings the next line, since Rachel is suddenly vibrating with laughter and tears. He wraps his arms, around her, too, and a moment later the others have joined them, and a giant Glee club hug sandwich has formed in the doorway. "You guys are all so ridiculous," Quinn says, but she picks up the next line: walking down the boulevard.
"Wow," says Lisa, watching them from the makeup chair. "This is way too Rodgers and Hammerstein for me. I think I need to go torture a kitten."
"Oh, just shut up and sing," says Mira, smiling at Rachel, and she joins in on the chorus.
Rachel closes her eyes and holds on to that feeling, and this, she thinks--this is what it's like to brush the hand of God.
AUTHOR: Aja (bookshop)
RECIPIENT: Kimmie! (mmmdraco), requests
PAIRING: Waya/Isumi, Akira/Hikaru, Rachel/Finn
WARNINGS: this is a Glee. Crossover. a Glee Crossover, people, which means it is going to be cheesy, unrealistic, and ridiculously over the top, and also it will contain singing.
SUMMARY: In Shibuya, Rachel's had enough.
NOTES: my personal feelings toward Glee aside, this was ridiculously fun to write. Thanks, Kimmie, for hosting the challenge and for the delightful prompt. :) I hope you enjoy this!!! Thanks also to my fantastic beta, arboretum, who was AMAZING with the research until I ran out of time to have the whole thing beta'd. All the crappy parts of this are my own.
Little known fact about Rachel: she's been speaking fluent Japanese since she was six. It was the Millennium New Year's Eve broadcast, and Rachel had been watching the ball drop with her family at various points all over the globe for the last three hours. When they showed Japan, Rachel was pleased at how much it looked and sounded just like an American rock concert. Conveniently, there were no Asians on the screen to disrupt the illusion. And while Rachel had no particular care for rock music, even at the precocious age of six she felt a kindred tug of understanding when Aerosmith sang--not that she was all that fond of watching other people sleep, but she did sometimes feel that life was so exciting it was a shame that sleep seemed to be a non-negotiable part of it.
Moved by this newfound wisdom, she listened when Steven Tyler went on to declare to the world that Japan was the "future of pop culture, man, it's where they still care about music and not all this beep beep and crap, if you get what I'm beep-ing saying."
Rachel had turned to her dads with sparkling eyes--when she was old enough to understand the concept of anime, she would refer to it as her "chibi-face"--and said, "Fathers? I want to learn Japanese."
"Of course, dear," Dad said, beaming down at her. "Anything you want."
"You never know when something like that could further your career," said Other Dad.
"Honey, are the schnitzels ready?" said Dad.
"And the egg nog!" said Other Dad.
"Excellent!" said Dad. Then, looking at Rachel, he added with a wink, "I mean, sugoi, desu ne?" And then he had Rachel practice saying it until she could do it perfectly. Sugoi, Rachel thought as she watched the ball drop. One day, I will be sugoi.
When she lands the role of Elphaba in the 28th limited run world tour of Wicked, she is grateful she's kept up her Japanese. By the time they've hit Singapore, none of the other cast members are speaking to her, so she makes a habit of conversing with the gaffers and the grips, until she realizes that their English is largely limited to things like "drop curtain on cue one" and "lift the witch on the High E." Knowing how to say "Yes, of course you can have my autograph!" in thirty-two languages doesn't really help cross the language barrier in these types of contexts, so Rachel looks forward to Japan.
By Tokyo, only general exhaustion keeps the rest of the cast and crew from violating their Equity contracts and going on strike when Rachel suggests Secret Hanukkah. Someone sticks the tour brochure in the edge of her theatre mirror. Her face beams back at her in bright green greasepaint--quite festive, except that the poster title has been changed to read Wacked: starring Rachel Berry as Herself. Undaunted, Rachel turns to her co-star, Mira, who's playing Glenda until she gets too pregnant to fit into the lift harness, which should be any week now. Rachel feels she's been very stubborn about keeping her part as long as possible; she might as well step out of the way and head back home to Scranton, Pennsylvania, and let her truly dedicated and non-pregnant understudy take over. Perhaps Rachel's feelings on the subject have led to some moments of friction between them, but it's nothing, she knows, they can't put aside long enough to achieve peace and harmony within the--
"Will you please just shut up?" Mira says, dipping into the cake of Base 2 so violently that she gets more on her fingernail than on the applicator.
"Look," Rachel says, swallowing and attempting to make eye contact with Mira in the mirror, difficult as that may be while Mira is attempting to do her own makeup, and Rachel will never understand why twenty-eight run tours should have a lower makeup budget than first-runs. At least no one expects Rachel to paint her own face green, but Mira is the gorgeous type who could go onstage with nothing more than a little blush and still look like she's just narrowly avoided having a house fall on her. "I know we've had our differences, I don't deny that, and I take full responsibility for my share of the conflict--"
Mira snorts.
"--but if we could just put that aside for the sake of what we're trying to accomplish," Rachel continues, "as a group, I think we could really do great--"
"Are you out of your mind?" says Mira, turning to her, one half of her face covered in foundation, the other half splotchy and still freshly scrubbed. "What exactly do you think any of us are trying to accomplish here, again?"
"Well," says Rachel uncertainly. "Theatre?"
Mira glares at her. "I'm trying to accomplish getting enough credits on my Equity card to apply for select membership status. Lisa--" the dedicated, non-pregnant understudy-- "is trying to get into the JET program so she can leave the show and make some actual money for once. Hitoshi, the director? He's only doing this tour because he got turned down to do Sweeney Todd at La Jolla."
"But--but the fans of the show, to them it's not just--"
"Maybe there's some of that glowy crap in a first-run, honey," Mira says, turning back to the mirror and cutting a sidewise glance over at Rachel that makes Rachel feel defensive and sad for her all at once. "But on the twenty-eighth? All the real fans of this show are just waiting for a Broadway revival. The only people out on that audience who care about magic are the ones who are too young to know any better, or the crazy ones who've got nothing better to live for than a night at the theatre watching a show they've seen twenty-eight times before."
"That's not true," Rachel says, but in the mirror she sees her lip begin to wobble.
"Deal with it," Mira says, swiping a ribbon of pink across her lips. "The only one who still seems to think this is actually about the magic of theatre is you. The rest of us just want to go home. Maybe do some gigs that don't involve having to do your own coin laundry twice a week."
Rachel looks at herself in the mirror. "Fine," she says, pulling her lips steady, controlling the throb of the muscles in her cheek. "Then I want to go home, too."
____________
She doesn't think they'll fire her for this. Maybe. Not really. Probably not.
She shivers. Either way, it doesn't matter. She's done. She quits. It's not the same as it was when she was in high school. It hasn't been for ages. Rachel's always known that, but she's always been the best around at doggedly ignoring the obvious at all costs. It's not really denial, because Rachel's not crazy, she's more self-aware than anyone will ever credit her for. It's just that she wants to believe. She's never stopped. Rachel has never stopped believing. But now, sitting on a train somewhere on the edge of Shibuya, she's trying to hold on to that feelin.
But it's gone, gone, gone.
Rachel rides the train around Tokyo because she does not know anything better to do with herself. The truth is, she does miss home. She misses her dads. She misses her dog. She misses Finn, with his big hands and warm smile. She huddles beneath her special Wicked cast members only jacket. On her first trip to New York when she was thirteen, she would spot the performers wearing them on their way home from rehearsals or even performances. They were impossible to miss. They stood out like varsity jackets on a team of high schoolers, only these were a hundred times more important. These said Broadway cast member. These said first-run. These said Equity. They said I've arrived.
Only Rachel doesn't feel like she's arrived particularly anywhere, except at Ebisu station, where most of the mass of people shoved into the train with her are getting off. She stands, wondering vaguely if she should get off too, and the wave of people jostles her toward the door before she can make up her mind. As they flow past her onto the platform, she grabs hold of the nearest pole and clings to it. She can't remember what's at Ebisu, even though she has memorized the map of Shibuya she has tucked inside her scrapbook back in her hotel room. It's full of pictures and places and postcard souvenirs of the tour. There are fewer pictures of people. But screw them. Rachel can do whatever she needs to do on her own. It's not as if she needs the rest of the cast to like her.
Needed. She doesn't have a cast anymore. She's quit.
She closes her eyes and hums a snatch of, Why, oh, why, oh, why, oh, did I leave Ohio? Maybe I'd better go--
"Hey, lady, either get off or quit blocking the doorway, make up your mind!"
She opens her eyes and sees two boys shoving past her into the train. The taller one--more of a man, really--is elbowing his friend. "Shhh," he says. "Don't be rude." The other one, younger and shorter, just rolls his eyes and sits down opposite her in the empty compartment.
"Oh," she says. "I'm sorry." She sits down. Then she adds, in a long string of perfect Japanese, "It's just that I've been through a long day, and I thought I knew my way around, but it turns out that when you've just quit your performance troupe it's a little hard to know where you want to go, so I thought I would just wander around until I found out, but that doesn't seem to be working very well, does it?"
The older one says kindly, "It's no problem, really. You speak excellent Japanese."
"You don't have to be so nice to every girl you meet," the younger one mutters. He's towheaded, and his hair sticks up every which way. Rachel wonders if he can even see past the clumps of it that seem to perpetually fall into his eyes. He's clad in a strange combination of denim and camouflage, and eyeing her with a combination of suspicion and curiosity that makes his companion seem even more quiet and well-behaved by comparison.
"Relax, Waya," the taller one says, still smiling at her. Waya lets out an exasperated huff which he ignores. "I'm Isumi," he says. "This is my friend Waya." She likes his voice--soft and courteous. Waya's is harsh at the edges. Something about him reminds her a bit of Puck, and maybe this is why she sits up straighter, so her shoulders go up and her chest goes out. She's only human, after all. She likes to watch them notice and then try to act like they haven't.
Waya definitely notices. His jaw goes slack and he grabs Isumi's arm like he needs it for support. Isumi just keeps smiling that soft smile. "Would you like directions?"
"I don't need directions," she says. Then she feels the sudden bright spark of adventure, the one she hasn't felt since the early months of the tour, and adds, "But maybe if you would tell me where you're going, I could come with you?"
"You can't come," Waya says quickly. "It's, um. A Host club."
"Waya!" says Isumi.
"A love hotel!"
"Waya!"
"No, really, Isumi and I are--" Isumi's composure breaks and he clamps a hand over his friend's mouth. Rachel laughs.
"Waya and I are on our way to a Go tournament," Isumi says. "You're welcome to come with us."
Waya is squirming so energetically that Rachel figures a Go tournament, whatever that is, is probably male-only. It's definitely not something her tour books have mentioned, which sounds like exactly what she needs right now. Who knows? It might even be fun.
"Thank you," she says. "I'd love to."
____________
On the way to the tournament (Go Institute, Isumi explains), Rachel mostly listens, Isumi mostly talks, and Waya mostly sulks. Still, she likes them both. She likes the way Waya is sharp and alert and constantly watching her as if she might try to steal Isumi away from him if he lets his guard down. At that, she admits, she might just, because Isumi is tall and handsome, and his hands aren't big like Finn's, but he has the same kindness in his looks, the same fresh-faced innocence that Finn has never managed to outgrow, even though they're both reaching the age where they're supposed to have become cynical and jaded. Rachel supposes this is it, her big point of no return; except that she's four thousand miles from home, about to go see a thrilling board game tournament with two complete strangers, and she feels like laughing instead of crying. That doesn't really seem all that cynical.
The tournament is a subdued affair, with a room full of mostly men, as she predicted, and a stage where two teenagers sit at a table. Behind them is a screen projecting the board that sits between them. When they move to begin the game, Rachel sees how graceful and practiced their hands are, and suddenly they seem much older than they look. This is an exhibition game, apparently, so a third person--to Rachel's satisfaction, a young woman--emcees the match and explains what the players are doing.
"That's Nase," Waya says, leaning over Isumi to talk to Rachel's elbow. "The players are Shindou and Touya. They're the best their age in Japan."
"Aren't they your age?" Rachel asks him, shooting him a smirk. He scowls. He's grudgingly accepted that she's not going to hypnotize Waya with her feminine assets and lead him away somewhere, but he's still too easy to rile up. It makes Rachel feel like a high schooler again.
"Shindou and Touya are different," Isumi says gently, rescuing Waya from his own irascible retort.
Rachel is going to ask how, but the game is starting, and she loses her chance.
The first move belongs to Shindou, the one with the platinum-and-charcoal hair. He looks as if he should be playing around at a gaming saloon somewhere, not studying the board with the solemnity of a pallbearer. When he makes his first move, however, there's a ripple of surprise from the audience, including from Waya and Isumi, and Shindou sits back and smirks across the board at his opponent. Nase, the emcee, explains with a note of humor in her voice that Shindou has just used an opening position that fell out of favor in the eighteen hundreds because of its unstable position relative to the opponent's territory. Most of that goes over Rachel's head, but she doesn't miss the way Shindou's opponent, Touya, is looking right at him and smiling.
That grabs Rachel's attention, and before long the game does too. She creates a story in her head from the looks that fly between them and the way their hands curve around stones and shape lines on the board. She understands very little of the Go terminology--quite literally, since she hasn't exactly studied up on japanese board game vocabulary over the years. But it's easy to get swept up in the drama of moves with the commanding sound of stones slapping boards ringing out over the room, and gasps whenever one of them moves somewhere unexpected. The Hand of God, the emcee explains, half in amusement, half in reverence, could be just around the corner, and Rachel doesn't need to know what the Hand of God is, exactly, to tell that it's worth playing for.
The thing that is easiest for her to see, with or without the emcee narrating the game, is that the players, Shindou and Touya, have been playing together for many years. At one point, Shindou, the blond, does something strange and taps the side of the board with a fan that has been lying untouched on the table. Rachel doesn't understand what that means, but Touya, when he sees it, smiles again, a sad, fond smile. Since it's an exhibition game, the atmosphere seems to be less about competition and more about explaining Go to the people who have come to watch; but there is something behind the way Touya looks at Shindou holding the fan that goes beyond competition or entertainment.
When it's over--Shindou wins by resignation, and this must be a big deal because the audience applauds as though some sort of torch has been passed--the two of them still sit across from each other, holding each other's gazes. It's definitely a moment. A dark plume of jealousy flares up inside Rachel for a moment. She knows exactly when the last time she felt so connected to the music, but she hasn't seen anyone from New Directions in years. She still remembers the way her heart had caught, jammed in her throat, the first time she sang "Don't Stop Believin" with Finn. That feeling is still so raw she can capture the echoes of it even now, the way it makes her pulse race and her voice close up.
"Different, huh?" she says.
Isumi smiles at her. "They've been playing together for a very long time," he says.
"They're obsessed with each other," Waya adds. "But brilliant. Like, insanely brilliant together."
Rachel has to close her eyes against the wash of emotion that calls up within her. "My gay dads always say they achieve more together than when they're apart," she says with forced cheerfulness. "I guess it's the same with them."
Waya says, "Shindou? Touya? The same as--oh, man, that explains so much," and promptly goes into a choking fit, but Isumi's smile just grows as if she's not saying anything he hasn't already figured out.
"It's easy to succeed when you have someone who believes in you," he says. He gives Waya a glance full of meaning, but Waya is still having dramatic coughing spasms and misses it. "And it's easy to believe in what you love."
Rachel thinks about that.
Then she gasps.
"That's it!"
Isumi and Waya exchange looks.
"I know what I have to do!" says Rachel. "Thank you, thank you both!"
She begins to rush out of the auditorium, but on second thought she rushes up to the stage instead. Touya and Shindou are just getting ready to leave after the post-game discussion. She waves them down.
"Okay, I know you don't know me but I just wanted to say that was really--really--inspirational," she says. "Plus, that whole Hand of God thing, that's just, it's inspiring, so I wanted to say thanks for the, uh, inspiration. And also you--" she points to Touya-- "should really ask him out already because whatever's going on with the two of you is so thick I could cut it with a butter knife. And, uh. That's all."
They stare at her for a moment, before Shindou calmly reaches over and tucks his fingers between Touya's own. In his other hand, he is clutching the fan. "Thanks," he says. "I think we can figure the rest out from here."
Touya's face turns bright pink. Shindou just looks smug. In the audience, Rachel can hear Waya yelling, "I knew we shouldn't have brought her along! You thought they were insufferable before, now we'll never be able to get the two of them away from each other!"
Rachel beams. She has her phone out of her pocket before she is out of the building, and she's calling a number she didn't know she still had memorized until just this moment.
____________
"You want to what?" says Hitoshi. "Young lady, it's a miracle we're not firing you right now, do you underst--"
"Yes, and I'm sorry, but I just think it would help the tour so much if we could all remember what it was like to sing this show because we loved it," she says, clasping her hands in front of her lap. "When we couldn't stop singing 'Popular' in the shower and we watched bootlegs of Chenoweth and Menzel until our eyes bled and we had twenty different techno remixes of 'Defying Gravity' on our ipods--"
"Most of which were completely illegal and made no profit whatsoever for--"
"Look," Rachel says. "You're on the twenty-eighth tour of a show that's been playing since the Zeroes. Do you really want to pick up that gig in LA? You want to get their attention? Sell out the rest of the tour."
Hitoshi stops tapping his pencil. His eyes narrow.
"You want to do a reduced-price sing-along," he says. "In English. And this is miraculously supposed to make money."
"Yes," she says. "A sing-in. All of us, sitting in the audience, singing with them. It'll be just like the opening night of Rent."
"Except that if I recall correctly, someone had to die for that little phenomenon to occur," Hitoshi says. "Are you volunteering?"
"I know it's a gamble," Rachel says desperately. "But I just think that it would help people remember what it was like to love the show! More importantly, it will help us remember."
Hitoshi hesitates. He looks faintly guilty, and Rachel knows he's remembering that once even he was a star-struck stagehand who got his break directing summer stock productions of Pippin in Osaka.
She pulls out her trump card. "And there's one other thing," she says. "You'll make money on this performance, because I'm going to be sitting this one out."
"What?" says Hitoshi.
"See," Rachel says, "I have this friend."
____________
"KURT HUMMEL?" Mira shrieks. "Kurt Hummel is coming here? How did you get Kurt Hummel? Oh my god, we're going to be doing duets." She looks like she might actually faint. "I can't believe you're giving up your part to Kurt Hummel."
"This is really generous of you," says Lisa the non-pregnant understudy. Apparently she'd gotten an ovation from the audience after Rachel had walked out in makeup. Rachel's happy for her, really, she is. But she's not giving up her crown any time soon.
"It's just for the one night," Rachel says. "And I'll be singing along in the audience. Kurt and I go way back, you know. I taught him everything he knows about how to perform."
"Right," says Mira.
____________
"Oh my god, Rachel Berry!" Kurt is exactly like he was the last time Rachel saw him, but she already knew that. The tabloids have never let her forget it. "I can't believe it! This girl taught me everything I know about how to perform!"
Rachel beams around the room.
"This is so exciting! Did she tell you I've wanted to do Elphaba since I was like eight? Oh my god." He does a cheerleader clap. "This is going to be a-ma-zing."
Kurt's the kind of person whose hugs somehow make you feel warmer all over, and it's not til he's got his arms around her that she realizes how long its been since anyone has hugged her at all.
"Honey, I brought someone for you," he says.
She pulls back. "What?"
Kurt flashes that dimple-filled, teethy smile, the one People had dubbed Most Charming of the year last December. "I know you didn't ask, and I know I didn't exactly get it approved, but I just couldn't stop thinking, what's a reunion with just two people?"
Rachel's heart stops. He couldn't--he hasn't--
"Rachel?"
In a million years, she knows, she'd still know that voice anywhere, even a million miles from home. His voice as warm as his hands.
She turns. In the doorway, still holding on to their suitcases, is the bedraggled and jet-lagged Glee club of 2010, and in the center of them, wearing a thin smile, is--
"Finn." She says it again. "Finn!"
He catches her in his arms, and Kurt's hugs may be great, but Finn holds her like he's missed her, and it's all the difference in the world. Over Finn's shoulder, Quinn, still radiant, is rolling her eyes. It's like Rachel's never been away.
Artie--Artie!--has honed in on the piano like a magnet, before she can even pull herself away from Finn to reach him and hug him. He lifts the lid and pushes the bench out of the way, and Rachel doesn't know when he learned to play the piano, but she's never heard anything lovelier than the opening chords of...
"Just a small town girl," Finn sings, his arms still wrapped tight around her, "Livin' in a lonely world."
Rachel looks up at him and laughs. Kurt joins in and sings the next line, since Rachel is suddenly vibrating with laughter and tears. He wraps his arms, around her, too, and a moment later the others have joined them, and a giant Glee club hug sandwich has formed in the doorway. "You guys are all so ridiculous," Quinn says, but she picks up the next line: walking down the boulevard.
"Wow," says Lisa, watching them from the makeup chair. "This is way too Rodgers and Hammerstein for me. I think I need to go torture a kitten."
"Oh, just shut up and sing," says Mira, smiling at Rachel, and she joins in on the chorus.
Rachel closes her eyes and holds on to that feeling, and this, she thinks--this is what it's like to brush the hand of God.