Pink & Gray plot (full story)
Pink & Gray plot
COMPLETE AND DETAILED PLOT OF THE NOVEL.
DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE NOT 100% SURE YOU WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING.
WILL BE LOCKED IN 3 DAYS.
I would also appreciate that this post won't be shared on Tumblr, FB and other websites...I don't want to ruin the novel to anybody so please respect people who want to read it by themselves. If I see it around too much I may delete it.
It's the first time I'm being strict with sharing so please, accept my decision, I trust my readers.
First of all, the timeline of the plot in the book is all mixed. Moments of the past, present and future are all entwined, a chapter may start in the "present" and then contain episodes of the past and so on...
Here I'll tell the story in the right chronological order.
Daiki is a kid moving because of his dad's job from Osaka to Yokohama. Before this house moving he had many others so he decides to not making friends in the new city to avoid suffering again. Although his decision is messed up by the meeting with Shingo, Ishikawa and Kimoto, 3 kids living in his same condominium. The group is called "Stand by Me" and Shingo and Daiki get the nicknames "Gocchi" and "Riba-chan". They spend an happy, playful youth together, along the way Kimoto and Ishikawa move so Gocchi e Daiki remain alone. Daiki is an only child, Gocchi has an older sister, Yui, who lives in Tokyo and is a dancer. When the two main characters are around 10-11 years old, Yui has a bad incident during an extreme performance for a competition and is brought to the hospital, she won't be able to move anymore and needs the artificial respiration.
In the meantime Gocchi and Daiki become real bestfriends and they go always to the same school, elementary, middle and high school. After 4 years of life in a bed of hospital Gocchi's sister decides to cut by herself the tubes of the respiration machine and dies. During the last year of high school Gocchi and Daiki partecipate to the school festival as a band. They perform live 4 songs, one of those is an original song written by Gocchi, "Phalaenopsis". The meaning of the song is quite obscure, even Daiki doesn't know its meaning.
The two guys attend the same university and decides to go living together renting an apartment. In this period they are scouted from an entertainment agency, most of all they work as models for fashion magazines.
During a shooting they meet again by incident their old friend Ishikawa, who is a girl btw, and they start to hung out together again, soon Gocchi and Ishikawa's friendship turns into a love story.
After a while they are offered to be extras in dramas, they choose stage names: Gocchi is "Shiraki Rengo" and Daiki is "Kawatori Dai". Anyway the two guys aren't really interested in the showbiz, they think it's funny and it's a good way to get extra money working only from time to time. But soon Gocchi is noticed for his active partecipation and gets his first minor part in a drama, thanks to it he becomes more and more popular. From here between the two friends starts a crisis: Daiki can't get other roles besides being the mute extra, Gocchi is always working and has no time to be with his friend or help him with houseworks, etc. During the last year of university they think of moving to a more confortable apartment in Shinjuku, while Gocchi works Daiki starts searching a new place, but one day coming back home he finds many boxes around the room. Worried he calls Gocchi's manager and the man tells him that Gocchi changed agency, he went to a more popular one, and he's planning to move to a luxury mansion. When Gocchi comes back home Daiki asks him explanations, Gocchi apologizes and invites the friend to go living with him in the mansion without paying any rent. The two start to fight and Gocchi accuses Daiki of not accepting the jobs he passes to him and of doing anything at all to become famous. After all they started working in the showbiz dreaming a future in which they are both popular and work together. Daiki decides to go back living with his parents and Gocchi moves to the mansion paid by his agency. The two friends won't see each other for 4 years.
In these 4 years Gocchi/Shiraki Rengo becomes a real star, he's in many CMs, dramas, tv shows and also debut as singer for the promotion of his first movie as main character. Daiki still lives with his parents, doesn't have a stable job and goes on doing the extra from time to time. Daiki can't help himself but following in tv all the appearances of the old friend, torn between support and envy. He goes to watch the movie and he realizes that it's not good, the same goes for the song. One day along the shock of seeing Gocchi naked on a issue of a magazine he also receives the shock of knowing that the other is now dating a popular singer, Karin. Apparently the love story that he thought endless between Gocchi and Ishikawa is ended.
The two friends finally meet again during a high school classmates reunion, Daiki would have never thought that Gocchi would attend to it and when he sees him entering the restaurant he's startled. Not wanting to talk to him he starts to drink and tries to go away, Gocchi stops him and simply ask him for his telephone number. Few minutes later Daiki receives a call, Gocchi is inviting him to go to drink to another place and he accepts. The two guys meet in a bar and start to talk and drink, both quite nervous. Soon they realize that they can be themselves only in front of each others, Gocchi informs Daiki about the break-up with Ishikawa and tells him that she got married too. Then he confesses to the friend how fame has poisoned him, how he can't have a normal life anymore, that he's still in love with Ishikawa and how depressed is he. The night ends with them two going back drunk to Gocchi's mansion.
The next morning when Daiki wakes up Gocchi is already out of home, he left him a note about meeting again in the evening in that apartment.
When Daiki comes back at the time of the appointment he finds Gocchi hunged from the ceiling dead. On the table there are several papers. A letter addressed to Daiki saying that he's sorry and with a request: Daiki has to choose between 7 suicidal notes the one that must be showed to everybody. Daiki chooses the one most suited for his friend, the words he always repeated: "I must do it. There's nothing I can't do". Then he takes down the body, cleans it and dress it with proper clothes, he chooses a gray suit with a pink necktie. He sets the body on the bed, puts in order the apartment, calls the police and goes out to burn the evidences of his setting. The police immediately reach him and he's jailed for 2 months with the accusation of the homicide of Shiraki Rengo. When finally the police find out that it was a suicide he's released, waiting for him there are reporters, his manager and many, many offers of job. He finally became popular. Daiki anyway is in awful conditions, he didn't care about job, fame, anything. His manager forces him to consider the offers, the only one that Daiki accepts is to write a book about their story. In two months he works hard to write it, on the release the book is a big success of course. Many offers to turn the book in a movie appear, after 2 years Daiki decides to consider one. The one who asked Daiki to play the role of Shiraki Rengo. He accepts setting many conditions and the filming begins. A condition is to use the most as possible real objects and places, Daiki goes to visit Gocchi's mom and she confesses him that the lines of Gocchi's suicide note are the same words that his sister, Yui, wrote when she killed herself. Daiki also watches the home video of the last performance of Yui and discover that the lyrics of "Phalaenopsis" talked about that incident.
Browsing into Gocchi's life more and more and playing his role Daiki lives a sort of transfer of personality, he starts to understand his friends and his actions to perfection, he can't define anymore when Daiki ends and Gocchi starts.
The last chapter goes back and forth, it describes the filming of the movie and in the same time the whole story is retraced, but this time from Gocchi's point of view. We get to know all the thoughts of Gocchi and his life during the years of separation from Daiki. In the end Gocchi describes his own suicide, then the narration goes back to Daiki that is filming that very scene, he's hunging himself but of course he has a protection...or at least he should.
The things get very confused, Daiki who is losing consciousness can't understand anymore who he is, if Daiki or Gocchi, he starts describing an amazing scenary made of lights, applause, fans and popularity. In the mean time you can read the agitaded yells of the staff of the movie: "Stop! Stop! Take him down! Quick! Take him down!".
In the very end Daiki who isn't in himself anymore feels somebody hugging him, he can't see the face but he's sure it's Gocchi. Finally they are together, famous, surrounded by a screaming crowd and wonderful lights.
Basically the ending is not clear, I guess it's open to different interpretations, or maybe it's written like this just to not be too cruel.
COMPLETE AND DETAILED PLOT OF THE NOVEL.
DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE NOT 100% SURE YOU WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING.
WILL BE LOCKED IN 3 DAYS.
I would also appreciate that this post won't be shared on Tumblr, FB and other websites...I don't want to ruin the novel to anybody so please respect people who want to read it by themselves. If I see it around too much I may delete it.
It's the first time I'm being strict with sharing so please, accept my decision, I trust my readers.
First of all, the timeline of the plot in the book is all mixed. Moments of the past, present and future are all entwined, a chapter may start in the "present" and then contain episodes of the past and so on...
Here I'll tell the story in the right chronological order.
Daiki is a kid moving because of his dad's job from Osaka to Yokohama. Before this house moving he had many others so he decides to not making friends in the new city to avoid suffering again. Although his decision is messed up by the meeting with Shingo, Ishikawa and Kimoto, 3 kids living in his same condominium. The group is called "Stand by Me" and Shingo and Daiki get the nicknames "Gocchi" and "Riba-chan". They spend an happy, playful youth together, along the way Kimoto and Ishikawa move so Gocchi e Daiki remain alone. Daiki is an only child, Gocchi has an older sister, Yui, who lives in Tokyo and is a dancer. When the two main characters are around 10-11 years old, Yui has a bad incident during an extreme performance for a competition and is brought to the hospital, she won't be able to move anymore and needs the artificial respiration.
In the meantime Gocchi and Daiki become real bestfriends and they go always to the same school, elementary, middle and high school. After 4 years of life in a bed of hospital Gocchi's sister decides to cut by herself the tubes of the respiration machine and dies. During the last year of high school Gocchi and Daiki partecipate to the school festival as a band. They perform live 4 songs, one of those is an original song written by Gocchi, "Phalaenopsis". The meaning of the song is quite obscure, even Daiki doesn't know its meaning.
The two guys attend the same university and decides to go living together renting an apartment. In this period they are scouted from an entertainment agency, most of all they work as models for fashion magazines.
During a shooting they meet again by incident their old friend Ishikawa, who is a girl btw, and they start to hung out together again, soon Gocchi and Ishikawa's friendship turns into a love story.
After a while they are offered to be extras in dramas, they choose stage names: Gocchi is "Shiraki Rengo" and Daiki is "Kawatori Dai". Anyway the two guys aren't really interested in the showbiz, they think it's funny and it's a good way to get extra money working only from time to time. But soon Gocchi is noticed for his active partecipation and gets his first minor part in a drama, thanks to it he becomes more and more popular. From here between the two friends starts a crisis: Daiki can't get other roles besides being the mute extra, Gocchi is always working and has no time to be with his friend or help him with houseworks, etc. During the last year of university they think of moving to a more confortable apartment in Shinjuku, while Gocchi works Daiki starts searching a new place, but one day coming back home he finds many boxes around the room. Worried he calls Gocchi's manager and the man tells him that Gocchi changed agency, he went to a more popular one, and he's planning to move to a luxury mansion. When Gocchi comes back home Daiki asks him explanations, Gocchi apologizes and invites the friend to go living with him in the mansion without paying any rent. The two start to fight and Gocchi accuses Daiki of not accepting the jobs he passes to him and of doing anything at all to become famous. After all they started working in the showbiz dreaming a future in which they are both popular and work together. Daiki decides to go back living with his parents and Gocchi moves to the mansion paid by his agency. The two friends won't see each other for 4 years.
In these 4 years Gocchi/Shiraki Rengo becomes a real star, he's in many CMs, dramas, tv shows and also debut as singer for the promotion of his first movie as main character. Daiki still lives with his parents, doesn't have a stable job and goes on doing the extra from time to time. Daiki can't help himself but following in tv all the appearances of the old friend, torn between support and envy. He goes to watch the movie and he realizes that it's not good, the same goes for the song. One day along the shock of seeing Gocchi naked on a issue of a magazine he also receives the shock of knowing that the other is now dating a popular singer, Karin. Apparently the love story that he thought endless between Gocchi and Ishikawa is ended.
The two friends finally meet again during a high school classmates reunion, Daiki would have never thought that Gocchi would attend to it and when he sees him entering the restaurant he's startled. Not wanting to talk to him he starts to drink and tries to go away, Gocchi stops him and simply ask him for his telephone number. Few minutes later Daiki receives a call, Gocchi is inviting him to go to drink to another place and he accepts. The two guys meet in a bar and start to talk and drink, both quite nervous. Soon they realize that they can be themselves only in front of each others, Gocchi informs Daiki about the break-up with Ishikawa and tells him that she got married too. Then he confesses to the friend how fame has poisoned him, how he can't have a normal life anymore, that he's still in love with Ishikawa and how depressed is he. The night ends with them two going back drunk to Gocchi's mansion.
The next morning when Daiki wakes up Gocchi is already out of home, he left him a note about meeting again in the evening in that apartment.
When Daiki comes back at the time of the appointment he finds Gocchi hunged from the ceiling dead. On the table there are several papers. A letter addressed to Daiki saying that he's sorry and with a request: Daiki has to choose between 7 suicidal notes the one that must be showed to everybody. Daiki chooses the one most suited for his friend, the words he always repeated: "I must do it. There's nothing I can't do". Then he takes down the body, cleans it and dress it with proper clothes, he chooses a gray suit with a pink necktie. He sets the body on the bed, puts in order the apartment, calls the police and goes out to burn the evidences of his setting. The police immediately reach him and he's jailed for 2 months with the accusation of the homicide of Shiraki Rengo. When finally the police find out that it was a suicide he's released, waiting for him there are reporters, his manager and many, many offers of job. He finally became popular. Daiki anyway is in awful conditions, he didn't care about job, fame, anything. His manager forces him to consider the offers, the only one that Daiki accepts is to write a book about their story. In two months he works hard to write it, on the release the book is a big success of course. Many offers to turn the book in a movie appear, after 2 years Daiki decides to consider one. The one who asked Daiki to play the role of Shiraki Rengo. He accepts setting many conditions and the filming begins. A condition is to use the most as possible real objects and places, Daiki goes to visit Gocchi's mom and she confesses him that the lines of Gocchi's suicide note are the same words that his sister, Yui, wrote when she killed herself. Daiki also watches the home video of the last performance of Yui and discover that the lyrics of "Phalaenopsis" talked about that incident.
Browsing into Gocchi's life more and more and playing his role Daiki lives a sort of transfer of personality, he starts to understand his friends and his actions to perfection, he can't define anymore when Daiki ends and Gocchi starts.
The last chapter goes back and forth, it describes the filming of the movie and in the same time the whole story is retraced, but this time from Gocchi's point of view. We get to know all the thoughts of Gocchi and his life during the years of separation from Daiki. In the end Gocchi describes his own suicide, then the narration goes back to Daiki that is filming that very scene, he's hunging himself but of course he has a protection...or at least he should.
The things get very confused, Daiki who is losing consciousness can't understand anymore who he is, if Daiki or Gocchi, he starts describing an amazing scenary made of lights, applause, fans and popularity. In the mean time you can read the agitaded yells of the staff of the movie: "Stop! Stop! Take him down! Quick! Take him down!".
In the very end Daiki who isn't in himself anymore feels somebody hugging him, he can't see the face but he's sure it's Gocchi. Finally they are together, famous, surrounded by a screaming crowd and wonderful lights.
Basically the ending is not clear, I guess it's open to different interpretations, or maybe it's written like this just to not be too cruel.