2025-08-26: So-young Visits Studio Chura
- Log: So-young Visits Studio Chura
- Cast: Yua Ooshiro, So-young Park
- Where: Aoba - Studio Chura
- OOC Date: 2025-08-26
- IC Date: Sunday, July 01 2012
- Summary: So-young tracks down one of Myunghon's friends to get answers. Yua answers her... with the power of DANCE.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
STUDIO CHURA
Dance education available!!!
Classical and contempary ballet / Ballroom / Folk / Flamenco / Swing / Latin / And more!
Unit 8, 5-11 Aoba, Sumaru
Opening hours: 4 - 6 pm, 7 days a week, or by appointment
The flyer in the Cardboard Dragon doesn't look terribly professional, though it's at least been typed and printed; someone clearly designed this themself, rather than getting a graphic designer on hand. There are some nice colours, but the only graphic is a little clip-art ballerina which definitely came free with the word processing software. It's...
Well, it's worth a look.
The opening hours are a little strange -- but perhaps they're made to target teenagers getting out of school. Studio Chura is on the first floor of a ten-story tower block; the first few floors are commercial, and the rest are residential, as is the style. Studio Chura's tucked away a little, but the signage, at least, is very nice...
... inside, there's no one but a woman in a black dancer's leotard, her teal hair pinned in a tight bun. There's an eyepatch over her left eye, and a strange fabric decoration over her right hand, and her leg stretches uuuup over her head as she goes through practicing her own craft.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
It's not like So-young is snooping around or anything. If she were, she would loudly and proudly go 'heyyyy I'm snooping around, notice meeee' as she climbed the stairs up to the floor above the Cardboard Dragon. That's not what this is.
She's not trying to invade Myunghon's privacy or anything, either, she's just trying to do a little more to learn about the rumormonger's extended circles and how they fit into this strange new side of Sumaru that she's found herself in the middle of. Besides, one moment you're filling the Cardboard Dragon with idle violin music, wondering where everyone is and unaware that the cosmic alignment of the stars is making you miss out on _date prep_, and the next you're narrowing your eyes at how long that flyer has been there and how personal it is compared to the rest of them.
So, one day after her work back in Shibuya, she hops onto the habitual train she's been taking out to Sumaru every so often - except this time she doesn't trace her steps towards the Cardboard Dragon, but in a different direction entirely. At least it's much easier to find this place in comparison - no back alley entrance, no fire escape, though the nearly walks into the izakaya on the same floor instead, earmarking it for later.
"Hello~?" the predominantly white haired woman starts to call as she pushes the door open, but she's quick to fall silent when she spots a performer in the middle of, well, performing. She waits for just long enough to confirm that she's been noticed, flashing a dazzling smile in return, then slips inside without making another sound, watching with a curious attentiveness as the other woman finishes up.
Having come straight from orchestral practice, So-young's dress is about the opposite of what you'd want to wear for practicing dancing unless you happened to be at a particularly fancy dinner.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
There is, of course, a changing room in the studio. And a welcome desk! It's not all springy wooden floors designed specifically to avoid dancing injuries. Just, you know...
... most of the studio is devoted to that open floor, with a barre at the back and mirrors lining the walls.
"Oh!" Yua exclaims, and one would think with that surprise that her routine would skip a beat, that she'd kind of flump down, but no -- with eminent, effortless grace, she returns her body to the proper alignment of feet on the ground and body in the air.
"Welcome, welcome," Yua smiles, clasping her hands. "I'm Yua Ooshiro... I run the tutoring provided here. How may I aid you this afternoon?" Perhaps she has a relative who'd like to learn... she doesn't look dressed to practice herself, Yua thinks.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young remains patient for perhaps the one thing in her life that she reserves patience for - waiting for a fellow artist to finish their craft, even for something as small as returning to neutral position after a bout of practice. It's only when Yua turns to her proper and introduces herself that So-young offers a bright smile in return, her eyebrows raising upwards as she says with absolutely no premable: "Oh! You do exist!"
She has the dramatic timing to let that hang in the air a few seconds, watching for the reaction as her eyes glint with mischief.
"Myunghon mentioned your name so mysteriously and wistfully that I thought you might not," So-young adds as if that explains anything at all, already holding out one of her cards which reads 'So-young Park, Guest Conductor, Tokyo Philharmonic'. "I'm terribly sorry to barge in unannounced, but I saw your flier and thought I might have a shot at meeting a friend of my younger sibling. That, and Myunghon is being especially cagey about something, so I can't even go be annoying in their general direction today."
"... that may make me sound a little bit more insane than I actually am," she concludes as she folds her eyes, the gleam of humour back in her expression. "Rest assured, if you have classes, I can clear out and explore the rest of Sumaru. Ah, and I might have a business proposition as well to discuss with you...?" Here she actually sounds uncertain, like it's something that only just occured to her and might be a long shot. It's quite clear that her ulterior motives definitely came first and foremost.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
Yua's eyes widen, as So-young exclaims that she exists. "I-I, um --" she starts, looking rather quite nervous as she raises her palms up, and one might wonder if that's a point of contention until --
"Oh! Myucchi!" Yua exclaims, with sheer relief. She gladly accepts So-young's card, looking it over... "... you're a conductor! How wonderful!"
But then...
Yua looks from the card up to So-young.
Yua looks back down to the card.
Yua looks up to So-young again.
"Myucchi's... sibling?" She asks, delicately. "I... I'm not sure I've been introduced..." Read: Yua has never fucking heard of Myunghon being anything but an only child before.
"N-no, please stay," Yua says, stepping with more of that infinite grace over to the front door and switching the sign from ':) OPEN :)' to 'CLOSED (PLEASE COME BACK LATER! <3)' "I don't have any students coming by on a Sunday, really, I just figure it's nice to open the studio while I'm practicing... you said you were their sibling?" Yua asks, turning back to So-young.
"Ah --", she adds, remembering So-young's proposition, "certainly, if you think there's something I can help with -- I'm afraid I'm no Tokyo Ballet prima ballerina, but..."
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
Oh no. Now So-young has heard the nickname 'Myucchi', and her eyes flash with obvious glee. The name has inscribed itself into her neural cortex in blazing letters to be deployed at some point in the future when it will cause the most havoc, most likely in either the sweetest voice that So-young can muster or the absolute loudest.
Fortunately, the conductor is pretty bad at reading people in a thoughtful manner - she's not quite puddle deep, but she does tend to operate on an Occam's Razor level, and as such she mistakes that bout of nervousness by conflating it straight into the confusion over her name and the abruptness of her visit.
"Yyyes," So-young drawls out in a long noise when it comes to Yua's first question, her voice suddenly containing teeth. "You would not have been. It has only been a few weeks since we even learned of each other's existence, and we are both trying to figure out how _exactly_ to ask mother dearest what in the fresh hell she was thinking. Maybe if we present a unified front we might get an answer, but I think that's still a very outside chance," she huffs.
"Strictly speaking, I suppose we are half-siblings from our mother, and maybe that helps explain it." For once, a frown flickers over the musician's face as she tucks her card away in her purse, watching Yua close up. "Myunghon is not shy about warning me to stay away from their side of the family tree." She considers that for a moment, then shakes her head, visibly discarding it as she redoubles her smile. "But! It is the elder sister's duty to be as obnoxious as possible, and that includes learning about how they're doing and who they know."
See, the proposition has almost been forgotten already. Maybe she'll circle back around to it.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
It's fine, So-young is probably not here to disappear Yua back to a lab, she probably doesn't need to dive for her handbag and send out a distress call.
"I see..." Yua frowns, as she, very gracefully and without a shred of insight into this being weird, sits herself down on the dancefloor. It's a very comfy floor! "I know Myucchi's family had... very high expectations when they were younger," she's picking her words very carefully, here, "but I don't know terribly much about the details..."
Still... the detail of them being half-siblings is one of those illustrative details, isn't it?
"W-well," Yua smiles, drawing one leg up as the other stretches out in front of her, "I'm Yua! I'm Okinawan," which explains the sign, because that is not a Japanese word, "and I'm a part-time teacher! I run a program to help young people at risk of school refusal re-engage with physical education... by going to each of the major schools and running a dance class once a week." She pauses. "Twice a week, for Kasugayama!" Perhaps it's no wonder; there must be a lot of students who are too cool for school, in the reform school. "I also open this studio after school for students who'd like to practice more without an entire class around them," she adds, which explains the odd hours.
"Let's see, let's see, about me... I have a cat named Tiger and I love him to itty-bitty bits, I love cooking, I've recently taken up gardening, I'm really into camping and boating... I speak a lot of languages, and I adore foreign films... oh! And Myucchi's got me into reading romance novels over this last year!" Is there anything dire to that sentence? Certainly not as Yua has presented it. "There!" She declares, smiling brightly. "That's all about me!"
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young is not about to call sitting on the floor weird, especially not when she knows about things like stretching and posture. Conducting isn't all just waving her hands, especially not when her performances are energetic and vivacious enough that she comes out of them on the equivalent of a runner's high, the thrum of the encore still running through her veins.
On the other hand, she's not really dressed for sitting on the floor herself, so she... perches as best she can in something of the beginnings of a half-squat. Her knees are probably going to hate her later for this, but she does try for a while, at least until Yua begins to rattle off pieces of information about herself at such a rapid-fire pace that it takes over the rest of her attention span and she just wobbles back up to standing anyway.
"I did wonder about the name, but I honestly thought it might just be a word I don't know. I've only been in Japan for a couple of years at this point, and I haven't had the chance to really holiday out somewhere serious. Ohhh, some time lazing on a beach and sipping something ridiculous would be really good..." she muses thoughtfully.
Steepling her hands together, So-young beams over them. "That's delightful! I can't claim to be as much of a miracle worker as that, but I do run a series of concerts in Shibuya that I'm trying to make more approachable for younger people. I've been doing my best to fight the directors who insist on raising student ticket prices or expecting my music to be staid and solemn or calling my guest perfomers too young and green, but it's an endless battle," she rattles out, before Yua indirectly challenges her--
--to a FACTS BATTLE. "I will steal your cat if at all possible, and I should not be let within five metres of a oven. I live in Tokyo, there's eighteen places to eat in every building," she rapid-fires back. "I'll watch films I like over and over just for the background noise, the little asshole who keeps beating my score at the arcade has his days numbered, and I will grace art galleries with my violin until they tell me not to." At least she slows down a little, her smile softening. "I've mostly been immersing myself in Tokyo culture. There is a lot of it to immerse in. I offer my help out to some galleries and music groups."
"Speaking of which, I thought on the way that you might know about some promising local talents. I've been eying up Aoba Park as a place to hold some concerts of my own and be my own tyrannical director, and if I'm going to do that I want to showcase people from the area." Oh, she did have a reason.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"Ah... there's a chair by the desk, you know...?" Yua offers, with a bit of a sympathetic wince, as So-young proves she neglects the squatting part of leg day.
(Yua does not.)
"Our beaches are much nicer than Japan's," Yua boasts, cheerfully ignoring the fact that Japan would claim Okinawa's beaches are Japanese.
"Your concerts sound wonderful," Yua smiles. "I'll be sure to tell the children all about them!" Because of course teenagers are children, in Yua's mind. YOU'RE ONLY TWENTY-TWO, YUA.
She smiles, encouragingly. "Anyone can learn to cook," she says, warmly. "And you know, I'm really much the same! Mimi's always so patient with me when I watch the same film the sixth time in a row... oh, but I must say I haven't been in an arcade for many years. Do they still have those charming little dancing cabinets...?"
And lo -- So-young's scheme. "Most of the talents I've been fostering are in dance rather than music," Yua disclaimers herself, apologetically. "But there's this fellow called Eikichi Mishina at Kasugayama who has his own band! He's very talented! I've been very successful engaging that class in modern music, because of that!" She pauses, a touch delicately. "And I have... heard of another musical talent... though she's not in my classes, you understand, she'll not recognise me... but if you ask after Ririka Kawase, at Gekkoukan, you'll find another young star."
Of course, Yua can't really tell So-young that the only way she knows Ririka is through the supernatural... or, you know, through attacking her in the context of same. But it's fine. She's a teacher, you understand. Teachers talk.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-Young does her best to not look too ruffled as she sits herself in the chair with a clearing of her throat. She is, to be fair, wearing a dress and heels. Maybe she can scam some points for just trying. "I'll bet," she grins. "I haven't quite yet hit my time to just turf through holiday brochures, but I bet it won't be far off. I'm due, damn it." She got exploded just a few days ago and had to soar out of a mafia boss' head on the back of a projection of her own self-confidence. A holiday is deserved.
"The problem is having the patience to learn. And I prefer the ones you can play like a piano, of course," So-young grins as she waggles her fingers, before turning to her purse to fish through it. "I do have some free student tickets to hand out," she adds - and then furrows her brow. "Or... I did? Perhaps I gave them all out already," she grumbles. "They really don't give me enough free ones." This is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy she's alluding to here, because it's quite clear she will hand out as many as she's got at any given moment, and that number can only be stretched so thin.
"Ah... that's a shame. Thank you, but it appears I'm one step ahead of you already. I did go to see the band at the Prison - what an excellent show! - and Ririka is someone I actually work with fairly often. I've already sent her out to fish for ideas as well, so I've no doubt I'll be able to spider my way outwards from there."
She smiles, clapping her hands together in front of her. For a moment she holds the pose as if she were a statue - and then she abruptly leans forwards, her eyes alight. "Alright. I've done the small talk. Romance?" she queries urgently, her eyebrows rocketing upwards. "And Myunghon? Are you telling me..." Is the ship name Myua? Yuahon?? Can it be? "I mean, I thought they might be into-- no, no, I can't say that for certain." So-young hasn't yet figured out how to calibrate her theydar.
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
Yua is very impressed at So-young's efforts in heels. (One might think Yua would be defeated by heels, given how she's always wearing pointe shoes, but in fact she is excellent at balancing.) "That's great!" She encourages her, smiling.
She laughs, though, as So-young realises she's run out of free tickets. "You're a kind-hearted woman, aren't you?" She wonders, warmly.
"Ah, but you know them...? Wonderful," Yua smiles. "They're all so talented." She doesn't mind being poached, apparently. It's for the sake of the children!
Yua's cheeks brighten as So-young gets entirely the wrong idea, though, as she waves her palms again. "N-n-no, no, it's not like that! We're just very close friends! I'm very, very taken!!" The ship name is Yumi! Or Miyu! Don't look those up on the supernatural internet, please. "I've been taken since high school, thank you!!" Wait, but she met them in high school --
"T-to someone else, I mean!!" Yua squeaks, realising a second too late that she's still left it too ambiguous.
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
"Absolutely not," is So-young's immediate response to Yua saying she's kind, though she's grinning brightly as she says it. There is an unstoppable force of self-confidence behind her as she folds her arms, and primly adds: "I prefer to think of it as a healthy mixture of vanity and contrarianism. The more people come to my show, the cooler I look." Maybe for some people that rounds out to 'kind'.
"Eikichi's choice of instrument may not be the best of fits for an orchestral performance, but I haven't figured out yet how best to stick my oar in there. He was far and away the best performer in that band, and still reaching higher. There's going to come a time where that causes friction between him and the rest of his bandmates," So-young muses, almost to herself by the end of it. "Can I weave an electric guitar into a performance? Should I just offer myself as a manager? Hmm."
So-young holds Yua's gaze for a long moment, sizing her response up, a hand with her thumb and forefinger in an L shape to cradle her chin on top. "Hmmmmm. And yet, you got inspired by them," she adds, choosing only the most annoying of times to squeeze out a successful Understanding roll. "I suppose you could just be reading the classics or something. Still, it's a bit hard for me to imagine Myunghon swooning over someone just yet."
She frowns, a shadow of something flickering across her face. "... I'm still not completely sure how to move around Myunghon," she admits. "Our best conversations seem to be when we're both tired out and beaten up. I'd like to think we're getting there, I suppose."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
"Is that how it is...?" Yua wonders.
She tilts her head, before she rises up to her feet, in a flash, just like that. "For many years, ballet was very structured. We practiced posture," she straightens, elongates, all five feet of her head high and shoulders back. "Lightness," she stretches her arms out around herself, lifting onto her toes as if she's floating in the air. "And turnout," she comes down onto her heels, as she folds her legs, one over the other, into fifth position, her feet in alignment with each other, "opening the hips and deepening that rotation. But when we came to contemporary ballet, we began to ask, what if our posture was not perfect?" She slumps, backwards, as if the world itself is on her shoulders, as she goes on: "What if we were not light?" She tumbles to the ground, and rises, as if in a great struggle, grasping onto the barre as her legs turn inwards. "What if we turned in?" And she turns, and turns, and turns right around, before she braces her arms on the barre as she looks to So-young. "All these rules we constructed, in the arts, every one we may break... and each broken rule is itself an art."
She offers no answers, of course. Or, perhaps, she's just given her the precise answer she needs.
She sighs, though, scowling. "Please, stop putting your nose into my personal business," she says, irritation sneaking into her voice, when So-young makes that L shape. "You really don't understand my situation. I'm nervous because I do not wish to tell you my situation. All right?"
... telling the housewife whose house she almost wrecked is one thing, but Yua did that on accident. Telling a complete stranger...
She won't do that.
"Well, be gentle with them," she supposes, with a sigh. "Or... do your best, won't you? Try... engaging them with the things they like."
<Pose Tracker> So-young Park has posed.
So-young listens attentively along; she can appreciate a good lecture on the arts, and it's a good reminder that she's not the only one trying to hammer her way through moulds as hard as she can. Afterwards, she tilts her head forwards in an almost respectful gesture of thanks, quite at odds with the way she's handled the rest of the conversation so far.
"Still, I'm a little busy to compose something new, the way I'm currently running around," she says that, but she's certainly looking off into the middle distance, humming something softly under breath - but continues: "So it's a matter of figuring out what compositions would work best when I can shape how and where they are played." She pauses for a moment, then something like a frown flickers across her face. "I would also like to make sure the rest of his bandmates aren't too left behind. I am not heartless," she grumbles again. ... maybe she's kinder than she lets on, at least as far as 'kids who have yet to figure out what they want to do' are concerned.
She breaks into a grin as she holds her hands up in surrender at the sound of that irritation. She certainly doesn't _look_ all that chastised. "Alright. My apologies! I'm just the excitable sort. Rest assured, you can just tell me to shut up whenever need be. My skin and my head are both very thick," she admits just like that, without even batting an eye.
At least So-young relents. "Of course! I have not done anything ridiculous like drag them out to a bar or a show." There's a 'yet' implied there, but you take what you can get. "And Myunghon has made advances of their own as well. I am not trying to be a bull in a chinashop. It is simply a very ridiculous situation." She hesitates a second time, and furrows her brow as she admits: "If I am guilty of anything, I started our first meeting thinking I needed to show strength. And so I ate the top koala," she intones her guilt. "In my defence, the tower stayed standing."
<Pose Tracker> Yua Ooshiro has posed.
Well, of course! So-young's an artist! There's a reason why Yua would demonstrate her point so directly to her instead of just saying she ought to break the mould.
"I'm sure you can do it," Yua encourages her, smiling. "And you'd best not take him from his friends... he's a very dutiful young man. You know, he's taken it on himself to enforce discipline in Kasugayama? It's quite an odd situation, but he's very responsible..."
He also keeps the law laid down by punching other youths, but Yua pretends not to see that. She has a blind spot, you see. It's easy for her to miss things, particularly when she's an outsider to Kasugayama and she understands this is simply how they do things over there.
Yua scowls, not entirely sure this woman isn't going to pry into her and Miho's secrets, but... well, it's a problem for later.
(She's not accounting for anything Myunghon might say, either...)
"Hmm..." She sighs, straightening up off the barre. "I really don't know anything about your familial situation, but... from what little I've heard here, is it really so unthinkable you'd think it would be a dangerous conversation?" She sighs, looking up, with of course just the most elegant curve of her neck. (She has a lovely gold choker on. ... she must be quite well-off.) "That's a conversation for them, I dare say... but perhaps it's worth broaching. I doubt they're much more firm in their footing than you are... though they may act quite sure in the moment."
She smiles, shaking her head. "I've no plain answers for you," she admits, "for I've never been in your situation. But... perhaps it will help if I dance to their friendship with me, given your own appreciation for the arts."
Yua will show, in that dance, a really quite astonishing grasp of ballet -- contemporary ballet, though the performance does start out entirely classical -- and all the feelings of a complex and integral bond, with motions at times almost violent.
... really, in her efforts to help So-young, she might say too much through the medium.
But that's a problem for another day, too.