2025-10-01: The Girl Who Played With People's Shapes
- Cutscene: The Girl Who Played With People's Shapes
- Cast: Myunghon Yeo, Mei Arisugawa
- Where: An Apartment in Umegaoka, Setagaya City / a Hospital Ward in Setagaya City
- OOC Date: 1st October, 2025
- IC Date: 28th October, 2008 / 28th October, 2011
- Summary: There was a young woman who loved Myorei Yukichi. But did she really? The truth may never be known.
- Content warning: Unhealthy relationships
"Rei-chan, you're not actually listening to me."
Mei Arisugawa leans against the doorframe, folding her arms. She's a rare tall beauty, at 182 centimetres, with beautiful pale-blonde hair cut to her shoulders. She's wearing a light blouse with a darker blue cardigan ontop, a long A-line skirt and a necklace to complete the attire.
She's looking into a sparse hardwood room with a bed on it, in which a dark-haired young woman is packing her things. Two cardboard boxes and a suitcase comprise most of where the room's belongings have all gone into. There's a calendar on the wall with sequential red Xs before one date is marked: October 28th. The snow is falling, outside, in the darkness that permeates their apartment in Umegaoka, Setagaya City.
Her hair tied into a ponytail with a red and white frilled ribbon on it, she places a stack of blouses and shirts into the suitcase proper without answering. The young woman is dressed in a red v-neck woolen vest and ankle-length skirt of matching colour, with a ruffled white blouse underneath.
"Just stop for a moment," Mei demands as she grabs hold of the young woman's wrist. Finally, she gazes back into Mei's blue eyes with her own gray ones. "Talk to me."
"There is nothing to talk about. I'm graduating next week, and my father wants me to start the week after, as you know," the young woman whispers, her tone distant and cold... then she looks away from Mei's imperious gaze, uncomfortable.
"And that's that?" Mei questions demandingly. "How disappointing. After everything you, Kanatan and Shin-kun discussed, not to mention what we've said to each other?"
There's silence, with only the noise of the heat pump at the top left of the room to fill in the silence. "Yes."
Mei's expression turns colder as she leans further forward, voice a little huskier. "What if I told you to stay with me instead?"
"You know I can't do that..."
"Because of your father?"
"Yes."
"Is he more important than I am?"
That actually gets the young woman to frown. She turns her head forcefully down and rips her own wrist out from Mei's grasp, and rather hastily gets to placing a rather efficiently-packed packing cube into her suitcase.
"Answer the question."
"That's unfair," the young woman answers in turn.
"I don't see how. You're about to walk out all our lives," Mei sounds cross.
"Then... yes. Is that what you want to hear?"
Mei's eye twitches for a moment, but then she drapes her arms loosely around the young woman. "Just think about it. We're bright in the moment -- Lapin Angelique is on the rise. With Shin-kun's social media smarts and your business acumen, I'll turn you into a star. Have you seen how they're raving about you in ShibuyaSnaps and all the other blogs?"
The young woman softens slightly, shivering. "I'm glad. But it couldn't be forever... you knew that."
"I disagree. I think it can be forever," Mei counters. "I'm going to carve my name into the highest halls of fashion. We'll swim in luxury and comfort. People will beg to burn their money for the Arisugawa brand, and you won't have to listen to a single thing that little toadie of a father of yours wants you to do."
"What do you even..."
"I know what he wants from you. You're his nepotism hire. Do you think you'll live, Rei-chan, in the corporate world? I've dressed many people there. They all lack souls, the lot of them, just an endless assembly line of yes-men and unimaginative cronies. Seeing you drown in that monochrome world... I can't stand for it."
The young woman, Rei, scowls a little bit deeper and shakes her head. "It's not that easy. He won't stand for it. He's always thought of you and the shop as an idle fancy I'll get over. And--"
"And you're agreeing to his truth? You're going to let him put you in a gilded cage?"
The young woman takes hold of one of her bulkier sweaters and digs her fingers deep into it in an embrace. "I'm not as bold as you or Shin-kun or Kanata."
"That's why I'm telling you what to do. You don't have to worry about a single thing yourself, my precious doll," Mei smiles confidently as she leans forward, and places the tip of her finger at her chin, tilting it up gently. "Remember: Mei-Rei desu." (Remember: that's an or-der.)
There's a faint flush from the young woman's cheeks, but she draws in a deeper breath and frowns. "It's always about what you want."
"And on the other side, it's always been about what your father wants. I haven't heard a thing about what you yourself have ever wanted," Mei counters unflappably, which just seems to fluster the young woman further, as she becomes more unsettled, the impassive mask slipping away from her face.
"Some of us just don't have that kind of freedom," she answers weakly. More packing. Mei's noticing how little left she has to pack, like it's some kind of time limit she has. But then Mei lets out a tired sigh, placing the tips of her fingers on her forehead. How many times were they going to circle around this topic, over and over again? Try as she might, she hasn't been able to instill it into her. She started off by trying to encourage her, to see that she does have power -- true power, that she would have safety nets if she'd just let herself fall, and they'd catch her. But whatever fear her father's instilled in her is deep rooted, and Mei simply hasn't had the time to untangle it all.
"I don't want you to walk out that door. I know I have the power to."
The young woman doesn't really know how to answer that, lifting the last of her cubes to place onto the suitcase proper. She closes her eyes as she starts to zip her suitcase up--
Then gravity seems to reassert itself around her as she suddenly finds herself tumbling onto the bed along with Mei. "Mei, what--"
"It's very cold outside. It's nearly November already," Mei whispers sweetly. "It's warm in here. Under the bedsheets. With me."
The young woman's cheeks are flush, undeniably, as she feels that undeniable closeness between them -- but her heart's heavy with a hollow feeling within it. "I don't have time..."
"You never have time. You always make up some excuse, one reason or another," Mei murmurs, suddenly feeling herself go a little bit colder. "Am I not attractive to you?"
"That really, really isn't it--"
"You're scared. You've always been scared."
"... yes."
"You don't have to be scared anymore. If you're going to be your daddy's obedient little puppet, won't you be my doll instead?"
The young woman suddenly lurches up, grabbing the suit case and pressing it down onto the hardwood floor, the sound of the plastic wheels rolling for a brief moment. She looks hurt, with tears in her eyes. Mei quietly leans herself up to a half-seated position, licking her lips and placing her finger to it.
"Did I strike a nerve? It's because you know it's true."
The young woman pulls up the roller handles on the suitcase and reaches to grab hold of a precious white coat, draping it over her shoulders and pulling it taut. "I'm leaving, Mei."
Mei considers her next words, and there's a moment where she'd like to be more sympathetic -- but the smirk is back on her face when she considers how cute that hurt look is. "That's right. Go ahead and walk away. You'll sooner or later realise how empty and horrid your life's become under your father's wings. Yours will be a life of spreadsheets and meetings, of empty buzzwords and lies to the highest stakeholders."
The young woman looks rather aghast at that, gripping her suitcase tighter as she assembles the final part of her outfit -- a nice pale yellow scarf that she drapes over her neckline.
"Just tell me one thing," Mei finally finishes.
"What is it?"
"Did you ever love me, Myorei Yukichi?"
Myorei is, predictably, taken further aback at this, but then with trembling breath, venom fills her throat as she answers in turn, the glint in her grey eyes disappearing:
"Of course I do. A doll is made to love its creator, is it not?"
Mei's smile doubles as her heart bleeds inside. She's bleeding inside even as she hears Myorei disappear into the living room. She's bleeding inside as she hears sobs amidst the rolling of the suitcase. She's bleeding inside as she hears a vase get knocked off the cabinet and shatter onto the hardwood floor. She's bleeding as the door slams shut and all turns to quietness again.
Mei Arisugawa glances towards the calendar.
October 28th, 2008.
~*~
October 28th, 2011.
"I won't be long," speaks a white-haired person in a white dress shirt, tie and dress pants, with a black coat draped over their shoulder. They scowl very gently at the presence of the room -- the sun shining brightly in through the windows outside, only partially veiled by the blinds; the sterile white floor, the bleached white sheets.
The person sits down on the stool in front of the hospital bed where Mei Arisugawa lays, her blue eyes gazing at nothing and everything in particular. They have a gentle smile on their face, but it doesn't reach their eye.
"... I'm sorry I took so long to visit," says the white-haired person. "I'd bring you flowers, but... you never particularly enjoyed them."
There's absolutely no response from Mei. She's awake and breathing, but there's absolutely no presence within the room. She's become more gaunt and pale, and it's taken a lot of money and care to keep the hospital staff from letting her wither away.
"It's looking grim for the store. But you probably knew that would happen, wouldn't you? Kanata's too busy with their doctorate, they're on the cusp of publishing a paper that's making waves... their work's going into a number of reputable science journals. And Shin-kun can't work his magic without something to sell... that's right, it really was all just your own brainchild."
A pause, as the white-haired person brushes their wolf-cut hair back, revealing more of the bandage over the right side of their face.
"What would you say if you saw me now? 'I told you,' you'd start. 'I was right, and you were wrong.' You'd have that smug little smirk on your face, the way you always are when you're absolutely convinced you were to be proven correct. Well."
A longer pause, as they lace their hands together.
"You were correct."
They fidget, perhaps looking uncomfortable from the silence of the one-sided conversation.
"I never revealed to you I was Zainichi, did I? You thought I was South Korean, the way you caught onto some of the phone calls I had with my mother. I never was brave enough to tell you my name, though. I'm not sure why -- there's a group of friends I've actually managed to reconnect with under complicated circumstances that know me as Myunghon, even back in high school... did you know Miho-in and Yuarin were the reason I even was able to consider myself as dating you, back then?"
There is, of course, silence.
"Of course you didn't. You don't know them. You never will... hey," the white-haired person grows despondent and long in the face as they start to tremble. They pull up from their seat and lean over the bed.
Mei Arisugawa does not budge an inch, possessing still no presence in the room.
"Make fun of me. Contort your face. Tell me that I've made a mistake. You should be telling me I look too much like Kanata now and how despicable it is they were the one who inspired me in the end, not you." The white-haired person's voice is trembling as they speak, and they lower their forehead to Mei's stomach by the end.
"Tell me that I should look the way you'd like, just like the precious little doll you always treated me as."
There's a mixture of tears and venom in their voice, as they pull up again.
"Tell me something, won't you? Don't just stay silent." They reach their bandaged hands up to Mei's shoulders. "I don't care what it is, just say something. Tell me how much you hate me. I want to hear that, if it's in your voice."
The silence continues unrelenting, before it finally is shattered by the white-haired person starting to sob uncontrollably. They're grasping at the bedsheets, at the sweater Mei's wearing, given how cold it is outside. It might snow again today, just like on that day.
"Tell me how much you'd like to possess me, dress me up, you can do whatever, just say something, anything..."
The white-haired person sobs for a few more minutes, sobs eventually breaking into loud, effusive tears. Mei simply continues existing, the sweater on their stomach a little more damp than it was before. The seconds continue to pass, unrelentingly. Time is waiting for no one.
Their tears have dried up. They linger there, for minutes more, before they rise quietly to their feet, still sobbing as they wipe away nothing from their sore, bleary face.
"There really is nothing, is there? Society likes to say there's a better place beyond the grave. But the truth is..."
They quietly lean forward, and place their lips down on Mei's forehead. Their lips stay there, for a long three seconds.
Then they withdraw, their expression shattered.
"... there's just no more you ..."
Their fingers curl around that black coat of theirs and they pull it a bit more tautly around themself. Softly, they turn to their side, sparing Mei Arisugawa one last glance.
"Farewell, Mei Arisugawa. And though this is far too long in the coming, the answer to that question of yours, three years ago, is..."
Their lips continue to move.
They say three words.
Then they turn, disappearing through the door into the vastness of the world.
Mei Arisugawa continues to exist.
She doesn't know who that white-haired person was.