Dead Hours — Off Camera, Page 11
By Suha · Published
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Transcript
Five panels. Panel one: the sliding doors open and a cheerful jogger bounces in out of the rain — high ponytail, bright track jacket — shaking water from her sleeves. Panel two: she claps her hands together, radiant with certainty, addressing Kaito, who has not asked her anything. JOGGER: Just be yourself! That's the whole secret! Panel three: Kaito deadpan, arms at his sides, entirely serious, one eyebrow very slightly raised. KAITO: I am myself. Constantly. Panel four: the jogger jogs backward toward the doors giving a bright double thumbs up, already leaving. JOGGER: Then you're already winning! Panel five: Kaito alone by the entrance mat, staring after her at the closed doors, rain beyond, flat and hollow. KAITO: You can't do 'yourself' on purpose.
Image description
A cheerful jogger tells Kaito the secret is just to be yourself; he points out you can't do that on purpose.
About this chapter
3 A.M., rain on the dead-hours store. Kaito notices something he cannot put down: Rin's phone is lying face-down on the counter, and he works out that she has not pointed it at him in nine nights. Unable to bear being the one thing in the room not worth filming, he declares quiet war on his own dullness and sets out to earn the camera back before his shift ends, spiralling over whether a person can be interesting on purpose. All night he stages spirals that are not spirals — squaring the receipts, re-stacking the baskets, declaring war on nothing — then cuts his eyes to the counter and finds the same matte black back staring up at him, muttering the same dead-eyed '...still down.' A ladder of night regulars hands him contradictory, unverifiable verdicts: the tracksuit regular says you cannot make somebody watch you; a drunk salaryman insists he should break something, then fall over; a cheerful jogger beams that the secret is just to be yourself, which is the one thing Kaito cannot do on purpose. Rin dismantles every argument he builds without looking up, and has one flicker of near-sincerity late on — that it isn't about him — which she will not explain. Near dawn, hollow, Kaito gives up performing and simply works: mops the gangway, wipes the counter, restocks the rack badly, yawning, watched by nobody. That is exactly when the phone comes up, the running beat inverting — she is filming him at last, and only because he has finally stopped doing it for her. Then the turn: she lowers the phone, sets it down and says it flatly. Someone wants to sign her. For nine nights she has been writing a reply and deleting it, and every time she points the camera at him she has to decide something, so she stopped pointing it. Kaito asks the wrong practical question and gets no answer. Dawn light fills the store from exactly the angle the night began — the phone raised and filming him again, the blank card lying on the counter beside it — and Kaito, who spent six hours wanting the camera back, has it back and would trade it for the nine nights instead.