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3 A.M., rain on the dead-hours store, and for the first time the store is a set. Sae Kurosawa stands a ring light in the middle gangway, tapes a cross on the tile, clamps her phone at the centre of the hoop and tells Kaito the agency wants one trial video: the shop, the night, and him. The brief is four words — do the thing you do — and Kaito, who has never in his life done a thing on purpose, declares quiet war on being himself to order before the shoot wraps, spiralling over whether a man standing on a mark can possibly be the same man who stands there every night for free. Take after take dies on the tile, each one ending on the identical beat of Sae lowering the phone, entirely mild, and saying 'Again. From the top.' He tries reciting a spiral he has actually had; it comes out hollow. He interrogates the brief and gets nothing back. A ladder of night regulars wander into the shot and hand him contradictory, unverifiable direction: the tracksuit regular says just talk normal; a drunk salaryman insists he look straight down the lens and physically aims him at it; a cheerful jogger tells him to pretend the camera isn't there, which it is, a metre from his face. Rin does not film a single frame all night — she sits at the counter watching a stranger point a camera at the thing she has been pointing hers at for two years — and has one flicker of near-sincerity, that it stops being the thing the moment somebody asks for it, before going flat again. Near dawn, hollow, Kaito takes the mark one last time and says 'Again. From the top' to himself before Sae can. She calls the shoot instead, thanks him, switches the light off and starts breaking down the rig — and Kaito, released, goes back to work, restocking the carton rack and muttering at it with real irritation about a real thing. The light is off. The phone is still recording. That is the take, and it is good: the honest one is the one he could not make, and it belongs to a woman who has been in the shop twice. Sae packs up, says 'Tuesday?' to Rin on her way out, and gets no answer. Dawn fills the store from exactly the angle the night began, the rig gone — and Kaito crouches to peel the tape cross off the tile while Rin, phone finally raised, films him doing it. 'That's the one,' she says. He does not look up.
Page 1
A single wide panel. The shop at three in the morning, rain on the front glazing. Standing in the middle gangway is a filming rig — a three-legged black stand carrying one white hoop light at head height, lit, throwing hard shadows down the tile and flattening the familiar room into a set. A plain tape cross is stuck to the floor in front of it. Sae Kurosawa, a woman in her thirties in a long grey wool coat with a low ponytail, round wire glasses and a canvas tote, stands beside the rig. Kaito squints in the glare. Rin watches from her stool at the counter. SAE: Whenever you're ready.
Page 2
Four panels. Panel one: Sae stands calmly beside the lit rig, hands in her coat pockets, explaining without emphasis. Kaito faces her, wary. SAE: One video. The shop, the night, you. Panel two: Kaito stands on the tape cross in the middle gangway, arms hanging at his sides, lit hard from the front. KAITO: And I do what, exactly. Panel three: close on Sae, mild and unhurried behind her round glasses, offering nothing further. SAE: The thing you do. Panel four: close on Kaito, brow furrowed, genuinely thrown, the hard rim of light cutting down one side of his face. KAITO: That isn't a thing. That's just Tuesday.
Page 3
Three panels. Panel one: Kaito on the tape cross in front of the lit hoop, attempting a spiral he has actually had before, gesturing stiffly toward the entrance. Every line of him is wrong; it is a man reciting. KAITO: The, uh. The stack. Is uneven. Panel two: a silent panel. Nobody reacts. The shop is completely still. Panel three: the recurring beat. Sae beside the rig, lowering the phone-end of the hoop a few degrees, face entirely mild. SAE: Again. From the top.