Chapter 10

When I was in elementary school, I was being pushed into becoming a child actor. My mother went through a phase of chasing trends, and during that time she was desperate to turn me into one.

The reason I first came to this dojo was through a stage combat class meant for child actors. Even back then, it was known for being strict. Kids who couldn’t handle the harsh training dropped out quickly and went elsewhere. On the other hand, those who managed to stay were considered exceptional. Just being a student of the Shindō style stage combat class earned you respect. That was the kind of dojo it was.

At the time, though, I was being forced into it by my parents. I hated every moment of it and thought only of quitting. Not just stage combat—acting itself had started to disgust me.

On weekends, I was made to take the train for about an hour to attend a child actor agency’s lessons. On top of that, my mother crammed my schedule with more classes. Weekdays weren’t any different; to keep my grades from slipping, I also had to attend cram school. Even without a moment to play with friends, the truth was only a handful of kids ever saw their hard work pay off.

The mid-sized agency I belonged to had over three hundred children registered. If you counted the big names and the small agencies, the number of child actors must have been enormous. Even when you passed an audition, most of the time you’d only end up as an extra. They’d make us gather at five in the morning, and I wouldn’t get home until nine at night. Hours of waiting around just for a chance to appear for a few seconds in a single shot alongside other child extras.

Naturally, there were no lines. If you got one, you considered yourself lucky.

There were even times when they called us in at nine at night, only for filming to finish at two in the morning. All for a single scene, standing beside the child actor who was actually receiving a signed ball from the actor playing a professional athlete.

Still, I endured it. I managed to land a part in a reenactment scene on a variety show. The main role was played by an adult actor, and I got to play his child. They even gave me lines.

But as for auditions for leads in dramas or movies, I never even got an invite. And the supporting role auditions I did get? I kept failing.

That didn’t mean I was a total failure. In fact, within the agency I was one of the more promising ones. Most kids couldn’t even make it into extra roles and simply vanished without leaving a trace.

Because of that, my mother’s expectations only grew worse. She pushed me into more lessons, desperate to make me succeed. Just the agency registration and lesson fees were expensive, but once you added all the other classes and cram school, it easily exceeded a hundred thousand yen a month. And for extra work, costumes had to be provided out of pocket. “Prepare four sets of outfits that give off the feel of a well-bred young master,” they’d say. Even though in the end only one set would actually be used on set, my mother had to buy them all. Once I outgrew them, most were thrown away unworn. And after all that, the extra pay—after the agency’s cut—was barely four thousand yen for an entire day of shooting. It was a loss.

Since my mother was always busy escorting me to lessons and shoots, both parents working wasn’t an option. Only a handful of popular child actors had dedicated managers. For most, even the popular ones, their mothers doubled as their managers.

Living like that strained the household. My father’s allowance was cut to ten thousand yen a month. My mother stopped going to the beauty salon and grew shabby. And at home, the arguments between my parents never ceased.

"This is all for his sake! Just endure it! I’m enduring things too, you know!"

My mother would shriek, while my father, his voice tired, would argue back.

"You’re taking this too far. Face reality for once."

One day, sick of hearing their fights, I finally gathered the courage to tell my mother I wanted to quit acting.

She stared at me as though she couldn’t understand the words.

"After all the effort you put in? Don’t you want to be an actor!?"

"I never once said I wanted to be one."

For the first time, I defied her. And she looked at me as if she were seeing something unbelievable.

When I quit child acting and gave up all my lessons, my mother stopped doing housework. For days, she just sat around blankly.

About a week later, one morning, she suddenly apologized to me and my father.

"I don’t know what I was thinking… I’m sorry."

She cried as she said it, but her face looked as though a weight had been lifted. After that, she took her role as a housewife seriously and even started working part-time.

To me, she only said one thing: "Decide your own path." From then on, she never interfered.

Freed from acting, I suddenly had nothing to do. It felt as though there was a hole in my heart. To fill it, I threw myself into studying. With no more acting, studying was all I had left.

Even after entering junior high, I kept studying. But I wanted something more, something to dedicate myself to. I joined the kendo club, where I’d once taken lessons as a child, and swung my shinai in hopes of filling the hole inside me.

One day, on my way home from a kendo tournament, I remembered that Shindō-sensei’s dojo was nearby. On a whim, I decided to stop by.

It was already night, but the dojo was lit up. Inside, six adults were training. From outside on the veranda, I watched. Shindō-sensei faced off against a large man, standing calm and silent, no sign of a kiai.

They stood motionless for a while. Then suddenly, the big man moved in a smooth blur, reaching to grab sensei. But in an instant, sensei twisted his arm up and forced him down to one knee, locking him in place.

When the man bowed, sensei walked over to me.

"Yamashiro, isn’t it? What brings you here?"

"Ah, well, I was nearby, and I suddenly felt nostalgic…"

He remembered me.

It had been three years since I quit. I never imagined he’d remember, and it threw me off balance.

"Hmm. So you’ve kept up with the sword. Kendo, I take it?"

"Yes. Through my school club."

I was startled that he could tell I practiced kendo—but then again, I was carrying a case with my armor and a shinai bag strapped to it. Anyone could see.

"I see. In that case, how about a spar, for old time’s sake?"

"…Yes, please."

"Shall we use shinai, then?"

"No. If possible, let’s go barehanded."

Back when I was in the kids’ stage combat class, we mostly studied swordplay for period dramas. Hand-to-hand was only the basics, and sparring was limited to matches between students. I’d never sparred barehanded with Shindō-sensei before.

When we began, I was thrown again and again, as if effortlessly. Every strike I attempted was parried, every grip countered, every attempt to throw him reversed. I grabbed his collar to attempt a throw—only to have my wrist locked, slammed to the ground, and my throat pinned beneath his foot.

I lost count of how many times I was thrown, how many times my joints were locked. Before long, there was no room in my head for anything but the match. My breathing turned ragged, my throat parched, my arms trembling from spasms until even raising a guard was painful.

I kept practicing like that, empty-minded, until before I knew it, I was crying.

"Well? Feeling better now?"

"Yes…"

When Sensei said that, it felt like the hole in my heart from earlier had somehow shrunk without me realizing it.

"Well, I don’t know what happened, but most things stop bothering you if you just practice and move your body."

"Is that… how it works?"

"Pretty much. As long as you can still talk, you’ve got a long way to go. Come on, we’re not done yet."

"Huh?"

Sensei grabbed me by the collar where I was sitting and crying, yanked me upright, and forced the sparring to resume. If I didn’t resist, I was thrown. If I did resist, I was still thrown. Either way, I was getting tossed around, so I had no choice but to keep moving desperately.

When I lost my sense of time, my consciousness blurred, and I finally collapsed onto the floor, only then did the sparring end. Sensei looked down at me, panting and sprawled face-first on the floor.

"You’ve got some guts, don’t you? Good work."

Hearing that brought something back.

The reason I tried so hard as a child actor was because I wanted my mother to praise me with a "You did well." When I passed the audition for an extra role, she was so happy for me, as if it were her own accomplishment, and she praised me.

It was for that smile that I worked so hard.

Remembering that, I cried again.

"Hm? Still not enough?"

Sensei said that, then once again forced me to stand and restarted the sparring. By the time it was over, I had fainted and lost my memory, but when I woke up, the hole in my heart that nothing had ever managed to fill was gone.

Maybe it was true—most things really stop bothering you if you just practice and move your body.

After that, as I kept dropping by the dojo and training under him, I was eventually formally accepted as a disciple.

"But Sensei, the only time I cried was that one day, you know."

Thinking back to then, if you put it the way he did, it sounded like I was a total crybaby. But ever since I was old enough to remember, I don’t think I ever cried except for that day.

"Really? That so? You always seemed like you cried a lot to me."

"…Well, if you say so, maybe that’s how it was."

Sensei always seemed carefree, but he was surprisingly good at reading people’s hearts.

About a year and a half ago, when the media started bashing Nana-chan on TV and in magazines, the people at this dojo—including myself—didn’t watch variety shows or read tabloids, so we were pretty out of touch with that kind of thing.

Even so, Sensei noticed the change in Nana-chan, something even I hadn’t realized.

Just like with me, he sparred with her, pushing her body to its limit until she was nearly unconscious. Then, smiling, he asked, "Why are you crying?" That’s when Nana-chan broke down, saying, "If I’m just going to cause trouble for my family, I’d rather quit being a child actor."

Nana-chan, who always kept smiling like she had no worries, crying like a child—it was painful to watch.

After she stopped crying and was sent home, Sensei and the senior disciples gathered, slinging sword bags over their shoulders as they headed out of the dojo. When I asked where they were going, looking so grim, they replied:

"We’re just going to make those irresponsible people take responsibility."

"As long as it doesn’t get found out, it’s fine, right?"

"Don’t worry. We won’t leave any evidence."

"Even if something happens, we’ll cover it up, so relax."

They were all riled up, about to storm off for revenge, so I frantically stopped them.

If they had really attacked the people and TV stations that were slandering Nana-chan all at once, that alone would’ve been enough to serve as circumstantial evidence, and it would’ve put Nana-chan in an even worse position. More than anything, as someone working in the police force, there was no way I could overlook it. Actually—could my own superior, the Division Chief, not try to join in on this and maybe stop them instead?

While I tried to calm Sensei and the others down, I urgently called Shinozaki-san, Nana-chan’s manager. Before long, a car came drifting straight into the yard. Shinozaki-san jumped out, looking frantic, and after he talked Sensei and the others down, they finally agreed to stand down.

One step later, and it could’ve turned into a major incident. I was relieved that Sensei and the others hadn’t become criminals.

"So, what happened after all that?"

"After all that…?"

"Those irresponsible people, I mean."

"Ah, they’re practically on their last legs now."

At the time of the uproar, Shinozaki-san had launched fierce protests at all the outlets that had been bashing Nana-chan. He took a firm stance, declaring that unless they issued full apologies, he wouldn’t send Nana-chan—or any child actors at all—their way. Most of them complied, but there was one station that refused, continuing their attacks.

However, once the movie was released and public opinion suddenly shifted to supporting Nana-chan, the program that had been leading the bashing found itself criticized instead. I heard the ratings for the entire station plummeted almost overnight.

"Before long, the host of that show will be forced to step down, and the station will issue a full apology."

"Hmph, too soft. It would all be solved in an instant if someone just snapped his neck."

"You can’t! If you got arrested, Nana-chan would be devastated."

"Well, never mind that. Time for sparring."

"Osu! Please take care of me!"

And so, today’s training began.