Yoshiki was lying in his bed, the peach coloured duvet clashed with his dark blue pajamas; he was gazing at the ceiling, deep in his thoughts. The nearing of his next deadline for a drama story to be submitted was the following Saturday.
He got up at 8am and rushed to his living room, he was looking frantically for his cigarettes, as he puffed at the end of his cigarette he felt a since of freedom, his hand clasped around the previously opened wine bottle, his fingers unscrewing and then screwing back the lid on.
His coffee coloured brown hair curled around his face, covering his mysterious eyes, Yoshiki was an extremely popular scriptwriter, he debuted in 1978, when he was 18 years old with a story called ‘The Breath’, the story was accidently submitted by his classmate Gackt Camui, a friendly and cheeky guy who had befriended Yoshiki, the two shared a passion of finding true love/soul mates apart from this they were quite different. Gackt was already married by now, no longer a playboy. He was also an inspiration of some of Yoshiki’s work as well.
‘The Breath’ won first prize in the ‘Japanese Drama Competition’ despite Yoshiki’s poor writing skills at the time, the story was centered of a young girl Grace who is migrant coming to Japan to chase her dream as a performer, she is of French and Chinese descent, originally a sweet and kind girl Grace who was to debut as a Japanese pop idol in the 70’s was instead transferred to an all-girl punk band ‘The Breath’ she soon learns of a world she thought never existed everything is going well for the young Grace until she meets Yuki, the bassist of Superheroes a visual kei group, she soon falls in love and is torn between her band and her lover.
However, despite the story being a huge success the drama was produced poorly, Yoshiki and Gackt realised many parts of the story was changed or re-produced or sold off to other people, Yoshiki was being ripped off.
It wasn’t until in the 80’s that Yoshiki achieved his dream of becoming a successful scriptwriter, by now he had written approximately 50 stories that were re-produced into a drama or film, he tried many styles and genres before realising his talent was Romance and Love dramas.
With the help of several friends including Gackt and Toshi (Yoshiki’s cousin) they produce a story called ‘Loveless Lives’ the story centers on a male character ‘Kami’ a free-spirited hip hop dancer who works his way up the ladder to fortune and fame, however Kami soon realizes being at the time is incredibly lonely.
*Back to present day*
Yoshiki made himself breakfast, or what he called breakfast, a huge mugful of milky coffee, sliced peaches grilled slightly, drizzled with honey and a handful of nuts. Just as he was about to tuck into his yummy breakfast.
His doorbell rang, being Yoshiki the doorbell was no ordinary one, it played one of his favourite songs ‘Ghost by Gackt’ because the music gave him a sense of happiness and freedom. A lot of things provided Yoshiki with freedom, alcohol included.
Anyways, Yoshiki swung open the door he was face-to-face with a pink haired man under the name hide, one of Yoshiki’s favourite actors, hide appeared in many of Yoshiki’s dramas and films and other productions.
“Hey hide, how can I help you?” Yoshiki asked eating his breakfast whilst speaking to hide.
Hide a slim, good-looking guy with bright neon pink hair, red heart-shaped hair clips adorned his bubble of hair, he wore a red t-shirt bearing the words ‘psychedelic violence of visual shock’, green trousers and orange boots with thick metal straps.
“I need to sign that contract?” hide asked with a sharp tone to his voice.
Yoshiki after leaving his label, had formed ‘U.F.O Entertainment Label’ hide was meant to sign a contract in the last few months, as a regular actor, his contract would meant he would be part of almost every production in the U.F.O Entertainment Label.
“Hmm. I’m working on finalising the final actors in my company before contracts are signed,” Yoshiki said in a brisk manner.
“Well if you don’t hurry up, then I’m gonna sign up with a completely different label, I got lots of work proposals you know, I gave up a chance to work for Walt Disney for you,” hide said his smile gone from his face instead replaced with a stony expression.
“Either you want to wait for me and sign this contract or either you can go and work for some other company,” Yoshiki retorted.
With a swift moment, hide glanced at Yoshiki and grabbed his belongings and walked towards the door, he gave a final look at Yoshiki and left.
Meanwhile, an already annoyed Yoshiki was now boiling with rage, as he headed over to his company Extasy Records, he was thinking over about hide, he was ready for hide to sign paperwork but now he wasn’t so sure, of this. Did he want some actor, who would jeopardise all of his productions because of some minor arguments each time.
“Boss, the filming is ready to start when you’re ready, casting has been carefully chosen for your newest project,” his assistant Norman Chung said in a brisk manner.
“Norman, make me a cup of black coffee and bring it over to the filming floor, can you also fetch me my cigarettes and make a phone call to hide and call him in,” Yoshiki said as he walked off to the lift.
Pressing the number 3 for the filming floor, Yoshiki exited the lift and went over to the crew; he was greeted by a blonde haired girl whom he didn’t know the name off and Kenneth Ma, a dear friend of his and also the leading actor in his new film.
The film was a remake of his earlier dramas ‘The Breath’ which had been unsuccessful, Grace portrayed by Natalie Tong (the dyed blonde haired girl) and Yuki was portrayed by Kenneth; hide was too played Grace’s elder brother, a waiter who lives in a small apartment with very little money.
However, Yoshiki was thinking of changing cast members and removing the sullen hide.
Just as he was waiting for hide to arrive, his assistant Norman brought him over some paperwork just as he handed him the paper, hide’s extensive CV fell out and a stack of letters clipped onto his CV containing information about his private and personal life.
Yoshiki read the first paragraph; it read Hideto Matsumoto, a shy and reserved school boy who excelled at the Track and Field, was also a talented actor.
Then Yoshiki skipped to the next paragraph; hide (hee-day) made his debut in a perfume advert, sweater adverts and ice cream adverts, the thing that really attracted Yoshiki was that hide was mistaken for a girl on his first day of his modeling catwalk day, with his permed, wavy fluorescent pink hair with his captivating hazelnut brown eyes with flicks of gold, in one of his modeling photos he was pictured wearing a pink chiffon dress with white socks and pink platforms complete with dark shades. He had transformed into a beautiful girl.
Yoshiki passed his coffee and cigarettes to Norman whilst he frantically flicked through the pages of hide’s bio, he saw more pictures, and hide was dressed and styled differently in each picture, some of them he wore heavy makeup, others he wore simple makeup that gave off a clean image to the idol.
“Do you know much about hide?” Yoshiki asked Norman who was dressed in a navy blue suit.
“A little bit, I know that hide was dismissed from many of his jobs and offended certain small record labels and people with his feminine appearance and t-shirts with weird slogans on them,” Norman said.
Hide arrived at exactly 11 o’clock, he had tied his pink hair into a bun and was having makeup done, pale white skin was made whiter by makeup, his lips stained with red lipstick and his eyes were drawn and elongated by black eyeliner and pencil, after his makeup, his hair was backcombed giving a edgy appeal.
“Ah, I see you brought your portfolio,” Yoshiki said taking the slim jet black folder from hide’s arms.
Hide tugged a little on the folder before allowing Yoshiki to leaf through his pictures.
“Quite an artistic person, aren’t you hide?” Yoshiki asked ignoring hide’s annoyance.
“Yes, of course. I am an art student after all,” hide replied with sharp tone to his voice.
No comments:
Post a Comment