All right, this was not really an official ask, but in response to the lovely @alinacapellabooks and for anyone else who’s interested, I would like to explain exactly how I “got the idea for a Phantom of The Opera retelling set in early 2000s Japan, in the tail end of the visual kei scene”.
I’ve posted some of this before somewhere but it might have been on my now-deleted Twitter?
No spoilers, but it might be a little long, so more under the cut!
I had wanted to write a Phantom retelling for a long time… I was first introduced to the story through the Lloyd Webber musical, but I read the Leroux novel shortly thereafter, and started seeking out the different movie adaptations, so I never really thought of the musical as the “definitive” version. I loved how the same core elements could be respun as romance or mystery or horror, in different settings, with characters that were usually the same archetypes but also a little different each time.
It was Phantom of the Paradise that REALLY convinced me that I wanted to do my own take on the Phantom story someday… that film is just SOOO wildly different from any other version but also unbelievably good, both as a retelling of several different stories and also just as a story in its own right. So as early as high school I had started to play around with the idea… I know I still have about ten handwritten pages of a “Phantom of the Space Station” which was supposed to be kind of The Fifth Element meets The Ship Who Sang… but the characters never really gelled as their own people, and eventually I moved on to other things.
Then in 2005, after the release of the ALW movie, I started reading a lot of fanfiction… and again, I tended to like the ones that took the basic components of the story and retold it in a different place or time. I started writing again, first with a fairly cliched “university theatre professor and student” idea, and then a Star Wars crossover where the Phantom used a Jedi mind trick to hide his face, tutored “Christine” in the Force, and she’d eventually get strong enough to “unmask” him.
The Star Wars one was starting to feel a LITTLE more like a story that maybe only I could write, but the characters weren’t really coming together and there wasn’t necessarily a lot of overlap between those two fandoms, so I was still kind of searching for an idea for “my” retelling.
Around the same time, I was sort of struggling with being a visible minority myself. Although I love Japan, I was struggling both with sticking out physically and with having something that had always been a personal strength (language) suddenly become a weakness, so I was starting to build this image of a Phantom character who was struggling not only with a seemingly hopeless love but with kind of a loss of identity.
I was also looking at gender-bent retellings, as that’s something else I’ve always enjoyed, not necessarily for Phantom specifically, but it always interested me to see how gender could change the character dynamics of a familiar story. I’d read some gender-bent fanfic, but female Phantoms were kind of a hard sell. I mean, the Phantom has almost zero self-esteem but he also has the confidence of a mediocre white man? Believing that the universe owes him a wife? I hadn’t really found any fanfics, at least, that managed to create a female Phantom who really made psychological sense as a character. (Many years later, I can recommend The Monsters of Music by Rebecca F. McKinney as a VERY different take on a straight female Phantom that I did enjoy immensely.)
But the male “Christines”? Those I LOVED… a shy, less than confident male protagonist with a heart of gold? *chef’s kiss* So I started thinking, why couldn’t they both be male? And having a female “Raoul” could help that character be the “socially acceptable” option, since nobility isn’t much of a factor in modern-day fics.
The final piece—setting it in Japan in the visual kei scene—clicked into place when I was listening to X Japan’s Blue Blood Album in the car one day. I was listening to “Unfinished” (the song Teru ends up singing to himself in the first scene), and lyrics like “Go away from me now. Just leave, and forget me. No need to be hurt anymore.” just had SUCH Phantom vibes… he loved Christine so he let her go, right??? So… visual kei Phantom. It was perfect. I’d been active in that subculture myself around that time. I hadn’t been in a band, but I’d dated a few guys who were, and had been backstage and in the studio enough times that I knew how things worked from the other side. And it was a modern-day setting where it wouldn’t seem TOO out of nowhere for someone to choose to wear a mask instead of just, facial prosthetics or something? And it’s also a subculture that places a LOT of emphasis on physical appearance, which worked with the whole idea of becoming disfigured as sort of losing a part of his identity.
Everything just came together and felt RIGHT in a way that none of the other ideas I’d had really did… and I guess the rest is history?
The Stars May Rise and Fall by Estella MiraiTeru came to Tokyo with dreams of making it big in the glam-metal visual kei scene, but three years later, all he...
Once more for different time zones: You can now download and read The Stars May Rise and Fall for free! (It’s also still for sale in paperback and Kindle ebook.)
This is the book of my heart. It’s a queer (mlm) retelling of Phantom of the Opera set in the visual kei (think glam metal) subculture in early 2000s Tokyo. It’s kinda genderbent (the “Phantom,” “Christine,” and “Carlotta” are guys; “Raoul” is a girl), very angsty, and very nostalgic. It’s based on real places and personal experience, but also on several different versions of POTO (most obviously Leroux, ALW, and POTP) and on the real-life stories of various bands. And some of it’s just made up, because sometimes that makes a better story.
It’s for you if you like your Phantoms pretty seriously fucked up, your age gaps (and height gaps) significant but also not really a big deal, your men androgynous and your hair colors not limited to what nature provides. It’s for you if you like tragic pasts, second chances, and think people should be able to find happiness again after a loss. It’s also for you if you like minidiscs, demo tapes, cellphones with black and white screens and antennas, and 20-years-ago Tokyo as told by someone who was actually there.
In terms of content warnings, there’s some (mostly internalized) ableism and homophobia, some minor microagressions from side characters, legal but not always responsible alcohol and tobacco use, mention of death, use of the word “suicide” (not the act)... and, like, the Phantom character is really, really self-destructive and self-loathing and just not mentally healthy and I kind of feel like that should be a given but, anyway, it’s a fictional story not a how-to book on self care. Please send me an ask or a DM if you have any other trigger/content concerns not mentioned here. <3
The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 30)
Just FYI, we’re officially into the stage of this book where just about everything makes me cry. (I know, I know, I wrote the thing, I could’ve changed it! But angst just hurts soooo good!)
As always, spoilers (including spoilers for chapters beyond this one) under the cut!
They take a taxi to Shinjuku to get on the train, and Rei is visibly uncomfortable riding in a car… but there’s not really much alternative at this point, as they both recognize. I don’t think he remembers the moment of the accident, or any moments of consciousness he would’ve had immediately afterwards. The brain tends to block things like that out, but I do think he probably has a fuzzy or even unconscious memory of that moment just before, when you know it’s about to happen but it’s too late to do anything to stop it.
I would love art of Rei’s super extravagant coat in this scene, by the way… yet another one to add to the list!
The taxi driver in Hakone is sort of the opposite of the asshole doctor when it comes to microaggressions. He sees immediately that Rei has a disability and asks for his government ID, which can actually get you a lot of discounts and things like free entry into public facilities like zoos and museums, but I think Rei’s usually too proud to actively ask for those benefits very much. Up to this point, I don’t think Teru even realizes that he HAS one of those ID cards. But the taxi driver is a nice guy who wants to give them the discount, and does. BUT… then he goes and makes some well-meaning but ignorant comment about Teru and Rei spending Christmas with their girlfriends. Of course, this isn’t malicious but it’s still kind of awkward and hurtful.
They get to the hotel, and poor Rei I think is just feeling incredibly guilty, that Teru has done this kind, amazing thing for him when all he (thinks he) has done is make Teru’s life more difficult. GAH, I wish he’d just TALK to Teru because Teru doesn’t feel that way at all.
Teru also feels a little guilty for choosing a traditional Japanese room, since there’s not a lot of furniture and it’s hard for Rei to sit on the floor (and always has been (at least since Teru has known him), as established in an izakaya several chapters ago; this wasn’t directly caused by the more recent injury, so yeah, Teru COULDVE thought of that, but he’s still probably being too hard on himself. He did come up with a really thoughtful plan overall.)
I DO have art of my boys in hotel yukatas! Would REALLY love some art of the bath scene too, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
So this hotel (really a ryokan, sorry, I’ve been calling it a hotel because that’s English, but it’s like a traditional Japanese style inn) has meals served in the room, which is super fancy (I think I’ve only been to places that did this twice… both in Hakone, and both as romantic weekend type things), and also super nice if you’re boyfriend’s self-conscious about eating in front of people. The server is also kind to Rei, bringing him a stool because he clearly can’t sit comfortably on the floor, and like with the taxi driver, he’s appreciative and polite. I think there are a couple of reasons behind this sort of shift in attitude. First, I think people in this rural resort town are just being a little more friendly than most people in Tokyo are, but more importantly than that, I think Rei has kind of realized that he does need to change, he does need to learn how to accept help gracefully… and he also just wants to make this trip wonderful for Teru, and he knows that means minimal drama. ❤️
Then they take a private bath in the hot spring. I have nothing really to add here, except that this is way up toward the top of my “I Want Art” list, and every single time I go to a hot spring I think of this scene. ❤️❤️❤️
And then we have the not-sex scene. By which I mean they totally have sex but it’s fade to black. Some readers liked this, some didn’t, but I ultimately think it’s better than the alternative: a sex scene written by me! 😂
I did go back and forth on whether to try to write it. The ultimate reason I didn’t was because I wanted it to be perfect for every reader. And I realize that “fade to black” in itself is not “perfect” for some readers, but I also didn’t want to ruin the whole book by having the sex scene not be right. So if you imagine it wild and kinky, it was. If you imagine it sweet and simple, then THAT’S how it was. If you’d rather not imagine it at all, that’s also completely fine.
Personally, I think it was very sweet, very careful, very full of love and consent… it’s Teru’s first time with a guy, and Rei’s first time since the accident, so I do think they take things very slow, and probably don’t get to full-on anal penetration or anything… mouths and hands? But that’s me. You’re free to imagine it (or not) however you want.
I also think it doesn’t really matter HOW it happened, just THAT it happened. I read a lot of romance novels during the editing of this (I actually hadn’t read ANY before I wrote the first draft… again, I apologize deeply to romance readers, this was never supposed to be a category romance novel!) and there definitely ARE books out there where HOW the characters have sex drives the plot or develops the relationship. And there are others where it’s not really intended to: it’s there for fun, for titillation. In this case, I think the fact THAT they have sex is the plot/character development point. We’ve seen them be caring and careful with each other up to now, and I didn’t think that showing that specifically in the bedroom would change anything. As for titillation… I honestly don’t like sex scenes that exist only for titillation as a reader, so I don’t think I’m the writer to understand what those readers want and to give it to them.
The couple of sex scenes I’ve attempted to write to date (mostly for fanfic exchanges or challenges where the prompt I got was more adult) have also been… not good. When I was a kid, if I happened to draw a picture that I really liked in black and white, I never wanted to color it because I might ruin it. I think attempting to write the sex scene here would’ve felt like trying to color something that already worked in just pencil?
I do want to sort of address one comment made by a reviewer that Rei deserved to be sexy and sexual on the page, deserved to be SHOWN being loved physically as well as emotionally and… I agree. That’s a very good point. Unfortunately… I just really don’t think my writing skills in this particular area are up to the task. It would really have to be perfect, and beautiful… and I’m not sure I could’ve done that.
And then we have the last scene, after the fade to black, where Teru decides that he’s not going to take the deal… he’s going to prioritize being with Rei. Which is exactly what Rei DOESNT want him to do. 😭
The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 33)
Well, I did it. I went back to this second-to-last chapter, which wasn’t hard because I don’t like it or because it was hard to write…but because I do love it and I wish with all my heart it had reached more than the 50 or so people it ultimately did.
spoilers under the cut.
So I know I’m really critical of my own writing a lot of the time, but I actually really like what I did here, ending chapter 32 with “thank you for all the years to come” and then when you flip the page to chapter 33, it’s four years later and the band is still doing well.
So the goal over these first few pages was to show that Teru had been successful, that he had grown as a person, but that he still missed Rei. So the band is on TV, promoting a new single which Teru actually wrote the lyrics for. I think this is HUGE growth on his part, going from “I don’t know, anything’s fine” to actually writing an intensely personal song and performing it on national TV.
I wrote all of the lyrics for this book myself, by the way (since Japanese isn’t my first language, I did hire an editor to brush them up a little, but they’re mostly mine), and other than maybe the “ai ga sakikaeru made” (until love blooms again) that’s kind of the central theme, these lyrics are probably my favorite. Because it was written by Teru, I didn’t need to follow the sort of preposterous level of melodramatic angst that Rei likes to write, and sort of drew on some softer pop influences for a more personal song (that’s pretty blatantly about Rei).
Then we get a little interview with the band, which catches the reader up on everything that’s happened over the past four years. Rei’s last song, Sweet Goodbye, was a massive hit, and they’ve been doing okay since then, but haven’t quite matched that initial success. Of course, being reminded of how the band really is missing something without Rei just reminds Teru of how HE is missing something too. I feel really bad for him here… I think he thought that singing this song would bring him closure, but is there any such thing as closure? It’s really just making him sadder and more nostalgic.
This chapter has a couple of my very favorite lines, the first one here being “the worst part of losing someone isn’t the moment they’re gone, but all the moments after that. All the times they should’ve been there, and they’re not.”
It’s worth mentioning here that this is the only chapter I wrote out of order. Of course, I went back and edited and added to things, and that wasn’t always in order, but I almost always start the first draft with Chapter 1, and work toward the end. But I actually wrote the very last chapter, chapter 34, before this one, and came back to fill in these scenes.
I’m not really sure why I did that, except that I knew from the start exactly what I wanted to do with the last chapter, whereas this one went through a couple of different versions before settling on this one.
ANYWAY! The next scene is really to show how Teru has grown over the past four years. He didn’t have a driver’s license before; now he has a probably-expensive sports car. He hasn’t smoked in four years… I kind of think he quit cold turkey when Rei left, and that all of this is sort of a semi-conscious effort to be a better person the way Rei maybe needed or wanted him to be. (I mean, not driving doesn’t make you a bad person, and people who are addicted to nicotine or anything else aren’t bad or weak or anything either… but to Teru, because Rei wanted him to quit smoking, and because he felt guilty for not being able to drive when it was hard for Rei to go out, I think he sees those things as ways he could become more the kind of partner that Rei needed.)
I don’t think he really expects to ever see Rei again at this point. He’s not necessarily doing these things FOR Rei… but he kind of is, at some level.
He drives past the Ferris wheel where they had that long-ago date… this was actually a nice thing I was able to add BECAUSE I had to change the location of the Ferris wheel in editing. The original location of the date was nowhere near the TV studio (which is 100% obviously the Fuji TV studio, although in the interest of avoiding trademark violations etc. I never say so).
And then he kind of randomly goes to Ikebukuro. He has no real reason for going there, specifically, and I think he knows that. There’s a shopping center there, but there are a million similar places in Tokyo… it’s just a whim, and I think it’s really fate. For storytelling purposes, I picked that particular location because there’s a stage you can access without buying a ticket or anything… good for dramatic effect?
We also see that he’s casually dating a guy… this is also growth, I think. He’s comfortable enough with his sexuality now to try to date again, and to include men in his potential partners… but we can also infer from this that he hasn’t had a *serious* relationship since Rei.
In an earlier version of this chapter, it was set on a different New Year’s Day… I think the band had broken up, and Teru was in a slightly more committed relationship. I think that felt off for a number of reasons though, so I’m glad I changed it! Some early readers commented that it was too depressing if the band broke up so soon… and that was true, so I’m grateful for that feedback!
I also considered a version where Teru DIDN’T ever see Rei again, it was just an epilogue where he was happy and comfortable being himself and was ultimately grateful for what the relationship had given him… I think that also could’ve worked, but it would’ve been sad.
In the version set on another New Year’s Day, Teru heard a song that he KNEW had to be written by Rei, and used the publication information on the CD to track him down… but that ALSO didn’t work, because it didn’t really answer the question of why he would do that THEN, and not at any other moment, or why Rei would suddenly be okay with it after all those years.
So, the final version really just came to me one day… it still uses the idea of hearing a song… first, Utada Hikaru’s “First Love” on the PA system. Even if you don’t know that song, you should be able to tell from the title that it would remind Teru of Rei (again; this day has been an onslaught of reminders). But the song itself really is perfect, too: it’s about how your first love will always be your first love, even if and when both of you move on. It was also REALLY popular around the time Teru and Rei were together, so it probably reminds him of that time period in general, too.
But then, of course, the REALLY fateful song is Saki’s. Someone is playing that song that Saki wrote for Rei and that Minori wouldn’t put on the album… and there’s really only one person it could be. Teru thinks to himself that only six living people (the five members of the band and Rei) know that song, but there’s not really anyone else it could be. If any of his bandmates play piano at all, it’s definitely not at Rei’s level. There’s no reason any of them would be here in the first place since Teru JUST left them at the TV studio. And why would they be playing a song none of them really liked? There’s really no reason for Teru OR the reader to think it could possibly be anyone other than Rei.
I don’t actually remember at what point Saki’s song became a plot point. If it was there in the VERY first draft, it would have been only for that little fluffy scene where Teru plays air drums, and I’m not sure that scene was there either. The conflict with Minori was added later, along with the parts with Bara’s new band, because I needed to flesh out that music-related subplot to help move the main relationship plot along, and in THAT draft, by the time I got to this scene, everything just kind of fell into place, and I knew that it had to be Saki’s song that brought them back together.
There were a couple of reasons for this. First, it just works better than some random new song that just somehow “sounds like Rei” or anything the band actually recorded (which could be anyone, really, since a large number of people would have heard that album by now). Second, it sort of addresses both Teru’s jealousy of Saki and Rei’s fears that Saki might not have wanted him to find happiness with someone else. Now, this isn’t a religious book or a ghost story. Teru and Rei both admit that they don’t know what they believe regarding the afterlife… but if you choose to subscribe to the idea that Saki is somehow still watching over Rei, he clearly doesn’t object to them being together. (Or, death is the end and it’s just fate. Or a coincidence. It works any of those ways.)
So, Teru KNOWS. And that gives him the power to decide here how this is going to go. He COULD leave. Or he could go back to the stage and see for himself. And of course he’s going to do the latter. He tells himself he should leave, but that’s just because he thinks Rei still doesn’t want to see him. Teru (obviously, if you’ve been reading the chapter up to now) wants to see Rei more than anything in the world.
And I think Rei DOES want to see Teru again too… he always has. But he sees that as a selfish want, and still thinks he’s doing Teru a favor by staying away. And he doesn’t really know if Teru’s seeing anyone. He’s secretly relieved every week when the tabloids come out and there’s no mention of Teru in any relationship, but he also knows the tabloids don’t get everything, and the more time passes the more he can just tell himself that Teru’s happy, he’s successful, there’s no need to mess with that.
But of course Teru’s not perfectly happy, so… you know, I find it really hard to comment on this scene because I love it. When it came to me, it didn’t even feel like I came up with it… it was just THE WAY THE STORY ENDED. And I guess it took me so long and made me so depressed to talk about this chapter because I just… really wanted to share it with the world, to have other people be rooting for these guys as hard as I did… and it sucks that I think this book only ended up finding maybe 0.1% of its potential audience.
But I am grateful for those of you who did find it. ❤️
Anyway. I also needed to show how Rei had changed, and I know some readers feel like I didn’t do enough here to show that he had also spent the past four years growing and becoming better. I… somewhat agree with that? By which I mean I DO think I show that he has changed enough to give them a better chance at being happy together, and I think there are some things that are just hard to show because we’re not in his POV (like, I think he’s probably going to therapy and working on processing his grief in a healthier way, but that’s not exactly something that Teru can physically SEE). At the same time, there was one thing in particular I didn’t do and wish I had.
Backtracking to what I DID do—the most obvious visible change is that he’s using a wheelchair. I intended this to be pretty major, seeing as in the LAST chapter he was in (even though it was four years ago in universe) he was actively refusing to do so despite being recently (re-)injured and really not able to walk. I also did make a point of having him stand later on just to make it 100% clear that this is a case of his attitude toward mobility aids and self care getting BETTER, not his physical condition getting WORSE… this is like a nice custom power chair too that he would’ve had to put some time and thought and money into ordering and having made… so it was SUPPOSED to physically show a very significant change in his outlook.
He’s also wearing a black wig here, but other than maybe just not wanting to stand out on this particular day (but then like, why play gorgeous theatrical metal piano in the middle of a giant shopping center?), I think it was just me realizing that I HAD THE CHANCE TO GIVE HIM A DIFFERENT HAIR COLOR EVERY SCEBE AND SHOULD HAVE TAKEN BETTER ADVANTAGE OF THAT. 😂
Later, when they embrace, Teru also noticed that he’s not QUITE as skinny as he used to be, and I’m not sure if this really gets across but THAT IS A GOOD THING. It’s also possibly just a “being 40” thing but… no. He’s EATING. Yay self care!
Anyway. There were other things I considered doing but ultimately decided against… like I mentioned before, I didn’t think it would be in character to make the choice to amputate his arm. But I really, REALLY regret that he’s still wearing the same mask in this scene.
So, this book actually had two literary agents… the first quit agenting before she could even try to sell it, but the second did send it out to publishing houses. But before he did that we edited it together, and one of the things I suggested was that Rei be wearing silicon prosthetics in this scene, instead of the mask. That when he looked up at Teru, at a glance his face would look PERFECT… but it wouldn’t quite be. Facial prosthetics look amazing in photos but they don’t MOVE, and they wouldn’t be an option for eyelids or lips, anything that pretty much moves all the time as a matter of course. So Teru would think, at a glance, that Rei had somehow “fixed” his face, but would realize very quickly that it was essentially a mask of another kind… and say something like, “You’re beautiful.”💕
My literary agent advised against that because he thought it was like… an easy fix, and wanted Rei to stay disfigured… but he WOULD have stayed disfigured. Silicon prosthetics are a real option that actually exists in the real world, unlike god-level plastic surgery… I know people who use them. I know they’re not perfect. And I really wish I’d kept that in. If I ever do write a sequel, I’m definitely going that route.
ANYWAY. Rei is kind of cold here at first… he keeps playing as Teru sings, but when Teru tries to talk to him he initially says “Don’t spoil it”… that seems kind of harsh, but I really think he just feels like music is still the way they connect on the purest level… and he doesn’t really want to have to talk about what he did four years ago.
They play “Sweet Goodbye,” which they’ve never actually performed together before, and then a fan requests “Yami no hanabira,” saying that their indie stuff was so epic…. But also really meaning that something has been missing without Rei.
Teru is probably being too generous when he says that what Rei did was both the cruelest and the kindest thing anyone has ever done to him. It was fucking awful. But I think he also realizes that, in Rei logic, it was a great act of kindness.
My very favorite line in the entire book is here: “What’s the point of writing anything if it isn’t, at least in some sense, true?”
I came back to this over and over and over again trying to edit, trying to sell, and eventually trying to self-publish this thing. It’s fiction, yes. But it’s also TRUE, like all the best stories are.
Teru mentions here that they sold out the Budokan, which is a real, famous venue in downtown Tokyo. It’s not the biggest possible venue to sell out (selling out Tokyo Dome, for example, is a much bigger numerical accomplishment) but the Budokan’s cultural history makes it a place that a lot of musicians aspire to. And Rei says, of course: “I know. I was there.” Because of COURSE he’s been following Teru’s career as a fan, from the shadows.
And then Teru suggests that they go get lunch, or dinner, or coffee or whatever, and offers to drive them in his car… now, I think it’s pretty clear that Rei’s wheelchair is not going to fit in Teru’s tiny little car… I think what ACTUALLY happens after this scene is that they go for coffee or something somewhere in walking distance, and once they start talking there’s just SO much to say that they go home together on the train, and Teru comes back the next day and eats the incredibly ridiculous parking costs. (I think Sunshine City is something like 20-30 dollars an hour if you don’t buy anything… but I DEFINITELY don’t drive in the middle of Tokyo so I’m not 100% sure. Expensive but worth it in this case, anyway.)
The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 29)
Welcome back to Chapter 29, where the nicest thing I can say about Rei’s shitty attempts to (not really) take care of himself is “at least he doesn’t live in a sewer and sleep in a literal coffin”!
…seriously, I created this disaster boy and even I’m frustrated with him here. Arrrgh!
As always, spoilers (including spoilers for chapters beyond this one) under the cut!
We open this chapter with what will be the final screw in the coffin of Bara’s revenge, mwa ha ha! when Teru’s band shows up to an event to promote their album to find a line reaching around the block and a poster (designed by Rei) much larger than the one for the omnibus CD Bara’s band was selected for. This will be the last passing mention of that CD OR Bara’s band in the book, by the way. They’re just not a threat anymore. 😁
The event itself features a bunch of stupid questions that used to honestly drive me crazy back in the day. Who cares what the band’s favorite clothing brands are? I want to know about the underlying angst beneath their lyrics, dammit! LOL But there is one person who has apparently gotten wind that SOMETHING is up regarding the bands future… good for her for asking the hard-hitting questions?
And then we move on to December 23, the former Emperor’s birthday. *sigh* I miss the former Emperor, not only because he was a peace-loving, grandfatherly figure, but because his birthday was on December 23, which was a much more conveniently placed national holiday than the current Emperor’s birthday.
As mentioned in the book, when neither December 24 or 25 fell on a weekend, a lot of people would celebrate a Japanese-style (I.e. couple-centric) Christmas on the 23rd. In 2000, the 23rd was a Saturday and the 24th a Sunday… so fairly easy for people to celebrate. That also makes the 23rd a great date for an in-store event to celebrate the launch of Teru’s album!
This was completely coincidental, by the way… I’d already decided that Teru was going to take Rei out of town for Christmas Eve, so I Googled the relevant calendar and… boom. Hello, plot point!
So, it’s vaguely mentioned in passing that Rei is also getting ready to go out as Teru is preparing for the event. This isn’t SUPER unusual; Rei does go out, maybe not quite as often since he’s been working on the album having a lot of bad pain days recently, but the album is finished, and if anything Teru would be happy that he’s feeling good enough to have plans of his own.
As always, anything that’s not explicitly on the page is not canon, and each reader is free to fill in the blanks on their own, but I think he’s going out here to buy or to pick up the pendant he’s eventually going to give to Teru on New Year’s Eve. He doesn’t intend it to be a goodbye present at this point—maybe just a Christmas present or a “good luck with the record deal, I support you” present… but of course that all changes, and what happens here is definitely what pushes Rei over the edge.
A couple of reviewers complained about the way Rei didn’t take very good care of himself, but honestly I don’t really know what they expected from a Phantom retelling. At least he doesn’t live in a sewer and sleep in a literal coffin? IDK. But I did try to show that not taking care of yourself has consequences. I don’t think it’s anything super dramatic that happens to him here: he’s just pushing himself too hard, not using the right mobility aids in the right way, and he falls badly on the ankle that’s not in great shape to begin with. Someone gets concerned and calls an ambulance, and I imagine Rei protests but he literally can’t get up so… he ends up in the hospital and they call Chizuru to come and get him.
I don’t think it’s particularly significant that Chizuru is still listed as his emergency contact instead of Teru… probably just not something you think to update without a specific reason. As to why Chizuru isn’t available… well, it’s the Emperor’s birthday/Christmas Eve weekend, she says she’s not in Tokyo, and Teru hears a man’s voice with her on the other end of the line… I think she finally IS moving on (which honestly makes it pretty shitty what Rei sort of indirectly does to her too… she’s totally going to feel guilty and go back to taking care of him full time, but I also think her partner is understanding and she eventually gets a happy ending, too.)
So she calls Teru, and Teru thinks he can take care of it before his event, but he has trouble finding the hospital and then it takes longer than he expects and he ends up being late.
I’ve written before about my loathing and fear of hospitals, particularly Japanese hospitals… things have gotten much better as younger generations of doctors and nurses have come in, and as younger generations of patients have started to demand more in the way of things like informed consent, second opinions, and mental health considerations, but ESPECIALLY at the time, being hospitalized felt like being in prison… and for Rei, of course, hospitals are also going to be associated with a lot of trauma.
So, the asshole doctor here is probably the single worst human being in the book. There are definitely a few things that could be considered microaggressions or unconscious bias… no one considering the possibility that Teru might be queer, Kiyomi and Seika being awkward around Rei, Teru thinking it weird that Seika chooses to live in Koreatown. But none of those are **consciously** discriminatory… this doctor most definitely is. He doesn’t speak directly to Rei—i.e. the actual patient—the entire time, assumes Teru is a “caregiver” and even when he says he’s not keeps talking to him like he is, etc. etc. Needless to say, he was based on many, many shitty doctors I’ve seen here, and was actually pretty cathartic to write.
Don’t actually put too much weight on this guy’s medical advice, by the way. I did as much research as I could, but it was all internet-based. Unlike with the music stuff, I didn’t have any firsthand sources to ask about medical details. Also, he’s a jerk.
So, once Teru sees that Rei is not badly injured, some of his concern sort of turns to annoyance. The person he loves is hurt, and Teru himself is late for the album launch event, and all of this was PERFECTLY PREVENTABLE… or maybe not. But if Rei had been using a crutch and wearing an ankle brace and had STILL gotten hurt, I think Teru would’ve been a little more sympathetic.
Now, I do understand what Rei was thinking. He was having a good day, and there haven’t been many of those lately. He’s worried that he IS going to need more help and more support as time goes by (which, he is… I mean, that’s partly just aging and partly what happens when some parts of your body have to overcompensate for others, but it’s understandable that he struggles to accept that). And so when a day comes when he feels like he’s gotten a little bit “better” again, he wants to go back to the way things were “before”… but of course he wasn’t really taking the right measures to keep himself safe in the first place, so that kind of backfires.
And this is when I think Rei decides that he has to leave Teru… because what he’s feared has now actually happened. His disability has DIRECTLY hurt Teru’s career. Of course, that’s not really true. It wasn’t (only) his disability, but his failure to take care of himself that led to the fall. Rei doesn’t really see that, though… that yes, he did cause Teru to be late for his event, but it was his STUBBORNNESS that caused it more than anything else.
So after the event, Teru comes home and decides to spoil the surprise of his little romantic getaway a day early, because he doesn’t know whether Rei will want to go, or be able to go. He offers to take the wheelchair that’s been in Rei’s bedroom forever but Teru has never seen used… and that would probably be a really smart choice at this point (aside from Teru’s passing concern that he wasn’t expecting this and hasn’t booked accessible train tickets or hotel room, but accommodations could probably be made) but of course Rei refuses… sigh. Even though I wrote this, it’s kind of frustrating to see him blatantly refuse to learn, even when the universe pretty much slapped him in the face with a lesson a few hours earlier.
He does want to go, though… maybe he’s not 100% sure yet, but definitely starting to think that this will be their first and last trip together. 😭
The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 34, aka the end)
Well, here we are at the last chapter!
As always, spoilers under the cut:
So. The last chapter, which I actually wrote before the second to last chapter because it was easier. There’s no conflict here, just my boys finally getting to be happy together.
Rei has moved… and if you’re willing to wait until this chapter, I think this is the BIGGEST sign that he’s made some significant changes to his life for the better. Moving out of that apartment that’s practically haunted with memories of Saki and now of Teru? That’s HUGE. Plus the place he moves into is bright and has windows that aren’t blacked out and is accessible, and it’s just such a better place for him mentally and physically.
And of course he buys the piano from the previous chapter because it’s fate, dammit, and puts a photo of Saki on top of it, with Teru’s blessing… because just because a loved one isn’t with us anymore doesn’t mean they’re no longer a loved one, or no longer a part of their family… and I do think Rei and Saki WERE a family, even if the law wouldn’t let them be so on paper.
So, Rei and Teru can’t legally be married either, but they do what they can to make sure that they are both legal owners and residents of the new condo, and that either of them will inherit the other’s wealth if something were to happen.
One other thing that some same-sex couples in Japan do is adult adoption, which makes the younger partner legally the adopted child of the older partner. The system itself is mostly for people who have family businesses or assets that they would like to keep in the family, or a family name that either has a lot of value or is maybe very rare that they want to preserve, but who don’t have children of their own or whose children died, married into other families, went into a different profession, etc. I’m not sure if Teru and Rei would do this. I think Rei would want to, because one of the biggest benefits is that you become each others legal next-of-kin and can make things like medical decisions. I think Rei would want to know that if he were ever in a situation where he was unable to make those decisions for himself again, that Teru would be the one making the call. But I’m not sure Teru would love the idea just because, you know, he doesn’t want to be Rei’s SON, he wants to be his HUSBAND. So, it might be a choice they’d make eventually, but I don’t think they’d be rushing to do it at this point in time.
And then they go to visit Saki. I don’t really think there’s a lot to comment on here—it’s all there on the page?
I know not everyone loves the last line: “For as long as they had, until the seasons turned.” Some people have said that it implies that they didn’t live happily ever after, but that wasn’t really the intent. It was just to say that nothing lasts FOREVER, but that knowing That doesn’t make it LESS of a happy ending. Even if they grow very, very old together and die in each other’s arms at age 100 (and 115? See, already looking pretty unlikely), that still isn’t FOREVER. The relationship WILL end someday, because everything does. But that makes it MORE beautiful, not less.
And the book actually ends with “The End”. I know a lot of writers add “The End” when they finish a draft, but I never did. I only added it when I was ready to publish and (more or less) happy with the path I chose.
And that concludes my way-too-long annotations! Thank you for sticking with me till the end!
The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 31)
While this is a really important, kinda heartbreaking chapter, I’m not really sure how much I’ll have to add. It’s all pretty much there on the page (and I’m kinda sad that we’re nearing the end of the book), but I’ll do my best to add whatever I can. ❤️
As always, spoilers under the cut!
This chapter opens the day after the Hakone trip. Teru and Rei are in bed, and the obvious implication is that they’ve come home to be intimate again. I do SORT OF touch on “how far” they went… Teru asks Rei if he wants to “do more,” and you can read into that whatever details you want, but it was definitely supposed to indicate that although they’re enjoying exploring intimacy together, they’re also taking it slow.
And then Teru makes his choice… he tells Rei that he’s going to turn down the offer so he can keep singing Rei’s music, and playing at the venues Rei is comfortable going to. And Rei tells him to wait before he tells the others, because he’s now 100% decided that he’s going to leave.
Around chapter 20, which is the one where they go on the Ferris wheel date, I reached a point where I didn’t know where this story was going. I’d gotten Rei and Teru together, but there were still so many unresolved issues that it was hard to imagine them really being happy together long term. Many versions of the Phantom story use the Erik-Christine-Raoul love triangle in some form as the final conflict, but these characters had taken on a life of their own, and Teru was clearly no longer interested in Kiyomi (aka “Raoul”) as a romantic partner at this point… when Christine ends up with Raoul, we ache for Erik, but it’s a satisfying ending because Raoul is the one she wants to be with in the first place. But a Kiyomi/Teru ending wouldn’t have been satisfying, or made any sense at that point, at all.
So what was the final conflict? What was the choice that Teru had to make? I thought about it for YEARS, and in that time I read a lot of sort of meta writing about various Phantoms, and something I read about the original Leroux novel was what ultimately pointed me in the right direction: “He loved her so he let her go.”
I’m that novel, Erik gives Christine a choice: either she stays with him as his “living wife”, or he blows up the opera house and kills everyone in it (or at least tries). She chooses to stay, and kisses him, and he is so moved by that act of love that he lets her go anyway. Now, there’s obviously a lot that doesn’t work here: Rei’s not a murderer, Teru DOES actually want to stay with him. But “he loved him so he let him go”? That I could do.
So it ends up being kind of a choice, not between Rei and Kiyomi, but between Rei and his career. Rei never actually spells it out as an ultimatum, but he definitely makes Teru FEEL like it is… and Teru chooses Rei, so Rei has to love him enough to let him go… which is TOTALLY misguided. But in his poor, twisted mind, he really thinks that this is the greatest thing he can do to make Teru happy.
Teru makes this decision on Christmas Day, and then we skip ahead to New Year’s Eve. Rei, in that time, we can assume has been making preparations to leave.
He gives Teru a necklace—jewelry again! This was definitely supposed to contrast with the (now broken on the floor of the Shibuya Starbucks) necklace Kiyomi gave him… Kiyomi’s depicted a creature in bondage, and the gift itself was sort of intended to make Teru “hers”. But Rei’s is red amber that Teru thinks looks like a sunrise, and although Teru doesn’t notice it until later, it’s inscribed “Shine,” which is what Teru’s self-chosen name means, and what Rei has repeatedly promised him he will do. When Rei originally ordered it, he probably intended it to be a kind of blessing for Teru to take the recording contract; now he uses it as a goodbye gift. Either way, it’s the opposite of Kiyomi’s gift: intended to set Teru free, not tie him down.
They play the countdown show… these kinds of concerts were real. They basically lasted all day, and a lot of people would get tickets to more than one, and move around among the different venues to see all their favorite bands. It was kind of crazy but a lot of fun. New Year’s is the big winter holiday in Japan, and a lot of people spend it with family, but for young people who are more focused on hobbies, it was a night to spend with friends and to stay out till morning.
So Teru does that, but he ends up leaving early because he’s worried about the way Rei said goodbye. He doesn’t put it into words until later in the chapter, once he’s reasonably sure that Rei IS okay, but I think the worry has been building up all night that Rei might try to take his own life.
When he gets to Rei’s apartment, the locks have been changed. Teru thinks this is weird, because a lot of businesses ARE closed on New Year’s Eve, but there are definitely 24-hour, 365-day a year locksmiths, mainly for people who lock themselves out of their houses in the middle of the night, but as long as someone is willing to pay the holiday rate, they’re probably fine with doing other work as well.
Teru’s still scared, but eventually one of his phone calls to Rei gets manually rejected. You can still pretty much tell based on the number of rings whether someone has rejected a call or whether it’s just timed out, but it used to be a completely different message. Of course, you wouldn’t USUALLY be relieved to get the “rejected” message from someone you’re in a relationship with, but in this case, Teru is relieved because at least it means Rei is alive. (I honestly don’t think he’s ever really been suicidal though… maybe he WISHES he could just end his own suffering, but I don’t think he really WANTS to, because the feeling of obligation to let Saki and the rest of the band live on through his music, and to keep atoning for their deaths for the rest of his life, is too strong…. He’s also got that stubborn string of hope that won’t give up, even when he wants to.)
And then at the end, Teru does finally notice the “shine” inscription, and realizes what Rei has done. 😭
The Stars May Rise and Fall: The Annotated Re-read (Chapter 28)
So, Chapter 28 is actually a short one! It’s been awhile since we’ve had one of those.
(Spoilers under the cut!)
So we open with the arrival of the album CDs, and also a really horrible pain day for Rei. I honestly don’t know that there was anything super deep behind that decision… just that bad days happen sometimes, and sometimes they ruin things that should have been wonderful.
Teru tries to take care of shipping all the CDs to the shops himself, but he’s not very computer literate, and Rei ends up helping him, even though he’s not in any condition to do very much. I’m not really sure if it was intentional, but this does sort of show that they make a pretty good team? 💕
Teru sees this too, and it makes him a little sad to think that if he does sign with the record company, he won’t have these DIY-style work days with Rei anymore. Rei apologizes for not being able to celebrate properly and Teru says they’ll celebrate on Sunday… Christmas Eve, where he’s booked a surprise romantic getaway.
The rest of this chapter is pretty self explanatory… there’s a paragraph here about how visual kei is in the way out, how the biggest bands in the genre are either breaking up or changing their image to be more mainstream pop or rock, and that’s pretty important in that it’s why this book had to be set when it was. When I started querying this to literary agents around 2013, 2000 was in that weird space that wasn’t really historical and wasn’t really contemporary. But it had to be set then… the whole cultural background around the genre wouldn’t have worked otherwise.
It’s a bit of character development on Minori’s part that he essentially tells Rei he can decide where he wants his music played… but then Rei tells Teru it’s up to him. Poor Teru… he hates having to make important decisions.
And now we’re into the relentless series of chapters that make me cry for one reason or another until the end!!!
