⸺ unraveling. Set in 1960s Tokyo, a sensual encounter with a famous actress alters the course of Higuruma’s career.
pairing: tailor!higuruma x movie star!reader words: 8.0k contains: first and second pov (let me cook), higuruma pov, body worship, pussy eating, higuruma nutting in his pants, male masturbation, p in v, delicate power dynamics, decades of higuruma yearning for you, angst, slow burn, eversal of fortune, alcoholism, plot with sex. inspired by the hand (2004) dir. wong kar-wai. mood: nostalgic, sensual, and melancholic yearning. author's note: very late ! but this is my entry for @ayyy-pee’s jujutsu journal event ! congrats lexi 🥰 you deserve all the love from the community you've built ! huge thanks to @g00miato for my fanfic header. you were so amazing to work with and i can’t wait until your commissions open for real！！
this short story touches on sensitive themes like sexual abuse within the film industry. although there are no graphic depictions of sexual violence, reader discretion is advised.
Azabujuban. 1958. The air was sweet with the promise of spring.
The servant who welcomed me into your home has scurried away to prepare your afternoon tea, leaving me alone in your living room. In my arms were a briefcase containing a measuring tape, a notepad and pen, some fabric swatches, and a sketch of your costume for Tokyo Tango—the tools of my teacher, who was too ill to conduct the meeting himself.
It still puzzled me as to why he chose me, a part-timer, to come in his stead. It had only been months since he took me in as an assistant, and I was a mere college sophomore then.
“You’re the same age,” he had said, waving my question aside with his hand. “Women like her need to meet people her age.”
You were on a call. With a lover, I thought. I could tell from the smothered sweetness in your voice through your bedroom door, which echoed throughout your home as if the walls were speaking to me.
I've always loved your voice; Breathy, low, and beguiling like autumn moonlight. Whenever you spoke I imagined you were pouring words into my mind—as if everything you have ever told me was important. It was the cadence of an actress. A star. Only then had it sunk in that I would meet someone famous. A woman rumored to have stolen countless hearts with a single gaze.
I heard you say goodbye and the servant returned to usher me into your bedroom. The sweat in my palms seeped into the briefcase.
The servant opens the door, spilling forth the thick and honeyed warmth of your scent, and when I entered the room I nearly suffocated.
There you were, seated in front of your vanity mirror, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
You were dressed in a silk nightgown and a sheer, organza robe that had fallen past your shoulders. Each exposed skin—your neck, your shoulders, your legs, glowed as if the sunlight was radiating from your body. From your posture alone I knew you were elegant and poised. I had to jolt myself out of my mesmerized state.
“Higuruma Hiromi, from Hatsumoto Tailoring,” I said. “I’m responsible for your measurements in Mr. Hatsumoto’s stead.”
“I'm in your care,” you replied. You didn't even look at me. Instead, you sauntered to a corner in your room, your back turned towards me, which stirred me to begin my work.
I dug into my briefcase for my notepad, my pen, my measuring tape, and then I shuffled to your side. You have taken off your robe and you were waiting for me, still as a doll.
I couldn’t bear to touch you. We were strangers forced by work to be this close together. And your nightgown draped over your body so delicately that I could peer to see the bare skin underneath.
I deduced then, that the last thing you wanted to feel from a stranger in your bedroom is his heavy breathing against your nape. So I held my breath and laid the tape across your shoulders to measure its length. Then your arms, then your waist…
“You're nervous,” you sighed. The damp ice of my fingers must have irritated you.
“My apologies,” I replied. “It’s my first time taking a woman’s measurements.”
You walked away from me and leaned back against your vanity, then you crossed your arms as you regarded me from head to toe.
“Hatsumoto told me you were his best pupil,” you said. “He said you have potential.”
I could only manage a weak smile, “I don’t know about that.”
“I agree. How can you be when you’ve never touched a woman before?”
Your words stung and I hung my head low like a scolded child.
“Do you have a mother? A sister?”
I shook my head.
“Have you ever had a girlfriend at least?” you asked again.
“It wasn't my priority,” I replied.
You laughed, not out of mockery but of disbelief.
“Come here,” you said. “Give me your hand.”
Obedient, I followed.
With a light touch, you glided a finger across my hand—from the tip of my long finger, to my palm, then to my wrist. I shuddered. My skin has never felt so thin. And your touch left an itch that can only be soothed by a firmer caress.
“Mr. Higuruma… Look at me…” you said. “Aren’t women beautiful?”
I raised my head to meet your gaze.
“You are,” I muttered.
“As a tailor, you’ll be touching many women. And you’ll be sewing many clothes for them. And clothes are artistry don’t you think?”
As you spoke, you took my hand and nuzzled your cheek against it. I would have pulled my hand back, if it weren’t for how soft and plush your skin felt against my palm.
“The clothes you make will cling to our skin. Contour our bodies. Define our silhouettes,’ you continued, as you guided my hand down to your neck, your collarbone, your shoulder…. “You’ll show the world how beautiful we are.”
You pressed my hand against your breast and the wind in my lungs turned solid.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Mr. Higuruma?” you asked.
I was too frozen to respond—overwhelmed completely by the need to seize you. To hold you. To descend into that soft and tender place with you. But at that moment, nothing about me was soft. I was aching and throbbing and trembling. My desire was so coarse and so destructive that it scared me.
I was scared of what I could do to you, a young woman alone in a room with a man, if I hadn't restrained myself the way I did. I imagined you would fall apart like petals in a clenched fist.
You knew that too, and yet you trusted me with your body. Though it may have been more accurate to say that you trusted your power over me. A power less tangible yet more potent than physical strength.
“It's okay. Keep touching me,” you said. “Remember how I feel… and then make something beautiful.”
Unsteady, I sank to my knees and wrapped my hand around your heel to raise it towards me. I planted a kiss on the bridge of your foot, as worshippers do to sacred statues. Then I planted a kiss on the thin skin of your ankle and dragged my lips across your calves, all the way up to your knee, then to your inner thigh.
A dove-like sound from above compelled me to do more; to place my lips and glide my tongue in higher, softer places. I looked up to see your lidded eyes, your chest heaving and your lips parted in waiting—you wanted this, you wanted me.
Emboldened and desperate to please, I held you by the hips and perched you on your vanity. Suddenly, my hands were all over your body.
I have never been this close to a woman before, so every kiss and every caress posed a wordless question; Would you like it if I kissed your neck? Would you like it if I licked your pulse? How firmly should I squeeze your breasts? How softly should I roll my tongue over these peaks?
You would answer me in moans and sighs, this feels good, keep going, go faster, go slow. I was so attuned to your body that I didn't need your words. And it did not take long for me to learn how to please you. I always pride myself as a fast learner. Especially if my teachers were as eager as you.
You grabbed me by the hairs of my nape and pulled me down. Then I held your thighs apart and pressed my face between your legs—right where your bud would jut into my lips if it weren't for your underwear.
“Take it off,” you whispered and I obeyed, peeling your panties off to reveal your flesh.
You were so beautiful, flushed dark and pink in all the right places, your pussy dripped like a sacred stream. It was a strange sensation, the way my throat dried and my mouth watered at the same time.
I parted your plush lips with my thumbs and my tongue wandered into your garden. You taste like champagne and salted peaches. Your scent was thick and sweet. And your skin was so soft and slick against my tongue that I found myself addicted to your taste.
I sucked and slurped you ravenously, drinking in your nectar, probing your depths with my tongue. When your hips shot up to rut your clit against my nose, I slid my hands underneath you to support you.
You moaned and moaned and moaned. Your fingernails raked through my scalp. And my cock, hard as iron, began to throb and pulse to the sound of your voice. It strained against my pants, desperate to plunge into your depths, and I became less of a man and more of a feeling—so consumed by the desire to satisfy you that you were all that I could sense.
Your bud hardened into a pearl between my lips. Your folds squeezed shut and unfurled again. I slipped my fingers into your slit and you cried out in ecstasy.
“Hiromi…” you moaned, and something inside of me fell to its knees.
I gasped and felt a burst of warmth between my legs and I was dragged helplessly to my climax.
My hand stuttered and you rode it until your back arched like a bow; your core squeezing around my fingers, your bud twitching against my tongue. I could tell by then that you have drifted away from me—lost in your own cloud-sea of pleasure.
I held my face and fingers steady until your trembling stopped. Then you looked down on me, the cum-stained mess that I was, and I looked up to you, the sodden mess that you were, and a sense of unease washed through our gazes; that perhaps we have shown too much of ourselves to each other. That all the pleasure we have gained from this moment, we might pay for in equal parts shame.
I rinsed the suds and grime from my handkerchief, which I had used to wipe my spend off my thighs and my boxers. My hands were shaking from disbelief, now that the fog of lust has lifted.
I have touched you. I have tasted you. And from the sounds you were making, perhaps I have pleasured you, too. I washed my face over and over your bathroom sink, wondering if I would wake up in my dormitory.
But everything was real.
You were on the telephone again when I left your bathroom, using that sweet voice as you twirled the cord around and around your finger, and my numbed mind couldn't hear what you were saying. It didn't matter. I bowed low and hurried out of your home, with the sound of your voice following me like a distant record.
I took the long walk back to Hatsumoto’s boutique to clear my head. It was sunset and the air was sharp as it entered my lungs.
“How was it?” Hatsumoto asked. “Did you explain the costume? Did you take her measurements?”
“I did,” I lied. I did everything but my job that day. “She was pleased with it.”
“Good. We can start with the patterns tomorrow.”
Shit.
Later that night, in my dormitory, I stayed up at my desk recalling the shape of your body. I closed my eyes and mapped the air with my hands, and wrote down an estimate on my notepad: your arm and shoulder length, your armscye depth, the circumference of your bust, your waist, your hips, inseam, outseam…
It surprised me how vividly I could picture you with me. The memory of your skin against my hand felt like a phantom sensation, as tangible as mist. I could hear your sighs and your moans again. And my head began to spin, drunk with your scent.
I wanted nothing more than to return into that secret moment with you—to be in your bedroom surrounded by your presence. To glide my hands all over your body once again.
I wondered if I could ask you to touch me too, if I were lucky enough to turn back time. If your voice alone was able to consume me in this way, what more could your hands? What more could the rest of you?
Before I realized, I was thrusting into my fist, my teeth grinding the hem of my shirt, sweat dripping from my forehead to my chest. In my mind’s eye, you were bouncing on my lap, squeezing my cock between your thighs, drinking in my grunts and my curses with your tongue as if it belongs to you.
Perhaps it was kindness that you never kissed me that day. Or I never would've come out of that room with my soul and your body intact.
For now, I was content with indulging that implacable hold you had over my imagination.
Hatsumoto and I toiled over your costume for six months. It was a black, knee-length trench coat made of medium-weight gabardine. Three times Hatsumoto visited the studio for your fitting, and three times you sent him back, rejecting the costume.
“She keeps saying she hates it,” Hatsumoto grunted, scratching the back of his head. “Maybe we should cut our losses and pull out. We've rejected enough customers for this.”
I rubbed my chin, observing the coat from the mannequin, taking it in for its conceptual details. Although the fit was impeccable, the design was too suitable for casual wear. It lacked flair and drama. It lacked seduction and mystery—everything I found alluring about you.
“Sensei, can I change the coat?” I asked.
Hatsumoto waved his hand, “Fine. But if she rejects us again, we're done.”
I switched the gabardine for melton wool and adjusted the pattern. Everything had to be longer, wider, denser, sharper—with floor-length hems, broader shoulders, and oversized lapels. With two columns of large buttons and sleeves that run perpendicular to the floor.
These were the features exclusive to men’s coats. But I trusted my belief that your womanhood shouldn't be contained by such binary details. The more masculine elements I would add to your costume, the more your femininity should emerge at the heart of your character.
When we presented your new costume in the studio, everyone complained that it felt heavy. Until you drew the coat around your shoulder and strutted from one corner of the room to the next. The coat caught wind and flared behind you like wings, making your silhouette larger and your stride more powerful.
The new costume has given you a presence. And everyone in the studio witnessed the birth of a new female archetype: the dokufu. A poisonous seductress. The femme fatale.
The winds were fierce the day of Tokyo Tango’s premiere. I spent a good hour on my knees, with my hands under your dress, sewing drapery weights into the hem so your skirt would remain intact. It was just you, me, and your assistant in the hotel room. You wouldn't let anyone else touch your dress.
“No need to act so bashful,” you whispered. “It's nothing you haven't seen before.”
I could only manage a secret smile, which you reciprocated. I fastened the last weight and fretted over the smallest details of your garment: snipping loose threads, pinning loose fits, fixing the drape of your skirt—any excuse to keep my hands on you.
In turn, you plucked a piece of lint from my shoulder and sprinkled it to the floor. A small gesture of care.
“You're coming to the premiere party, right?” you asked.
“Mr. Hatsumoto and I were invited,” I replied, though we had no plans to attend. Hatsumoto said it was just courtesy, and the polite answer was to decline.
“Good. I'll see you there, then,” you said. “Come find me, okay?”
Against Hatsumoto’s wishes, I took one of our best suits and attended the party.
The windows of the Imperial Hotel gleamed as if the building held its own sun. Several guests wearing dark tuxedos and vibrant kimonos poured from their luxury cars to the ballroom. Everyone was recognizable from magazines to newspapers to television screens. And everyone was laughing, if only to maintain the light atmosphere.
Though my suit was clean and pressed, the guests looked at me as if I carried a smell. And for each step I took, my sleeves felt wider, my collar was rising to the back of my head, and my pant legs felt long and loose. Though the suit had my size, I was shrinking into it. I was not an actor or a musician or a film executive. I was not man enough to carry what I was wearing.
But you wanted to see me and I was already at your thrall. So I pressed ahead, ignoring the look on their faces in search of yours. My mind was sparkling with boyish daydreams of what we would do once I found you—images of us dancing, talking, drinking… Perhaps you would take my hand and lead me to a secret place, away from disapproving eyes.
But when my search led me to the hotel gardens, there you were in the cold night air.
Wrapped in the arms of another man…
Perhaps Hatsumoto was right. It was all just courtesy.
I turned back and went home early, telling myself that I should have expected it. After all, what would an actress like you want from a tailor like me?
Fate has given me a harsh reminder of that gap between your place in this world and mine. At that moment, I felt a new kind of ache: to be so overcome with want and yet unable to express it. Perhaps the passion for making clothes is all I will ever have from you.
The next day, I withdrew from university to practice tailoring full-time.
Ikebukuro. 1963. New buildings were constructed just as quickly as the old ones were destroyed.
Hatsumoto was overjoyed when I told him of my decision to become a tailor and wasted no time in teaching me everything I needed to know.
After five years, I knew the rhythmic hum of a sewing machine better than the beating of my heart. Etched in my fingertips were every tool, pattern, stitch, and pressing technique known to construct all kinds of garments. But Hatsumoto knew that my talents extended beyond bespoke suits and overcoats.
I was obsessed with the idea of draping women in men's clothing. I loved the strength and the sensuality of sharp angles and loose fits. I loved the weightlessness and grace in how they carried the heaviest fabrics. So Hatsumoto encouraged me to come up with my own designs and to display them in his boutique. From then, I began my pivot from tailoring to prêt-à-porter.
Often, I would wonder which came to mind first; the image of your body? Or the patterns I carved from the cloth?
I pried my thoughts away from you and threw it towards my work, but it was impossible. Your costume for Tokyo Tango sparked a trend and every woman in the city began to dress like you. I constructed garment after garment for customers who sought to imitate your sultriness and mystique, with varying degrees of failure.
After a day’s work, I would roam the neon-hazed streets of Shinjuku and see your movie posters and advertisements fastened on every building in the city. Yakuza films reached its zeitgeist and you were the ultimate femme fatale—the symbol of a modern woman.
Needless to say that wherever I went, you decorated every corner. I couldn't avoid that gaze of yours that leashed me like an animal. Then I would return every night to Hatsumoto’s attic and lay my head on the lap of memories, excavating every moment with you to use as fuel for my work.
One day, I will close that gap to reach you where you stand.
Your fans were the earliest adopters of my work.
My prêt-à-porter designs came at a time where the mode for body-conscious and highly feminine silhouettes took hold—waists and hips ought to be defined in hourglass shapes, skirts ought to cling to a woman’s thighs.
Hatsumoto’s female clientele would often ask us to nip their clothes tighter around the waist and the bust, trading function and comfort for aesthetics. And we couldn’t bear to blame them for such decisions.
After all, their clothing was paid for by the men in their lives.
And your fans, who found your portrayals of strong and self-possessed women as subversive, came to find my designs subversive as well. My relaxed fits allowed movement, my fabric choices were breathable, and the loose silhouettes evaded the attention of men. For once, they were able to dress for themselves and act as themselves.
So the demand for my designs grew, and soon I had to move out of Hatsumoto’s shop to open my own. I chose a boutique in one of the busiest shopping areas in Shinjuku, underneath a billboard where your movies were displayed, and hired a team of seamstresses to assist me in production.
With more time to focus on my creations, I went from a simple tailor to the most promising young designer in the city. It didn't take long for my work to feature in fashion magazines and newspapers. The first time I was invited to a radio show to discuss my designs, Hatsumoto invited the whole neighborhood to listen.
I would often tell reporters and radio hosts that I created these designs with freedom in mind. Though if I were more honest with myself then, I was merely acting on the fantasy of wrapping myself around you—that young and selfish desire to hide your body from the world, stealing you from the arms of other men.
One evening, as my staff prepared to close shop, I heard their gasps and squeals all the way from my studio at the back of the boutique. After a short and muffled conversation, I heard a clear and familiar voice.
“You never told me you were opening a store,” you said. “I could have sent flowers.”
I shot up from my chair and turned, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. You were standing by the doorway to my studio, a large shopping bag in hand, wearing that sharp, catlike smile that always reminded me of our secret.
“I thought you’d be too busy to come,” I said. I lied. It pained me to see you anywhere since that night.
“You thought right,” you sighed. “I was on a holiday in Europe.”
Your heels clacked as you approached me. Then you placed the shopping bag on my cutting table. The soft, honeyed scent of your perfume surrounded me, and I couldn't help but breathe everything in with one, slow gulp.
“I hope you're not too busy to do some tailoring for an old friend?” you asked.
“Of course not,” I replied. “What can I do for you?”
“These dresses feel a bit too loose. I was hoping you’d tighten them around the bust and waist.”
Although I was your regular tailor, it wasn't until several years later when we finally worked together again. A film studio commissioned me for your costume in Lady Serpent: your first appearance in Hong Kong Cinema.
I remembered how overjoyed I was to be welcomed into your home again, only to be horrified by the sound of your voice as you screamed inside your bedroom.
You were in an argument. With a lover, I thought. Arguments with lovers carried a certain vitriol, after all.
I stayed seated in your living area, busying myself with the paintings on your wall or the bonsai in your garden, hearing everything despite trying not to listen.
It took a while before the yelling to stop, and I heard you slam your handset back onto the dial.
The servant, shaken by the sound of your voice, entered your bedroom to tell you of my arrival.
“Get him out!” you screeched back.
I stood up, bowed, and made my way out of your home. Until the servant chased me across the street telling me you summoned me back.
When I entered your room, you were hunched over your vanity like a wilted rose, your eyes pointed away, unable to look yourself in the mirror.
“Have I aged, Hiromi?” you asked, and I found the question preposterous. You were as beautiful as the day I met you. And we were only twenty-nine years old.
You took a deep breath, held it, and then asked me to measure your body. They were just numbers, but it was the first time I have ever lied to you. Your eyes looked so sad that I wanted to hold you, gently, if not with my arms then with my words. You soon apologized for your behavior and sent me home with a basket of fruits.
Weeks later, I had to remake the costume with a new set of measurements.
You were no longer the lead actress for Lady Serpent.
For my thirty-second birthday, I launched my first haute couture collection for the Hiromi Higuruma brand.
I swerved and ducked through clothing racks and supermodels, making my way to the side of the stage to peek at the audience. Your seat was still empty, just like the other five times I came to check.
I sent a letter to your home to invite you to my debut, but the envelope bounced back, telling me you no longer lived there. It took weeks for my assistants to track you to Shoto, in an apartment southwest of Shibuya.
Since your recast for Lady Serpent, you became much harder to find.
Though the public has grown weary of yakuza films, the demand to see alluring and dangerous women grew, which led to the rise of soft-core movies that swarmed Japanese theaters.
It was strange that the woman who pioneered the dokufu archetype was absent in this wave, and yet I was relieved not to see you in such roles. No matter how subversive the films could get about womanhood and sex, it was still created for the pleasure of men. I could only stomach so many stories about women being abused into sexual awakening.
But that also meant I saw even less of you. No portraits, no television interviews, not even your shadow on my studio walls. Instead, the buildings in Shinjuku became littered with unfamiliar faces, each of them stars of these erotic movies, each with your suits and your heels but not your substance.
When they come into my studio asking to be dressed, I couldn't help but sew their clothing tighter around the shoulders or to construct higher collars. As if to tell them that real femme fatales ought to stand straighter with their heads held high.
My debut show ended in thunderous applause, and yet your seat stayed empty. What came to me instead was a box of sweets and a letter that tells me you were filming for Empire of the Senses. After asking other members in my social club, I learned it was by a director notorious for pushing the limits of the soft-core genre.
It was speculated to be one of the biggest films of this era.
“Who’s desperate enough to star in one of those?” another member asked as he laughed. My fist swung before my mind commanded it.
My prompt exile from the club and a few tabloid articles against me were the least of my concern. In a few months, I would have to see your posters in the theatres, sprawled or tied or suffering like the rest of them, so far from the vengeful assassins and cunning daughters you once portrayed.
To escape the ensuing horror, I ran away to establish my brand in Paris.
We were thirty-nine when you showed up to my home in Daikanyama. I scanned the streets for any swarm of onlookers or reporters before ushering you inside.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” I asked. I swallowed my comments on how you looked. I had a feeling you didn’t want to hear them.
Pictures of you had been all over the tabloids. A former actress accused a film producer of casting women in leading roles in exchange for sexual favors.
It started with intimate phone calls to her residence, which escalated into dates, and eventually, sex—which would continue over and over until he discovered a newer, younger actress to exploit.
She revealed that when she finally refused him, she lost her role for Tokyo Tango.
But with the production company’s intervention, the story swerved from an abuser exposé into a scandal on how you used sex and beauty to steal roles from other actresses. Perhaps they wanted to save this producer with you as their scapegoat.
The outrage that followed has been brutal and unfair. The public has confused you for your femme fatale roles.
“Hatsumoto gave me your address,” you said.
I took your coat, your suitcase, and helped you out of your boots.
“I’m flying back to Paris in a few weeks,” I replied. “But I can hide you until then.”
You showered in my bathroom and pulled on my robe. Afterwards, you ate my pasta and gulped my wine from the bottle. Later, we were on my sofa catching up like old friends. It felt surreal for me to watch you do such human things. For all the years I have known you, I always imagined you as transcendent.
“Have you married?” you asked. I shook my head. “Why not?”
I huffed, smiling. “No one wants me for a husband.”
You clicked your tongue, not in mockery but in disbelief.
“We're getting old, Hiromi. Are you even looking for a wife?”
“Perhaps. Are you offering?”
“If I am?”
“I’ll marry you tomorrow.”
Then you laughed as if I was joking.
And so I laughed as if I was joking, too…
Then we smiled until the light behind your eyes dimmed once again.
“Hiromi, do you believe what they said about me?” you asked.
“No. But even if it's true it doesn't matter,” I replied. “You're a wonderful actress. It won't change how much I admire you.”
You nodded, trying your best to find comfort in my words. Finding none, you instead curled into my lap like a cat and fell asleep. I stayed up all night soothing you from your dreams.
My flight to Paris was delayed for a day, then a week, then a month, until my brand had to withdraw from Paris Fashion Week. Much to everyone's disappointment, I had no designs to show.
Your presence in my home was demanding, and I spent more time running your errands and indulging your whims than I did cutting patterns from cloth. You would spend your days sweeping through my wine cellar, singing and spinning to the songs on the radio, and I would spend the whole day cleaning after the mess you would make.
With what little time I could have for work, no inspiration could reach me.
Make something beautiful, you had told me, all those years ago. Back then, you were the only beautiful thing I have known. So your image coated every seam and every thread in my collections.
I have created, desperately, relentlessly, for all the years of my career, to capture your essence and to have you close to me. And the further you drifted away, the quicker my imagination rushed to pull you back.
To my shame, there were times when I would look at you and wonder what I saw. Where was the poise? The elegance? The strength? The woman who once strode into every room, confident and self-possessed, now stumbled around my hallways, hurling onto my floors.
I used to wait months just to hear from you. Now I heard your voice every day, echoing through my kitchen as you asked me to cook, in my living room asking me to drink with you, in my bedroom asking why I haven’t fucked you, in my studio asking if Paris was even worth it.
I felt an ache in my chest. Hatsumoto once told me you were my muse. A source of inspiration from the heavens. There was ecstasy in the thought that our connection was divine.
But perhaps my muse all this time was not you, but the distance between us—that vast and fertile land, seeded by your image, watered by my desires, on which my imagination would grow. And now that land has dried. A drought brought forth by the light of reality.
One evening, I came home and found you sprawled face-down on the living room floor, your cheek pressed against the hardwood, listening to the radio with half-lidded eyes.
“The Watanabe Entertainment Group has announced its decision to cut ties with the embattled Tokyo Tango Actress following allegations of soliciting sex acts in exchange for prominent roles in films.
The spokesperson for Watanabe Group, Mr. Watanabe Junya said in a press conference, that “(they) hope this (decision) would restore—”
Quiet sliced the air when I turned off the radio. With a heavy arm, you reached out for your wine bottle, knocked it over, and listened to the rattling as it rolled away from you.
“I don't even like drinking…” you muttered. “But that’s what made him bearable…”
I gathered you into my arms and lifted you.
“Let's get you to bed,” I replied.
In my arms, you were lighter than I remembered. Much smaller. More vulnerable. Less a famous actress and more a woman-shaped bundle in my arms.
“If I refuse, I’d lose everything.”
“I know.”
“A part of me thought he really wanted me.”
“I don’t blame you.”
You mumbled and slurred your truths as I carried you to the guest room and slipped you underneath the sheets.
“I wish you found me that night….” you whispered.
Your words snared me. “What night?”
“That night at the party. I wish you found me.”
Imperial Hotel. The disapproving gazes. The sight of you in another man’s arms.
“Do you think things would have been different?” you asked.
You looked at me as if we were nineteen again.
My lips trembled, my arms weakened. What could I have told you at that moment? That I was there? That I had seen it happen and then walked away? In my young and selfish desire to have you, I have abandoned you.
“You don’t have to answer me. There’s nothing you could’ve done,” you said, as you slowly pulled me towards your body. “Why don’t you just hold me for tonight?”
Your sleep was at its deepest before dawn.
I pushed myself off your bed and dragged my feet to the workshop. Fabric shears in hand, I stared at the spread of melton wool on my cutting table; the same fabric I had used to make your costume all those years ago.
Make something beautiful, you had told me. Back then, I thought I knew what to do with beauty.
Beautiful things were meant to be created. Beautiful people were meant to be perceived. With my creations, I wanted the world to see what I had seen in you. I wanted them to wear my clothes and feel the passion that we shared.
But you cannot show the world the beauty of a flower without cutting it from its stem and damning it into slow decay. My tailoring was nothing but a slow and precise unraveling of you. Every dart, every seam, and every hem was taken from you. Measured you. Fitted you. Trapped you and contained you. I mistook my devotion for control.
Desire is what shaped the clothes I made for you. And so desire is what my clothes have attracted. To what extent have I been complicit in your suffering? How many powerful men have seen you in my designs and desired you the way I did? How many hands reached for you because I dressed you in longing? Everything I ever made was to honor you. Your body. Your grace. Your impossible lightness. I trapped you and cut you and offered you to their sights. I taught them how to look at you. I whispered to them something that I never meant to say. I never wanted that. I never wanted any of that. I need to take it all back. I need to destroy everything. I need to go back from the start.
I raised my shears and swung—
Come morning, I was surrounded by tatters, upturned tables, downturned shelves, gutted machines. My eyes were stung by the salt of sweat and tears. My chest heaved as I puffed hot air from my lungs.
My mind was quiet.
My vision was clear.
I sank to my knees and picked them up, these poor, wasted, scraps of wool. Of denim. Of silk and cotton and gabardine. Then I pulled my mannequin upright to piece these fabrics all together.
At that moment I rejected beauty, I rejected structure, I rejected symmetry. Had I known what my clothes would make of you, I would have dressed you in rags and spikes.
I pinned and sliced and sewed one irritating piece after the other. Misaligned collars. Shapeless silhouettes. Crumpled textures. Hostile clothes. Visual bombardment. Pieces that invite their scorn. That bait their rejection.
Disruption. Disruption. Disruption.
My fingers shook and bled as I punctured each seam and frayed each hem. When a new pattern emerged in my head, I sunk my teeth into the fresh fabric and ripped it into existence.
Your small, gentle knocks on my door were the only thing that broke me from my fugue. It was already sunset. I had been creating in the dark.
“Come in,” I said.
The door opened and you peeked in.
“I made—” you started, but then you looked around to take in the mess of my studio. “Food.”
I managed an exhausted smile. “You didn't have to.”
You picked your way through my space, dodging the heaps of clothes and rolls of threads to place a tray on my cutting table: burnt, massacred eggs with a spurt of ketchup.
“I’m not a cook,” you said. “But I figured I had to make something.”
“Thank you.”
You opened your mouth to say more, but then you looked away, as if the sight of me was unbearable.
“I've been such a pain for you these past few months,” you said. “I’m sorry.”
“It's the least I could do,” I replied. “I owe everything to you.”
You scanned the garments scattered around my studio, all its imperfection, its hostility, its transience. Then you pulled your lips into a bitter smile, as if you had come upon an understanding on your own. One you could never share with me.
Slowly, you made your way towards me, and with delicate fingers, you traced the curve of my cheek. I flinched and turned away. I don’t deserve the gentleness that I feel from you.
“Shhh, It’s okay,” you whispered, as if you were calming a beast. “Just let me remember you.”
Your fingers brushed my eyebrows, then you traced the bridge of my nose. With careful hands, you cradled my jaws and slid them across my neck and under my collar.
“Have you been with anyone else?” you asked.
“Just you,” I whispered.
You undid my shirt and placed your hands over my chest. There was no use holding my breath. I could never hide the way my heart pulsed against your hand, or the heat of my skin as you caressed me.
“Do you remember how you did it?” you asked again. “How you touched me?”
“I do.”
You shrugged off my shirt and leaned even closer. Your lips fluttered against my neck as you whispered to me.
“Do it again.”
When we fucked, it was slow. Tender. Our bodies swayed and rocked. We gasped as if we were drowning.
We sank to the floor and you draped yourself on top of me, straddling my lap. Then you aimed my cock towards your body and plunged me into your depths. Fuck. My nails dug into your hips. You were so tight, so slick. And you moved your hips so right that I could cry from the overwhelming splendor.
I caressed you through the silk of your nightgown, mapping the changes in your body since I last held you.
Your hips and waist have softened now. And your breasts felt fuller as it bounced against my palm. I licked my way past your neck and your collarbone to taste them again.
Your nightgown dropped from your shoulders and pooled around your waist. I leaned down to drag my tongue around and around your nipple—tiny, tickling flicks. Long, soothing licks, smacking, sucking kisses. You cried and squirmed from the delicate sensation and dragged your nails across my back.
I teased you until you moved faster and faster. And when your pace faltered from exhaustion, I grabbed you by the hips to grind you against my cock. Do you feel how hard it is for you? How it reaches for you? This is what you do to me. A single moan and your voice shot to my tip like a lightning strike.
Breathless, we spun around and you were underneath me. I raised your legs and fucked you in every pleasurable angle, begging you to let more of me in, further and further, to let me drown in your waters, to reach the very edge of you. To fill the shape of your body with mine.
“Hiromi,” you cried out. I knew what you wanted me to do. But a large sum of me resisted your siren’s call.
Everything that we had, and everything that stood between us—our past, our present, our future, our failures and our sins, all melted into this singular feeling. Nothing else mattered but us. I didn't want this to be over. I wanted us to stay like this. Close, breathless, vulnerable, and in pursuit.
But it was never up to me. My body has always been yours from the start. To build up and use up and rip apart as you please. I knew nothing else but to surge to your rhythm, to angle myself how you liked it. Everything I did only sent you to the edge.
“Hiromi,” you cried out again. “Yes.”
Your body froze into an arch and squeezed around me, causing me to spill inside of you so quickly and so violently that it felt like you had siphoned me in. I shuddered and buried my forehead into your neck, kissing your skin in soothing and supplication.
You wrapped your arms around me and held me close. You were quiet. And I could tell from your dimming gaze that you have drifted away from me. There was nothing more for you to tell me at that moment.
We have peaked. Now all that was left is the fall.
You were gone in the morning, and you were cruel enough to scrub my home of every trace of you. I threw myself into the streets, running and screaming your name until my lungs burned.
I wept. I yelled. I begged for anyone to bring you back. I searched for you until my body broke. Until my legs grew numb. Until there was nothing else but silence and the wide, oppressive sky and the cold asphalt beneath my back.
And then it all surged back—your image, your memories, the sound of your voice, and the moments that we shared. The moments that I fantasized. The real you and the shape of you in my mind. All vivid. All real. But all too blinding. Too fleeting. All gone too soon.
You had left me. But I knew what I had to do with the parts of you that remained. I had to go back.
I had to keep creating.
My Spring-Summer collection sparked outrage and violence in Paris. Fashion editors and buyers spat and jeered at the barefoot, barefaced models as they walked past them. Some have left the show mid-way, and most of the women cried backstage begging not to be seen in such rags.
Magazines and newspapers printed their insults for weeks—homeless chic, they called it. Dirty, ragged scraps retrieved from the end of an atomic explosion. They did not shy away from using our tragedy to satisfy their vitriol.
I wanted to free women of clothes that would otherwise enslave their bodies. But neither beauty nor ugliness mattered in the end. Both still attracted the violence of men.
But none of their words mattered. A few years later, they hailed me as the father of avant-garde couture.
Hatsumoto passed away near the end of spring. The hospice nurses told me he was laughing.
“These fools. Now they eat their words,” he had said. “They didn’t understand Hiromi’s genius.”
Even with his final words he had been praising me. I held his cold, withered hand and wept on his deathbed, mourning the loss of him and the loss of myself. That younger version of me, the one he always believed in, had already died all those years ago.
His funeral was attended by his students and his beloved clientele. Outside of the parlour were countless journalists that watched and photographed as I mourned my master.
In exchange for an interview, I asked them if they knew what had happened to you. Most of them shook their heads. The younger ones have never even heard of you. You have fallen off the reach of gossip and speculation.
No one speaks of faded stars.
Some days I would not think of you. Most days I am overcome with a visceral sense of loss, and I would find myself hurling my tears to the ground, nails dragging down my scalp, scraping your body off the walls inside my head.
My inspiration, my motivation, has always moved in orbits of longing. That breathless, hopeful rush in chasing what you do not have. And by leaving me, you have condemned me to a perpetual state of want.
The want for your forgiveness, the want for your warmth, the want for what we could have been.
This was your gift and your curse. The clothes I made became the only way I could ever hold those fading echoes of you.
I must walk alone through the ruins of your absence.
1995. Paris. The air was frozen by the eastern winds.
In an attempt to save themselves from bankruptcy, your former production company placed their most iconic props and costumes up for auction.
To my bitter relief, the bidding for your costume in Tokyo Tango wasn’t fierce, and I was able to retrieve it without spending much money.
With your coat folded neatly on the passenger’s seat, I drove from Paris to Étretat.
Artists often struggle to find joy in seeing their past works. What could have been reminders of their progress becomes a reminder of the mediocrity they worked to overcome. With their trained eyes, what they would see, first and foremost, are the clumsy works of amateurs. And they would flinch from the hubris of having presented it to the world.
But the coat's meaning stung more than the unsteady stitching or the fraying threads. It was the start of an obsession and a failure that haunted me into my midlife years.
If this costume was what propelled you into a life of sorrow, then I had been complicit in your ruin.
By destroying this coat, perhaps I can set us both free.
I carried your coat to the cliffside, burned it, then waited until the smoke and flames swayed skyward. But as I watched the coat crumble into ashes, the heavy winds came and swept it all back to me.
end credits song.
Thank you for giving this fanfic a chance! I know that not many people like first person fics, so it means so much for me that you have reached this point.
I liked the idea of Higuruma confessing his obsession with the reader and seeking absolution, and I thought that writing in first person was the most effective way to show this fantasy. Imagine being haunted by good pussy for nearly five decades ww. Your power!
I hope that I have made something worth your time 🙇♀️
This fanfic is probably my most indulgent piece of writing, because it combines some of my favorite topics, particularly artistry, fashion, film, and history (though I’ve taken lots of liberties here!). I have so much to say about the muse-artist dynamic and how it flattens and consumes the real person behind the projection. I hope my thoughts made sense in this story.
If you would like to see the numerous art that inspired this, I collected them in this archive.
I don't really have words for this sort of artistry; just that it's perfect, Yasu, and you should be so immensely proud.
Thank you so much for such a profoundly bittersweet piece of fiction.
