jaiset productions presents

GA RA SU

( s)

-first recording-

b.

original work, inspiratorie.

armed with an artistic right.

besides, this doesn't make money.

(c) 2002 jaiset productions.

tous droits réservés.

JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY

PRESENT DAY

Summer before Lucien's junior year

(August)

The girl ran another dollop of gel through her long, dark brown, now frange-free hair to keep it from flying into her face as she wrote. She had contacts and braces and was currently absorbed in her Japanese homework. A J-pop station blared in her headphones, but she hit a key on the laptop keyboard on her desk, switching it to a playlist full of Marise Hoshikawa MP3s and music videos.

"Marise". According to Google, it meant 'infinite', the first Japanese word Lucien learned back in eighth grade. In fact, it was back then that she began taking Japanese lessons independent of school, just to understand his songs' lyrics. She helped run a Marise fansite, complete with translations and news weblog, which she often turned personal, doodling on it with ideas and rants for the fourteen-year-old Jpop star. Of course he'd never read it, and if he did... Ah, well, it was under her pseudonym anyway.

Sometimes they were lyrical, things she pictured him singing if he sang in English.

(I've never forgotten that day when I

Faced the crowd with a brave smile

Because with their liquid screams

I overcame my uncertainties...)

Typical seventeen-year-old fangirl.

There were rumors going around J-pop circles that he was considering switching his future alma mater from the idol-generating Hiroshi High School in Tokyo to Stuyvesant High School in New York, one of the most famous in the United States- and one Lucien couldn't get into because (though she was born in Queens) she wasn't a New York resident.

However, her mother was always one to bend the rules.

She'd taken the entrance test to the three New York magnet schools as a sophomore last December and still hadn't gotten any results; she was getting worried about the problems coming in as a junior. She had already been a good student, but once she caught wind of Stuyvesant she had been at or near the top of her class ever since.

Just to get in...

(Going by burnt sorrow

Is the secret guide

To losing one's soul

A flaming heart is the key to passion

But for dreams to come true

It must illuminate the world)

Marise Hoshikawa made his debut on the Japanese music scene four years ago with his winning performance on "I Wanna Be An Idol", which became his first hit single, "Boku (I)". He wrote his own poetic lyrics to go with his catchy techno/pop melodies, able to write in Japanese, English and French (with help from his Japanese/French-Canadian mother).

He had just graduated middle school from the prestigious Keio private school he had attended since kindergarten, a feeder school straight into Keio University. His parents wouldn't allow him to begin a full-time singing career until he came of age and graduated secondary school, assuming he would either continue on to Keio's high school or the famous Hiroshi High School, known for its long list of pop star alumnae.

But shortly after debuting his sixth Oricon-topping single, "Smoky Mirror Field", and dyeing his hair an outlandish, solid electric blue, the young star chose a high school in America over the rigorous, exam-centered, lecture-style institutions of Japan. His father was furious, but the boy was adamant.

"HA! I GOT IN!"

Lucien had ripped the envelope open after seeing its slightly bulky frame. Her scores were high, so she had her first pick of the New York technical high schools, Stuyvesant being the best of them.

To celebrate, she met with her best friend, an animé-suited Stuyvesant alum fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese. Ever since he started law school at NYU the year before, he always wore black collared shirts (even in the summer heat). Despite the professionalism, he kept his hair red and spiky, though he still looked very well-groomed... and feminine.

They were supposed to be made for each other, but an unspoken pact was made to not give God his way: she fell in love with a J-pop star instead, and he... well, with his extremely 'bishounen' ('beautiful boy') looks, it was hard for any guy around him to stay straight.

Lucien met him at the PATH train station in Journal Square, shouting and waving.

"Xu, lai ba (Shuu, get over here)!"

Only she could call him by any name she wanted. Lucien preferred to use his Japanese nickname, Shuu (though Xu was his LAST name), but others used his English one, Shawn. She was the only non-Chinese that knew his real name, Xu Li- and the only non-Chinese who could pronounce it in both Mandarin and Cantonese. (Despite her perfect pitch, it took her a few tries to get the tones right in Cantonese.)

Okay, by virtue of being half-Filipino, Lucien was probably part-Chinese in there somewhere. But ethnicity never conferred language ability- she could barely even speak Tagalog! And despite being half-Liverpudlian, she couldn't fake a British accent quite like Shuu, who'd gone to an American school in Hong Kong but moved to London at age eight, then moved to the U.S. right before high school.

"Hikari, doko e ikimasu ka (where are we going)?" Shuu asked as a reply, hands in his slim jean pockets. He'd studied Japanese all his life, and called her Hikari, 'light'- a literal translation of her name, but more feminine, and often shortened to 'Hikki'. He wasn't a native, one could tell: he was using standard Japanese and calling his non-girlfriend sans a -san. Lucien made him watch animé to learn more colloquial Japanese, though.

"We're going to your pimp," she teased him, tugging on the ball-chain necklace of dog tags he always wore around his neck. "I think I have enough money saved up to buy you now."

"But I like my job," he protested as Lucien gave him a noogie. The train arrived and the girl dragged him in gently by the dog tags.

"Shuu-chan, we're going to have to have you spayed," she said (in an empty train car as the doors closed). "You're too promiscuous for your new owner."

No sound save the underground train tracks.

"You love me just the way I am," he murmured surely into her ear as she hugged him.

"Of course I do. And I'll pay for you, so you have to love me too."

They had to collapse into giggles, sprawled on the floor on top of one another by the time the train doors opened at the next stop, passengers ogling over the pseudo-lovers. They made the prostitute story an animé unto themselves.

"That guy behind us's staring at you."

"Is he hot?"

"If you don't want him, I'll gladly take your commission."

Before entering Canal Street, the duo made their way through Greenwich and SoHo. Shuu wasn't too comfortable, but Lucien had a way of parading her cute charge around that both advertised him and made him a part of the crowd.

It didn't help that he'd removed his shirt and was only in a form-fitting denim vest and jeans now, necklace of dog tags hanging against his bare chest like a talisman. His partner felt a bit plain in her cotton tank and skirt. They were wearing matching black flip-flops, though; they'd bought them together on Mott Street a few days ago.

Someone bumped into them- or, rather, rammed violently into Shuu.

"I'm sorry!" the boy yelped, short blue hair brushing against one of Shuu's naked shoulders. He looked up at the tall figure with embarrassed eyes, and blushed when their gazes met.

"It's all right," Lucien's friend assured him, but froze when the boy walked on with his face burning. Lucien had already realized what was just beginning to dawn on him.

"Hoshi...ka..." her voice trailed off in the blue-haired kid's direction.

Shuu looked into his friend's face, which was transfixed with shock, and back at the J-pop star's retreating hair down the city street. His mind was made after another second.

"Daisuki, Hikki (I love you, Hikki)," he blurted, and kissed her then and there. She couldn't return it or even protest it, because it was over before it even began, with him running after the figure of her transfixation.

END of Garasu (Glass), -first recording-

tsuzuku

10:13 PM 4/24/2002

11:10 PM 4/24/2002