Work Text:
The party is over and so was your part inside that play your son has written and directed. As such, now all you can do is wait on the sidelines inside your car, anxiously waiting for the victorious call, as the plan had only enquired of you a secondary role and to be in charge of the costumes, which you’re still proud of.
You’ve outdone yourself and Heiji-kun’s costume deserves a prize on its own.
But now your job is done and all you can do is sit on the sidelines and ponder. To think Sharon-chan’s daughter would turn out to be part of the crowd that nearly had your baby boy killed! Poor, poor Sharon. Better she never got to truly learn the depths of depravity her daughter had sunken into, nor see her skills used in heinous ways.
But… you still wish she were here. Things would have been better with her near, you would have been less nervous next to her. She’s always managed to make you feel at ease…
The familiar ringing distracts you from your contemplation. Your phone is ringing, Agasa-kun’s name displayed on the screen and you feel yourself tensing up even further as you press the button to accept the call with a trembling finger. You ask the questions required with a trembling voice.
Silly you, it’s been so long ever since you’ve felt nervous enough it broke through your carefully practiced self-control.
Agasa-kun confirms himself with the right answer and you can feel your heart getting lighter as he asks you back and you confirm yourself without the slightest stutter.
When you hear Shin-chan’s voice, you’re so relieved you can feel the pinpricks of tears show near the corner of your eyes and you lift your hand to wipe a tear. Your baby is safe.
You’re smiling and so would Sharon-chan be right now, if the world had just been a little kinder.
Then you ask how it all went.
And then your world ends. You want to argue, but you know Shin-chan would never lie about something like that about a person. He’s always wanted to reveal the truth, after all.
Shin-chan tells you about her and what she did without the slightest sorrow, just annoyance she got away. He’s always been a little too laissez-faire about others’ feelings. He’s a little too much like Yuu-chan. A little too much like yourself as well at times.
Medusa may be a story, but you feel as if Athena’s curse is burning through your ears, nerves, into your veins, traveling all the way to your heart. Venom you lack the immunity for, the toxin ravaging your soul. You can barely hear what he’s saying, except, you can hear too well. Everything that Sharon had just done.
Sharon had killed a woman’s parents twenty years ago. Sharon, after she learnt of said woman’s survival, tried to kill her right away. Sharon was the one who was hunting Ai-chan all along. Sharon knocked out Shin-chan and kidnapped him! She seemingly gave up on killing him, but it doesn’t make you feel better as your eyes burn again.
You end the call playing the role of the worried mother and you let yourself break your poker face, because you’re alone inside that car and no one will see you break down, break Toichi-sensei’s rules.
Toichi-sensei… You’re actually glad to know he won’t get to see how his best student had perverted his lessons, as you put your hands on your face and weep.
You remember weeping for her. That beautiful, gone-too-soon brilliant actress and woman, the poor woman kicked by life and derided by her daughter. But in the end, it had been her who had derided you all. When Chris had stood in front of her “mother’s” coffin, had Sharon been laughing at you all? Had Sharon been laughing at your grief?
Now you weep again for her death. It’s like getting her obituary all over again, all the scabbing on the wound being torn off, letting it bleed wide open, yet now it’s even worse because poison was poured over, making it fester in the mere moments it took for you to hear the news. You weep for Sharon’s death all over again, but it’s for the soured memories.
Sharon Vineyard, the great actress you looked up to when you were a teenager. Sharon, the one you’ve had a huge shock to find yourself face-to-face with when you went to the greatest magician in Japan for lessons. Sharon, the one who became your best friend in no time. Sharon, the one who you let hold your son when he was a helpless little baby and you were young and your head high, high in the clouds!
Sharon, the one who you loved. In spite of what the tabloids said, Yuu-chan hadn’t been your first love, the one you would have thrown away your career to the dogs for, the one you’d become a laughing stock for. It was her, always her. If she had asked your hand in marriage, you would have said yes, yes, yes! But she didn’t. So you asked for hers.
Sharon had refused you. She cared for her career far more than you did after all.
And in the end Yuu-chan showed up, courted you and caught your eye enough to say yes. And you got the scandalous marriage of your dreams, the freedom you so coveted and an easy, but still rife with fun life.
When you had visited New York on your honeymoon and everyone begged you to come back, some less civil than the others, it was only she who had been understanding of your reasons. And you had loved her more than anything in spite of your ring on your finger.
And now, she’s ripped your heart out of your chest as you have mourned and you mourn yet again for a person that never was.
You want to believe that what you had wasn’t just a lie, that it wasn’t just an elaborate play of hers, but she tricked you alongside the riffraff and she’s always been a better actress than all of you, including yourself.
She tricked you!
You’ve thought her dead and now you wish it were as such, because you still had the memories you had together and now all you have is your sorrow and poison.
And rage as you wipe your tears and rev up the engine.
You do need to get home and the past day’s events justify a drive through Tokyo at twice the legal limit.
…
As time goes and you get to ruminate over everything involving her you can feel a new desire welling up within yourself. Despite what your husband and son stand for, you couldn’t care less to see her in prison. That’s their job and they’ll succeed with flying colours.
You just want to trick her the way she did to you. You want to see her eyes go wide from shock, to see her composure broken.
…
The opportunity presents itself later. Way later.
You wish Sharon saw you create Shuuichi-kun’s disguise and help with faking his death. That she got to see the parallels. That he was handsome and could have made Sharon jealous was only the bonus. But you couldn’t let her learn and he trusted you too little (you had a feeling it had to do with Sharon) for any of your wishes to happen.
Yet, it’s alright as you get your chance now as you’ve found her in the hallway, ironically dressed-up as Shuuichi-kun. She wears him well, though pity for the burn scar, but you can’t tell her that. Nor do you tell her you prefer poeple as themselves.
Instead, you set up a challenge you intend to win.
The game is on and it’s time for you and your new crew to take the stage. This time, you’re part of the main cast. You’ve intentionally used one of your past aliases, one that Sharon was aware of to draw her to your room.
She bites the bait and you find her throwing your luggage out of the train. Rude! And also a terrible shame, as your favourite dress was inside.
“Look, isn’t it about the time you stopped doing this kind of thing, Sharon?”
It’s the first time you’ve said her name out loud ever since you’ve learnt the truth. Shin-chan, Yuu-chan and Agasa-kun only called her Vermouth and you could just refer to her without saying her name. Shuuichi-kun had tried to broach the topic, most likely trying to gauge how much you’ve known about her back when you were still friends and you’ve quickly excused yourself.
You feel dread. You feel dread at seeing Sharon’s face again. You already know the truth and that can’t be changed, but seeing the features of the woman you so loved (and perhaps still) would make it reality in a way Shin-chan’s words never could.
But now, as she rips her mask off and takes off her wig, a strange relief fills you as Chris Vineyard’s untouched face and long platinum blonde hair are revealed instead.
Of course, she wouldn’t wear the face of the identity she had discarded, but at least there’s some distance between your treasured memories and the woman in front of you. Even if the image of the one you love had only been some aging make-up…
Your memories still remain as you face Vermouth on the scene as the heroine of Shin-chan’s play. You slip into this role just like you’ve slipped into the other roles you’ve played and fight with your words.
You don’t slip, not even as Vermouth threatens you with a gun that’s not a prop and when she comes to the conclusion your plan required of her to reach, you change your tune enough to look natural, like you’re losing control of the situation instead of everything going just the way it had been planned.
Even when she puts her gloved hand on your face you don’t break character. Aren’t you an amazing actress? You’re definitely better than Vermouth.
After all, she didn’t notice that you’ve outplayed her, until the very, very end when the train was stopped and all the passengers had to disembark, when she would inevitably catch sight of the little girl she tried her very best to destroy.
You imagine her wide-eyed when she figures out your special guest’s role.
None of that manages to warm up the ice inside your heart that Sharon had left.