Utsukushii Koto - Konohara Narise & Hidaka Shoko.pdf

(659 KB) Pobierz
Narise Konohara
Of Beauty
Of Beauty
“It’s unfair,” Takeshi Fukuda complained as he pulled a piece of grilled chicken off the skewer with
his front teeth. It was eight in the evening. The izakay a 1 near the station was teeming with white and
pinstriped short-sleeved shirts.
The air conditioning was supposed to be on, but the restaurant was so dense with people that
it felt like the humid heat from daytime, which had peaked to an all-year high, had dragged on into
evening. Sweat coated the brows of people there, and alcohol flowed freely.
The restaurant’s interior was barren, as if to reflect the owner’s equal lack of friendliness. It
clearly lacked the ambiance for a date, for none of the men there were accompanied by women. Apart
from them, one could only spot the odd university student here and there.
Fukuda clicked his tongue in front of Yosuke Matsuoka’s face, and waved his bare skewer back
and forth like a conductor waving his baton. A Gucci watch bobbed at the mouth of his suit sleeve.
“Just the sight of that guy stresses me out, and he has no idea about it. I feel like it’s unfair, you
know, when I’m the only one who feels irritated.”
The dew had accumulated on Matsuoka’s highball glass. He brought it to his lips, and drained
it down to the last drop of melted ice. His phone had rung right before seven in the evening, as he was
on his way home from making sales visits. It was his co-worker, Fukuda, inviting him out for a drink
this evening.
“Sure, I can go,” Matsuoka had answered lightly. There was no soccer game to watch tonight,
and it would be better than eating alone. He had no idea Fukuda would seize the chance to go on such
a wearisome tirade.
“When I got promoted to chief of General Affairs, you know what this guy says?
‘Congratulations’ with a smile on his face. I’m being promoted and I’m younger than him. Position-
wise, he’s the one going to be assisting me. At least I’d know he has some pride if he was a little pissed
off. But smiling like that? Does this guy even care about his job?”
“Yeah, totally. I know what you mean,” Matsuoka agreed. “You get people like that sometimes.
Oh, excuse me! Can I have a lemon chuhai ? 2 ” Matsuoka gave an order to a server passing the counter,
then turned back to face Fukuda.
“Don’t let it get to you so much. It’s what happens the earlier you get promoted: you end up
with more incompetent older subordinates to deal with.”
“You know, you just might’ve hit a philosophical point,” Fukuda murmured in all seriousness.
Matsuoka laughed. “With those sidekick-types, you just have to ignore them. It’s called natural
selection. Incompetent guys are just meant to be weeded out. That’s how society works.” He grinned
at Fukuda.
“Yeah, I guess,” Fukuda said, shrugging. He was a man steadily being promoted through the
ranks to become chief of General Affairs at twenty-eight. His clumsy older subordinate by comparison
1 Japanese-style pub.
2 A “shochu highball”: a mixed alcoholic drink, made with a distilled liquor called shochu and soda, flavoured
with some kind of fruit.
1
1356463759.001.png
Narise Konohara
Of Beauty
seemed to irritate him to no end.
“Don’t you find it hard to deal with guys when they have, like, a half-decent personality?”
Fukuda asked.
“Are you talking about your assistant? If he’s a good guy, what’s the problem?”
Fukuda made a show of sighing in exasperation.
“You don’t get it, do you? Personality doesn’t matter at work. A guy can be a total ass, but I
won’t complain if he gets all of his work done properly. What’s important is whether he can pull his
weight. We go to work to work, not to make friends, you know what I mean?”
Fukuda’s pedantic tone made Matsuoka bristle. Why the hell do I have to be lectured by you? he
thought. But Fukuda didn’t stop there.
“You’re so lucky, you know,” he went so far as to mutter. “At least you people in Sales get to
step outside. Not like us General Affairs, where we’re chained to our desks all day. No one would be
able to tell if you guys slacked off a bit. And you guys get to step out and refresh yourselves.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Matsuoka agreed amiably, but inwardly, he was seething. Refresh myself? Are
you kidding me? I wish I could show you the gruelling journey that we take every month to meet our quota.
They had to walk endlessly from one business partner to the next until their legs were stiff. Skipping
lunch breaks was the norm. Even after all that work, sometimes they were unable to garner a single
new contract. The frustration was indescribable. They waged regular battles with seniors who
commanded them to do the impossible. If you were barely making your quota, by the end of the
month your business smile was plastered to your face, and medication was an absolute necessity for
your stomach, which churned with the stress of it all. Some people even vomited blood and collapsed.
“Besides, you’re good-looking. If the company representative’s a girl, I’m sure you have no
problem snatching up those contracts, right?”
I’d be living the high life if I could get contracts with my looks, Matsuoka thought bitterly. But he
grinned nevertheless.
“Well, let’s just say I make full use of my arsenal. Wow, will you look at the time! I’m sorry, but
I have to get going soon.”
“What? It’s still nine,” Fukuda said, pouting in dissatisfaction.
“My girlfriend called me before I got here,” Matsuoka explained. “She said she’d come over to
my house once she’s finished with her co-worker’s farewell party. I’m really sorry.”
Matsuoka ushered a reluctant Fukuda along and exited the restaurant. Outside, the humid
heat of the summer night clung to their skin.
“I dunno if it’s because we’re the same age, but I feel really comfortable talking to you,”
Fukuda admitted.
It was a flattering way to say it, but in reality he probably had no one else in General Affairs
that he could complain to―Matsuoka made the calm analysis despite his light alcoholic buzz.
“You’re a pretty good listener, you know.”
Good listening was a technique Matsuoka had honed in his sales career. The rule of thumb was
to respond consistently. There was also a trick to how to give those responses: you never disagreed.
You nodded and agreed to his opinions, no matter how absurd they were. That way, the speaker
would begin to think, ‘Oh, he understands me. He knows how I feel.’
2
Narise Konohara
Of Beauty
“We should go drinking again,” Fukuda said.
They parted at the stairs of the subway station. Matsuoka and Fukuda each entered platforms
for trains bound in opposite directions. The moment Matsuoka was left by himself, the exhaustion
came down like a lead weight on his shoulders. If I knew I had to put up with his complaining, I should
have gone drinking by myself, he thought in regret.
Venting felt good for the person who was venting, but in turn, accumulated in the listener.
Those emotions hardly led to anything positive, and it was clear they were anything but beneficial to
mental health.
“Ugh, I’m exhausted.”
Matsuoka dismissed the griping colleague from his mind. Forget that; tomorrow was Friday,
the day he’d been anticipating. What should I wear? What kind of makeup should I put on? Just the thought
of it filled Matsuoka with excitement. He ducked his head and grinned to himself.
Matsuoka’s favourite part about putting on makeup was choosing the colour of his lipstick.
From every colour of the rainbow, he picked one out depending on his mood that day. If he wanted to
play the sexy woman, he picked a shade of red. If he wanted to go for the modest look of a well-bred
woman, he picked a shade of pink. Today, he felt like being a woman who’d done her share of fooling
around, so he picked a deep shade of red.
He filled in his lips over the neat coat of foundation on his face, being careful to draw them in
smaller than the actual line of his lips. Putting on makeup was similar to painting a picture. It was
important to maintain a good overall balance.
His lips, vivid like freshly-picked cherries, moved in the mirror. He gazed intently at his
reflection, drawing close to the mirror, then distancing himself to inspect his job. Matsuoka smiled. It
was perfect. He looked much, much more beautiful and cuter than the girls at his workplace.
Once his makeup was in place, Matsuoka shed his clothes and dug out a bra from the back of
his closet. He padded it and put it on. He slid his arms through the sleeves of a patterned shirt, and
wore a black skirt with dark stockings. A long wig with tresses tumbling down to his chest completed
the look. Imagining himself as a slightly flashy office worker on her way home from work, he posed in
the mirror with a purse in hand. He was absolutely dreamy, if he could say so himself. From the top of
his head to the tips of his toes, he was a perfect woman from every angle. Matsuoka spritzed himself
lightly with perfume as a finishing touch, then walked out the door.
The passersby turned to stare. He’d been picked up on more than a couple occasions. These
facts lent him even more confidence.
It was a year ago when Matsuoka had started dressing in drag. At the time, things were hectic
at work, and he ended up coming home late for many days on end. Unable to put up with it anymore,
his girlfriend of three years walked out on him. They had practically moved in together by then, so
when his girlfriend left, Matsuoka felt like she had left a gaping hole in his heart.
After a time, when his loneliness no longer bothered him, Matsuoka used his day off work to
tidy up the things his girlfriend had left behind. Inside the bags she had told him to throw away were
heaps of old clothes and cosmetics. Fond memories made him pick them up, and as he gazed at them,
3
Narise Konohara
Of Beauty
he was suddenly struck by a thought― hey, I think I’d fit into this. When he tried it on, it was a little
tight around the waist, but not unwearable.
The simple sleeveless black dress looked much better on him than he’d imagined. This
surprised Matsuoka. Just for fun, he put on a little lipstick. This, too, suited his pale complexion well,
and he looked like a doll. It was almost funny that he looked so good, so he tried out some foundation
and mascara while he was at it. When he finished, he was left with a self he could barely recognize.
One would be hard-pressed to find a woman who looked as beautiful as Yosuke Matsuoka did now.
Matsuoka was so quickly and so fiercely sucked into this alternate world and his beautiful self
that he even surprised himself. He bought clothes, lingerie, and cosmetics over the Internet, and
referred to magazines to figure out makeup tricks. Unfortunately, his job in sales did not allow him to
grow out his hair, so he got a wig for that. When Matsuoka stepped into his role as a woman, he
played it from head to toe, and he forgot all about his everyday self. It was exhilarating transforming
into the kind of beauty that turned heads, and it was good stress relief.
Matsuoka was aware that his hobby was not exactly normal, so he decided his “drag day”
would only be on Fridays. Limiting his dressing up to once a week simply heightened the desire he
felt for it as well as the pleasure he derived from it.
On Friday nights, Matsuoka carefully and meticulously groomed himself to become a woman.
At first, he only used to walk around the house, but gradually he began to want to go outside. His
desire mounted so much it was irrepressible; one day, he finally ended up stepping out of the house.
Everyone turned their heads as he walked down the street. He found the attention pleasantly
dizzying. He basked in the feeling of superiority at being more beautiful than an actual woman, and
inwardly laughed with contempt at the cocky stares of the men around him.
On the sparsely-populated train bound for the city, Matsuoka was filled with excitement just
imagining how many men would try to strike up conversation with him tonight.
―Now it had started to rain. Matsuoka was curled up in a corner of an alley in the outskirts of
the shopping district, vomiting copiously from the overwhelming nausea he couldn’t hold back. The
smell of his own vomit triggered his nausea, making him vomit again. His stomach felt a little more
settled after he had emptied it, and he staggered a few steps forward. He had barely walked a couple
dozen metres before he felt ill again and had to squat on the ground.
He’d been repeating this routine for quite some time now. His brand-new shirt and black skirt
were dirty, and his perfectly-finished makeup was now a mess from his tears. He felt horrible; his
mood was worse than what worst could describe. Immediately after arriving in the shopping district,
Matsuoka had been approached by a man in his forties. He would have ignored this man like any
other, but today, Matsuoka had smiled and gone along with him. He had seen this man before at one
of the companies during his sales visits. This company representative in particular always tried to take
advantage of Matsuoka’s weaknesses, but was unusually yielding to this man. This bothered
Matsuoka.
“Who is that guy?” he asked a close co-worker later.
“The sales manager of Takeshima Products,” his co-worker had told him.
4
Narise Konohara
Of Beauty
Matsuoka was eager, to say the least, at any chance to network with Takashima Products. He
had visited a number of times to pitch a sale at them, only to be turned away at the doorstep.
Although he knew he couldn’t talk about work while he was dressed in drag, he had an ulterior
motive anyway: if he could find out the man’s hobbies and preferences, Matsuoka figured it would
become a useful entry point into garnering a new client.
Matsuoka was taken by the man to a cocktail bar on the top floor of a luxury hotel. Matsuoka
drank whatever that was offered to him and made harmless small talk with the man.
“You’ve got a pretty low, husky voice.”
The man’s comment made Matsuoka’s heart stop for a moment, but he managed to smooth it
over by saying he was catching a cold. No matter how perfect he was in appearance, there was
nothing he could do about his voice. His anxiety at the possibility of being discovered made Matsuoka
say less and less, and to fill the awkward air between them, he drank nonstop. Since he only usually
drank beer or chuhai , it didn’t take long for him to get sick from drinking unfamiliar cocktails.
“Aghhhh!”
He was woken by a man’s yelling. Once he came to, Matsuoka realized he was in a hotel room,
lying on a twin-sized bed. Feeling more room around his crotch area than usual, he looked down to
see that his skirt had been hiked up and his lace boy shorts had been pulled down to his thighs.
“Y―You’re a man?!”
Matsuoka felt all the blood in his body rush to his feet. He hastily pulled up his boy shorts and
got off the bed. His feet were unsteady from intoxication, and his knees buckled as he crumpled to the
floor.
“You tricked me, you disgusting pervert!”
The man lunged at him, red in the face. He straddled Matsuoka, grabbed him by the front of
his shirt and slapped him across the face. The man yanked his hair, making his wig come off. When he
paused in astonishment, Matsuoka took the chance to shove him off.
He picked the wig off the floor and tore out of the room. He fell twice on his way to the
elevator. His shoulders rose and fell as he gained his breath, relieved that he had not been followed.
Just then, a middle-aged woman who had stepped into the elevator with him saw the long wig that
Matsuoka was holding and gave him an appalled look. Matsuoka put the wig back on on the spot, but
since he didn’t have a mirror, he wasn’t sure if he’d been able to put it on properly.
He exited the hotel and walked the best he could with staggering steps. He started feeling ill
partway through, squatted, and vomited several times. A shudder went down his spine every time he
recalled the man hitting him. He knew what he was doing wasn’t normal. But he had never thought
he would be put through such misery, that he would be subjected to violence. I want to get home as soon
as possible to take these clothes off. I’ll never dress in drag again for the rest of my life, he thought.
He had forgotten his heels and his purse, which contained his wallet, at the hotel. Thankfully,
he had left his apartment key in the mailbox, which used a combination lock, so he would have no
problem entering his apartment. But without cash, he would not be able to take the taxi home. The last
train had already gone. He would have asked a friend to bring cash, but today of all days, he had
forgotten his cell phone at home. Even before that, Matsuoka smiled bitterly, would I have the courage to
see a friend looking like this? He would rather have died if he was going to be condemned and called a
5

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin