He painted my apartment and I resided in it and now it's as respectable-- looking as any shop/home can possibly be. My room is orange-- Ryo's idea: both the color and the continued referral to it as Kou's Room. For all intensive purposes, its really Kou and Ryo's Room, but I guess I shouldn't take liberties, huh? The kid's still a freakball and still spends some nights on the couch; not because he's mad, he says, but just because he wants to.
So not much has changed, you could say. Ryo still writes his scripts sometimes. And sometimes I still get to read them when he's not around and completely unaware. He never willingly shows them to me anymore. I don't really know if it'll ever be okay for him to just up and give me a little piece of his work and passion and life ever again, but I'd like to think that a little thing called effort sometimes pays off in the end.
One of my favorite scenes Ryo has ever written was a scrap I found in his trash bin last February. Call me a snoop-- see if I care. I definitely don't, in case you were wondering. It was a little speech given by a woman to a man she's lying next to after they fell asleep watching Babe. You know. That film with the incredibly realistic talking pig. She wakes up and the TV is blue-that shade of blue you get when the tape runs out. I don't know why they don't have a DVD player-the script didn't explain it-- but there you have it. A blue screen. A sleeping man. A woman wide awake and wondering why they just watched an old kids' movie about talking farm animals.
In the script she smiles. She hums a tune. She leans down and whispers in the ear of the man beside her:
'If I had words to make a day for you, I would start by having you wake up in your own bed in your own home. The walls would be painted like orange juice and your blankets would be red like apples and so you wouldn't have to even bother leaving your room to taste breakfast because it would come right up and kiss you on the cheek the very moment you opened your eyes. The room would be quiet, but not too quiet-the window cracked open just enough so you could smell the grass and hear the sighs of the world outside, alive and waking and new. And I would be beside you when you turned and I would still be asleep and you would kiss me like so many apples and oranges in the morning and say to me, "Wake up. The sun is out. It's a good day."'
Ryo isn't perfect. If anything, according to that trashed script of his, he's a closeted sap. But, I'm willing to admit that I'm far from perfect. You, of all people, should know both those things and tell me something now that goes like, "Well, shit, man, that's all you've got to say?"
What else is there to say? What can you say when you've reached the peak of your life and everything-- childhood plans and dreams be damned-- is just the way you want it?
All I know is this.
Kou and Ryo's Bedroom is orange juice orange.
Kou and Ryo's Bed Sheets are apple red.
And when I feel like waking that kid up, I'm going to lean over and I'm going to say, "Wake up. The sun is out. It's a good day."
And he'll probably hit me because he'll know I've been going through his files again.
But you know what?
...Well.
You know what.
It's a good day, regardless.
x. end .x
