Consequences

Greetings, readers! This week, I've written a modern retelling of The Beautiful Dancer of Yedo. I ended up focusing on the dancing aspect of Sakura-ko's character, and I just couldn't forget about Silver Wave, possibly because she's the only other character who gets a name. My apologies to people in the industry if I've gotten some of the details wrong.

Also, as a side note, I'm attempting National Novel Writing Month again. Yes, I'm planning to write 50,000 words in the month of November. My novel, A Tale of Two Tricksters, came from a novel I wrote during a previous NaNoWriMo. Maybe the one I'm writing now will end up published as well.

 

Never underestimate a dancer's strength.

Ming was arguably the best dancer at the Sakura talent agency. She had danced in musicals, moonlighted in music videos, and had been a backup dancer for several singers in concert. She learned all these styles of dance, but she always added something extra to them. A flair no others could quite reach. Many men talked about her in videos online, but few actually sought her out. She declined them all, wary of such attention.

One young man, for he was so, so young, offered to marry her. He'd buy her a house with his daddy's money and she would want for nothing. In exchange, she would only dance for him. Ming turned him down, laughing and saying that she loved to dance and she would never want to stop. Men like him never knew the pain dancers put themselves through, so he believed her and left.

Another, older man, an executive in the talent agency, noticed her as well. He dropped hints and Ming carefully stepped around them. He was old enough to be her grandfather, and she teasingly implied it. Finally, one night he threw a party in her honor at his house. Very few knew he had recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He called for one of Ming's coworkers, Dakota, to pour the two of them some particularly special wine. Ming and Dakota gave each other a look.

Ming and the old man toasted to her success and drank. The old man gave her a crafty smile. "I may not have you in life, but I will have you in death. I'm dying, my dear, so I drank something to speed me on my way. And you've drunk it too."

"I'm not a fool, and neither is Dakota. She switched my drink," Ming said. "I only had wine." She pulled out her phone and called for an ambulance. The paramedics made good time out to the house. The party ended when the host was wheeled out in a gurney. But they were not in time to save him. He was dead before they got to the hospital.

When Ming heard the news, she couldn't help but cry.

"Don't cry for him," Dakota advised. "He was planning to take you with him, and your trouble may be just beginning."

Dakota proved to be right. Some guests at the party had heard the old man's speech and thought Ming had done something to make him believe they should die together. Ming was pulled into a trial where it was eventually ruled a suicide and attempted murder, but the damage to her reputation was done.

Now, everyone knew who she was, but no one wanted to hire her. Ming either got parts dancing far enough away from the camera that no one really saw her, or she was asked to do something that related to that fateful night. Those gigs almost always turned out to have the plot that she had killed him after all.

Ming began to hate the old man and the society that produced him. Dakota was her only friend left. When Ming stopped making as much money, they moved in together to save on rent. Ming loved to dance, but she hated it too. Now she couldn't find work as a dancer except for cheap gigs that barely paid enough. She couldn't make money dancing, even if she wanted to. Ming got a job in retail and found that there were worse things than rehearsal after a night out.

It was only in their apartment, when no one else was around, that Dakota and Ming would dance together. Routines that Dakota had learned, altered to fit their small space. Still, occasionally, customers would recognize Ming at work and ask her why she had killed the man who fell in love with her. Management was unimpressed with how Ming handled some of these customers.

One night, Ming was crying in the living room when Dakota came home.  Dakota set everything down and cradled Ming on the couch, petting her hair. "I don't know what to do anymore," Ming said. "There's nothing for me here but you."

"Then let's run away together," Dakota said.

"What?" Ming wiped her eyes and looked at Dakota.

"Let's run away together. We'll go somewhere else. Another country, where they have different gossip. We can be anything we want to be there."

"As long as we're together," Ming said slowly.

"Yes," Dakota replied. "As long as we're together."

So, they disappeared from the town that had known Ming so well. Her presence faded until, in time, she was no more than an urban legend. And eventually, even that would be forgotten.