Delusional Daily Report July 22nd: 'The Kabuki-mono'
8:47 Arrived at work.
Aya, our new hire, has been busy with 'love hunting' lately. She went full throttle on matching apps, and apparently, she's already had her first face-to-face meetings with several men since signing up. Even so,
“They’re all just so weird. The first guy’s casual clothes were super tacky! But he claimed he doesn't compete on fashion. He said it’s because he’s confident in himself. Conversely, he had this self-serving theory that people who dress up actually have a complex.
‘That’s why they try to solve it with money and only wear designer brands. They get this misguided confidence and act all high and mighty, so people who dress well are usually arrogant, right?’ he said, while spouting off like he was something special in a gross T-shirt that showed his nipples through the fabric! If anything, your nipples were showing the whole time, buddy!”
What’s more, surprisingly, the man she met after that was the complete opposite—dressed in so many designer logos it was laughable.
“Then that guy was arrogant to the shop staff, just like a caricature! And he’d act all nonchalant, saying things like, ‘Oh, clothes? ...Ah, well... I guess I like them.’
But then he’d say stuff like, ‘Well, people do tell me I’m stylish,’ or ‘I wouldn’t want to be with someone who wears tacky clothes anyway. You can tell what a person is like by the clothes they wear, you know?’
By the end, I couldn't help but laugh. It was like the first guy was the setup and the next idiot was the punchline!”
Yumi, who had been listening while clapping her hands and laughing, said,
“That’s definitely both terrible! As for the brand-obsessed idiot later on, people around him probably just think, ‘If I just tell him he’s stylish, he’ll be in a good mood,’ right?
Just wearing designer brands doesn’t make you stylish.
As for the first guy, he’s intimidated by those fakes and says, ‘People who dress well are all just...’, so if anything, you’re the one who’s a bundle of complexes!” she said, cutting him down with a sharp, mean-spirited smirk.
At the office, Yumi wears clean, basic-colored outfits. However, in photos of her on her days off, she wears skillful outfits that make good use of vivid color schemes and unique designs and accessories. I don’t know much about it, but I think she’s genuinely stylish, so she probably has a fair amount of personal standards for that.
“Yeah, yeah, young lady, that’s right! Style is, after all, about the balance between casual and elegance. It’s about that little bit of ‘effortlessness’ and ‘ease’ while still dressing for the TPO (Time, Place, Occasion)!”
Just then, General Manager Ohtori, who has a reputation for being quite the 'eccentric' even in the General Affairs department, joined the conversation with a high-handed attitude. Known as 'Ippei the Kabuki-mono' and whispered about everywhere as being 'hard to deal with,' that man said,
“I used to be a pioneer of the ‘Hatamoto-yakko’ (shogunate retainers) back in the day, and let me tell you, they were the height of style!
I’d wear a women’s kimono over my business suit like a cape to go to business meetings. I’d patch the hems of my slacks with raw animal hides like tiger or boar, and sometimes I’d even use them as a one-point appliqué.
I’d have a wild, bushy, long chin beard, a shaved-up forehead, and I’d even smoke a big kiseru pipe like a hookah in the smoking area, you see!”
Everyone looked extremely uneasy, wondering, “Wait? What about the ‘TPO’? The ‘effortlessness’? The ‘ease’?” because of his eccentric way of speaking and the complete lack of consistency in his story. General Manager Ohtori didn't care and continued,
“Besides, style is also about your daily conduct. I’d go out with my fellow ‘kabuku’ (eccentric) friends, skip out on the bill at restaurants, and pick fights on street corners, causing a ruckus like a party animal.
We’d leave an empty can in front of a house we’d targeted as a signal to our crew, then later we’d break in, beat them to a pulp, and make them cough up all their money. In a word, this was the aesthetic of rebellion against order. Because defiance is, above all, the essence and true value of style.”
Leaving behind everyone who was completely horrified and thinking, “This guy is basically a ‘Tokuryu’ (special fraud group) member now...”, General Manager Ohtori walked away.
As he left, I heard General Manager Ohtori’s innocent phrase, which sounded like a ‘Canmake Tokyo’ commercial: “Being a kabuki-mono is so much fun!” Yumi held her head in her hands, saying, “Style is...”
#CreativeWriting #ShortStory #ShortShort #Diary #3LineDiary #KabukiMono #IppeiOhtori #HatamotoYakko #WhatAreYouTalkingAbout