Do Nothing More

Miya ate her lunch and thought about what Gene had privately written to her. She'd been thinking about it ever since last night; the way he'd responded to her 'thank you' letter by saying that he didn't deserve any of her thanks bothered her. 
     She took another bite of her tender chicken and savored the taste of the seasoning as she let her mind consider Gene's words more carefully. She swallowed her bite and focused her gaze intently on the last few pieces of chicken left in her meal.
     Mukashi sat across from her on the tour bus and noticed her staring at her food. 
     "Is the food inadequate?"
     Miya looked up and shook her head.
     "N-no, it's really good. I was just thinking."
     He nodded, then went back to looking at his phone.
     Nothing Gene had told her in their letters seemed like something that would disqualify him from being thanked. Despite what he'd said, she legitimately could not imagine him leaving his family behind, especially when it was so obvious to her, through the letters he had sent with Annabelle, that he cared very deeply about his family. 
     She could not let him sit with that kind of false thought in his mind. She resolved to write him another letter outlining exactly how he was wrong about not deserving her thanks. She put some more of her chicken into her mouth and swallowed it after a few moments.
     Mukashi looked at Miya as she ate her chicken, then glanced at his phone. 
     There were still two and a half weeks left at a minimum before Director Sang-Ki returned from his business trip. 
     The fear hadn't gone away; now, instead of checking the schedule and making sure that everything was perfectly aligned, he worried about what would happen with Miya. He didn't want to worry, but the fear kept gnawing at him. No matter how much he tried to shove the black cabinet deeper into his mind, it kept clattering and making noise and reminding him that it was there. He tilted his head up at Miya as she finished her meal.
     Her blue hair hung over her eyes and her thin lips barely moved as she chewed her chicken. Her trained and acrobatic body was beautifully accented by her uniform. 
     He looked away and his breathing sped up. 
     What would happen after Chi-Hun was found out by Director Sang-Ki? Would everything return to how it was before any of the photographs surfaced? Would he be allowed to be seen in public with her again? 
     "Mukashi." Miya's voice echoed through the tour bus.
     His head slowly turned to look at her. 
     "Are you doing well?" She asked politely. 
     He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head, his fears momentarily replaced by curiosity; he couldn't understand what was going on. He looked at his phone again. There were still five minutes left in her lunch break, and they had at least five more minutes of travel time to reach the venue for the next fan meet-up.
     He breathed deeply before he said anything.
     "My condition is not your concern." He said calmly; he couldn't want to talk to her. He adjusted himself so that he was sitting upright in his chair of the tour bus with proper posture and put on his professional expression.
     For a moment, Miya didn't say anything. She looked directly at Mukashi through her blue bangs, then opened her mouth and spoke clearly.
     "No, Mukashi."
     "What?" He exclaimed, not catching himself.
     "I-I said no." Miya mumbled, forcing herself to keep speaking despite the wave of discomfort that washed over her. "I-I don't think your condition is unimportant."
     Mukashi didn't know what to say.
     "You've been fidgeting all day today." She said, her lips moving confidently. "A-actually, you've been acting kind of odd for a few weeks now."
     Mukashi disagreed; in his opinion, she had been acting strange recently.
     "B-but mostly, it's what you've been doing today. You've been glancing at your phone a lot, and it's not like you to..." She made a fluttering motion with both of her hands. "Fidget. You're usually so composed, and it's like you never do anything you don't need to; but today I've seen you tapping your foot, and glancing at me and your phone, and a whole bunch of really small things that just don't seem like you." She rubbed her left arm with her right hand and looked away. "L-like I said, it's been going on for a little while, but today it's a lot more prominent."
     Mukashi sat in the tour bus and stared at Miya. 
     She started to blush. 
     "I-I'm... Was that too personal?" She said quickly. "I was just w-worried. You seem different, is all." She waved her hands at him and smiled slightly as she spoke.
     The amber cabinet rattled. 
     He desperately wanted to say no. 
     The black cabinet shook.
     He could not say what he wanted to.
     "Yes." He said politely.
     Miya sat in the tour bus and heard Mukashi's reply, then nodded.
     "I-I understand." She bowed her head. "S-still, if something is wrong, you should talk to someone about it."
     Mukashi heard Miya, and he began looking through his cabinets for people he could talk to that would care about what he had to say.
     Not his family. 
     Not his coworkers.
     Not anyone in the universe.
     "I appreciate the advice, Miya." He said as he stood up and glanced at his phone. "It is time for you to head into the venue."
     As soon as he finished saying that, the tour bus came to a stop. He steadied himself effortlessly as it jostled slightly, and Miya smiled at him. 
     He watched her long blue hair flow gracefully behind her as she stepped off the tour bus and towards the venue; the small part of her legs that could be seen despite her somewhat long skirt; her slender shoulders that led to her trained and dexterous arms. 
     He watched her worthlessly with his phone through the security cameras housed within the venue. Through glass, glamour, thoughts and gazes, he could watch her. 
     He could do nothing more.
~~~
     "Is that all you wanna tell her today?" Gene asked politely as he finished typing the last few notes into his cellphone. 
     "Yes." Annabelle said solemnly. 
     "Alright then." 
     The two of them stepped out of her bedroom and went to sit down at the dining table. The Southwell family enjoyed a dinner consisting of store bought lasagna, leftover gravy from that morning's meal, and a salad that had been made with maximum effort from Mrs. Southwell. 
     By the time Gene stepped out of the house, it was already nine in the evening. He hopped into his truck and made the drive back to his house as quickly as he could, though he remembered to slow down at the speed trap that had been in the same spot ever since he was a child.
     He stepped out of his truck and onto his driveway, then glanced at his mailbox. 
     A shiver of anticipation went through him.
     He briefly wondered if Miya had written back to him. He had a handful of time to try and read her writings, if any appeared.
     He opened the mailbox and smiled when he saw that there was just one envelope in it. 
     He went through his regular evening routine, then laid down on his bed and opened the envelope with a faint smile.
     "Gene, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. I don't think you're as selfish as you make yourself out to be."
     He rolled over onto his other side.
     "And like I said, you have the chance to make up for lost time now. Don't waste it worrying about the past or what you could have done better."
     "From this woman?" He mumbled, then thought better of his own words and shook his head.
     "Just don't beat yourself up about that sort of thing too much, okay? I don't want you to go through what I went through."
     That was the end of the letter, and Gene furrowed his brow. He set the letter down onto the floor of his bedroom and turned off the bedside lamp, then looked up at his ceiling, lost in thought. 
     "'What I went through.'" He muttered. "What a worthless manager." 
     He considered the idea that, had he been her manager, he would've given her the attention she deserved; or at least, he would've tried. He sighed deeply, realizing that it probably wouldn't be very hard to be a better manager than that 'Mukashi' Miya occasionally mentioned. If that man couldn't even notice that his client was on the verge of killing herself, what kind of manager was he? In Gene's opinion, he must have been a very bad manager.
     Gene sat up with his lips pressed together, then went and reached for his notepad and walked back into his kitchen and sat down to write another letter.