A bundle of white paper is tossed into the brazier.
Noire: This isn't a bad spot.
She lounges in her wheelchair, watching the distant lake with a narrowed gaze.
The setting sun's light is refracted into countless golden streaks over its waves.
Noire: Looks like I'm late, Jun. It took longer than I expected to get from my wheelchair to the driver's seat.
Green 1982
Qi Xing: Looks like it took you a few months.
The voice drips with unveiled disgust. Noire closes her eyes in resignation.
Qi Xing: You don't seem so worse for wear.
Noire: ...
With Teresa gone, their mutual dislike had festered into something truly unpleasant.
Qi Xing walks between Noire and He Rijun's grave, placing the flowers carefully on her tombstone.
Noire: I'm not sure why I'm surprised you'd find a way to hate me after all this time.
Qi Xing looks back in anger, her eyes like arrows aimed at Noire.
Qi Xing: Surprised, really? Why would you be surprised? Didn't you get an inkling of it at her funeral? Oh, right, you weren't there.
Noire freezes up, an immovable object to Qi Xing's unrelenting force.
It would be wiser for them both if there was a change of topic.
Noire: You're the one who has been bringing these flowers.
Qi Xing: Yeah, what's it to you? You're never here. You don't deserve to be here.
Noire: And what about you?
She puts her on the back foot with that reply.
Qi Xing: I want to set things right. I messed up the ending of C07, and now I gotta live with it.
Qi Xing lowers herself until her head finds a crooked rest on the gravestone.
Qi Xing: Reunion of the Three Swallows. I should've told her sooner. I actually liked it.
Qi Xing: Now it's too late. Too damn late.
Noire guides her puppets to push the wheelchair forward, her hand patting softly on Qi Xing's shoulder.
Noire: It's not your fault. We already shielded her from so much of this. If Teresa had to face the expectations for C07 too. It would have only been worse for her.
Noire: I'm sure you have some idea about how far-fetched our investors can be with their profit margins.
The banal words find a deep purchase in her. Qi Xing clenches the grave until her knuckles are white.
Qi Xing: So is that the cost, then? Her life?!
Qi Xing at last realizes whose hand is on her shoulder.
She shoves the hand aside, standing up to distance herself from Noire.
Qi Xing: She wasn't meant to have an ending like this! Not her, and not C07!
Qi Xing: Do you think C07 would just bow out and walk away? Ever? Nah, that's just your own fairytale!
Her gaze falls to the photo stuck on the black gravestone, her fingers unconsciously tracing it.
Qi Xing: Jun opened my eyes to a whole new way of life. Without her, I'd just be another rat scurrying the alleyways of this godforsaken city.
Qi Xing: She didn't do one damn thing wrong. It was you and this company.
Qi Xing: I'm done with New Art!
Qi Xing turns and walks away, uninterested in Noire's response.
She moves swiftly along the narrow trail between the tombstones.
Noire: sigh
The weight of her thoughts drags her head down.
Noire: I should've come sooner.
Two months prior, near the set of Shadow Spy.
Noire: Tsk.
A sudden recollection makes Noire slam her fist into the steering wheel.
Noire: It's always "market viability" with them, isn't it? This is supposed to be the C07's most intense outburst in the film!
Noire: Emotions, it's always emotions.
Noire pulls off to the shoulder of the road. The busy street pulses with the sound of speeding cars behind her.
It's just a matter of time until a motorcycle patrol will pass by to slap her with a ticket.
Her nerves are fried from lack of sleep. She's been working herself to exhaustion, trying to fix the troubles plaguing Shadow Spy.
Noire: Where do I go from here, Teresa?
Noire: ...
Noire: Teresa ...
The moment she speaks her name, her death is that much more tangible, more real.
She was in the middle of a planning session when the news came in. She didn't stop then, she didn't let it hit her. She kept trying to outrun her grief.
But it hit her all the same.
While revising her protagonist's key scenes with the crew, Noire catches Lin jotting down the time for He Rijun's funeral.
Noire: What's the point? To say a few words in front of a cold stone. It won't bring her back. She won't hear any of our voices again.
Noire: Do you think the soul really exists? What do you think, Teresa? Are you out there, are you listening? Hello, Teresa?!
A long dreadful silence follows, and Noire's lips curl into a sickening smile.
Noire: Heh. What the hell am I doing?
Back in her car now, she fumbles her hand into her glove box, retrieving a painfully empty cigarette case.
The case flies out from the car window. A second passes, and she forces herself out to get it.
She twists the crinkled gold foil into a strip and slips it into her mouth.
The flimsy taste of tobacco only makes her more restless. She kicks her car door in frustration.
*clunk*
Noire: Hmm?
A script, from who knows how long ago, slides down from the back seat.
Shadow Spy—it's got the blockbuster appeal her investors wanted, a few innovative concepts to please herself, and even some big names for marquee—still Noire can't shake the feeling that the script isn't good enough.
She and Teresa used to read through new scripts on their own first, then meet to share their interpretations.
The only marks on this script are her own.
Teresa had already left the production before the latest script was printed, and now she was gone.
Noire: <speed=0.5>He ... Ri ... Jun ...
When they first met, Noire only knew that she was "Teresa," a girl with an elegant if slight figure and an appreciation for stories.
It was only when that graceful girl first spoke of Hong Kong that she realized they had a home in common.
Yet, though she knew she had another name, between them, it had always been Teresa. Just as she had always been Noire.
But "He Rijun" is etched on her tombstone. The name of her friend had died with her.
Noire: Could you help me out one more time, Jun?
Noire is overwhelmed by a sudden impulse, a drive that almost seems to defy all reason.
Noire: Like the old days, when we were in my studio, at my place.
The engine fires up, causing the car to rumble.
Noire: Head to Teresa's grave. Help me find the location. I'm sure Lin's probably marked it in my planner somewhere.
At her command, the puppets spring into motion, searching for the location and then proudly displaying their discovery.
Noire: That's it.
With a shift of gears and a push of the pedal, the engine growls forward.
Her vehicle cuts through the dust, vanishing into the distant darkness of the asphalt road ahead.
Noire: So there I am—too tired and too wired. Every light I saw was green to me, even the red one ... Then, bam.
A gentle gust of wind brushes past, flipping the white paper in the brazier over.
The other side of the white paper is filled with words, losing a battle slowly to the growing fire.
Noire: Well, finally, I'm here, Jun.
Noire: You were always the people-pleaser, bending over backwards to meet everyone's expectations, and then you'd stand in the background with that "don't mind me" smile on your face, making them all forget just how crucial you were.
Noire: You're gone, I get that, but how the hell am I supposed to let you go?
Blackened fragments of paper and gray ash intertwined with a ribbon of red below her.
Noire: Show me what I need to see, just one last time.
The heat lifts the sparks, sending them over the rich green and shimmering orange, until they vanish from view.
