"You sound so good, Nick-san, I'm really impressed," Sumire said, hoisting her glass.

Nick smiled, unable to keep his pride from showing. He raised his glass in response. They clinked and said "Kampai," which was the Japanese equivalent of "Cheers!" and drained the very nice Riesling that Nick had opened when Sumire arrived earlier that evening.

"You are an amazing teacher," he said to her. "I mean it. The way you say the lines, so all I have to do is repeat them? And your diction is so clear, and you're so good at sounding like a man, which is so funny to say, but honestly, you know what I mean? You get the emotions just right, I feel it." He nodded in her direction. "I think I'm ready to start running the lines, like from the script." At her look he elaborated. "Like you read the other people's lines, and I read mine?"

"Oh, really? Like actually reading them?" She sounded interested. "You want to try?"

"Sure." Nick sat forward and poured them each another glass of Riesling. "How about one of the scenes between me and Minami? A really juicy one, like when they're fighting about her returning to Edo with him?"

Sumire nodded with enthusiasm. "Yeah, okay. Should I try to act? Or am I supposed to just sound like a--a machine?"

"Well, different people believe different things," Nick told her. "Some people think you should just read, no inflection, just straight, and I like that too, when I'm trying to memorize. But this is a little different, you know? I don't exactly understand what I'm saying, which is a first for me, so I think if you can emote, the context will help me. So if you think you can act your lines, go for it, okay?" He smiled encouragingly at her. The truth was that he was curious how Sumire would handle it. He'd never seen her really emotional about anything, except when she'd been angry with him a couple times, so this would be interesting.

"When I was little I used to fantasize about being an actress," Sumire confessed. "I mean, I guess most little girls did, right?" She gave Nick one of her small smiles. "This might be kind of fun."

So they began working the scene, and Nick was pleasantly surprised. Sumire seemed to already know the basics about projecting her voice, about elocution, about emoting just the right amount. She did have a tendency to talk too fast, even in Japanese, but that could be because he didn't speak the language, so it sounded too fast to him.

"Can we do one of the English scenes?" he requested. She still sounded fast, he believed.

"Okay, Mimi-chan, you need to slow down until you feel like you're going too slow," he advised. "When you feel like you're going too slow, you're probably just about right."

They re-did the scene, at a much slower pace, and when they were finished, Nick declared the speed to be perfect.

"You're kidding! It felt like I was crawling, like the whole thing dragged!" Sumire gasped. "It really wasn't too slow?"

Nick shook his head. "I promise, it was just right. So, now let's go back and do the Japanese scene again, and keep in mind the speed we just did, all right?"

Sumire nodded, and they redid the Japanese scene, only much more slowly.

"Wow, you're right, that felt like a scene from a movie!" she declared in surprise.

Nick smiled at her words. "And, if I may say, you're a natural. You should've believed in yourself and pursued your childhood dreams, young lady. You're good at this."

Sumire made a skeptical face. "Oh, please. There are millions of people trying to break into acting. That's not a competition I want to enter, believe me." She took a sip of her wine. "I love languages, I love linguistics. This is where I belong."

Nick shook his head at her and sat back, his script in his lap. "So in the next scene, after they've slept together, is it really such a big deal that no one can find out? Why is it, I mean?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it because she slept with a white man? Or is it because she's not a virgin anymore?"

"Well, it's kind of both, I suppose," Sumire responded slowly. "Imagine in Victorian era England. If the daughter of an aristocrat slept with a black man or an Asian man, it would be equally bad that he wasn't an Englishman and that she was a fallen woman, right? That she was sullied, so to speak?"

Nick shrugged. "I guess, but given what I've read, and what's going in the rest of the script, it seems like all the Japanese ladies really got around, you know?" He grinned. "I mean, there was a lot of coming and going amongst the highly born aristocratic ladies of the great houses of Japan is all I'm saying. Doesn't seem like it was such a big deal."

Sumire gave Nick what could only be called a Look.

"You're kind of talking in double standards, though, Nick. I mean, those ladies weren't having sex with each other, were they? For every busy lady, there was a busy man, wasn't there? What about them? Are you saying that it's not a big deal for a woman not to be a virgin?"

Nick blinked at the vituperative in her voice. He took another swallow of wine to give him some time to think.

"Calm down, calm down, Purple, no need to have a cow, I don't mean anything," was the gem he finally came up with. Nick wondered if he was a little drunk. Surely not, though, not from half a bottle of Riesling? "I think we're both just approaching the situation from different points of view, that's all." He held out a hand in a pacifying gesture.

"What does that mean?" Far from being pacified, Sumire seemed to be getting her hackles up. She finished the wine in her glass and crossed her arms.

"Uh, I'm just saying that, I'm a guy, you know, a sexually active guy, a guy who gets around, a guy who, uh--" Nick stopped, unsure how to continue.

How the fuck had the conversation spun off its axis to this weird place so fast?

Sumire just sat, waiting for him to continue. Her brown eyes were focused on his like lasers.

He gestured toward her.

"And you, well, you're an, um, well, you're a girl, you know, you're a shy girl, an--um--"

"A what? Nick? A what?"

Fuck it all.

"A virgin. Okay? You're a virgin," Nick finally said. "And there's nothing wrong with that, Mimi-chan, nothing, honest!" He leaned over, trying to put his hands on her arms, but she leaned away from him.

"What makes you think I'm a virgin?" she asked, her voice low, hollow, and scathing.

What?

Nick sat back, as shocked as he'd ever been in his life.

"Aren't you?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but no, I'm not."

Nick swallowed, the silence so huge he could hear his throat click.

"Oh." Nick picked up his empty glass and tried to drink from it, just for something to do, looking anywhere but at her. He swallowed nothing and set the glass down, looking down at his hands after. "Boy, do I feel stupid," he finally said, looking at Sumire. "In my defense, it wasn't just me, though, you know? All my friends, everyone who's been here when you've come around, everyone who's met you--"

He finally stopped talking when he saw the look on her face.

"You've talked about me, my sexual status, with your friends?" she asked, pulling her cardigan closer to her body. She bit her lips together and tucked her legs closer to her body. She took a deep breath and let it out, and Nick felt terrible when he heard the quaver on the end of it.

"Just for future reference," she said, her voice slow and deliberate, "just because a woman doesn't roll over with her legs in the air when she sees you? Doesn't mean she's a virgin, okay? Just because she doesn't act like it would be the high point of her day to put out for you and all your friends? Doesn't mean she's a virgin."

She shook her head. "So stupid. I was so stupid. I really thought that we could be friends, that we could just relate to each other as people, with none of the bullshit that usually comes as a prerequisite with people who look like you, who act like you. I should've known."

"Hey, wait a minute!" Nick interrupted. "We can! What do you mean, people who look like me? Now who's judging? I don't care whether you're a virgin or not, okay? I really don't! I made a mistake, that's all, and I'm sorry! And you're right, I shouldn't have talked about you behind your back! I don't even remember how it came up, but it wasn't a big thing, it only lasted for a minute, I swear, and it was only that once, and it will never happen again, okay?"

Sumire sat in silence for a moment, then rose. "I have to go. I'm not comfortable being here right now."

"No, please don't go!" Nick begged. "Every time we argue you leave, or you make me leave, and nothing gets resolved between us. We'll never get closer if you run away every time we fight."

Sumire turned to face Nick. "You want us to get closer?" she asked in disbelief. "Why?"

Nick bit his lip together and shrugged. "I like you," he finally said. "We really communicate, on a human level, without all the bullshit. I mean, I thought we did, until all this." He gestured toward the couch where they'd been sitting. "Please don't hold my stupidity against me, please. It's been so long since I've had a real friend. I mean, it might be that I've never had one, except my sister Darcie, you know? I suck at it. And I'm an asshole, we both know that."

He looked at her hopefully. "You must like me a little bit? When I'm not being a complete and utter prick?"

In spite of herself, Sumire gave him her little smile, along with a small nod.

"You're a nice person, Nick-san, and funny, and generous too," she told him. "Though you are frequently an utter prick, as you say." She let out another deep breath. "And I know that I can be very uptight, and too serious, and unable to take a joke. And I, too, may have never had a real friend, not even a sister, since I'm an only child," she admitted.

"So will you accept my apology? And agree to try to be friends?" Nick asked, taking a step toward her.

Sumire looked at him for a beat, and finally nodded.

"Yes, to both. And I'm sorry, too, okay?" she said.

"Okay," Nick said with relief.

And, though he knew better than to attempt to hug her, he did step closer and take her hand in his, putting his other hand on top of it and giving it a squeeze. They remained that way for a long moment before sitting once again on the couch.