An Irrational Special Solution　

１　Picture on her body

At 2 a.m., a stifled laugh echoed in the quiet old studio at Tokyo. Holding a white pillow stained with paint that could hardly be described as red, blue, or black, Natsuko desperately held back a laugh. "Uh-huh, ha-ha-ha." "No, don't laugh." Natsuko's friend Emma deliberately frowned as she paints Natsuko's back with a brush. Even though the two are friends, they have little in common. Natsuko, a 27-year-old who grew up in the countryside and has nothing to do with anything, while Emma, a 40-year-old painter who grew up in the city, is a painter. Emma's mother is French and returned to France more than 10 years ago. Her father is Japan and she hasn't seen him since she was a child, but Emma's house belongs to him. In the house with an atelier on the second floor, Emma lived alone all the time. "I'm sorry, but my lower back is so ticklish." Natsuko said in agony. But it doesn't matter, Emma's brush strokes all over the right half of Natsuko's back. "Hold on for a while."
"Ugh, yes. "
Larger and larger peonies open up on Natsuko's back. "Don't move because it will wrinkle the picture." "OK,OK." By the time she had finished drawing the flowers and leaves and was working on the large jar with the peonies in it, Natsuko's itching had subsided.

"Natsuko, you can just close your eyes and sleep."
Emma put down her brush and said as she placed the blue, purple and yellow paints on the palette. "Yes, you can take a picture of my body, but…." Natsuko lay face down on the floor, burying her face in a pillow before saying. "I know, I'm going to make sure my face isn't shown." Emma said and started painting again. Natsuko felt Emma's warm sigh around her thighs, imagining Emma's beautiful and thoughtful gaze. "Yes." Natsuko smiled in her pillow for a moment. "But why doesn't Natsuko take pictures of herself?" Emma began to draw a vermilion line along the bulge of Natsuko's hips. Natsuko tried to think of how to answer Emma's question, but she couldn't resist the sudden attack of sleep. During that silence, Emma continued to paint. When the vermilion part of the jar had settled, Emma placed her hand around Natsuko's left waist to see if Natsuko had slept. Natsuko, who woke up suddenly, began to answer the previous question.

"I don't want to see my picture. For some reason, I can't help but feel embarrassed. I think it's about time to renew my driver's license. That's the only time I want to take pictures of myself."

Natsuko's voice becomes thinner. "I really don't want my body to be photographed, but I like your works and you would be happy with it." "Yes, thank you." Emma kissed Natsuko's head, and Natsuko immediately fell silent again. Emma began to draw in an indigo-like blue line along the vermilion line of Natsuko's waist.

Emma and Natsuko met more than half a year ago in the middle of the night one day near Christmas. Emma was walking down the back alley of Ginza, a downtown area with art galleries toward the taxi stand after dinner with her favorite customer. Then, a sick-looking girl was crouching down. The girl wore a white dress and a gray coat with fur, and when I called out to her, she only said "It's okay" with her hands, and she didn't seem to be able to speak. Emma offered to take her to the hospital, but she waved her hand. In the meantime, she fell asleep leaning against the building. For a while, Emma sat next to the sleeping girl and tried to wake her up and talk to her, but there was no response. The girl fell asleep deeply. So Emma had no choice but to take the girl home. Emma's house was an old house in the residential area of ​​Setagaya Ward, Tokyo. It takes about 20 minutes on foot from the nearest station, but it was a very quiet old residential area. Normally, Emma would never take a stranger home, even if she was a girl. However, as I looked at the profile of the sleeping girl, I had the urge to draw a picture on her face. Countless bubbles and fish, the sea, the moon, the waves, and various pictures floated on the girl's cheeks and forehead, disappeared, and then passed. That girl was Natsuko. Natsuko didn't seem to remember much about this time. All Natsuko could remember was a glimpse of the slightly anxious look of the child in the painting, which I could see from the bent mouth of the big bag that Emma was carrying.

Emma put down her brush and looked at Natsuko's back for a moment. It was bright outside the window. After drawing a few thin lines, Emma took her camera out of an old wooden desk drawer in the corner of the studio and began to take pictures of Natsuko's nude paintings. I didn't tell Natsuko, but I also took a few photos of her profile. Even so, the picture on the human body is very strange. The breath of a human being becomes the breath of the painting, bringing about a mysterious harmony that has been so since the beginning, and sometimes bringing an unexpected sense of dynamism to the painting. Emma placed the camera near the pallet board and went down the stairs to pull out her phone from her bag in the living room. After climbing the stairs while checking the contents of the few emails that had accumulated, I took a picture of the entire peony painting from Natsuko's shoulders to her waist. "Oh, it's already bright. I wonder what time it is."

Natsuko was woken up by the sound of Emma's cell phone shutter. "It's half-past five." 
 Emma replied as she tucked her phone into her clothes pocket. "Did you finish?" Natsuko looked at Emma. "Yes, why don't you take a look?" Looking at a happy Emma, Natsuko closed the door to the studio and stood with her back to the large mirror on the door. "Such a beautiful peony, it might be better to sit than stand." When he said this, he suddenly crouched down and bent and twisted his body while staring at the peony in the mirror. "Hey, it's interesting that if you arch your back a little, the petals in front of the peony shrink a little, and the other petals seem to be moving subtly, as if they've been caressed by the wind or something." Emma nodded and looked at Natsuko in the mirror with a smile on her face.

"Oh, it's almost 6 o'clock. I've got to get ready for the company." I saw three fives lined up on the digital clock on my desk. "Oh, bath, wait a minute." Emma went downstairs and opened the bathtub faucet. Emma also remembered the first day she brought Natsuko home. On the day I brought home Natsuko, who was sick, Natsuko suddenly woke up around 5:55. She persistently questioned Emma where she was, who had brought here, and what had become of her. Natsuko was terribly upset. Remembering how upset Natsuko was, Emma almost burst out a little. "I'm ready to take a bath."
The bathroom door was slightly open, and I could hear the creaking of baskets and the opening and closing of shelves from the dressing room, along with the sound of Emma's voice echoing in the smoke of the hot water. Natsuko replied as she opened the door of her studio, looking regretful at the painting on her body. "Thank you."

The first thing Emma drew for Natsuko was a soap bubble distorted into various shapes. Painted not on the body, but on the right half of the face. Emma wanted to take a picture of her profile with soap bubbles, but Natsuko refused to take a picture of her face, so she ended up painting her back from the neck down, especially from her shoulders to her waist.

"It's a shame, I'm going to drop this picture too." Natsuko put the shower on the picture fearfully. Little by little, the painting faded, and murky gray water flowed along the blue tiles of the bathroom with streaks of blue and red. Natsuko, who had not yet woken up and was watching the flow of water, began to wash her back with a sponge. "What are we going to do next time?"
From the sponge Emma held dripping a grayish-brown bubble of various colors that flowed down her arms and down her sides to her feet. "After all, it looks interesting to be able to make movements."
Natsuko replied, remembering the picture of Peony flower that had been drawn on her side earlier. "Yes." Emma moved her hands to watch the unevenness and muscle movement around Natsuko's shoulder blades. "Well, what about giraffes and other long, slender creatures?"
"Well, I think I'll make it monochrome this time." 
 "Monochrome? Or a long-legged black spider." Natsuko only turned her head and said. 
 "Spider, that's good. Let's draw it very horrifyingly." Emma smiled fearlessly and put her hands up like ghosts. When I finished drawing it and it started moving, it turned into a spider that moved so cute that I wanted to keep it. Hahaha." Emma began to run the bubbles in the shower, starting with the tip of Natsuko's head and downwards. Natsuko leaned against Emma sitting next to her in the bathtub. "Emma, thank you for washing." "Yes, Natsuko, your skin is getting better." Emma hugged Natsuko's head. "It's all thanks to Emma." Natsuko wanted to take a break from work. I wanted to sleep in Emma's arms a little longer.

Natsuko finished dressing and dried her hair and looked into the living room where Emma was. Emma was drinking tea on the couch with a black cat on her lap. On the table in the living room, bread and soup with fried eggs were prepared, and a heaping plate of strawberries was prepared. There were five 1,000-yen bills on the side, spread out so that the number could be checked. Emma smiled and nodded slightly. Natsuko thanked him and stuck a fork into the large strawberry at the top of the cup. "Emma, how about the painting?" "What do you mean?" Emma said as she stroked the cat. "I mean, Mr./Ms. do business with customers..." Natsuko floated the strawberries stuck in her fork in front of her, trying to find the right words. Emma replied with a wry smile to Natsuko, who was stunned. "Is the painting selling?" "Well, that's what I mean." Natsuko nodded and replied with her mouth full of strawberries. "It's okay, I sold it the other day." He replied, looking at Natsuko's muffled and swollen face with amusement. "Yes, that would have been good." Natsuko glanced at the hands of the pendulum clock in the living room and replied, still muffling her mouth. Emma doesn't have to worry about rent right now. "now" she said, because he hadn't seen his father, who owns the house, for more than 30 years, and he didn't know how long he would be able to live in it. Once, when she drew a purple and white clematis flower on Natsuko's back, Emma muttered, "It's hard to eat just by painting." "If you need to, live in my room," Natsuko said, and Emma smiled. At that time, Emma's expression, half happy and half lonely, remained strangely in the corner of Natsuko's mind ever since that day. Every time I remembered that face, I felt like Emma had somewhere she wanted to go. "You know, I also have a part-time job on days when Natsuko don’t come, so I'm okay with the money." "Is that so, a part-time job is a painting teacher?" Natsuko replied with a smug look. "No, no, it's a job to send a message." "Hey, office work?" "Well, that's about it." "So, would it have been annoying if I called you during your lunch break?" "No, I work from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m." "It's rare to have an office job at that time." "Well, that's okay. Don't worry. Because it's a labor contract." Emma hugged the cat and smiled. "Oh, yes. Thank you very much." "You're welcome. Thank you too." Natsuko put the bill away in her bag and quickly slung the straps of the bag over her shoulders.

She waved to Emma, and when she closed the front door, it was drizzling, but Natsuko didn't care and walked out. As soon as Natsuko left Emma's house, there was a long uphill climb. As she walked uphill, Natsuko remembered the morning she first came to Emma's house. Emma tried many times to persuade Natsuko to go to the hospital, but Natsuko did not listen to her persuasion, saying, "I will never go because it will be troublesome if I am hospitalized." Emma said. "Natsuko, I'd like to ask you for a part-time job. You can decide the hours." At that time, Natsuko didn't understand why a stranger she had just met a few hours ago had to be worry about her body. However, Emma's seriousness pushed Natsuko to take on the part-time job based on her intuition without checking the details of the work.

When Natsuko got off at Shibuya Station to change trains, she took out a black cardigan from her bag as she walked, put it on, and went into the station toilet. Slipping through the long line at the bathroom, she stood in front of the mirror, put on black-rimmed glasses, and shoved her company employee ID card into the pocket of her black slacks. After checking the workmanship of Natsuko, a sober office worker, again in the mirror, Natsuko slipped into a crowded train that seemed to burst.えたい夢