Prelude 2: Japanese Apricot 2

Strings of emotions' ivies warp around my heart, squeezing out joy's petals. Vivacity peels off my skin and sets me into wounds of contemplation. Is this how one should experience a break up?1

My sheer emotions curl back into a capsule of protection from your leashes of jealousy here and there. Sweet romanticism has long passed between us, but I am still haunted by your chained ego. I am a monochrome in our encounters - a complex child of both anxiety and fantasy, longing to have her emotions understood in society's practical realm.2

6 months..3

It was the last kiss. Kiss - a physical exchange of lips. No feelings, or too many feelings. You no longer hold my waist, or talk to me in the cheery rhetoric of daily trivia. Our game of wordplay transformed into a continuous complaint of life's pressures. The virus of stress slowly sips into your heart as all nighters rip your love. And I was your opposite, my frustration fuels into fires of temper like modern art's fiery stripes.4

"I don't have any feelings for you now. It's over."5

The violins string. I collapsed, as flashbacks of memories exploded into my irrationality. Why say so when we have accumulated precious baskets of love? The tango in the rain, the kisses in the fog, the footprints on beaches? Why roll a roller of cruelty over my heart when you were just celebrating our anniversary yesterday? The violins string its own melodrama as their quickening tempos explode my sparks of sadness and burst into a dynamic stretto climax like a misunderstood monochrome. Like Serra's Tilted Arc - demolished, frustrated.6

Tears soaked up as the concerto continues - your last kiss is a virus, injecting impurity of sadness into my euphoric perfume of love.7

*8

I became obsessed. Chiho Aoshima and her LeSportac-esque figures of complexity: the tied-up girl in "Japanese Apricot 2" and her dreamy surroundings; the lively figures in "City Lights" - so free and tactile, yet so grounded in windows and city roads. Or Takashi Murakami's "Reverse double helix?" So alien and yet so loving?9

I continued to stare in the auction house's warehouses. Maybe they mean something?10

*11

(Flashes back to present)12

I sipped a spoonful of beef ramen with a client. Ramen has this wholeness of taste - noodles so firm you don't feel like breaking a fragile delicacy, but stem in soft aromas of miso broth.13

"Ms.Suzuka, how do you feel about your auction today?" Mr. Signore asked, he is the Director of National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. Tonight's auction is no small matter - it is a collection of works donated by artists in KaiKai KiKi Collective for a Charity. Aoshima's figures flexibility bounded into the canvas of cities, Muramaki's foreign figures of tradition and innovation...14

"I am thinking more on Aoshima and Muramaki - they are the epitome of cute, yet often bounded into the realm of misunderstanding, be it the contrasting canvas of traditional landscapes, or their own fluidity. They are kind of like us - constantly striving to breathe and break from the hectic city life. I am thinking maybe a 50m achieved total?"15

"Yuzumi, I am thinking about the same thing. Just release your emotions on the auction stage. The stage is yours, and it's always your passion that sets the buyers. This is a lot of pressure but I know you can make it.16

"Thank you ..senpai."17

National Museum of Modern Art Lobby,Tokyo:18

"Lot no. 35, Japanese Apricot 2 by Chiho Aoshima, starting price $50,000 yen"19

"50,000; 60,000 yen; 70,0000; 80,000; 100,000 thank you bidder no.17; 150,000 would anyone place a higher bid?; 200,000 thank you Oliver; 250,000; this is a fair warning, Ladies and Gentlemen..20

500,000 thank you bidder no. 25, 600,000; 700,000; 800,000, 900,000, 100,000,0 from bidder no. 50 - selling once, twice. Final sale for 1,000,000,0 yen!"21

I saw your face - smilling, the demeanor retains. My lips curled into smile - it is just a natural parting. Or perhaps, maybe Aoshima's record sale told me that even a girl tied on a plum tree can have two sides, perhaps she is bounded to traditions, but perhaps she is trying to blend it with the modernism background with her own neo-traditionalism. The violin strings again - but they are melodies of dynamic progression, just like the quickness and excitement of the auction.22

"Ms. Suzuka, you achieved the record of one billion yen in 2 hours? Any tips of budding auctioneers?"23

"I am going to quote Mr. Signore - just let your passion flow. Or perhaps, it is the uniqueness of Aoshima and Murakami's contemporary works?"24

Tomorrow, I am going back to my anti-climax in my Modern Art Senior Specialist position as I send off countless thank you letters. No hard feelings anymore - I am a monochrome understood. Who knows? Maybe there is already a client holding a bidder number for me?