Title: Indispensable
Fandom: Haru wo Daiteita (Embracing Love)
Fest: halfamoon 2009, day 2
Character: Shimizu
Words: 300
Rating: G



One of the things Shimizu enjoys the most about being the manager of a movie star is getting to visit foreign countries. It isn't the organized parties or the museum tours or the high-end boutiques that thrill her; she has access to all that on a regular basis in Tokyo. No, what entertains her is picking up on the minutiae of cultural differences, and deploying her accumulation of knowledge whenever she triple-checks with her counterparts on hotel amenities. For instance, American hotels are furnished with coffeemakers, whereas the ones in United Kingdom have hot water kettles instead; thus, the coffee in English suites is instant, and the tea brewed in American machines always has a whiff of java in its aroma. Only Japanese hotels and Scottish sleeper trains are stocked with toothbrushes, and the American notion of "trial size" toothpaste is hilariously huge compared to the tiny plastic bullets she's accustomed to finding in her home country -- but not nearly as goofy as the jumbo golfballs of chewable mouth freshener in English bathroom vending machines.

And that's another thing -- vending machines. Shimizu giggles inwardly whenever her American peers, attempting to make small talk, babble to her about how formal and dignified and reserved Japanese culture seems to them. She wants to point out to them that in Japan, there are vending machines on the side streets of small towns that sell beer, as well as hot noodles and red bean ice cream. It would seem as though she's complaining, though, and she's not, so she simply smiles graciously, which she's well aware makes her seem even more elegant, exotic, and aloof to the ever-younger interns and personal assistants of Iwaki's co-stars -- and that scares them, which delights her, because that's not a bad effect for a senior manager to have.