"That will be 400 yen. Hehe—today, the other lunch boxes sold out quickly, so this is the only one left."
With only the least popular lunch box at the convenience store—the one with the lowest sales—left on the shelf.
The girl gave the bespectacled regular customer her usual friendly smile and said,
"Ah, no. It’s fine. Anything... I eat anything, really. Haha."
Even as he wondered why she was being so warm and familiar with him—
he also couldn’t understand why a single gentle word from her didn’t feel burdensome or unpleasant at all.
Kaoru deliberately ignored the strange, ticklish feeling in his chest and took out his wallet.
"Huh? You brought your wallet again today?"
"...Yes."
At Kaoru’s awkward, embarrassed smile, the girl looked back at him with pretty eyes full of mischief, as if answering him with a playful grin.
A small change in everyday life, brought by the bespectacled customer who had become a "regular" after a tiny accident mixed with coincidence a few days ago.
The girl, delicately expressing with her signature emotional acting the delight brought by "newness," accepted the money he handed over and said,
"Thank you! Please enjoy it."
"......"
Kaoru fiddled with the lunch box case for a moment and looked at the girl’s smile.
The blue eyes behind her glasses overcame a brief hesitation and shone with a little more "honesty."
Kaoru paused mid-step as he turned away, then gently turned his head and said in a small voice,
"...Yes."
Because the pleasure brought by "newness" was not only hers.
Kaoru, who had not erased the faint smile from his face, and—
the girl, who toward him, more memorable than other customers and lingering longer in her gaze, unknowingly gifted him "waiting" once again.
"Cut. Okay. Good."
Director Gotanda stood up from his chair and called the cut.
At the wonderful performance, with the married couple’s chemistry matching so naturally, Director Gotanda could only nod.
When the director called cut, Ai and Kaoru seemed to feel satisfied as well, and called out at the same time.
"Thank you~★"
"Good work."
The staff once again moved busily to prepare for the next scene.
The makeup team also came in pairs to each of the Kaoru-Ai couple to check and touch up their makeup.
"...This isn’t bad, is it?"
After the Kaoru-Ai couple’s first-ever NG, Director Gotanda’s worries, thankfully, did not drag on for long.
Both Ai and Kaoru stumbled a little, but they quickly found their pace and were able to continue acting.
The filming progress Director Gotanda had expected went along without any major issues, and the time it took was not as long as he had feared.
Of course... that didn’t mean the process was smooth.
"...Uu! Uu! Kaoru! N-no, wait. You can’t hug me! We’re still filming... hihing."
"......Right. Ha... haha."
Because of the aftereffects of whispering sweet nothings to each other until 2 a.m.—
to cool down the lingering heat that had not faded even by the start of filming, the Kaoru-Ai couple had decided to completely stop all physical contact on set.
Ai, in her own way, was puffing out her cheeks and straining to reject Kaoru’s broad embrace.
Kaoru, in his own way, was straining to keep himself from touching Ai’s soft, chewy cheeks or her glossy, silky purple hair.
At least on set... that was the emergency agreement they had reached.
And if either of them broke it, the one who did would have to grant the other one wish—a childish punishment not even elementary school kids would come up with.
"......"
Director Gotanda honestly couldn’t tell whether he should be happy or let out a sigh.
Even as he scratched the bridge of his nose and ignored the cold twinge in his side, there was definitely also a part of him, as an "artist," that wanted to praise the deeper, richer [love] between that couple, which was even more intense than he had imagined.
Since they were somehow managing to finish filming safely... he also wanted to express infinite gratitude and respect(?) for the Kaoru-Ai couple’s passion for acting and their professionalism.
They still hadn’t reached the stage where they would fully become honest with each other and begin their hot, passionate love—but
that would be filmed "soon" anyway.
And then, they would really do it to their heart’s content.
Probably to the point that his own eyes would bleed tears the whole time he watched through the camera.
Director Gotanda stood beside the dejected Kaoru and said,
"Hang in there a little longer. Anyway, once you get off work and go home... well... tch. You’re going to do everything, aren’t you?"
"......"
As he spoke, he seemed to realize something was off himself, and his half-hearted consolation trailed off weakly...
Kaoru maintained his usual indifferent expression and answered with silence instead.
Just as Director Gotanda said... they were planning to do all the things they couldn’t finish on set once they got home.
After taking a sip of water handed to him by a staff member, Kaoru closed the bottle cap and said to Director Gotanda,
"The shoot with Kana and Ai... isn’t far off now, right?"
"Yeah. Aside from a few scenes, there isn’t much left."
Kaoru stared at Ai, who was chatting brightly with the makeup staff.
The day he came home after his first acting chemistry read with Kana. Ai had said, with her starry eyes sparkling brightly,
[Hey, Kaoru! What kind of girl is Kana-chan?]
At Ai’s question, curious about so many things regarding Kana, Kaoru didn’t know much either, but he explained as much as he could.
Her personality and individuality were the complete opposite of Akane’s, but when it came to [acting], her passion and talent were so [sincere] that even adult actors would be left speechless.
She had a self-paced personality, but her heart was kind, and as a wife, she seemed to really like the young, promising child actress who was one year younger than Ruby—
So probably. If it was the wife he knew, the wife who had the most emotional acting in the entire story.
After finishing his thoughts, Kaoru’s blue eyes, filled with the image of his wife, shifted toward Director Gotanda.
"I’ll check my schedule too and come by that day."
"Hm? Why?"
With his arms folded and his brow slightly furrowed from a stiff neck, Director Gotanda asked.
Kaoru shrugged and said with a faint curve at the corners of his mouth,
"...Because I want to remember it. It’s not exactly a common experience, is it?"
Honestly. What an unusual guy.
Director Gotanda let out a snort of laughter, rubbed at his tired eyes, and nodded.
"Do whatever you want. Anyway, if the lead actor is watching another actor’s performance, there’s no need to ask permission."
"Thank you."
"If you’re grateful, then get ready soon. We’ve got to roll on the next scene."
Watching Director Gotanda return coolly to his seat, Kaoru soon moved over to his wife, who was checking the script.
"Yeah, Kaoru! Hey... eh! You were just about to pat my head!"
"...No. I was going to fix your glasses."
They had reached a complete agreement to forbid all physical contact on set, but honestly, Kaoru’s hand had been itching, and his right hand had risen before he even realized it.
It was true that he wanted to pat her head. There was no way he could resist the urge to pat his serious wife when she was concentrating so cutely like that.
When his inner thoughts were exposed, he tried to brazenly cover it up, but Ai’s starry eyes had sharp enough powers of observation to see through it easily.
"Liar! I saw your fingers moving all octopus-like, ro-ro-ro~! Kaoru’s nose gets bigger when he lies."
At his wife’s sharp remark, which pointed out a habit he had forgotten himself, Kaoru gave an embarrassed cough.
Clicking his tongue, he adjusted his glasses while Ai stared at him.
"Pfft!"
And then she burst out laughing.
Because her husband’s cute little expression was just too adorable.
Even though she probably already had it all memorized in her head, she handed the script she had been holding in her right hand to Kaoru and said in an excited voice, like a rabbit in high spirits,
"Now I’m supposed to ask if I should pack a lunch for Kaoru~ and then Kaoru says, ‘Sure~!’"
"......"
"Heh-heh~★ Now all that’s left is for me to pack Kaoru’s lunch!"
"Ai."
"Mm?"
Ai looked up at her husband, her starry eyes sparkling.
Kaoru took a moment to look at the script Ai had handed him, at the traces of her hard work—underlines, notes, and stars marked beside his lines.
Her handwriting wasn’t very good. It was messy enough that no one except himself and the children would be able to read it easily, but the traces of her effort, of studying hard while doing her best, were all there.
Red. Black. Blue. The thin pen strokes and underlines were scattered across the pages in colorful patterns alongside the text.
"......"
If you break the promise first, you get one wish.
To be honest.
He wanted to break it as much as possible, but instead Kaoru pretended not to know, took his wife’s hand firmly, and handed the script back to her as he said,
"That’s cheating."
"Eh? What’s cheating?"
Ai tilted her head and asked again, not immediately understanding what her husband meant.
Then the blue eyes behind his glasses rippled like the sea, carrying their usual playfulness.
"Secret."
After that brief answer, Kaoru gently bit his lip and returned to his seat, letting go of his wife’s soft, warm little hand.
The star-bright eyes of Ai followed her husband’s retreating back with curiosity.
Without realizing it, she still hadn’t noticed that she had allowed her husband to hold her hand.
-
Two days after the noisy first joint shoot of the Kaoru-Ai couple was finished, on Saturday.
Director Gotanda called Kana and Ai, whose schedules had already been arranged in advance, and began a camera test for the final part of the past scene.
After Ai and Kana’s first script reading, there was still that remaining 1% he had aimed for, the part he had not yet fully reached from 99%.
Director Gotanda, who had kept that in mind from the very first shoot, had decided to somehow put it in order this time, and
through a camera test under the guise of rehearsal, he spent nearly two hours with the two actresses, trying to direct that missing 1% somehow.
"Mom. The person who’ll make Mom happy. There will definitely... definitely be someone. I’m really good at guessing these things."
It was clearly flawless acting.
The daughter, driving her emotions up to the limit so that her life’s light seemed ready to go out at any moment, was trying to comfort her beloved mother.
"No. No. No! No... Yui, even if that’s wrong, it’s fine. Please, stay by Mom’s side. Yui. Okay? Don’t leave Mom alone!"
The mother, unable to accept the reality that her beloved daughter—the only blood relative she had in this world, her one and only light—was dying, pleaded desperately.
The two of them acted without a flaw, and the emotional line being conveyed would surely reach beyond the camera and pull the viewer in completely.
In particular, Kana was delivering a dazzling performance that heightened immersion, one of the best among child actors her age.
Just like at the previous script reading, she still perfectly understood and interpreted the character, and with emotion behind it, she showed off a genius-level acting ability that drew everyone’s attention.
Director Gotanda was, to be honest, very satisfied.
And yet.
"Hm."
Swallowing a low murmur, Director Gotanda still had no idea how to direct Kana toward that one missing 1% that simply would not be filled.
It was the first time he had experienced something like this, rather than the obsessive, paranoid kind of anguish artists often go through.
Even though the image he had drawn when writing it was clearly being realized in reality, Director Gotanda still stroked his beard at the invisible thread he couldn’t quite grasp.
Again this time.
In the end, though still not fully satisfied, Director Gotanda chose to compromise with reality and gave heartfelt praise to Ai and Kana, who had delivered such passionate performances in front of the camera even if it wasn’t an official shoot.
"......"
But Kana knew.
On the day she first did the script reading with Ai.
Kana had discovered and not missed the traces of worry on Director Gotanda’s face with the sharp "eye of an actor" she had honed since childhood while growing up as a child actress.
And this time too.
Kana found the faint traces of worry on Director Gotanda’s face once again.
But Kana was an [actor], not a director, so she couldn’t know exactly what Director Gotanda was worrying about.
And she wasn’t in a position to ask carelessly either, since he was famous in the industry as a "master."
Above all!
"Kana-chan! Are you free at lunch? If it’s okay, I know a really good place!"
"Ah! R-really, th-thank you very much, but I, um, I don’t think I need to...!"
As Kana, sweating nervously between her red hair and trying her best to be polite—
Ai, whose starry eyes were sparkling brilliantly, held up the index finger of her right hand and said with a bright smile,
"Heh—★ You don’t have to refuse!"
"...Y-yes!"
Because Kana was pouring all her mental energy into responding to the favor of this sky-high senior, this [legend] herself, who adored her so much!
Grateful, overwhelmed, and flustered, Kana did not forget to etch Director Gotanda’s worried face into a corner of her memory.
And then several more days passed, until the day before the long-awaited shoot.
"...Uuuh..."
In the middle of Stani-On’s building practice room.
Sitting quietly with her legs together.
Kana stared silently at the script spread out on the floor and let out a quiet breath.
Director Gotanda’s script, written through several sleepless days and nights. And herself, acting the character inside that script.
[Director Gotanda is... yeah! He’s a weird person, so maybe he’s worrying about things we can’t understand?]
The words Ai had said with a smile while listening to her worries over lunch came back to Kana’s mind.
The parts that "we," as [actors], can’t understand, and maybe... the key that even the director himself still hasn’t found to solve his own worries...?
"Ugh. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just need to work hard on what’s given to me."
She wasn’t a psychologist, she wasn’t a telepathic superpower user, and she didn’t have detective-level reasoning either.
She had once again realized why her [senior Ai] had brushed it off so casually and focused on eating sushi instead.
Director Gotanda’s eccentricity and odd behavior had already been experienced in childhood, and wasn’t he already famous in the industry for it?
In the first place, worrying about something like this would not help the filming at all.
[Actors] act, and [directors] direct.
That was the job [Arima Kana] was supposed to do!
Having sorted out her thoughts like that, Kana closed the script volume, marked with fingerprints and notes here and there, and hurried to get ready to leave the practice room.
Kana had steeled herself in the practice room for the final shoot, which was so nerve-racking and trembling that she would have to pour in the most concentration and emotion.
She had already finished all the preparations for filming as [Aizawa Yui] long ago, including the lines and the emotional acting she would need to immerse herself in.
"Haa."
But since this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, she kept wanting to make it a perfect success without the slightest flaw, and that kept bringing Director Gotanda’s worried face back to mind.
She kept getting anxious, and even when she tried her best to work hard and work hard again so that her own mistakes wouldn’t become a burden, the swamp of distracting thoughts kept crashing into her heart and refusing to let go of her calm.
"This is absolutely not professional. Act professional!"
With her schoolbag on her shoulder and the script volume held carefully in her hand, Kana let out a long sigh full of worry and moved toward the practice room door.
It was getting to be evening, so she was hungry too, and she couldn’t neglect her studies either, so she needed to go home and review her other subjects as well.
Clack—
"Eh?"
But then the door suddenly opened from outside.
Kana widened her eyes and tilted her head, looking at the door that had opened out of nowhere.
Wondering if there were other agency actors coming to the practice room at this hour, Kana fixed her gaze on the person entering through the door.
And soon, Kana’s red eyes filled to the brim with surprise and awkwardness and began to shake.
"...Eh!?"
"......Ah."
The face, the brilliant blond hair, and the blue eyes that looked just like the [actor] she admired and longed for most.
The unique gaze inside them, indifferent yet warm.
At the encounter with the completely unexpected person who had thrown open the practice room door—
in that instant, Kana froze right there on the spot.
Without realizing it, and thankfully not noticing that, unlike her frozen body, both her cheeks had flushed red like the evening glow.
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