Filming continued into the afternoon.
The members of the Fukumoto family gathered together to carry out the event, and then [Fukumoto Hiroki] noticed that [Aizawa Honoka] had disappeared from the hotel.
Tormented by the fact that the reason she had ended up fleeing this place was because of him, he finally made the biggest decision of his life.
Ever since his father’s death, he had drifted through the days like a rowboat swept along by the current, unable to do anything but run away.
[Fukumoto Hiroki] burst out from the table where the family had been dining and ran to find [Aizawa Honoka].
With all his [sincerity], toward the person he loved.
The bird trapped in a cage gathers its courage and finally flies toward its destined bond.
"Huff! Huff! Huff!"
To film the scene where Kaoru sprinted at full speed on the road right in front of the hotel lobby, the camera truck carrying the staff moved busily at Director Gotanda’s direction.
Kaoru was so fast that, during the ‘run through’ take with no rehearsal, the camera truck almost got caught up to him, a rare sight indeed.
There were all kinds of incidents, including Director Gotanda sweating bullets as crowds of nearby citizens and fans swarmed in and made filming difficult, forcing him to quickly add manpower and control the set!
But the remaining scenes, such as the one where he ran toward [Aizawa Honoka], were scheduled for additional filming later after the schedule was rearranged, so they were able to wrap up safely and quickly.
"It’s already 7 p.m."
By now the sun was sinking low into evening, but the cue sheet was moving forward with incredible density and intensity.
After repeated rehearsals matching blocking and lines, Director Gotanda and the Kaoi couple quickly settled dinner with boxed lunches for the group.
The three of them moved into the final rehearsal and directing meeting with serious expressions on the stairs of the old mansion that served as [Aizawa Honoka]’s residence in the story.
All the set dressing on location had already been completed, and even the camera route and the actors’ movement paths had been perfectly coordinated before they began.
"All right, remember that if the long take gets one NG, we have to start all over from the beginning. Kaoru has done this with [Wolf Tail], and Ai, this is your first time, so you must be nervous, right?"
At Director Gotanda’s question, Ai nodded, her starlit eyes sparkling with anticipation and thrilling nerves.
"Yes! My heart’s pounding like crazy... but I’ve done lots of rehearsals, and I’m with Kaoru, so I’m confident!"
Director Gotanda waved away a flying insect in front of his face with the cue sheet he had rolled up, then smiled at Ai’s spirited answer and said,
"I’m telling you, this is the kind of experience you can’t buy with money. Let’s do it right."
"Just a moment, Director."
Kaoru, who had been watching Director Gotanda closely, carefully reached out with his right hand and caught the mosquito hovering over his head.
Director Gotanda and Ai both flinched at the remarkable feat of catching a tiny flying mosquito with nothing but dynamic vision and reflexes.
Ignoring their reactions, Kaoru casually opened his palm, crushed the mosquito, then flicked it off with his left hand and nodded.
"Let’s go. We’ll finish this before the kids go to sleep tonight, Ai."
"Mm-hm!"
The blue eyes and the starlit eyes shone brilliantly toward each other.
This was the starting point that led to their decision to appear in this drama, and the long-awaited filming of the ultimate, peak [highlight] scene!
Full of tension and excited nerves, Ai drew both hands to her chest and slowly regulated her breathing, settling her emotions.
Because [Matsukura Hiroki] and [Aizawa Honoka] would finally reveal their wounds and pain to each other without hiding anything, bringing the conflict to its peak in a series of highly emotional performances.
"If you just follow the rehearsal, there won’t be any problem at all. And..."
Director Gotanda, who had gone down the stairs, also began the final check with the cameraman holding the [steadycam], his gaze sharp and serious.
In particular, because this was not a standard fixed camera setup but one where the cameraman had to move while holding the camera and follow the actors’ blocking, the cameraman’s skill and experience were the most important factors.
Not only that, but the sound director had to carefully handle all audio processing except for the dialogue and the actors’ moving sounds, and the lighting director had to delicately adjust the brightness and position of the lights under the guise of streetlamp illumination in the dark evening, making this a high-difficulty shoot that demanded the abilities of veteran staff above all else.
"Hoo."
"......."
Gradually, a taut, invisible tension began to settle over the entire set.
Since the long take would begin with the scene in front of the mansion where Honoka lived, where Hiroki finally caught up to her after she had run out of the hotel on her own, Kaoru stood a little farther away than Ai’s starting point and waited for Director Gotanda’s cue.
Standing farther from the mansion, Director Gotanda checked the live feed on the special monitor transmitting the [steadycam] footage and swallowed dryly for a moment.
Tension and excitement. Right now, as a director and an artist, his heart was pounding!
At last, the dream stage he had only ever imagined would unfold before him.
Remembering that all over again, Director Gotanda’s black eyes flashed with a strange light.
Slowly, he brought the small radio to his lips and—
"Ready... action!"
He gave the cue.
The dozens of staff members standing behind Director Gotanda all began watching Kaoru and Ai’s performance at once.
The cameraman holding the [steadycam] walked backward while filming Ai’s front as she strode briskly in front of the mansion, and an assistant staff member supported his waist and back with his hands so he wouldn’t fall, matching his steps as they moved backward together.
Ai walked with her starlit eyes, which had lost their vitality like a deep, dark night, looking at the ground instead of ahead.
With a pitiful expression that looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, as if barely holding back her sobs, she moved forward in silence.
While Ai, fully immersed in [Aizawa Honoka], rummaged through the handbag she had brought with her to check whether the key was inside—
"Honoka! Honoka!"
the sound of footsteps in heels came from afar, and a familiar voice calling for Honoka reached her ears, but—
Click, click—
the footsteps moving forward showed no sign of stopping and only grew faster.
Matching that pace, the cameraman with the [steadycam] moved to Ai’s side, gradually drifting outward as he adjusted focus.
With quick, sharp awareness, Kaoru checked the camera’s route and naturally slowed his running speed, settling into the frame.
"Haa! Haa! Honoka! Honoka! Wait, just wait a second, let me talk to you for a moment. Haa! Haa!"
"......."
Kaoru, who had reached this place with all his strength, spoke in a cracked, parched voice filled with urgent, desperate pleading as he tried to catch up to Ai, who kept moving farther and farther away.
The cameraman moved smoothly forward again to capture Kaoru’s sweat-soaked face.
Like a veteran actor, Kaoru naturally handled his gaze without looking at the camera that had come toward him, and once again shouted his line.
"Honoka!"
"Please go back right now. I don’t want to hear it."
The moment Ai’s voice came out, as if she might scream at any second, biting down with all her might and speaking through clenched teeth—
the cameraman quickly moved behind Kaoru and filmed the two of them from behind, capturing the scene of them walking toward the mansion stairs.
From a distance, Director Gotanda also sharpened his focus with his usual intensity, frowning as he stared at the monitor as if he might swallow it whole.
[Good. They’re going deeper and deeper than in rehearsal.]
The [everyday scent] that had worried him at the very start of filming, the one that came from them being a real married couple, rapidly dispersed and vanished as filming progressed.
[Hoshino Ai] and [Kamiki Kaoru] succeeded in fully immersing themselves in the characters from the script, and even the staff, watching the two of them act, were briefly able to forget that they were a real married couple and feel the dense, vivid emotions of the performance.
And the two leads in this shot, even to Director Gotanda’s eyes, were so immersed that it felt as if they had sharpened their blades for this moment.
"I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner. Just, just for a moment—please!"
"I said I don’t want to hear it!"
Kaoru hurried up the stairs and grabbed Ai’s hand.
Ai shook off Kaoru’s touch and shouted with anger and contempt.
As if she had no more business with the man who had turned her into an adulteress, Ai glared at Kaoru’s bewildered gaze, then turned her body again and went up the stairs.
"......."
The [steadycam] turned to capture Ai as she went up the stairs, then immediately shifted to Kaoru’s face.
Sweat-soaked blond hair and beads of sweat running down his jaw. A face turned deathly pale and pupils trembling with anxiety.
In a life spent empty, having lost precious pieces of himself, thoroughly turning away from everything and running away.
At the despairing irony of losing once again the precious thing he had finally gained, paying the price for failing to summon courage again.
Beyond the black-rimmed glasses, anger and resentment toward himself roiled like a storm in those blue eyes.
At last, the rational judgment that had controlled the trauma and impulses piled up in his heart began to blur—
No.
The raw, unrefined emotion of frustration, that he absolutely could not let Honoka go like this, began to show slowly on Kaoru’s face.
Clang-clang—
Kaoru, with an expression so desperate it looked like he might burst into tears, stepped up the stairs again.
He found Ai at the end of the hallway, rummaging through her handbag for the key, and bit his lip tightly as he approached.
"It’s all my fault! I lied to Honoka... I was going to tell you, but if I told you... you would..."
"Just... go away. Why do you keep trying to make me... into a sinner?"
Ai, on the verge of tears, looked up at Kaoru and said,
"You heard my whole situation, didn’t you? You’re trying to make me into a mother who would be ashamed in front of her daughter, aren’t you?
It wasn’t enough to hide the fact that you were a married man... you didn’t even hide your feelings, telling me you liked me... and now you’re saying you were wrong? Why?
What, are you doing this because you’re afraid your wife will scold you—because you’ll get divorced and be branded as an adulterer?"
"No!"
At her rebuke, Kaoru stepped forward one pace and said through rough breaths.
Ai flinched and stepped back.
It wasn’t because he was tall and big and scary.
It was because he no longer looked like the always-confident, bright, considerate “Hiroki” who had understood her circumstances and tried to understand her...
the good person she had wanted to rely on.
"I was scared. That you... Honoka, that you... if you learned the truth... might not meet me anymore... I couldn’t tell you...."
"......."
"The time we spent together... the lunch boxes you made for me... they were too precious... I was afraid all of that would... disappear from my everyday life. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let this happen even after hearing about your situation, Honoka."
Her darkly sunken starlit eyes, hearing the confession of the coward he had become, began to flicker again with the vitality she had lost.
It was contradictory, and it didn’t even make sense rationally.
But she knew.
[Aizawa Honoka] had actually known.
From the moment she realized that he, [Fukumoto Hiroki], had thrown everything at the hotel behind him and run with all his strength to chase after her.
She already knew.
Just how far his [sincerity] really went.
And that that [sincerity]—and the short [memories] of daily life shared with him that were tied to it—were so dazzling and hot that they made even the resentment and betrayal [Aizawa Honoka] had felt lose their color.
But.
"......."
[Aizawa Honoka] was afraid to face it.
This was wrong.
The other person was already a married man, and she was now the mother of her one and only precious daughter, even if that daughter no longer existed in this world.
"Lies, lies...! And after all this... you’d just pretend you didn’t know again...."
This was...
This was......
Once again, [Aizawa Honoka] would only make the person she loved unhappy.
With her head hanging low, Ai adjusted the handbag on her shoulder again and turned her back on Kaoru, leaving the spot once more.
"Honoka!"
The cameraman with the [steadycam] passed Kaoru, followed Ai as she walked down the hallway again like she was fleeing and headed for the stairs, then quickly moved forward again and walked backward.
The footsteps echoing through the hallway grew louder and louder, and Kaoru, breathing hard as he tried to stop Ai, who was now leaving at a running pace, strode down the stairs in long steps.
"I pretended not to know for your sake, not for mine!"
"Don’t follow me. I’ll call the police."
Ai, having come down the stairs, turned back toward Kaoru and warned him in a cold voice.
But Kaoru was in no way in an easy position either.
Even after Ai’s warning, Kaoru instead grabbed her wrist as she tried to turn into the alley beside the mansion.
Like a horse racing with its eyes covered. Whether she called the police or not, all that filled his mind was the single-minded determination to tell her [sincerity] no matter what.
It drove him to bold actions he would never normally have dared.
"Let go of me!"
Ai, whose wrist had been seized, shook off his hand and lifted the handbag slung over her shoulder, hurling it at Kaoru.
"!"
However, the handbag flew not toward Kaoru’s chest but toward his face, and an accident occurred where the glasses he was wearing were knocked off along with it.
Ai, who had been turned away, only realized belatedly that the handbag she had thrown had not struck her husband’s chest as in rehearsal, but had hit his face instead.
Ai’s startled body froze for an instant.
Her helpless expression and the vivid shock and worry in her starlit eyes were all captured by the [steadycam]—but—
"I told you... even if it’s just for a moment... even if you take it as an excuse... give me, just for a little while, some of Honoka’s time...."
Instead, with the glasses knocked off, his tearful, sorrowful blue eyes were fully revealed.
Rubbing his right cheek where the handbag had hit him, Kaoru calmly gathered his breath and showed the quick wit to continue the scene with an ad-lib line.
"Ha."
And the corner of Director Gotanda’s mouth, watching that through the monitor in real time, curved upward into a smile.
The feeling of electric excitement slicing across the back of his neck like lightning made him clench his fist without realizing it.
[Aizawa Honoka]’s contradictory emotions became even more clearly visible thanks to the accident that had almost turned into an NG just now.
If things had gone as originally planned, Ai should have delivered the line, but instead the mishap turned into a blessing in disguise.
As the scriptwriter and director, if the flow of the scene does not strictly follow the script but this direction is judged to be better, there is no need to force a cut.
The torrent of emotion shown in a single glance, more than a hundred lines of dialogue, and [sincerity] itself are nothing less than a perfect “asymmetric force”!
[Ai. Show me. Kaoru has thrown the ball!]
And for her husband, who had shown such quick thinking.
Ai quickly calmed her rattled heart, clenched her teeth, and instead of the line she had originally been supposed to say, formed a fist with her small hand and struck Kaoru’s chest hard.
"No! No! No! Why should I listen to you? You make me into a bad woman like this, so why should I trust you again? You’re just trying to stop me by pretending to be sorry after lying to me anyway!"
"Honoka!"
"No matter how much you ask for forgiveness, nothing changes!!! It’s all the same! Losing things, being abandoned! Making me expect things on your own, saying you love me, saying you can’t live without me, and then lying—knowing you’ll just leave on your own anyway—! I hate it! Things like this, I can’t... anymore...!"
"Honoka-!!!"
Kaoru seized both of Ai’s wrists as she sobbed while striking his chest.
Not because the punches hurt, but because [Aizawa Honoka]’s wounded heart, which she had never shown before, was being conveyed so clearly.
At last, all the frustration [Matsukura Hiroki] had built up, and all the hidden feelings he had desperately concealed, resonated and burst outward toward her.
"Let go of meee! Huuuk—!"
While tears streamed down her starlit eyes, she struggled to shake off Kaoru’s hands, but the difference in strength and even in body size was so great that Ai could not break free.
"I’m the same!!!"
"!"
Kaoru’s shout, packed with emotion, rang through Ai’s head.
"I’m sick and tired of losing things and being abandoned!
I lost everything, my father killed himself after the company was taken away from him, I was forced to marry a woman I didn’t love because of the company and got treated like an idiot, and after living with nothing I met you!
Because you were the one who smiled without prejudice at trash like me, who couldn’t even cry at my friend’s funeral and ran away after he died...."
"...!"
The man’s face reflected in those tear-filled starlit eyes was twisted beyond recognition.
The precarious conviction of [Matsukura Hiroki].
Breathing hard, [Matsukura Hiroki] could no longer control his trembling body, shaking with excitement and fear, and poured out every word in his head.
"Even if I struggled to keep living, every time I took a step I was dragged into hell. I kept losing, over and over again. My friend, my father, my reason for living. I only ever lost everything precious to me.
But... a cowardly piece of trash with nothing to his name... when I finally gathered the courage to come toward you... I learned how happy it is to start each day thinking I want to see you.
It was the first time I learned how delicious the lunch box made by the woman I love could be, and the first time I learned how fun it was to go on walks together... talking about anything and not noticing time passing.
While sharing the pain of losing someone precious, I learned for the first time what it means to be someone another person can rely on, while being with you!
But! But— I was going to run away again. Because if I told you everything honestly like this, I was scared you’d hate me and leave like this! I couldn’t say anything, and I was a coward again......."
"......."
"If it isn’t Honoka, if I lose you too, then I...... can’t."
Kaoru delivered the long line in a single take with perfect immersion.
And in front of him, Ai’s starlit eyes shone even more brilliantly, making him believe [lie] as [truth].
The cameraman filming all of this felt both hands gripping the [steadycam] begin to tremble.
"...I’m sorry. I... never knew that someone as inadequate and pathetic as me could become such a precious person to Hiroki-san."
Ai’s quiet voice, unlike before, was filled with sadness and pitiful tenderness instead of anger and resentment.
"...!"
"But I made a promise. I told you before, too.
I want to live so that when I meet my precious daughter, who is no longer with me now, in heaven someday... I won’t be too ashamed to look her in the face....
Whether Hiroki-san loved his wife or didn’t love her... that doesn’t matter. What matters is... that you and I were never supposed to meet....
I’m truly sorry. But...... let’s stop now. Us......."
Looking up at him, then averting her eyes, Honoka spoke pitifully like a sinner confessing before a bride.
As if she had pushed every other cause and effect entirely into the background.
As if she were the kind of person who could only feel at ease if she herself became the sinner.
To Honoka, who murmured so forlornly, Kaoru loosened the two hands gripping her wrists, and at last [sincerity] filled with red [starlight] gathered in his blue eyes and glittered like a supernova.
[Matsukura Hiroki] removed the ring from the ring finger of his left hand right in front of Honoka, as if to show it off!
"W-What are you—"
"If the reason we must never meet is only because of something like this."
"!"
"A hollow relationship, guaranteed by a ring that is nothing more than a formality—"
To avoid losing the [precious existence] he had finally seized.
The man, who had made a vicious resolve to turn his back on the whole world for the sake of the person he loved, without hesitation and without looking back, had nothing left to fear or risk.
"I don’t care what happens. As long as I have you, Honoka, that’s enough."
At [Matsukura Hiroki]’s sudden action of forcefully ripping off and throwing away the wedding ring that had bound and tightened around him like a shackle—
[Aizawa Honoka], staring blankly at the sight, lifted her starlit eyes and looked straight at his face.
No matter how much she tried to hide her true feelings.
No matter how much she tried to block out the voice echoing in her head.
"!"
The self-reproach and guilt toward herself for becoming a woman who had an affair with a married man, unable to become a mother unashamed in front of the daughter who had gone on ahead, belonged to the realm of [ethics and morality], of [reason].
But between that and the [desire and love] that she could not hide, the part that was only rejoicing that [Matsukura Hiroki] had chosen her in the end, ready to throw everything away—her [instinct].
Ai’s delicate, finely detailed facial acting expressed the collision and conflict of countless emotions in that fleeting instant, the muscles at the corners of her eyes and mouth trembling with a strange atmosphere where joy and sorrow coexisted.
Director Gotanda, watching the monitor, swallowed dryly and let out a trembling breath.
The genius [pathos] of Ai, caught for an instant as it flashed past the camera, flew through the lens and seized the observer beyond the camera with fierce force.
It wasn’t only [Matsukura Hiroki] who had lived running away after losing something precious.
Just as people are ultimately drawn to those who resemble themselves.
[Aizawa Honoka] was also a lonely person who had lived after losing something precious and running away.
"...Liar."
As Honoka bit her lip and turned to flee again, trying to walk away quickly—
Thwack!
"!?"
This time, as if determined not to let her escape, Kaoru instantly seized Ai’s hand and shoved her against the wall.
Ai couldn’t even think of resisting against his size and strength.
The hard, rough texture of the wall against her back and the coldness it carried.
And then—
"!"
Kaoru’s hands, tightly gripping both of Ai’s wrists, pinned her arms flat against the wall.
He bent his knees slightly, lowered his head, and familiarly pressed his lips to hers.
"Hng!"
"Huuup—"
[Aizawa Honoka]’s eyes went round like a rabbit’s and trembled without stopping.
The fact that [Matsukura Hiroki] had kissed her—
The hot, desperate [sincerity] he felt on her lips was transmitted directly through them.
No matter how much she shook her trapped arms, twisted her upper body, and moved her legs around trying to break free.
"Hup—haa! Haa!"
"Hoo, hoo, hoo..."
Each other’s tears were equally salty and sweet.
That was proof that the pain and joy you and I carried were just that piercing, and just that sweet.
Kaoru, [Fukumoto Hiroki], with his heart pounding as if it would burst and his gaze wavering with sorrow, whispered softly to the woman he loved.
"It’s fine if you push me away. If you want to push me away, then push me away."
"......."
"I’ll come back as many times as you push me away. I’ll never lose you again."
"......."
His breath—his warm breath—touched her face.
As the distance between their noses grew closer and closer, and the heart that had tried to flee from [sincerity] converged back to zero.
Ai, [Aizawa Honoka], instead of answering, felt the stream of tears slipping down through her closed eyelids.
At last, she slowly bit his lips as if caressing them.
His two hands, still holding her wrists, wrapped around her head and back with affection.
And when her hand, which had struggled to escape, reached up to cup his hot cheek with longing—
"OK—!! Cut—!!!!!"
Instead of the radio, Director Gotanda’s electrifying cut call from afar thoroughly interrupted the married couple’s fully immersed time in the kiss scene.
At Director Gotanda’s cut call, Kaoru opened his eyes, stopped the kiss, straightened the knee he had bent, and was about to lift his head—
"Uuun—!"
Like a baby whining, Ai slowly opened the eyes she had closed, parted their joined lips, and whispered,
"I haven’t pushed you away yet, you know?"
"...A-Ai?"
Her eyes mixed embarrassment and sulkiness, and her heart was beating honestly because she wanted to kiss him more.
The blushing Ai gave a tiny, playful smile.
"I want to do a little more... ♥"
"......."
Kaoru’s blue eyes turned sideways to look at the cameraman holding the [steadycam].
Well, if it’s just for a moment....
They’ll edit it properly anyway.
Finishing that thought, Kaoru moved toward his wife’s lips again.
Bending the knee he had straightened once more, lowering the head he had lifted again.
As if it didn’t matter if this ended up as a behind-the-scenes cut scene not fit for minors.
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