By the time the harsh June sunlight had begun to tilt beyond the tall buildings, Kaoru and Sojiro had finished their conversation at the café in front of the broadcast station.
"You made the right choice. Thank you. We’ll be in touch soon about the audition schedule."
"Yes. Then I’ll be going now."
Kaoru bowed politely and turned away. Watching him leave, Sojiro reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigarette case.
"Pretty impressive for a twelve-year-old. Are kids these days all that mature?"
Sojiro rolled his stiff neck from side to side, put a cigarette between his lips, and replayed the businesslike conversation they had just had.
- I actually prefer a smaller role. I’m sure my parents will think it’s a good experience too.
Even though it was only a brief appearance in the second episode of a twelve-episode spy-action romance drama, with less than ten minutes of total screen time, the boy had been satisfied with the part and simply read through the twenty-page synopsis he had brought with him.
Sojiro had thought maybe he just preferred a role with as little exposure as possible for his first acting job, but unlike the cold attitude he had shown during their fateful(?) first meeting, the boy had taken a fairly proactive interest in the project.
- ...And apparently the Rararai Theater Troupe is recruiting more actors these days as well. Hikaru-kun has already secured the ace position at such a young age, so that says enough. I heard from the troupe manager that your younger brother Hikaru has quite the talent. But the theater manager was actually the one most surprised after hearing about you. Since your brother never mentioned having a twin older brother to the troupe staff, he ended up asking me about you instead. He even asked me whether I knew Hikaru-kun’s twin brother’s phone number, which left me at a loss.
- I see. So the Rararai Theater Troupe wanted to know about me too?
- Hmm? Ah, well. Something like that, yes...
Those eyes turning cold the moment his younger brother came up.
Sojiro exhaled a plume of smoke and stared at the fading sunset.
After so many years in this business, he had developed what people called a good eye for others.
The boy, Kamiki Kaoru, clearly had talent. He was a child with tremendous potential, with an explosive amount of promise.
That was exactly why Sojiro had approached him like a man possessed, shoving over a business card he didn’t even hand out often and making a fool of himself by clinging to a boy younger than his own son.
Of course, this line of work really was a miserable one. Fewer than five out of a hundred child actors ever managed to last long-term.
Kaoru was free to keep pursuing this path if he wanted, but he would need to be prepared for it.
"Hmm... My instincts are pretty good, though."
A twin brother who looked exactly like Kamiki Kaoru. Twins were said to inherit the same temperament and genes, but there seemed to be some invisible wall between the two brothers...
"Well, that’s not my problem. Oof, my head. Haa. I should get back. Damn it."
Before he knew it, Sojiro had almost gotten too invested in someone else’s messy family drama. He flicked his cigarette butt into a trash can and hurried back toward the broadcast station.
-
"Hoo."
After finishing his push-ups, Kaoru stood and let down the hair he had tied back.
Despite his somewhat androgynous features for a boy, his body was far firmer and better balanced than those of boys his age.
He lifted his right hand and roughly brushed his sweat-damp bangs back, then looked at the ten sheets of paper laid out on his desk.
As soon as he got home after his meeting with Producer Sojiro the day before yesterday, he had gone to the Rararai Theater Troupe website to check the actor recruitment guidelines, then searched the internet and printed out related materials to study.
It wasn’t a particularly large or famous troupe compared to other top-tier companies, but the general consensus was that they put on plays regularly, their reviews were good, and their pool of actors wasn’t bad at all for a mid-sized troupe.
That said, because its history was relatively short and it prioritized quality over quantity, the troupe had fewer actors than others, which meant the schedule was more demanding.
The actors in the troupe were expected not only to appear in plays, but also in all kinds of visual media such as TV and film, and under the current Rararai system that seemed somewhat difficult.
Still, joining the troupe would give him more opportunities to gain experience, and now that Sojiro had already let the troupe manager know about him and shown interest, there was no reason to hesitate.
"It’s not a hard choice."
Besides, for the first time, there was something he actually wanted to try. Right when he was struggling psychologically from realizing his reincarnation and dealing with those damn symptoms like memory overlap and the collapse of his sense of self.
And somewhere along the way, he had also started wanting to surpass Hikaru, who had always been his eternal benchmark.
That was Kaoru’s feeling too, a feeling he had had even before he realized he had lived before, but had pretended not to notice and forced himself to ignore.
Once he had decided to start, he wanted to give it a try.
"...Still, for a coincidence, this is pretty nasty. The role I’m getting is..."
Earlier, after receiving a call from the station, Kaoru had been sent the audition schedule and a portion of the drama script by email.
When he opened the message and checked the script, he couldn’t stop a dry laugh from escaping.
"A middle school killer role. Seriously?"
Kaoru let out another bitter smile and flopped down into his chair.
He had been told it was only a small role, so he had assumed he’d be playing some random son or background character, but it turned out to be a middle school killer chasing the female lead.
The irony of it all.
Thinking that he would have to act out, as an actor, something he had done many times in his past life made the feeling even more unpleasant.
Of course, it was a drama, and since the character was a middle schooler they couldn’t depict things too explicitly under broadcast standards. And from the director and writer’s perspective, that wasn’t the main point anyway.
Still, Kaoru felt bitter. Very bitter.
"I’m really looking forward to the audition."
He wiped his face with both hands and let out a deep sigh before turning to look at the email open on the monitor.
▶ Rararai Theater Troupe Open Recruitment Application Form (Kamiki Kaoru)
"...I should shower."
His eyes glinting faintly as if he had too much on his mind, Kaoru cut off his thoughts and headed for the bathroom.
-
Two days later, on Saturday, Kaoru had been sitting on a chair in the hallway since morning, waiting for the Fuji TV drama department audition.
"Yes, Kamiki Kaoru-kun? That’s you, right? Come on in."
Following the staff member’s guidance, he entered the office.
It was about the size of a normal office, but there were no partitions or desks. In the open space, men and women who looked like judges sat waiting, all of them focused on him.
At the center sat a familiar middle-aged man, Producer Matsushige Sojiro.
Whisper, whisper-
To his left sat a woman who seemed to be the writer, and to his right was an assistant director.
Kaoru quickly glanced over the judges’ temporary paper nameplates, then gave a short bow and introduced himself.
"Good to meet you. I’m Kamiki Kaoru."
"Yes. Nice to meet you."
Perhaps influenced by Producer Matsushige Sojiro’s enthusiasm, the writer and assistant director looked Kaoru over with considerable interest.
While meeting their eyes, Kaoru noticed a strange wooden board and some prop knives abandoned in one corner.
Had someone performed a strength act or a magic show here?
Noticing Kaoru’s gaze, Matsushige Sojiro let out a hearty laugh and said, "Ahaha! Don’t worry about that. They’re not props. During the last camera test, a child actor and his parents came in and said they’d practiced a ‘killer’s knife technique’ to match the role, so they showed it off... Don’t worry about it."
Kaoru was left speechless.
He had read stories while researching the audition about contestants pulling ridiculous stunts, like lying flat on the floor the moment they entered the room or splashing water on the judges.
To learn that those stories were actually real was shocking enough that he scratched his head in silence for a moment.
Was the entertainment industry full of people like this?
"All right, then. Could you start from Scene 143 in the script we sent you?"
"Yes."
Kaoru answered the writer’s request, took a quiet breath, and calmly looked ahead as he settled his emotions.
The only real acting he had ever done had been during his past life, when he used a disguised identity to make contact with targets or gather information as HUMINT.
He had read enough online to know he didn’t really understand any of the theory, so he decided to just throw himself into it first.
Kaoru refined his raw emotions, pulled up the lines he had memorized yesterday, and brought out the imaginary feeling he had pictured in his head.
"Don’t move."
Kaoru swiftly drew the BB gun he had prepared inside his jacket and aimed it forward.
The role he had been given was that of a killing machine raised by an assassination organization from the moment he had just learned to walk.
With not a speck of emotion to be found, the judges’ attention focused all at once on the boy whose emotional line had shifted in an instant.
Even to the non-experts watching, the calculated motion of drawing the gun, the way he held it, and his grip all looked smooth and natural, like someone who had truly been trained.
Kaoru shook his head slightly and, as if someone really were standing in front of him when no one was there, said with a sharp gaze, "Don’t despair yet. You have to wait until your beloved lover arrives. It’s not the climax yet, so don’t make it boring."
"..."
I don’t know whether the others felt the same, but the writer was especially satisfied by the chill that ran down her spine from Kaoru’s eye acting.
The emotionless, cold-blooded stare of someone who had actually shot or killed people was a strength that was hard to find even in adult actors who had already debuted, let alone in child actors his own age.
How much practice had he done to immerse himself in a line like this? A boy with a zero base, who had never taken classes or coaching, putting on this kind of performance on the spot after only a few days of preparation?
This was the realm of a genius.
"Cut! Okay! Okay! Okay! Very good. Uh, should we see another scene? Hm? More? Writer-nim, what do you think?"
Sojiro, thrilled that his eye for talent and his choice had not been wrong, grinned at the dazed assistant director and writer.
"H-how did you learn that posture for aiming a pistol? Were you a shooting athlete or something?"
Impressed by how natural and smooth his handling of the gun was, the assistant director pushed up his glasses and asked. Kaoru replied in an even voice, "I learned it from the internet."
"..."
As silence followed that unexpected answer, the writer brushed her bobbed hair behind her ear and, with a noticeably higher level of interest than before, said to Kaoru, "Yes. Um, that was better than I expected. Ah, could you maybe do a short take of Scene 185, the part where ‘Yuuki’ briefs the organization’s executives before tracking the female lead?"
Scene 185?
Kaoru automatically recalled the lines for that scene in his head, tucked the gun back into his jacket, and said to the judges, "I translated the lines into English. Is that all right?"
"Hm? English?"
"You mean you translated the lines into English?"
As the writer and Producer Matsushige Sojiro asked back in surprise, Kaoru gave a slight nod and said, "Yes. The executive Yuuki is reporting to isn’t Japanese, is he?"
"Ah... well..."
"At the actual shoot, the role will be cast with a domestic actor. The script says he’s a foreigner, but—"
The assistant director began explaining in place of the delayed Producer Matsushige Sojiro, but the writer waved him off and said to Kaoru with sparkling eyes, "No. Go ahead and try it. Let’s hear it."
"Yes, Kaoru-kun. Just do it the way you prepared. It’s fine. If anything, it means you studied the character carefully."
"Yes."
Kaoru closed his eyes for a moment and steadied his breathing.
Real operational briefings weren’t like the ones in video media, all heavy and solemn like some secret dark cult, but the character he had to play was a member of the worst killer organization imaginable.
And not just any member, but a teenage killer stripped of emotion.
Cruel and cold-blooded, yes, but eliminating human beings was the ‘mission’ assigned to Yuuki, so he absolutely could not deliver the briefing with a light attitude.
Work and personal feelings had to be kept strictly separate.
"The ammunition you’ve procured differs from the calibers employed by the Japanese police.
If you intend for the death to be classified as an accidental discharge, you should use .38-caliber."
"..."
"..."
For a moment, silence fell.
Then, as if breaking it, the writer hurriedly lifted the script in front of her and showed it to Kaoru, saying, "Did you translate this line into English yourself?"
Just as he had when answering the assistant director, Kaoru replied with a calm face, "Yes."
He didn’t mention that, thanks to his past-life memories, he could speak not only English but also Spanish, Russian, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese. What he had already shown was enough to shock the judges.
"...Ha."
Stunned by his unexpectedly fluent English, the writer and assistant director both stared at Kaoru without saying a word. Producer Matsushige Sojiro quietly nodded and wrapped things up quickly.
"...Hmm. Well, do we need to see anything else? Good work, Kaoru-kun. Okay, filming starts next Friday, and the staff will contact you soon about the test shoot schedule and the contract. Your personal contact information, and your mother’s? That was your mother’s number then, right? They’ll be in touch soon. You can go now."
"Thank you."
At Producer Matsushige Sojiro’s very satisfied dismissal, Kaoru bowed and left the office.
The time had been short, or long, depending on how one looked at it.
As he walked out of the office, his nerves still tingling from the tension and the thrill of a new challenge, a smile appeared on Kaoru’s lips.
"Ha."
It was the smile of excitement and intoxicating accomplishment, something he had never felt before.
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