"……."
Life never goes according to plan.
Contrary to Director Sojiro’s bold assurances, the shoot had dragged on, and Kaoru had tossed his jacket aside and sat down to look over the script.
He could tolerate the dress shirt not even buttoning properly because the buttonholes didn’t line up. He’d dealt with that during [Black Rose of the Mastermind], too.
But the school jacket was another story. Either they had used some weird, cheap fabric to save money on the generous production budget, or they had ordered it from a strange supplier, because the collar was rough and irritating against his neck.
He wasn’t the only one. The other actors in the waiting room were also rubbing at their collars and looking uncomfortable.
Kaoru decided to bring his own shirt from home and report the jacket issue to wardrobe, then checked the clock on the wall.
PM 18:12
Kaoru took out his flip phone and checked the messages he had exchanged with Ai before coming onto set.
- 【 A☆｜ PM 16:30 ｜ I’m at the station ☆ I’m so nervous- ! 】
Ai had wanted to put a heart next to the A, but Kaoru had refused just in case.
He had only barely calmed his wife down by compromising with a star, after she puffed out her cheeks like an angry rabbit and sulked.
He had absolutely no intention of admitting that the real reason was that, between his past and present lives, he was just shy of sixty and the idea of putting a heart in a text message was incredibly embarrassing.
- 【 PM 16:33 ｜ You’ll do great. I’m looking forward to it. I just got to the set too. I’d like to hear it, but I’m on set so it’ll be hard. Sorry. 】
- 【 A☆ ｜ PM 16:34 ｜ It’s okay! o((^▽^))o Do your best, Kaoru - ♡☆♡☆】
- 【 PM 16:37 ｜ Thanks. That gives me energy. I’ll check the time and come by after filming. Love you. 】
Ai had landed a coveted appearance on a mid-tier radio music program and was scheduled to appear with a few of the members. After Kaoru sent that message, she didn’t reply again.
Remembering that she still had a live stage performance after the radio show, Kaoru brushed his fingers over the corner of his mouth.
- Okay, cut.
Director Sojiro’s reluctant cut call came from outside the waiting room. The set immediately stirred in response.
Filming was moving along according to the prearranged cue sheet, but once they’d cast six rookie actors in lead roles, the actual shooting time was taking far longer than expected.
On top of that, they had to account for the time lost to NGs when actors stumbled over their lines, or when the director wasn’t satisfied with their expressions or eyes even after they got the dialogue right, forcing them to reshoot scenes over and over.
Thanks to that, Kaoru had been exiled to the waiting room for a full hour and twenty minutes just for four cutaway shots of the three leads making simple small talk.
He idly toyed with the script, which had started to fray from being opened so often, when—
"Kaoru! Get ready to go on standby!"
At last, a staff member called his name. Kaoru’s blue eyes flashed as he stood from his chair and straightened his school uniform.
When he headed to the student council room set, Director Sojiro, who had been speaking with the cinematographer in a very serious tone, spotted Kaoru and brightened visibly.
"Ah, Kaoru! That wait was pretty long, wasn’t it?"
"Not at all. I’m fine."
Director Sojiro laughed when he saw Kaoru’s usual indifferent gaze.
"Really? Hah. Then let’s go straight into shooting."
After a quick touch-up to his makeup and taking the fan handed to him by the prop team, Kaoru sat down in front of an absurdly oversized desk that looked like something you’d see in the office of a conglomerate chairman and calmly raised his emotions.
To Kaoru’s immediate side stood a line of extra actors playing members of the student council, and another extra playing his aide stood beside him.
The role he was playing, Kiriyama Ryota, was a third-year student council president: a strict, principles-first type with a cold charisma. That made this, his first scene, all the more demanding in terms of subtle emotional expression.
Kaoru fiddled with the fan, then closed his eyes and steadied his breathing.
"Okay! Scene number 38. We’re rolling! Ready, action!"
The moment the cue was given, a brilliant red starlight began to bloom faintly within his open blue eyes.
Director Sojiro, watching through the camera, swallowed dryly at the overwhelming charisma and aura pouring out from the actor before him.
In an instant, Kaoru shed his own identity and brought the fictional character on the page into perfect reality.
His gaze, the millimeter-perfect control of his facial expressions, his clean and precise diction as an actor, and the voice and delivery suited to the character. Every tiny gesture and movement was calculated with painstaking care and realized before the camera.
Even though he had taken a year off after retiring because of that disgraceful incident, Kaoru’s acting hadn’t rusted at all. If anything, it had been sharpened even further during that time.
Director Sojiro didn’t miss a single moment of the astonishing skill displayed by the boy who would soon turn seventeen, and he couldn’t hide the sharp smile that spread across his face.
Over the course of four years, the boy had grown even more and become a [monster]. He had become seasoned and fierce enough to seize control of the set in an instant.
"Hirano Taisuke. So you’re planning to cause trouble again. We’ve been handed a transfer student as prey, and you think I’ll just sit back and watch?"
At the sudden shift into a cold voice, the actor standing beside him glanced at Kaoru for cues and barely managed to pick up the line.
"Y-Yes, sir. We’re currently tracking the movements of the members."
Even though the extra stumbled over his line, Director Sojiro didn’t call for an NG.
Instead, it came across as a natural reaction that only heightened the student council president’s character, which made him very satisfied.
When Kaoru glanced toward the cinematographer, he could see that the man was so absorbed in the shoot, dazzled by the red starlight burning in those blue eyes, that he probably wouldn’t have noticed if someone had collapsed beside him.
"As the student council president, I will never stand by while this academy, this sacred place of learning, is made noisy and unruly.
For now, designate that transfer student as a person of interest and report her movements by the hour. The same goes for Hirano Taisuke.
Protecting the strict school rules from the reactionary forces trying to deny the very reason the student council exists, and guiding the students onto the right path.
That is the student council’s duty."
Swish!
He snapped the fan shut in one clean motion, his sharp gaze still fixed on the camera, and the student council extras standing around him all bowed their heads at once and called out, "Yes!"
"Okay! Cut!"
Director Sojiro clenched his fist and shouted the cut with a voice full of exhilaration.
Kaoru had delivered the long lines in his own rhythm without a single stumble, and he had taken the overly dramatic dialogue and played it so dryly it was almost stripped of all moisture.
He had pulled off the heavy scene, which felt as though the drama’s entire genre had changed, in a single take. Director Sojiro, with memories from four years ago flashing back through his mind, stood up from his chair and gave the boy a thumbs-up.
"As expected of you."
"Thank you."
Ignoring the director’s almost painfully glittering eyes, Kaoru moved to the next set and resumed filming.
He quickly finished the shots: walking down a long sunset-lit hallway with the student council in tow, and a scene of silently drinking tea, and so on.
Unlike before, the assigned filming wrapped up in no time, and the relieved staff watched him leave the set with sidelong glances.
"Thank you for your hard work, Director."
"Hard work? Please. We recovered a good chunk of the delay thanks to you. Good job."
Kaoru bowed politely to Director Sojiro, then took off his school jacket and draped it over his right arm.
He was heading toward wardrobe through the busy set, preparing for the next shoot, when—
Thud.
A passing man shoved hard into Kaoru’s shoulder.
There were plenty of staff members bustling around in preparation for filming, but the space wasn’t especially cramped, and more importantly, there was a fair amount of distance between Kaoru and the people nearby.
Intentional.
Kaoru’s eyes cooled instantly at the clearly deliberate bump. When he turned to see who had hit him, he found—
"……."
"What?"
Even though the other person had been the one to bump into him first, the man glared at Kaoru rudely, as if to say what was his problem.
He was a young man with a fierce, sharp-eyed face and a slightly shorter build. Judging by the fact that he was wearing the same style of school uniform costume, he didn’t seem to be a drama staff member, but one of the cast.
And since the quality of the uniform he wore looked better than the one Kaoru had on, Kaoru narrowed his eyes slightly.
[A lead actor.]
He was definitely one of the six leads. Kaoru hadn’t looked up the profiles of the six lead actors, and he had no idea which role each one played—or felt any need to know.
But now he did.
In less than a second, Kaoru memorized the lead actor’s face, build, gait, and voice, all of it.
Even after bumping shoulders with him, the man simply stood there staring down at him without any change in expression. Then, with a sneer, he pointed at Kaoru’s shoulder and said, "Watch where you’re going. It’s cramped enough as it is."
"……."
"Hey. Aren’t you going to apologize? You bumped into me."
"I’ll be more careful."
Kaoru looked down at the man with a cold, flat voice.
Of course there wasn’t a shred of sincerity in it, but the man seemed to have achieved what he wanted, because he gave a faint, oily smirk and walked away with a lazy nod.
The man brushed past Kaoru and headed toward the set. Kaoru watched his back for a moment, then smiled in a way that meant nothing and headed to wardrobe.
-
"……eh?"
When Miyako woke up, she stared blankly at the ceiling.
She was in a bed?
Slowly turning her head, she saw Ai through the slightly open door, apparently done with her schedule and playing with the twins...
"Kyaaaah?!"
"Wha-?!"
At Miyako’s scream, Ai, who had been playing with the twins, jolted and turned toward the bedroom.
Miyako rushed over and panted hard.
Those star-bright eyes still held a fierce edge, and Miyako hurriedly ran a hand through her disheveled hair before grabbing Ai’s hand and shouting, "Y-You’re really Ai, right? It’s Ai, isn’t it? Right?"
"Huh? Of course I’m Ai. Who else would I be? Miyako-chan, what’s wrong?"
"Uh—uh."
"Da-da-da-"
"Daaa-"
Miyako stared at the twins in a daze.
Ai tilted her head at Miyako’s ashen face and rubbed her cold hand, then said, "Hey, Miyako-chan, your hand’s cold. Are you sick? You look like you saw a ghost or something weird—"
"Was it a dream? Was it all a dream?"
"Eh?"
Ai’s face filled with confusion at Miyako’s increasingly bizarre words.
After finishing the radio broadcast successfully and then the live stage performance, Miyako had come with Kaoru to see the twins, only to collapse and fall asleep spread-eagled on the living room floor.
It had only been ten minutes since Kaoru, feeling sorry for her because she had looked so dead asleep, sighed deeply and carried her to bed.
After hearing the whole story, Miyako looked at the twins with trembling eyes.
"Daaa-"
"Da-"
The twins, who had clearly delivered a chilling warning to her as emissaries of God, were now playing innocently in Ai’s arms, knowing nothing at all.
Had it been a dream?
But if it was a dream...
It was still there. The bag she’d packed was still there, exactly where she’d left it.
Miyako wanted to tell someone about the symptoms she had experienced and discuss what to do about them.
She grabbed Ai’s hand as Ai shook a rattle to entertain the twins, and opened her mouth in a trembling voice.
"A-Ai. I had this... weird phenomenon, or maybe a dream, or maybe a hallucination? Anyway, something strange happened, and—"
"Mm?"
"Th-the twins..."
The twins’ eyes turned to Miyako at the same time. They had only looked at her, but Miyako felt fear in that gaze.
Meeting those eyes made the terrifying warning she had heard earlier echo in her mind.
【[Retribution] will fall.】
【[Death].】
She was nothing more than a weak, cowardly human being.
In the end, she chose to keep the secret rather than defy heaven.
"……Th-they were just so cute that I started crying, that’s all! Hahaha—taking care of the twins makes me so happy. It’s like I was born for this! So don’t worry, leave it to me! I’ll do my absolute best so you never feel the absence of your parents!"
"M-Miyako-chan...?"
While Ai was still flustered by Miyako’s tearful, impossible-to-read reaction, the front door opened and Kaoru came in.
Worried about Miyako, who had collapsed from exhaustion and fallen asleep, he had immediately gone back out to buy all kinds of nutritional supplements and a box of cake from the pharmacy. Seeing Miyako awake, he smiled and said, "You’re up."
"K-Kaoru!!!"
"Ah?! Wait a—!!!"
Was this what it felt like to regain the sun? How lonely and frightening had that time been!
The moment she saw Kaoru, she stood up and clung tightly to her son-in-law. She had a lot she wanted to say, but she forced it all down. She was afraid of being punished by heaven.
Of course, Ai was not going to sit still after seeing that. Kaoru’s arms belonged to her, and to no one else. They were hers alone, and she would never yield them to anyone else.
Ai immediately stood up and jumped into Kaoru’s arms before anyone else could take them.
"Hah."
Kaoru let out an awkward laugh as he ended up holding both his mother-in-law and his wife at once.
After that brief commotion, he saw Kaoru off as he left home right away for troupe work, and Ai also headed out for her schedule the next day.
As silence returned to the once-noisy house, Miyako let out a long sigh.
Then she looked again at the two twins, who were sitting proudly on the living room table, and muttered softly, "...So it wasn’t a dream after all?"
"Indeed. Are you still planning to run from your [duty]?"
At Ruby’s words, Miyako hurried over to the living room table, planted her arms on it, and leaned forward with a tearful voice. "N-No! I absolutely won’t! Sniff! You saw it, right? You saw Kaoru-kun and Ai thanking me before they left, right? Please, can’t you forgive me?"
"Very well."
"...Huh?"
"From the beginning, it was a simple matter. Protecting our secret and helping our parents by caring for the twins. That is not difficult, is it? You need only do everything we tell you. If you do, then remarriage to a handsome [actor] won’t be a dream."
"Really?!"
As Ruby patted Miyako’s small hand with her own and spoke in a gentle voice, Miyako sniffled through the tears welling up in her eyes and brightened.
Was this the merciful heart of a god? The fear and terror from earlier felt as if they had all been washed away, and Miyako nodded vigorously.
Besides, if she behaved herself, they would promise her remarriage to a handsome actor! What other merciful god in the world would do that?
"I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I’ll do everything you say! I’ll even lick the soles of your shoes, n-no— I’ll lick a dirty diaper if I have to! Yes!"
"...There’s no need to go that far."
Watching Miyako grovel while holding Ruby’s hand and Ruby nod with a satisfied smile, Aqua muttered softly, breaking into a cold sweat.
Ichigo does NOT deserve all this bruh, he's doing his best. ;-;