TTKWQ Chapter 21

When shooting the scene of morning homeroom, while extras of the class role were all together, there was a girl who stood out. She had ringlets and perfect makeup, her name is Ichinomiya-san.

Why…?

I catch a nearby staff-san and ask about her.

“Ah, that conspicuous girl, she seems to be the daughter of a sponsor and was forcibly put into the regular extra cast.”

Huh, does she belong to an office somewhere? The students of Sakuragi academy don’t seem to be interested in that, but Ichinomiya-san seems to have a following. By the way, what is a regular extra? It is an extra to make it so that all the students around us are the same. There are many people who audition, so only those that can act are selected.

The Director-san chose the seating order for the first scene, Ichinomiya-san was sat in a distant corner seat. Seems that she is too conspicuous as an extra and has been put out of the camera frame.

Our eyes met while I was staring at Ichinomiya-san, who was dissatisfied. I waved my hand and she returned the wave with great vigour and stated to walk over towards me.

“Um, I am a huge fan of you, can I get an autograph…?”

“Hey, extras are not allowed to be out of their seats, we are just about to start rehearsing.”

“Haa, get your hands off me! Do you know who I am!?”

Ichinomiya-san who came to get an autograph just before rehearsal, the staff member dragging her to her seat. Ichinomiya-san was also mildly warned by the director.

Even though they are extras, they still need to have some acting lessons before they can act. So, usually there are no children who ask for an autograph at work.

Anyway, Ichinomiya-san was a fan of me… I though Yamada or Akagi-kun would have been the target.

＊
Although there was that small incident, the rehearsal of the homeroom shoot had ended, we are currently on break waiting for the next scene to take place. Though, Ichinomiya-san stood and moved towards the camera without permission and spoke the lines of other extras causing for NG shots to pile up. When we got on break she tried to approach me, but a staff-san saw her, and she got dragged away. Each time she had done something wrong, the manager of the child office affiliated with Ichinomiya-san would turn blue and apologise to the Director and staff-san.

By the way, in shooting where there are lots of child actor extras, with lots of people the people from ‘X’ office will be together and all the people from ‘Y’ office will be together, they will generally have a manager in charge of them. If every child actor had a guardian coming with them then there would be too many to people to easily transport. Several people from our office have been selected as regular extras, so Shinosaki-san is watching over them.

Ichinomiya-san also entered a child actor office, Manager-san doesn’t seem to be able to strongly scold. Though the Director and staff don’t seem to be able to either.

The influence of this sponsor must be great.

So, there was no one who could stop Ichinomiya-san selfishness with her being from this sponsor.

The atmosphere is the worse.

Mayu-chan is in a near murderous state and Yamada is holding down Akagi-kun who is likely to become violent.

Well, if you have been in the industry for long these scenes aren’t that uncommon. There was a scene where the Director was constantly yelling, because one senior actress couldn’t say one line to advance the shooting.

Right now, Ichinomiya-san said an extra line, which caused an argument with the Director. It just as I though, you can’t act as an extra unless you have had some acting lessons. Although it was decided to give the lines to other extras, she is still clinging onto the Director.

What amazing vitality.

It’s important to remember your lines, but it is meaningless if you have no ability. Also, ringlets are no good. There is no way that there would be any Ojou-sama characters in the middle school.

Shooting pushed on for about an hour with such an atmosphere. When we finished todays work, I though about skipping the dojo to play with Kozuki, but that’s impossible.

While pretending to read his script seriously Yamada came over and whispered in my ear.

“Nana-chan, I just want to give you a warning.”

“… Why me?”

“Because she seems to be a fan of yours, I just want you to be mindful of her.”

“Well… you may be right.”

I want to listen to Yamada-kun more because I couldn’t completely understand him. For some reason Yamada and Akagi-kun were ignoring me then came and warned me.

If this is only for today then It’s fine, but if you are regular extra you have to continue beyond today. If you aren’t being careful on the first day, it will be prolonged and ruin the shooting.

For the time being the Producer was looking at the footage in the back with a sullen face, he made a hand sign ‘Good luck’ and got a GO hand sign back. There is no helping it.

“Well best regards. I will give you some green soybeans later.”

“… 1kg of eggplant too.”

“I understand. That will sooth you right?”

Yamada gets fresh produce and advice from the farmers on the variety show from regularly appearing on it, so the vegetables he gets always taste good. Besides green soybeans freshness doesn’t last long so you rarely get a chance to eat them in metropolitan areas.

While watching movies, I like to drink beer with salt-boiled green soybeans. No, beer is bad. But children’s bear is sweet and does not match green soybeans, so let’s consult Mum and ask her to lift the ban on non-alcoholic beer for summer so that I can drink some at home on the balcony. Baked eggplant with ponzu also goes well with beer.

So, while escaping reality, I walked towards the place where Ichinomiya-san was stuck to the manager.

“um, is everything good?”

“What? Nana-chan.”

When I called out to the Ichinomiya-san, who was being high-handedly commanding the Director, she turned around with a smile while responding to me. It could be called as an overly friendly first greeting, seeing how she usually greets me with a glare at school.

“I am sorry about the filming, but could you please follow the directions of the Director?”

“But I when through a lot of trouble to get here, so I cannot boast about anything if I don’t see it…”

A commemoration for your pride.

If she was trying her best to become a child actor, then I might have just gently cautioned her, but it seems I do not have to refrain myself after hearing that.

“Haa… Everyone is here to work, I am working hard to make this drama even a little better, so it is annoying when someone ruins it by being a little bitch.” 1

“But… My dad is a sponsor…”

“There are no buts, your father is not the only sponsor. There are a number of other companies sponsoring this film, so if you want to make inconvenient requests and bother the site, other sponsors will complain.”

Ichinomiya’s father’s company seems to be in the business of TV commercials, with drama seems to be his latest investment. Sayuri-chan’s grandfather is the CEO of the Six Suji Group and is also a sponsor from long ago, so I think that Sayuri-chan’s grandfather would not tolerate people making such unreasonable demands. Basically, they give preferential treatment to old sponsors.

Well, I have never done such a thing, so I don’t know how it will turn out. A fox that borrows the authority of a tiger. What I am doing is similar to what Ichinomiya-san is doing.

“Well then, let’s try it again properly, do you not want to check it out?”

In order to convince the dissatisfied Ichinomiya-san, it will be easy to understand once it is shot.

＊

It is a scene where minor character girls are enjoying talking about the holidays, while showing the protagonist and heroine being together. After Ichinomiya-san plays her role I will also play it for comparison.

Then everyone can gather in front of the monitor wo check. Usually only the Director and main actor check, so when an extra wants to see themselves performing they have to wait for it to be on the big screen.

And, you can easily understand your performance by seeing it on the monitor, it is more for professionals who have acted for many years. So, in this way, it will be easy for Ichinomiya-san to understand what she is supposed to do.

Ichinomiya-san reflected on the monitor is loudly and reading out the lines in monotone or her voice is trembling. Her smile is also awkward, and the overreaction makes it seem like an overseas comedy drama. Well when you consider that it was probingly her first time acting in such an environment it is reasonable.

After I showed the comparison to Ichinomiya-san she started silently.

“Are you taking lessons properly at the office?”

“I received one lesson, the instructor praised me…”

There is no way to get good from only taking one lesson. Seems that the instructor only praised her because she was the daughter of a boss of some large business, trying to curry favour.

“But it is natural for me to be conspired bad compared to Nana-chan! Besides I am only an extra, I should be able to do it if I persist.”

“Look here, many of the other extras have received lessons for years, and among them only the best are selected through auditioning. Since there is no time to take lessons during shooting, I will have to teach you to get your acting up to scratch.”

Even if you take lessons for many years, there are many children who finished their career only ever working as an extra, there are also many who retire instead of being an extra. So, some children finish acting in year five so that they can focus on trying to get into a good middle school.

And a child appointed as an extra for such a decent drama shooting is lucky. So there are a lot of children betting their hopes on this, some have even decided that this is their last shot.

So, it is no good for an extra to play with such trivial feelings.

“You can’t have that hair style while acting, there is no reason for a middle school student to have such a high-class hair style, there is no way they could have you in the frame with it, you will have to also make your make up more natural.”

“But, I always have this hair style…”

“That doesn’t matter, we are now filming in a middle school, so if you do not match, obediently sit in a corner so you can’t be seen, quit as an extra and go home.”

When I point that out to Ichinomiya-san we glared at each other. We were both giving off a super-power-ninja-turbo-neo-ultra-hyper-mega-multi-alpha-meta-extra-uber-prefix stare. While gazing at each other for a while, Ichinomiya-san looked down first and started shedding tears before crying outright. 2

“So-sorry, are you alright?”

Shit, I just made the daughter of a sponsor cry.

I take out my handkerchief and pass it to Ichinomiya-san to wipe her tears. However, her tears aren’t stopping, and her mascara is being messed up. I can not let anyone see this, so I evacuate Ichinomiya-san to a class room instead of the waiting room.

While sitting in a chair in an unattended classroom, I am rubbing the back of Ichinomiya-san whom is jerking while crying.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say it so strongly…”

I explained kindly this time the situation of other extra child actors.

“The other children have been taking extra lessons for years and doing extra work, there is no child doing a half-job everyone is working diligently, so please don’t so ‘only an extra’ anymore.”

Yes, I just roared my voice, I did not mean to make you cry.

Please be silent and avoid causing trouble by inform your Papa of this incident.

Onto the next chapter.

TN

1  She didn’t actually say that, but you get the point. Gosh I hate that character.

2 Sorry I just had to it, also Nana-chan was MACHOMANRANDYSAVAGE in her previous life.