TTKWQ Chapter 12

“It’s bad, but it isn’t like we can go back.”

After school, Shinosaki-san met up with the main idol of Iroha performing arts production then left quickly because of the idol’s request.

Shinosaki-san met the other party’s manager in another room, and I was in another room waiting while drinking juice with a straw. A sullen beauty-san entered. A tall and slender body with beautiful, strait, and long black hair that extended down to her back, and out of the corner of her small eyes she sent me a rough yet impressive glance.

Today, I’ll be teaching Shirasawa Kotori-san and a unit member of the same group, Reizei Isumi-san.

“Can you listen for a bit? I don’t want you to turn back now.”

“Yes, Shinosaki told be not to return.”

Suddenly, I ate bread, and Isumi-san glared at me domineeringly. A long time ago, in the time when I was a corporate slave, I became accustomed to high-pressure negotiations from suppliers, and I could smile and act well to the situation.

“Right now… moga!?”

“Yes, stop. Isumin, it’s rude since we’re the guests.”

From the reception office’s door, yet another beautiful girl came in. After that, Isumi-san was put into a headlock, and Reizei-san’s mouth was closed, but the person who came in smiled and said, “Sorry~. Just now, there was a lot of blabbering, I hope that Isumin didn’t hurt another person’s feelings.”

“No, I’m fine, but…”

There was a pekopeko sound when the headlock lowered. This is Tachiki Momiji-san, who’s also a unit member of the same group. She’s 155cm and looks like a middle schooler even though she’s an adult already. Her hair is in twin tails, so I could see that she tries to look young.

Her official profile from many years ago had her age stopped at 17.

“Ah, greetings~. I’m Tachiki Momiji. The unit leader of the same group that Shirasawa Kotori is in, ‘Bure☆Puri.’ Looking forwards to working with you~.”

“I’m Hanasaki Nana. Today is from producer Tanuki; he asked me to provide acting guidance… Any questions?”

Then, from her pouch, she gave me a business card and said, “Kotorin was depressed that she couldn’t act in the second movie of “My Name” well, and she said, ‘Since I can’t act, I should quit being an idol too,’ and cried~.”

Tahaha~, asking for help like that, Momiji-san laughed. The headlock went lower and tightened, and Isumi-san went, “NNNNNN!” so Momiji-san took her arms off her.

“It’s all your fault! It’s your fault that Kotori will!! …Kotori will… Kotori will…”

And then, she started crying. Tears fell down Isumi-san’s face.

What do I do, I want to go home.

“I want to teach this private lesson by talking with my hands and feet. But, if I talk like that, it’ll be troublesome later on.” Why did I agree to teach in the scene of battle before? I want to go home.

Even so, the second movie will look disappointing if I don’t do anything. In the second movie, Kotori-san and I are connected, and it’s my fault that Kotori-san’s acting will look especially bad on her turn.

Though, I don’t know why it’s my fault.

“Umm, can I do anything?”

“…Your fault because your acting is too good… Possibly?”

“Ehhhh…”

This is the first time that someone’s been angry over how good my acting skills are.

“Sorry~ for the outburst of anger just now. Isumin wasn’t feeling well.”

“Haah…”

Because of Isumi-san’s sulkiness, Momiji-san apologized, and Isumi-san calmed down.

“But, at this rate, Kotori will…”

“I hope Nana-chan won’t mind those words. Nana-chan took great pains to come here only to hear that, sorry~.”

Ummm, my acting skills are so good that Kotori-san is depressed? Yep, I don’t get the connection. Shinosaki-san hasn’t returned yet, so I guess that I’ll listen to what they’re saying for now.

“Excuse me, could you please explain in detail?”

Momiji-san explained that, in the first movie, people said that she was an atomic bomb victim, and the reviews and critiques all criticized her acting, so she got depressed.

It seems that she wanted to work hard in taking acting lessons to raise her skill and then do well enough to get the second movie’s part from P Tanuki, but, after seeing my acting, she lost confidence in herself, so it’s my fault that she thinks that in the third movie she’s going to be an even bigger atomic bomb victim.

And now, she’s given up on everything and wanted to go back to get hometown. That’s all.

Somehow, I thought that wasn’t the end…

Momiji continued, “I think that Kotorin is cute and doesn’t need singing and dancing lessons, but we had to do a live concert and there was a massive failure, so she was too embarrassed to perform skillfully. What do you think?”

“That is… That…”

“You still don’t get it, right? You still don’t get what part you’ve hit, right?”

The explanation to me ended, yet I still didn’t understand what Momiji-san was telling me. On the other hand, Isumi-san kept on preaching to me.

The preaching reached a pausing point, and Isumi-san hung her head. Momiji-san watched with mixed feelings.

“Umm, when are we going to start the acting lessons?”

“Nn, isn’t that so? If we act without preperation, critics will say, ‘More smoothly,’ and, ‘More feeling.’ You can’t rehearse too much, right?”

Well, if she can do that, she’ll have no troubles, won’t she?

I said, “For now, how about leaving Kotori-san with me? Perhaps I can raise her acting skills, maybe.”

“Yeah, I’ll have to ask you to do that. Please guide her well.”

I left from the reception office to another room, and “Bure☆Puri” entered the room with me. The room was eight tatami^[1] with a low table, a sofa, and a locker that was left behind. Momiji-san and the others’ unit uses this room for various purposes.

Sitting on the sofa and holding her knees, the girl there was in a hesitating mood. That girl is Kotori-san.

She was crying with her eyes a bright red, and the skin around her eyes were swelling. In tears and with her nose sniffling, she looked at the TV with vacant eyes. The TV was playing part two of “My Name.”

“Kotorin, come to Nana-chan~”

Momiji-san said that as she relaxed on the floor. Our eyes met, and Kotori-san’s panic level started to rise.

“Sorry, I can’t do it… Umm, I’ll ask to leave the movie. An idol too…”

“Kotori!! What about the promise to am to be a top idol together?”

“It’s already impossible… Again, again, again, I have to retake, the director keeps getting angry. It’s my fault that everyone’s troubled.”

Isumi-san rushed over and tried to convince Kotori-san, “Kotorin, don’t try to escape, won’t you be even more of an inconvenience that way?”

“That is…”

“You took great pains to get Nana-chan to come here, let’s accept her teachings, okay?”

“B-but, my acting skills… Nonexistent……”

As Kotori-san said that, the TV played the last “Himari” scene, the one where she disappears.

“See you again, papa.”

“…Again?”

“If papa and mama get married, we can meet again.”

“…That… No. See you again.”

“Kuu… Himari… Himariiiiii!!”

Himari disappeared, and the protagonist’s lamentation resounded in the twilight. After that, the scene switched to a room in a mansion where he was using the face of a keyboard to hit a PC. There weren’t staff rolls or ending songs yet as this wasn’t the full version. If this was the full version, there would be a Himari scene flashback and a monologue from the protagonist, but it hasn’t been edited in yet.

“This… With me, impossible… Really…”

Kotori-san voiced her thoughts and looked down, hanging her head in shame. Probably, it’s from the fact that I disappeared, I think. I learned it from shindou-sensei, but I don’t think that she’s a person that can learn it, but it’s not necessary to learn it as an actor anyways.

“Ummm, as an actor, it’s not necessary to know how to disappear?”

“Eh?”

“Normally they use CG, so it’s unreasonable and not necessary to learn how to do it.”

“Eh? This isn’t CG?”

This is the rough version, CG isn’t expected to be there… Thinking that, I used the remote to rewind to the frame in the  disappearing scene where I leave. Yep, no CG. My figure was being projected slipping into the twilight and out of the screen, thereby disappearing.

“As of now, it doesn’t look like there’s CG, doesn’t it?”

“I, such a thing, that’s absolutely imposibleeeeee!!”

Somehow, I was distracted with the words, “Being aidoru wanna quit desu!”^[2] spoken in a strange dialect by the crying Kotori-san. Isumi-san and Momiji-san were desperate to calm down Kotori-san.

Shinosaki-san said, “Nana, I was looking for you.”

Kotori-san speaking in a weird dialect, 2 people trying to calm her down, and me standing at the side, that was when Shinosaki-san and the other party’s manager entered the room.

She continued, “Why did you move? Is it possible that you involuntarily arrived in such a place?”

“Well, various reasons.”

“How many times did I tell you, do we have to be tied together…?”

I took a sideways glance at my phone in my pouch, and the lamp was flashing. When I checked the notifications, the mails from Shinosaki-san flooded out like a demon. I didn’t notice it because it was in silent mode.

“When you move, you should contact me, don’t you think so?”

“Sorry, I will never do that again.”

“Haah, for now, today, let’s go home. Your lessons doesn’t seem to have been accepted.”

Saying that, she glanced in Kotori-san and the others’ direction. Her strange accent seemed to have calmed down, but she was still saying, “Idol quit,” while crying.

“Shinosaki-san, I want to leave this already, can you not do that?”

“This isn’t a charity. Producer Tanuki is in our debt because of today, so we have no choice but to help with this production.”

“I see… By the way, what’s the guarantee?”

“Be level-headed, it’s the other party’s mistake.”

Shinosaki-san spoke in a whisper, and the manager behind be looked like he could collapse from the waiting.

“This child doesn’t have enough experience; it was very suddenly decided that she would play the heroine.”

She hasn’t taken any lessons, and you talk about experience as an actor? You step on the hardness of acting as a main role.

My office was diligent in giving lessons, and, regularly, we acted for real, but only the children who were good got actual work.

I took extra lessons from the beginning; I’m lucky that I could do it from age 3, after all, I’m an adult on the inside. They didn’t ask for too much acting skills from a toddler, so I could gradually step up in my ability.

If I started at 7, I think that I’d be like everyone else.

I praise myself to aim to be a child actor at that time.

“Well, I still have time, and it’s not like it’s necessary to go home.”

I need to get every single part of the guarantee, so I can’t go home as it is.

I don’t know how long I can do it for, but I guess that I’ll try my best.

[1] 3.64 m × 3.64 m
[2] No, it doesn’t actually say that. But, yes, it’s a strange dialect.