Chapter 9

Two days later, on Monday, Junichiro arrived at Kagura Studio Park Lot 25, where the set for Monochrome Masquerade had been built, albeit a bit earlier than agreed upon. He peeked down at his phone screen; it wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. Despite that fact, he could clearly see that the lights in the building were on. Someone was there early, like him. He pulled on the big metal doors of the warehouse-like building and, to his surprise, they were unlocked.

Walking through the doors and into the cavernous building was like entering a different world. Even though it was still a week away from the beginning of production, the set looked like it was fully completed. And what a breathtaking set it was.

Multiple skillfully constructed scenes sat on raised platforms with wheels installed under them so that the scenes could be rolled into place whenever it was time to use them. They were pushed flush with the walls, dormant until they were needed. This was a style of set construction unique to Ginzo Hoshina’s productions. Junichiro had heard of it before, but seeing it in person gave him a new appreciation for how Ginzo did things.

Each scene was constructed with marvelous, meticulous detail. A gloomy forest scene with trees and foliage so real that Junichiro caught himself wondering how they were alive without soil. A dense marketplace scene that would likely be bustling with extras acting as merchants trying to peddle their wares. A scene depicting the lavish bedchambers of a nobleperson’s manor. And, perhaps the most captivating scene of all, was the scene of an astoundingly beautiful ballroom, which Junichiro guessed was going to be the location of the cornerstone scene of the entire film. A multitude of other sets were present, each waiting for its chance to shine.

Tearing his eyes away from the staggering scale of everything that had already been set up, Junichiro noticed light spilling from a doorway towards the back of the main room. As he stepped closer, his ears picked up the sounds of someone sorting through things and faintly humming as they did. He poked his head through the door to see what looked like a prop storage room with doors leading to dressing rooms and breakrooms off to the side. Over near a rack of costumes sat a girl around Junichiro’s age with shoulder length lavender-colored hair humming happily while sorting through a box of props.

The girl jerked her head to look over at him as he entered, seemingly startled to find out that she wasn’t the only one in the building anymore. Nearly as quickly as she had tensed up and jumped in surprise, her expression changed to one of utter glee.

“Oh my god! Total hottie alert! Have my prayers to meet a super cute guy finally been answered? And in the best possible way?” she squealed, jumping up from the crate she was sitting on.

Junichiro was stunned silent for a few seconds before finally managing to choke out an “Excuse me?”

The girl didn’t answer right away. Instead, she shuffled closer to Junichiro and began slowly circling him like a predator would circle its prey. He wanted to move, but his body refused, like it was giving in to some kind of survival instinct. She circled him once, then twice, then a third time, just observing him with eyes that wandered a bit more than they should have. Junichiro feared there were levels of sexual harassment at play that only Renji could hope to match.

Finally the girl stopped in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest and a smug grin on her face. “I said you were a total hottie, Junichiro Kurotaki. I knew I was going to get to meet you today, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I was still preparing myself mentally and along you come, nearly making my little maidenly heart give out.”

Before Junichiro could make sense of what this bizarre Renji-like girl was saying, she stuck her hand out to him.

“Anyways,” she said, “It’s nice to meet you, I’m a HUGE fan. I’m Saki Miyamura, the girl who they decided to put in charge of costumes and make-up. But you can just call me Saki, superstar. We’ll be getting to see each other a lot, so look forward to it, ‘kay?”

Junichiro hesitantly shook her hand, half expecting her to forcefully drag him away and into a PR nightmare. He had dealt with fans many times before, but never ones so…direct. She seemed harmless enough, but something about her still radiated a sort of danger that made it hard for Junichiro to not be at least a little wary of her. Luckily, she didn’t poke at him any further and simply went back to the pile of props she had been sorting through when he got there.

“It’ll still be a while before everyone else gets here, so feel free to look around and get a feel for the place. I’m looking forward to getting to know you better!” Saki called out behind him as he turned around to go back to exploring the building. He could almost hear the toying grin on her face.

For the next couple of hours, Junichiro spent time familiarizing himself with the layout of the building. Eventually, staff members began to trickle into the building, each busying themselves with some task that contributed to the approaching project. Ginzo arrived a short while later with Renji and Aoi in tow, discussing some logistics or something that Junichiro didn’t quite understand. Renji gave him a friendly nod as they walked past and into what looked like a small conference room. It seemed like that’s where they would discuss the details of the project whenever nine o’clock rolled around. The ever graceful ice queen was the last to arrive, though she still surprisingly arrived on time as she had done to the meeting on Saturday. Junichiro failed to stifle a laugh when Kana underwent a similar experience with Saki as he had—for which he was awarded a glance from Kana that would have killed him if it could. When Kana finally managed to wrench herself away from Saki’s advances, Junichiro followed her into the conference room, still giggling to himself.

The conference room was small—a short rectangular table in the middle of the room with a projector pointed at the far wall was all that it held. Ginzo stood at the end of the table and greeted the two actors as they walked in. Junichiro took a seat next to Renji—who gave him a brotherly fist bump as an apology for being too busy to hang out lately—and across from Aoi and Kana.

It largely seemed like the meeting was ready to begin, aside from one glaring issue. There was an elephant in the room that no one seemed to be keen on addressing—the fact that Ginzo Hoshina, illustrious director with countless awards lauding him as one of the greatest of his time, was wearing dinosaur onesie pajamas.

No one so much as looked at him as he shuffled a stack of papers, preparing to begin his discussion of the project.

Kana was the first to break the awkward silence. If Junichiro hadn’t felt like she’d take it the wrong way somehow, he would have applauded her for it. He wasn’t too torn up about it though, because he knew he probably wouldn’t have been able to mean it.

Kana brushed a strand of snowy hair out of her face and took a deep breath. “So…Hoshina-san, why exactly are you dressed in a T-Rex onesie?”

Ginzo spun on his heel, his left eye twitching slightly. “How dare you, Shirahama-san? That was completely unacceptable!”

For a split-second, Junichiro thought that was it for Kana. He hadn’t pegged Ginzo as the tyrannical type of director, but the look on his face made him think that Kana had just volunteered her career to be the first victim of his wrath. He felt a strange pang in his heart at the thought. Before he could figure out what it was however, Ginzo continued speaking.

“Shirahama-san, this is clearly an allosaurus onesie. Misidentification is a disrespect towards the mighty allosaurus that I will not stand for! As for why I’m wearing it, for comfort of course! I’m a director, not a salaryman. I work best when I am comfortable, so I dress keeping that in mind.”

Junichiro blinked. This went beyond being a little eccentric. Ginzo Hoshina was a psychopath. Nevertheless, he was a psychopath that Junichiro respected, and he wasn’t about to start doubting him now. Kana offered a confused apology and the meeting was finally able to begin in earnest.

Much of the first half of the meeting consisted of things geared more towards Renji and Aoi than Junichiro and Kana, like time-frames, funding, and man-power. Most of it was technical talk that he couldn’t understand, but one thing that stood out to Junichiro was that this project sounded like it was going to be in production for much longer than typical Japanese movies. He’d heard before that Ginzo liked to do things more like American directors, due to him going to film school in America, but this was the first time he’d seen confirmation of it. The longest anything he and Kana had ever worked on had filmed for was about two and a half months. By the sound of things, Ginzo was estimating that Monochrome Masquerade would need four or five months.

Aside from that, the rest of the meeting’s first half was quite boring. Enough so that Junichiro caught himself almost nodding off a few times. Kana seemed to have noticed it as well, since she reached across the table and pinched him at one point when no one else was looking. Junichiro snapped to her and glared at her, but by the time he did, she had already gone back to looking aloof at his presence and paying attention to Ginzo’s presentation, not offering any evidence of her involvement in the pain on Junichiro’s forearm besides the hint of a smirk at the corner of her mouth.

During the second half of the meeting, things became much more interesting. The conversation shifted from numbers and statistics to things like what special effects were going to be used and what kinds of equipment they had. Finally, after they officially went through the tentative schedule of what days would be film days—everyone agreed on filming four days per week and having three days to recuperate—the meeting drew to a close. However, when everyone got up to leave, Ginzo stopped them.

“By the way, there are also two fully funded trips planned during production.”

Junichiro perked up at that sentence, and it appeared that he wasn’t the only one who was interested.

“Whoa, hold on Hoshina-san. Explain, please. You didn’t mention this during the meeting.” Renji said, straightening his floral print shirt with a smile on his face.

Junichiro knew that look. That smug bastard, he thought, he knew about this and kept quiet so it’d be a surprise. Aoi was stoic as usual, so he couldn’t tell if she had been in on it as well, but he suspected she had to be with how much she and Renji worked together.

“Yes.” Ginzo continued, “I wanted it to be a bit of a surprise I suppose. As I said, there are two trips planned. One to Okinawa in a few weeks to shoot a few coastal scenes. We wanted to go before the weather started to cool off so that everyone could have a little fun in the sun while we were there. The second trip will be towards the latter half of production and we will be going to a mountain town with tons of hot springs. Both are all expenses paid, of course.”

Junichiro pumped his fist in excitement. “Yes! That sounds awesome!”

“You’re such a child.” Kana said, shaking her head. Despite her remark, the subtle smile on the corner of her lips told Junichiro she was excited as well.

It seemed like working with Ginzo Hoshina was going to be very interesting indeed.