Chapter 16

Flying first-class was not something Junichiro had ever had the luxury of experiencing before. Of course, he knew this trip was going to be all expenses paid, but in his experience, all expenses paid usually meant ‘Yeah, we’ll pay for it, but don’t expect anything more than the bare minimum.’ At least, that’s what happened when he had to ask his first part-time job to help him with the expense for a trip to his home town for his cousin’s wedding when he didn’t have enough for a train ticket. His boss had somehow managed to convince the train operators to let him sit in the luggage area, which only ended up costing them around five hundred yen. Regardless, sitting in first class with Kana, Renji, Aoi, and Ginzo was a much nicer arrangement than Junichiro had expected.

The flight to Okinawa was longer than Junichiro thought it would be, but it passed by in a flash regardless. For the first hour or so he just played cards with Renji, who he was convinced was cheating. The rest of the time he decided to take a nap and sleep the journey away. He was able to sleep for most of the trip, at least until he was interrupted by something shaking him.

“Dude, wake up. You’ve gotta see this.” Renji said, as he shook Junichiro awake. He pointed out the window of the plane and waved Junichiro over.

Junichiro shook off his sleep and leaned over to where he could see through the plane’s small window. He peered through the tempered glass just in time for the plane to break through the bottom layer of the clouds. Thousands of feet below, the sapphire-colored waves glittered and sparkled, reminding him of Kanae’s eyes. The ocean stretched out beyond the horizon, its scale only truly fathomable from the height Junichiro was viewing it from. Way down below, in the middle of the shining blue water, was Okinawa. White sand beaches dotted the coastline of the chain of islands below them. Seeing their destination from so far up, Junichiro couldn’t help but be excited.

The plane touched down at the airport in Okinawa a short while later at approximately 12:11pm, having departed from the airport in Tokyo at around 9:00am. Another perk of flying first class was that Junichiro and the others were among the first to disembark from the plane. As soon as they met up with the rest of the production crew, everyone loaded their luggage into a small convoy of vans and headed to the beachfront resort hotel they were staying at.

The hotel was impressively lavish, almost to the point that staying there felt like it could be called narcissism. Crystalline chandeliers hung from the lobby’s vaulted ceiling. Designer furniture was placed around the room exactly where it felt like they belonged. Men and women in fancy suits and dresses strolled through the halls and went up and down the elevator. Needless to say, Junichiro felt very out of place in just the t-shirt and shorts he was wearing.

It took the receptionist an understandably long time to check in the 50ish people that were with the production team. That wasn’t the full figure of the production crew, of course, but it was how many people were in the small break-off crew specifically created for this trip. He’d heard a rumor that the members of the production crew drew lots to see who got to go on this trip. Junichiro spied a few familiar faces, like Saki, who waved at him when she noticed him looking at her.

Once everyone was finally checked in, Junichiro made his way to his room so that he could settle in and get changed to go to the beach. His room was, as expected, just as lavish as the rest of the hotel. In fact, it could barely be called a hotel room; it was more like a luxury apartment with how large it was. Junichiro was beginning to feel a little guilty about how much Ginzo must have spent on him. Nevertheless, he set down his luggage and got changed into his beach clothes, a white short-sleeved button up with a palm tree design on it and a pair of dark blue swim trunks with a white stripe going down the sides.

A short while later, Junichiro met the film crew back down in the lobby to have a light lunch in the hotel’s built-in restaurant and discuss the trip schedule. After everyone finished eating, Ginzo gathered everyone up and laid out the plans for the trip. They arrived in Okinawa on Monday. Monday and Tuesday were to be free days for the production crew. Everyone was allowed to spend their time as they pleased on those first two days. The next two days, Wednesday and Thursday, were to be work days where they would film the scenes that they had come to Okinawa to film. Friday would be one more free day before they left, and they would return back to Tokyo on Saturday. No one had any complaints about the schedule, so they broke off and everyone went about their business.

Junichiro spent a large portion of the first two days on the beach. Some of the time he spent swimming, some of it he spent relaxing in the sun, and some of it he spent exploring the coastline, but most of his time was spent staying near Renji so that he could try to keep his best-friend/manager/mental health hazard from getting into too much trouble. Try as he might, however, Junichiro wasn’t able to completely prevent Renji from gawking at every swimsuit-clad girl he laid his eyes on.

Junichiro steered clear of Kana as much as he could whenever she came to the beach during those two days. There was one point where Renji managed to convince Junichiro, Kana, and Aoi to do a boys versus girls beach volleyball match, though. Unfortunately, Junichiro and Renji got utterly trounced, due in no small part to the fact that Renji couldn’t keep his eyes on the ball.

The first film day was fairly simple and easy. It was just a few stationary dialogue scenes with the ocean as a backdrop. Junichiro and Kana managed to do each scene so well, in fact, that they finished shooting early that day and everyone was allowed to spend the rest of the day as they pleased. Junichiro was fairly proud of himself for managing to shoot those scenes perfectly, especially when a few members of the crew invited him to go out for drinks at a beachfront bar to thank him for helping them get done early.

The second film day, however, was the day where Monochrome Masquerade nearly met its demise. It was a dreary, windy day, with dark grey thunderclouds looming out over the ocean. The forecasts stated that it was going to storm in the afternoon. Nevertheless, Ginzo decided to go through with trying to film that day so that the crew wouldn’t have to give up their last free day to make up for lost time.

The incident that nearly destroyed the entire film occurred when Junichiro and Kana got into a particularly heated argument. So heated, in fact, that no one dared to try to get between them for fear of becoming a target of their combined wrath. The two began arguing with each other after having to reshoot a particularly difficult scene several times due to both of them making several mistakes. Their yelling could be heard down the coastline, and would have likely drawn the attention of people outside of the film crew, had there been anyone brave enough to venture outside on such a gloomy day.

Junichiro unzipped his costume and let it fall into the sand. “I can’t do this right now. Not when Ice Queen over there keeps missing her mark and mispronouncing her lines. I need a break.”

Kana crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh that’s rich coming from the guy who jumped the gun and said his line before he was supposed to not once, not twice, but three times in a row.”

“Get over yourself. It’s called improvising. I was trying to spice up the scene by saying my line in time with the lull in the sound of the waves to create more impact. I should’ve guessed an amateur actor like you wouldn’t understand.”

“Say what you want about my skills, but our fans have always liked me more than you, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

“Oh yeah? Is that why you became an actor and like to play pretend in all these romance movies and act like you’re someone else? Because you’re afraid of the fact that no one could ever love the real you?” Junichiro regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

Smack

A loud crack broke through the air as Kana’s hand met Junichiro’s cheek. The entire beach fell silent. Even the nearby waves seemed to cease their incessant crashing. No one on the set even dared even to move. The only thing that proved sound hadn’t wholly left the world was the quiet roll of thunder in the distance. Junichiro put his hand up to his cheek as hot pain seared through it. He looked over to Kana as heavy raindrops began to fall onto the sand. The expression on her face wasn’t one of annoyance, sorrow, or even rage. It was the look of someone in anguish. Before anyone could react, she turned and bolted across the beach back toward the hotel.

Junichiro slumped his shoulders and slowly turned to Renji. “I just screwed up, didn’t I?”

“Yeah man. You screwed up big time.” Renji nodded solemnly. “You know what you have to do now, right?”

Without another word, Junichiro broke into a sprint and ran after Kana as the sky began to weep.