𝒩ᴼᵂ 𝒫ᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : ❝ 𝒜ᴸᴸ 𝒯ᴼᴼ 𝒲ᴱᴸᴸ ❞ 𝒷ᵞ 𝒯ᴬʸᴸᴼᴿ 𝒮ᵂᴵᶠᵀ
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
ɪ'ᴍ ᴀ ᴄʀᴜᴍᴘʟᴇᴅ ᴘɪᴇᴄᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴘᴀᴘᴇʀ ʟʏɪɴɢ ʜᴇʀᴇ
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ꜱɪɴᴄᴇ ᴀQᴜᴀ ᴡᴀꜱ with Kana, Ruby was forced to walk home all by herself. Why did Kana want him so badly? They never got along! Couldn't a girl walk home with her brother because their adoptive mother asked?
She sighed and focused on the task at hand: walking home safely. But you could never be truly safe when you were a girl walking anywhere, especially at night, alone. Thankfully, no one approached her.
"Excuse me, Miss?"
Ruby froze, prepared to run, but the man behind her only pulled out a card. She hesitantly took it, and her heart stopped when she read it.
"Hello, Miss. I'm a part of—"
"I'm not interested."
"Oh, I'm sorry Miss, but maybe if I explain it to you—"
"I said I'm not interested. I'm not sacrificing a few years of my life where I can't date, meet up with the opposite sex, have fun, and be myself just so I can sing and dance on a stage for probably old men before getting kicked off before I turn 30, where I'll be haunted by those few years by fans and myself until I die. Find someone else for that." Ruby handed the card back and left without another word.
. . .
"ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏᴛ ꜱᴄᴏᴜᴛᴇᴅ?"
Ruby shrugged at Aqua and Miyako, getting a glass of water. "That was just some underground idol guy, I think. Either way, being an idol was involved, and I'm not interested!"
She brought it up casually when Miyako asked her how her day went. It wasn't meant to be a big deal, but apparently,it was.
"Good for you for being safe," said Miyako, "but are you sure? Personally, I wouldn't want you to take on something so shady, but you denied it so quickly..."
"Because I want to be a doctor! I can't be an idol and a doctor at the same time." That would be like being Ai Hoshino and Gorou Amamiya at the same time, and they were very different people.
Miyako nodded and turned to Aqua. "What about you, Aqua? How was your day?"
"My day was fine." He snuck a glance at Ruby. "Since Ruby talked about getting scouted, I guess it's my turn to tell you that I may or may not get a role in a drama."
The glass of water almost slipped out of Ruby's hands.
She tried to put it down gently while her mind went over actors and actresses that recently had crazy fan encounters. Hajime Fujiwara got attacked by a fan who didn't like his new haircut a week ago. Miu Kamikaze had fans harrass her for not being "good enough" for her new boyfriend one month ago. Rui Yamada had to move because a fan leaked his address because of "bad" acting in a new movie yesterday.
Aqua wouldn't be safe.
"It's a live action of the manga, Today Will Be Sweet," Aqua was telling Miyako. "Some of the episodes already aired, but there are still some roles open. Do you remember Kana Arima? She's in the show, and she said she'll talk to the director about giving me a role."
"Are you sure you're going to take it?" Ruby asked, making sure her voice was steady and choosing her words carefully. "Don't you want to see how the episodes they already aired are?"
"I'm not a famous actor, so I can't reject a role just because I don't like the script, the editing, and I'm the one going to them for the role... But I guess we can watch them. It'll be good to know what I'm getting into."
Miyako searched sweet today live action on her computer and showed them the first episode. Kana was playing the main character...and she was the only good one. Everyone else was so bad that it hurt to even watch them.
"Turn it off," said Ruby. "It's... How do I say it...?"
"It's bad," Aqua filled in for her.
So even he admitted it was bad! They were on a good track. He had some self-respect, so if he thought it was bad, then that meant he might not take the role.
"Are you still taking it?" Miyako asked him for her.
Aqua's gaze was on the paused screen, thinking, and then he nodded. "I can't say anything when I haven't been on TV for so long. I don't even know if I'm worse than them."
Okay, maybe he didn't have any self-respect.
"Wait here." Ruby dashed to Aqua's room and scanned the shelf. She picked out the first volume of Sweet Today and rushed back, flipping through the pages. "Look at all of these missing scenes! So much emotion! What are those actors doing?"
Too much emotion. Anyone could tell she was getting desperate for him to change his mind. She needed to lower it down.
Aqua didn't call it out. "Don't go through my room and take my stuff without my permission! And maybe it's on purpose. I don't know. I can ask Director Kaburagi if I get the role."
Ruby stopped. "Director... Who?"
"Masaya Kaburagi."
"Huh." Ruby put on one of the most innocent faces she had.
When Ai died, she did a little investigating. Ichigo was still barely talking to her, but he gave her enough information to know that Ai had three phones when she died: a work phone, a phone for personal use, and an old third phone. It was the last one that caught her interest.
But there were two problems. The first one was that the battery stopped working a while ago. After spending a lot of her childhood defending Ai from her haters online, she knew a thing or two about how things worked online. It took her a while to find a battery several generations old and still worked, but she had enough determination to pull her through.
The second problem was that it had a password that didn't say how long it was and had a 30 second break every time you put the wrong password. Since Ichigo didn't know the password and she didn't want more people knowing about what she was doing than necessary, Ruby was left to find out the password on her own.
She started with the basics like Ai's birthday and even some things that wouldn't make sense to the time period like her and Aqua's birthday, but nothing worked. Her patience wore thinner with every wrong password until she had enough. She wasn't going to give up after spending weeks finding the perfect battery for the phone, so she spammed the numbers on the phone at random to let her frustration out. The number combination she ended up getting was 45510.
Surprise surprise, it worked.
She found contacts from other people in the entertainment industry. Masaya Kaburagi was one of them. That meant he had to know something about Ai that could help her find out who her father was. Since he was making a...not the best live action of Sweet Today, maybe she could let Aqua act in it just this once.
"I still think it's bad," she said. "Is there an anime? I think I'll watch the anime instead—except for the episode where you come in, Aqua."
Aqua smiled at her. "I'll try to make my episode watchable."
He better. He was risking it by exposing himself to the internet, after all. He might as well make it enjoyable for people to watch.
. . .
ᴀQᴜᴀ ɢᴏᴛ ᴛʜᴇ role of the stalker. He got a script and read over it tons of times, practicing with Ruby whenever she took a break from studying how the body worked. Ruby acted like a good audience member, stopping herself from ripping the script out of his hands. She wasn't 12 anymore like she was when she died in her past life. She was officially older than that years ago, so she should act mature. Ripping the script out of his hands was not mature.
A week before the filming of the episode he came in on, the final episode, Aqua was practicing the script in Ruby's room. When he was done, she clapped like normal, but this time, she asked, "When you film tomorrow, can I come with you?"
"Why? Don't you have some studying to do?" He smiled at the stack of medical-related books on her desk.
"I can take a break! Besides, I wanna see exactly what my brother is a part of!"
"I don't know if you'll be allowed."
"Please? Ask that director guy! Or that one girl!"
"Kana?"
"Her!"
"I don't think she can approve or deny stuff like that."
"Please?"
Aqua sighed. "I'll ask..."
Ruby grinned. "Thank you, Aqua!"
Masaya better say yes.
. . .
ʀᴜʙʏ ʜᴀᴅ ᴘᴇʀᴍɪꜱꜱɪᴏɴ to enter the set. It was just for that one filming, but that would be more than enough. Just one private conversation with Masaya...
It was raining on the day of the filming. That was good since it meant the last scene had more mystery like it was supposed to. It was being filmed in an old building, and the rainwater seeped through the cracks.
Kana was the one to greet them "Aqua, you're here! And...Ruby."
Ruby smiled like she didn't notice her glare. "Hi! It's great to see you again!"
"She has permission to be on set," Aqua assured Kana.
"I won't be in anyone's way!" promised Ruby. "I just wanna support my brother!"
Kana sighed but didn't push it. "Aqua, I'll introduce you to the rest of the cast. Ruby, you..."
"I can stay here. I don't need to meet them anyway."
Kana nodded and took Aqua before he could say anything. Fine then. She didn't want to hang out with them anyway.
Ruby looked around at all of the people. She knew making a drama or any type of media was hard work, but seeing so many people in person made it all feel so real. It wasn't only actors and actresses; there were directors, scriptwriters, costume designers, makeup artists, and so much more. It was hard to keep track of them all already!
But she wasn't here for them.
Ruby looked around for Masaya but couldn't find him. She approached the guy playing Aona Kanata, the love interest. "Excuse me, do you know—"
"I don't think unauthorized people are allowed in here," he interrupted.
"I have permission from Director Kabuargi! Speaking of him—"
"Well, you shouldn't bother the actors when filming is about to start. I could get you kicked out. This place is uncomfortable enough as it is..." He walked past her like she wasn't even there.
Rude.
She would just find him herself. Hopefully, Aqua and Kana wouldn't think too much of her walking around, even if she didn't really care too much about what Kana thought of her.
Ruby found Masaya talking to a cameraman. She wouldn't bother him just yet, but she ran through all of the questions she would ask him. What was your relationship with Ai Hoshino? What do you know about her? Was she open with you? Did she trust you? Did you trust her? Was she seeing anyone? How well do you know about Ai's sex life?
"We're starting the rehearsal!" someone announced.
Ruby forced herself to look away from Masaya and her questions, joining the other cast members. She made sure she wasn't in the way but still had a good view. Aqua was wearing a black jacket with his hood up, the look in his eyes full of thought. He still met her gaze and smiled when she did.
The scene wasn't so bad. That guy playing Aona Kanata was really the only bad one. In a way, Ruby wanted Aqua to be as bad at acting as he was. If he was, he wouldn't be on TV, so he would be safe from the media.
When it was time for a break, Ruby clapped politely. Aqua was talking to Kana about something. Wonder what it was...
Since it was still break time, Ruby looked for Masaya. He was about to enter the smoking room—ugh, smoking—and she stopped him just in time.
"Hi, Director Sir!" Ruby made sure she looked as happy-go-lucky as possible. "I'm Ruby Hoshino, the person you gave permission to be on the set. I was wondering if I can talk to you for a quick second."
"Hello there." Masaya snuck a glance at the smoke room. "I'm busy right now, so how about later?"
"Okay, sure!" Ruby smiled, but she wasn't happy. Not like he could tell.
Masaya entered the smoke room again. The smile fell from her face and so did the happy-go-luckiness in her. She could hear him talking to someone else.
"Why did you let her come?" someone asked him. They were talking about her, weren't they?
"This drama is a mess as it is," replied Masaya. "One more person who shouldn't be here won't change anything."
"It's not too bad. We have Kana helping to keep the cast under control!"
"Oh, Kana. I like her. She lets you do whatever you want. Dealing with her is real easy. She'll do anything for approval. The name 'Kana Arima' has embedded itself in the public consciousness. And since she left her agency to become a freelancer, she's dirt cheap, and you can add her name's value to your shows for nothing."
Ruby left the door to the smoke room before she heard anything else. She wasn't a snitch, so it wasn't like she would tell Kana what she overheard, but she didn't think she would believe her anyway. But she wasn't one to keep too many secrets from her brother...