The two stared at each other for a moment, and before Kasuka could question him, he shook his head and stepped aside, allowing the other to enter his dressing room. "Hello Hanejima-san. Sorry for staring, um, no one told me I would be working with someone so famous." he quickly improvised, being half-true. Obviously to get this series up and running they would pick someone who already had a fan-base to promote it, but for it to be someone Izaya already knew? Well, this is just peachy.
Kasuka seemed to believe him for the most part on that one, nodding and entering before looking at 'Kobayashi' and handing him a stack of papers. Oh right, my script.
"Nice to meet you, Kobayashi-san." he said politely as Izaya took it, and despite having his normal, stoic expression, it wasn't easy to miss how his eyes moved over Izaya's figure. It almost made Izaya tense, since he knew Kasuka was much, much more intelligent than his older sibling - grade-wise at the very least - and since they knew each other before it would be even easier to see that something was amiss with his co-star.
If any of these assumptions were made by the smaller ravenett, he kept them to himself and continued talking business. "The director said this series will be going on weekly for almost 45 episodes, if not longer, and if it's received well we'll be here even longer for a second season. We have to get along for all of that." he told him, quiet as always and making Izaya strain to hear him since Kasuka was in the middle of the room and the informant was still by the doorway. He shut the door after realizing he was still holding it by the handle, then went over to sit on the leather couch they had provided for him.
"Yes, I guess we will. But that shouldn't be too hard, right? And besides, all we have to do is be pleasant on stage." Izaya said, his smile smaller than before since he was putting things together in his mind. 45 weeks, or more, with the brother of my enemy. Well, this has been a.. somewhat pleasant surprise. I wonder how I could use this.
And while Izaya was thinking, Kasuka had come to sit beside him on the couch. "Exactly what I was thinking. So, you wanna practice together or wait? I already read through my script and it seems we don't really meet up until the middle of the second episode." the experienced actor announced, making Izaya hum a bit. Now that he knew who he would be working with he didn't really want to focus on the job, more on the other and seeing how he could get information about his brother out of the boy, but he'd play civil for now and act normal, not like his usual amazing self.
"Let's practice now. We can practice our solo lines on each other too." Izaya offered, and when Kasuka nodded and picked up his own script they got started.
The first half of their practice was easy, one could say. Kasuka had most of the lines, the rest were to be said by a secondary character instead of Izaya, and with the ravenett focusing only on work he already knew what kind of actor Kasuka was. A fucking amazing one. It struck Izaya as odd, seeing this person he'd known for so long to be emotionless suddenly showing true emotions and portraying them quite well besides the fact he didn't get them perfect on the first try at some points. But of course, this whole situation shouldn't be odd to him when Izaya himself is masquerading as a woman, an actress, and a very shy one all together. Hmph, moving on.
The only pauses they really had in Kasuka's parts were Izaya telling him his face didn't match what he was saying, which make Kasuka stop completely and try to do something about it, almost making Izaya piss his pants laughing. He thought he had a hard time doing something besides smirking, but this was just too good to watch. He wished he could grab his phone to record it. But that would be awfully rude, and this new persona of his was, unfortunately, not quite rude at all.
Anyways, back to the task at hand. Kasuka was still trying to get his face just right, with Izaya's help, when there was a knock on the door again and Izaya called for them to come in. It was Mr. Watane. "Oh, so the two of you are already working well together. Good to know! I see you're having a rough patch, though...?" he questioned as he studied Kasuka's improvised expression, before the idol turned away and went back to his more natural expression.
"I was just seeing what worked best." he explained, getting the manager to nod.
"Well, as long as you do well in front of the camera, do whatever you want. I just came to see if you guys wanted to be introduced to who you would be working with the most for this season." he asked, looking between them when the co-stars glanced at each other, then the scripts, then shrugged - on Kasuka's side, and nodded - on Izaya's side. He'd long gotten bored of listening to the other repeat a scene three times in a row to try memorizing it before they would move on and do the same thing again. He had a short attention span to begin with, so this was half-torture.
"Alright then, come on!" he announced, walking away and making the two stars jog a bit to catch up with him, walking a bit behind him at that point. "Alright, this is our best make-up artist on set, Andrea Banner. She came over from America to work with us, so if you speak to her in Japanese, try to talk slower." he announced, having a hand on some brunette's shoulder, who was sorting through different shades of various make-up and checking supplies. When she finally turned, she bowed to them and greeted herself, having an obvious American accent but besides that her Japanese was actually very good.
When she looked at Izaya, she stared for a second then lit up, getting a bit too close to him for his comfort and holding his face in her hands. "You're going to be Cleo? Your features are just perfect for it, this is going to be amazing!" she gushed, not seeming to realize that she was completely in Izaya's personal space, who was trying to back away from her slowly and politely.
"Thank you, but-" "It's nice to meet you, and it would be nicer if you weren't giving my co-star an anxiety attack." Kasuka spoke up suddenly, making the woman and supposed-woman look at him in slight surprise. That seemed to get to the American though and she backed off, bowing formally and frowning at herself.
"Yes, I'm terribly sorry. I-I'm just very passionate about my work.." she explained softly, getting a nod from him before he looked to Izaya. That gave him his que. The ravenett turned to her and bowed back only slightly.
"It's fine, really, but please don't do that again. It's quite unsettling." he warned her, seeing her nod and go back to work when she was dismissed by Mr. Watane's hand. The director looked at the two and smiled, bringing them over with him as he walked towards the other side of the shoot.
"Sorry about her, like she said she's very passionate. There's just a couple more people you should meet today before we get shooting on Tuesday, so follow me please." he said, more like an order as he led them away. Izaya sighed internally and rubbed his neck. I hope not all of the humans here are like her. They're much more entertaining from afar. he thought to himself, casting a side-glance at Kasuka before they reached the next person. Well, most of them are.
And there you have chapter 4! I know I'm taking this story quite slow, but I want actual character development in it, instead of 'OH YAY A FUCK BUDDY NOW LETS GET MAAAAAAAAARRIED~'
So, this I'm guessing is going to be quite a long story if I do it right.
Now, onto the results of last chapter. At the end I asked what perspective you guys wanted, and I waited until I got an answer to post this (even though that takes a while - no one answers me..) and find out. The perspective you guys gave me was *duh duh duhduh*:
Switching POVs throughout the chapter! Thank you to all who reviewed!
So from now on that's how things will work. Hope you guys enjoy it, and I hope I can get much better at writing in Kasuka's POV for you.
On a different note, WE STARTED WATCHING K-DRAMAS AND THEY'RE AWESOME!
Me and sis are in the middle of watching 'Boys Over Flowers' and 'Coffee Prince', so if you guys could suggest what to watch when we're done with them both, that would be amazing~