At dawn and still half asleep, Nia sluggishly walked into the studio with a cup of hot tea in her hand. She plopped down into the seat beside Amy, taking a sip of her drink.
"You seem tired," the girl chuckled, writing a few things down on her clipboard before they could begin anything. Nia sighed.
"I just couldn't stop thinking about this show... It took forever to get the first episode done, how are we suppose to get through the others?" she asked her friend, rubbing her eyes. Amy shrugged as she pulled her bare feet onto the director's chair. She scribbled some more on her board.
"Maybe the problem is that we were approaching it from too professional an angle? If we let the cast have their fun off-set, they might be less inclined to goof off and waste film and time?"
The younger director let out a breath, shrugging as well. "I'll try anything." she replied desperately. Amy looked at her friend and noted her tired eyes.
"Why don't you get some extra rest while we wait for the actors to show up? I can give them a warning prank so they know not to mess around so much today."
Before Nia could ask what the girl had on her mind, Amy had leapt off of her chair and was already walking towards the door. Sleepily, Nia watched Amy with her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What on earth was she doing now? Then again, she wasn't quite sure she wanted to know...
Take One.
"I stand here today to beseech the gods," Ayako began to recite the prayer calmly, waving the mini-mop type thing back and forth. She wasn't exactly sure what it was, but it was fun to carry around. "I call upon them to desc—" her words were cut short, however, when the newspaper strands flew off the stick. Ayako blinked in surprise before a laugh escaped her lips. "I had a prop malfunction."
Take Two.
"I call upon them to descend from the heavens and join us where no gods dwell," the woman said once again, having had her prop fixed. "to end this—" this time though she waved the mini-mop thing to close to the candles and it began to catch on fire. Her eyes widened and she gasped. "Fire! It's on fire!" she yelled frantically.
The directors were on their feet immediately, but before they could do anything, Houshou was already on stage with a large cup of water. He slung the water out of it. It successfully put the fire out, but the water also got all over Ayako, soaking her clothes and making her makeup run down her face.
"Thanks..."
Take Fifteen.
"...And bless it's many vessels..." Ayako continued calmly, waving the stick...thing...back and forth.
"Ah-choo!" The actor playing as the principal sneezed. Everyone turned to him as he chuckled nervously.
"Gesundheit," Amy said dryly as they set up for another take.
XxX
"I must stay here for the next twelve hours to keep an eye on things." Ayako stated with a small smile.
"Right, of course; you're a true professional. Maybe we can meet up for lunch sometime." the man playing the principal suggested as he began to walk away. Mai's face scrunched up in mild disgust from the sidelines.
"Why does it seem he's hitting on Ayako? Isn't he too old for her?" she asked, mostly to herself, but everyone else heard her. Including the directors who shot warning glares at her.
XxX
The trio began to walk to the doors, where Ayako was scripted to see the principal and director head off. None of them were expecting the crinkling of glass, nor the implosion that came next. Ayako ducked to the ground and covered her head. Amy looked at the principal and board and nodded at them. Subtly, they lined their faces with fake blood.
The first to react was Hoshou, running to his sister's aid. "Hey, are you all right?"
"He's bleeding!" John cried out, still in character for some reason. Amy smirked. This was going well.
"Him, too!" Hoshou said upon further inspection. He turned to his sister, who did not appear to be bleeding, but he wanted to be sure. "Are you hurt?"
"No..." Ayako said, not moving for the fear of glass that was all around her. Everyone was still for a few moments before Amy clapped her hands.
"Great, you guys made it through a scene just fine. But Mai and Oliver, we need you guys to stay a little separate so we can film Mai worrying a bit about this ghost," Amy said, writing on her clipboard. All the actors turned to her.
"A scene?" Mai gasped. "The window broke! There's glass everywhere!"
"Calm down, it's just Piccotex. I couldn't use sugar windows because the scene took to long, but this stuff won't hurt you," Amy said, hopping off her director's chair. Nia watched, intrigued, as Amy took up a piece of 'glass' and ran it across her hand. She smirked at most everyone's dumbfounded expression.
"What about the script?" Oliver asked. Amy shook her head.
"I gave you guys a bogus script this morning. This is the real scene, you guys just didn't know it. Now, how many times to I have to do this to tell you guys to behave, I wonder...?" With that leading off remark, Amy turned tail and walked to her chair, directing a few stage hands to clean up the mess. "Oh, boys? You can leave if you like, we got the footage we needed."
The cleaned up extras appeared grateful as they stood and left. Everyone else on stage noted the sudden lack of blood. Oh, boy, they were working with a crazy person...
XxX
"...There are no spirits here to begin with." Masako said calmly. The directors were extremely pleased at the moment. They had went through a couple of scenes now without anyone messing up. Perhaps now, after Amy's impromptu 'lesson', everyone would finally start to act—
"Yes, there are!" Kurado yelled out her lines as she should. But the next moment her fierce expression was gone and was replaced worry and a bit of guilt. She turned towards Nia and Amy. "I'm sorry! I lost focus...I'm just not use to acting in such a rude way...
Nia sighed. "It's fine... Re-take the scene!" she told the cameraman, along with Masako and Ayako.
XxX
"That classroom didn't have a chair in the middle of it, did it?" Mai asked aloud, focusing on the one monitor above her head. The three men around her immediately turned in order to take a look.
"That's the classroom on the eastern edge of the second floor," Oliver supplied evenly, as he was supposed to. Mai nodded.
"Yesterday, when I set up the camera in there, it wasn't there. I'm sure of it. I'd remember," Mai said. A stubborn air collected around her, as it was supposed to.
"Did anyone go in that classroom today?" Oliver inquired. After receiving the scripted negatives, he rewound the tape. All was silent for a moment before Kuroda walked into the room and dragged the chair into the middle. She then turned around and walked off.
"Miss Naoko, why didn't you use the magnets like you were supposed to?" Amy sighed. Kuroda messed with her fingers and mumbled something.
"We can't hear you. Say again?" Nia asked. Kuroda blushed in embarrassment.
"I lost the magnets...
Everyone sighed. "Just great."
XxX
"...Quite often objects that are manipulated by poltergeists will feel warm to the touch." Oliver said his lines, adding on to the explanation Kuroda gave. "If we look at the thermographic image, we can see that the chair is not radiating heat."
Absent-mindedly, as if forgetting what she was currently doing, Mai reached for Oliver's hand that was so close to hers and interwined them together. Then she leaned her head against his arm.
"Cut!" Nia's voice rang out. She noticed Mai blinked in surprise as she lifted her head from Oliver. "Miss Taniyama, what do you think you're doing?" she questioned, gesturing towards the couple's still interwined hands. Mai followed her gaze, and the girl's eyes widened. She removed her hand from her boyfriend's and took a step away from him.
"Sorry, I forgot..." Mai sheepishly told the directors, who sighed, shaking their heads.
XxX
"Then what about Kuroda-san being attacked?" Mai asked.
"It was her imagination," Masako stated plainly. Kuroda instantly turned to her with a displeased frown.
"It was not!" she said.
"Was so," Masako returned.
"Not!"
"So."
"Not!"
As the volley continued, Amy face palmed. This was not how the scene went.
XxX
"If we truly are dealing with a spirit here, and Masako can't sense it," John began once Masako left. "that would be quite a shock..."
"There is no evidence suggesting there is one." Oliver stated, causing him to get an annoyed look from his girlfriend. Knowing that look and what she was thinking, he was going to send her some sort of vague sign not to mess up the scene, but before he could, Mai already had spoken up.
"Does he really have to be on her side and defend her like that?" she demanded from the directors.
"This is probably the only thing Miss Taniyama and I will ever agree on!" Masako's voice rang from off-set. Nia and Amy massaged their temples. Really, what were they going to do with those two girls?! It was too early to be getting a headache already!
XxX
"Shibuya-san, you're just a sucker for a pretty face," Kuroda said. Mai turned to the girl with the appropriate amount of shock on her own. "You're sticking up for her quite a bit, aren't you?"
"I know her profession and her talents are highly regarded," Oliver replied. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be slightly frustrated. "So I am only offering her the proper respect."
"And you couldn't have done that during the auditions?" John muttered. He had not meant for anyone to hear, however, no one wanted such a sour look on the face of an innocent priest. The directors groaned before setting up the shot again.
XxX
Take Five.
"Do I really have to 'fall'?" Masako demanded warily as she peeked out of the window and at the air mattress two stories below. The directors sighed.
"For the fifth time, yes!" Nia exclaimed, exasperated.
"Can't I have a stunt double or something?!"
"No!" Amy yelled, fed up with actress just as Nia was. Really, you'd think with the way Masako's personality was, she'd enjoy falling down and landing on an air mattress!
XxX
"No," John stated again. Amy sighed.
"And why not?" she demanded.
"I will not watch Masako fall out of a building. I will not stand for it," he said clearly. The fire in his blue eyes was strong, but the frustration in Amy's was stronger.
"You knew what you were signing up for. Miss Hara's already fallen out of the building and she's safe. All you have to do is state the obvious in your cute accent, got it?" Amy growled. John's frown deepened.
"No."
"Ugg!"
XxX
"...She must have leaned on it, causing it to break beneath her weight." Oliver explained, only to have the scene interrupted by an angry John.
"Are you calling Masako fat?!"
XxX
"What do you think, Bou-san?" Oliver asked, leaning against the table holding his equipment.
"Like I said from the start, it's a sitebound spirit," Hoshou said.
"And you, John?" he asked, turning to the boy. John appeared to be on the brink of answering when Mai intervened.
"Wait, the character calls me and the priest by our first names?" Mai wondered. Everyone turned to her. "Well, it's just that he calls the monk Bou-san and the rest of the girls by their last names, Matsuzaki-san and Hara-san. But he calls me by my first name—and we all know why—but he also calls him John? Why?"
"Probably because the priest is from Australia and the character is already aware that other countries say given names rather than surnames," Oliver supplied. Mai wondered and walked off, putting the information together.
"If you're done speculating like a bunch of fanfiction writers, can we get back to the shoot, please?" Amy asked. That earned her a whack on the head from Nia, who merely shook her head sadly. "What?"
XxX
"...I think I'll hold off on my opinions for now." Oliver vaguely spoke after Houshou said his lines. Then he frowned, turning towards the directors. "He's a bit arrogant, isn't he?"
Nia sighed in frustration, but nonetheless nodded. "Yes, he is. And he's also a so-called narcissist, hence the name Naru the Narcissist."
XxX
"How about that boy?" Hoshou asked. "He makes a grand show with all of this high faultin' equipment, but is he really capable of anything?"
The good news was that Mai managed to stay silent as the other actor threw a jab at her boyfriend. The bad news was that her every viable insult and defense that she could have made for him was written clearly across her face.
"Miss Taniayama, you are aware that we have to film you looking concerned, not murderous, correct?" Amy asked. Mai nodded, but her expression did not calm down until five minutes later.
XxX
"Wait, so the ceiling is actually going to fall?!" John asked for confirmation, though angrily. Nia and Amy sighed and nodded. "What if it crushes me?"
"I can assure you it won't." Amy told him.
"And if it does?"
"It. Won't." Nia tried to say it as patiently as she could, but she ended up clenching her teeth anyway. "As long as you move out of the way when Mai says 'the ceiling is falling' then you'll be fine."
John, in return, crossed his arms stubbornly.
XxX
"Right, I'll be going, too," Ayako said, still in her priestess outfit from earlier. "'While there is life there's hope.'"
"Just be honest and say you're scared," Hoshou teased. "Just like that time you were five and—"
"Eh! Nii-san, don't remind me!" Ayako shrieked, covering her face with her hands. Mai rose an eyebrow with an almost evil glint in her eye.
"Story time anyone?" she asked. The directors shook their heads simultaneously.
XxX
Take One.
"Naru? Did you sleep here last night? That can't be good for you." Mai spoke to Oliver, who was pretending to be asleep. He stirred a bit before opening his eyes and bringing a hand to his head.
"Hey, Mai. What are you doing here at this hour?"
Mai stared at him for a bit before she let out a giggle. "Like Noll ever looks this handsome right after waking up!"
Narrowing his eyes, Oliver scowled. "Oh? Well, I hate to break it to you, but you don't look like a princess just after waking up either."
Take Two.
"Hey, Mai. What are you doing here at this hour?"
"At this hour?" the brunette glanced around at what was suppose to be natural daylight. "Do you think it's in the middle of the night or something?"
Nia sighed. "Tone down the sarcasm, Miss Taniyama."
Take Five.
"Is that you, Mai? What do you want, this early in the morning?" Oliver asked, moving his hair aside so he could see the girl properly.
Finally, Mai gave the desired reaction. Her face flushed into a light red and she looked away, annoyed.
However, she did not come out of her slight stupor—which they would be voicing over later—as quickly as she ought to. As he killed time, Oliver took the moment to turn to the directors. "I like this line better."
Amy posed for victory while Nia glared at her. Amy completely deserved the fact that she fell on her rear end two seconds after realizing they would have to shoot the scene again. Nia chuckled this time at her misfortune.
XxX
As Oliver clicked a button on the laptop to show the others another picture on it, they stood there for a full minute before the laptop even loaded the page half way.
"This is too slow." Oliver commented, staring at the piece of technology with a deep frown.
"Well, excuse me." Nia grumbled. It wasn't her fault that the internet connection wasn't quick enough.
XxX
"Yes. The floor of the classroom at the eastern end, where the ceiling collapsed, was three inches lower than the west end," Oliver explained. Mai shifted into a confused position as she was supposed to.
"Three inches is..."
"About 7 1/2 centimeters, huh?" Hoshou finished, easily doing the calculation in his head. Ayako turned towards Oliver.
"Are we not even going to talk about how the heck a sixteen year old boy measured the difference between the height of a building at one end versus another?" she asked.
Everyone sweat dropped. It was a curious question, but not the one she was supposed to ask.
XxX
"Are you really leaving?" Mai questioned as Oliver packed a few wires into the box. "Well?"
"No, I thought it'd just be nice to pack everything and then unpack it again once I'm done." he said sarcastically. "Seriously who writes these lines? You keep asking and stating the obvious."
Off the stage, Nia fumed while Amy had to hold her back from marching onto set.
XxX
"Maybe you just can't tell if it's here, right?!" Kuroda asked, her voice demanding and slightly pleading all at once. Oliver looked indifferent.
"Then you can drive it out. If you do have spiritual abilities, that is," he said. No one expected the girl to actually cry over it.
"Um...Miss Naoko, you know he's not really attacking you, right?" Amy asked. The girl shook her head and continued to cry for a few moments. Seriously, though, how were they going to finish the shot with actors like these?
XxX
"There's nothing left for me to investigate, I'm leaving. End of story." Oliver announced as he picked up another piece of his equipment and placed it inside the box that was beside Mai. The scene was going so well until Houshou ruined it.
"Hey, shouldn't Mai at least be helping him pack? I mean he's doing it all by himself while everyone else is just standing around and being lazy. She is suppose to be his assistant after all."
Mai frowned, thinking about it. "Yeah, that would make sense..."
Nia hit her head against the clipboard in her hands.
XxX
"It kind of feels like the dream is over..." Mai said. Although she wasn't supposed to, she looked up to see what kind of confused face Oliver would pull. That deadpan 'eh' was too much for her to take seriously.
"Noll! Your face!" she laughed. "I've never seen you do that before!"
Mai was laughing, the directors were not. They face palmed.
XxX
Suddenly the actors heard sounds of glass cracking. Everyone's eyes widen in fright, having not known such a thing was going to happen. Mai and Ayako clung on to Oliver and Houshou respectively, though the scene would have been perfect if they had not done so. The windows blew out next, and all the shards of the glass fell on Kuroda specifically.
"Kuroda!"
"I'm okay!"
Nia sighed tiredly, looking towards Amy with a mild worried expression. "Please tell me you forgot to give them the real script after the prank you did on them, and that you didn't give it to them on purpose to be mean..."
"I wonder..." Amy replied innocently.
"Hey, aren't our directors a bit mean?" Mai asked her boyfriend conspiratorially. Oliver sighed as he had his hand made up. It was a steady stream of fake blood that would travel down his long sleeve to appear as though his hand were bleeding. "They played that trick on us this morning and just now."
"Nia-san appears to be a fine director, only angered when scenes don't go correctly or when the actors goof off," Oliver responded. The tubing the make up artist was attaching to his arm for the blood tickled. "Amy-san is the devious one."
"So...should we get her back somehow?" Mai asked.
"If you're going to get Amy back, I'm in," a surprising voice said from behind. Oliver and Mai turned to see John and Masako there, each looking put-off that they would have to join forces with the other duo in order to exact revenge. "I don't want to work with either of you, but that director is gonna hurt somebody and I don't want it to be Masako."
"Hara-san isn't even in the scene anymore..."
"All right, time to get rolling!" Amy called from her director's chair. Ayako and Hoshou were already in place with Kuroda. Oliver narrowed his eyes.
"We'll discuss it later," he said as he, Mai, and John went to their places.
"Hey, what's up, Mai?" John asked, holding the wires out for Mai to take. "Do you mind if I give you a hand?"
Mai looked up, a smile on her face as it should be, but then she frowned at the way too forced smile on the blonde's face. "Gee, you don't have to hurt yourself to be kind to me." she deadpanned. John scowled.
"I am trying at least."
XxX
"Do you still believe in the boy's explanation?" Ayako asked. Both she and her brother had smug looks on their faces from the door. The fact that Mai knew those looks were not acted fueled her own 'acted' response.
"Do you have any proof that he's wrong?" Mai defended. "If so, prove to me that there's an evil spirit here!"
Unanimously, the Takigawa siblings pointed off-stage. Confused, Mai turned around to see...
"A FLOATING DOLL FACE!?" she screamed, jumping back. "AMY-SAN, THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE! STOP IT!"
"It's not me this time! Miss Hara, what are you doing ruining the shoot?!" Amy called out. The petite girl sighed as she removed herself from the shadows, where she had been able to pretend she was an actual ghost.
"Lin-san, I believe you owe me five yen," Masako said. The tall man frowned as he tossed her the bet money.
"Honestly, Taniyama-san. I expected you to be more level-headed..."
"WHAT WAS THAT?!"
Both directors sighed.
XxX
"We're good now," Houshou stated smugly as he and John came to join Mai, Ayako, and Kuroda. "Ayako's effort may have been a complete failure, but mine wasn't."
"Excuse me?!"
"Well, it is true, isn't it?" the man challenged his sister.
"Don't take credit for my work!" Ayako yelled. "You always do that, you always have since we were little! And I'm the one who really won the science fair in third grade—not you!"
"Hey, you're the one who offered to help me on my project! I can't believe you're still going on about that!"
"Helped? I did everything!"
Mai covered her ears, being right in the middle of the arguing siblings. Meanwhile Nia and Amy tried their best to stay calm. Perhaps hiring people who were related or had relations towards each other wasn't a good idea...
XxX
"I hear something," John said. He looked up along with everyone else, listening to the sound of footsteps above them.
"Someone's there."
"No way."
Not a moment after Hoshou said his piece, he began to run up the stairs. "What's this?"
Fueled by curiosity—the shot was ruined anyway—the others followed him. They ran to the top of the set to find—
"Noll, Hara-san. What—?" Mai asked. Her boyfriend shook his head.
"We don't have extras to do this for the scene, and since Hara-san and I are out anyway, the directors told us to do this," Oliver explained, tapping the floor with his shoe to emphasize what he meant. Everyone nodded in understanding. Except for Ayako.
"Why not just use recordings?" she asked. Everyone else blinked. That was a good question.
"Can all of you except for Mr. Davis and Ms. Hara come down from there? We need to do the shoot again," Amy called out. Everyone sighed.
XxX
"I don't remember Naru coming up with any lame excuses, do you?!" Mai said angrily at Ayako and Houshou. "Funny how the adults are acting like ch—" she suddenly let out a gasp as she heard violent knocking sounds on the set. She spun around to face Amy. "Is that Noll and Miss Hara again?!"
Nia groaned, rubbing her temples. "Don't tell me you didn't get them the real scripts again..."
"Ehe..." Amy only gave a sheepish grin in reply.
XxX
"Kuroda-san, hurry!" Mai shouted. The two girls raced down the hallway as they were supposed to. Mai was completely surprised when the bookshelf to her right began to bear down on her.
"Jou-chan!" Hoshou called out, having known that the scene was coming this time. However, it seemed as though only the actors in the scene had known what was about to happen.
"Noll!" Mai called from her newfound position far away from the bookcase, which was actually a styrofoam replica. She watched as her boyfriend removed the little flakes of brown-painted white stuff from his black shirt. He turned his glare to the directors.
"Who's idea was it to drop something on Mai?" he asked lowly. The directors sighed and Nia glared at Amy.
"I gave them the real script this time... I think I just forgot Mr. Davis's..."
"You think?" Nia asked. Amy chuckled nervously.
Naruisawesome: *giggles* So Mai, Naru, John, and Masako are out to get Amy-chan now!
AmyNChan: Yeah...what have I done to myself? ^^;
Naruisawesome: *pats her shoulder* Don't worry...we'll think of something bad to do to you. XD
AmyNChan: Wait, wha—?!
Naruisawesome: Hope you enjoyed and please review~!
AmyNChan: Hey!