I am so sorry for the wait, ugh, I know I know, I took long, but hey guys, I passed my stuff teehee
But I'm happy to be able to update! Life might be difficult but I'll come back here when I can.
Kei finally left Mana's side to join the others after some careful coaxing. Mana smiled as he saw Kana instantly absorb Kei into their group conversation.
Noticing Ruby start to give him curious looks, Mana quickly made himself look busy by pulling out the list of offers made to him, giving himself the briefest moment to lay seated against the wall.
Mana pulled out the list of offers made to him as a child actor as a distraction so that he could have more of a moment to himself, but now that they were in front of his face, his thoughts naturally flowed towards them.
The movie's public release changed a lot for the actors. Among the kids, it changed more for the boys than it did for the girls.
Kana was already quite popular with the general public, already known publicly as the genius child actor, and she continued to get role after role. She wasn't as bratty as in the show, something Mana attributed to actually having social interaction with other people who wouldn't unconditionally praise her for being a genius child actor.
In the show, after all, if she was as busy a child actor as she was in the world that Mana knew, she would have spent most of her time with actors, directors, and staff who would all only be complimenting her for her acting.
In this world, she got interaction with Kana, Kei, Miyuki, and Ruby, who all became her friends. She also got fiercely competitive against her lifelong acting rival, Aqua. Having a rival she could actually compare herself to and possibly be beaten by probably did wonders for her ego.
'And well, I think I also helped a lot, maybe.' Mana thought to himself in a mockingly humble manner, smiling to himself as he covered his face
in the offers.
Meanwhile, Ruby was pretty much exactly as he imagined being as a child. She was energetic and active, she could bounce from one end of the room to another. She was probably the glue that actually kept the friend group together, and she was always happy to indulge the silly ideas Mana thought up.
Mana smiled. 'It's pretty boring being a kid sometimes, so it's important to spice it up.' He appreciated that his friends indulged his ideas as much as they did.
One of the bigger changes was Aqua. Aqua seemed more honest about being into acting. Perhaps it was being in contact with other actors, perhaps it was the increased exposure to the entertainment industry since most of their playdates were scheduled around Kana the genius child actor's availability, but Aqua was actively searching for roles.
'I wonder if Aqua can be an actor for fun, this time?' Mana wondered. 'Because there's no way Ai-nee is dying and traumatizing him into acting this time. Not on my watch.'
Mana had noticed Aqua silently considering contacting Director Gotanda again, to learn acting and receive training.
'It would be really nice if the student-teacher relationship of Aqua and Director Gotanda from the series could pop up again.' Mana mused to himself. 'It's one of the sweetest things from the series, in my opinion.'
The biggest change after the movie, however, was one that he didn't expect.
His own career. Or rather, his and Ai's career.
The general public really liked them after the movie. The movie's younger brother - older sister duo blew up like crazy after the movie.
Ai blew up in a way that Mana guessed was different from the way she blew up in the series.
Mana guessed that, in the original series, Ai blew up because of her crazy beauty. In a movie where the monster was hauntingly beautiful, she must have stood out to the audience and spread to a wider audience that way.
The way that Ai - as well as Mana - blew up was completely different to that.
Of course, Ai was still hauntingly beautiful. But it seemed that Mana's effect on the script and the movie's overall story gave her - and him in relation - popularity among the female audience as well.
They were popular as a symbol for femininity.
'The movie's message changed after my input to the script.' Mana realized after seeing the reaction of the public. Before his input, in the original series, the movie was genuinely just horror, but his input into the movie and its script turned into a message for the female audience.
'You don't need to be pretty, you're beautiful the way you are.'
The female audience latched onto the message, moved by the story, the characters, and the acting. And so the horror film of Director Gotanda turned into social commentary of some sort, and the female audiences loved it.
Ai's career was skyrocketing. She was pretty, enchanting, charismatic, and her performance in the movie was moving. She was approached by offers from all over, outside of her capacity as Ai of B-Komachi. She was getting offers for interviews, magazines, TV shows, series, everywhere. She was marked for stardom, and Mana felt blessed to be able to witness it first had.
As the other half of the movie's sibling duo, Mana's career as a child actor was skyrocketing along with her. It was compounded further by the fact that he was related to the established genius child actor. People were starting to whisper that he was as big a genius child actor as Kana.
And this burgeoning popularity turned into the offers placed in front of him.
Turning his attention back to the various offers sent to him, Mana sighed to himself. He was afforded a lot of freedom by his mother, considering that she pretty much gave him complete freedom over which jobs to take and which jobs not to take. He even got his own phone for it. It was a crazy amount of freedom for a child his age, but Mana would take full advantage of it. He was signed up to the same child acting agency Kana was, but the increased leverage in the form of being related to the genius actor as well as being cunning enough to actually leverage that gave him quite the compensation, which was also approved for Kana's contract.
'Say what you want about them being scumbags to Kana in the series, but they at least offer pretty good compensation, at least at this point.' Mana thought, pleasantly surprised, although a more cynical part of him whispered in his ear. 'They probably don't want to risk their rising star actors complaining or being lured out of their agency.'
Mana wasn't… disinterested in acting. He wasn't, anybody would be happy, flattered even, to experience such success in any field.
But Mana knew that his success wasn't something he could replicate.
In the first place, the movie was only successful because it was already going to be successful in the first place. And then, Mana could only get in and add his input because he knew exactly how to sneak under Director Gotanda's skin. And with that freedom, he pushed in his ad-lib not thinking of popularity or anything, but because those were things he wanted to tell Hoshino Ai.
It was a crazy amount of coincidences that all combined to become successful.
Mana wasn't completely dense. He probably wasn't that bad at acting if his career was blowing up due to an emotional scene, but he really didn't think he could do that good again.
Mana sighed softly to himself. 'There's no point in brooding about this.' He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, before standing up from his spot and approaching Aqua.
Aqua seemed to have finished with the conversation that the girls were having in the corner and was watching something on the laptop.
'He's watching the movie?' Mana let out a gasp in surprise, causing Aqua notice and turn to him.
"Hey Mana." Aqua greeted, smiling at him and offering him the seat beside him.
Smirking, Mana took his offer, putting his elbow on Aqua's shoulder. "Hey, can we go back and start from your scene?"
Aqua flushed. "No way, I intentionally skipped that. We can watch it from anytime after I appear." Aqua emphasized the 'after', insisting on avoiding his own scene.
"Hey, come on! You want to be actor, don't you? You'll have tons of stuff in the future, you can't shy away from your face this early." Mana teased.
Aqua flushes, but he's ready for the teasing, even if he stutters as he replies in embarrassment. "W-w-what about you? Do you want to be an actor?"
Mana almost instinctively frowns, but he controls his face just in time, lunging at the other boy, snaking his arm around his neck, and rubbing his cheek on Aqua's to cover his slip up. "I mean, acting's fun, so I guess I'll do it for now." Mana sniggers.
"How about you? Do you want to be an actor?" Mana asks, both as diversion and also out of genuine curiosity at his friend's answer.
"I think I do." Aqua replies quietly, firmly, and his eyes turn back to the movie that had been playing all throughout their conversation.
Surprised by the sudden solemnity of the air around Aqua, Mana blinked, falling silent, before returning back to his seat beside Aqua. He didn't quite know what to say to that. He joined Aqua in rewatching the movie.
A few minutes of rewatching later, Aqua turned his face back towards Mana. "You know, Mana, you're a great actor."
The air was still solemn and and Aqua's face was serious and determined, and so Mana's face couldn't help but flush red in surprise.
"Huh?" was Mana's intelligent response, still processing the suddenness of Aqua's compliment.
By the time Mana got his footing back, Aqua had already turned back to the movie, his eyes focused on the Mana on the screen.
'…I don't even like guys, but my heart started pounding. As expected of a future harem protagonist, he really knows how to get to people.' Mana leered at Aqua.
As Mana complained about Aqua's developing playboy ways in his head, he didn't notice what Aqua was doing until Aqua put his hand on his shoulder.
"I'll definitely beat you next time." Aqua declared, his eyes sparkling and shining, and, to Mana's surprise, was something a little unexpected.
'Did he actually manifest the fabled star eyes for a moment there? Does that actually happen?' Mana found himself lost for words. 'Actually, what is even happening? Did he seriously declare his rivalry all anime style? Kana was right when she said that he was seriously chuunibyo that one time in the series.'
An obviously deliberate and fake cough resounded behind him, and Mana turned his head to find Ruby standing behind him and Aqua.
Uncontrollably, Mana flushed again, embarrassed that the moment was caught by Ruby. "…Hey Ruby." Mana tried to keep the embarrassment out of his voice but failed.
Ruby smiled at him with a strange look in her eyes.
Mana felt like, maybe, probably, perhaps, it was time to maybe go to the toilet. Because he really needed to go from all the aqua he was drinking. Or something. Anything really to escape from the embarrassment of being the protagonist's rival.
As Mana hastily took his leave to get out of the room to go to the toilet, he heard a notification and took out his phone to reply. He tilted his head in consideration.
'Hmm, perhaps I could recommend Aqua for that one role…'
A bit of a short chapter, and honestly not exactly what I was planning, but hey, I always did say that the characters did kinda do whatever they wanted.
I'm curious what you guys think this is turning out to be. It's been a whiiiiiiiiiile.
