All the filming equipment was moved to my apartment.
It was also the place that would be used as the protagonist’s house going forward, and it was spacious. There were few places as suitable as this for the movie production group’s base.
“Hiiragi, you use this place alone?”
Yukimura, who had entered my apartment, looked around as if fascinated.
It was the exact same reaction Riku had shown before, and as I had said back then, if a high-school student used a 3LDK apartment of about 960 square feet alone, anyone would react like that.
I nodded and answered.
“Yes. Right now I only use it on weekends. After entering high school, I plan to live here full-time.”
“That’s unusual.”
Yukimura muttered softly at my answer.
At the same time, Kano crossed the kitchen and scolded Yukimura.
“What’s so unusual? Touji is a professional writer. This is normal.”
“Kano. Strictly speaking, it is unusual. A high-school student being a professional writer is unusual to begin with.”
“Touji. You seem pretty close with Yukimura.”
Kano stood on tiptoe and reached for the cupboard. She was trying to take out cookies.
I walked over, opened the cupboard, and took out the cookie jar for her.
After receiving the cookie jar, Kano opened the refrigerator and spoke.
“You exchange messages every day, and you secretly film movies together. Anyway, Touji. Did you finish all the orange juice?”
“When did I ever secretly film a movie? We finished the orange juice last time.”
“Can’t be helped.”
At the news that there was no orange juice, Kano took out cocoa powder instead.
After setting four steaming cups of cocoa on the dining table, Kano put cookies in a bowl, placed it in the center of the table, and sat down.
Then, after crunching into a cookie, she finished speaking.
“Touji. So when do we start?”
“Right now.”
I pulled the whiteboard in front of the dining table and opened the marker cap.
There was a cheerful pop, and words were written on the whiteboard.
“Role Assignment.”
I tapped the four neatly written words with the marker and said,
“There are a lot of roles in a movie, after all. Deciding this first is the proper order.”
I looked at the members of the movie production group one by one.
Then Riku gently raised his hand.
I spun the marker and tilted my head.
“Riku. What?”
“Weren’t the roles already decided? Yukimura is the actress. Tachibana is the art director. And you said I was in charge of music director, plus assistant director, script supervisor, cinematographer, lighting director, supporting actor, extra, and assistant editor.”
“I wondered what you were talking about. Not that. Something else.”
I wrote the rest of the words on the whiteboard.
Protagonist: undecided
Detective: Yukimura
Astronomy Club Member A: undecided
Astronomy Club Member B: undecided
After reading the words on the whiteboard, Riku let out a short exclamation.
“You mean we’re deciding the cast!”
Then Kano tilted her head too.
“Touji. Even so, wouldn’t it be better for Yukimura to play the protagonist? She’s an aspiring actress, right?”
Kano’s words had a point. Normally, the protagonist was the most important person in the story, and because of that, it was standard for the person who acted the best to take that role.
However, this movie deviated slightly from that general rule.
Because.
“Tachibana. In this scenario, the most important role is the detective, not the protagonist.”
The protagonist of the scenario I had written was thoroughly a normal person in the assistant role.
The role that clearly needed an acting feat was the detective.
Yukimura smiled softly and opened her mouth.
“Do you understand, Tachibana?”
“Huh? Touji said the most important thing in a creative work is the protagonist, and that a story where the protagonist has no meaning is garbage. Didn’t you read it wrong?”
Yukimura stared fixedly at me. Her gaze, carrying the meaning of “how did you raise this child?” pricked at me.
From my perspective, it was absurd.
Why would I have raised Kano? What a strange person.
Of course, separately from finding it absurd, I did feel responsible for Kano’s condition.
It had only been a few years since my ability to explain things had improved.
After I gained that ability, things were fine, but before that, my explanations had all been unfriendly from the listener’s perspective, so there was a high chance of misunderstanding.
I told Kano the part I had omitted back then.
“Kano. ‘The protagonist must have a reason to be the protagonist’ and ‘the protagonist must necessarily be active’ are not synonyms.”
“Is that how it is?”
“That is how it is.”
Well, once a protagonist had a meaning that made them absolutely necessary as the protagonist, they had no choice but to be active.
Because in a creative work, being given an irreplaceable role meant exactly that.
Because of that, the protagonist of my scenario also had a very important role. Without the protagonist, the story did not work.
However, it was not a role that stood out obviously.
Since it was a role that could only be read if one focused carefully on the character’s emotional line, it was not particularly strange that Kano failed to read it.
At my explanation, Kano drank her cocoa with an expression that suggested she roughly understood.
Riku also seemed to find our conversation interesting and opened his mouth in admiration as if he had gained new knowledge.
Riku really did have good reactions.
As expected, my greatest friend was different.
“So.”
Yukimura opened her mouth.
While everyone’s eyes gathered on her, Yukimura continued speaking.
“Are you really going to have yourselves play the supporting roles? Without finding other people?”
“Do you want to find other people?”
“If that would make the movie come out higher quality.”
The reason Yukimura was filming a movie was to become an actress.
Make a proper movie and, even if it was only one person, get someone related to the film industry to recognize her existence.
Raise the probability of becoming an actress, even slightly.
For that purpose, she had done various part-time jobs, including fitting-model work, and had even prepared roughly 1.3 million yen worth of filming equipment.
Honestly.
Yukimura’s true feelings were probably that she wanted to spend even more money if necessary to find proper actors and film the movie.
“I understand how you feel, Yukimura.”
“Does that mean you’re against it? Are you reluctant to film a movie with people you don’t know after all?”
“No. That’s not it.”
I opened my laptop and opened the inbox of the email address I had newly created this time.
Yukimura blinked.
“What’s this?”
“Click anything and read it.”
Yukimura clicked some of the flood of emails that had poured in.
Then she downloaded and checked the video attached to an email.
Then she checked another email, one by one.
When she had checked about thirty emails that way, Yukimura whispered in a slightly tired voice.
“What is this?”
“It seems there are a lot of people thinking the same thing as you, Yukimura. I posted a notice saying we were filming an independent movie, and a flood of emails came in asking us to choose them even if it was unpaid.”
I had no interest in acting. I was only interested in being the scenario writer, or more precisely, in solving my slump through scenario writing.
Additionally, Riku had no interest in acting either, and Kano had even less interest in acting.
Therefore, even if we brought in other actors and filmed the movie, I, Riku, and Kano would not care at all.
If anything, if they were good, that would be good.
But.
Even so, if I had not brought up the subject of other actors, there was a reason for that.
Yukimura frowned.
“Hiiragi, where did you post this?”
“An actor-related community. I think you know it too, Yukimura.”
“Are you sure you wrote the recruitment notice properly? Why are people in their thirties sending emails when you’re recruiting for high-school roles?”
“Exactly. I thought it was my mistake too, so I checked three times.”
Unfortunately.
Even though dozens of emails had arrived, I could not find anyone usable.
If they were the right age for the role, their acting ability was atrocious, and if their acting ability was usable, their age did not fit.
In fact, there were some people who, despite being older, looked young enough that if we insisted they were mature-looking high-school students, we could forcibly film the movie while throwing a tantrum.
However, I had a personal theory here.
One action was enough to read a person.
Working with someone who could not even distinguish whether they were the right age for a role was not such an attractive option that I wanted to experience it personally.
“If they’re all bad anyway, wouldn’t it be better in various ways to just give the roles to Riku and Kano, while I work hard on acting direction?”
“That’s true, but...”
Yukimura trailed off.
Yukimura, who was serious about acting, ultimately did not like the situation itself, where complete beginners would be forced into use.
I understood that part too.
No matter how hard I worked on acting direction, I could not turn beginners into gods of acting.
For one thing, I was a beginner director myself.
No matter how I had once uploaded sketch comedy and one-man performances to YouTube for half a year, and no matter how I had run fantasy simulations of being a film director for a long time, there were bound to be awkward parts.
So when considering all sorts of factors, finding proper actors was absolutely the right choice, but.
“It isn’t as if we have endless time, right?”
Our official status was students. We had to go to school.
Right now, just before middle-school graduation, we had time to spare, but after entering high school, things would be different again. We would definitely be busier than we were now, at least.
Because of that, if we were going to film a movie, the optimal period was from right before middle-school graduation until before high-school entrance.
Wasting that time trying to find actors was also somewhat questionable.
“So this is a compromise. We’ll keep actor recruitment open at all times, and since we can’t just play around until we find actors, how about we film the movie among ourselves?”
“In that case, sure.”
Yukimura answered quickly. She did not seem dissatisfied with my proposal.
With this, the real sorting-out was finished.
Now, truly, only one thing remained.
Riku muttered,
“Touji. Then who plays the protagonist?”
“We need to decide that from now on.”