As the play went on, Chizuru’s performance captured the audience more than the main lead’s performance.

Her role as a comic relief side character made such an impression on the audience that after her death scene, the reception significantly died down. It was as if most of them were interested in her.

She’d made the audience feel so many emotions, they’d laughed, grieved, and felt so many things. 

She had amazing audience engagement capabilities.

‘You have so much untapped talent Chizuru. It’s a pity your first gig turned out to be a bust…’

The play lasted about 30 minutes more after her death and Kazuya walked out, talking a little with Sumi.

More like talking at Sumi, who kept nodding and didn’t say a word to him.

‘Such a cutie pie.’ He thought.

When they parted ways, Kazuya waited for Chizuru at the back exit where the performers would leave from. He stood a bit far and in an inconspicuous location so that security doesn’t throw him away somewhere.

When he saw Chizuru coming out from the exit, he instantly realized that she wasn’t in the right state of mind. Her expression said it all. For the first time, her expression of sadness was something that she was not hiding.

‘Guess it hit her pretty bad…’

She was wearing an overcoat and a skirt with heeled boots. She hid her face under a big English hat.

Kazuya walked up to Chizuru and tapped her on her shoulder.

As she turned around and noticed him, her expression morphs into annoyance and surprise.

She takes a deep breath and calms down, putting her mask back on.

“Did you like the play?” She asked with a smile.

Even Kazuya felt hurt by how she was forcing herself to smile. The worst part was that it didn’t seem right.

He decided to be as blunt as possible with her.

“The director didn’t choose you,” Kazuya said with a straight face.

“…No.” She widened her eyes slightly in surprise and looked down.

“Come on.” He calls her out and leads her to a cafe nearby.

After ordering two coffees he speaks to her, “You’re an amazing actress.”

“You don’t know that.” She looked to the side.

“I do actually. The way the audience reacted to your performance was enough proof for me.”

“The director didn’t choose me… I don’t have what it takes. I’m not talented enough.”

“Like hell, you aren’t.”

Chizuru looked at him wide-eyed but then said, “You speak as if you’re some sort of drama expert…”

“You don’t know the half of it… But truthfully, your performance was stunning, throughout that play I laughed, felt stuffy inside my chest, almost cried then laughed with that feeling of stuffiness in my chest. Do you know in what parts that happened? The parts where you performed. And I can guarantee you, I wasn’t alone in feeling like that. Your performance, while flawed, captured the audience perfectly and moved them.”

“Thank you,” It’s an unfeeling thank you. “In the end, I just wasn’t good enough. I lack talent… Well, that’s how the world-“ 

Kazuya flicked her forehead, hard.

“Oww! What the hell?” She held her forehead with both her hands and asked him, almost tearing up.

“What the hell? What the hell’s wrong with you? Did you not listen to a word I said? Even if your performance was oscar-worthy, you wouldn’t have been chosen. The game was rigged from the start.”

“But it wasn’t oscar-worthy, was it? I made mistakes, I fucked up. My performance was flawed.” She gets emotional as she said the words.

‘Damn this perfect girlfriend and her perfection fetish..’

In as gentle of a voice as he can, Kazuya said to her, “Humans aren’t built to be perfect, Chizuru. They’re innately flawed beings. Hell, the things that you consider mistakes… might not even be mistakes at all.”

“But-“

“And all that talk about talent… You have far more talent than you give yourself credit for. And I know the amount of work that you’ve put into this dream of yours. Thinking that it wasn’t enough is bonkers. You’re amazing, you’re an amazing actress.”

“Kazuya! I appreciate your words but, we’re different, all right? You and I are different. You have the capability and talent required to achieve your dreams. But me? I pretend to be someone’s girlfriend and take their money. Then I throw it at my dream. Even though that dream is completely unreachable for someone as untalented as me.”

“You think that you’re talentless right?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me how long the female lead has been acting. And how long you’ve been acting.”

“I don’t see-“

“Shush. Just tell me.”

“She’s been doing it a year longer than me.”

“So she’s more experienced, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And she got the gig so you think that she’s more talented, right?”

“True.”

“Then why was it that she didn’t have the slightest amount of engagement with the audience? It was like there was a wall between her and the audience when listening to her. She was reading a script, she wasn’t embodying the character. I’m not saying that she’s bad, but trust me, she’s never going to become a top-tier actress. That’s what you call being less talented.”

“Then-“

“Let me finish. You, on the other hand, have something that most performers don’t have. You can embody the character that you’re performing as. When I looked at you I felt that I was looking at the character ‘Onene’. Nowhere did I feel that you were someone else. You embodied the character. That’s what talent is. Trust me, this kind of thing is very difficult and you doing it already puts you above most aspiring actresses in the world. You just got dealt a bad initial hand, that’s all.” He put his hand above hers, in a comforting gesture.

“Then… What do I do now?” Her mask finally falls off and she shows her tired and sad expression.

“Go home, take a shower, read a book, maybe. Wait for the launch of my app. And try again on another day. The first play that you worked in didn’t pan out, big whoop. You are no less talented than most Oscar-winning actors. And with the amount of effort you put into your job. No one can stop you. You have my word.” He squeezed her hand.

“Our coffees are cold.” She mentions this in an attempt to move on from the depressing topic of the play.

“It’s fine. I’ll order more. Do you want to do something after this?” Kazuya ordered two more coffees.

“Can we just hang out together for a while? I don’t wanna go home right now.” Chizuru was staring daggers into the cold coffee right now.

“Well, I don’t have anything else to do. We might as well have some fun together.”

“Thank you.”

“You really must be sad. You’re thanking me for taking you out…” He snickered.

They both finish their coffees and Kazuya decides to bring her to an arcade. There were enough games and plenty of other activities to do there to distract her.

“Where to?”

“There’s an arcade nearby. I’ve been planning to go there, I just haven’t got the time. Might as well try it out.”

Chizuru kept walking with him silently, holding his hand tightly.

Feeling her inner distress, Kazuya rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.

They spent a few hours at the arcade, playing around and flirting. After that, Kazuya decided to take Chizuru back home.

…

Kazuya took Chizuru home and when they finally separated, Chizuru went into her apartment and leaned on her door, sliding down and sitting on the ground, her arms hugging her face.

She brought out the script of the play from her bag.

‘Have no regrets.’ She reads the post-it note she’d put on the cover of the script.

‘Bullshit.’ She buried her face in her knees.

“Waaa~” She sobbed.

‘I’m such a crybaby…’

Soon, she started hearing buzzing noises from her phone.

‘What the hell…?’ She’d ignored it a few times but it just kept on going.

-You. Me. Date. Saturday. Consider this child support for the crying crybaby.-

‘What?’ She checked the other notifications.

‘ILoveAquariums? Isn’t this Kazuya? What the hell are you doing, dude… Weren’t you averse to renting me…’

Looking at those notifications of bookings, Chizuru’s heart felt warmed by the gesture of support from him.

‘No, I can’t take advantage of him. I’ll meet him tomorrow and get him to retract the bookings. I enjoy going out with him and would just go out with him normally. He doesn’t have to pay me… It doesn’t feel right.’

’Stupid… Dumbass.’ She buried her face back in her knees and started contemplating things with Kazuya.

…

’The things I do for this chick… Why am I even going so far for her…’ Kazuya looked at his phone, looking over the calendar where he’d booked a date with Chizuru every week for the next two months. All of them were long dates of at least 6 hours each.

‘300,000 yen. It’s equivalent to how much I used to make from one project when I’d just started. It’s fine. At least I’ve found a way to utilize that filming knowledge I got.’
‘At least, we’re close enough right now that doing this won’t set all progress to zero with her. Normal dates would’ve been fine, but I need a sense of professionalism from her for what I need.’

‘You want to use the rental thing as acting practice right? I’ll put you through all kinds of different scenarios on our dates… It has nothing to do with me wanting to see you dressed in different kinds of outfits.’

Not wanting her to lose her dream, Kazuya decided that he’ll train her to become the best damn actress ever.

She wouldn’t listen to him if he told her the information just like that, so he was going to make her act with him and tell her her flaws and fix her up. 

She might be thinking that the dates were going to go normally but she was dead wrong since Kazuya had many scenarios planned out.

‘How did I end up doing this again? Especially after I decided that I wasn’t going to chase after her anymore…’ Kazuya had a confused expression on his face recalling his previous thoughts.

‘Fuck it. Might as well simp after her for a bit. It’ll be a new experience for me… Worst case, I have Mami to soothe my soul.’

‘All right whatever, since I’m done with all this Chizuru stuff, it’s time for me to focus on my app’s alpha launch and find a reliable CEO. Our date’s in three days, I’ll be done with at least the alpha launch by then. Finding a good CEO is still going to take some time.’