MMB Chapter 100 A Slap Away
Chapter 100 A Slap Away
Chapter 100 A Hand's Distance
"Tuck your chin down a little more. Yes, lock it there, don't move."
Mochizuki Tomomi squatted behind the monitor, not holding a tube, but holding an old brass tuning fork that he had polished until it shone. His eyes, through his glasses, looked as if he were examining a freshly made biological specimen.
"Your gaze is too focused; try to look away a bit."
Mochizuki Tomomitsu tapped the back of the chair with a tuning fork, producing a crisp "ding" sound.
Ever since that day when she rode that old bicycle to the beach and spent an afternoon enjoying the breeze, Rie Miyazawa seemed like a completely different person.
The tense, always-present "model posture" she had been maintaining loosened considerably. Standing in front of the camera, she no longer deliberately sought out good angles, but instead learned how to daydream, hunch her back, and even unconsciously pick at her fingers like a real seventeen-year-old girl.
Mochizuki Tomomi was very satisfied with the heroine's change, so he poured all his excess energy into tormenting the male protagonist.
This guy is a typical aesthete, or rather, a weirdo with a morbid obsession with light and composition. He didn't want to shoot those monotonous close-ups; he wanted to capture the gray texture on Kitahara Shin's face, a texture that lies between adolescence and adulthood.
"Okay, that's it. Keep breathing."
Mochizuki Tomomi stared at the screen, a satisfied smile spreading across his face, revealing his sharp canine tooth.
"Cut! This one's passed."
He casually stuffed the tuning fork into his pocket and shouted in that direction, "Perfect lighting. Kitahara, the shadow cut on that profile was spot on. If you included it in the film, it would definitely make a lot of female students cry."
Kitahara Shin straightened up, stretched his stiff neck, and his joints made a soft cracking sound. He ignored the director's teasing, simply took the water offered by a staff member, and tilted his head back to gulp it down.
Next up is the main event of the day.
This is also the most intense and unreasonable scene in the entire movie "Ocean Waves," between Rikako Muto and Taku Morisaki.
At this point in the story, Rikako Mutou, due to her withdrawn personality, refusal to do class duties, and lack of participation in the school festival preparations, has become the enemy of all the girls in her class. Several girls cornered her in the hallway, pointing their fingers at her and accusing her of being selfish and pretentious.
Instead of apologizing for the accusations, Rikako retorted with the most cutting and hurtful words.
This scene was witnessed by Takuto Tozaki, who happened to be passing by.
Tuo didn't want to cause trouble or get involved in the girls' fight, so he pretended not to see anything and tried to slip away by hugging the wall.
As a result, Rikako called him back.
That's the kind of awkwardness unique to adolescence—you're the one who's been wronged, and I pretended not to see it so as not to embarrass you, but in the end it turns into unreasonable demands like "Why didn't you help me?" or "You're such a coward."
They might even resort to violence.
For this scene, the crew cleared out this corridor, leaving only the necessary cameramen and sound engineers.
Dozens of student extras stood in the distance, creating that noisy background sound.
"Are you ready?"
Kitahara Shin threw the empty water bottle into the trash can, walked to the other end of the corridor, and looked at Rie, who was standing in the shadows taking a deep breath.
The girl's hands hung limply at her sides, trembling uncontrollably.
"senior----"
Rie glanced at the photographer adjusting the equipment, then at Kitahara Shin standing two meters away, her feet rooted to the spot. She leaned closer, her voice low and pleading, "Um—are we really going to really fight?"
She was genuinely afraid.
Standing opposite him is Kitahara Shin.
He's the one who pulled her out of that quagmire-like home, the senior who taught her how to act, and now the absolute core of the entire crew.
Let him slap that face hard in front of so many people?
She felt her arms were too weak to lift.
"Can we use camera tricks? I saw on the previous call sheet that some action scenes can use camera tricks—"
"Borrowing space?"
Kitahara Shin looked down at her, his tone flat, revealing no emotion. "That's for kissing scenes, to protect privacy and avoid embarrassing the actors. But action scenes using camera tricks? You want me to wave at thin air and then make you look like a clown and toss your head around like that?"
"But I'm afraid I'll break it—"
Rie
Kitahara Shin interrupted her.
He didn't raise his voice, but his cold, hard tone made Rie instinctively shrink her neck.
"This is a film set, and the camera is only a meter away from me. Under high-definition film, even if your hand is only a centimeter away from my face, the audience can tell that you're faking it."
He pointed to the monitor next to him: "If even one viewer notices that you're acting, all the emotional build-up of the previous hundred minutes is wasted. People will say, 'Oh, so all those tears were fake. This was just a cheap performance.'"
"But----"
"There's no 'but' about it."
Kitahara Shin took a step back and returned to Morisaki Taku's position. He put his hands in his pockets and quietly looked at her with his dark eyes.
"You're an actor. In front of the camera, you only need to think about how to express your emotions. The rest—like whether it will hurt or get hurt—is not your concern. That's the props' concern."
"Now, I am that prop."
These words were harsh and blunt, like a stone hitting the ground.
Rie opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything in rebuttal.
She looked at Kitahara Shin.
That look in his eyes was very deep.
There was no encouragement, no comfort, not even his usual gentle warmth. He just stood there, looking at her with an almost scrutinizing gaze, as if she were a stranger.
This silent gaze suddenly made Rie feel a pang of unease.
The surrounding noise seemed to disappear in an instant.
The pressure of being isolated, scrutinized, and required to "perform perfectly" washed over me like a tidal wave.
A valve that she had forcibly suppressed deep in her memory loosened under this high pressure.
My vision started to become a little blurry.
She could almost see that narrow, dimly lit apartment.
The floor was covered in shards of glass, the air reeked of whiskey, and there was that woman, Yiguangzi, with a hysterical face after getting drunk.
"Why don't you just die?"
"What's the use of keeping you around? Can't you even smile? Go toast the president! Go sing karaoke with him!"
"If you don't listen to me, get out!"
The sharp curses, mixed with the burning pain of slaps on the face, somehow overlapped with the scene before my eyes.
At that time, she stood helplessly in the corner.
The whole world is pressuring her. Her mother is forcing her to work as a hostess, the media is forcing her to take off her clothes, and even her so-called relatives are pressuring her for money.
No one stood up to help her.
Everyone is an observer.
In that instant, Rikako Muto, standing in the corridor, and Rie Miyazawa, standing in front of the camera, seemed to have their souls merge.
Since the whole world is full of malice towards me —
Since even you, Du Qituo, are acting like those indifferent passersby, pretending not to see my disheveled state—
Then why are you putting on such an innocent act?
An unnamed fire suddenly surged from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. It wasn't an act; it was the pent-up resentment and bitterness of eighteen years finally finding an outlet.
Her eyes reddened, not because she wanted to cry, but because they were bloodshot.
"Action!"
As the clapperboard fell, the crisp sound of it striking the ground was like the sound of a starting gun.
Rie moved.
She rushed toward Kitahara Shin, her footsteps pounding on the marble floor, each step feeling like stepping on shards of broken glass.
"Fool!"
Kitahara Shin stopped in his tracks.
He turned around, his face bearing the signature expression of Takumi Tokichi—a mixture of surprise, annoyance, and a hint of detachment, as if he wanted to escape.
That's the expression.
It's that "what does this have to do with me?" expression.
It completely ignited the last shred of reason in Rie's heart.
She rushed to him, her mind completely blank. Camera angles, lighting, senior figures—none of it mattered anymore.
All she saw was that the face in front of her was really irritating.
She wants to return all the grievances, all the anger, and all the pain of being treated like a puppet!
He swung his arm in a wide arc.
With the sound of the wind, with all her strength, she held nothing back.
"Smack!!!"
A crisp sound.
The sound was terrifyingly loud, even producing a very short echo, which made the sound engineer holding the boom microphone next to him tremble.
Kitahara Shin's face was jerked to one side by the force of the impact.
A few strands of hair fell down, obscuring her eyes.
The scene was deathly silent.
Even the student extras who were pretending to chat in the distance were stunned, staring at this side with their mouths agape.
No one expected that the girl who usually looked so gentle and weak, who didn't even dare to speak loudly, could be so ruthless.
Standing next to the camera, Hidetaka Yoshioka, the young actor playing the second male lead Matsuno, couldn't help but shrink his neck and subconsciously touch his face.
That sounds painful.
Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
Kitahara Shin did not turn around immediately.
He remained in the position where he had been hit off course, pausing for two seconds.
That wasn't a movement written in the script; it was a physiological pause.
The momentary concussion caused him to feel dizzy briefly, his ears were ringing, and the inside of his mouth was hitting his teeth, tasting a metallic flavor.
But he didn't call a halt, nor did he react in any way that seemed out of character.
Two seconds later.
He slowly turned his head.
The left side of his face was visibly red and swollen, with five clear finger marks, and the edges of the marks were even starting to turn purplish-red from congestion.
He touched his injured cheek with the tip of his tongue and looked at Rie in a daze.
It was an expression of complete bewilderment.
My mind went blank. I didn't understand why I was hit like that, nor did I know what to do next. I just stood there dumbfounded, like a machine that had lost power.
At that moment, Rie was standing opposite him, her chest heaving violently.
After she slapped him, her hand remained suspended in mid-air, her fingertips trembling wildly. Her palm was numb as if she had lost all feeling, and her entire arm ached.
She looked at the shocking red mark on Kitahara Shin's face.
Once the impulse subsided and reason returned a little, she realized what she had just done.
Then, tears streamed down her face without warning.
That wasn't the kind of crying where pear blossoms shed tears in the rain; tears streamed down her cheeks in strings, so fast you couldn't even wipe them away.
It was exhaustion after venting.
It's also a kind of exhilarating feeling of finally shattering the stone in your heart.
The two of them just stared at each other.
The tension in the air was so intense that it was hard to breathe.
It was a flavor that belonged to the summer of seventeen, a mixture of violence, pain, grievance, and innocent affection.
Hidetaka Yoshioka watched with a pounding heart.
He used to think Kitahara Shin was too serious and unapproachable on set. Now he realizes that this is a true acting fanatic.
The slap landed squarely, but she didn't even flinch. Instead, she caught up in the act and even used her gaze to draw the newcomer into the role.
This guy is really over the top.
And Miyazawa Rie, whom he had previously regarded as nothing more than a pretty vase, now had a light that shone brightly in her tearful eyes, a light that was almost too dazzling to look at directly.
That's the vitality of wild grass growing wildly.
"Card!"
Mochizuki Tomomitsu's voice finally rang out.
He took off his headphones and, instead of playing with paperclips as usual, stood up directly from behind the monitor.
But instead of immediately shouting "That's enough," he stared at the frozen image on the screen for a full five seconds. The boy's face was swollen from the beating, and he tilted his head in a somewhat disheveled manner; the girl was crying, her eyes stubborn yet vulnerable.
The rays of the setting sun slanted in, casting long shadows of the two people that intertwined, making it impossible to distinguish who was who.
Director Mochizuki revealed his signature canine tooth, his tone brimming with barely concealed excitement, as if he had unearthed some treasure: "It's so beautiful, so beautiful!"
He turned around and shouted into the arena, "Passed! Next match!"
The moment those two words were uttered, the tense atmosphere in the room instantly relaxed.
Rie felt as if all the bones in her body had been removed; her legs went weak, and she almost sat down on the ground.
Kitahara Shin reacted quickly and grabbed her arm.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Rie looked up, tears still clinging to her face, and stared at Kitahara Shin's swollen face. Suddenly, she burst out laughing, wiping her tears haphazardly with the back of her hand as she laughed.
"Senior—I'm sorry, I hit you too hard just now."
"It's nothing, it's all just acting."
Kitahara Shin looked at her with a smile.
But because her face was swollen, her originally gentle smile was twisted and looked particularly comical. Miyazawa Rie, who was being helped up, couldn't help but burst out laughing.
It was already very late when we finished work that day.
The night sky in Kochi Prefecture is very bright, with far more stars than in Tokyo.
Kitahara Shin returned to his hotel room and glanced at the clock on the wall.
11 points.
Thankfully, it wasn't past midnight.
He picked up the phone on the bedside table and dialed the number he knew by heart.
"Beep—Beep—"
The phone was answered after ringing twice.
"Feed?"
The voice on the other end sounded a little breathless, and there were some tinkling sounds in the background.
"It's me." Kitahara Shin leaned against the headboard, touched his still slightly swollen left cheek, and softened his voice, "Happy birthday, Akina."
Today is February 7.
There was a moment of silence on the other end, followed by a soft snort, tinged with obvious coquettishness: "Just a 'Happy Birthday'? You're so perfunctory! You didn't even come back to celebrate my birthday in person?"
"Sorry, the filming schedule here is too tight, I really can't leave."
Kitahara Shin smiled somewhat helplessly, "I'll definitely make it up to you when we wrap up filming and get back to Tokyo. I'll treat you to a big meal; order whatever you like."
"here we go again."
Akina laughed on the other end of the line, "You seem to be making empty promises to me lately. You haven't fulfilled your promise from last time, and now you owe me a big meal."
"I absolutely won't renege on my debt this time."
"Okay, just kidding."
Akina's voice softened, "I know you're working, and I just got back from recording not long ago. Actually—just hearing you wish me a happy birthday made me really happy."
Afterwards, the two chatted for a few more minutes and said goodnight to each other.
After hanging up the phone, Akina Nakamori looked at the receiver in her hand, a sweet smile still on her lips.
But when she turned around and faced the scene behind her, that smile instantly turned into a helpless, bitter smile.
The once tidy open kitchen now looks like it has just survived a world war.
The countertop was covered in flour, the whisk lay overturned, and a few drops of unidentified liquid dripped onto the floor. And what sat in the center of the baking pan resembled less a birthday cake and more a collapsed, charred flying saucer.
"well----"
Akina raised the back of her hand to wipe her forehead, but ended up smearing the cream off her hand onto her face, instantly turning her into a mess.
Looking at the appalling finished product, she muttered to herself, "Thank goodness he didn't come back today. Otherwise, I would have been utterly humiliated."
Actually, she didn't have any recording work today.
She deliberately canceled her evening engagements and locked herself at home, just wanting to try making a cake herself.
And then I want to share this sweetness, even if it's not perfect, with him on this special day that belongs to me.
More importantly————
She glanced at the calendar.
His birthday is in a few months. She wants to bake him a perfect cake herself.
"Looks like I still need to practice."
Akina stretched out her finger, dipped it in the remaining cream in the bowl, and put it in her mouth.
Very sweet.
Although it failed this time, just thinking about the look on that guy's face when he eats the cake I made myself...
Amidst the mess in the room, she laughed triumphantly.