Chapter 0087: Rock Climbing (1/2)

A/N: 2100 words. It’s a big chapter, people.

***

“You ready?”

“Mhm.” Chizuru had a determined expression on her face.

“Good. Let’s start filming then.”

Kazuya went to his director’s seat from where he could monitor all the shots.

“Lights?” He looked at the person responsible for the lights and got the go-ahead from them.

“Cameras?” He did the same with the main manager for the cameras.

“Scene 17 Take 1 Action!”

*Click* The clapperboard signaled the start of the scene.

Chizuru, as usual, was amazing at her acting, capturing even the entire crew of the film.

Kazuya even noticed Ruka looking at her with admiration and slight jealousy.

‘Well… At least it’s not all jealousy.’

It was a long continuous scene so there were quite a few takes. At some point, Ruka came up to him and sat at his side quietly.

‘This is what… like 30-40 people? It’s crazy how he’s able to manage all of them so effortlessly and efficiently. I heard the people call him the asshole director who keeps ordering them around, but not a single one of them disobeys any of his orders…’ Ruka was admiring Kazuya’s ability to direct the movie and manage so many people easily.

‘Why does he only have eyes for Chizuru…’ Ruka’s thoughts were slightly unreasonable.

‘I get that she’s his girlfriend but I’m also beautiful. Couldn’t he give me some attention too…’

‘Guess I have to convince his girlfriend to share… Shouldn’t it be the guy who does this stuff? And this asshole made me the bad guy that’s interfering in their relationship…’ Ruka was mad but she knew that she had to persevere.

‘It’s him… Ever since that day when I ran into him… It was always going to be him… He just had to call me a lost child. I ran away in embarrassment…’

Ruka was deep in her thoughts for quite a while.

“Ruka… Ruka… Ruka!” She heard Kazuya shout into her ear.

“W-What?!” She was startled and looked at him with accusation in her eyes.

“Why were you so loud?”

“Cause you weren’t listening. Now get up, it’s time for your scene, talk to Kiyomi and get your make-up touched over.

“Fine.” Ruka got up with a pout on her face.

“Action!”

Although not as good as Chizuru, Ruka was also quite a good actress. Kazuya could tell that she’d made quite a bit of effort to go through the script. Especially on such short notice. She had been given the script only two days ago.

‘Well… Her actions keep making me think that [Perseverance] might be a much more overpowered skill than it seems…’ Kazuya was thinking about Ruka’s quest reward.

Ruka and Chizuru were doing the scene of the first time that Kyoko and Naomi met and it was supposed to be a tension-filled audition room scenario.

“Cut!”

“Why the fuck is there a buzz in the background? Tetsuya!” Kazuya called the boom operator.

“Yes sir!” The guy was so scared that he gave a military salute as if Kazuya was a drill sergeant about to rip the trainee a new one.

“Why didn’t you notice that there was a buzz in the audio in time? We have to redo the whole damn scene again…” Kazuya railed the guy for a few seconds.

“Fix it. NOW! I’m sorry girls, but we need to redo the scene again.”

Both Ruka and Chizuru were a little stunned at Kazuya’s outburst.

‘I guess the summer heat’s getting to him a bit…’

’So hot…’ Kazuya’s aggressive attitude was a turn-on for Ruka.

“Sir. There’s a cicada there on that beam. We can’t get rid of it. It’s the reason for all the buzzing noise.”

“Useless fucks. Can’t even take care of a damn cicada.” Kazuya grabbed the notepad that was in the hand of the guy standing behind him and hurled it at the cicada.

“Let’s get back to rolling. Lights…”

‘My notes…’ The guy behind Kazuya was on the verge of crying tears of blood.

It was a college student whom Kazuya had hired as an intern to do the miscellaneous tasks. That notepad contained all his notes for his semester and now they were lost forever. Drowned in the river.

‘I will take my revenge on you…’ He was utterly resentful of the way Kazuya was treating him like air.

“Hideki. All that shouting got me thirsty. Bring me a bottle of coke.” Kazuya ordered that college student to do a random menial task.

“No! No more! I quit!” That guy basically ran away from the place.

Kazuya blinked a few times while confused about the situation.

‘Whatever. Not like I’m paying him any money. He was just an intern.’

“Juro, get me a bottle of coke, will you?” Kazuya didn’t have any shortage of interns who would act as literal servants just to get a certificate that says that they’ve worked on a set. All for the sake of this so-called ‘work experience’.

“Sure, sir.” The next intern ran off to fulfill Kazuya’s order.

‘It’s weird but I’m sort of enjoying ordering people around like this…’

…

As the shoots passed Kazuya had the chance to meet this Umi guy.

‘He’s gay…’ Kazuya was instantly able to tell. Especially since he had quite a bit of psychology knowledge and understood a person’s psyche very well.

Kazuya instantly understood from his way of acting that Umi was gay.

According to Chizuru, he’d recently broken up with his girlfriend and was single.

Kazuya was damn sure that since this guy had been friends with Chizuru for so long, he would’ve asked her out at least once.

The only reason he didn’t was that he is gay. He just gets a girlfriend for convenience and to hide his preferences.

‘Scared of coming out, huh… I don’t really care.’

After getting a read on this Umi guy and realizing that he was no threat to his relationship with Chizuru, Kazuya stopped caring about him entirely.

…

Soon, the week went by, and the local shoots were finished. It was time for the crew to start traveling.

The scenes that were left needed scenic views and natural areas. Also, there were a couple of adventure sports that needed to be filmed.

They had three different destinations planned. The first destination would serve their needs for the adventure sports scenes. They also had to get quite a bit more equipment for this part of the filming.

Since adventure sports weren’t easy to capture using stationary cameras, they had to get drones. With those drones, came trained people who worked with drones to shoot the videos.

The second destination had quite a few open plains and a beautiful view of the night sky. It was going to serve as the perfect area for the scenic shots. That place was also around an hour away from the mountains, so they were going to capture q few snowy shots there too.

The third and last destination was something that Kazuya was keeping secret. It was going to be a surprise for Chizuru.

…

“I kept my promise. I told you that we’ll go rock climbing someday.”

“Yeah, you keep all of your promises.”

Kazuya and Chizuru were flirting with each other in front of the rock climbing cliff while a single jealous girl was looking at them with a scary look.

The rest of the crew gave the three of them a wide berth and paid attention to their own tasks.

After working with them for a week, they sort of understood the situation of the producer/director with the lead actress. It was just that no one was able to gauge the intentions of the girl playing the antagonist, Ruka.

She clung to the director every once in a while, so everyone thought that she was kissing up to the director, wanting some sort of benefit from him. Then though they noticed the looks that she gave Kazuya and Chizuru.

That was when everyone realized the gist of the situation and decided to not meddle in this drama. They were especially apprehensive of the ruthless director who’d fired 6 different interns within seven days of the shooting.

“Come on, let’s get some practice while they scope out the location.” Kazuya grabbed Chizuru’s hand and brought her to the manager of the cliff.

“Sure. This looks so exciting…”

They had booked the cliff for two days so there wasn’t anyone other than the crew to disturb Kazuya and Chizuru.

The first day was for Chizuru to get used to the location and for the crew to scope out the place for good angles. It also gave time for the drone pilots to map out the path that their drones would take.

The staff there helped Kazuya and Chizuru get strapped in their harnesses. They were going to follow a guide to the top of the cliff since they weren’t familiar with the terrain.

The guide was a sensible person. He knew that the people here today weren’t to be messed with so he kept a safe distance from the way-too-hot bombshell that seemed to be a bit too close to the director of the movie.

“Let’s go, babe.” Kazuya squeezed her hand and started climbing after the guide.

The guide went slow so that Kazuya and Chizuru could keep up with him.

There were multiple paths to climb the cliff and Kazuya and Chizuru were climbing side by side after the guide.

“So… You having… fun?” Kazuya stepped on a rock and climbed up while talking to Chizuru.

“Of course… I am.” Chizuru wasn’t planning to be left behind Kazuya who seemed to be climbing very effortlessly.

They both had their silent competition as they followed behind the guide.

“Huff… huff…”

“What happened, babe? Already tired?” Kazuya taunted Chizuru who had stopped at a rock formation to catch her breath.

He also stopped beside her, waiting for her.

“In… huff… your dreams…” She didn’t want to seem weak.

“Yeah…” Kazuya saw that she was in a sort of compromising position, with her hands holding on tightly to some jagged rocks while her legs were spread, her feet planted firmly on some stable rocks.

He couldn’t hold back and let go of one of his hands, wanting to get frisky with his girl.

They were high enough that the people on the ground wouldn’t be able to clearly see their actions. That was all that Kazuya needed to know. The guide was also smart enough to give them their space.

“Let me help you out, babe…” His free hand instantly went to her butt.

“Eep!” She was startled at his sudden touch and lightly jumped.

“Let go!” She looked at him with anger.

“What’s wrong?” Kazuya played innocent while squeezing her ass.

“I swear to god…” Her expression conveyed bloody murder.

Kazuya was still undaunted and brought his hand away from her butt and to her bare thigh. She was wearing sexy denim mini-shorts with a tank top since the head was very high. Kazuya was also wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt.

Chizuru, who was just about to take a breath of relief when she felt his hand go away from her butt, stiffened up again when she felt his hand on her bare thigh.

She could feel her heart bursting out of her chest with his touch. Being in such a dangerous spot and doing this kind of stuff brought her a weird rush of adrenaline.

“Please… Kazuya~” Seeing as her anger wasn’t working, she decided to try a more risky tactic. She pleaded to Kazuya with watery eyes to stop.

It was a big gamble for Chizuru since whenever she tried this tactic, Kazuya couldn’t hold himself back from ravaging her.

She thought that in such a spot, even Kazuya would be smart enough to hold back and might listen to her.

Seeing her plead to him like that, Kazuya understood her tactic and brought his face closer to her.

“Bad move, babe. Do you think that we can balance ourselves on this cliff while doing it?” Kazuya teased her.

“You wouldn’t…” She felt like he was serious from his tone.

“Hehe… Don’t worry. Even I know the limits of what we can do in this place.” He kissed her ear and pulled back his hand from caressing her thigh.

“Hahh…” Chizuru finally released a breath that she was holding since she was so tense.

Though, there was a tiny part of her that was disappointed that Kazuya didn’t go further with her.

‘What’s wrong with me…’ She shook her head and thought that she’d become such a pervert.

*Crack*

Chizuru was about to continue her climb when suddenly one of the rocks that she had her foot planted on, cracked and fell, unbalancing her.

“Ahh!”