Come On! Koibito! 2/21
It was only a short time before two fat envelopes came in the mail, sealing the roommates' fate. Aiba kept calling it a miracle that both he and Nino got accepted. Nino wouldn't go as far as calling it that. He contented himself every night by thinking of the money he was going to win (because who could resist his charm, really?) and the way he would rub it in Aiba's face when it was over. Who knew? Maybe the guy would even be hot.
He wouldn't be placing any bets, though.
The shooting was going to start towards the end of August and so, as the weeks rolled on, Aiba and Nino prepared for their three month sojourn into heaven knew where. The production company would tell them no details about the filming, saying only to bring a suitcase full of clothes to the studio on August twentieth and to be prepared to take a few months off work.
The pet shop owners had sent Aiba off with a wave, telling him that as long as he promoted being kind to animals on the show, he was welcome back when shooting ended. Considering Aiba promoted animals in pretty much any moment of his waking life, no one thought it would be hard. Nino's job, meanwhile, had told him they'd see him in a week. Their confidence in his winning the prize was not-so-surprisingly low. Nino had just thanked them and skipped out the store, knowing that if he had his way, he wouldn't be coming back with anything less than tons of money and a self-satisfied smile.
The morning of August twentieth came faster than either of them expected and, suitcases in hand, they headed down to Akasaka and the headquarters of JTV. It was a big, impressive building that seemed to ask the imposing skyline to give it more room. Nino wasn't sure if he liked it. Aiba wouldn't let them move on until they took a picture in front of it, "for memories!"
In the back of Nino's mind, he had always been aware that there would be other contestants than just he and Aiba but it didn't really hit him until he found the waiting room that these other contestants were people. What had merely been concepts for so long were currently buzzing around Nino, suitcases and resumes (resumes?!) and smiles flying from one corner of the room to another.
"Why do they have resumes?" Nino mouthed to Aiba, who shrugged before dropping his suitcase in what had to be the "stuff pile" and flopping over to the area in front of what appeared to be a stage where a good number of chairs had been set up. Seeing nothing better to do, Nino followed.
After a few minutes of time to themselves, the roommates were joined by a fresh-faced guy who looked like he couldn't be older than sixteen.
"Hey! My name's Junpei! What's yours?"
Nino just gave the kid a dubious look before pulling his DS out of his pocket. Aiba ignored Nino and grinned.
"Nice to meet you, Junpei. I'm Aiba and the anti-social jerk over there is Nino." (Hey!) "I take it you're a contestant, too?"
"Yeah," Junpei scratched the back of his head, a slightly nervous look on his face. "I mean, I'm not quite sure why I'm doing this. My mom sent in my application. How embarrassing is that? But I knew that this would be a good way to break into the business..."
"The business?" Nino asked, not looking up from Mario.
"Well, yeah. Most of the contestants are here to get their faces on television, you know. It's not like this show is really about finding love or anything."
"It's not?" Aiba looked much too disheartened at hearing this. Nino had tried to warn him that this wasn't going to be a fairy tale. Aiba rarely liked to listen to reason, though.
"Of course not," Junpei laughed. "I'm only here to try and win that money, honestly. Well, that and maybe someone will see me on this show and call me up. I'm an aspiring model, you know." Junpei saw the look on Nino's face and immediately jumped on the defensive. "Don't look at me like that! It's going to happen. One day, you'll see me on a billboard in Shibuya and you'll think 'I never should have snickered at Mizobata Junpei.' I promise you."
"Sure, kid," Nino smiled, if only a little sarcastically, as he switched off his DS, seeing the flurry of movement towards the stage.
Sure enough, a few seconds later a rather handsome man turned on the microphone. Despite his good looks, there was no chance he was any part of the image of the show, a hands free mic on his head and various electronics hanging off every inch of his body. He looked frazzled but, if possible, in a good way, as if he was on top of everything, despite the number of things that involved.
"If I could get everyone's attention," the baritone said into the mic, startling the buzzing room, "I'd like everyone to come and take a seat. We're going to start the orientation."
The man waited a minute or so for the other contestants to find seats. Nino tried to scout out the competition as they flocked towards him. All the men were, to put in simply, gorgeous. Not that Nino felt intimidated or anything, of course not, but this was going to be harder than he'd anticipated. He'd have to turn the charm on something intense.
"Okay, then. Welcome to Come On! Koibito!" the man smiled at the audience, as if he genuinely felt some kind of affinity for the show. Aiba smiled in response. "I'm the director of this show, Kimura Takuya, and I'm in charge of pretty much everything that goes on on set. If you have any problems, well you wouldn't really go to me, but I would get the message and make sure that it was solved. Okay?"
There was a general murmur of assent from the audience. Kimura smiled. It was criminal that the director had a smile that handsome, Nino thought. There was no way he stood a chance if the backstage was that pretty.
"Now, I'm going to pass the mic over to our head PA, Nagase Tomoya. Thanks, everyone and see you around the set!" Kimura waved and stepped offstage, only to be replaced by a tall man who looked a little gruff. His furrowed brow and well worn headset did not make him look any less intimidating.
"I'm Nagase and I'm in charge of everyone on set. I'm the one you go to if you have any issues. I'm going to say right off the bat that I don't want any funny business: there is a basic script that you all are going to follow. When I say to go to the house, you'll go to the house. When I say that we're refilming a confessional, we're refilming a confessional. Got that?"
The audience murmured something that sounded like a yes.
"Okay, good. Now, if you'll turn your attention to the right side of the room, you'll see our team of cameramen. Our head cameraman is Nakai Masahiro." The one on the end waved. "He's in charge of all the filming. But, since this show is all about "reality", each of you will be assigned your own, personal cameraperson once we get this ball rolling. They will be in charge of filming you and only you for the next three months. However, since they won't actually be on camera, we ask that you consider them nonentities. If you have a real problem, you can talk to them but if the situation doesn't call for it, please pretend that they aren't even there."
Nino's gaze wandered over the row of camera people, each with their eyes set on Nagase. 'He must be pretty important. Or scary,' Nino thought. There was a very odd assortment of cameramen, in Nino's opinion. There were men and women, young and old, tall and short. He hoped that he at least got someone interesting. He didn't particularly care about Nagase's no talking rule. If he was going to be spending that much time in someone's presence, he was damn well going to talk to them.
As his eyes swept down the row of people, they finally landed on the last person, a shortish man who was not paying attention for the life of him. His gaze focused on the front of his shirt and not Nagase, who was now talking about the rules of eating on and off camera (who cared?), Nino was pretty sure the man was trying to sew a button back on using only his mind. Either that or there was something really interesting about the dull pattern on the front of his shirt. After about thirty seconds of intense concentration, the other man sighed and dropped the shirt, eyes lowered in defeat. Nino almost chuckled. Almost.
"And now that you've gotten all of that," Nagase intoned, startling Nino back to the lecture, "I'm going to let the last person scheduled take the stage." He didn't say who it was, though, and simply walked off, as if they should know what was coming. Everyone else seemed to know, though, if the cheering was any indication. Nino caught Aiba's eye but the older man shrugged and turned back towards the front, eager to get a glimpse of whatever exciting person was about to take the stage.
All Nino saw at first was sequins. A sequined bow tie which really seemed like an atrocious affront to all that was the bow tie (and really, there wasn't a lot). The man wasn't unattractive but Nino couldn't drag his eyes away from the shine around his neck. He elbowed Aiba to make a crack about it only to see a familiar gleam in Aiba's eyes.
Shit.
"Hello, everyone and welcome to a new season of Come On! Koibito!" the sparkly man smiled, enthusiastically. "As I'm sure you all know, I'm the host of the show, Sakurai Sho!" The audience cheered, Aiba perhaps the loudest. "We'll be seeing a lot of each other in the following months so I just thought I'd come out and wish you all the very best of luck. Hopefully we'll become good friends, hmm?" The audience cheered again. "That's what I wanted to hear! Good luck everyone!"
And in a flash, he was gone again. 'Like a terrible dream,' Nino thought.
"You know," Nino said to Aiba in monotone, "you're here to fall in love with the bachelor guy, not the host." Aiba just grinned back mischievously.
"Who says I can't have both?"
Nino elbowed him, hard.
"Well then," Nagase had returned to stage, "the time has come. I'd like to ask you all to grab your suitcases and head towards the left doors. There are cars outside that will be taking the fifteen of you and your cameramen to the house. This is it, people. Get going."
"No backing out now," Aiba whispered to Nino as they headed over to grab their stuff.
"Don't remind me."
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I was much too excited to get to the actual show and we're still not quite there yet! Filming will begin in chapter three. As I'm sure you could tell from this chapter, the cast of this is going to be huge, encompassing a lot of actors and actresses. I had to make a chart for myself to remember who was who. xD So hopefully it doesn't become too hard to follow. You'll quickly figure out who's important and who's secondary so don't worry. Oh! And don't expect the chapters to be this quick all the time. I'm just excited to get to the good part. Updates will slow down ... at some point. xD