Iron-Race

By: Iron-Race

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Chapter 21

During the morning homeroom scene shoot, when all the extras playing classmates had gathered, there was one girl who really stood out. The girl with perfectly done makeup and Rococo-style ringlet curls was Ichinomiya-san.

Why is she here…?

I grabbed a nearby staff member to ask, and they explained:

"Ah, yeah, she really stands out, huh? Apparently, she’s the sponsor’s daughter. Seems like she got herself forced in as a regular extra."

Huh, so she’s an extra. I wondered if she was affiliated with some child actor agency. Students at Sakuranagi Academy didn’t seem interested in that sort of thing, but Ichinomiya-san’s group always felt a little flashy, so I guess it fits.

By the way, a regular extra refers to someone who consistently plays background students in school dramas and such. Since auditions are often held, you actually need to have a certain level of acting skill to get chosen.

For the first scene, the director assigned seating, and Ichinomiya-san ended up in a far-off corner. No surprise there—you can’t have such a flashy extra showing up on camera, so she was placed outside the frame.

I found myself staring at Ichinomiya-san, who looked clearly dissatisfied, when our eyes suddenly met. She waved at me, and without thinking, I waved back. The next second, she charged over at full speed.

"Um, I’m a huge fan of Nana-chan! Could I get your autograph—"

"Hey, extras aren’t allowed to leave their seats, okay? Rehearsal’s about to start."

"Let go of me! Do you even know who I am!?"

Just before rehearsal began, the same staff member dragged Ichinomiya-san back to her seat after she’d rushed over asking for an autograph. Even the director gently scolded her, leaving Ichinomiya-san sulking.

Normally, kids who get called to dramas like this—even just as extras—have been through lessons and have some acting experience. That’s why it’s rare for someone to ask for an autograph during work.

Still, I didn’t expect Ichinomiya-san to be my fan… I thought she’d be more into Yamada or Akagi-kun. That’s surprising.


Despite that little incident, the homeroom rehearsal and shoot ended, and filming moved forward with breaks in between. Or… it was supposed to. Instead, Ichinomiya-san kept drawing attention—moving closer to the cameras on her own, stealing other extras’ lines without permission, and generally doing whatever she pleased. Because of her, we kept having to reshoot, and the schedule was falling behind. To make things worse, during every break, Ichinomiya-san tried to come over and talk to me, only to get dragged back by staff each time.

Every single time, her agency’s manager would go pale and frantically apologize to the director and staff.

For shoots like this, where multiple child actors are called in as extras, agencies are usually assigned a set number—like "X kids from Agency A" and "Y kids from Agency B"—and the managers lead them as a group. If each child had a parent tagging along, it’d get way too crowded, and of course, the kids can’t come to the set alone. Our agency also has a few kids chosen as regular extras, so Shinozaki-san from our office is currently keeping an eye on them.

I guess Ichinomiya-san got into her agency through family connections, since her manager doesn’t seem able to scold her harshly. Naturally, no one else can—neither the director nor the staff.

After all, her family being a sponsor carries a lot of weight.

So, using her family’s influence as a shield, Ichinomiya-san was acting as spoiled as she wanted, and no one could stop her.

The atmosphere on set was terrible.

Right next to me, Mayu-chan looked like she was ready to kill someone, and Yamada was holding back Akagi-kun, who seemed about to explode.

Well… when you’re in this industry long enough, chaotic shoots aren’t exactly rare. There’ve been sets where the director’s angry yelling never stopped, and others where an older actress kept complaining at the staff so much that filming barely progressed.

Right now, Ichinomiya-san was arguing with the director, demanding one of the extra’s speaking lines. Apparently, they even let her try it during rehearsal, but sure enough, without proper training, she couldn’t deliver the line properly. So, the line was reassigned to someone else, but Ichinomiya-san wouldn’t accept it and kept pushing back.

She’s got… insane stamina, honestly.

Having the drive to push forward and ask for lines is important, sure, but without the skill to back it up, it’s meaningless. And besides, those ringlet curls are a no-go. There’s no way a fancy "rich girl" background character would exist in a public middle school.

Because of all this, we’re now about an hour behind schedule. I’d been planning to stop by the dojo after shooting if we wrapped on time, then head home early and hang out with Kazuki, but that’s definitely not happening.

Pretending to read the script seriously while spacing out, I noticed Yamada leaning over to whisper to me.

"Nana-chan, could you try talking to her?"

"…Why me?"

"Well, since she’s a fan of yours, I thought she might actually listen to you more than me."

"Hmm… I guess you’re probably right, but still…"

I kind of wanted to strangle Yamada for throwing this at me, but I couldn’t deny his logic. For some reason, Ichinomiya-san keeps ignoring Yamada and Akagi-kun just to approach me, and since the adults’ jobs are on the line, none of them can speak up strongly.

If this were just for today, I could probably brush her off and get through it, but as a regular extra, she’s going to be around for a while. If we don’t set boundaries on day one, this chaos is going to drag on and ruin the shoots.

I glanced back at the producer, who was watching the scene with a sour expression, and signaled with my hand to request deployment clearance. In response, I got the go-ahead: 「ケントウヲ、イノル」(Fighting, winning)—"May the odds be in your favor." Guess I have no choice.

"Alright, I’ll handle it. But you owe me fresh edamame later."

"…And eggplants. One kilo each."

"Fine. If I manage to smooth things over."

Yamada’s semi-regular variety show about farm idols gets direct advice from real farmers, growing produce with no concern for profit, so the quality is top-notch. And since edamame loses freshness fast, getting some freshly picked within Tokyo is a rare treat.

I could totally see myself watching a movie, snacking on lightly salted edamame, and sipping a cold beer. Not that I actually like beer—it’s gross. But kids’ beer is too sweet to go with edamame, so maybe I should just beg Mom to let me have non-alcoholic beer on the balcony this summer. As for the eggplants, grilled with ponzu would be amazing… though deep-fried in broth sounds great, too. Either way, both pair perfectly with beer.

While mentally running away from reality, I walked over to where Ichinomiya-san was cornering the director.

"Um, excuse me, may I have a moment?"

"What is it, Nana-chan?"

The moment I spoke up, Ichinomiya-san, who had been bossily barking orders at the director, spun around and greeted me with a bright, beaming smile. According to the story setup, we’re supposed to be meeting for the first time, but she’s acting way too friendly. It throws me off, especially since she usually just glares at me in silence back at school…

"Shooting’s starting to fall behind schedule, so I’m sorry, but could you please follow the director’s instructions?"

"But I came all this way… If I’m not on camera, I won’t have anything to brag about to everyone…"

…She just admitted it’s for bragging rights.

I was planning to give her a gentle nudge if she was genuinely aiming to be a serious child actress, but… yeah, no need to hold back here. Subtle hints won’t work on her anyway.

Sigh. "Listen… everyone here is working. We’re all putting in effort to make this drama as good as possible. So if you’re just here to mess around and stir things up, that’s a problem."

"Eh…? But my papa’s a sponsor, so…"

"No ‘but’s, and no excuses either. Your father’s company isn’t the only sponsor. There are several companies backing this drama. If you start making unreasonable demands and disrupt the shoot, other sponsors have every right to complain."

Ichinomiya’s father’s company made its fortune in telecommunications and has been flooding TV with commercials ever since. But they only recently started sponsoring this drama slot. On the other hand, the Rokujo Group, whose CEO is Sayuri-chan’s grandfather, has been one of the long-standing sponsors. If I told him what was happening, there’s no way they’d let Ichinomiya-san’s selfish requests slide. Old sponsors always get priority.

…Well, honestly, I’ve never actually tried doing that, so I’m bluffing. Borrowing a tiger’s roar, as the saying goes. Which, when you think about it, doesn’t make me much better than Ichinomiya-san.

"Alright then, how about this? Why don’t we try doing a proper acting test first? We’ll check how it looks, okay?"

Letting her actually try acting on camera and showing her the results should make things easier to understand.


The setup was a simple scene: a group of background girls chatting happily during break time, with the camera panning across the classroom to transition into a shot of the protagonist and heroine. Ichinomiya-san would play one of the extras in that scene, and afterward, I’d do the same performance for comparison.

Then we all gathered around the monitor to review the footage together. Normally, only the director and main cast check playback—extras usually don’t get to see their own acting until the show actually airs.

In fact, unless you’ve been acting professionally for years, it’s nearly impossible to objectively understand your own performance without watching it on-screen. So by showing Ichinomiya-san her scene directly, she should get a clearer sense of where she stands.

On the monitor, Ichinomiya-san was reading her lines loudly but completely flat, her voice trembling either from nerves or from never having done any vocal training. Her smile looked stiff, and her exaggerated gestures made it feel like we were watching some over-the-top foreign sitcom. Well, I guess it’s natural if this was her first time acting in front of so many people and cameras…

After showing her my own performance for comparison, Ichinomiya-san fell silent and lowered her head.

“Have you actually been taking lessons at your agency?”

“I took one once, and… the instructor praised me…”

There’s no way one lesson is enough to get good at acting. That instructor probably only praised her to stay on good terms with the daughter of a major company.

“But of course I’m worse than you, Nana-chan! And besides, if it’s just being an extra, I can totally do it if I try!”

“Listen, the other kids who came as extras have been taking lessons for years. And even then, only the ones who can actually act make it through the auditions. We don’t have time to teach you how to act during filming. So if you want speaking lines, you need to learn to perform properly first.”

Plenty of kids take lessons for years and still finish their child acting careers as nothing but extras. In fact, many quit before even getting that far. Most of the ones who don’t make it retire around fifth grade, and by sixth grade, nearly all of them are gone to focus on junior high entrance exams.

And the kids who get picked to be extras for a “proper” drama shoot like this? They’re the lucky ones. Most of the jobs are small planted roles in variety shows or background parts in reenactment VTRs. That’s why a lot of the kids here are putting everything they have into this shoot—some might even see it as their last chance before quitting.

This isn’t something you can treat lightly just because it’s “only an extra.”

“And more than your acting, your hairstyle’s a problem. There’s no way a girl with that kind of over-the-top celebrity look would be in a public junior high. We can’t have that on camera. And I’m not saying you can’t wear makeup, but it needs to look more natural.”

“B-but… this is how I always wear my hair…”

“That doesn’t matter. The setting for this shoot is a public junior high school. If you can’t adjust, then either stay out of frame and keep quiet, or stop being an extra and go home.”

I said it firmly and pointed toward the door. Ichinomiya-san glared back at me. Her eyes were intense. Honestly terrifying.

We kept staring each other down for a while, my heart pounding the whole time, until Ichinomiya-san dropped her gaze and suddenly began to cry, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“W-wait, hey, are you okay?”

Crap. I made the sponsor’s daughter cry.

Panicking, I hurriedly pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and handed it to her, letting her wipe her tears. But they wouldn’t stop, and her eyeliner started running badly. I couldn’t just leave her like that, so I led her away to an empty classroom we’d been using as a waiting room.

I sat her down on a chair, rubbing her back gently as she hiccuped through her sobs.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to come down on you so hard…”

I explained the situation softly this time, mixing a bit of self-defense with an attempt to soothe her.

“All the other kids there have been training for years just to work as extras. None of them are treating this as a game—they’re all serious about it. So… please, don’t ever say ‘just an extra’ again.”

Yeah… I might have raised my voice, but I wasn’t trying to make her cry.

“…And, um… maybe don’t tell your dad about this, okay? It’d be… troublesome.”

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