Megan popped her head up and then scurried off to the bathroom.
“You are a bad, bad boy,” Cassidy scolded.
I cocked my head sideways. The only flaw in Cassidy’s logic was Megan still wore the same clothes she’d had on last night. I tried to remember what had happened. We were drunk; well, I was drunk. Kent and Hana had gone to their rooms, or so I hoped. Megan made sure I got to mine.
I remembered her looking up at me behind those glasses and thinking the cute little girl really did look like a mouse. Then everything sort of became fuzzy as the last vodka shot and beer caught up with me. I doubted anything untoward happened.
“No, she still had her clothes on. I don’t think anything happened.”
Cassidy gave me a doubtful look. It suddenly occurred to me that I was naked as I was talking to her. Megan came out of the bathroom and over to the side of the bed and dropped to her knees with her head bowed and her hands in her lap.
“Does Master require anything else?” Megan asked.
Frick, I didn’t need this. Bad enough that my mouth tasted like a rat had pooped in it, and my head would explode at any moment.
“Oh, this is good. Hang on, I have to get Brook,” Cassidy said and bolted for the door.
“Uhm … did we …?” I asked.
“No. You did get naked and showed me you could do the helicopter,” Megan said, and a vague memory pushed its way forward.
“I … uh … I … uh … sorry,” I stammered.
“Then you announced that you were the Master of the Universe and all your subjects should bow to you. You sort of ruined it when you stumbled over to your bed and passed out,” Megan said as she smiled and patted my cheek.
“Are we good? I didn’t do anything to cause you to want to sue me, did I?” I asked.
“I believe Caryn has a form for that, but no, you didn’t do anything that offended me. But I have to admit, I did think about molesting you,” she said as we heard the key card enter the lock, and Cassidy and Brook burst into the room.
“Take them to breakfast,” I told Megan. “They won’t leave me alone until they know everything, and I need to take some aspirin, take a shower, and catch a flight.”
I think mouthwash was also called for.
◊◊◊
Cassidy, Brook, and Megan decided to remain in Iwakuni and play tourist for another day. Everyone else packed up and flew back to Tokyo. Upon our arrival at Haneda Airport, we were swarmed by paparazzi. I suspected I had a leak in my organization—Saul—because as we walked to baggage claim, one of the paparazzi said they’d meet us at the hotel. Thankfully, Paul had hired the same security as before, and they neatly cleared a path to the cars.
When we reached our hotel, there was a package waiting for me. It contained the script for my part in My Butterfly. I gave it to Hana so she could read it over. Everyone came to my suite, including Saul.
“If you’re going to announce my presence, you have to tell Paul,” I chastised Saul.
“I think he needs to face them with you,” Paul suggested.
“Have you thought about possibly staying for another couple of weeks?” Saul pleaded. “There have been some interesting offers sent over. You could make even more money.”
“I’m already staying an extra day. I want to get back and get acclimated to the time change before I go to Houston for USA Baseball.”
“Just saying, you’re big over here.”
Hana and I worked on my lines. J-dramas tended to have between ten and twelve episodes. They already had six done, and it looked like they planned to shoot scenes for the last six episodes today with me here. I didn’t know I was a recurring character.
I’d imagined this was probably like a soap opera, with the name My Butterfly. But it turned out to be a crime drama where girls with butterfly tattoos go missing. Haru Doi played the sister of the first victim and presses the police to look for her. She becomes a little detective of sorts.
“You better read the last part,” Hana said, pointing at the last five pages.
“Wow, that might not be good,” I said in shock when I’d read it.
Time to go to the studio. On the ride over, I showed the last five pages to Saul.
“It does leave it open to a sequel,” was his only comment.
◊◊◊
I noticed right away that this wasn’t a movie set like I was used to in LA. First, I didn’t have my own trailer. Not that I was seriously looking for one, but it just highlighted to me there were significant differences in the budget. All the actors for the day were jammed into two rooms to get ready.
I was sent to wardrobe, they did a quick makeup job, and I was rushed to the set. I guess I should have known that it would be very different when they planned to shoot a 45-to-50-minute episode in five days. A typical movie ran about 120 minutes, and it could take four to ten months to shoot.
I wasn’t quite sure who the director was. Someone pointed at a mark on the floor, and I was told to say my lines. Then they sent me back and put me into a different outfit. I was stunned when they didn’t have me do the scene three or four times so they could get different camera angles. That might have explained why I didn’t know who the director was because everyone was pushed back, and there were multiple cameras running.
I was thankful that Hana stayed glued to my hip. While I could pick up the gist of what everyone was saying, if it hadn’t been for her, I would have been lost.
The general outline of the show was that Haru played a young woman whose sister had gone missing at a party. It was written as Veronica Mars meets Silence of the Lambs, which made it much darker than your usual crime drama. The police weren’t taking the disappearance too seriously because the party was held at a major company’s chairman’s home, where his son hosted the event. This caused the police problems because the company employed a large number of the area’s residents. The last thing they wanted to do was offend the chairman.
I played the sketchy son of one of the higher-ups at the firm. The first several episodes had been about Haru working her way through suspects. Then there was a second party, and another girl went missing. No one knew if the girls had simply gone off somewhere or if something terrible had happened. There was no sign of a struggle or any evidence of foul play.
Haru’s character had found a picture of the four friends who had each gotten a butterfly tattoo. Two of the girls had disappeared. In the most recent episode, a third girl hadn’t come home, and the police had started to get involved. The third girl was the chairman’s niece.
My morning scenes had been establishment acts. They showed me in different settings with the other guys who Haru had been investigating. She noticed I tended to be in the background, but never far from the main characters. Besides being a little sketchy (that reads possible drug dealer), I was also not considered very bright. They made me out to be the affable yes-man who would never fit in because I wasn’t Japanese and hadn’t grown up in the inner circle.
Haru’s character was trying to remember who I was and how I fit in. After a morning of quick takes, it was finally time for me to have my first scene with her. She found me before we went on set.
“There’s my boyfriend,” she said to me, giving me a hug. “My real boyfriend wasn’t amused.”
“Sorry about that. I’ve had a few faux girlfriends for publicity. I assumed you were looking to use me for the publicity,” I said and then blushed. “That just made me sound conceited. What I meant to say is, ‘I was only trying to help.’”
“The show’s producers loved it. You might have guessed that when they offered you a role.”
“I thought it was a quick cameo. I didn’t plan to be in the final six episodes.”
“They tell me that when they got you on board, they rewrote the ending.”