"What?"

Nick didn't even want to look at her face; he knew what he would see. He kept his eyes on his ramen, grabbing a delicious piece of chashu, or pork, with his chopsticks and putting it in his mouth before risking a quick look.

Sure enough, she'd gone ashen pale, eyes huge, her own food forgotten in front of her.

They were on a long lunch break while they waited for the rain to let up. It was supposed to clear by mid-afternoon, so they were to be back on set by two PM. This made today the perfect time to head into town to try one of Ehime Prefecture's famous noodle shops, and Nick had hoped that the good food would be enough of a distraction to dilute the bad news he was going to deliver.

It hadn't worked.

"Nick, I can't. A love scene?"

"With me, Mimi-chan? You don't think you can, even with me?" Nick gestured to her noodles. "Aren't you the one who said you're supposed to eat them before they get 'stretched out'?"

She nodded and began eating again, but stopped after a few bites.

"Why do they keep changing the script?" she asked, frustration in her tone. "I mean, the movie got green-lit with the script as it was written, right? Won't the director and producers get mad?"

Nick slurped up some more noodles. "They're the ones tweaking the script," he explained. "It's pretty common in movies, that's why all the different colors." He gestured at the tattered script on the table in front of him. "Like I said, until you took over for Minami, I only showed you the changes that affected me, but now you have your own script, and you see yourself, right? They're handing you changes every day, aren't they?"

Sumire nodded.

"And the truth is that, since you stepped in, your part has gotten so much bigger, haven't you noticed that?" He smiled at her as he took a drink of water. "You know why, don't you?"

Sumire shook her head.

"You're really good," Nick told her. "I mean, not that Minami wasn't? But you bring something, a certain fragility, maybe? I don't know, but something that she didn't have."

"Some of the scenes are just me," Sumire agreed. "But most of what's being expanded seems to be stuff with you."

"One of the writers told me," Nick said, unable to keep from sounding smug. "What's his name? The one who speaks some English? With the earring?"

"Hideki?"

"Yeah, Hideki," Nick agreed. "He told me yesterday that more scenes were getting added for us because--" and Nick paused so he could continue in a Japanese accent, "'--You and Sumire-san have beeerrry good chemistry together.'"

"Really?" And in spite of her looming terror over the love scene, Sumire couldn't help but be pleased.

Nick nodded, smiling. "Then he said, 'You love each other, dessho?'" Dessho was Japanese for "right?" or "isn't it?" It was equivalent to "n'est-ce pas?" in French, known as a tag question in linguistic terms.

"He asked you that?" Sumire asked, grabbing her own water for a drink to cover her embarrassment.

Nick nodded again, practically oozing complacency.

"So basically you're saying we're so good together that I brought this love scene on myself," Sumire said wryly.

Nick shrugged. "I guess so, my little Cucumber," he replied with a tiny smirk.

Sumire bit her lip, then bent to her noodles once more, finally shrugging herself.

"We can practice, if you want," Nick suggested. "We can do whatever you need to feel comfortable, okay?"

"Nick." Sumire put her chopsticks down. "That might help if it were going to be just the two of us, but it's all those other people, the grips, the lighting guys, all the crew? And Murakami-sensei, oh my god, I can't do that in front of him!"

Nick could see the red creeping up her neck.

"We can ask for a closed set," Nick told her. "Or you can, I mean. Ask Murakami-sensei."

"What's that?"

"It means the minimum number of people necessary to film. Like just us, him, the cameraman and the mike guy on boom." Nick tried to sound encouraging. "Maybe we could even ask for Reiko that day. She's the AD, I don' think Murakami-sensei would mind."

Sumire swallowed. "Okay. Okay." She let out a breath. "I'll think about it."

Nick nodded, keeping his body language light. He didn't bother to say that there was no "think about it" involved. She was bound by a legal contract, and she would be doing the sex scene, no matter what.

☔️🍂☔️🍂☔️🍂☔️🍂☔️

They went to the afternoon location, which today was the large, gated yard of an old estate with a koi pond and fence all around. It hadn't stopped raining yet, however, so everyone crowded into the make-up tent to hopefully wait it out. Sachiko was standing, looking out one of the windows, so they went to stand at a different one, though she obviously wanted to talk to them.

Seiichi Kondo, the actor who played Sumire's future father-in-law, came to stand next to Sumire as they looked out through their window at the rain. Kondo-san was a well-known character actor in Japan. He was in his late fifties, a veteran of many films and TV shows with a thick mane of grey hair and a deep, booming voice. Sachiko, who looked as though she was getting ready to come and talk to them, bit her lip in irritation and remained where she was, and Sumire, who wasn't particularly fond of Kondo-san, who gave her a bad vibe, was momentarily grateful to the older actor.

"It's really coming down," he said to her in Japanese.

"Yes, it really is," she agreed, nodding. She stepped a little closer to Nick and pulled her sweater tighter at the throat, and Nick realized that this was something she no longer did when they were alone together. This knowledge heartened him.

"Your Japanese is so good," Kondo-san said, smiling down at Sumire as he stepped closer, closing the space she'd opened. "Did you grow up here or in America?"

"Both, I suppose," she answered. "My father was Japanese, and we lived here until he died and my mother remarried. Then we moved to Boston."

"Boston is a fine city," he responded in his deep voice.

"Yes, lots of fun, and good food also," Sumire responded.

Kondo-san took another step closer to her, and bent toward her. "Hmm. Your hair smells very nice today, Sumire-chan. Is that American or Japanese conditioner that you're using?"

Sumire's eyes narrowed, and Nick, who didn't understand any of the conversation, but understood one hundred percent of the body language, could tell that she was getting ready to say something that wouldn't go over very well.

He quickly grabbed Sumire's hand and pulled her around his body, switching places with her so he was between her and Kondo-san. He smiled benignly at the older actor.

"Mimi-chan? Please tell this degenerate reprobate that if he takes one step closer to you I'm going to rip his head off and piss down his neck, okay?" he said, his tone pleasant and even.

In spite of herself, Sumire laughed out loud.

"You want me to translate that to him?" she asked.

Next to Nick, Kondo-san looked confused and concerned at the turn things had taken.

Nick shook his head, continuing to smile. "Obviously not, Purple girl. He doesn't understand word fucking one, right? That's why I said it, instead of letting you set his hair on fire by saying whatever you were going to say.

"Mimi-chan, tell him we have to talk to Murakami-sensei, okay?" He waited for her to translate, waved good bye, and led her away.

Sachiko watched them go, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"God, men like that make my skin crawl," Sumire confessed, rubbing her arm where he'd come into contact with her. "They always seem to be on crowded trains and stuff."

"They're perverts," Nick said shortly. "They have a thing for young girls, the ones who look quiet, who look like they won't stick up for themselves or say anything."

He smiled at Sumire. "Boy, was he ever in for a surprise, huh?" He leaned in and gave Sumire a brief squeeze. "Because you can definitely stand up for yourself, can't you?"

"I like to think so," Sumire responded with a small smile.

"But, Mimi-chan, you can't just cork off to your co-stars, especially if they have higher billing than you, understand?" Nick admonished. "No matter what kind of shitty thing they do. You still have to work with that asshole for the next three months.

"Now, let's go talk to Murakami-sensei so we're not total liars, what do you say?"

The rain, which was supposed to move off-shore in the afternoon, stalled over the island, and the afternoon's shooting, which was supposed to happen in the yard of one of the outbuildings, was cancelled, not just because it kept raining, but because the yard turned to mud.

Mino-chan was summoned to drive them home and they both fell asleep in the back of the car to the gentle drumming of the rain on the hood of the car.