CH 22

Chapter 22: Showing Math To The Humanities Is Harassment!

TL: Akabane

***

Milan has shown us the model performance. All I had to do was to imitate her. I learned how to act on the Internet after I went home yesterday. All I had to do was to do it. I stood in front of Ayashiro, Yuzuriha, and Milan. All three of them were staring at me expectantly. This must be the gaze that actors feel on stage. I felt quite nervous. But I have been through a lot of hardships as a working adult in my previous world. Don't worry, I can do it. The trick to acting is to draw out your own emotions. You don't have to play the part, but rather express the emotions required by the role with your body on the spot. That is what acting is all about. I don't know the details of the acting method, as there are various schools of acting. That's how I understood it. So, I recall the memories of the emotions necessary for the role I am playing. My role is a man who meets a woman and falls in love with her on the spot. It is a simple role. So I recall the event in the previous world when I started dating my wife. It was at a bar I went to with a coworker. My colleague and I were having a drink at the counter, but in another booth, a group of female announcers, including my wife, and some young, successful comedians were having a blind date. At that time, my wife was smiling coldly at them. We hadn't seen each other since our college days, but she looked cold. For some reason, I started to move my body right then and there. And when I came to my senses, I pulled my wife's hand and we left the restaurant as it was. Looking back, I wonder why I did that. But when we ran out of the store together, my wife did indeed have a warm smile on her face. That feeling was still there in my heart. Then I started acting.

＊＊＊＊＊ (Kanata Acting!!!) ＊＊＊＊＊

And the performance was over. It was a very short performance of less than three minutes. After the performance, I bowed and looked at the faces of Ayashiro and the others. They all had kind smiles on their faces.

"That was a great performance! You had the presence and beauty of a Broadway actor! The voice, though, was sh*t!"

"It's true!  It was like a Chicago mobster fell in love with the daughter of his sworn enemy, a cop, and the scent of tragic love was so sad! But the voice was tailing! Let's find a voice actor to dub it!!!!"

What a rating. Both Ayashiro and Yuzuriha were raving about it with moistened eyes, while dissing me. Exquisitely unconvinced, I turned to Milan. She seemed impressed.

"Mm-hm! That was even better than I thought it would be! I'm amazed! I think you're on the level of a legendary actor in the silent film era. I don't know if you'd call it star quality. If anything, it was a little bit of a small performance that would have looked better in a movie than on stage, but it was more than enough! This is a surefire way to get through the selection process! I'm finally going to have some luck!"

Milan is also complimentary. But what? A silent film?

"Hey, hey, guys? Why is everyone dissing my voice? Hm?"

Everyone all gently lowered their eyes. Milan says somewhat apologetically.

"Let's see. What can I say? The physical expression is amazing! The size and intensity of his presence, and the way he's so cool without logic, it makes me swoon. The voice...I don't know why, but it's the voice of a virgin who's not used to women, full of tension...haha..."

"Eh? What is that? My voice is that dirty?"

"I wouldn't say it's dirty... it's just... well, just a little bit... it's kind of gross... haha..."

Milan smiles dryly. Is it really that bad? While I'm thinking that, Ayashiro comes up to me and shows me the screen of his phone.

"Don't be shocked. Don't think too much about it...pfft..."

Is this girl laughing at me? Then the video of my performance starts playing. And then I heard his voice.

--- "Anatagaskidaa!!!!"

It was really creepy. He's kind of shaking, and he smells like a virgin. Come to think of it, I was a virgin when I met my wife! And I used that emotion to make my voice sound like a virgin? ! It's so backwards, isn't it!

"Never mind! Kanata is the best if only for his body!"

Yuzuriha said with a subtle smile as she patted my shoulder.

"Stop it! Stop evaluating me like I'm some poor guy who's being treated like a convenient sex friend!"

I was shocked. I'm afraid of my acting talent (shudder).

"Haha. But don't worry about it too much. It's been announced that people with no acting experience will be taken into consideration during the selection process. In fact, I didn't even need to practice anything except my voice! Let's forget about the voice! Let's just match with me then! I think I can do this on the spur of the moment! Let's try it! Hahaha!"

Milan undid her ponytail and let her hair flow. With that, her usual boyish impression disappeared and a neat, princess-like atmosphere appeared. I guess she has sealed off her usual mode and switched to the mode for the female role. She's amazing. Can she manipulate fluffy human impressions like atmosphere and aura? Is this the makings of a real actor? I can't lose! It's me who stands at the center of the stage!

"Tokiwa, just so you know. You're not the hero of the selection. Don't compete with Milan."

Ayashiro, who must have known what I was thinking, butted in. I shouldn't have done that. I've been playing sports before I knew it. I was only a supporting player in the selection process to make Milan shine. I had to be true to my role!

"Okay, I'll take a video. Keep trying until I say cut."

"Hey, wait a minute. Ayashiro, why are you pretending to be a director?

"Don't you want to say "cut" at least once? I'd love to."

"This is a stage, isn't it?"

Ignoring Ayashiro's nonsense, Milan and I tried our hand at acting.

＊＊＊＊＊ (We're acting!!!) ＊＊＊＊＊

Our performance was over. As the performer, there were no particular stumbling blocks, and nothing slowed us down. I think our performance went smoothly. But for some reason, the two audience members' faces were grim.

"What is this? Tokiwa's voice is not that bad, but their acting is good..."

"That's right. Even if we leave Kanata's voice aside, both of you were very decent performers. And yet..."

The two of them looked as if they were biting a bitter bug. Then they said.

""It's so boring.""

The most scathing evaluation ever came down.

"Gghh! Boring? My entertainment is boring? How can that be?"

Milan collapses on the spot. Her body is shaking and she looks pale. For an entertainer, being called boring is probably the hardest thing to do.

"I'm sorry. But let me say frankly that the two of you are 'boring' in your plays. I can't really verbalize it, but they're both good, and they breathe well together. But it's boring. That's all I can say."

Ayashiro seems puzzled. She has a reluctant look on her face.

"...What is it? Like...that...thing? Like when your favorite novel or manga is made into an anime, and the voice you imagined is different from the voice of the actual voice actor? No, it's not like that...what is it? Misalignment? Distortion? Hmmm?"

Yuzuriha crossed her arms and groaned. She doesn't seem to be able to verbalize it well either.

"Hmmm. Milan. What's the cause? I don't think your acting is bad, do you?"

I observe the two actors' performances that I have filmed. It's certainly boring for some reason, if you ask me. Except for my shitty voice, their acting looks beautiful. But something feels off.

"I don't know, but I think the cause might be on Milan's side."

Ayashiro also peeks into the video. Her white hand covers the screen, erasing me, and only Milan's figure is visible on the screen. The performance is beautiful. She acts like a neat and beautiful princess. But it certainly is.

"Ayashiro. It looks like you're right. Milan's performance, I feel like it's lacking something. What's missing here?"

I turn to Milan, who is devastated. Then I compare it to Milan on the screen. Something is still missing.

"Can I ask you to do that video for me?"

Yuzuriha said, shining her glasses suspiciously. In her right hand, a pencil. In her left hand was an A4 report paper. She took Ayashiro's phone from me and put it on the lunch sheet. Then she got down on all fours on her knees and stared at the video. The skirt of the dress she wears is a little short, so from behind you can sometimes see the sexy roundness of her buttocks and a glimpse of her black pants. Yuzuriha plays, stops, rewinds, and fast-forwards the video, and writes mysterious mathematical formulas on the report paper that even I, a science major, don't understand.

"Nice...pants from behind a girl concentrating. You've got to see it! That girl who was so neat and clean, now she's stained by the darkness of the city and she's wearing black pants! That's lovely!"

Ayashiro grins and peeks inside Yuzuriha's skirt. But Yuzuriha is so focused that she doesn't notice at all. I blocked Ayashiro's eyes with my hands from behind.

"Yes, guard! Super barrier! Ayashiro fungus no batchi no mecha-barrier!"

"No! I want to see it! Because I picked these pants for you! I have the right to see them!"

Ayashiro was yuckily trying to get her hands off me. Of course, I won't let her see it. I won't let Yuzuriha get in the way.

"I quantified the emotions on the time axis and plotted them. Convert them into matrix vectors and redefine each one with a unique frequency. Take the extremes, normalize the complex numbers, and rearrange the constants. Prove that the function has a solution using the back method, and...oh no! The even is a transcendental number? Oh, no..."

What is she talking about? Satsuma language is so difficult.... But it seems some kind of answer was given. Yuzuriha stood up and walked toward Milan.

"I should have known something was wrong in the first place. The theme that this performance should express is "love". In other words, the feeling of being in love itself...!"

Yuzuriha squatted down in front of Milan and said.

"Wait, you are still a novice!!!"

Hearing this, Milan's face shot up.

"Oh, no, that's not true! I'm that thing! I'm extremely popular! I'm irresistible! I've never had a problem with guys! Haha! Hahahaha! I get laid all the time! I'm an actress, of course I'm experienced! Ahaha! Hahahahaha!"

Her voice is shaking. As college students, the lack of romantic experience itself tends to be a complex for both men and women.

"Umm...excuse me. My eyes cannot deceive me! Formulas don't lie! I derive from your acting more derived logic that you still have sexual intercourse, excuse me! Use a more rigorous definition! I have proven that you are a novice dimwit who has never even engaged in spouse-getting behavior with a male member of the human race, let alone experienced a dubu-eki if you inserted your male genitalia into a female genitalia!"

At the end of the mysterious mathematical formula on the report paper held by Yuzuriha, who was making a smug face, were the letters "Q.E.D.".

"Stop it! Showing a math equation to me, a humanities student, is science harassment! Harassment! Harassment!"

"Don't try to mislead me by diverting the conversation! That response is what proves that you are nothing but a pain in the ass virgin!"

Yuzuriha's harassment is terrible. But there was something compelling about not knowing love. Ayashiro nodded her head in agreement. Will this really be a breakthrough? I'm worried...! I thought to myself.