Chapter 98: Practicing on my own. (Reincarnated as a Beautiful Girl and Aim to Become a Top Actress!)

 98 — Practicing on My Own

After thinking it over, I decided to go ahead and audition since it’s a great opportunity. When I told Yoko about it, she casually said, “I’ll handle the application for you,” and kindly took care of it.

The audition was scheduled for two weeks later. Since I wanted to give it my all, I added diction training to my daily routine. I practiced reading “Uirou-uri” (a fast-talking tongue twister) and other tongue twisters—things I used to do when I was attending a training school in my past life. For tongue twisters, I didn’t just read fast; first, I read slowly, paying attention to the accents and phrasing. Then, I read them at a normal pace to check for any stumbling or getting tongue-tied. Finally, I read them quickly, focusing on whether the listener could still understand clearly despite the speed.

“Wow, amazing! You can read that fast without stumbling,”
Haruka praised me with applause. I felt a little shy and said, “Thanks.” Haruka wasn’t auditioning herself—she just barged into the rehearsal room during my free time after dinner, saying she wanted to join in. Since I didn’t want to kick her out, we’ve been practicing together these past few days.

“If you practice like me—‘slow, normal, fast’—you’ll get the hang of it,” I told her.

“Hmm, I’m not sure. I always feel like I’m about to bite my tongue halfway through,” she said, sounding a bit frustrated.

I smiled faintly. Stumbling over tongue twisters usually comes from nervousness, not just sluggish tongue movement. Most people think they have to speed up because it’s a tongue twister, right? Since it’s not something people say in everyday conversations, being forced to say it suddenly is another reason people mess up.

I wasn’t reading these as some punishment—I was practicing—so if I focused on the meaning and the phrasing, I rarely got stuck. I realized this back in my previous life, when I was practicing the part of “Uirou-uri” where I had to quickly list the effects of a medicine. Staying calm was key—if I could read it smoothly slowly, I could speed up without problems. I’m honestly happy that the training I did before still helps me now as Sumire.

This time, I listened to Haruka read while following the text with my eyes. One thing I noticed was that she could do the nasalized sounds (bidakuon) in some places but not at all in others. I guessed that she probably didn’t even know about nasalized sounds before moving into this dorm. I remembered the early lessons when Azusa-san scolded her for not doing it at all.

I’m no better—before entering the training school to become a voice actor in my past life, I was totally clueless about nasalized sounds. To be honest, in my hometown in Kansai, nasalized sounds are almost nonexistent. I can’t say completely because maybe some dialects sound a bit nasal, but I never looked it up properly.

When the instructor at the training school told the whole class, “Your ‘ga’ sounds are too strong,” with a frown, we all wondered what she meant. After she explained nasalized sounds, we understood, but it took a lot of time to get it right. The instructor taught us to add an ‘n’ sound before the ‘ga’ sound to practice nasalization. Doing it regularly helped me get it naturally.

“Steady practice will definitely help when you’re in trouble, so let’s work hard and get it down,” I said.

“Yeah, but practicing alone in my room makes me feel kind of silly. It’s embarrassing,” Haruka said, smiling shyly.

That made me think of my past self, and I nodded strongly, saying, “I get that feeling.” But honestly, acting basics are usually practiced alone. Since no one else is watching, you just have to accept it. Especially since I made so many mistakes in front of my classmates at the training school, I think I’ve become pretty numb to feeling embarrassed.

Haruka’s devoicing (museika) is well done, so she probably has less trouble than I did. Honestly, devoicing was harder for me to fix than nasalized sounds. It’s tricky for Kansai natives because Kansai emphasizes the endings like “desu” and “masu.” I remember the instructor being exasperated, “Why can’t you do devoicing?” when we said “ohayou gozaimasu” or “yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”

So, that’s how I’ve been spending my days practicing with Haruka. One day, Yoko came to pick me up at school and brought the audition materials. Since it was a day off, Haruka and I got a ride straight back to the dorm. After seeing Yoko off, I changed out of my uniform and headed to the rehearsal room.

Haruka wanted to see the materials too, so after telling her not to tell anyone about what’s inside, I opened the envelope and took them out. The internet wasn’t really common back then, so if this info leaked, it would only be by word of mouth. I don’t know how many people were auditioning, but probably not many students. If the production team found out rumors were spreading, they might ask who leaked the info. If anyone said it was a school rumor, a middle schooler like me could end up suspected.

The chance of that is tiny, but since trust is crucial in this business, better safe than sorry. Of course, I trust Haruka wouldn’t spill anything, but sometimes people accidentally let things slip.

“Oh, so it’s an OVA audition,” Haruka said, reading the title and sounding curious.

“OVA?” I echoed, tilting my head. The way she said it in all hiragana sounded kind of cute.

“It stands for Original Video Animation. It’s an episode of an anime not aired on TV but made to be sold on video tapes… something like that?”

“Wow, I didn’t know that! How do you know so much, Sumire?”

I was caught off guard and nervously laughed, trying to think how to explain. Anime fans around here know that stuff naturally, but Haruka doesn’t watch much anime, so it’s understandable she’s curious. Since I was born again in this era, I’ve already watched the anime I like from this time in my past life, so I mostly watch dramas now. We don’t watch anime together, so it’s no wonder she doesn’t know.

“I looked it up a bit after deciding to audition. Our school library even has magazines with anime covers.”

“Yeah, we got a tour there during orientation, but I don’t think I’ve been since.”

“The library has lots of books and gets new ones quickly for a school. You might enjoy going sometime.”

I really admire stuff like that about private schools. By the way, I do go regularly with Miu-chan, who loves reading. We exchange book recommendations and have a lot of fun. Sometimes, I get the feeling Miu-chan is kind of “one of us,” but I wouldn’t say that outright. In this era, because of some incident, people who like anime were seen almost like criminals across Japan. It was a really upsetting event that I won’t talk about here.

Of course, I like subculture stuff like anime and manga too, so if Miu-chan ever wants to talk about it, I won’t make fun of her. But we’ve only known each other for less than a year, and although we’re close friends, I don’t think she fully trusts me with that yet. I just want to wait for her to bring it up without pressuring her. If she seems like she wants to but holds back, maybe I’ll start the conversation. I want to handle it carefully.

Anyway, back to the materials. The story is about two childhood friends, a boy and a girl, and their complicated love life. Both have close friends secretly crushing on each other, forming a tense love square. The fragile friendship starts to break when the protagonist’s friend confesses their feelings. It’s a choice between friendship and love during the once-in-a-lifetime summer vacation of second-year middle schoolers.

“Looks like I’m auditioning for the childhood friend and their best friend,” I said, glancing at the notes tucked inside.

“Boys can confess to the girl their friend likes, even though they know it? I couldn’t do that. If she’s my best friend, it’s even harder,” Haruka muttered, looking a bit upset.

Her reaction made me smile a little. It’s true, but it’s a bit much to get that emotional about a fictional story. I silently thought most guys are decent people anyway.

“A girl who can’t be honest, huh? If you get jealous about the boy you like getting along with other girls, you should just confess already,” I said.

“If you confessed, most boys would probably say yes because you’re Sumire, so it’s easy for you. Normal girls worry about being rejected and hesitate,” Haruka sighed.

I blurted out my honest thoughts, and she sighed, saying that. Even if I confessed, if the guy isn’t my type or we’re not close, some would say no. I’ve never confessed in real life, but I can imagine that.

“I want to act properly, so I need to find some good books or movies for reference. Do you know anything?” I asked.

“I have tons of manga recommendations! I’ll lend you mine,” Haruka said excitedly.

I have many characters from anime and manga in my past life memories, but they might not fit this era. So I appreciated Haruka’s offer to show me the actual manga she has. Even if I thought I read them as a middle schooler, I might be mistaken.

“Since that’s settled, let’s go to my room right away,” Haruka urged, so we ended practice early today. But I was sweaty and wanted to take a bath first. I’d asked Itoko-san to prepare the bath before I came, so it was probably ready. When I said I wanted to bathe first, Haruka raised her hand energetically, “I want to join!”

When I first moved to Tokyo, I bathed with Yumi-san, and since I was smaller then, two people fit comfortably. But now I’ve grown, and Haruka has gotten taller, so two of us fit but it’s cramped. I wanted to relax and stretch out alone, but seeing Haruka’s pleading eyes, I gave in and headed to the bath together.

(T/N: New schedule! 6:00AM Gmt+8 releases for (pt1) chapters and 6:00pm gmt+8 for pt2 of chapters! P.s. N/a to short chapters like this one.)