Once the other cast members began to leave the set for their own makeup sessions, there was no chance of keeping Locke’s presence a secret. All of the girls who had gathered around that oval table now surrounded Locke instead. They showered him with their sympathies and asked him all sorts of questions about what he had been up to since the night of his award ceremony, but something felt off about their behavior. They smiled and laughed far too much for even a conversation between old friends, nevermind one with a magical boy who had been through what Locke had.
That was another difference between them and Ren, Adah noted. That girl grew more curious the more Adah learned about her. Putting aside Iris’s biased assessment of her, Ren almost seemed like she could fit in with the rest of the coalition members. Maybe the reason the rest of Region 1 treated her like an outsider wasn’t because she “got ahead” of so many of them, but because she had more in common with the ugly ducklings of Region 4.
While everyone else crowded around Locke, Ren kept her distance and returned to scrolling through her phone. Her apparent disinterest may have been a means of staying out of trouble, or perhaps not making her affection for Locke too obvious. Those feelings were her clearest weakness, and she’d do well not to expose them.
That realization made Adah wonder what Ciel’s weaknesses might be. Ren had tried jabbing at Ciel last week during the Social phase; if she and Adah combined their efforts to poke that pressure point, they might make her buckle.
That’s what Adah would pay attention to during today’s Social phase, which the director Arthur began by introducing a boy that everyone in the room already knew.
“It’s my great pleasure to welcome Locke Lysalt to our set today,” he said with his arms spread wide.
The eight magical girls of the cast had all taken seats around the oval table, while Locke sat alone atop a stool at the front of the room. He was totally exposed up there, and the whole room hadn’t taken their eyes off him.
“I’m honored that you’re making your return to the public eye with our program, and I hope everyone shows our guest a good time today,” Arthur continued. “As for how we’ll be spending our day, the theme of today’s Social phase is ‘Magical Boys: Everything You Wanted to Know.’”
Presumably this was the point where some cheesy title overlay would pop up in the final edit.
Arthur went on to explain how every phase of today’s episode would involve Locke in some way. Starting with the Social phase, the cast would have a chance to ask the boy questions across a variety of topics, which would then spark discussion among the larger group. Apparently the show wanted to take advantage of the relative novelty of magical boys to explore any differences between what someone like Locke experienced in this job compared to the girls on the cast. As Arthur even put it, this would indeed be a focus group session.
Of course, if you put this particular group of magical girls in a room with this particular magical boy, the conversation was doomed to head in one particular direction. The crew must have predicted this—not that it took a genius to do so—and assigned the first topic of discussion accordingly.
“How does being a magical boy impact your social life?”
In this kind of situation, there was only one aspect of Locke’s social life most of the cast would be interested in hearing about.
“Yeah, so, I’ve got a super important question,” Felt opened the discussion as her hand shot into the air. Apparently that trend from last week was lasting a bit longer. “Are you dating anyone right now, Locke?”
The core of Ciel’s posse started laughing, with the second-class members like Tiella and Zoe following suit soon after. Ciel herself gave Felt a playful nudge and said, “That’s too aggressive, Felt! The segment just started.”
Felt shrugged and said, “Everyone’s wondering it. Why beat around the bush?”
“She’s just hoping the early bird gets the worm,” Pirouette said, causing the rest of their group to laugh again.
The dynamics—or you could even call it strategy—of Ciel’s clique had become clear to Adah.
Felt was most often the instigator: she’d say whatever she needed to, however bold or disjointed, to get the conversation headed in a particular direction. She was good at letting her words fly without any reservation. Part of what allowed her to speak out so suddenly was the fact that Ciel would always follow right behind her to soften the impact of her words by pointing out how she’d broken the social norms. Nevertheless, by saying something like, “That’s too aggressive,” in a lighthearted tone, Ciel actually made the comment feel more acceptable. She never outright scolded Felt or asked her to retract what she’d said. After that, Pirouette could diffuse any remaining tension and pull the rest of the room back into the fold by making Felt the butt of the joke with a sly comment of her own.
In that way, they controlled the pace and focus of conversation during these social segments. Even the viewers at home probably felt this atmosphere of “friends joking around” and wouldn’t think twice about the words actually being said. They wouldn’t notice that, despite the jokes, the conversation continued to head in one direction.
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Once Ciel’s group established the flow of conversation, even someone as charismatic as Locke had difficulty redirecting it. He smiled abashedly at Felt and let her question hang in the air a bit longer.
“I’m not seeing anyone right now,” he said. “I’m more focused on other things at the moment.”
There was something different in his answer from his usual demeanor, but Adah couldn’t put her finger on what.
“You can at least tell us what your type is,” Felt pressed him further. “Obviously she needs to be a magical girl, right? So that you can relate to each other.”
Locke rocked his head back and forth as if thinking, then said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. My type would probably be a magical girl. The kind of magical girl who takes her job seriously and puts protecting humanity above anything else. I guess she’d be kind of like Heartbreak over there.”
Felt stared at Locke with a vapid smile frozen in place, like she’d prepared a reaction ahead of time but didn’t know what to do with her face now that his response didn’t line up with her expectations.
All the other heads in the room, excluding Ren’s, pivoted in Adah’s direction. She wasn’t sure what Locke was playing at yet, but he had created an opening for her. Neither Heartbreak nor Adah would be a passive observer today.
“Sorry, Locke,” she said, already settling into some persona between her usual attitude and that of her magical girl mode. “Turns out that’s my type, too. We’re more like competition for each other than soulmates.”
“That’s too bad,” Locke said. “I was going to say that’s not the only reason you’re my type, but let’s forget about it for now. While we’re on the subject, I gotta talk about the kinds of girls I can’t stand, too. That’s only fair. So… I mean, magical girls who use their fans like tools are pretty nasty, aren’t they?”
Locke shifted his gaze from Adah to Ciel as he spoke, the latter of whom narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. It was a similar comment as the one Ren had made toward Ciel last episode, and it was only natural that Locke would know the same secrets about her as Ren did. If it was some kind of scandal, either they didn’t have enough proof to outright accuse Ciel, or what they did know wasn’t damning enough that Ciel’s posse couldn’t just help her bury it. That would explain why Ren merely prodded her last week—the plan was to chip away at her until she reacted in a way she couldn’t recover from.
“Let’s pause there,” Arthur interrupted, possibly sensing the animosity brewing in the room. “Locke wasn’t here last week, so I’m just going to take a second to explain a bit more about how the Social phase is supposed to work.”
With that, Arthur ushered Locke out of the room and led him to the showrunner Jay. Having been in that spot herself last week, Adah knew exactly what those two were saying to the magical boy, even though they tried to keep their voices to a whisper. Locke, however, only raised his voice in response.
“I guess I’ll just go home then,” he declared loud enough for everyone inside the set to hear.
“You can’t leave,” Arthur said, his emotions getting the better of him and causing him to match Locke’s volume. “Nothing in the episode will make any sense without you.”
“Then let’s get on with it,” Locke said. “I’m giving you a lot of juicy footage.”
“The girl I can give some leeway,” the showrunner said, “but you’re not new to this. If you’re here just to cause trouble, the Secretary will hear about it.”
“What’d I do to cause trouble?” Locke asked with a laugh. “Trouble would be if I posted about how I got tricked into going on some show, thinking I’d be able to tell my story and talk about things that are important to me, only for the producer to force me to flirt with some girls I don’t know. Something like: all I wanted was to ask the fans to show their support for magic users in times of tragedy, but instead I had to beat back the advances of a bunch of magical girls? Nah, I’m just helping you out. I’m giving this show some depth—plus a little flirting to boot. What part of that’s a problem?”
Adah smiled. So that was how Locke played the game. Compared to Heartbreak, who had to bulldoze her point of view through discussions like this, Locke’s approach was more nuanced. From a position of power as a real celebrity, he could work to convince Arthur and Jay that what he wanted was in their best interest as well.
That, too, was a way of showing them what was on this side of the camera. While a photoshoot only had a set, costumes, and expressions for a star to work with, a television show or movie also had elements like a script. Or, in the case of reality TV, a narrative. Locke had the level of fame that empowered him to come right out and say what he thought that narrative ought to be.
The discussion between the three men went quiet again, most likely due to Arthur and Jay debating whether to give Locke any control over this matter. Adah may not have commanded the same respect in this industry as Locke did, but she still had her own way of playing the game. She got up and joined the men out in the studio.
“Hey, are we filming or not?” she said, letting a nasally boredom flow into her voice. “I have another gig later tonight, and if we go late, my producer is going to be pissed.”
Jay looked at Adah in exasperation before turning to Michel, who was watching their interaction from the other end of the studio. Adah had made sure Michel could hear her, and hoped he was savvy enough to pick up on his role. The actor’s experience paid off—he held up an arm and tapped his wrist, quickly reading the situation.
Right on cue, even more backup arrived in the form of Ren. She emerged from the set with droopy eyes and a frown, her head tilted slightly to the side like she couldn’t be bothered keeping it upright. She raised an eyebrow and looked at Adah and Locke.
“If they’re leaving, then I want to go home, too,” she said. “This is getting seriously boring.”
Ah, there was a word no one in show business wanted to hear. The only descriptor worse than “uncomfortable” was “boring.”
“No one is leaving,” Jay declared. “We’ll shoot it with Locke, but we’re going to do it on the numbers. Arthur, change one of the topics to something more open-ended, like ‘what do you wish people knew about being a magic user.’ You can talk about everything there. We’ll start light and then move into the serious stuff, and finish with heartwarming. You can follow that, Locke?”
“I think we can make it work,” Locke said, sharing unreserved smile with Adah and Ren.
If Ciel wanted to shape the story of the show with her crew, the three of them would have to match her.