"And cut!" the director yelled.

Mai relaxed and grinned at her co-actors before leaving the set.

"I'm parched," she said to no one in particular.

"Me too," a familiar voice said behind her.

Mai did not need to look around. She knew who it was.

"And I suppose you want me to get you a drink, hmm?"

She heard the deliberately audible sigh from her colleague.

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" he said.

"It was literally a classic 'man thinks a woman is just here to assist' thing," Mai said with a laugh.

"You were holding a tray of teacups," he protested. "And—"

"I was being nice to everyone," Mai said.

"Not to me."

"You were late, I couldn't have asked you what you wanted to drink because you weren't on time."

"That was Gene's fault."

"You always blame your brother."

"That's because usually," Oliver said, "It is his fault."

Mai laughed.

"Meet you in the canteen after changing?"

"Sure."

This film set had the best food she'd had on a set ever and she was definitely taking full advantage of it. Usually, catering was just tables of picnic food. This place had an actual working kitchen.

Mai supposed this was because the budgets of the films she was acting in were slowly increasing. She was working her way to the top, one step at a time! She bumped into Oliver when leaving her trailer, now back in her own clothes and together they walked to the canteen.

"Morning George," Mai said to the server, "Can I get some of today's special please?"

"Of course you can dear," George replied with a toothy grin. He served up a plate and handed it over. "Anything else for you? We've got some fresh fruit in?"

"Ooh, yes go on, what have you got?"

"The mangoes look the best if I'm honest. I can cut one up for you if you like? And bring it over?"

"You're a star," Mai said. "Thank you so much."

George beamed at Mai, before turning to Oliver, stony-faced.

"What can I get you?" he asked in a deadpan voice.

"The same," Oliver muttered.

Mai hid her laugh behind her hand and looked over the canteen for somewhere to sit. She spotted Gene and Yasuhara, two more of their co-actors.

"Come on," she said to Oliver, once he had his own food.

Mai sat down next to Yasuhara and Oliver sat down opposite her.

"How was it?" Gene asked.

"Your brother isn't a bad actor," Mai said. "He looked genuinely devastated that the love of his life just asked him to give her away at her wedding."

Gene laughed.

"I wish I'd been allowed on set to see it," he said.

"Well if you hadn't got caught pulling faces at him," Mai muttered and tucked into her food.

"What have you two been up to?" Oliver asked.

"Running lines and listening to rumours," Yasuhara replied. "Talk is that the director wants to make the film a little raunchier."

"Raunchier?" Mai questioned. "How? Showing more of Lin and Madoka's characters sex scene?"

"Well I think that's part of it," Gene said. His gleeful grin belied that this was not something they were going to like. "So he knows the original writer, right?"

"Hmm?"

"And apparently, she confessed that in an earlier version of the book, your two characters secretly slept with each other behind Lin's characters back. Apparently, he wants to put that in to show your love for each other or something."

Mai rolled her eyes.

"But my character doesn't even fall for his until like halfway through?"

"I'm sure he'll make it work," Yasuhara said. "And, even bigger news, there is talk of a sex scene between us two," he gestured between Gene and himself. "But apparently the financers are getting angsty about showing that much gay in one film."

Mai rolled her eyes again.

"Let me guess, it's fine if your characters are gay as long as they don't actually do anything gay?"

"Something like that."

"That's stupid."

"Yeah," Gene agreed. "So the director spoke to the author and she said she'd whip up a Twitter storm if the financers didn't get their act together. The fans ship us, you know?"

"I've seen the fanfiction," Mai said. "Believe me I know…"

"You have?" Oliver asked, cocking his head to one side.

"Well duh, I love the books! Of course, I've read the fanfiction. Besides, that tells you what the fans really want."

"She's got a point, Noll. There is a lot of Felix X Arsinoe stuff," Gene said. "But there is more Deo X Emlen stuff."

"And there is even more Elysia X Arsinoe," Mai said. "The only thing the internet loves more than gays is lesbians. Especially when it comes to fanart…"

"Eww…"

"Doesn't the actress playing Elysia turn up soon?"

"Yeah," Mai said. "They've got Masako Hara to play her? Can you believe that?"

"What's the big deal?"

"She's like actually amazing!"

"I have no idea who she is," Oliver muttered.

At that moment, George appeared with Mai's fruit.

"I hope these young men are treating you well, dear."

"Oh George, thank you! Yes, they're all on their best behaviour!"

Mai beamed at him and he left.

"He dotes on you too much," Yasuhara muttered.

"You're just jealous," Mai said. "But anyway, Masako Hara was in Mischief and Misunderstandings?"

The three young men continued to look blankly at Mai.

"The Regency era romance? Eugh, you all know nothing."

"You didn't even know who Lin was!" Gene protested.

"He's only been in weird niche martial arts movies," Mai argued. "Why on earth would I have watched them?"

"Why would we have watched Regency romance?"

"Because it's amazing!"

"So was—"

"So are you going to do the sex scene?" Yasuhara interrupted, aiming his question at Oliver.

"I have not been asked to."

"Okay, but would you?"

Oliver looked at Mai and appraised her.

"How much more am I being paid?"

"Oi!" Mai poked him on the arm. "I'm not—"

Gene burst out laughing.

"Oi!" Mai said again. "You're both gits."

"Would you do it Mai?"

"Well I'm not going to now," she said, still pouting. She began to passive-aggressively eat her mango.

Gene laughed again.

"What scene are they planning for this afternoon?" Oliver asked. "I thought it was going to be the bakery scene, but John is off sick, right?"

"Yeah, poor bloke. He was getting so hyped about it too, this is his biggest role yet," Gene said. "I think they want to do the bit after you find me and Yasuhara. And you take us back to Lin's house and we get questioned."

"Lin creeps me out," Mai muttered.

"Why?"

"Because he stays in character all day and his character is creepy as fuck."

"Yeah, you have a point there…"

"Although when we first met after the script reading, he did come and apologise for what his character does to mine, which was kind of nice… Even if he did do it in a dimly lit corridor…"

"This is the scene where we all get arrested right?" Yasuhara asked, pulling a script from his bag to check.

"You three do," Mai said, "I don't."

"Well, of course, you don't, you're his wife," Gene said. "Arresting your own wife isn't a good move, even if you don't love her."

"Shall we run lines after Mai's finished eating?" Oliver suggested. "We ought to wait for her or else she'll never manage the—"

Mai threw a bit of mango at him.

"Children!" Gene scolded.

Before the potential food fight could escalate, someone slipped into the chair next to Oliver.

"Mai, Oliver, I'm glad I found you both. I've been speaking with the author and I want to know how you feel about nudity?"

Mai groaned at the director and put her head in her hands.

"It'll be very classy, no one will see—"

"He'll see!" Mai said, pointing at Oliver. "And then he'll give me shit for it for—"

"Give you shit for what?" Oliver asked.

Mai's mouth opened and failed to make any noise.

"I think it's because she's embarrassed by how small her breasts are—" Gene was silenced by another piece of flying mango.

The director frowned.

"We'll talk about this later…" he said, and left.

"A sex scene makes no sense," Mai said. "His character—" She pointed at Oliver. "—is completely asexual and has no interest in sex. They'd be much better if they did some kind of romantic bonding scenes. Where they work as a team and stuff."

"I'm offended you don't want to have fake sex with me," Oliver muttered.

Mai rolled her eyes and stood up.

"I give up with all of you."

She flounced off.

The three young men watched her go.

"I think she likes you, Noll."

"I know she does."

"How do you know that?" Gene asked.

"I overheard her talking to John about it."

"Do you like her?" Yasuhara asked.

Oliver looked after Mai's retreating figure and smiled.

Gene sighed.

"The fans are going to have a field day…"

Author's note: This is a shamelessly self-indulgent piece to semi-advertise my Nanowrimo story. In this, they're all actors playing the parts they have in my nano story for this November. You'll have to wait ages for the real thing! Sorry for not updating this week, the car accident I was in caused a bit more trouble than initially thought with my car and thus I might have ended up stranded on a motorway the other night... I will endevour to answer all reviews after dinner tonight! And then I will start to edit the Detective AU... So much to do! Please review :)