As dawn broke the sky and the land, which was commonly referred to as the land of the rising sun, was dipped into a warm light. Yu was awoken by the light that crept into her eyes and continued to overwhelm her with its brightness. Subsequently, her alarm reminded her to get up. 

Her mood was a bit unwell as she had not gotten enough sleep, however as she saw the messages from Lei, a smile crept up on her face, brightening her eyes and getting her into the mood of getting ready and going to university. 

Meanwhile, Lei had already gotten up, when the light had been so faint that the majority of anyone couldn't perceive it. Inherently she seemed to know, the moment the sun started to rise and she woke up, naturally. 

It was bound by the place she was at, though - meaning she would not rise during the time the sun rose in her home town, but rather according to when it rose at the location she was at. Lei was dressed in a jeans and a white blouse with puffy sleeves.

In her hand she had the script of her new TV Show, which had led her to stay here in this penthouse in Nihon. At first, she had not been very eager, because as an immortal being, she was unsure of how long she should have her career; before she either tragically faked her death or deliberately got unsuccessful and was forgotten. She always had had a knack for acting, and after such a long time, where she had honed her skill, it was only natural that she could control how she acted. Sometimes she also had opted to just be unlikable, which meant no one had wanted to hire her and that had solved it as well. But since photography became a thing her agency needed to put in extra effort to hide her immortality. They were used to it and so they seemed to have some sort of system in place.

Lei sighed before she started to mumble her lines under her breath. It was always so tempting to be an actress, though, since she really loved doing it including being someone else, exploring their emotions, getting to know different points of view and cultures was what really made the hassle of covering up her immortality worthwile.

Her curly hair was now styled into a bun. She paced up and down in the penthouse, unaware of Yu rushing to her class. But Lei stopped her memorisation intermittently, to reply to her. 

She had wished her a good morning at around 6 and since 7:40 they were writing one another. Lei needed to be on set at 12 until then, she would have everything memorised. 

It was a fantasy show. She played a vampire, who had stumbled to Nihon's shore town and looked to decipher a prophecy. Lei had at first wanted to reject the offer, she knew of vampires and was afraid of the adequateness of her portrayal, and the script had been a bit boring, too. 

However, after a bit of back and forth and some encouraging from Demestra, she had agreed to take on the role. 

Of course, she had also taken her pointers about mannerisms and the individual culture of South African vampire coven's, which made her a bit more secure now. 

'If you are not busy this evening, we could head out to this coffee shop, which is run by a Neko family. It's the family business of my bass, her name is Muira Ai.'

'I'd be free around 4 ... no 5.', Yu's messages popped up on Lei's screen and she mulled over it, before checking her schedule she then sent a thumbs up smiley and added: 'I can be there at 6.'

Yu reacted with a kiss emoji and then seemed to have turned her phone off, as the Last Seen info didn't change anymore.

This gave Lei enough time to answer her manager. He was also from the community and already well-versed in everything in order to help his clients cover up their magick identity and their non-aging. Of course, not all of the community was immortal, but they still needed specialised agents, just in case. After all there were challenges they faced that non magick community members simply did not face. The same went for immortal clients, so overall training was mandatory.

He wrote her that the shoot would start earlier and as he knew that Lei was awake around this time, he hadn't hesitated to agree to the change in plans. 

The régisseur's vision came first, however if Lei really had something to do, a duty or a meeting she would've declined. There was no need to.

When she arrived at set, she got there by train, everyone was agitated, as now they had to be done earlier, everyone was walking to and fro like headless chicken. 

As the stylist spotted Lei, she sighed a breath of relief and pulled her over to do her makeup and hair. Without being able to check the look they had decided on today, Lei was pulled on and to the costume department and put into leather that snug tight to her skin and encased everything. 

The show was set in a modern timeline, but the clothing looked more like a mix of assassin and rock star. Her hair had been braided beneath a brown cloud afro styled wig. It was shorter than her natural hair, which was why they had opted for it, even though styling it still took a bit of time as they used reference pictures and made sure it encapsulated frequent styles of the region. They also gave her fangs, or more like tried to make her natural one’s look more vampiric.

They needed to shoot 3 scenes, but they also needed to re-shoot from different angles and when they messed up the shoot. In the end, because the weather was so good, and everyone was in the flow, it seemed, and Lei had already worked through more of the script, than she was supposed to, as well as her Co-star, thus they could shoot one additional scene. 

When the last had been shot, Lei declined a re-shoot. They had done the scene thrice, anything more would only make it bad; she could sense it and also knew it from experience that the reason the director was a bit unsatisfied, stemmed from a feeling that something was off, but this emotion was entirely his own and it had nothing to do with the scene. Lei just went to the make-up artisté and asked her to help her get ready for the date. 

The make-up artisté sensed that Lei glowed more than usual, she was already familiar with her and knew that Lei rarely dated, or even wanted to. Lei had known Risa-chan’s talent, which atuned her to things like this, but Lei still was a bit shocked, about how fast she had picked up on it.

Risa only let her go, after also getting the costume department in on the gig and dressing this beautiful woman: in a long, wide, green velvet and embroidered traditional Qi Pao. 

Five people braided her hair in an unbelievable speed and put lotus flower jewellery in and braided around it. 

"Please not soo much....", Lei whispered in protest, but no one would listen and now that she ran late, her manager drove her using the driveway, which was elevated from the ground, so that it didn't interrupt the other traffic. 

Lei was nervous and played around with her phone and the threads on her thin black coat... now they had made her nervous. They had asked her so many questions about Yu and about everything that Lei was now deeply overthinking.... about everything.

She was only starting to relax a bit, when she saw Yu in a purple silk Kimono with very long sleeves and very intricately styled hair, bejewelled with magnolia ornaments. 

It seemed both of them were a bit over the top tonight, and or people around them were so overly excited that they wanted their friend, and in the case of Yu, daughter, to look absolutely stunning. 

Yu came over and both were speechless. She took Lei's coat and put it on the clothing rack. The shine on the dark green dress was enunciated as the shine of the fairy lights played on the surface.

Mini Theatre: What if Yu had been stuck in the wormhole I

On the set in a shore town of Japan there were two actresses, each hired for a role that would change their life. Hinohara Yumeji and Épineux Hong-Lei had not been sure of this vampire show, where a wolf spirit would fall in love with a French vampire. 

They didn't know, whether, it was really the new hit that their manager's claimed. 

But for some reason the involvement of Hinohara-chan, who had also made a name for herself as a model, had been a very tempting argument. 

Hong-Lei had previously designed a blue starlight touched dress, embroidered with Swarovski's and given it to a fashion show in Venice, just last year. 

The requirement had been though, that she had the final say, and that if she was not satisfied with the model, they would not be allowed to showcase this piece. 

Cue Yu, who had wanted to see the buildings of the city and visited the show in the evening, as a guest. 

The moment the rumour spread about a piece from the secretive Draciáne, a commotion started and those few, who knew how the dress looked like, tentatively inquired Yu's manager, if she would be interested in trying it. 

Little did they know, that Yu was obsessed with Draciáne's designs, and owned almost every piece. As they were from France, they were a bit hard to come by though... 

So Yu had jumped excitedly, at this shot, but then had heard the conditions and then tried it on - shivering. 

She had asked not to see a mirror, in the case Draciáne didn't allow it and thus was very nervous, when they photographed her...

However, she had had no time to take it off, again, since they already knew the answer, because Draciáne had replied so fast - that she was allowed to wear it in the show. This caused a small line of tears trailing from the corner of Yu's eye.

Since then, Lei had been a tidbit obsessed and watched everything from Yu. She had tried every pretence to get to Kyoto, but it was to no avail. Until ... 

As she had tossed the script, her manager told her that not only she could sit together with the writer, but that Hinohara-san would maybe star in the show - she was excilirated to say the least. 

 

Yu had agreed to it purely, because of the ability to change the script a bit. Since she didn't know, as no one knew, who Draciané was. 

After two months of altering the script, Yumeji starred as the wolf-spirit and Hong-Lei as a vampire. 

It would be a treasure hunt a bit like Lara Croft and Indiana Jones, as they could not make it very queer, they would use a lot of subtext and in the end get those two opposing factions together. 

It got to be a huge hit, so that season 2 was filmed in Shanghai, with no one aware, at least not officially, that the main actresses had started dating already. 

Some of course knew, and they could, after all, marry legally, however Hong-Lei and Yumeji had decided that they'd only do that by the end of their career.

'Character Profiles':

Xiu Hong-Lei, born around 8000 BCE on the 5th of March around 6:36.

She is a fire dragon, as long as I did not miscalculate, if I did I need to readjust this year. 

Her height is 1,68 m and she appears to be 21 - 25. 

Kuragari Yumeji, born 20th October 1182 at 13:58 or 1:58 pm.

She is a water tiger as far as the calendar stated and is 1,65 m tall.

Her appearance is also around 21 - 25.