“A Bite of Yuri? What’s this? A food documentary?”
Holding the thin script in her hands, Shokuhou Misaki felt her interest wane just from one glance at the title.
Something that sounded like a food documentary was one of the things she currently hated most.
As an idol, maintaining one’s figure was extremely important, so Shokuhou Misaki had always been working hard to restrain her eating habits.
If she let her guard down and ate too much thanks to some food documentary, ruining her figure, the trouble would be enormous.
“Didn’t I tell you not to bring me this kind of script that messes with my figure?”
“It’s not that, Queen. Take a closer look at the contents of the script.”
Standing beside Shokuhou Misaki was a ringlet-haired girl.
As a fellow Tokiwadai student, she was actually a bit similar to Nanahara Nadeshiko, doing equally well in the role of manager, and she was a fairly influential member of Shokuhou Misaki’s faction.
For Shokuhou Misaki, having someone she couldn’t trust serve as her manager was unacceptable, so the ringlet-haired girl had to fill in as her manager.
“I would never pick a script that messes with your figure.”
It was rather sad, really.
The ringlet-haired girl actually restrained herself plenty too, but for some reason her weight just kept climbing, the kind of constitution people describe as gaining weight just from drinking cold water.
So, in grief and indignation, she simply channeled all that resentment onto Shokuhou Misaki, strictly regulating her diet, for instance ruling that Shokuhou Misaki could only eat one of her beloved cream puffs a day, which left Shokuhou Misaki rather helpless.
If it weren’t for the fact that the ringlet-haired girl truly meant well, Shokuhou Misaki might have nearly believed she was a plant sent by some rival to torment her.
“But the name of this script really does sound just like a food documentary.”
Grumbling as she went, Shokuhou Misaki opened the script.
After reading for a while, a thought surfaced in her mind.
In fact, this thought wasn’t hers alone; most people who’d read this script would immediately have the same idea cross their minds.
With a stunned look on her face, Shokuhou Misaki turned her head to the ringlet-haired girl and asked uncertainly,
“Why does the protagonist in here seem more and more familiar the longer I look?”
“Cough cough, indeed it is so.”
The ringlet-haired girl gave a couple of light coughs.
This script was, in a certain sense, a bit of a borderline, suggestive piece.
It told the story of a young lady whose family goes bankrupt, who then has no choice but to survive by winning over the girls at school for meals, and in the end finds true love (no wait).
Basically, the moment any Tokiwadai student laid eyes on this script, a single candidate with an extremely overwhelming sense of déjà vu would immediately spring to mind.
“Pretty similar to Yurika-sama, right?”
“Being similar is useless. This isn’t Yurika herself, after all, just an actor’s role. I still can’t work up much interest…”
Shokuhou Misaki shook her head.
Although the protagonist’s persona was a lot like Yurika, an actor and a role are different things; unless the actor was also Yurika, she really couldn’t muster any interest.
Flipping through the script a bit, she turned the little booklet to the very last page where the cast shortlist was, and immediately spotted a name she recognized on the list.
“Wait! Yurika!?”
“Yes. The director of this script has invited Yurika-sama to play the lead.”
The ringlet-haired girl seemed to have anticipated Shokuhou Misaki would react this way, covering her mouth as she chuckled softly, her bearing and posture immeasurably above some of those crazed girls at Tokiwadai who claimed to be young ladies in name only.
“You could call it playing herself.”
“Hell yeah!”
Shokuhou Misaki clapped her hands.
The scornful look she’d worn toward the script just moments ago vanished in practically the blink of an eye, her whole face blooming with vigorous spirit, like a cat that had spotted a fish.
In an instant she’d made up her mind, without even studying the script more carefully.
“This is the one, this is perfect… wait, when did Yurika debut too?”
“You didn’t know?”
The ringlet-haired girl blinked.
She’d assumed that a typical Yurika fanatic like Shokuhou Misaki would surely have long since known about Yurika’s debut, so she hadn’t gone out of her way to inform her.
Yet from Shokuhou Misaki’s words, it seemed she still didn’t know Yurika had already debuted.
“Just yesterday, at ITEM’s concert, Yurika-sama made a guest appearance and announced her debut at the same time. It looks like she’s going to build a good relationship with the ITEM team… of course, I think given Yurika-sama’s caliber, she might need to borrow ITEM’s fame at first to catch a little spark, and after that the ITEM Band could borrow Yurika’s fame instead…”
“Yesterday I collapsed from exhaustion shooting a film. I spent the whole day catching up on sleep.”
Shokuhou Misaki bit her nail, a look of frustration on her face.
That she, a hardcore Yurika fanatic, had failed to see Yurika’s debut performance the moment it happened was, to her, an enormous disgrace.
And what made it even harder to bear was that Yurika’s first performance hadn’t been to seek her out, but to seek out those vixens at ITEM instead.
“Those little foxes at ITEM must be secretly gloating, dammit. Why didn’t Yurika come find me?”
“About that… didn’t I mention it before? There was a debut plan I wanted you to look over.”
Hearing Shokuhou Misaki’s complaint, the ringlet-haired girl helplessly rubbed her head and said,
“And then, because you were busy studying a script, you tossed that plan straight out.”
“What! That was Yurika’s debut plan!?”
Shokuhou Misaki looked like Fafnir whose entire hoard had been plundered.
She gazed sorrowfully at the ringlet-haired girl, crying out in bitter accusation.
“Why didn’t you remind me that was Yurika’s plan!”
“I… I don’t remember…”
The ringlet-haired girl was a bit muddled too.
By her own temperament, she felt she should have told Shokuhou Misaki it was Yurika’s debut plan back when Shokuhou Misaki rejected it.
After all, Shokuhou Misaki was a Yurika addict, and if she hadn’t said so, Shokuhou would definitely take her anger out on her, just like now.
“All I remember is that the Queen rejected the plan, and then… then I can’t remember.”
“…”
Put that way, it suddenly came back to Shokuhou Misaki.
At the time she’d been drained dry from acting practice and hadn’t really listened to the ringlet-haired girl’s words at all, just used her ability to brainwash her and shoo her out.
But naturally this was a shameful thing Shokuhou Misaki couldn’t admit to, so she gave a cough and changed the subject.
“Forget it, what’s forgotten is forgotten. The chance has already slipped by; let’s just think about the matter at hand for now. This role, I’m claiming it!”
The ringlet-haired girl leaned in for a look and found that the role Shokuhou Misaki was pointing at was the one and only character in the script whose relationship with the protagonist came closest to true love.
The ringlet-haired girl hesitated, then said:
“Queen, this role doesn’t have you among its candidates.”
“I don’t care, I’m taking this role no matter what!!!”
Shokuhou Misaki narrowed her eyes and let out an indignant, angry cry.
“This director has no taste at all! Wouldn’t I be perfect for this role?!” — No, your image works fine for playing a bitch, but playing the true-love role would be a bit of a stretch.
The ringlet-haired girl hesitated, but in the end didn’t say that line out loud.