Back when he used to watch anime, he hadn’t really noticed.
So 2D heroines’ voices were actually all this loud?
Listening to her, she could practically double as a human megaphone.
“What do you mean, why?”
Minami Yuji lowered the fingers he had been pressing against his ears.
“I’m asking you why?!
How can you just suddenly quit being a koyaku?!”
Arima Kana shook Minami Yuji without the slightest mercy.
Was it because the role had been snatched out from under him, and he couldn’t swallow it after all?
Or maybe, like with her, his family had been relentlessly pressuring him?
At any rate, it had to be some really deep, really important reason — didn’t it?
After all, with Minami Yuji’s acting being so flawless, with all that effort he’d poured into it, there was no way he’d just quit on a whim…
right?
Arima Kana!
Eyes brimming with concern!
Inside her head she had already spun up more than ten thousand words’ worth of grudges and entanglements.
And then…
And then Arima Kana heard Minami Yuji’s matter-of-fact reply.
“Because I’m out of money.”
“Huh?”
Wait…?
Out of money?
Just because of a reason that shallow — couldn’t get any shallower — he was quitting being a koyaku?!
Arima Kana’s mouth twitched at the corners.
In this instant, all she could feel was that the ten-thousand-word melodrama she’d just spun up inside her head had been fed straight to the dogs.
But it was the truth.
Unlike Arima Kana, who was her agency’s flagship koyaku, a ‘doesn’t-sell’ koyaku like Minami Yuji, in order to remain on the agency’s roster—
—actually had to pay the agency a ‘training fee,’ roughly one hundred eighty thousand yen a month, used to hire acting, dance, and vocal coaches and to cover the use of facilities…
for example, the cost of the chauffeured pickup and drop-off service.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Minami Yuji was really only half a freelancer hanging the ‘Northern Koyaku Agency’ signboard above his head.
Minami Yuji was an adult.
Because of that, ever since his orphanage days he had consciously been setting money aside.
But how much could a child’s pocket money really add up to, no matter how diligently it was saved?
He had paid two months’ worth in one lump sum.
Doing the math, in about another half a month he’d be due to pay the ‘training fee’ again…
Which meant—
“I’m out of money,” Minami Yuji said, completely serious.
“But still—!” Arima Kana wanted to say more, clearly unwilling to back down to a reason this…
‘practical.’
“What are you so worried about?
I’m just leaving the industry, not leaving this world.”
Minami Yuji, for his part, found this rather strange.
Honestly, he didn’t really get the thought patterns of certain Japanese anime heroines.
It was literally just moving house, or transferring schools, or leaving for higher education — and yet they had to make it sound like an eternal separation, life and death itself — when the protagonist in the anime had just relocated, not died.
To put it bluntly—
Japan was nothing more than a tiny speck of land.
For Minami Yuji, who in his previous life had enjoyed the vast lands and abundant resources of the Celestial Empire, moving around within Japan was about the same as moving from Hunan Province over to Hubei Province.
With distances that small, if you really wanted to meet up, you could find time to do so whenever, couldn’t you?
“I— I guess that’s true.
B-but if you stop being a koyaku…
then…
then later on—”
Arima Kana’s fingers were twisting together restlessly.
Finally, she drew in a deep breath, and with what looked like some kind of resolve settling into her eyes, she spoke up.
“The chances of you and me getting to meet up from now on are going to drop drastically, aren’t they?
Are you really okay with that?”
As she said those words, she tilted her head halfway upward.
Her wine-red eyes shone with an indescribable, jewel-like brilliance.
Bathed in the sunlight, that little face with its baby-fat cheeks looked, in this very moment, like something to be cherished.
Even the most steel-hearted person, upon seeing such a sight, would surely have their heart soften with reluctance, wouldn’t they?
And yet—
“Eh?
It’s no problem at all,” Minami Yuji said.
“I’m asking you why?!”
Arima Kana truly could not hold the expression on her face together any longer.
Wait…?!
Replying in a split second was one thing.
But replying without the slightest hesitation, too?!
You jerk — do you not even have a human heart inside you?!
Seriously, how can that mouth of yours spit out something so ice-cold?!
She wanted to demand it of him sharply.
But to her surprise, Minami Yuji was the one looking back at her strangely: “Why are you so worked up?”
“That’s obviously because—”
Before Arima Kana could finish, Minami Yuji cut her off on his own initiative.
“Think about it — even if I kept working in the koyaku industry, the number of times we’d actually meet wouldn’t really go up that much, would it?”
“Eh?”
“You’re your agency’s flagship koyaku, so your schedule has to be tight as anything, right?”
“Uh—”
“And as a headliner, the number of CM (commercial) promotional events you have to do can’t be small either, right?”
“Urgh…”
“At the end of the day, a top-name koyaku like you and an outside koyaku like me are basically never going to get many chances to work together, are we?
…Hm?
What’s with that face?”
As Minami Yuji kept talking, he noticed that Arima Kana had gone from her initial face full of agitation, gradually settled down, and now had ended up at twitching mouth corners, staring at him with a face full of speechlessness.
“I just suddenly realized something…
You jerk, in every sense of the word you’re way too realistic, aren’t you?”
Adjusting the hat on her head, Arima Kana let out a speechless “hah.”
Yes — children’s emotions were basically all driven by feeling.
Yet from his initial announcement of quitting the koyaku life all the way through to this analysis just now—
Minami Yuji was so rational it was as though he weren’t even in the same age bracket as her.
If anything, it made her feel like she was the idiot — the one who could only gasp and overreact.
“But it worked, didn’t it?
You’ve calmed down now, haven’t you?”
“Eh?”
Bewilderment surfacing on her cute little face, Arima Kana looked up.
Only then did she discover that Minami Yuji was stretching lazily, eyes narrowed into thin slits, smiling at her.
To be honest, before she’d chased after him to find Minami Yuji just now, her mood really had been quite terrible.
She had kept thinking, over and over.
A koyaku like Minami Yuji, who had helped her, who had polished his own acting again and again — why was it that he, of all people, couldn’t receive the results he so rightly deserved?
Wasn’t that just way too unfair?
So she really, really couldn’t accept it — couldn’t accept it at all!
It was as though a ball of fire were burning fiercely inside her chest, leaving her irritable and stifled.
And yet, now…
She gently rested her palm against her chest.
Every last bit of that anxiety had, in the course of that conversation she’d just had with Minami Yuji, vanished as though it had been a lie all along.
Could it be that he had planned out, from the very start, how to comfort her?
That would just be way too…
She opened her mouth, looking at the Minami Yuji standing in front of her: “You…”
“Alright, alright, it’s just about time, and we can’t keep the driver waiting any longer.”
Minami Yuji smiled, turning as he cut her words short: “Let’s meet again sometime, when there’s a chance.”
The mind of an eight-year-old child was very easily affected by the emotions of others.
And in the original work, Arima Kana herself was a delicately-strung emotional creature, very easily swayed by other people.
As a mentally mature adult, Minami Yuji had no desire to let his own circumstances end up affecting her emotional state.
After all, unlike him — an adult—
—Arima Kana still had a very long road ahead of her.
Stepping forward, Minami Yuji walked toward the Northern Koyaku Agency’s vehicle without a moment’s hesitation.
—a voice suddenly rang out from behind him.
It was Arima Kana’s voice.
“Minami Yuji!”
His footsteps came to a stop.
“No matter what anyone else says—”
She drew in a breath—
—and then let it out!
“Your acting!
It really, really is amazing!
I love it so much!
I’m going to keep working hard!
For your share too!!!”
“…” Minami Yuji.
His footsteps lifted up once more, and he gave a smiling shake of his head.
Looked like he had stuck his nose in where it wasn’t needed.
This anime heroine known as Arima Kana seemed to be far, far stronger than he had imagined.
Under Arima Kana’s gaze—
—Minami Yuji did not turn around.
He only lifted up his hand.
His fair, pale palm waved gently.
Like a farewell — and also like a see-you-later.
…
Six o’clock in the evening, Northern Koyaku Agency.
“Well then, time to start thinking about what comes next.”
Having stepped out from the entrance of the Northern Koyaku Agency, Minami Yuji — currently waiting for his ride to pick him up — stroked his chin, thinking over what kind of path forward he should take.
Except…
“No matter where in the world you are, it really is just too hard for a kid to earn money.”
Minami Yuji stretched out his limbs.
It was true.
Occupations suitable for a child to earn money in — and legal ones at that — across the entire world really only added up to that handful of options.
Still, it was alright…
because he had long since anticipated this kind of situation.
So this mature adult had a contingency plan already prepared.
A competent adult never staked the entirety of his way forward on just a single road.
Since this koyaku route to making money wasn’t going to work, then he would figure out a way to take a different one.
For example—
“Moonlighting as that one girl’s private tutor would actually be pretty decent…”
He muttered to himself, just about to make up his mind.
—when a breathless female voice suddenly came from up ahead.
“Excuse me, do you have a moment to chat?
Little Yuji?”
“Hm?”
Minami Yuji instinctively raised his head.
What greeted his eyes was a woman with delicate, lovely features — and her flax-colored hair.
Likely picking up on Minami Yuji’s gaze—
—the flax-haired woman drew in a deep breath and managed to force out a smile: “Ah…
don’t be scared.
This is actually what I do for a living.”
As she said this, she fished a business card out of her pocket and held it out to him.
Minami Yuji took the card and gave it a quick once-over.
On it, printed in bold black lettering, was the following—
[Ichigo Production]
[Saito Miyako]
Hm?
Minami Yuji blinked.
If this mature adult’s memory was serving him correctly…
Wasn’t this the agency that the blond scumbag with the Hoshino surname from Oshi no Ko belonged to?