Ever since two years ago, when their flagship idol Ai Hoshino had her chest pierced through by a knife in the hands of an enraged fan.
How, exactly, had she gotten herself through the days that followed?
Saito Miyako had already forgotten.
Or rather — she simply did not want to look back on that bitter stretch of time at all.
Honestly, B-Komachi’s disbandment had actually been the relatively good outcome.
After that.
The producers and major production companies that had originally been working with Ai Hoshino came knocking one after another, taking a hard-line stance as they negotiated to terminate their contracts.
Bowing in apology, agreeing to the cancellations.
What had once been a red-hot idol girl group dissipated into the mist in the blink of an eye.
The cursing and grudge-bearing from fans online were actually still the milder side of it.
There had even been extreme fans of Ai Hoshino who, through one means or another, tracked down Ichigo Production’s real-world location.
They didn’t just splash paint, feces, and other filth across the agency’s front door — they specifically left death threats behind as well.
After all, in those fans’ eyes, Ichigo Production — as her agency — had failed to fulfill its duty of properly protecting its own talent.
That one fact alone was already enough for them to point fingers and curse the agency behind its back.
But for Saito Miyako, the thing she found most impossible to accept wasn’t any of those insults or accusations — it was her husband.
Her husband, Saito Ichigo, after Ai Hoshino’s passing, had been so deeply struck by the blow that he simply vanished into thin air, disappearing completely.
Which meant the entirety of the vast Ichigo Production had, over the past two years, only managed to avoid going under because she alone had been holding the place up.
And even so, Saito Miyako had not forgotten the dream she had shared with her husband, Saito Ichigo.
——To keep Ichigo Production running, and at the same time…
to once again step onto the stage of the Tokyo Dome.
For the sake of that, she had truly swallowed no small measure of hardship.
But how on earth could someone of Ai Hoshino’s caliber ever be stumbled upon as easily as in one of those ‘Whoa, found you!’ ‘Oh dear, you found me’ kind of scenes?
And yet today.
She had truly, genuinely felt it!
Truly, genuinely found it!
A prodigy on par with Ai…
no…
if you talked only about acting alone, perhaps not even Ai herself could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with this one!
Calling back to mind that performance she had witnessed at the audition — a performance powerful enough to throw every other auditioning koyaku into the shade.
Even Saito Miyako’s own heart began to grow worked up.
Both hands on the steering wheel of the car, her flax-colored eyes stole a quiet glance toward the rearview mirror.
There, in the back seat of her car.
Right at this moment, a small boy was sitting in that back seat.
His jet-black short hair was thick as a jungle, and amid those strands of cascading short hair was tucked a small, delicately handsome little face as pale and clean as the bright moon.
Of all of it, the thing that most drew Saito Miyako’s attention was probably the other party’s eyes.
If Ai Hoshino was a white hole — one that could radiate her own brilliance to its very utmost extreme—
—then the calm, deep, gleaming black in this child’s eyes was a black hole, capable of drawing everyone’s gaze toward it whether they willed it or not.
And as for his looks, there was no need to even mention it — they were truly far too good.
Saito Miyako marveled at him from the bottom of her heart.
She could be said to have been knocking around the entertainment industry for quite a long time.
And she’d seen no shortage of beautifully featured children.
But on the front of pure looks alone, the only person she knew of who could share equal honors with him was probably Ai Hoshino’s son, Aqua Hoshino.
And besides…
what in the world was up with this kid?
Returning her attention to the road conditions, Saito Miyako only had to think back on what had happened earlier for the corners of her mouth to start twitching uncontrollably.
Rewinding the clock to a little earlier——
“Hello there.
I’m Saito Miyako, from Ichigo Production.”
Saito Miyako, having proactively offered her business card forward, put on a kindly smile and lowered her body, deliberately keeping her line of sight level with the other party’s.
After all, the one in front of her was just a little kid.
A gesture like this could close the distance just a bit, and keep him from feeling flustered or wary.
But what Saito Miyako had not anticipated was the other party’s reaction.
That handsome, adorable little face didn’t show the slightest trace of being flustered.
“Poaching?”
“Cough, cough, cough, cough!!!”
Because that line of his had been so direct it might as well have jabbed straight down her windpipe.
It left Saito Miyako — who had long since prepared a whole set of persuasive talking points — choking and coughing on the spot.
“No, that’s not — um…”
She opened her mouth a touch, waving a palm through the air, wanting at least to squeeze in a couple of words of explanation.
After all, within the industry, ‘poaching’ was a genuine taboo — calling it a flat-out act of provocation wouldn’t even be an overstatement.
If the Northern Koyaku Agency caught wind of this, the other side would likely fly into a rage over it — and a small agency like Ichigo Production had no way of bearing the brunt of that kind of fury.
And yet, before she could even speak, the Minami Yuji standing in front of her — as if he had seen straight through to her true intentions — accepted the business card and spoke up.
“It’s fine, Auntie.
I’m just an inconsequential little koyaku.
Even if you really did poach me away, the agency wouldn’t particularly mind.”
“Uh——”
That crisp, clean-cut answer left Saito Miyako momentarily dazed.
The reason was nothing else.
It was simply that Minami Yuji’s answer was just way too mature…
so mature…
that it didn’t sound like a child’s at all.
And yet before her daze could even pass, the voice on the other side rang out again.
“So, your answer?
Auntie, are you here to poach me, or aren’t you?”
Half-squatting where she was, Saito Miyako reflexively lifted her head.
And only then did she notice.
At some point she hadn’t noticed, Minami Yuji’s face had come right up close to hers.
Those eyes — completely unlike Ai Hoshino’s…
eyes with a streak of some bewitching, almost demonic beauty mixed into them…
were, without a single blink…
…looking right at her.
“Yes?
Or no?”
…
Time returns to the present.
Saito Miyako, keeping her hands on the steering wheel, kept her attention on the road conditions while squeezing out a smile on her face.
How should she put this.
Earlier, she had in fact very earnestly told Minami Yuji not to just casually climb into someone else’s car.
After all, however you sliced it, he was just an eight-year-old kid — the basic instinct for wariness was still something he ought to have.
And do you want to know what he said?
“It’s fine.” He lifted his eyelids.
“It’s not like you can take me in a fight, Auntie.”
That just about choked Saito Miyako to death.
Setting aside, for now, the whole ‘Auntie’ form of address — just that completely unguarded attitude all by itself was already a problem, wasn’t it?
What in the world did he mean by ‘it’s not like you can take me in a fight’?
A little kid your size — one slap from me and you’d be begging me not to make you cry!!
With no real way around it, at this moment all she could do was shake her head and speak up.
“Um…
Minami Yuji-kun…
I really should give your guardian a call after all and have at least a brief face-to-face talk, don’t you think?”
The procedure for a koyaku wanting to jump from one agency to another wasn’t actually all that complicated.
First, the koyaku’s file had to be transferred from the previous agency over to the current one.
Second was the guardian’s signature and personal seal.
And of these, the most important was the guardian’s signature and seal.
That thing carried legal force, since in a certain sense a koyaku was a responsible party who did not yet possess civil legal capacity.
If you didn’t obtain parental consent and just went and made off with someone else’s child… The source of this chapter is g.com.
should the other side decide to pursue the matter, you’d be up against a court case.
Saito Miyako — for whom this was already a first-time poaching to begin with — most certainly did not want to be saddled with some inexplicable lawsuit.
However——
“My guardian doesn’t really involve themselves with me much.
A small matter like this, I can handle on my own.”
Minami Yuji, continuing to flip through the book in his hands, gave that as his answer.
And that answer made the corners of Saito Miyako’s mouth start twitching uncontrollably as well.
What she really wanted to tell him right now was that changing agencies was not some ‘small matter’ — it was a genuinely major matter, one that concerned his entire life.
And besides — what kind of household environment was Minami Yuji even coming out of?
She had thought of herself as already being pretty indulgent with the two little ones at her own home.
But the Minami Yuji household — forget ‘indulgent’ — you could basically call it outright permissive.
They were actually willing to let Minami Yuji make a decision this big all on his own?
Wasn’t that…
maybe trusting him a touch too much?
Because no matter how you looked at it, he was just a kid of around eight years old…
She couldn’t help looking Minami Yuji over once again.
Honestly speaking…
even though the poaching process up to this point had gone smoothly enough, deep down in her heart she was actually still a little hesitant.
Because for this particular poaching, she had in fact already made up her mind — she had decided to trust her first instincts and tilt every resource currently at her disposal toward Minami Yuji, grooming him into Ichigo Production’s flagship.
But could he really, just as she imagined…
catch up to the figure of that Ai Hoshino?
That, after all, was — in the truest sense of the words — the strongest idol in history.
Probably catching on to Saito Miyako’s appraising gaze, his eyes lifted and met hers squarely.
Then.
He spoke up.
“I don’t actually know the specifics of what’s going through your head, Auntie.”
But——
“Rest easy.”
“Because I’m going to surpass the person you’re picturing in your head.”
Surpass…?
Saito Miyako’s fingers gave a sudden jolt — she very nearly sideswiped the car in front of her — and a flash of stunned shock crossed that lovely face of hers.
The most she had ever dared imagine, even in her dreams, was someone who could catch up to Ai Hoshino’s figure.
Because that had been the dream she and her husband Saito Ichigo once shared.
But what had Minami Yuji just said?
Surpass?
Wasn’t that just a little too…?
She very much wanted to push back against him.
But in that instant, of all things, Saito Miyako found that she didn’t know how to even open her mouth.
Because the tone in which Minami Yuji had spoken those words had been just too natural — natural enough that it even gave her the illusion that this was simply a matter of course.
What’s more…
she only had to roughly picture in her head the image of Minami Yuji surpassing Ai Hoshino, the name Ichigo Production once again being passed around throughout the industry—
—and that heart in her chest, which had long since gone numb, embarrassingly started pounding violently all over again.
And so, in the end, all she could do was speak up in a halting voice.
“But…
that’s the strongest idol in history, you know.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
The little koyaku closed the book in his hands.
“Because I’m the strongest koyaku of the modern era.”
So he said.
____
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