Aqua Hoshino didn’t respond.
What’s more, his face quickly composed itself again, no longer letting a single trace of emotion show through.
He simply maintained his silence, fixing his gaze on this koyaku named Minami Yuji in front of him.
The other party was like a summer storm.
Arriving without warning, and barging into his life without rhyme or reason.
What’s more…
he had an inexplicable premonition.
If he kept conversing with the other party like this—
—every thought, every consideration, every plan he had originally been holding onto could very well be changed by this koyaku in front of him.
It might have been a kind of sixth sense — even Aqua Hoshino himself couldn’t quite explain it.
So, going by rational thinking, he ought to turn around and leave right now.
After all, just being able to unlock the phone Ai Hoshino had left behind already counted as him coming out ahead.
But people are, in the end, emotional creatures.
No matter how much Aqua Hoshino sealed off his innermost heart, he was, after all, still a person.
He wanted to know.
Just what was this koyaku in front of him, really — and why did he know Ai Hoshino’s phone password?
And since this koyaku named Minami Yuji already knew Ai Hoshino’s phone password, then it stood to reason that the other party must definitely know about the mother-son relationship between Ai Hoshino and himself.
That point was the most important of all!
Aqua Hoshino knew perfectly well that Saito Miyako was absolutely not the kind of loose-lipped person who would casually let his mother’s situation slip out.
After all, an idol getting pregnant out of wedlock — and on top of that, having children — that single fact alone would be enough to utterly destroy Ai Hoshino’s persona as the perfect idol.
For that very reason, he absolutely had to get clarity on this point!
He let out a shallow breath.
Without continuing to hesitate, Aqua Hoshino chose to follow Minami Yuji’s instructions and sat down in the chair in front of him.
Just as Aqua Hoshino was staring at the other party, pondering how he should go about prying Minami Yuji’s mouth open—
Then—
—he heard the other party’s voice.
“Ahh…
there’s quite a lot of topics to cover…
let me think about where to start…
oh…
that’s right, first and most important of all is…”
Aqua Hoshino slowly lifted his head.
The next moment, those sea-blue eyes of his widened without his being able to help it.
Minami Yuji had lifted a finger and lightly tapped the armrest of the chair.
“Same as you — I’m a transmigrator.”
Under Aqua Hoshino’s astonished gaze, he made that declaration.
Yes.
Without any roundabout phrasing.
And without any ‘Aqua, I’m your mother’ kind of scene either.
Minami Yuji had, from the very start, no intention of hiding the fact that he was a transmigrator.
After all, he wasn’t an idiot, and he certainly wasn’t conceited enough to think his transmigrator identity could be easily hidden from Aqua, a fellow transmigrator.
After all, Aqua Hoshino and his younger sister Ruby Hoshino were the genuine, real-deal article when it came to transmigrators.
They understood the abnormalities of a transmigrator better than anyone else.
And what good would there even be in hiding what made him special?
None!
If he was going to survive in this industry, he had to bring out an ‘abnormality’ that surpassed every other koyaku!
Given that, rather than waiting for them to guess it on their own, it was better to be upfront himself — to just throw open the window and lay things out plainly. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
Of course, regarding the matter of crossing over from another world entirely, that he kept hidden.
After all, lies and truth at a fifty-fifty split — that was what would give the words coming out of his mouth next a greater degree of credibility…
Meanwhile, Aqua Hoshino had, at this moment, pressed his lips tightly shut.
Unlike the indifferent expression he was still maintaining on the surface—
—the inside of his heart had already churned up tremendous waves and crashing surf.
A transmigrator…?
The same as me and Ruby…?
No…
no, no…
at a time like this, he absolutely could not let himself fall into the other party’s rhythm.
Should one say ‘as expected of the original work’s male protagonist’?
When it came to adjusting his mental state, Aqua Hoshino really did have a knack for it.
He drew in a deep breath and then let it out, and when he raised his head once again, his gaze had returned to its composed state.
“Even if you are a transmigrator…
that still doesn’t explain how you know Ai’s phone password.”
That was right.
Even if the other party was a transmigrator, that didn’t explain a single thing.
For instance — how exactly did Minami Yuji come to know Ai Hoshino’s phone password?
Or, for another instance — how did he know about the mother-son relationship between himself and Ai Hoshino…?
Those two points were, in the end, high walls that the thin explanation of ‘transmigrator’ simply could not climb over.
He posed his questions, and stared intently at Minami Yuji.
What he hadn’t expected, however, was that this reliable adult first let out a sigh, then turned right around and fixed him with a particularly speechless gaze.
Then…
Aqua Hoshino heard Minami Yuji’s voice.
“What on earth makes you think I couldn’t guess at your relationship with Ai Hoshino?
Just because you’re still going around with the surname ‘Hoshino’ to this very day?
Do you genuinely think you’ve all been hiding it well?”
Yes.
Aqua Hoshino’s reaction had instead drawn a ‘tsk’ through Minami Yuji’s teeth, leaving him at a bit of a loss for words.
Because the reliable adult genuinely could not understand where on earth Aqua Hoshino’s confidence was coming from.
On what basis was he so certain that nobody could guess at the relationship between him and Ai Hoshino?
A pair of twins, still going around to this day with the practically blindingly obvious surname ‘Hoshino.’
And Ai Hoshino, on top of that, had, during B-Komachi’s rising-development period, gone on the record with a full year of going into seclusion — these were all things the world at large knew, leads anyone could investigate online.
Just the leads out in the open were already this numerous.
Let alone the fact that Ai Hoshino herself belonged to the category of the strongest legendary idol in history.
It wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to say her every single move was being monitored by paparazzi.
Really.
It was only because that certain big-shot author of “Oshi no Ko” with the surname Akasaka really pulled out all the stops, just absolutely had to cook up a whole ‘Detective Akane Kurokawa’ scene in the original work.
Otherwise, going off this many gaping-flaw-ridden leads alone, never mind the relationship to Ai Hoshino — even what kind of underwear Aqua Hoshino and Ruby Hoshino had on this morning would probably have been investigated to the very bottom of the barrel by that crowd of weekly tabloid gossip reporters.
At the end of the day…
“Aren’t you guys underestimating the industry paparazzi’s investigative ability a little too much?”
“…” Aqua Hoshino.
Even Aqua Hoshino — habitually expressionless, never letting his emotions show — couldn’t help opening and closing his mouth at this moment.
Listening to Minami Yuji’s genuinely speechless tone—
—for some reason, an illusion of feeling apologetic toward Minami Yuji suddenly welled up in his heart.
All he could do was stay silent for a while, then speak up again.
“Then what about Ai’s phone password?
How do you explain that?”
“That one’s even simpler.”
The black-haired koyaku in front of him let out an utterly bored yawn.
“The very first moment I joined [Ichigo Pro], I heard about you and Ruby Hoshino.
In that very instant, I thought of Ai Hoshino’s situation…
and her password…
is actually far simpler than you’d imagine.”
Under his watchful gaze, the black-haired koyaku held up a finger.
“A five-digit password, 45510 — corresponding exactly to the blog password from when B-Komachi was first established.
And a password like that — as the agency’s operator, Miyako naturally has a copy of in her own hands.
At the end of the day—”
The black-haired koyaku narrowed his eyes and raised his finger: “In your own hand…
haven’t you been holding the answer the whole time?”
“The whole time…
been holding the answer…”
Following the direction the other party was pointing, Aqua Hoshino, for the very first time, lowered his gaze toward Ai Hoshino’s pink phone in his hand.
And on that very phone—
—dangled a small charm bearing a cute chibi-style figure of Ai Hoshino.
That was none other than the first-ever piece of fan merchandise sold to the public back when the first-generation B-Komachi was first established…
If he didn’t care about her—
—why would he keep it on his person?
If it wasn’t out of longing—
—why would he hang it on the most important of his three phones?
This was, in fact, a very simple answer — one extremely easy to understand.
But for some reason…
he himself, all this time, had completely failed to notice.
In that very moment, Aqua Hoshino even went somewhat absent-minded.
And it was precisely at this moment.
The black-haired child’s crisp voice rang out once more.
“Aqua Hoshino.”
“Hasn’t your line of sight been completely obscured by this point?”
“To the point where you don’t even have the spare capacity to notice the most precious thing sitting right beside you?”
Aqua Hoshino’s body trembled in that instant.
Everything Minami Yuji had said up until now — he, who had sealed off his inner heart completely and presented an indifferent face to the world, could ignore all of it.
But just this one line…
Just this one line…
he could not ignore.
Because this line was like a knife giving off a cold gleam.
—aimed straight at his innermost heart!
____
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