Something’s off.
Something was definitely off.
That was the strongest feeling running through Saito Miyako’s mind as she held her water glass and drank from it.
As for the reason behind that feeling…
it was actually pretty simple.
Because her foster son, Aqua Hoshino, was doing something that she found rather impossible to comprehend.
“I brought some chocolate snacks from home.
Yuji-nii, want some?”
Right under her watchful eyes, Aqua Hoshino fished a packet of snacks out of his bag and, of his own accord, struck up conversation with the black-haired koyaku beside him.
No, hold on…
Who even are you?!
Watching Aqua Hoshino’s expression — still somewhat gloomy, yes, but considerably brighter than before…
Saito Miyako, his foster mother, felt her foot give way beneath her — she very nearly took a clean tumble right there on the spot.
It was mainly because the scene unfolding before her eyes was simply too impossible for her to process.
If the person standing there had been Ruby Hoshino, she could at least have accepted it.
But that was Aqua, for crying out loud!
The very same Aqua Hoshino who, from morning till night, always wore that gloomy face — that boy whose inner thoughts no one could ever guess at!
Forget about him taking the initiative to approach someone.
Even just him being willing to exchange a sentence or two with another person would have left Saito Miyako stunned for quite a while.
And yet what was the situation laid out in front of her right now?
Not only had he struck up conversation.
He was even, as though actively trying to ingratiate himself, asking Minami Yuji whether he wanted some snacks?
Saito Miyako sucked in a sharp ‘hsss’ breath — she really was a little incapable of grasping the situation in front of her now.
And the crucial thing was, it wasn’t just this much.
Her memory drifted back to a short while ago, when they had still been at the filming set—
“All this time, I’m truly sorry — for making Kyoko-san and Gotanda Taishi worry about me.”
Aqua Hoshino had lowered his head and bowed, speaking those very words right in front of both her and Gotanda Taishi.
In that instant, Saito Miyako had no idea what kind of expression had taken hold of her own face.
But judging by Gotanda Taishi over to one side — who’d gotten burned by his own cigarette without even noticing, only catching on a second or two later and letting out a yelp of pain…
The expression on her own face had to have been equally spectacular.
Because that was Aqua Hoshino!
The same Aqua Hoshino who kept absolutely everything bottled up inside his gut, who was precociously mature to an absurd degree…
had actually bowed down to the two of them in apology.
What’s more, although Aqua Hoshino’s words sounded as cold and detached as ever, from the very intonation of those words, two adults who had clawed and rolled their way through life in society could clearly perceive…
that he was being sincere — there wasn’t a hint of social pleasantry in any of it.
He genuinely felt sorry from the bottom of his heart, and was apologizing — to her and to Gotanda Taishi — for real.
The very moment she picked up on this—
The shock in Saito Miyako’s heart dispersed, replaced by the relief of being able, at long last, to set down a burden she’d been carrying.
Yes…
she could finally put her heart at ease.
Ever since Ai Hoshino’s death, she had, in truth, been living with her heart in her throat the entire time.
Because she’d always had this inexplicable feeling — that one day, in some place where she couldn’t see him, Aqua Hoshino would silently slip away from her.
Just thinking about that possibility had her secretly keeping watch over him in her daily life all this time.
“It’s finally over…”
Setting her water glass down, watching the clear ripples spread across the water, Saito Miyako murmured to herself.
And the person who had brought about these changes…
Saito Miyako looked over at the black-haired koyaku sitting on the couch — eating chocolate with one hand while reading a book with the other.
Minami Yuji…
She remembered it perfectly clearly: back at the filming set, this boy had been the one to seek her out himself, and on his own initiative had asked to meet with Aqua Hoshino.
Honestly speaking, at that point in time, she had actually been a little worried.
Mortally afraid that Minami Yuji would get verbally shut down by Aqua Hoshino so hard he wouldn’t be able to get a single word out.
After all, in her view, no matter how outstanding Minami Yuji’s acting skills might be, he was still just an 8-year-old child.
Aqua Hoshino, on the other hand, was a different story — born ridiculously precocious, and on top of that extremely closed off internally, in a state where, with the exception of a select few, he simply wouldn’t communicate with other people.
But looking at things now…
it seemed the thing she’d been worried about hadn’t happened at all.
Forget about Minami Yuji being verbally shut down by Aqua Hoshino — judging from the result, Aqua Hoshino was practically like a completely different person, and on top of that he was using an extremely intimate nickname like ‘Yuji-nii’ — that was treatment even she herself didn’t get!
You have to remember she had cared for the twins, Ruby Hoshino and Aqua Hoshino, for a full seven years!
Right up until the present day, Aqua Hoshino still addressed her with the honorific ‘Kyoko-san.’
She felt secretly incredulous, surreptitiously sizing the other party up.
From between the strands of his scattered black hair, those still, dark eyes of his seemed to carry an aura that defied description.
Minami Yuji…
As if he really did possess some kind of indescribable magic, enough to draw every gaze in the room straight onto him.
The old Saito Miyako would never have believed in anything like ‘a meat pie falling out of the sky.’
But looking at things now…
how could this even be called a meat pie falling out of the sky?
This was straight-up gold falling out of the sky!
Smacking her perfectly square on the head, leaving her whole person dizzy from the impact — cough cough, this comparison might not be the most fitting one, but that was exactly the feeling!
Although…
Saito Miyako narrowed her eyes, looking at him with the faintest trace of a smile, and marveled inwardly.
So just what exactly was that brightly colored book the other party was holding in his hands?
A children’s picture book?
Sure enough, he was still just a kid after all…
With that in mind, she slid over to him with a smile on her face.
“Yuji-kun.”
“Hm?” Minami Yuji lifted his face.
“What book are you reading?” she asked, smiling.
“Oh, ‘Japan’s National High School Exam Question Solutions.’ Want to take a look?” He flipped the cover around to show it to Saito Miyako.
“Eh?” The smile froze on her face.
Saito Miyako blanked out — Japan’s…
what now?
Every single word was Japanese, so why couldn’t she understand a single bit of it?
And the most important thing was…
why on earth was an 8-year-old child even looking at this kind of stuff?
At your age, shouldn’t you be hugging a fairy-tale book — or watching tokusatsu, reading manga, things along those lines?
What are you doing thinking about university entrance exams of all things?
Possibly having picked up on her confusion, Minami Yuji even went out of his way to offer an explanation. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
“It’s nothing — I was just pretty curious about the educational level of Japan’s high-school-to-university transition, so I went out of my way to borrow this from Aqua to take a look.
Does that make sense to you, Auntie Kyoko?”
“…” Saito Miyako.
Like hell that makes sense to me!!!
The corner of her mouth twitched.
It was hard to imagine that she had just, of all things, heard the phrase ‘curious about Japan’s educational level’ come out of the mouth of an 8-year-old child.
You…
are you really 8 years old?
You feel like you’re a fair bit more precocious even than our Aqua over here.
Over on her side, her face was filled with speechlessness — she had no idea how to respond.
But it was just at that moment that Minami Yuji, over on his side, suddenly opened his mouth again.
“Speaking of which, there’s another thing I’ve been curious about…
is this place really the [Ichigo Pro] agency?”
Although three days ago, he had picked up the forms from Saito Miyako and filled out the paperwork for transferring agencies.
Actually showing up at the [Ichigo Pro] agency in person like this, however, was still a first for him.
“Uh…” Saito Miyako sneaked a glance over at Aqua Hoshino at the same time, still not daring to bring up the matter of Ai Hoshino in front of him, and could only clear her throat lightly to mask her awkwardness as she said, “The environment is a bit on the rough side.”
A bit?
Minami Yuji couldn’t help shooting her a sidelong glance — he really wanted to ask her: you’re calling this ‘a bit’?
Setting aside, for now, the way the practice rooms inside positively radiated desolation, giving off the unmistakable feeling that no one had used them for ages.
But the problem was—
How come there weren’t even many staff members around either?
For a top-tier talent agency, the staff had to be guaranteed in both quality and quantity — only with that could they successfully manage and market their artists out into the wider world.
And yet…
wasn’t the situation in front of him just way too dire?
The number of departments was pitifully small.
The former B-Komachi idol division had already been disbanded — you could’ve practically set up sparrow nets at its doors.
The management department had a mere two or three people, heads down at their work.
The general oversight division that any normal agency would have…
in other words, the directorial office…
the place responsible for coordinating every department, was even more devastatingly hit — it had been straight-up eliminated outright, with everything now run by the company president Saito Miyako single-handedly.
Although he had known all along that Ai Hoshino’s death — the death of the flagship idol whom [Ichigo Pro] had poured massive resources into building — would deal a heavy blow to [Ichigo Pro], he genuinely hadn’t imagined the blow could be this heavy.
And under circumstances like these, the one thing [Ichigo Pro] was running with any real flair and noise was probably their recently emerging influencer-management department.
But based on the current timeline, the medium of ‘influencers’ had only just begun to develop in any meaningful way — after all, smartphones themselves had only risen to prominence in the last few years—
This scene…
how should he put it…
was just way too pitiful and shabby for words.
It even had Minami Yuji, at this moment, unable to hold back a sigh of dismay.
It really did seem like, ever since he’d been reincarnated from the womb, he’d been running hell-difficulty dungeons the entire time…
After all, strictly speaking, this [Ichigo Pro] was no longer a case of ‘a hundred things in ruins waiting to be rebuilt’ — it was simply starting from absolute zero!
____
👻🔥P- Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Samsara Game: Starting in The Long Dark with My Waifus
Help us hit our targets: