“You’re here for the audition too, right?”
“…” Minami Yuji.
Watching Arima Kana plop down beside him without the slightest hint of reservation, Minami Yuji genuinely wanted to ask her whether she was this familiar with everyone she met.
But…
never mind.
Minami Yuji hadn’t sunk so low as to snap back at an eight-year-old girl over every little thing.
So he simply nodded.
“Mm.”
The tone was neither particularly warm nor particularly cold — just ordinary conversation.
But Arima Kana seemed to have taken an interest.
“You really are here for an audition?
Which role are you trying out for?”
“Ryouya.”
“Ryouya?”
Hearing Minami Yuji’s answer, a look of surprise rose on Arima Kana’s adorable face.
Because she had assumed Minami Yuji was here to audition for a regular supporting role.
Yet to her surprise, he was actually going after one of the lead roles.
Yes — Ryouya was one of the leads in the She and He script.
She and He told the story of a stepmother and father who’d abandoned their children, leaving the older brother Ryouya to take his younger sister Junko — one or two years his junior — and travel from the city to the countryside in search of their birth mother.
It belonged to the small-budget road-movie genre.
But even so, this was a film with a budget of one hundred thirty million yen — the kind that would go onto the big screen and play in cinemas everywhere.
And Ryouya was one of the lead roles at that — a position countless koyaku were eyeing greedily.
Among them, there was no shortage of top-tier male koyaku from within the industry who had both acting skill and real clout.
For a koyaku like Minami Yuji — no name recognition, no capital backing him — to stand out from such a huge pool was basically impossible.
It wasn’t that she was looking down on Minami Yuji.
It was just that his target…
ssss…
how to put this…
really was a bit unrealistic.
But she couldn’t very well just bluntly tell Minami Yuji ‘It’s impossible, a koyaku like you shouldn’t overestimate himself, right?’
Sure, she had a sharp tongue and couldn’t keep her thoughts to herself — but she wasn’t quite that bad.
So all she could do was open her mouth and stammer: “…You…
that’s…
uh…
that’s quite the ambition, you know…
g-good luck…?”
And then…
Then she watched as Minami Yuji rubbed his temples and spoke.
“While I appreciate the attempt at comfort, your half-baked little save actually made me sound way more pathetic — really, don’t do that.”
Which, to be fair, was exactly what it sounded like.
It was like in some FPS game where you were already 0/13, hadn’t landed a single shot, your performance basically a charade of pretending to be human — and your teammate kept dryly going ‘Ah, what a shame, what a shame, bro,’ making you want to fire back: ‘A shame how, exactly?’
Arima Kana clearly felt awkward too, and could only cough once.
“And besides, that ‘good luck’ had zero conviction behind it.
Aren’t you supposed to be a genius child star?
You can’t even fake a cheerful demeanor?”
“Uh—”
Arima Kana opened her mouth, her face flushing slightly.
“That’s not how you comfort someone at all.
Do I really have to teach you how to comfort people?
What are you, an eight-year-old?”
“Wuuu!!!” Slapped across the face by this string of attacks, Cat-Kana finally couldn’t hold back her trademark ‘ha’-puffing.
Wuuu!!!
This guy!
She!
She had literally been trying to comfort him!
But this guy!
Why was he suddenly putting on that high-and-mighty attitude and starting to lecture her again?!
And besides — she literally was an eight-year-old kid!
Yep!
This guy!
Was awful!
“You little—”
A cross-shaped angry vein popped out on her adorable temple, and she was just about to blow up.
But—
“But still — thank you.”
Minami Yuji lifted his head.
Yes.
Those words really had come from Minami Yuji’s heart this time.
His grasp of the plot of Oshi no Ko could be charitably called ‘partial.’
But Arima Kana — a genius child star — had been willing to set aside her stature and try to comfort a no-name koyaku who had nothing to do with her, with no track record to speak of…
that alone was enough to show she was actually a very kind person.
“Uh…”
This sudden thank-you, like a fastball straight down the middle, instead left Arima Kana a bit at a loss.
Especially with Minami Yuji’s eyes fixed seriously on her own.
The anger that had just been rushing up her back to the top of her head vanished completely, like bubbles dissolving in fog.
In its place, a hot, fiery feeling went flying up to her cheeks.
“A-as long as you know it!”
She braced a hand on her hip and turned her face to one side.
“…” Minami Yuji.
Looking at the Arima Kana in front of him — hand on hip, spirits restored.
Minami Yuji finally understood why this kid gave him the impression of a Shiba Inu.
For no other reason than—
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
Arima Kana glanced over, puzzled.
“From now on, you’d better be careful around a certain blond, blue-eyed boy.” Minami Yuji spoke in a very serious tone.
This really wasn’t a joke.
He’d only said one kind sentence, and her attitude had already softened.
If this went unchecked, what would happen down the line?
He was, more or less, a reliable adult male — best to give her a warning.
The tone was so serious that Arima Kana couldn’t help but blink, then ask back curiously, “Why?”
“Because there are bad men in this world.
Not everyone is like me.
They’re especially good at sweet-talking naive little girls like you and leading you straight into getting tricked.”
“How could something like that ever happen?!
Honestly, how could I ever fall for that like some kind of idiot?!”
Arima Kana waved her small hand dismissively.
Right — though her personality was a bit prickly, somewhat tsundere, she was no fool.
How could she possibly be sweet-talked and led around in circles?
Seeing the look of certainty on her face, Minami Yuji narrowed his eyes.
Honestly, if he hadn’t known in advance that a certain red-haired loser-dog would one day be led around in circles by a certain bad man destined to become a drowned ghost, he might actually have believed her on that one.
But Arima Kana clearly hadn’t taken his heartfelt warning to heart at all.
Sitting on the metal bench, she just kicked her pale legs back and forth, and then, as though struck by a thought, suddenly spoke up.
“Speaking of which, you keep calling me ‘hey, hey, hey’…
but my name isn’t ‘hey’!
I have a name!
It’s ‘Arima Kana’!
Ever heard of it?”
Indeed.
She did have a perfectly good name.
Getting called ‘hey, hey, hey’ all the time — who could stand it?
Especially being called that by Minami Yuji…
For some reason, that made her just a little bit unhappy.
“Heard of it.” Minami Yuji nodded.
He wasn’t lying about that — and lying about it would be like dropping your pants just to fart.
After all, what koyaku hadn’t heard of the genius child star Arima Kana’s name?
“Eh?”
Arima Kana let out a surprised sound.
She had figured it out by now — Minami Yuji belonged to the very, very sharp-tongued type.
But what she hadn’t expected was that this time, he was unexpectedly honest.
Never mind that!
Strike while the iron was hot!
Arima Kana shook her head, then raised one finger, looking smug.
“Hmph hmph.
Since you did me a small favor yesterday, I’ll grant you a special privilege!
You may call me ‘Kana’!”
As she said it, the smugness on her face softened noticeably.
Because deep down, she knew — Minami Yuji hadn’t just done her a small favor.
After all, back then, she had been completely lost.
Should she bring out her real acting?
Or should she hold back and cater to the adults?
That question had truly tormented her for a long, long time.
Her popularity sliding.
Her work offers plummeting.
A mountain of pressure bearing down.
Little as she was, she’d been struggling to breathe.
At the very moment she had no idea what to do—
—it had been Minami Yuji who stepped forward.
Even though his attitude was terrible, his tone arrogant, and he was deeply infuriating to deal with…
Those words of his had, without a doubt, saved her.
That was the single biggest reason that she — who’d had no enthusiasm at all for this audition — had eagerly trotted over the moment she spotted Minami Yuji to strike up a conversation.
She…
really had wanted to thank him.
But her personality just had to be the awkward sort.
What should have come out as words of gratitude turned into this instead, and her face twisted into a triumphant, showing-off-her-power kind of smile—
“So go ahead and be grateful!
This is a privilege, you know!
A privilege!
Show some heartfelt gratitude!
I am specially permitting you to be my friend!”
The moment those words left her mouth, the smile Arima Kana was holding at the corners of her lips began to twitch.
Inside her head, she was banging her own skull furiously.
Idiot, idiot, idiot!
Arima Kana!
You are a super-mega-ultra giant idiot!
Weren’t you supposed to be thanking him?!
Why couldn’t you just honestly say what you actually wanted to say?!!
She let out an inner wail, her wine-red eyes darting anxiously to steal a glance at Minami Yuji’s expression.
As far as she could tell, getting talked down to with such a high-and-mighty tone, even Minami Yuji would probably take offense, right?
But once again, the result was beyond Arima Kana’s expectations.
Minami Yuji’s head lifted slightly above his script.
“Don’t worry, Arima — I’m not upset, and I’m not offended.
On the contrary, seeing you so full of spirit today really is a good thing.”
Those jet-black eyes looked as though they could see through every dishonest little thought in her heart, as he spoke.
The words actually carried a certain adult-style satisfaction — the kind one gets from guiding a child out of psychological darkness.
But that wasn’t how they landed in Arima Kana’s ears at all.
‘Seeing you so full of spirit today really is a good thing.’
The gentle voice slipped into her eardrum and seemed to dance in the folds of her brain.
Mmnph!!!
Her expression froze entirely.
Her dainty palms came up to cover her baby-fat cheeks.
Arima Kana didn’t even need to think about it.
Her face was definitely redder than Mister Sun on the cover of a children’s picture book!
What was up with this guy?!
She kept her face covered.
This guy had been so prickly before, his face full of disgust at the slightest provocation.
So how come, at moments like this…
he could always manage to leave her heart in a complete mess?!
B-but—
A voice spoke up.
“Don’t think you can just gloss it over like that, okay?
I-I did tell you to call me Kana…”
A finger lifted.
And tugged gently at his sleeve.
But her head stayed lowered.
Because the look on her face right now…
Was definitely that dazed, very-very-silly smile.
No way was she going to let him see it!