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“I have nothing else to say to you right now, Shinonome,” says Yukihira-sensei, and Ena feels her stomach drop to the floor.
Ena floats six inches above her body, and watches herself talk to Futaba. She’s not sure what she said to her. She can’t hear a single thing beyond the static noise buzzing in her ears. In a dreamlike trance, she feels herself drift out of the classroom.
In the universe that we have come to know and love, this should be the point where Ena goes home. She’s walked this route hundreds of times in the past. Normally, she would never get lost. But this is an alternate universe, where Ena is barely able to walk in a straight line, let alone navigate back to the Shinonome household.
So Ena Shinonome makes one wrong turn after another, unaware of where she is or where she’s going, meandering through the streets of Shibuya. Distantly, she’s aware that she’s on the completely wrong side of town. But she continues walking, one step in front of another, aimlessly lumbering forward.
It’s not until someone waves a hand in front of her that she realizes where she is, and stops walking. Attached to the hand is another middle school girl, one wearing a school uniform she doesn’t recognize. She looks around her. Ena is completely surrounded by dozens, maybe even hundreds of teenage girls. Some of them are huddled in groups, others are standing alone, but all of them are chatting excitedly.
“Hey!” says the girl, and Ena distantly realizes that the other girl was talking to her. “Are you okay?”
Somewhere, somehow, she finds the wherewithal to nod.
“You sure? You look pretty out of it. I can’t blame you, though. Auditions are always so nerve-wracking!”
Ena looks around again, this time taking note of her surroundings. She’s in front of a building that she vaguely recognizes as the headquarters of one of the various idol talent agencies in Shibuya.
Somehow, Ena has ended up at an idol audition.
She’s so surprised that her voice returns to her for a brief moment. “I don’t want to audition, though.”
“What?” exclaims the other girl, aghast. “C’mon, don’t get cold feet now! You’re super cute, and I bet if you turned that frown upside down, you’d blow all the others away! It’s normal to be nervous, but you can’t give up before you’ve even tried, you know!”
This girl is irritating her. Ena starts to turn around, intending to walk away.
“Hey…” says the girl, in a softer voice this time. “Just hear me out, okay?”
Ena turns back around.
“Whenever I want to give up, I imagine myself as an idol. Famous, rich, popular, and widely loved. Everyone will think I’m super cute and talented then!”
“... Talented?”
“Well, duh! Idols are the most talented people in the whole wide world! Everyone knows that!”
If I can become an idol, I’ll be considered one of the most talented people in the whole wide world. Father won’t be able to say I don’t have talent then, right?
“You’re right. Maybe I will audition after all,” Ena says, and the other girl gives her a large grin in response.
“Oi! Ena!” shouts a muffled voice.
“Yes? What is it?” Ena shouts in response.
“You have mail!”
“Can you bring it up to me?”
“Come get it yourself!” shouts Akito, annoyance immediately filling his voice.
“I can’t, I’m busy!” she shouts.
Ena is busy lying in bed, like she has every day for the past two weeks. Her mom thinks she’s come down with a particularly nasty flu, and Ena hasn’t bothered to correct her misunderstanding. Her brother is more in tune with the reasoning behind Ena’s current state, and has decided to keep his distance.
Her father, of course, has not cared whatsoever about the state of his daughter.
Footsteps pound up the stairs. Ena rolls over to face the door as Akito throws it open. “Here, take your mail.”
“Thanks,” says Ena. “Can you leave it on my desk for me?”
Her brother stares at her for a long second. “Aren’t you going to open it and read it now?”
“It’s probably just junk mail anyways,” she says, rolling to face away from the door.
“You’re probably right,” he says. “Dunno why you’d be getting actual mail from YORU, anyways.”
“YORU?” Ena bolts upright, her hair whipping in front of her face in her rush. “You’re sure it’s them?”
“I mean, yeah…?” says Akito, looking confused. “Why, were you actually expecting mail from—”
She stumbles out of bed, nearly toppling over in her attempt to reach her door. “Give that to me!”
“Yeah, yeah, I don’t know what I’d do with mail from an idol agency anyways,” he says, handing over the envelope. She immediately rips it open. There’s a letter inside. Ena hesitates.
“Aren’t you gonna read what it says?” asks Akito.
“You don’t have the talent to be an artist,” says her father.
“What’s the point? It’ll be a rejection anyways,” she hears herself saying out loud.
“What do you mean?” Her brother pauses, before his eyes widen in surprise. “Wait, don’t tell me you auditioned for—”
“It was stupid of me. I happened to pass by and decided to on a whim. But it’s not like I have the talent for this, any more than I have the talent for art, or anything, really—”
Akito leans forward and snatches the envelope from her.
“Hey, give that back!” she shouts, to no avail. Akito takes the letter out of the envelope and scans it over. His eyes widen in even more surprise.
“Ena—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she says, turning around.
“No, wait, Ena, you—”
“I said, I don’t want to hear it!”
“Ena—”
“Get out of my room!”
“Can you stop interrupting me and let me finish telling you that they’ve accepted you for further training?” shouts Akito, exasperated. “Jeez…”
Ena’s mouth falls open. “They what?”
“I said, they’ve accepted you for further training to become an idol, and that they want you to come in next week to begin.”
“You’re lying.”
“Why would I make up something like that?”
“Give me the letter,” says Ena, snatching the paper from his hands.
“You could say please,” grumbles Akito, but she ignores him to scan the words printed on the page.
“Oh my god,” she says. “Oh my god!”
“Congrats, Ena,” says her brother, his face falling into a genuine smile. “You’re gonna be an idol.”
Half a year later, Ena debuts with Sparkling*Smiles.
The other eight girls in her group are alright, she supposes. They’re more like colleagues than friends. They all have ambitions outside of their group. Sparkling*Smiles is just the starting point for full-blown stardom.
They may not be very similar in any other way, but they have that in common. After all, Ena has greater ambitions too. She’s not part of Sparkling*Smiles to make friends. She’s here to prove herself. She has talent, even if it’s not the talent she wished she had six months ago. And no matter what her father—no, no matter what anyone says, she can succeed as an idol.
Right?
Their manager walks in, and Ena clears her thoughts to pay attention to what he has to say. He clears his throat, in spite of their studio being completely quiet before he entered. Ena was already in business mode the minute she stepped into headquarters that day.
“Today will be a strategy meeting,” he says, looking them over. Ena does her best to make eye contact back, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees the rest of the girls doing the same.
“To put it lightly, Sparkling*Smiles was not as successful as we were hoping.”
Not successful?
Ena feels herself shake slightly. But I did everything right. I trained my hardest, I gave it my all, I posed for every picture and perfected every move.
Was I not talented enough?
“However…” their manager pauses, before continuing. “YORU believes that this is because many fans have started to favor individual idols over idol groups, not because Sparkling*Smiles lacks talent. Or at least, some of you, anyways.”
The mood of the room noticeably lightens again. Ah, of course. Ena expected this. Their group was made up of nine girls who wanted to stand out. Inevitably, some of them would fall short.
“Because of this trend towards individuals over larger groups, we’ve decided that a better strategy would be to have each individual member debut a solo song first, and then later have Sparkling*Smiles re-debut with the added star power of the individual members. Those of you who become popular enough may continue to engage in solo activities beyond your initial song, although this is at the discretion of me and the executives of YORU. Does this make sense?”
Ena nods, as do the rest of the girls. This was the perfect opportunity. She would get to showcase her talents, on her own, and prove that she had the talent to succeed as an idol.
“Good. We’ll be debuting you all based on how popular you were during the initial debut.” Their manager holds up a piece of paper. “Yumiko, you’ll debut first.”
Yumiko beams. Ena stares at her. She was the most popular of the group? Her?
No matter. She’s sure that she’ll still be one of the most popular. Sure, her dancing was far from perfect, and her looks didn’t completely stand out the same way everyone else’s did, but her social media posts were extremely popular and her vocal coach had continually complimented her clear singing voice.
“Chiharu, you’ll be next.”
Chiharu smiles. “I’ll do my best, sir,” she says, the perfect picture of what an idol should be.
Ena feels disappointment flare in her chest briefly, but keeps her head upright. She’s the third most popular. Not ideal, but far from bad, either.
“Kanari will debut third,” says their manager, and Ena’s stomach drops to the floor.
Her manager continues to list names. Ena can barely hear him over the rush of in her head. What did I do wrong? Why don’t I stand out? Why am I not popular enough?
“Ena, you’ll debut seventh,” she hears, and it takes every ounce of her strength not to crumple into a ball then and there.
7th place out of nine. The third least popular member. When he said that only some of us lacked talent, did he mean me?
“We’ll probably only have the three most popular debuts continue solo work after the re-debut, so keep that in mind when you’re training,” says their manager. “We’ll be emailing you all new schedules during lunch break today. Dismissed.”
He walks out of the studio, as if he didn’t turn her world upside down in a matter of minutes. Ena steels herself, and looks around at the girls around her. Sizing them up.
She just needs to be part of the top three, right? She can do that. She will do that. They’re all wrong—her father, Yukihara-sensei, her manager. She has talent. She can succeed as an idol. She has to succeed.
The next seven months pass by in a blur of practice, practice, practice.
Her vocal coach pushes her voice to her limits, and then breaks through them some more. Her dance coach drills the moves her clumsy feet can’t get until they’re completely perfect. Her stylist plays around with clothes and makeup until Ena can barely recognize herself in the mirror. She gets home past midnight most nights, driven home by one of the staff at YORU, and leaves at six in the morning to continue training. She carefully crafts her social media image, doing her best to appear as the perfect idol. The most talented idol.
One by one, the other girls debut. Yumiko stands out, but Chiharu and Kanari falter, and Ena’s heart soars. Two of the other girls stand out far more in comparison, and her heart sinks.
A month before Ena’s debut, Taeko, the sixth most popular member of Sparkling*Smiles, steals her concept.
Ena intended to have a cute look. There’s nobody cuter than her, after all. Her short hair, her clear voice, and her posts on social media all lend themselves to cuteness, far more than Taeko. But it doesn’t matter. She watches on her phone screen, with barely concealed rage on her face, as Taeko shines and sparkles on stage, her cuteness levels off the charts.
She can’t do a cute concept now. Or at least, not without looking like she was blatantly copying Taeko. Even though she had been planning her debut far before she knew what Taeko was up to.
Ena schedules a meeting with her manager, the person who gave her the song she’d sing, and demands that he find her a new song.
“You’re changing songs now?” asks her manager, staring at her.
“Yes,” she says, looking him straight in the eye. “I know this is last minute, but if I want my debut to succeed, I need my concept to be more distinct from Taeko’s. The song that I would debut with, and the concept I would go with, they’re too similar to hers. If my debut was further from Taeko’s, it’d be one thing, but this is different. Only one of us can be cute.”
“And how do you expect to find a new song? Out of nowhere?” he asks.
“No.” Ena pulls out her phone from her bag, and unlocks it. “You sent me three songs to choose between, remember? Instead of doing the song I was originally going to perform, I’ll just switch to this other one.”
“ That song?” he says, even more surprised. “Didn’t you say this had the least coherent theme of the songs?”
“I did, at the time,” says Ena, calmly. “But that was six months ago. I’ve done more research since then. I’ve been paying attention to which of the other debuts succeeded and failed. Darker themes, like Yumiko’s, were far more successful than cheerful and cuter themes like Chiharu’s or Kanari’s. Outside of Sparkling*Smiles, idols like Yuki are far more popular than those with happy songs and bright concepts. I’m not able to be as mature or mysterious as they are, though. I need a song that can look cheerful and cute on the surface, while having a hidden layer of darkness underneath. A song like this one.”
“You’re right. Darker themes are more popular than cute themes. How do you know that mixing the two won’t be too dark for fans who want a cute idol, or too bright for fans who want a mysterious idol?”
“I don’t,” says Ena. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take, though. I may not be the most talented singer, or the best dancer, or the prettiest idol, but I’ve been studying the industry, and I can guess what fans want to see. Why do you think my social media still gets impressions, in spite my lack of public idol work for the past six months?”
Her manager sizes her up. Ena does her best to straighten her spine, not breaking eye contact. What seems like eons later, he sighs. “Alright, you can switch your song. But this is on you. If this fails, this is your career.”
“I understand,” she says.
In spite of her self-assured words, she’s nervous when her music video releases.
She sits in a smaller lounge, with her vocal coach, dance coach, and stylist beside her, as they watch the debut together.
“You know, I doubted whether you could learn an entirely new dance in a month when you said you wanted to switch themes, but your moves are sharp and fluid,” says her dance coach, staring at the miniature Ena on the screen in front of them.
“I’m glad you made the switch,” adds her vocal coach. “The other song wasn’t bad, but this song does a much better job showing off the clear tone of your voice.”
“I’m impressed with your intuition with clothes and style,” says her stylist. “You managed to find a way to balance your cuteness with mystery and darkness, without being confusing or overwhelming. Excellent work.”
Ena beams momentarily, before remembering that she doesn’t just need the praise of the people who helped train her. “There’s only a few thousand people watching this debut live,” she says, sighing. “I’m thankful for all your help, and I’m sorry that we won’t be able to continue working together like this beyond this song.”
“Who knows?” says her dance coach, giving her a kind smile. “You surprised us. You might even surprise yourself.”
“Maybe,” says Ena, giving a half-smile in return. “We’ll see in the morning. I’m heading out.”
She walks out of the studio, her music video sitting at a comfortable three thousand views, far behind the view count of the other members of Sparkling*Smiles upon their initial debut.
Ena wakes up slowly, then all at once. Her debut!
She scrambles to her computer and opens the video, expecting perhaps a couple thousand extra views to have accumulated overnight. Based on the growth of the rest of the idols, her music video will continue to grow, then spike after her first televised performance of her song, then plateau two weeks later.
Her music video of her debut song is sitting at twenty thousand views.
Twenty thousand views?!
She squeals out loud. “Keep it down!” shouts Akito from somewhere else in the house, but Ena can’t find it in herself to care. Twenty thousand views. It’s the highest initial growth pre-performance by far . Even Yumiko only had reached fifteen thousand views before her debut performance. She’s not just on track to be part of the top three. She’s on track to have the most successful debut of Sparkling*Smiles.
Ena readies herself for the day, before skipping downstairs and rushing out the door, rushing straight towards the venue where she’ll be performing later.
“Have you seen?” she squeals excitedly, bursting into the room. Her dance coach and dozens of YORU staff members turn around at the sound of her voice.
“Yes, we have,” says her coach, smiling. “Congratulations, Ena. I told you that you might surprise yourself.”
The rest of the day passes in a whirlwind of preparation and practice. Before she knows it, it’s showtime, and she stands on stage, staring out at a sea of glowsticks.
“I just want to believe that I’ve accomplished something,” she sings with a smile on her face, her heart full with the knowledge that she has.
By any means, her debut should have been a success. The performance went perfectly. Her voice was as clear as always. Her moves were more fluid than ever. She gave it her all.
And yet, somehow, her view count had only spiked to eighty-five thousand views, fifteen thousand short of the one hundred thousand she would need to surpass the idol currently in third place.
The unexpected failure mystifies her, until she opens social media and she suddenly understands.
K.
A mysterious idol, also from YORU, appearing out of nowhere on the same night. Ena aggressively taps play on the video on her phone, and watches as some silver haired girl masterfully outdances, outsings, and outshines Ena in every way possible. That’s where her impressions went.
This girl completely stole her chance at a solo career, and at proving her talent once and for all.
She should be upset. And yet, as Ena watches the video, she can’t find it in herself to be completely angry at this mysterious K. Instead, her brain whirls with a new idea—one that would not only be enough to redeem her failing debut, but something that was never explicitly banned by her manager.
She opens the group chat she has with her coaches and stylist, and sends a message.
“Would any of you be able to put me into contact with K?”
