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What Aqua Hoshino used to know of love can be found in long strands of violet hair and eyes that hold the universe itself. An unfalteringly bubbly voice, a smile to charm the heavens, and a hug that told Aqua more than words just to what extent Ai Hoshino’s capacity to love could reach. Whenever she looked at him and his sister, she looked as if they were brought from paradise itself, and whenever she spoke to them, her words popped with fond softness and parental pride, and Aqua thought to himself that Ai Hoshino was an angel called from above to grace this world with her laughter and her smile and her songs and her love and her lies.
Ai Hoshino, above all else, was a liar. She lied to her fans, she lied to her fellow idols, she lied to her company, and even to herself. Ai Hoshino did love. Ai loved so much, was loved so much, and that was not a lie. For all Ai says about lies being her way of expressing love, her love was completely devoid of it. True warmth, like gentle hands caressing your cheek, like a wry smile or a look of pure bliss directed at you, Ai Hoshino loved her children more than the world loved Ai of B-Komachi.
Aqua Hoshino has not known love since lifeless eyes that used to outshine even the galaxy itself stared unblinkingly at him. Tears flowed down his cheeks, or maybe it was her blood ( there was so much blood, so so so much, Ai, please please don’t go please ). It didn’t matter. Ai Hoshino died holding onto what she loved, free from the burden of her lies, free from the burden of this godforsaken industry, and her lies became her truth. Ai Hoshino loved her children, and that definitely was not a lie.
What Aqua Hoshino knows of love now is found in scarlet hair, scarlet eyes, and a smooth, melodic voice that did not hesitate to singlehandedly shove Aqua out of his walls, effortlessly tearing them down with an ease that terrified him. There’s something in the way that Kana Arima stares at him so sincerely and so warmly at times that shakes him. He doesn’t deserve it. Why? He doesn’t deserve love, not when so much hate pools in his gut and thrives in his veins, not when friends are just assets and connections, not when everything and everyone would all be just means to his end, someone like him shouldn’t be loved. This Aqua Hoshino who is so strong, who is so reliable, who is so helpful, who is so sincerely loved by Kana Arima, Aqua wished to meet him one day, because that person could never be him.
The Hoshino family is cursed to lie for love, and Aqua has never resented that fact before. Why start now? Lies are all he is, layer upon layer upon layer of unlovable and miserable hatred piled on top of each other like an amalgamation of sin and filth, yes, this is who Aqua Hoshino is. A liar who only knows how to act, how to manipulate, and nothing else. For all good that his knowledge as a doctor did for him, for it didn’t matter in the times he needed it most. Even if he was 4, even if his hands were pudgy and tiny and could barely grasp his mother’s hand, even if he had none of his equipment, there should have been something, anything he could have done for Ai.
What Aqua Hoshino knows of love now is found in azure strands of hair and eyes that pierce through him again and again, eyes that stare at him with complete faith and devotion that he does not deserve but will use anyway. Aqua didn’t mean to care for Akane Kurokawa, but the queen on his chessboard is not someone he will ever force to suffer for his sake. He’s caused enough pain in both lifetimes, as a doctor who couldn’t be there for his patient, and as a son who couldn’t save his mother, he’s done enough. Better for her to be discarded than die, he tells himself, better for her to be out of my life than be someone I attend another funeral for, he tells himself. Akane Kurokawa is a sinner, and for the sake of Aqua Hoshino, she will have gladly bloodied her hands if it meant his freedom from the chains of his vengeance.
The lie becomes the truth, if told often enough, if told well enough. Akane was Aqua’s first girlfriend, and maybe in a better world, a kinder time, Aqua would hold her hand and introduce her with a smile to Ai, and tell his mother that “This one, this is who I have fallen for,” but that is a lie. Aqua Hoshino does not love, not anymore, but he can’t find it in himself to stop caring. Their relationship is strange. Lovers but not quite, partners who don’t trust the other, sinners cut from the same cloth who would burn the heavens all the way to the earth if it would protect the other. Maybe that was love, even twisted and skewed and wrong and sinful, maybe Akane Kurokawa and Aqua Hoshino had love, and for a time, maybe it hadn’t been a lie.
What Aqua Hoshino knows of love is lies. Beautiful lies, expressive lies, secretive lies, sinful lies, protective lies, truthful lies. Aqua Hoshino is a liar, clear as day, and he lies to his idol, he lies to his girlfriend, he lied to his mother, and he lies to his sister. Ruby Hoshino grew up in a world without Ai for over a decade, with only the warmth of Miyako-san and the cold love that Aqua showed her, a love written in a tapestry of lies too entangled to unravel with a single conversation. Even if he would never know, Aqua loved her then as Gorou Amamiya and Sarina Tendoji, albeit wasn’t in the way she wanted, and Aqua loves her now as his sister, as Aqua Hoshino and Ruby Hoshino, the Twin Stars of Japan.
Aqua Hoshino is a liar, and Ruby Hoshino is the only one who truly gives him what he deserves. He can’t help but love his sister for that even more. She hates him, truly and utterly despises him for what he’s done, for what he’s told and for what their lives have become, for disgracing Ai and for telling the world what should have stayed locked in a box and buried next to the coffin of their mother. Good, Hate me, despise me, for I am someone not worth loving.
When all is said and done, Ruby will still hate him, and maybe that brings a pain that blooms in his chest that he can’t fully explain, a pain of needles stabbing at his throat and drying his voice, a pain borne from the thought that his sister of flesh and blood and someone who shared the burden of their mother’s legacy and the grief that came with it, being hated by someone like that hurt Aqua in ways he would never be comfortable with speaking or thinking of. Let Ruby hate him, let her spite him, let her gaze of happiness and warmth that now yielded a calculating gleam that Aqua saw in every mirror that taunted him pierce through him and rip this body to shreds. Ruby Hoshino utterly hates Aqua Hoshino for what he has done, and this definitely is not a lie.
When all is said and done and Aqua is gone, he is at least glad that Ruby won’t mourn for his sake. She’s had enough grief for a lifetime. At least hated as he is, Aqua won’t make Ruby suffer even more when he’s finally gone for good. It’s better this way.
What Gorou Amamiya knew of love is in white, sterile rooms with bleak windows and a girl who would not live longer than twelve speaking to him of an idol group she loves so, so dearly, and it is a happy memory.
If you tell a lie long enough, well enough, it will become the truth. Aqua Hoshino is someone not worth loving and Gorou Amamiya is someone not worth remembering, but maybe one day they both will. Maybe one day Aqua will go there and see flowers on his grave and know that someone loved him even then, that someone remembered who this man was, that someone cared . Maybe one day Aqua will look beside himself and see himself surrounded with people he loves and people who love him as he is, and maybe he will smile. Maybe one day, the lies will finally become the truth.
That day is not today, neither will it be tomorrow, but maybe, just maybe, it would be the day after that. As tomorrow bleeds into yesterday, maybe then will Aqua Hoshino finally, truly love again, free of the lies that glimmer like stars and unburdened by the weight of the heavens. That day may not be today, but it will arrive all the same.