Chapter Text
“Great one more shot please, relax the shoulders, turn and face the camera a bit more”
Langa nods and does as the photographer instructs. The new clothes on him felt scratchy and made his skin crawl, he couldn’t wait for the photoshoot to end.
He’d started working as a model in middle school when he was scouted while snowboarding one weekend. Adam, as he called himself, told him he would be perfect to model as their previous model quit. He didn’t really have a reason to refuse, besides, the extra money is always helpful. The only condition was that their company “Eve” only worked from Japan, specifically Okinawa.
His parents had been a bit doubtful but in the end, they decided to make the move, they thought it would be good for Nanako to be able to visit home and have Langa reconnect to the other side of his roots as well. In the end, they moved and he signed on to become a model for “Eve” under the name “Snow”. Adam assigned Tadashi as his manager, so here he was, at another photo shoot.
The sound of camera clicks started to fade as he felt his eyelids feel heavier. His eyes start drifting from the camera taking over the studio. A couple of tech members chatting in the back, his manager on the phone, a gorgeous idol on the tv, the photographer…
Langa’s eyes snap back to the tv, his full attention aimed at the idol on screen. Even with it muted, the only thing he could see was the visual performance and captions too far to read, he was mesmerized. The boy seemed to be about his age, dressed in a red overcoat strapped with a guitar with what looked like a face in a gear. Red hair unruly and wild waving as he danced across the stage, a loose headband hung from his neck while the overcoat billowed behind him. He couldn’t hear a note of what the idol was singing but Langa felt his heart beat a mile a minute watching him smile and sing under the spotlight.
For the rest of the photo shoot all Langa could look at was that monitor and before the end of the performance Langa could make out the ending card: “Fiery Idol: Blaze”.
As the rest of the crew started packing up for the day Langa hid out in the back corner waiting for his manager to rendezvous with him and googled “blaze idol”. Not many results came up, only a few amateur recorded videos, the idol agency “S” name, and his one debut video.
He tries to watch the videos but the audio and visual quality were so bad it was like the person who recorded it couldn’t care less about it. When he clicked on the link for the agency he was greeted by a standard blue and black home screen. The agency specializes in rock music but many of their idols branch off to different genres while incorporating the company rock spirit, as the home screen describes. To the side, he finds a menu but when he clicks it he finds three tabs.
The first was called “MatchaBlossom”, upon entering the tab he finds two profiles, one of a slim man with long pink hair and a large broad man with green hair.
Cherry and Joe make up the MatchaBlossom idol group, specializing in folk and traditional rock fusions, one of the founding groups of S, MatchaBlossom represents the very spirit of S.
“Folk and traditional rock fusion?” Langa scrunched his eyebrows, “how does that even work?” He skimmed their page and while the idea seemed far out to him it seemed to be quite popular with the public. Based on the number of awards and recognition just plastered on their page Langa assumes they were likely the face of the agency. He scrolled down to the next page where he was greeted with a young man adorned in a cat-themed long coat doing a kickflip on a skateboard.
Miya Chinen is a newly debuted idol, specializing in punk rock music, bringing energy to the punk in punk rock, Miya brings about a new generation of idols.
“Isn’t he too young to be an idol?” Langa muses, he scrolls through his profile and finds that Miya debuted about 2 months ago but had an essentially meteoric rise in popularity. While his music isn’t revolutionary the stunts that he’s able to perform and his natural stage presence puts him on the top charts.
Langa frowns as he continues to scroll through the agency finding stray idols and groups but he still couldn’t find the red-headed idol from the monitor. Near the end of the menu, he finally found a tab titled “Blaze”.
Reki Kyan known as Blaze the Fiery Idol, specializes in pop-rock music.
Langa frowns at the short description and tries to find more information from the site only to find nothing. Blaze, or Reki’s, page was almost completely empty save for his headshot and his debut video. Before he could watch it though he felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking up he finds a blank expression staring back at him.
“Mr. Hasegawa, I just need you to sign here to renew your yearly contract with Adam,” Tadashi says, holding out his tablet. Langa looked at the tablet and then back at the monitor. Since he was still technically in school “Eve” had a policy that only allowed contracts that last up to a year. Every year he would just sign the contract without a thought but that was before he saw that performance. Before he saw Blaze.
“Uh, actually I think I want to quit,” Langa says, smoothing out his clothes. Tadashi and Adam never pressured him to continue but he never expressed any ideas of leaving so they’d always assume he’d just resign the contract.
“Right, anyways you’re next photo shoot- wait what,” Tadashi pauses, almost dropping the tablet. Langa watched Tadashi’s face morph several times, probably the most expressive he’d ever seen the man since he was first assigned to Langa.
“I don’t want to be a model anymore, I want to be an idol,” Langa states, more of a declaration than a statement.
Tadashi doesn’t say anything before taking his phone out, “Let me call Adam real quick.” He turned away from Langa quickly dialing a number before walking a few feet away to presumably talk with the boss about the situation.
“He says you’re free to do whatever you want but you are no longer allowed to refer to yourself as “Snow” as that name is under Eve Corporations,” Tadashi says back to the blank face Langa was accustomed to. As soon as Langa got home he emailed Agency S and submitted an application form, under the potential stage name, without missing a beat he entered “Frost”.
-
“Hey good show out there,” Oka comments, handing Reki a bottle of water.
“Yeah, if only there was anybody to hear it,” Reki retorts, slamming into the studio couch. He’d finally debuted as an idol like he dreamed since he was a kid a year ago but he hadn’t made any progress. When he debuted he had a decent audience thanks to the name S but after a week it was like he never debuted at all.
The only reason the agency hadn’t cut his contract yet was because he was willing to write songs for the other idol groups on top of his own songs in return for an extension on his contract. But even the agency had its limits, last well he’d signed his last contract.
By the end of the year, if he isn’t able to rise in the top charts his career as an idol would be over.
He isn’t a narcissist but he knows his songs aren’t the issue since all the other groups that use his songs are doing just fine. But for one reason or another Reki couldn’t seem to take off from the ground.
“I’m sure it’s not the end of the world, we have a whole year we’ll figure something out,” Oka says, trying to console him. Truthfully he knows the chances are slim but he truly believes that Reki could make it, he just needed the right spark. Reki just grumbles into his arms in response. Before Oka could try again his phone rings: higher ups . “Are you gonna be good here for a bit?” Oka asks.
“Yeah I’ll be fine,” Reki responded, pulling out his phone.
“You always say that,” Oka grumbles, leaving the studio to take the call.
Reki mindlessly scrolled through his phone until his eyes caught a headline: Teen Model Snow Announced His Retirement From Modeling! Where Will He Go Next?!
“He what!” Reki screams holding his phone like he could choke it. No way! Snow can’t retire!
Truth be told he hadn’t always written his own songs. He’d practiced dancing and singing almost religiously since he knew he wanted to be an idol but it wasn’t until middle school did he actually want to start writing songs, and it was all thanks to Snow.
He’d been walking home one day listening to the newest MatchaBlossom album when he saw the billboard. “Snow” debuted as a new teen model from Canada and he quickly became popular for his unusual hair color and cold expression. In every photo ever published, Snow was never seen smiling and was dubbed “The Ice Prince” by the fan girls at his school.
Seeing that billboard sparked something inside Reki he couldn’t explain. After milling over his feelings and countless hours on the internet he figured out he had a crush on Snow. He didn’t know how to express any of those feelings until one of the commenters online suggested writing. Writing? He could write.
That was how Reki came up with his first song. Since then almost all his songs were connected one way or another to Snow. He was Reki’s muse, his ever-flowing source of inspiration. And he quit?! For what?! Even if he couldn’t write a single song anymore, if Snow quit modeling that means he’ll never see his face again! Seriously, this day has been one bummer after another.
Oka creaks the door open with a shaky expression, “So, I know today hasn’t been a good day but I have some bad news.” Reki groans, flopping himself against the couch arm, throwing his phone against the cushion. He might be irritated but he isn’t about to break a perfectly good phone.
“What happened?” Reki signs, peeking from the armrest.
“The agency recently got a request from a model that quit recently who wants to become an idol,” Oka starts, closing the door behind him.
“Another one? They never actually want to be an idol, they just want to get more famous,” Reki says, “besides they always quit in a couple of months anyways.”
“Yeah but the agency doesn’t want to shoulder another sinking ship as they put it, so they’re forcing you to form an idol group with them,” Oka finishes, settling into the makeup chair across from Reki.
“What?! That’s not fair! This is my last year to finally make it,” Reki exclaims, “how am I supposed to form a group now? Isn’t it too late?” He curls against the couch grabbing a pillow and crushing it in his grip, “I’ve worked too hard to go down like this!”
“We’ll if it seems the higher-ups want to saddle you with the model so they would have a more valid reason to cut your contract, they said you would debut with the model in 3 months as a new idol group,” Oka explains. He was sympathetic to Reki’s situation, but to say the agency wasn’t generous already was an understatement, “you’ll just have to work with what you have unfortunately.”
Reki’s face starts to burn up, he throws his face into the pillow and screams while Oka just waits. When the screams finally die down Reki looks up good as new, “so who’s the model?”
“I’ll never get over how quickly you bounce back in these situations,” Oka chuckles, reaching for his phone he scrolls through the email before finding the name, “right here it is, the model’s name is Langa Hasegawa, formerly known as Snow.”
“What.”