Chapter Text
“So, we’ll leave in about a week,” Stella says, sitting in front of her laptop. “We’ll be gone for at least a few months, and then we can decide if I want to, well, take over fully.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Shiro says. “If it’s something you don’t want to do.”
“She’s getting old,” Stella says. She fiddles at one wrist with her other hand. Rubbing over it uncomfortably. Her hair is tied into a low ponytail. She’s been growing it out, so it reaches about halfway down her back. Shiro doesn’t remember when she started tying it back like that. After high school. She still ties it back with those blue ribbons she’d been using since childhood. That style. It’s a different ribbon, obviously, tied into a bow each morning when she gets ready, until it inevitably wears too much one day, replaced by another, identical one. “We have to take over the family someday.”
“Your acting career is still young.”
Stella shakes her head. “It’ll be okay. I’m 25 now. I can step back for a moment and assess my options, right?”
“That’s true,” Shiro concedes.
“Mom and Dad hate traveling, so this is perfect, you know? We can get a feeling for being in charge this way, and decide what we want to do after.”
“Of course.” Shiro nods. “Are you hungry?”
Stella leans back in her seat, sighing. “Starving. Reading spending breakdowns is exhausting.”
“I don’t mind it,” Shiro says. “Allow me to give you a summary over dinner.”
Stella closes her eyes. “Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”
It’s bad enough that Kuina bumps into someone after her evening workout—5k treadmill run, prepping for one that’s coming up next month. Strength training is her forte, but she’s been working on her stamina and endurance as well. She’s sweaty and using a baseball cap to cover just how abysmal her bangs look before she can get back to her apartment and bathe properly, and they’re standing outside an elementary school, so this has to be some teacher or parent or someone who has better things to do than bump into a young woman who looks like hell.
“I’m so sorry!” The woman has long hair, clips in it, looks genuinely apologetic. “My friends say I can get lost in my head when I’m preoccupied. I didn’t mean to bump into you!”
Kuina searches her brain for the right things to say, which are that it’s also her fault for not looking where she was going, and also she should be more sorry because her sweat is now probably on this woman and not vice versa. “Un.” Is all she manages.
“You’re okay? I’m so sorry, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Uh.” She manages to nod at least. The woman decides it’s good enough, giving one last look back at Kuina as she walks off. Kuina shakes her head, lifts the cap and wipes at her forehead, and walks off again. She has a shower, and then a pressing PR that she has to push through before their release this weekend. There’s a birthday livestream at 7 she has to tune in for.
Ryoko taps her finger on her laptop. Her sister is fighting with their mom in the other room, she can hear. She’s about that age. The woman outside the school today was fine, probably, she thinks. She looked like she’d been exercising, which is why she was out of breath, and Ryoko had bumped into her, which was why she was so unfriendly about it, and Ryoko had a shift to work, which is why she couldn’t stay to make sure that was true.
It was her fault if the woman wasn’t okay, and Ryoko had left her hanging, but it would all come back to her eventually, so it’s okay to leave it alone, because if it was her fault then surely, surely something would happen to place that blame directly.
Tomorrow’s lesson plan is fun. The kids last year loved it, although they responded more favorably to hands-on activities that get your hands dirty than this batch. A lot of kids have sociologically imposed disdain for getting their hands dirty. The second you take away the worry about getting yelled at for it, they all seem to jump into it, so that’s what she really has to consider.
A door slams, and now two of the sisters are fighting, because they share a room, and they’re both about that age. Ryoko was lucky for being the oldest, she thinks. It gives her a leg up on the rest of them, because she can pull a universal “I’m older than you” that only her mom can veto.
She scratches at her eyebrow and looks back at the evaluations she’s doing. She sends them home monthly to the parents, trying to find better ways to keep in contact about student work and make sure struggling students are noticed earlier and given extra support structures. The kids are just a bit too young to read the notices themselves and know to throw them out if it’s a negative progress report. Not that she’s looking to fail them, either.
“Listen.” One of Kuina’s coworkers sits cross-legged on her desk, holding a fidget spinner. “Next week is the game release, okay? We have to be there.”
“We?” Kuina looks over from her computer. “Who’s we?”
“You owe me, okay? I went to your,” she waves her hand, “idol thing. There was a man next to me who had a smell I had never smelled before. And for all that is good and just if I have to ever smell it again I will be killing myself in front of you. Your life rests in my hands, and thus your willingness to buy a game with me.”
“Do I have to buy the game?”
“You did not preorder the game, so I do not think you’ll be able to buy a copy.” Kuina sighs. “There’s a secondhand shop that sells idol merch next door.”
“Fine.”
“Do you ever think about how popular you would be with women if you learned the names of people other than idols?” Kuina looks at her, unimpressed. “Nothing. Not complaining. Thank you for coming along. That PR got reopened.”
“Yeah, it was all nonsense.”
“Why did you approve it?”
“If I reject another one I’m going to get written up.”
“Have you considered fixing them before we have to deal with what they do to QA?”
“I did not get a performance based bonus last year, so no.”
“No extra money for scalper priced idol pictures?” Kuina sighs. “Nothing!” Her coworker grins, jumping off her desk. “I have a meeting. Stop looking at me!” She hasn’t been. Kuina ignores her.
A week or so later, touched down in Japan, with enough time to handle the partial jetlag more or less, Stella sits in a quiet family style restaurant in the center of Japan. Her first responsibility as heir to the Siegfeld family.
“Okay. I’ve got this,” Stella mumbles to herself. Clears her throat. “Representing the Siegfeld family, my name is Stella. We’re interested in seeing through a multimedia project brought to my grandmother’s attention a few years ago.”
“You sent over the preliminary information. We read it carefully.” The woman across from Stella hands a folder over to them. Shiro picks it up. “Michiru Otori,” she introduces.
“Misora Kano.” The other woman says.
“Then you, um, did you have any questions?”
“In what capacity are you looking for our involvement?” Michiru asks. “Any contracts would have to involve the animation company as well. I can’t promise all of our actors are interested in something like that.”
“I understand,” Stella says. “It’s not required that they be from your troupe, although we aren’t opposed to it, either.”
“So less talent and more theatrical skills.”
“Backstage work is talent as well,” Stella says.
Michiru smiles. “Good answer,” she says.
“There’s a lot of interest in this project,” Shiro says. “We’ve received a number of applications from agencies already.”
“Auditions, then,” Michiru says. “Will you be taking that project on yourselves?”
“Huh?”
“Will you be running the auditions yourself?”
“We, that is to say, I mean.” Stella looks over at Shiro.
“The director will go even if you say yes,” Misora says.
“Who would be directing?” Stella asks, looking back at her.
“Me,” Michiru says. Smiles. “I was just seeing how you’d answer.”
“I apologize. I’m a bit flustered.”
Michiru shrugs. “You’ve never left Germany before, have you?”
“I’ve left,” Stella says. “But I’ve never lived anywhere else. I’ve never been to Japan before, either.”
“You went to a pretty impressive school in Munich, too. Had a brief acting career in Germany. Now you’re taking a break. You’re here.”
“You’ve done a lot of research,” Shiro says.
“I was surprised! First time I’d been contacted by Siegfeld after graduating. I was worried they’d found out about the library book Akira’d accidentally destroyed. I had to do a bit of research!”
“What was this?” Shiro asks. “I’ll look into it.”
“She’s joking,” Stella interjects. “It’s been like ten years, we are not looking into whether some random student messed with a library book.” Misora grins. “What?”
“Nothing.” She says quieter, more to Michiru. “Do you think she’d be over getting called a random student by now?”
“Not a chance in hell. She’d throw a fit. Anyway,” Michiru retracks them. “My apologies for testing you. We’d be interested, absolutely.”
“Testing us?”
“Amazing,” Stella cuts through Shiro again. “We’re so happy. We’ll send over the contract. If you have any questions or concerns or changes, Shiro is our acting lawyer, so you can contact us directly.”
“You’re a lawyer?” Misora asks Shiro.
“I’m an assistant of the Siegfeld family,” Shiro says. “In keeping with that, I completed my studies and took the required tests to become certified as a lawyer.”
“You’d only have passed a year or two ago, right?” Michiru asks.
“More. I took an accelerated course.” She looks directly at Michiru. “Age doesn’t necessarily beget skill or talent, either.”
“That’s true.” She leans back. “I think I’ll like working with the both of you.”
Minku focuses on herself in the mirror. Her manager is outside, doing the final checks on the lighting and sound equipment. She shouldn’t answer. They’re going live soon. She needs to be in this, and what if she cries?
She can’t exactly say no to her though, can she. And her phone is already buzzing, and she still has ten more minutes.
“I’m going live soon,” is the first thing she says when she picks up.
“Birthday bash! I bought a streaming ticket.”
“I would have sent you one.”
“Joint incomes! Supporting my disciple! I made Fumi buy hers separately.” Minku smiles. “So, listen.” Ah, shit. “I wasn’t supposed to see it, okay? But it was in Michiru’s stuff and so I sort of just, like, had to snoop through all of it?”
“Yeah. My agency did that. I don’t think it’ll all go through, so it’s no big deal.”
“I think you should,” Ichie says.
“My agency thinks I won’t be able to debut again on my own if I don’t.”
“Well, that’s nonsense. The five of us are going to keep you afloat no matter what! And all your other fans too, obviously. Your stuff sells out so fast, you know that?”
“I didn’t.”
“You wouldn’t know this, because you didn’t snoop through Michiru’s stuff, which I thought I taught you better than to leave stuff without snooping through it, really I ought to-”
“Shishou,” Minku says, laughing. “I really don’t have much time.”
“I’m also auditioning,” Ichie says. “It might be fun to get to do something together, again.”
“Ah. I mean, I’ll have to audition, so at least, you know.”
“Also, insider info, still give it your all, but the producer has starred your name as someone she really wants the director to keep an eye on. So, you’ve got a good shot.”
“Oh.” Minku nods. “If I get this, I’d be acting.”
“Well, it’s like a musical, so you’re already half there, right? I’ll give you lessons.” Someone says something, too quiet for Minku to hear. “Fumi says she’ll even give you actually good lessons—hey, wait a minute!”
“But-“ her manager knocks on the bathroom door. “Oh, I really have to go.”
“Booting up the stream as we speak!”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Minku says. She hangs up to the sound of Ichie telling Fumi to put her laptop on 100% volume. Her manager knocks on the door again. “Yep! One second.” She gives herself one last look in the mirror. She can’t, can she. Act. It’s not her thing. If she were to do that, she’d be taking both of their dreams. And she can’t do that. Not when Kuina failed her.