"Did you ask the representative of the Rararai Theater Troupe for that bastard’s phone number?!"
Ichigo Saito, the president and representative of Ichigo Production, the small agency that B Komachi belonged to, shouted as he pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, where they had slipped down from the sweat on his face.
At Ichigo’s frantic, panicked outburst, the staff member nodded, also drenched in cold sweat.
"W-well—"
"I’m going to explode here! Hurry up and say it!"
"I-I did call, but the representative on that side asked for your phone number instead, so I gave it to him…. He only said he’d call back soon and hung up…"
"…What?"
The sunglasses he had barely managed to push back up slipped crookedly again and slid down the bridge of his nose.
Ichigo’s mind went completely blank, and the situation was so awful that it even felt like his lower body was curling inward.
He had not expected this situation at all, not even this morning.
No—who could have expected it?
That kid.
That "Ai"… could he have imagined she would pull something like this without even realizing it?
Was that why that damn pretty-boy punk mentioned B Komachi in the lon-lo interview?
Had Ai known all along and still deceived him?
"D-don’t take any more calls from reporters or TV stations if they come in now. Hang up! First, find Ai and that Kaoru guy—or Karuo, or whatever that bastard’s name is! Ai? She’s not answering?!"
At Ichigo’s shout, the manager, his face stiff, shook his head.
"The call goes through, but she won’t pick up. She’s not replying to texts either."
"Haa!!! Damn it all! Ai! Ai! Ai!!! If you answer the phone and hear the whole story, then we can do something about this!!!"
Ichigo roughly swept back his bangs, soaked with cold sweat, and threw his sunglasses down onto the desk.
He shut his eyes tight and let out a long sigh at the nightmare unfolding before him, then immediately barked at the staff when he saw Kaburagi Masaya’s number on the phone that was ringing in his hand.
"If another call comes in, just say we’re checking into it. Don’t say anything else except that line. Not a single thing—consonants, vowels, nothing! Got it?!"
"Yes!"
"I’m going to take this call, so keep texting Ai. Got it? Just tell her to explain the whole story. Don’t push her too hard. Talk to her as gently as possible."
"Y-yes!"
Ichigo, who knew very well how unusual Ai’s personality was, gave them repeated instructions before going into his office to answer the call.
"Yes! This is Ichigo Saito."
- "Ah, Representative. This is Kaburagi, the producer."
"P-Producer! What on earth happened here? I mean, you said you only took her to a troupe workshop, didn’t you?"
- "…Haa, I’m terribly sorry. I really have no excuse. I only sent Ai there so she could gain some experience. Apparently, since they’re about the same age, Kaoru-kun ended up coaching her acting. I just spoke to the troupe representative a moment ago, and even they didn’t know the details very well. They’re saying it was just a few meetings under the pretense of acting lessons so they could get acquainted, but it seems neither side told the other anything and they met on their own…"
"No! Producer! Why am I, the representative, only hearing about something this important from you this late? The company is in chaos right now too! You know what a dating scandal means for a current idol, don’t you?! It’s a death sentence! A death sentence! Our office phones are blowing up so badly we’ve had to unplug some of the lines!"
- "Haa… good grief!"
"At this rate, the year-end Budokan performance could be canceled too! We need to release a statement right now, but the troupe representative isn’t answering, and Ai isn’t answering either—"
- "What? Ai isn’t answering either?!"
"Yes!!... Wait, what do you mean, Ai ‘too’?!"
- "Ah… The troupe representative says Kaoru-kun called him earlier too, told him only, ‘I’ll take responsibility and resolve this, so please wait,’ and then hasn’t been reachable since."
"Damn it all!!!!"
What the hell kind of tragic melodrama are they filming here!!!!!
Ichigo kicked over the trash can beside his desk and collapsed onto the sofa, clutching his head.
God.
How could this happen?
Kaburagi, too, said he would try contacting Ai and then hung up in a hurry.
Still dazed, Ichigo kept the disconnected phone pressed to his ear and stared at the framed photo of B Komachi hanging in one corner of the office.
Ai’s smile in the picture was, as always, bright and radiant.
……
Ichigo Saito and Ai Hoshino were not merely a president and one of his agency’s idols.
Ichigo had registered Ai under his family record as his daughter.
Even if only on paper, legally, he was unquestionably Ai’s adoptive father.
She had grown up in an institution, without family, left alone in a harsh world, just a girl who shone like a star yet was more fragile and wounded inside than anyone else.
So, with the consent of his wife, Miyako Saito, he had resolved to live as Ai’s de facto guardian and as her social and legal support.
He believed that was the right path, and he still did.
If that bastard Kamiki Kaoru, who had met Ai, was secretly a crazy psycho despite how he looked, and Ai had been subjected to dating violence or some kind of harm?
Just thinking about it made his hands shake uncontrollably, and his anxiety grew so severe that he could no longer think straight, to the point he felt like he was losing his mind.
If that turned out to be true, then he would use every means at his disposal to kill Kamiki Kaoru.
He would definitely kill him.
Listening to the uproar in the office through the crack under the door, Ichigo said in a dying voice toward the woman in the photo, "…What on earth are you thinking…"
-
Uminomori Park, located on the southern coast of Tokyo’s Koto Ward.
A bleak scene where, despite it being Saturday, no people were in sight because of the early cold snap.
A cold wind blowing in from the sea swept through and messed up Ai’s long hair as it passed.
She ignored the phone ringing nonstop.
Fiddling with the motorcycle helmet resting on her lap, Ai forced an awkward smile and said, "Heh—do you think we might get photographed like this too?"
"Don’t worry."
"Still, if we do get photographed, I could at least strike a pose! Like a V sign★!"
"…You’re in a good mood, huh?"
"Of course! Obviously! Who do you think I am? I’m the ultimate idol loved by everyone!"
Kaoru smiled without saying anything.
Ai looked as carefree as ever, flashing her usual love-filled wink and peace sign.
But he knew.
He knew how frightened she was right now.
She was trying so hard to seem strong, trying not to worry him, desperately trying to keep her usual self together and hide even the trembling in her hands, but it wasn’t enough.
Whether from the cold or from anxiety, Ai’s lips trembled as she said, "…How did they even get a picture of us meeting?"
"It was a tail. The photos that appeared in the article have gotten better in quality the more recent they are. The original source was definitely some third party."
As Kaoru spoke with a sharp glint in his eyes, Ai’s trembling grew even worse.
Who could it be?
None of the members knew, and of course the office staff didn’t know. The people who knew her weren’t any—
"Ah—"
"Why?"
Ai, her face turning the color of dirt, looked at Kaoru and said, "C-could Producer Kaburagi Masaya have… m-mentioned it?"
"Kaburagi?"
"Y-yeah! I, I actually… without really realizing it, I’d told Producer Kaburagi that I was going to the troupe a lot? So if he knew that, maybe the producer…"
"No. Producer Kaburagi is probably on the verge of going insane because he’s the one who brought you to the troupe workshop in the first place. If anything, he would have tried to stop it, not let it leak."
Kaoru smiled calmly, reassuring her, and Ai swallowed dryly, unable to shake her unease.
"R-really… not Producer Kaburagi?"
"Yeah. It’s probably someone inside the troupe. Not someone connected to you, Ai—probably someone connected to me."
"……!"
Kaoru continued in a cold voice, tapping the motorcycle helmet with his finger.
"The people who know that you and I met are actually more numerous on the troupe side. We were together at the workshop after-party too."
"Ah! Right. That’s true."
"I read the article right before I came to pick you up. I didn’t have time to go through it carefully, but they didn’t identify the source separately. It was probably an anonymous tip. That’s why they couldn’t track the informant down any further and started investigating directly from there.
Other than the line saying, ‘It is presumed they met at the troupe,’ there wasn’t any exact timing given, which means even the person who tipped them off probably only became certain much later.
The very first photo in the magazine was taken in early May, showing our backs as I walked you to the train after we ate donburi. The next photo was from when we met in the park in August. The gap between those shots is too large. The May photo was definitely sent by an anonymous informant."
……
Ai nodded silently, blinking without saying a word.
Honestly, it was a lot to take in, and she was struggling to keep up, but if she summed up Kaoru’s explanation as best she could…
"S-so, anyway, that bad traitor is someone from the troupe? Someone who knows the two of us well."
"Exactly. We’ll have to find that traitor. I’m only guessing from fragmentary clues for now, so I can’t be certain yet, but…"
No, he was 100 percent certain.
He hadn’t investigated and analyzed every single factor, but there was definitely a face that had flashed through his mind just now.
It was only intuition, but Kaoru trusted his intuition. That animal instinct had pulled him out of death’s grasp more than once.
Was it because of what Kaoru had said, or because a fear close to panic had surged up inside her?
Ai’s face went deathly pale as she said in a voice that sounded like a small child on the verge of tears, "They kept following us… kept taking pictures, and I didn’t notice at all. Of course they couldn’t have gotten every shot, but… it’s so scary that they were secretly following us and taking pictures. Why would they do something like this? We were just…"
Hearing her, Kaoru could only grit his teeth.
Just as she said, he had not noticed at all. When he was carrying out missions as an operative, and even when he lived as a fugitive, he had lived obsessively and paranoically, erasing every trace of himself.
But not now, so of course he had let his guard down. This was a peaceful life on a completely different level from the life he had lived when he was officially marked as a top-priority target inside the CIA and by the U.S. government itself.
It was also clearly his own mistake not to have paid closer attention to the hostile symbiosis between entertainment and the media. If something had already happened, then cleaning it up came first.
So instead of answering, the boy reached out and took the girl’s ice-cold hand in his own.
At the warmth flowing from Kaoru’s hand as he gripped hers tightly—
Ai flinched in surprise and looked up at the boy with starry eyes full of confusion.
"…K-Kaoru."
"It’ll be okay."
Even though the fierce wind should have made his words hard to hear, Kaoru’s voice came through clearly and distinctly.
But Ai shook her head and forced a smile.
"That’s a lie… It’s a lie, isn’t it? You know it won’t be okay. You’re just saying that to reassure me."
"Why do you think it’s a lie?"
"Then what about you? How can you be so sure it’ll be okay? How can you be so sure, Kaoru?"
Ai’s voice trembled under the fear strangling her throat as she spoke to the boy.
But even she couldn’t say exactly what that fear was coming from.
It wasn’t just the dating scandal itself.
Even Ai, whose young heart knew nothing of complicated calculations, could see the many ripples such a scandal would cause, and how obvious it was that Kaoru’s future would be hurt by them.
"We only just got to be together. I— I don’t want to be separated from Kaoru. We only just met— we only just met you, Kaoru, who looked at Ai and stood by my side…. I never thought it would end like this…"
The one reason her life as an idol, stained by lies, was no longer lonely.
The precious person who looked straight at a lonely, wavering soul as she was and came close to her.
The boy who gave her, a hollow shell who knew nothing of love and didn’t even know how to love, the courage to begin learning about love for the first time.
When she first met Kaoru at the troupe.
She had admired him and been captivated by the confident look in his eyes, and had longed for his sincere feelings to be directed at her.
She had thought of him as a star in the night sky, impossible to reach no matter how far she stretched her hand. But now, if she reached just a little farther, she could touch him.
And yet, by the narrowest margin, he had slipped beyond Ai’s fingertips and vanished forever.
"Everyone’s so cruel… I hate this…"
Tears burst from her starry eyes like a river of galaxies.
But even in that moment, the warmth flowing from the boy into her ice-cold hand painted over the chill.
Without even realizing it herself, Ai leaned her head against Kaoru’s shoulder and buried her face in his arm.
She was so cold and so scared that her whole body shook on its own. It was terrifying, like a flame that might go out at any second, like all the happy memories from the past were melting away in an instant like a midsummer night’s dream.
"You know—Kaoru…. Sometimes, when I look at you, you seem like an old man ten years older than me?"
……
Feeling Kaoru’s warm hand tighten more firmly around hers, Ai, even while crying, felt a pleasant fullness rising through her emotions.
Suddenly, with her fear fading, Ai let a brief smile appear on her tear-streaked face.
If it was now.
If it was now—
She felt a courage blooming inside her, as if she could finally lay bare the "sincerity" she had buried deep in her heart.
"Even though you’re the same age as Ai… you’re more grown-up than Ai, and kinder…. You’re warm, and so considerate… I don’t know how you always manage to make me feel safe and smile…"
……
"Your hair color… you shine so brilliantly it hurts to look at you…. I’ve always been grateful and sorry to you for thinking of me and understanding me.
Every second of everyday life with you felt precious and hard to let go of. I didn’t want to be separated from you. I always wanted to be with you.
Even when I stood on stage, got loved by fans, sang, and did my best as an idol. The time I spent with Kaoru was happier and more precious to me.
…You know. I… actually, just now, even thought I wanted the two of us to run away far, far away somewhere no one would know us?
I think the me who’s with Kaoru… is better than the me who’s an idol….
I’m really stupid, aren’t I?"
"No."
At Kaoru’s answer, Ai lifted her face from where she had buried it and looked up at him.
She was not just surprised by the word "no" itself.
She had only been following her feelings, blurting out whatever came to mind—
but in the "no" that answered her, Kaoru’s own "feelings" pierced deep into her heart and struck her with a powerful shock.
She, Ai, steadied her scattered starry eyes and met Kaoru’s gaze.
"Huh?"
"You’re not stupid. So don’t ever give up on your dream. I’ll carry everything else."
"No! It’s a lie, right? D-don’t do that. Kaoru, why are you trying to carry everything? No… I don’t want that! Why are you trying to shoulder it all for me? Why?"
Instead of answering, Kaoru used his thumb to wipe away the tears streaming down Ai’s cheek.
Unable to understand the boy’s actions, Ai bit her lip hard and leaned even closer, as if begging for the truth, then tightly gripped Kaoru’s hand as it gently caressed her face.
Ai’s clenched hand trembled faintly, spilling out her anxiety.
"Please—don’t do this. Because of me…!"
Kaoru looked at Ai with his usual indifferent yet warm blue eyes.
"Ai."
Only after meeting Ai’s eyes did the boy—the fugitive—suddenly realize it.
The feelings of Ai, who was worrying about him with all her sincerity.
And so, he finally understood why "fate" had guided him to this exact moment.
Yesterday, the nightmare he had dreamed for the first time in two years flashed through his mind.
He hated nothing more than having to stand by helplessly and watch his precious person suffer.
He had regretted it for a lifetime. He had lived his whole life buried in that moment of regret.
And then, like a miracle, he was reborn as Kamiki Kaoru and experienced the happiest time of his entire life.
Now, nothing else mattered.
Even if he had to give up his own life as much as he wanted.
He would do anything to protect the happiness of the precious person before his eyes.
No matter what happened to this world.
"If it’s for you, I can shoulder anything. I don’t want to see you hurt or in pain because of me anymore."
For the sake of my everything.
……
The moment Kaoru brushed back her tousled hair with a warm hand.
Inside the boy’s clear blue, sky-colored eyes.
Like a supernova shining brighter than the sun.
The moment a fierce red starlight was born—bright enough to burn away everything in this world and still have more left over.
Unbothered by the thunderous pounding in her ears.
Ai witnessed that dazzling moment with both eyes wide open.
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