I could already tell that she hailed from the land of light and sunshine. I, on the other hand, came from the realm of shadows and gloom, and for people like that, calling someone you’ve only just met by their first name is an almost insurmountable hurdle. She just didn’t get it!
“Mio, Mio... So, umm, why exactly did you talk to me in the first place, M-Mio?” I asked.
“Because you were curled up into a ball on the side of the road, and I was worried...but, no, that’s not really it.” Mio cleared her throat in a stilted, not super natural-sounding sort of way and started over. “You know about what’s going on with Maki, don’t you?”
“Umm...”
“I mean, you know she didn’t really step away from show business because she wanted to focus on her studies, right?” Mio clarified.
Oh! That’s what she meant!
“Well, I can’t accept it,” Mio grumbled.
“Huh...? Wait, really?!” I yelped.
“Of course I can’t! Shooting Star was on the rise, moving into the single most important moment in the group’s career—and then our center ditches us to go on hiatus?! Unbelievable!”
Mio had been acting a little prickly this whole time, but now she’d full-on exploded. It felt like that question I’d just asked had only made things worse, so I decided to take a sip of corn soup instead of digging myself any deeper by saying something dumb.
“That’s why I want to bring her back somehow,” Mio continued.
“You... Huh?”
“Maki’s always been able to master anything she wants to, if she just puts her mind to it. She could keep her grades up and keep performing at the same time, no problem. There’s no way someone like her would have to go to a fancy prep school to get into college.”
“B-But don’t you think it’s important to respect Makina’s wishes about—?”
“And by the way,” Mio continued, trampling with ease right over the objection that I’d worked really hard to bring myself to spit out. Also, this might’ve just been my imagination, but it kind of looked like a really dangerous sort of sharp glint was starting to shine in her eyes...? “I’ve noticed that you don’t mind calling her by her first name. You just said it—‘Makina,’ right?”
“Hyeeek?!”
“So you two are close enough to be on a first-name basis? Even though it’s only been a month since she enrolled at your school? You just got done telling me about how you’re not used to calling people by their first names, Yotsuba, and there you are, saying Maki’s like it’s absolutely nothing... Care to explain how that makes sense?” Mio pressed. She was giving me a really close, appraising look that made it feel like she planned to study every inch of me from top to bottom. It felt uncomfortable in a gross, slimy, almost suffocating sort of way. “Well...fine. If you’re Maki’s friend, then I think you should take some time to think about what exactly would be best for her.”
“You mean...?”
“How would you feel about lending me a hand, Yotsuba? I want you to help me convince Maki to call off her hiatus and come back to show business with me.”
I barely held back a gasp. Is she kidding right now? She wants me to help her talk Makina into changing her mind...?!
“This is a pivotal moment for Shooting Star. It’s a crossroads, and which path we pick will determine whether or not we can make it in this industry long-term,” said Mio.
“It is...? But you’re already so popular,” I replied.
“For now, sure. We’ve been getting some attention. The fame we have right now’s not sustainable, though. Do you think we’ll still have that momentum a year from now? How about two?”
“U-Umm...”
“Idols are a consumable resource. When people get bored with an idol, they just move along to the next one. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to lose your place in this industry. You can’t just take the top spot once—you have to claim it again, and again, and again, until finally you can move on to the next stage. We’d just gotten our chance to make it big for real, after all this time...”
Mio’s fists were clenched tightly with frustration. I couldn’t find the right words to say to her. Her desperate drive was so purely, profoundly sincere that I couldn’t confront it head-on... She’d told me not to be nervous around her—to call her by her first name, since we were peers—but even if we were technically the same age, it felt like the two of us lived in completely different worlds.
“All idols are like this. We’re all locked in a constant, desperate struggle for relevance. It’d be nice if we could get by without Maki, but this industry just isn’t that gentle. Shooting Star isn’t Shooting Star unless all five of us are part of it. Plus...and I hate to admit this...Maki’s the real deal. She has a passion and a ravenous appetite for fame that none of us can match. We could never keep up with her... And that’s exactly why we need her, more than anything else!”
“Ugh...”
“So please, help me! I’ve talked to her a thousand times, and she just won’t listen, but maybe if you’re the one she’s hearing it from, it’ll finally get through to her!”
“B-But how could it? Why would she listen to me...?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I have no clue what your deal is, but it can’t hurt to try, can it?!” Mio practically shouted as she grabbed my shoulders. “I can’t let our group end like this. We’ve got the hopes of our whole agency riding on our shoulders—an agency full of girls who worked as hard as they could to follow in our footsteps because they looked up to us! It’s our duty to clear a path to success for them too! And that’s why we...we can’t just sit back and let Maki run off on her own to play her little games at some school somewhere!”
Mio’s desperation came through excruciatingly well. Her whole life really was riding on this, to such an extent that even just wanting to understand what she was going through felt terribly presumptuous of me. And, yes, I could see the logic in her words. She had a point...and from a societal perspective, she might even have been flat-out in the right. But still...