“Well, do you, like...know how members of idol groups usually treat each other, or anything like that...?”
They weren’t friends, and they weren’t family. They were coworkers. A professional relationship. “Coworkers” wasn’t a word I’d had many opportunities to use, but judging by how relationships like that were portrayed on TV—plus how business interests and money would make interpersonal dynamics all weird—I had a feeling that it would be a very complicated sort of relationship to have with someone.
Like, imagine you get along really well with someone, but they’re super bad at their job and end up getting fired. Or imagine the other way around, where someone’s a total jerk but they make you so much money you can’t bring yourself to complain about them. Someone who was your best friend one day could turn into your worst enemy the next, totally out of the blue...thought that bit might’ve just been some dramatic exaggeration on those TV shows’ part.
I wonder just who Makina is to Mio, at the end of the day...?
Mio had certainly lavished Makina with praise during our encounter, but on the other hand, it had all been praise directed at her efforts as an idol. It didn’t quite feel like she’d shown that she valued Makina as a person.
The way I saw it, Makina was just Makina. I’d known her as my childhood friend Makina Oda since long before I found out about the idol Maki Amagi. To Mio, however, Makina was Maki. The girl she knew was Maki Amagi, her idol coworker. She saw—and valued—Makina in an entirely different way than I did. I couldn’t say that she was in the wrong either...but I did wish that she’d learn to see Makina as more than just the idol she performed as. Maybe that was selfish of me, but I couldn’t help it.
“Hmmm. I mean, there’s all sorts of idol groups. Some of them put on a show of being besties onstage, but actually hate each other’s guts behind the scenes. Like, way beyond a ‘not on speaking terms’ level—I mean they actively bad-mouth each other and stuff.”
“O-Oh, really...?”
“Idols are humans too, and people are just like that, right? Sometimes idols get caught bashing each other on secret social media accounts, and it turns into a huge scandal. It happens,” Akksy said with a shrug. That sounded like it’d be a pretty major disaster to me, but the way she framed it made it seem like it was perfectly ordinary.
Does Mio do stuff like that too...? I thought before shaking my head. I didn’t want to believe that she was the sort of girl who’d sink that low. The fact that I’d met and spoken with her in person made it impossible for me to imagine.
“Anyway, it sounds like this Mio girl’s got a pretty good idea that you and Miss Makina are on good terms. She provoked you into the bet, sure, but you did agree, and if you back out on it without a really good excuse, don’t you think that could end up causing trouble for Miss Makina in its own right?” Akksy noted.
“Good point!” I exclaimed.
If Mio ended up concluding that I was a bad influence on Makina, it could make her more dedicated to ending Makina’s hiatus than ever. It seemed really possible that she’d resort to even pushier methods than before. In fact, judging by how she came across, I was positive that was exactly what she’d do! Now that I’d agreed to the bet, there was no getting out of it anymore. My only choice was to pray that the performance was good enough to satisfy Mio...
“Whoa there, Yocchi—this is no time to sit around praying!”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“To start: How exactly are you planning on showing her the performance in the first place?”
“Huh?”
“Your show’s on day one of the festival, right? That’s the day when only currently enrolled students are allowed in, isn’t it?”
“The day when... Oh. Ooooooh.”
I hadn’t even slightly considered that tiny little problem until the very moment Akksy pointed it out. There was a huge, physical barrier in between us and our bet playing out as intended!
Class 2-A had come together for one purpose, more or less: to prove to the whole school that we made the best team ever, bar none. Considering the school was our target audience, day one of the festival—which was dedicated entirely to current students—fit the concept better than day two, when outside visitors would also be allowed in. It would invite way less in the way of trouble, as well.
Mio, needless to say, was not one of our students. She wouldn’t be allowed into the festival on day one. In other words...she wouldn’t be able to see the performance at all!!!
“Wh-What should we do?!”
“You know, I bet this is why Maightingale brushed you off so quickly. She probably figured this out right away, and you know how she is about following the rules.”
“O-Oh, I have an idea! How about we record the performance and show it to her on video later?”
“I’m not saying that wouldn’t work, but it’d basically guarantee that you’d lose, y’know?”
“Wait, how...?”
“I mean, live concerts are all about the atmosphere, right? You have to be there to get the full effect. None of that excitement comes through on video—it all ends up feeling way smaller, somehow. Doesn’t help that you’re holding your show on the stage in a school gym.”
“That does make sense, actually...”
Akksy was completely right. It wouldn’t matter how good their performance was if those good points failed to come through in the version Mio actually got to see. And we wouldn’t even be able to show her a properly produced concert recording—it’d be the sort of video that a single fan in the audience could record on their own.