Mika Furutsuki loved idols. In this time period referred to as the Great Idol Wars, such a thing was not uncommon. Idols would spring up like bamboo shoots after the rain, and the number of their fans would grow accordingly without bound. But Mika Furutsuki went a step beyond those filthy casuals. After all, she became an idol otaku when she was six months old. At the time, she was a baby that would constantly cry at night. Be it night or day, her voice would ring out 24/7 and deny her parents sleep and peace of mind. Worried, they searched for something the child could latch onto, something that would bring her calm. They tried dolls, castanets, video games, toy models, tops, kites, robots, aprons, flashlights, cardboard mazes, and even hamsters, but Mika Furutsuki showed interest in none of them.
One night her exhausted parents were channel surfing, and the CRT screen flipped from the President to a businessman to a chef, a doctor, a dog, a brass band, a car, and then, finally, an idol. The moment the idol appeared, Mika Furutsuki stopped crying. Her eyes opened wide, staring at the face of the idol dancing on the TV screen. Her facial muscles were stimulated, forming a smile. A carefree, cherubic smile. That same, innocent smile that was the very archetype of a baby’s smile.
That’s it! her parents thought. This was their ticket to a good night’s sleep.
The Furutsuki family was not exactly rich. But Mika Furutsuki was flooded with a torrent of idol goods. Video tapes were replayed so often the magnetic film would wear off and they’d stop working. A year after Mika Furutsuki’s birth, her sister Miya Furutsuki was born, and they enjoyed idols together. As the two of them grew, DVDs replaced video tapes. By elementary school, they began attending idol concerts. Mika Furutsuki was a naturally shy and somewhat emotionally unstable child, but her love of idols thankfully helped her to make many friends. It would not be an exaggeration to say that idols were her salvation.
But at the same time, idols caused Mika Furutsuki’s life to bend out of shape. The constant concert trips and DVD purchases cost a fortune, putting the squeeze on the family budget; they ate poorly and her parents were forced to work extra hours. Tensions increased within the home until, finally, her parents divorced. Miya Furutsuki went with her father, splitting apart from Mika Furutsuki who went with her mother. This happened when Mika Furutsuki was thirteen, a first-year student in middle school. This was such a blow to her that she refused to go to school for an entire year, spending that time watching idol concert videos in a blacked-out room, over and over and over again. She ate only two meals a day — on bad days, only one. Her skin grew unhealthily pale, her body thin. Though her mother worried, Mika Furutsuki was secretly pleased. She thought she looked almost like a real idol.
After a year like this, Mika Furutsuki grew more stable. She’d found herself a new purpose — Hikarigayama National High School. A school for girls, it had not been a very popular place until just a year before, when they’d walked off with top place in a new amateur idol contest, drawing the attention of idol fans nationwide.
Naturally, Mika Furutsuki had been at the concert, and it blew her away. Each idol had their own unique personality, and each one was brilliant in their own right, yet their performance as a group was in perfect harmony. Getting individuals this different from one another to come together as a single group was in and of itself a work of art. It was as if a soccer player, a hunter, a street vendor, a car racer, a cult leader, a pottery maker, an engineer, a salesman, and an air traffic controller had joined forces to save the world, each using their particular skill sets. Mika Furutsuki’s mind was made up. She had to join that group. She was all raring to go after cutting herself off from the world for so long. And she was absolutely, positively certain that she had to become an idol, no matter what.
Mika Furutsuki studied her ass off. After a year’s absence, she was behind her classmates, but soon overcame that late start and passed the entrance exam with flying colors.
High school became the best time of her life. The school had become famous because of idols, so naturally there were tons of like-minded idol fans around her. The upperclassmen in the idol club seemed somewhat nonplussed by the sudden influx of new members, but after some trial and error, they arrived at a system in which they broke into multiple, smaller groups. Mika Furutsuki was assigned to a five-girl group named P-VALUE, and there she met someone that changed her destiny. Not only her destiny, but the destiny of the entire universe.
“Hi, I’m Maori Niizono.”
On the day P-VALUE was formed, Mika Furutsuki received a perfectly ordinary greeting. Maori Niizono was tall, with short hair, a stern look to her eyes, and definitely not the sort of person who made friends easily. In fact, she remained somewhat apart from the other members of the group.
Mika Furutsuki spent her high school days trying to be liked by everyone. She was naturally timid and introverted, and that was exactly why she worked so hard at acting cheerful and outgoing. It may have been an act, even a sham, but it did its job hiding her actual shyness. She was good at using her phony cheer to make friends, but she ended up with no friends who actually understood her. She was too afraid that revealing her true self would lead to her friends distancing themselves from her. She was convinced that if that happened she’d become unstable and drive them further away — a vicious circle. The only way she could keep it together was to continue pretending to be cheerful.
Maori Niizono was Mika Furutsuki’s polar opposite. She maintained a veneer of indifference, immediately spoke up if something annoyed her, and was prone to sighs of boredom. Rumor had it her parents were doctors and ran a hospital, so she was quite well off. This certainly got her a lot of attention in class, but not many friends.
Mika Furutsuki put a tremendous amount of effort into meeting expectations, especially for idol activities. She would blow off classes to learn songs, practice choreography, and train her core skills. Meanwhile Maori Niizono showed no signs of caring about anyone else’s expectations, while easily handling any subject put to her. Apparently, she’d studied piano, singing, and ballet as a child. Mika Furutsuki would mess up routines she’d practiced for hours and hours while Maori Niizono effortlessly learned new ones.
The distance between the two showed no sign of getting any smaller. After all, no matter how you did the math, the two simply had no common factors. Mika Furutsuki tried to put Maori Niizono out of her mind. She was afraid if she tried too hard to become friends, she’d end up opening a rift between them instead. Whether she picked up on this or not, Maori Niizono did nothing to make them closer.
What finally made them best friends was a complete coincidence. About a month after school started, Mika Furutsuki was, like always, up early for morning practice. She was on the rooftop that the idol club used before anyone else, practicing her dance moves in silence. It took her longer than the other members to learn the choreography, so she always made time for solo practice.
“That step’s a half-beat off-tempo,” said a voice behind her.
She turned around to find Maori Niizono standing there. “What brings you here this early?”
“Looks like my alarm clock broke. It rang early. Didn’t see the point in going back to sleep, so I figured I’d enjoy the morning air. You always here this early?”
Maori Niizono’s question made her uncomfortable. She felt embarrassed to be practicing this early every morning with no significant results.
“...yeah.” She nodded.
“Hmm. Want some help?”
“Wha...?” The offer took her by surprise.
“We’re all in the same group. Might be a good opportunity to get to know each other.”
“You’re sure it’s not too much to ask, Niizono-san?”
“Of course not. Idol activities are just for fun, after all.”
Being an idol was her life’s goal, yet her skill lagged far behind someone just doing it for fun. This fact came as such a blow it must have shown on her face, as Maori Niizono became concerned.
“You feeling OK there?”
“...yes. I’m fine.” But Mika Furutsuki couldn’t stop her tears.