The penthouse office was silent, a hermetically sealed box of glass and steel suspended fifty floors above the ceaseless noise of Tokyo. This was Ryouko Yorukawa's sanctuary, her command center. And for the past three weeks, it had been a war room where she was losing the war.
On the polished obsidian desk, three encrypted smartphones lay inert. Beside them, a tablet displayed a map of the city's transit system, covered in dead ends. Reports from the private investigators—the best, the most discreet, the most expensive—were all the same. No financial activity. No digital footprint. No credible sightings.
It was as if Hoshiko had simply evaporated from the face of the earth the moment she stepped off that stage.
Ryouko stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the city lights that glittered like a spilled tray of diamonds. She felt no awe, only a cold, simmering rage. An illogical rage. Her entire life was built on logic, on predictable outcomes and controllable variables. Hoshiko's disappearance was an act of pure, stupid emotion, and it was infuriatingly effective.
The ungrateful child hadn't gone to a friend—she didn't have any. She hadn't used her bank accounts—Ryouko had frozen them anyway. She hadn't even taken her own phone. It was an amateur move, the kind of thing you'd see in a cheap drama, and yet it had worked.
But the silence from the public and the media was becoming a roar. The final tour date had been abruptly "postponed." Whispers were starting. Ryouko had let them fester long enough. It was time to seize control of the narrative.
She turned from the window and sat at her desk, her movements precise. She tapped a button on her console, and her assistant's voice came through, tinny and deferential.
"Prepare a press release. Full medical disclosure is pending, but the initial diagnosis is severe nervous exhaustion. Hoshiko will be taking an indefinite hiatus to focus on her health and well-being. Quote me directly: 'Our greatest priority has always been, and will always be, Hoshiko's health. The stage will be waiting for her when she is ready. We ask that her fans and the media respect her privacy during this difficult time.'"
A perfect, compassionate lie. It would generate sympathy, quell the rumors, and buy her time. It painted her as the protective mother, the caring guardian, not the owner of a runaway asset.
After the call ended, she leaned back in her leather chair, her fingers steepling under her chin. A hiatus. The very word was a monument to her failure to control the situation. It meant lost revenue, canceled endorsements, a carefully constructed five-year plan turning to smoke.
She swiveled her chair to face the wall opposite her desk. It was dominated by a single, massive, framed photograph. It was Hoshiko, mid-performance, her silver hair a nimbus under the stage lights, her face a perfect mask of manufactured joy.
Ryouko's expression hardened. She wasn't happy. Of course she wasn't happy. Happiness was a useless, fleeting emotion. She had been given a purpose. A destiny. She had been given a throne, and she had thrown it all away to run off and play pretend in some filthy backwater town, because that's where runaways always went.
You want to be normal, Hoshiko? she thought, her eyes boring into the photograph. You don't even know what that word means. Normal is for the people who buy your records, the insignificant masses who watch you on a screen. It is not for you.
She felt no worry for the girl's safety. She felt no concern for her mental state beyond how it affected her performance. All she felt was the cold, sharp anger of an investor whose prize asset had suddenly and inexplicably malfunctioned.
"You are not unwell," she whispered to the photograph. "You are just ungrateful."
She would find her. It was only a matter of time. The world was not as big as Hoshiko thought, and a girl with hair like spun moonlight could not hide forever. And when she found her, she would correct this error. She would dismantle whatever pathetic little life the girl had tried to build and remind her, once and for all, that she couldn't live without her.
I'm unwell. I know I am. The cracks are still there, deep and dark, and I feel like a piece of shattered pottery glued clumsily back together. But... I think I'm feeling better here. Slowly. So slowly it feels like there's no movement at all. But it's there. A single, stubborn green shoot pushing its way through the concrete.
The thought was a fragile thing, a secret I kept even from myself. I was on the school rooftop again, the door propped open with a stray brick, the three of us sitting in a small patch of sun. The chain-link fence that had once looked like a cage now just felt like a border, separating our small, quiet world from the vast, blue sky.
"Here, Abe-san," Yui said, holding out a section of a lacquered bento box. "I made too much tamagoyaki."
Inside, perfect, fluffy rectangles of rolled egg were nestled next to rice balls and small, octopus-shaped sausages.
It was a work of art, a small, edible expression of care. My lunches from Ryouko's staff had always been nutritionally balanced, calorie-counted fuel. This was just... food. Made by a friend.
"Thank you, Akiyama-san," I said, my voice soft as I accepted the egg with my chopsticks. It was sweet and delicious. "You're a really good cook."
Yui's cheeks flushed a light pink, and she ducked her head. "It's nothing special."
"Don't be so modest!" Emi chirped through a mouthful of her own convenience-store bread. "You're amazing! Way better than my mom." She swallowed. "So, did you see Takanashi-kun in chemistry today? I swear he was actually asleep with his eyes open. It's a superpower."
My chopsticks paused mid-air. Ren Takanashi. The boy from the music club. I hadn't seen him since I'd run out of that room. He hadn't been in class this morning, his seat by the window conspicuously empty. My stomach did a nervous little flip.
"He is... intense," Yui offered quietly, pushing her glasses up her nose. "He doesn't talk to anyone. I heard he gets into fights."
"Ooh, a bad boy!" Emi wiggled her eyebrows, then leaned toward me conspiratorially. "Don't you think he's kinda mysterious and cool, Hotaru-chan?"
I felt my own cheeks grow warm. The image of his annoyed, intense face in the doorway flashed in my mind. He hadn't judged my appearance. He had judged me. He had dismissed me. It was infuriating, and for some reason, deeply intriguing. He was the first person in a long time who hadn't looked at me like I was a thing to be consumed. He had looked at me like I was a nuisance. It was, strangely, a relief.
"I don't know him," I said, which was the truest thing I had said all day.
The bell for the end of lunch rang, a shrill sound that broke our peaceful bubble. As we packed up our things and started walking back toward the stairwell, Emi pulled out her phone.
"Oh, man! I can't believe it," she sighed, her bright mood suddenly deflating.
"What's wrong?" Yui asked.
"It's Hoshiko," Emi said, her thumb scrolling down a news article. She held the phone out for us to see. "My favorite artist. She's going on an indefinite hiatus. The article says it's for 'severe nervous exhaustion.'"
My blood ran cold. I stared at the phone screen. It was a picture of me from a magazine shoot, my silver hair fanned out, my smile bright and empty. The headline was stark: HOSHIKO TAKES HIATUS FOR HEALTH, AGENCY ASKS FOR PRIVACY.
Ryouko's press release. The lie, perfectly crafted, now a public truth.
"I knew something was wrong when she postponed her last tour date," Emi continued, her voice filled with genuine sympathy. "She always works so hard. I just... I really hope she's feeling okay, you know? She's been through a lot."
I couldn't breathe. My own life, packaged and sold as a tragic story for public consumption. Emi, this kind, wonderful girl, was a fan. A fan of the ghost I was trying to kill. The irony was a physical pain, a sharp, twisting knife in my gut.
I stared at my own face on her phone, a stranger in a life I had supposedly lived.
"She will be," I heard a voice say, and it took me a second to realize it was my own. It was quiet, but steady. "She will be okay."
Emi looked at me, her sad expression softening into a small smile. "Yeah. You're right."
I looked away
The walk from the rooftop back to the classroom was a silent one. Emi and Yui must have sensed the fragile shell that had formed around me, because they didn't press the subject of Hoshiko. The phone was back in Emi's pocket, but the image of it was burned into my mind: my own face, a stranger's tragedy.
We were turning a corner in the hallway when the crowd of students ahead of us seemed to part, an invisible wave clearing a path. Walking toward us was a girl who moved with the kind of liquid confidence I had only ever seen in runway models. She was tall, with a cascade of glossy, jet-black hair that fell to her waist. Her uniform was immaculate, but she wore it differently from everyone else, as if the clothes were serving her, not the other way around. Her eyes, dark and lined with a subtle sharpness, scanned the hallway with a look of regal boredom.
She stopped directly in front of me, her gaze so direct it felt like a physical touch. Emi and Yui tensed beside me.
"You must be Hotaru Abe," she said. Her voice was a low, smooth melody, captivating and dangerous. A small, knowing smile played on her perfectly shaped lips, which were tinted with a shade of red that was definitely against the school's dress code. "I'm Ayame Kurokawa. The student council vice president."
She extended a hand, not for a handshake, but as a gesture, a delicate wave of her long fingers. "Welcome to our humble little school," she purred, her eyes flicking over me, from my dyed hair down to my shoes, a silent, unnervingly accurate assessment. "I do hope you enjoy your stay."
Without waiting for a reply, she gave me one last, lingering look, a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, and then continued down the hall, the sea of students parting for her once more.
"Whoa," Emi breathed out after she was gone. "Intense."
"That's Kurokawa-senpai," Yui whispered, as if saying her name too loudly was a risk. "She's a third-year. They say she basically runs the school from the shadows."
I just stared after her, a cold shiver tracing its way down my spine. Ryouko was a predator I understood. This girl, with her seductive power and veiled words, was an entirely new and unsettling kind of threat.
My unease followed me into our next class, a feeling of being watched, of being seen in a way I didn't want to be. I slid into my seat, the boy next to me, Ren Takanashi, still conspicuously absent. I tried to focus, to ground myself in this new, normal life.
And then I encountered my first true enemy.
The teacher, a balding, cheerful man, began scrawling on the blackboard with a squeaky piece of chalk.
y = sin(x)f(x) = a (x-h)² + k
It was math.
The numbers and symbols swam before my eyes, a meaningless, ancient script. My education had been in media training, not mathematics. I knew how to calculate the royalty percentage on a record sale, but I had no idea what a parabola was.
The teacher's voice was a cheerful, incomprehensible drone. I looked around the classroom. Students were scribbling in their notebooks. Some looked bored, others confused, but they were all engaged in the struggle. They were participating in this universal, mundane form of torture.
I picked up my mechanical pencil. I stared at the blank page of my notebook. I had faced down crowds of fifty thousand people without flinching. I had endured Ryouko's calculated cruelty. I had survived a fall from the top of the world.
But in that moment, staring at an equation I couldn't even begin to understand, I felt a panic more profound and absolute than anything that had come before. This wasn't a monster I could fight or a performance I could fake. It was a simple, solid wall of my own inadequacy.
This was what it meant to be normal.
And I was completely, utterly lost.
The final bell was a mercy, but it didn't solve the problem. When the other students packed their bags and fled the classroom with the cheerful energy of prisoners being released, I stayed in my seat, frozen. The textbook on my desk felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. The page was a battlefield of letters and numbers, a language of war that I had no hope of understanding.
I stayed there long after the classroom had emptied, long after the sounds of clubs starting up had begun to echo from other parts of the school. I just sat, staring at the page, a profound sense of failure washing over me. The world had presented me with my first normal, everyday obstacle, and I had crumbled.
The sun began to set, casting long, orange fingers of light across the empty desks. I finally gave up. Shoving the hateful book into my new school bag, I stood up, my legs stiff. The school was quiet now. The shouts from the kendo club and the distant, clumsy notes from the brass band had faded. Everyone had gone home.
Walking through the deserted hallways felt strange, my footsteps echoing in the silence. The school felt like a different place without the press of bodies, the constant hum of chatter. It was just a building, empty and waiting.
I turned a corner and saw a single slice of light spilling from a doorway down the hall. The student council room. I quickened my pace, wanting to hurry past, to avoid any possibility of another encounter. But as I drew level with the door, the same smooth, melodic voice from earlier stopped me in my tracks.
"Still here, Abe-san?"
I froze. Ayame Kurokawa was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with an easy grace. She had taken off her uniform jacket, and her white blouse was unbuttoned one button more than regulation. She was holding a pen, tapping it lightly against her chin.
"Having trouble?" she asked, her eyes glinting with an unnerving perception. She gestured with her head for me to come closer. "Don't be shy."
Hesitantly, like an animal approaching a potential trap, I took a few steps toward her. The student council room was immaculate. Polished wood, organized files, a large desk that looked like a throne. It was the complete opposite of the chaotic, creative mess of the music club room. This was a room of power.
"I saw you in math class," she said, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial purr. "You looked like a drowning kitten." She smiled, but it was a smile of analysis, not amusement. "It's a shame. You stand out so much, and yet you're letting something so trivial hold you back."
I just stared, unsure what to say.
She took a step toward me, her sharp perfume cutting through the dusty air of the hallway. "You know, when I first saw you, I thought you were just another piece of coal in the bag. Pretty, but common." She circled me slowly, her eyes raking over me, just as Ryouko once had. "But I was wrong. You're not coal. You're a diamond. A raw one, completely uncut and covered in grime, but a diamond nonetheless."
The words hit me like a physical blow. My breath hitched. It was the same. The exact same metaphor Ryouko had used the day she'd found me in the orphanage. A diamond in the rough that only I can polish.
"You don't belong here, with them," Ayame continued, her voice a seductive whisper. "But you don't know how to navigate this world, do you? You don't have the tools." She stopped directly in front of me, her proximity unnerving. "I can help you with that. I can teach you. The math, the social codes... everything you need to know to shine properly."
My heart was hammering against my ribs. I could see Ryouko's face superimposed over Ayame's, the two of them blurring into a single, terrifying predator.
"Why?" I managed to choke out.
Ayame's smile widened. "I'm graduating next year. I'll be leaving a vacancy. Vice president." She gestured around the immaculate room. "It's a lonely position, and I have a legacy to maintain. I need a successor worthy of it. Maybe one day, you could continue my legacy."
Be grateful. You can't live without me.
The walls of the hallway felt like they were closing in. The air was too thick to breathe. This was the same poison, just in a different bottle. A new cage, presented as a gift.
"I... I have to go," I stammered, taking a clumsy step back. "Chiyo-san will be worried."
I turned and fled, not daring to look back. I didn't stop running until I was out of the school gates and the cool evening air hit my face. Behind me, in the doorway of the student council room, Ayame Kurokawa watched me go, not with satisfaction, but with the keen interest of a biologist studying a fascinating new specimen. She was reading me like a book.
The girl had everything Ayame was looking for in a successor—the face, the body, that unforgettable hair, and an effortless magnetism that had the entire school buzzing. Perfect material. But the fear... that raw, genuine terror in her eyes was a variable Ayame hadn't accounted for. Why would someone with such potential run from an offer of power? The question was a puzzle, and Ayame Kurokawa loved nothing more than a puzzle she could solve, and then control.