ID Chapter 9

# Chapter 9 - "Moving House"

### Dam-Bi

    There are only a little more than two weeks left until our big debut, and that means that our lives for the immediate future are going to be dominated by three things, and only three things. One of those, obviously, is school. Even though most of us have access to a certain amount of leeway or forgiveness for attending events that I MY ME dubs essential to our work as idols, we are still first and foremost students, and as such are all still expected to get a proper education. Especially those of us for whom I MY ME has a hand in covering our tuition. Rehearsals and practice, as you can imagine, make up a sizable chunk of the rest of our days, as well as vocal lessons, dance lessons, and media coaching. And on that subject, that's the other big time commitment - promoting ourselves and Interlunium to the public! Trying to reach our future fans! We've done television appearances, radio gigs, a couple of mall promotions, manage our new social media accounts almost constantly, and handed out thousands of flyers, all leading up to today, when our tickets officially go on sale to the public. As of today, our debut is *officially* happening! No turning back!

    At the company's recommendation, we're following a fairly standard ticket model. First, a number of tickets were made available for purchase exclusively to members of our official fan clubs. Though, at the moment, only Eimi and I have large enough followings to even have an official fan club, so it's fair to say that they just wanted to use (mostly) her reputation to guarantee they'd sell at least some tickets ahead of the official launch. A handful were distributed to fellow idols in some of the local schools' programs to generate buzz - the idol track girls at Mizoroge, Kinmokusei, and Kikyo - and more got reserved for I MY ME staff and VIPs, or we could make a request for tickets to be given to our families. The rest are going on sale in about two hours, so you know what that means.

    More promotional work!

    Today we're splitting up to canvas the city - putting up posters, handing out flyers, and posing for photos with lucky fans. Not the funnest activity for a chilly November afternoon, but an essential one. And one that requires a cumbersome amount of supplies. The table I'm working at in the dorm's common area - normally used for studying - had been covered nearly completely by piles of glossy color flyers, rolled up posters, and bundles of markers for signing autographs, each sorted into our individual trademark color for our premiere.

    Mine, if you couldn't tell, is purple - the best color! Juney's pens are blue, Hanarin's are red, Megumi's green, Chiyo's and Kanon's are orangish and steely blue, and you-know-who's are a "premium" metallic gold. I also ordered a marker online myself in an iridescent, shiny violet, for those situations where I can't possibly allow anyone to upstage me.

    It's going to drive her crazy!

    I hadn't bothered to count, but there must be at least several thousand sheets of paper in all. While I waited for anyone else to arrive I stuffed them in tote bags bearing the company logo, along with staplers, glue sticks, extra pens, rubber bands, and other tools that may come in necessary to get the advertisements where we want them. I'm expecting this to go pretty much like every outing that isn't managed by Lina directly. When it's a big appearance, Lina tends to figure out all the details like who's going where and who's doing what, so everything is well-planned and ready to go. When it's less organized - like walking around the city and looking cute - certain patterns seem to have formed. Hanarin and Juney tend to pair up in advance, which I suppose makes sense since they're leaving from the exact same room and did this sort of thing together when they were The Twins. Megumi and Eimi - oops, I mean *Miss* Aihara and *Miss* Inagawa - are increasingly attached, always laughing and speaking like they're out of some kind of historical novel. And of course Chiyo and… what are those two ***doing*** today anyway?

    As I've worked on preparing the bags so everyone would be able to grab them and go, Chiyo and Kanon have walked through the commons area at least a half dozen times. Sometimes together, sometimes alone, sometimes traveling one direction or the other, but frequently carrying bags or boxes. It's almost become a game to pass the time, keeping an eye out for them to say hello as they walk by, not so subtlety hinting that I wouldn't mind a little bit of help. By the time I saw them walk by two more times my curiosity got the better of me and I found myself following after them, trying to figure out just what was going on.

    The door to Chiyo's room was half opened when I arrived, and knocking politely pushed it nearly all the way open. The room wasn't much different than the last time I'd been here. It was still fairly dark - the curtains were pulled up barely a third of the way - and it was still quite messy, although the piles of stuff that Chiyo left spread across the floor had been replaced by a couple stacks of boxes and travel bags.

    "Hey, Dam-Bi! Oops!" The room's owner greeted me with a wave, almost dropping the desk that she and Kanon were carrying from one side of the room to the other. Kanon nodded her head in my direction, which given the circumstances was probably a more sensible option. "Come in!"

    "Hi girls! What's going on here?" They concentrated on sliding the desk against the wall under the window with a pair of small, cute grunts, before answering.

    "I'm just mo-"

    "Kanon's moving in! We're gonna be roommates!" Chiyo jumped up and down in place excitedly. Her new roommate nodded quietly in agreement. "I've never had a roommate except Momo! Well, not really!"

    "Really? I'm so glad you two are getting along so well!"

    It has been quite awhile since I'd had a roommate of my own, and even when I did it only lasted as long as my most basic idol training, which - not to brag too much - went by more quickly than average since I was going into the program with some prior performing experience. I MY ME tends to move their idols who debut successfully as solo acts into their own private rooms - and some really big earners even get full company suites - just to avoid their lives being more hectic than they need to be from dealing with another person in their private space. I'm usually quite happy with that arrangement - the amount of closet space is amazing! - but I guess every now and then it can be a bit boring. And, maybe just a *little bit* lonely sometimes.

    "Do you two need help moving anything else down from Kanon's old room? I'm kind of bored of dealing with flyers!" I've never been in Kanon's old room, but the amount of boxes seemed about right for how much a girl usually keeps in the dorms. It didn't appear though that they'd moved any of the furniture yet… and judging by their efforts with the desk, a little extra muscle probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

    "This was the last of it!"

    "Yeah… I don't really have that much stuff…"

    "Oh, well, alright." It wasn't that weird to share a desk I guess, especially with the study area available right down the hall, but something about the arrangement still seemed a little… "Hey Kanon? Don't you need a bed?"

    Chiyo broke out into a fit of giggles as soon as I asked about their sleeping arrangements.

    "I have a futon boxed up."

    "Yeah! Kanon likes to nest on the floor. She's like a hamster like that!" Kanon's face blushed fairly red. Mine probably would too if I'd just been compared to a hamster that enthusiastically - though knowing Chiyo she probably meant it as a compliment.

    "It's not the floor specifically. I can just sleep pretty much anywhere, and sometimes the bed is too small…"

    "She kicks in her sleep sometimes too. Also just like Momo, but bigger and harder to ignore."

    "Sounds dangerous." And highly unusual, but calling attention to that wouldn't be polite and risked embarrassing Kanon even more. "You're sure it wasn't safer with the common area separating you?"

    "Nope!" Chiyo raised a high pitched objection. "This was the only way it'd work! We need followers on our media accounts."

    Try as I might, I couldn't think of a single way for that reasoning to make any sense. Chiyo seemed unwilling to provide any context or elaboration despite my clearly puzzled expression. Looking over to my other junior she appeared just about as confused until something seemed to click into place.

    "Ah. Chiyo's most popular posts are of Momo, but she can't always get the best angles with a selfie. So…" She held up a hand and made a clicking motion with her forefinger while looking at Chiyo. "I'm a hamster photographer now, I guess."

    "She's a genius! I barely had any followers and I felt really bad because I wasn't reaching anyone to promote our group. But then one day coming back from school she told me to post a photo of Momo and people started sharing it because she's so cute and then the more we posted the more people started following us and now Momo even has her own account and her own fans! Guess what they're called!" In her excitement, Chiyo sat back onto her mattress with a bounce.

    "Uh…"

    "Here! They have more fans than I do now. Cool, right?" Kanon opened up something on her phone and handed it over to me. An app was opened to a social media account with a big, colorful header that spelt out the word "Momolunium", and pictures of Momo by herself or cropped from Chiyo's photos made up the majority of posts. The rest were mostly facts about hamsters in general and details about Momo in particular, and some of the posts had hundreds of comments underneath them. Chiyo had already bounced up off the bed and gone over to check on Momo in her cage, reaching in and giving her some sort of hamster treat, then came over and caught her new roommate in a giant hug from behind, making her look somehow even more embarrassed.

    "They're called Momotaku and they call Momo 'Momoshi'! And it's all thanks to Kanon!"

    "Well, Momo is super adorable. It's no wonder people love her. You'll have to teach her how to sign autographs."

    "We tried!" Kanon took a large breath once Chiyo let go of her to bounce back toward the hamster cage and grab something. She held it up - a deformed gel pen, the same sort we use to autograph photos for fans. "She just chewed it up really good!"

    I giggled and smiled. I had meant it as a joke, but of course it was an idea that Chiyo had already thought of, albeit completely seriously. "Well, don't be late! We're all meeting up soon to start canvassing the city. Make sure to wear the outfits Lina picked out, and dress warm underneath. It's chilly out there!" I thought about something for a moment, then decided I'd better mention it just in case. "And make sure to leave Momo here. You don't want to get mobbed by her fans without security!"

    "You're right!" Chiyo gasped. "Sorry Momo, it's not safe out there for hamsters, so we'll have to take some pictures later tonight when we get back."

    "Need help getting stuff ready?" Kanon pointed at the bag I'd not bothered to set down in my hurry to follow them.

    "I'd appreciate it! But don't you have to unpack your stuff? You'll probably be exhausted by the time you get back here later." The roommates exchanged a glance, and somehow wordlessly came to a consensus, shrugging at the same time.

    "Nah. We can just share the bed tonight if we're too tired. We both fit when Kanon keeps her feet to herself. We'll probably just play video games right now if we stay here!" They had apparently become even better friends than I'd realized if that was the sort of thing they were comfortable with. I'm not sure there's really anyone I'd trust to share a bed with me - especially if they have a habit of kicking in their sleep - but then again I'm not sure I'm the type who can fall asleep absolutely anywhere either. But I couldn't help being happy that they'd bonded so closely so soon.

    "Alright, come on then girls! We've got bags to stuff!"

\_\_\_\_

# Chapter Navigation

* Next Chapter
* Previous Chapter
* Back to Contents