ID Chapter 12

# Chapter Twelve - "Ms. Aihara"

### Eimi

    "I can't believe we're already done for the evening, Ms. Inagawa. We make a very efficient team. That felt like it took no time at all."

    "That's because it didn't take any time at all. That was nothing. We didn't even have a thousand flyers each to hand out. Plus, we started early because I thought this was going to be a marathon or something. One time, right before my second album got released, Goro had me out for eight hours straight handing out 'limited edition' flyers. In a miniskirt. And it was snowing! Charged ¥3000 a pop for a signature too. I'm not used to slacking off like this. It's…"

    "Relaxing?"

    "It's not though! I know there's a bunch of us so we're doing more work than it feels like, but it's nerve-wracking. I'm afraid to even check the ticket numbers… usually by now Goro'd be calling around to VIPs offering the last seats for triple the sale price, and Lina hasn't even sent out a text! What if this whole thing ends up-"

    "Ms. Inagawa!" Megumi, despite my telling her not to bother putting on airs with me, still insists on being the utmost model of a proper young lady - at least as far as using my name goes. In a lot of other ways though, she's mellowed out considerably, at least when it's just the two of us. Not enough that she acts like any less of a weirdo, but at least we're both aware of the other's charade. Or maybe it's just that we can see through each other's acting a bit better than the rest of our group, and so a lot of the airs we put on just seem pointless when it's only the two of us. It's basically a game to see how far we can disguise our true selves anyway, and maybe she's better at it than I am, but little by little I'm wearing her down. Not that she ever really drops the act. It's almost - *almost* - enough to make me wonder if this is actually what she's really like, but it's all too perfect. Like, to come full circle, "Ms. Inagawa… perhaps there's such a thing as too much publicity? If all seven of us worked as hard as you grew accustomed to by yourself, then we may meet a point of diminishing returns. Plus…" She reached across the table with a plastic fork, skewering half of a plump cherry from my plate. "There's still more than two weeks until we debut. I'm sure Ms. Fujimura already has plenty of advertising planned for us."

    She popped the fruit into her mouth daintily, careful to remove it from the fork without scraping it with her teeth.

    I was saving that bite, too…

    That's why it was pushed to the side of the plate instead of eating it straight away. The fruit tart I'd treated myself to - completely at her insistence, since going back to the dorm so early felt completely wrong - was a mix of strawberries, plums, and apple slices on a bed of sweet creme with a few cherries on top as a garnish. The rest are all in season so are easy enough to get delivered to the dorms, but the cherries must have been imported or grown out of season in a greenhouse or something, and that was the best looking one…

    She's lucky she's one of the few people I'd let do that. In fact, I'm not sure who else I would let get away with something like that and not hold it against them *immediately*. Counting all my friends, and removing the ones I haven't talked to in ages, and ditching the ones who are just nice because they're scared or want to hitch a ride on my success, then that would mean that, at this exact moment, Megumi is probably the only person who could get away with this without getting - at the minimum - a hard smack on her hand. Maybe one of three or four if I were allowed to punish them just a *little* bit. The worst part though was the wry smile she made as she chewed which made it clear that Megumi knew exactly what she was doing, and that we had, at least casually, become friends - even though neither of us were the type to need to do anything dumb like actually say it out loud to confirm it with the other.

    Despite having so far eaten only the fruit and a bit of the creme underneath, which already had enough calories thanks to the sugary syrup in which it was baked, and deliberately having avoided any of the tart's carbohydrate-dense crust, I blew my diet by stealing a fork full of Megumi's castella. Fair is fair. Predictably, she didn't react at all to my helping myself to her dessert. It's possible that she had simply anticipated it when she stole my cherry, but I guess it could also be that sharing desserts is just the sort of thing friends do…

    My uncertainty in that thought made me a little bit mad at no one in particular.

    "If I get fat before the debut, it's all your fault *Ms. Aihara.*"

    "Maybe we should ask the costume department to let your dresses out an inch?" She skewered yet another piece of cherry from my plate and smiled in that infuriating way she seems to always be smiling. "Just to be safe, of course. That's why I never eat after seven in the evening, myself."

    "It's after seven now, *Ms. Aihara.*"

    "Is it? I suppose I just lose all control of myself when we're together." She lowered her face and batted her eyelashes in my direction, ending with a pronounced wink of her right eye. I wasn't distracted in the least from her fork stealthily invading back across the table.

    "Don't eat all the cherries! At least eat some plum… that's the worst part. And stop hogging the cake." Megumi laughed as she bit into another of my cherries. "And you wish I'd gain weight! I'm going to look better than ever on stage, so you'd better stop with the cake or nobody's even going to want to look at you!"

    "You mean all this time you haven't looked your best? In that case, I look forward to seeing it. As for the cake, I think you're right. Thank you for keeping such a close eye on me figure. You can finish it."

    "Thanks. It's pretty… hey! At least help finish it. It's rude to waste this much of it."

    "Alright, Ms. Inagawa. If you insist. I'd hate for you to think I'm being rude, after all. Maybe I'll be lucky and end up with a physique like yours if I put on a few pounds. I could certainly do worse."

    "*Ms. Aihara*, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that coming out of your mouth."

    Megumi is - among other things - a talented koto player, multilingual, an expert in hair care, pretty cute if you're into the whole traditional look, and one of the few people I've met who may possibly be smarter than I am in certain extremely limited subjects. That's why she and I seem to get along - odd as she is, she isn't completely dull to talk to. She's also a shameless flirt. Not that anyone but me seems to have noticed - at least they never seem to take her compliments as anything but innocent praise - but I'm pretty sure that's why she seems to enjoy it so much. She tries - and succeeds - in getting away with saying things that clash so much with her image as a perfect little lady that nobody even catches what she's gotten away with.

    "I don't think that there's anything about your figure that I'd change in the slightest, *Ms. Aihara*. At least, not from what you've let me see of it."

    Ok, so maybe there's a few reasons why we get along…

    Eventually though one of us will blink and back down. It's like sparring, except instead of swords or martial arts we use our charisma and charm. Originally, once I called her bluff, it was almost always her who would get flustered first, but now that we're both kind of used to it… well, I still usually win, but it's starting to get pretty close.

    "Do you think we should go help them out?" My companion deftly deflected my insinuation by ignoring it and pointing out the bakery's large front window. By "them", she means our two juniors outside on the sidewalk handing out flyers and taking photos with kids even younger than they are - a rookie mistake, since kids aren't gonna be able to afford to buy tickets, are they?

    "Think they'll learn their lesson if we do? They didn't even go fifteen minutes away from the dorm. This street doesn't even get all that much traffic."

    "So you theorize that they'll learn better with 'tough love' than with your expert guidance?"

    "They can always be coached to do better afterward, *Ms. Aihara*. Handling themselves on stage is one thing, but out there in the real world…" I smacked my left hand against the tabletop. Not so hard that it stung or anything. Just enough to make my point that the world can be a tough place to get ahead in, and that it's better they take their lumps outside of a nice bakery than under an overpass or in one of Tokyo's seedy areas. Megumi made the same dumb grin she always makes when she thinks she's about to be clever with a retort. "Oh, wipe that smile off your face. Here." A hastily presented forkful of fruit found itself about an inch from said grin. She looked shocked for a split second before helping herself to the offered morsel, chewing the compote slowly. A faint pink blush of embarrassment washed over her pale cheeks as she swallowed the bite, slightly quicker to realize the faux pas than I was.

    "Why thank you, Ms. Inagawa. Your dessert really tastes quite delightful today. That was the best bite yet. Please, let me repay your generosity." She scooped a huge chunk of her cake up with her own fork and repeated my actions, practically shoving it into my lips. I took an appropriate bite - rather than the mammoth portion she had prepared - and ate it as she stared in that calm, steady way she does. Her hand, holding the fork and the other half of her serving, stayed put precisely where she had first positioned it. She wasn't going to let it go.

    I closed my eyes and removed the rest of the cake, suppressing a shudder that ran down my spine and narrowly avoiding choking on it.

    *Gross!*

    I washed out my mouth with a large swig of my green tea.

    "Goodness, are you ok? Was it not to your liking?"

    "I'm fine! Ahem." I had to clear my throat a couple times. "I'm just not used to… such generous portions."

    "My apologies. Please forgive me, Ms. Inagawa. I'll keep that in mind for the future."

    "Please do, *Ms. Aihara*. Young ladies such as ourselves are, afterall, exceptionally delicate creatures." Even I couldn't keep a straight face as I said that last bit. I could be accused of being a whole lot of things, but delicate isn't one of them.

    "Then I shall make sure to be as gentle as possible in all our future time together." Megumi took another small bite of my tart - which I now had proof that she was capable of judging - her emerald eyes growing wide the moment her fork entered her mouth. I laughed at the ridiculous face she made before she caught herself and regained some composure and, once again, changed the subject. "Something occurs to me that you may find interesting. I may have forgotten - and of course I beg of you to accept my apology if I did - but when you joined our group, did anyone tell you what our group name means?"

    "It's when there's a new moon, right? Like, the opposite of a full moon."

    "Oh, someone must have told you already. It's a lovely word, isn't it?"

    "Nah. Latine loquor copiose. Well, more or less. I don't think I've really needed to speak it in years, but one of my tutors made me study it as a kid. But yes, it's a very attractive sounding word." I was rewarded for my knowledge with a rare glimpse of Megumi without her mask. Despite how much we've been hanging out on our little walks around the city, she had evidently not seen far enough past my acting to actually know all that much about the real me. It's, of course, one thing to tell when someone is pretending to be something different than what they really are. It's a whole different set of skills to discern exactly what is being obscured by the lies. Not that I'm any better… We both seem to have the first in ample supply, but not a lot of the second. I doubt that either of us actually know the first thing about the other that isn't obvious from our usual demeanors. Then again, it's that exact fact that makes spending time with Megumi interesting. Most people are ridiculously easy to read - like, for example, our other group mates - but I'm still convinced that there's some surprises hidden somewhere inside of her that may be worth discovering. For some reason, which I don't entirely understand…

    "Ms. Inagawa, what a lovely surprise to discover about you. Do you know what I like the best about the word?"

    "I could hazard a guess, but that would be rude of me. So what do you like best about it, *Ms. Aihara*?"

    "I think, more than anything, I quite like the symbolism. A new moon after one wanes away evokes a feeling of a new start, wouldn't you say? Like a second chance to grow into what we could be and shine brightly. Though, as I'm positive you also know, the moon isn't itself luminous. It merely reflects the light from the sun that we otherwise wouldn't see in the night sky. I think that's quite beautiful. Each of us reflects each other's light to make something brilliant where it wouldn't otherwise be seen." Midway through her impassioned speech her attitude shifted from a look of genuine wonder to a much more familiar smirk, her eyes - which always seem to be greener when she looks a little bit devious - focusing on me with curious precision like I had a horn growing out of my head or something. At first I thought it was an attempt to turn her explanation - which was actually quite well thought out and eloquent - into some kind of line to get a reaction, but on my second bite of castella cake I realized what she found so amusing. This time my reaction to sharing a fork was much less pronounced - hardly even a reaction at all. If I were gonna catch something from Megumi I had already caught it, so it's not like any more exposure was going to make it worse. At least, that's what I told myself. "I think that it's quite accurate, wouldn't you say? For so many of us this group is our second chance. Probably our last chance. Not for you, of course, but for most of us. That's why it's so wonderful that you've joined Interlunium. We needed a star to provide the light for us to reflect, and you provided us with that."

    A hot tingle filled my ears at hearing such blatant flattery come out of my friend with not so much as a hint of exaggeration or innuendo. Her usual delivery - with well-practiced timing for maximum effect when she wants to get a rise out of me - was completely lacking. It was as if she actually meant what she was saying.

    "Geeze! That's not fair saying that kind of stuff, you weirdo. How am I supposed to respond to that?"

    "Well then, perhaps we'd best forgo the remainder of our desserts and call it an evening? You made an excellent point about needing to watch our figures as we prepare for the big day."

    "I think that's an excellent idea, *Ms. Aihara*. Shall we depart?"

    A quick nod ended our business at the bakery. We stood up and brushed off any wayward crumbs from our clothes, depositing our leftovers in the waste bin before heading back into the autumn chill. As I stepped through the door onto the sidewalk I jolted straight upright, a single, sudden blunt impact striking me from behind and causing me to cry out in surprise. Spinning around to wallop the perv who'd assaulted me, it turned out to be exactly who, in retrospect, I should have expected.

    "What the heck?!" Megumi laughed - actually laughed, not tittering like some little lady but how a normal girl laughs - at my embarrassment.

    "I'm sorry, Eimi! I'm sorry!" The words barely came out as coherent through her laughter. "I just got the idea, and then…" Her explanation trailed off into a fit of snickers and giggles the likes of which I'd have barely guessed the girl was capable of. I ended up shoving her along the sidewalk sternly until I started to laugh along with her, the humor becoming evident as the sting to my pride faded.

    "Just wait until tomorrow! I'm gonna get you back way worse! What if Chiyo or Kanon saw you do that?! And walk in front of me!"

    "Ok, ok! Stop pushing! I promise I'll be on my best behavior!" Megumi regained control of her voice within half a block, slowly drawing herself back into step with her usual, perfectly dignified demeanor. Right as we crossed the street away from the bakery, she decided to push her luck. "Need me to kis-"

    Which I ignored, not because I was tired of our game or didn't want to get revenge for that line she had so casually crossed, but because something had caught my eye on the other side of the street and the crossing signal chose just that moment to turn green. I grabbed Megumi's left hand and dragged her across at full speed, bringing us to a stop in front of a thick wooden utility pole. At least I assumed it was wooden because its inner core had long since been papered over by layer upon layer of flyers and staples, pretty much everything ranging from notices of sales at local businesses to what had drawn my eye - advertisements for idols. It wasn't one of mine - though odds were good that I was lurking there somewhere underneath the surface - but rather an image of three attractive young men. They were, in fact, fellow idols at I MY ME who were going to debut pretty much at the same time we are, give or take a day or two. They also happen to be produced by Goro Matsubara, the sleazeball who had been my producer up until a couple months ago. The boy on the right - my right - had a face that looked like it was begging to be punched. Just… such a punchable face, no matter how cute it was. The younger boy in the middle was cute enough, but looked like he was higher maintenance than anyone in their right mind would go for. The guy on the left, however, was giving off serious bad boy vibes. Dyed blonde hair, smoldering eyes, just the hint of a snarl on his lips.

    It was no wonder he had his look down… he'd learned from watching the best as we grew up together.

    "Megumi! Look at this! What do you think?!" As expected, she scanned the poster in the same way she perused through a textbook. Her eyes didn't even linger on the center of the image like you would tend to do when confronted with a photo of three pretty hot guys, regarding them with little more attention than she gave the choice of font or color of the background. Finally, she chuckled.

    "The name is rather forcing the aesthetic they seem to be trying to promote, isn't it? The three-headed canines of the underworld, combined with that style of clothing and that silly chair. So scary." She snickered lightly at her own assessment. "It's awfully Western, but I think it will probably appeal to more modern sensibilities."

    "Well, yeah, but which one's your favorite?"

    "It's impossible to say just by seeing them. I'd need to hear or see them first to know their skills and appeal."

    "What? No you don't. They're hot boys! Which one is your type?"

    "Well… hmm…" She once again leaned into the poster, scrutinizing the three choices carefully, pausing to look at me watching her every few moments. After what had to be too long - who takes that much time to decide who they find the most attractive out of only three choices? - Megumi finally graced me with an answer. "If I had to choose, I would say the one on my left."

    "I knew it! That's Hayate! I really hope he does well. We've been friends since we were little kids!" We'd *been* friends, that's undeniable, but as per my recent reckoning… were we still actually friends after not having done much of anything especially friendly in a couple of years? That thought was inconveniently complicated, so I chose to ignore it and keep my excitement focused on a simple reading of the situation - I was still happy to see that Hayate had decided to follow in my footsteps and hope that he finds success, even if I probably hadn't actually been on his mind when he did so. "What do you like about him?"

    "I think I probably just have a thing for blondes." She lifted her hand, still absentmindedly gripped in my excitement, and gave me another of her insufferable winks. Megumi, the very first time we hung out, had told me that I have trouble keeping my composure when I'm taken by surprise, and today she was being ruthless in taking me by surprise - to the point that I became completely tongue-tied as I yanked my hand away. Unable to give her a proper verbal punishment I opted for the next best thing, causing her to jump slightly at the returned blow - I only wanted to punish her, not *hurt* her - and take a few steps away from me.

    I really hope that this doesn't become a regular occurrence. That would be hard to explain to everyone else…

    "Truce, Ms. Inagawa?"

    "Ok, Ms. Aihara. Truce." I added, under my breath, "until tomorrow."

    "In that case, the gentleman in the middle looks the kindest, so absent any other information I would be forced to select him."

    "Really?" I guess there's no accounting for personal taste, though with the amount of effort she puts into keeping her waist-length hair as silky and straight as she does, perhaps she has a different threshold for what she considers high maintenance. Maybe they'd even learn some things from each other about beauty regimens? She gave me a nod to confirm that this wasn't just another feint and, that matter being settled, we resumed our walk home.

    "Ms. Inagawa, there's a music shop I frequent which has received some sheet music for the koto which I've been wanting to add to my collection. I was planning on running an errand downtown this weekend to collect it. If you'd like, you could join me."

    My confusion over the abrupt new topic must have been clear, because I didn't even have to ask Megumi to clarify. I know the kind of store she's talking about. An entire day surrounded by dusty old shelves full of boring old classical music. What an awful way to spend a Saturday.

    "I think that'll be a pass. That much paper always tends to make my allergies go crazy, and that's kind of your thing, ya know?"

    "I understand. It was just an idle thought."

    We walked on quietly through the chilly street, and I felt slightly awful. After all the things I'd said deliberately to so many people without feeling a hint of remorse, it was this sloppy reply that was somehow managing to make me feel lousy? All over what, some dumb sheet music? Is this one of those things where it isn't really about what it's about?

    Looking at things like that, and combining it with this annoying guilty knot in my stomach, then adding to that the way that Megumi's eyes betrayed the fakeness of her polite smile, and finally weighing the fact that I actually didn't have any concrete plans for what I was doing this Saturday before rehearsals, I guess it only makes sense to do this one stupid little thing if it will make Megumi happy. Or… whatever. We were in the lobby of our building in no time at all, and I was nearly to the elevator I'd be taking up to my room before I figured out how this friend thing is supposed to work.

    "Hey, Megumi…" I can't believe I was going to be this lame. Growing up, I had never really been in a position like this, and that's been even more true since I became somewhat famous. If I wanted something, I got it. That's all there was to it. New clothes? Someone took me shopping with dad's credit card. Tickets to concerts? Somebody would take me, usually alone but sometimes my cousins or other family would come along. If I wanted to play, it was literally people's job to keep me entertained, whether it meant playing tag or hide and seek or taking me to the beach to go swimming with Hayate. If money could buy it, then I could have it. It's a pretty simple equation when you think about it. But then that annoying brunette had to come along with all her friends and flaunt things that money can't buy and made things all complicated. Because I don't like it when I can't have what I want, and what I don't have right now is, mostly… "Megumi, are we friends?"

    "Ms. Inagawa?"

    "It's not… never mind! I'm gonna go to bed!"

    I jammed my finger into the elevator's call button and deliberately faced the wall, despite being close enough to it that parts of me were touching. The large number five above the entrance lit up. Just my luck, the thing was near the top of the building. I glanced over my shoulder back at the lobby. She hadn't taken the hint and was still standing there like some sort of creepy statue. Even though I knew it wouldn't help, I pressed the button again a few times aggressively. The light moved to the indicator for the fourth floor, then the third, and then I was thoroughly distracted by the feeling of someone breathing on the back of my neck before I could see it hit the two. By the time the door chimed and opened, I was being held in place by a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind.

    "What d'you think you're-"

    "I don't know, but I think this is what friends do when one of them is upset, Ms. Inagawa." I struggled a little bit against her grip on me. Just… not as much as I could have. Megumi was warm. Whether she always ran that way or if she just happened to warm up quickly in the lobby I couldn't yet say, but having someone do this felt kind of nice, in an embarrassing sort of way. "At least, it's what Ms. Hanazawa seems to do an awful lot."

    "Ok, ok, I get it! Lemme go!" She half let me go and half got shaken off of me, allowing me to turn and face my assailant. "I'm not upset! I just thought about it, and I have some extra time this weekend, so I guess we can go downtown together or whatever. But only if we're actually friends! It's not worth my time if you're just messing around with me. And for the fiftieth time, call me 'Eimi'."

    Megumi's mood improved dramatically. Like most aspects of Megumi this was probably not discernable to the average person, but the way the muscles in the corners of her mouth tightened slightly made her smile look much more authentic, and the glimmer in her eye was something that can't really be faked. I know, because if it could be faked, I'd know how, and I'd be doing it. The knot in my stomach untied itself at the sight of her happiness, and I felt a warmth glowing in its place that I hadn't felt since I was younger. Not since those summer days all those years ago…

    "Thank you, Ms. Ina… Thank you, Eimi. I'll appreciate your company. We should do something you'd like as well while we're out."

    "Okay then. I kinda wanna take a trip to the beach all of a sudden."

    "This time of year? I'm not sure it's the best time to go for a swim, unless you intend to freeze yourself." Megumi for once had been taken by surprise and had a distinctly confused look from my complete lack of context. She was assuming the wrong activity. "Perhaps an onsen or an indoor pool would suit your desire more appropriately?"

    "No, not to swim." An onsen with Megumi? No. Nuh-uh. Not my kind of thing at all. "I just like the beach. Walking around, looking at the rocks and seashells… it's relaxing."

    "Oh. In that case, that does sound rather relaxing. I suppose we'll make a day of it then."

    "Yeah, I guess it's a… whatever it is." The expression is usually "it's a date", but that's the entirely wrong word. It's whatever friends call it when they make plans together. Which I guess is still a sort of date. "Well, now I really am going to go get ready for bed. Tomorrow let's try to pass out enough flyers to make it worth our time, ok? And no extra desserts."

    "Goodnight then, Ms… Goodnight Eimi. That's going to take some getting used to." She raised her eyebrows in an arch and winked. I guess we were still going to be doing this. "Unless, of course, you'd like to take your evening b-"

    I turned Megumi around by the shoulders and pushed her away from the elevators, in the direction of her room. Walking quickly back to the elevator I pressed the call button and, luckily, the doors opened immediately

    "Go to bed, I don't want to see you again until tomorrow, got it?"

    "I'll try my best, Eimi, but I can't promise I won't be in your dreams."

    The doors finished closing right as she finished speaking - probably on purpose, due to her almost supernatural sense of timing - and my best angry face was wasted on an empty elevator.

    Though, at least nobody was around to hear how hard I was laughing.

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