11th of January, 9:00 pm, 100 EMOJI! Productions' studio
"Kana, you got this," she murmured to her own reflection in the big mirror in front of her. The room she was in was huge. It was easily big enough for 25 people to prepare, yet she was completely alone in it. Not even Miyako made it on time, even though she promised to come.
The bright overhead lights beamed down onto Kana as she put on her makeup with shaky hands, messing up, redrawing, and becoming increasingly frustrated with the situation. She didn't plan on using much makeup, no more than before. Perhaps she would've looked better with more make-up, but that was beside the point, since the true value of integrity was worth far more than to please parts of the audience. Yet, deep down, she knew that something had changed that day — something big. She just didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.
She glanced down at her phone, lying on the almost empty table in front of her. It was about 25 minutes until her program would begin. Everything up until this point was going exactly like she had imagined. She looked into everything, and the production team was hopefully clueless about her plans. Yet, for some reason, she just kept messing up her makeup; no matter what she did, her heartbeat just wouldn't regulate itself.
"Why am I so nervous all of a sudden? I wasn't nervous like that in ages…" Kana said to her reflection as she used her other hand to keep her shaking hand stable enough to finally apply her makeup. "This is not good at all…"
"Maybe it's my body telling me that I don't deserve this. Maybe I'm destined to make a fool of myself today…" Kana murmured as she got up from the chair and walked over to the bathroom connected to the room, scrubbing the sweat away from her shaking hands. "Who cares?" she said as she looked up into the mirror over the sink.
"Kamiki said nobody deserves anything… That if I want it, I should just take it… I start to think that he might've been right, after all." She turned the water off again and dried her hands before stepping back into the painfully bright room, void of any other person, just Kana.
She glanced at her phone one last time and quietly gasped as she saw that she had only 10 more minutes until they'd go live on air. She quickly went over her entire attire again, while her heart was still almost jumping out of her chest. Thinking back to Kamiki's advice didn't help one bit; it probably just made it all a lot worse.
She hurriedly left the room and walked down a long and gloomy corridor. A few production members seemed to be talking to each other, but they quieted down as soon as Kana came close enough for her to hear.
They are talking about me…
I bet they are in on everything…
They want to bring me down, too.
Everybody in this building knows…
I should just go…
I don't want this…
I bet they'll laugh at me the second I am out of hearing range.
She sped up, unable to bear the feeling of their gazes lying on her neck, watching her every move. Then she quickly entered another room, finally alone again. She stood with her back pressed against the door, her heart jumping all the way up in her throat. The room was really dark, with only a small ray of light coming from the almost completely shut curtains on the other end of it.
Kana slowly inched closer to the curtains, peeking through them like a scared child as soon as she was close enough. On the other side of it was a stage. On top of it was nothing more than a temporary wall, blocking the viewer's line of sight; two chairs; and an empty table in between them. What scared her more was what lay beyond the stage. It was a massive live audience, easily hundreds of people sitting and glaring down at the stage.
Kana knew what she was getting into, yet her heart still almost stopped as she saw this. She had to fight against it with all her might, grabbing the curtains with both hands to ground her in reality. Then, when she was about to slip away, she could feel the faint vibration of her phone in her pocket.
She held her breath for a long moment as she slowly pulled her phone out and lit up the screen. She looked at it for a good minute; then she smiled and turned it off before shoving it back.
A moment later, she pulled the curtains open. Her eyes snapped shut as her face was hit by the blinding lights of the studio floodlight. It felt warm against her skin, like a gentle breeze in the summer. Another faint smile crept onto her face. She was fully engulfed in her own world right now; so focused on herself, she barely noticed anything around her. "I'm home," she whispered as she finally opened her eyes again.
11th of January, 9:20 pm, Streets of Tokyo
Ruby had been searching for Aqua all day long. She hadn't walked this much on a single day ever before. In her past life, she would've even believed it to be impossible for her to walk this much, but now here she was.
Yet, she hadn't even found a single lead to Aqua's whereabouts. After Ichigo and the producer were no help whatsoever, and Akane just wouldn't pick up her phone, Ruby just began to randomly search through Tokyo, desperately clinging to the slight chance that she was in the favor of the gods.
The air around her was quiet, and barely anyone else was on the streets alongside her right now. All the stores around her had already closed shop for today, their window fronts giving off a gloomy presence. Ruby would've never admitted it, but she had become more and more bored with the search, her eyes wandering from advert to advert in the storefronts.
Then her eyes landed on one that made her halt; it was really not that special. It was something about horses, yet it reminded Ruby of something really important. "Good, it hasn't started yet," Ruby whispered.
"Kana, I wanted to apologize, this time for real," Ruby began to text, while her fingers were threatening to freeze off, but she kept going regardless.
'I think I never told you, but I've always sorta looked up to you in a way. I know this probably sounds corny as hell, but you always guided me in the right direction. So please, don't let a few dumb words I said to you in the heat of the moment get to your head too much. I don't want to see you give up, especially if it would be my fault. So Loli-Senpai, you'd better get off your butt and deliver a performance.'
11th of January, 9:30 pm, 100 EMOJI! Productions' studio
"Today, I am pleased to announce that the idol Arima Kana will join us for our late evening show on this beautiful January night. She was viciously attacked a few weeks back and has just recently decided to show herself again. For this very special occasion, I am honored to announce that she has picked our program," the moderator, Daniel Brown, said, his attention directed at the crowd. The stage was set up in a way that the audience could only see Kana's shadow.
Daniel sat back down in his chair and looked at Kana, staying silent for a short moment before he spoke, "So, Kana, do you want to add anything?"
"Actually yes," Kana says, "I am an actress, not an idol."
Daniel's demeanor fell slightly. But then he smirked in a way that made a cold shiver run down Kana's spine. He gave a hand signal and then spoke. Right as he began, the wall, which protected Kana from the hungry gazes of the crowd, was ripped away. "Alright, Kana the actress, then tell me. How does it feel?" He motioned over to her with his hands. "To look like… that… all of a sudden."