Chapter 15: Shop
The word hung in the air, a fragile soap bubble between them. Around them, the market’s noise—the sizzle, the chatter, the tinny music from a speaker—seemed to distort, bending inward towards this impossible point.
Ren’s brain short-circuited. Every possible lie evaporated. He just stood there, a potato chip bag clutched in his white-knuckled hand.
Mina didn’t wait for confirmation. She simply stepped closer, over a rolling lemon, her head still cocked. Her eyes, bright with fascinated curiosity, scanned his face. “Wow,” she breathed, her voice dropping from its usual chirp to something softer, more intimate. “Your skin is amazing. Like, really amazing.” Before he could flinch away, her thumb brushed his cheekbone, wiping away a speck of nothing. The touch was casual, professional almost. “What’s your routine? You always have such a full face at the studio, I figured… you know, cover-up.”
Ren’s vocal cords finally unstuck. The sound that came out was a strained, high-pitched thing, a strangled approximation of Rena’s shy giggle. It was horrifying. “Oh! Um. Just… luck? Genetics?” he managed, forcing a smile that felt like a crack in plaster.
“Incredible,” Mina sighed, genuinely awed. Then she blinked, looking at his basket. “You’re shopping? At this hour? Alone?”
“Yep! Just—errands! Boring stuff!” Ren’s survival instinct kicked into overdrive. He needed to be anywhere else. Now. “Really gotta run, Mina-san! See you at practice!”
He turned to bolt, his body moving before his mind could chart a course. He took three frantic steps backwards, meaning to vanish into the stream of people.
His shoulder collided with something solid and unyielding.
A wall of muscle, wrapped in a tight black tank top. Ren rebounded, staggering, his basket flying. Eggs met pavement with a sickening, liquid crunch.
“Oi, watch it—” a deep voice began, then stopped.
Ren looked up, up into the shaved, scowling face of a man whose neck was as wide as his head. The man’s eyes, initially annoyed, darted from Ren’s startled, delicate features to Mina, who had gasped and rushed forward.
And then the scowl melted. The man’s eyes widened, his tough-guy posture softening into something like reverent shock.
“No way,” the man whispered. His voice had lost all its gravel. “No. Freaking. Way. You’re… you’re Mina-chan. And… Rena-chan?”
Ren felt the blood drain from his face. This was worse. This was catastrophic.
The man’s entire demeanor transformed. His face split into a beaming, childlike smile. He flexed his bicep unconsciously. “I’m your biggest fan! I’ve been to every C4 live show in Tokyo for the past year! The ‘Pixel Heart’ concert at Budokan? I was in the third row!”
“Th-thank you so much!” Mina chirped automatically, her idol persona snapping into place with a radiant, practiced smile. She bowed slightly, then glanced nervously at Ren, who was frozen in a pose of pure anguish.
“This is unbelievable,” the fan breathed, his eyes shimmering. He fumbled in the pocket of his track pants and pulled out a permanent marker. “Please. I know it’s sudden. But could I… could I have your autographs?”
He presented the marker and then pointed to his bulging bicep. “Right here. Please.”
Mina, ever the professional, took the marker without hesitation. “Of course! We’re so grateful for your support!” She leaned in, her tongue poking out in concentration as she neatly signed her stage name on the man’s skin.
She stepped back and nudged Ren, her smile unwavering but her eyes screaming at him. Your turn.
Ren’s hand trembled as he took the marker. The man was looking at him with such pure, unadulterated joy. Ren’s mind was a screaming void. He stepped closer, the smell of cheap cologne and sweat filling his nose. He uncapped the marker. The tip hovered over the man’s skin. He had signed as Rena a hundred times now, but never like this, under the bare bulbs of a market, with his own groceries bleeding at his feet.
He scrawled it. The loopy, feminine ‘R’ he’d been forced to practice.
“Rena-chan’s signature is so cute,” the man sighed, gazing at his arm as if it had been blessed by a goddess.
The commotion had drawn eyes. A few people had stopped to watch the large, emotional man getting signed by two girls. Whispers started.
“Is that…?”
“From C4?”
“It’s them! Right there!”
A phone camera flashed. Then another.
The bubble of anonymity popped. The crowd, a slow trickle a moment ago, began to thicken, coagulating around them. Questions bubbled up. Requests for photos, for autographs, for just a touch. The muscular fan was now an inadvertent bodyguard, holding people back with a cheerful, “Give them space, guys!”
But the space was shrinking. Ren could feel the panic, hot and metallic, rising in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. The hoodie felt like a furnace. The beanie itched terribly. He saw more phones, held high, capturing his raw, makeup-free face, his mismatched, desperate eyes.
Mina’s cheerful facade finally showed a crack. A flicker of stress in the tightness around her smile. She saw the terror in Ren’s eyes—not Rena’s shy embarrassment, but raw, animal flight.
In a decisive move, she grabbed Ren’s wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
“We are so, so sorry!” Mina announced, her voice projecting over the growing murmur. “We have a very important appointment right now! Thank you for your love! Please be safe!”
She didn’t wait for a response. She yanked, pulling Ren off-balance. He stumbled after her, his legs obeying out of sheer shock. The crowd, polite but persistent, parted slightly but continued to press.
“This way!” Mina hissed, ducking between two stalls selling pickles and dried fish. She moved with a chaotic, rabbit-like agility, pulling him down a narrow, darker alleyway littered with cardboard boxes. The market sounds faded, replaced by the drip of a leaking pipe and their own frantic, echoing footsteps.
They ran for two blocks, turning corners at random, until the sounds of pursuit died away. Mina finally stopped, leaning against a brick wall under a flickering streetlight, her chest heaving. Ren braced his hands on his knees, gasping, the plastic of his empty, battered basket still looped over his wrist.
Silence settled, broken only by their ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city.
Mina straightened up. She turned to look at him, her expression unreadable in the shadowy light. The cheerful idol was gone. The market-goer with the cucumber was gone. What remained was a quiet young woman.
She reached out slowly and pulled his beanie off.
His long, black hair tumbled down, unmistakable even in the gloom.
The fluorescent buzz of the streetlight filled the space where their voices calmed.
( Author Note: No one in the story should know of Rena being Ren yet or the fact she is actually a guy)