Chapter 16: A
The silence in the alley was a physical thing, thick and cold. Mina’s gaze, stripped of its usual playful glint, fixed on him. On the hair she’d just uncovered. Ren’s heart wasn’t pounding; it was vibrating, a trapped hummingbird against his ribs. Every instinct told him to run again, to vanish into the Tokyo maze and never resurface. Let her think Rena was a weirdo. Let the whole idol thing burn.
A sharp gust of wind tore down the alley, carrying the smell of rain and distant garbage. Mina hugged herself, her thin jacket useless against the damp cold. She shivered, a full-body tremor that was entirely genuine. The motion was small, almost pathetic.
The sight of it punctured Ren’s panic. This was Mina. Airheaded, cheerful, relentless Mina who brought him weird veggies and talked to stage props. Who had just, without hesitation, grabbed his hand and pulled him to safety. Abandoning her now, in a dark alley, felt… it felt like something the old Ren would do. The god of gaming wouldn’t care. But the ghost of Rena, the persona that was starting to leave faint fingerprints on his soul, twinged with guilt.
“It’s freezing,” Mina chattered, trying to smile. “I think I lost my good scarf back there.”
Ren let out a long, slow breath, watching it mist in the frigid air. The secret was still safe. She hadn’t seen a guy. She’d just seen a version of ‘Rena’ she didn’t recognize. The disaster was containable. Probably.
“My place is… nearby,” he heard himself say. The voice was Ren’s, lower, lacking Rena’s deliberate softness. He flinched at the sound of it, but Mina just blinked, attributing the roughness to the cold and the run. “You can warm up. Before you head home.”
Mina’s eyes lit up, the tension melting from her shoulders. “Really? You’re a lifesaver, Rena-chan! I thought I was gonna turn into a popsicle!”
The five-minute walk was a study in surreal tension. Ren moved automatically, his mind racing miles ahead. He led her not to Yuna’s glitzy, photographer-ready main entrance, but to a smaller, discrete side door used for deliveries and, evidently, for sneaky siblings. The key turned with a too-loud click.
Yuna’s apartment was never dark. It was a curated ecosystem of light. Neon accents glowed from behind sheer screens, casting everything in hues of electric blue and soft pink. The countless mirrors lining the hallway reflected the light infinitely, making the space feel both vast and intimate. The air, as always, carried the layered scents of hairspray, expensive vanilla perfume, and the faint, ever-present tang of sequin glue.
Mina stepped in and stopped dead. Her jaw went slack. “Whoa.”
It wasn’t the reaction most people had. They usually gasped at the glamour, the controlled chaos of fabric and fashion. Mina’s eyes, however, scanned the generous square footage, the high ceiling, the separate living areas visible from the genkan. “This is… huge. You live here alone?”
Ren kicked off his sneakers, a desperate imitation of feminine grace. “Uh. Yeah. Family property.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.
“Must be nice,” Mina sighed, a hint of genuine, unguarded wistfulness in her voice. She padded into the living room, her eyes wide as she took in the sparkling disorder. “I share a company dorm with three other trainees. My room is basically a closet with a bunk bed. I can touch opposite walls if I stretch my arms out.”
Ren grunted in sympathy before catching himself. He busied himself at the kitchenette, filling the electric kettle. “Sit. I’ll make tea.”
Mina sank into the plush, cream-colored sofa, her body seeming to melt into it. She picked up a throw pillow adorned with a bejeweled skull motif, turning it over in her hands. On the massive wall-screen, a late-night anime channel played silently, colorful sprites battling in a flash of pixelated magic.
Ren brought over two mugs, setting Mina’s on the low lacquer table. He settled at the far end of the sofa, curling his legs beneath him, trying to occupy as little space as possible.
For a while, they just watched the silent screen, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator and the distant, rhythmic thump of bass from a neighbor’s stereo. The normalcy of it was jarring. Five minutes ago, they were running from a mob. Now they were having tea.
“I have five sisters,” Mina said suddenly, her voice quiet against the anime’s visual noise.
Ren glanced at her. She wasn’t looking at him; she was staring into her tea as if reading leaves.
“Five. All older. I’m the baby.” She took a sip. “Our house was… loud. Everything was a hand-me-down. Clothes, schoolbags, dreams. You ever feel like you’re just a photocopy of a photocopy? Fainter every time?”
Ren thought of Yuna. A singularity of will, not a copy of anything. He shook his head.
“I joined C4… I guess because it was the one thing that was just mine,” Mina continued. A faint, embarrassed smile touched her lips. “I know that sounds stupid. ‘Mina Tamura’ is a product, a brand. The agency managers my smile, my twintails, my catchphrases. But when I’m on stage, and the lights are on me, and I’m singing the words I practiced… it doesn’t feel like a performance. It feels like the first original thing I’ve ever done. Which is probably the biggest performance of all, right?”
Her laughter was soft, self-deprecating. It filled the glittering room with a surprising warmth. Ren didn’t know what to say. The Ren part of him wanted to mock the sentimentality. The Rena part, the part that had bowed to thunderous applause, felt a strange, unwelcome knot of understanding in his stomach.
“What about you, Rena-chan?” Mina turned to him, her head leaning against the back of the sofa. The neon light traced the line of her cheek. “You’re so quiet, so… composed. Even when you’re shy, it’s like you’re in your own world. You must be an only child, right?”
The question hung in the perfumed air. It was innocent, conversational. A simple, getting-to-know-you probe.
Ren opened his mouth, a bland denial on his tongue. Yes, only child. No siblings.
The distinct, metallic scrape of a key in the main door lock cut through the apartment’s hum.
Then the crisp, unmistakable sound of designer heels clicking on polished hardwood.
A voice, bright and razor-edged, called out, “Ren-chan? I’m home! And you will not believe the disaster of a manager I had to deal with tonight. He actually suggested chartreuse for the next costumes. Chartreuse! I told him he had the color sense of a moldy lime…”
Yuna’s footsteps clipped closer, accompanied by the rustle of garment bags.
She rounded the corner into the living room, a vision in a tailored ivory pantsuit, her platinum bob sharp as a blade. She was mid-rant, a sleek phone clutched in her hand.
Her eyes landed on the sofa. On Mina, frozen with a pillow in her lap. On Ren, her brother, curled up at the other end, his long hair down, wearing street clothes, his face pale and utterly, utterly bare.
Yuna’s words died.
The phone slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the floor.
The only sound was the anime’s silent, cheerful battle on the screen, casting shifting colors over three faces locked in a perfect, petrified triangle of shock.
(Author Note: Yuna did not expect guess, let alone Mina, her co-worker home)