The Awakening of the Ice Prince

In the great hall of the Shinomiya mansion, the air vibrated with fury.

The wedding announcement, the event that was supposed to seal Japan's most powerful merger, had been postponed indefinitely. The reason was playing on a loop on every screen in the country: a girl with pink hair.

“ This is corporate sabotage! ” roared Ryōma Shinomiya, pounding his fist on the table. " That woman, Kaguya, planned it all! She threw that... that model out of nowhere right at our time slot! ", “ We must sue! ” shouted Akira's father, red with rage. “ Defamation! Unfair competition! Find something dirty on that girl and destroy her! ”

Chaos reigned supreme. Lawyers rushed around with phones, image consultants tried to contain the chaos on social media, and the two patriarchs barked orders.

But in the midst of the hurricane, there was a point of absolute calm. Ren.

He was sitting on a sofa in a corner, one leg crossed over the other, holding his phone. The world around him was burning, but he couldn't hear the screams. His eyes were fixed on the screen. He watched the video over and over again. 

Akira Takashima, who remained aloof from her father's courage, looked at her fiancé. She expected to see the same dead, empty stare she had seen for the past few weeks, the stare of a broken doll who had allowed himself to be measured for a suit without protest. But she noticed something that made her gasp. Ren's eyes. Those eyes, which had been dull and emotionless, like a frozen lake... now sparkled. They sparkled with a terrifying and fascinating intensity.

Ren didn't notice Akira watching him. His mind was working at a speed it hadn't reached in months. Pink hair. Height: 5'3". Facial structure: identical. Clumsiness factor (implied by the nervous look at 0:04): high.

As if a hammer had struck glass, the fog in his brain broke. “ It's her ” he whispered, so softly that no one heard him.

She wasn't just a model. She wasn't a stranger. She was Mio. The girl from Happy Burger. The girl who yelled at him in the alley. The girl who caused him illogical arrhythmias.

When he realized this, his eyes widened. The weight of reality fell upon him. He realized what he had been doing all these weeks. "He had given up. He had allowed his father's pressure to crush him. He had ignored his real family, the ECLIPSE group, leaving their messages unread. "

He had let himself be swept away by the wedding, the merger, the apathy. He had become the zombie his father wanted him to be.

All of that had been consumed without him realizing it. He had been asleep. But that video... that girl... Thanks to Mio, he felt the air return to his lungs. He was able to regain his mental freedom in a second.

Ren clenched his fists on his knees. The rage returned. Not the cold, passive rage, but the fire of rebellion.  "I almost lost myself. I almost let them win. "

He was about to get up. He wanted to yell at his father and Mr. Takashima to go to hell, he wanted to run away, find his gang, find Mio. But he stopped himself. His mind, now awake and sharp again, calculated the odds. " If I rebel now, they'll lock me up for real. They'll cancel ECLIPSE. They'll destroy Mio before I can get to her. "

Ren took a deep breath. The gleam in his eyes sharpened, becoming calculating. He had to keep pretending for his own sake. For Mio's sake. He had to know what his family's plan was. He had to listen to every word of their dirty strategies, every lawsuit plan, every smear tactic. And then, from the inside, he could create his own plan.

Ren turned off his phone screen with one finger. He looked up at his father, his face set in a perfect mask of indifference, even though inside he was burning with rage. “ Father. ” Ren said, his voice cutting through the noise in the room. “ Yelling won't solve the media attention deficit. What's the strategy? ”

Ryōma stopped shouting and looked at his son, surprised but pleased to see him involved. He had no idea that he had just invited the enemy spy into his plans.

Akira, from her corner, saw the change. She saw Ren put his mask back on. But she had seen the sparkle. And for the first time, she felt a chill that was not from fear, but from anticipation. The Ice Prince had awakened.