Borrowed Light, Temporary

The morning meeting the next day is brutal, but they always are.

“I was hoping to catch you when you weren’t hungover,” Fuma says after, pressing an energy drink into her hand, “but I'm not sure I've ever seen you not hungover. Please don't let HR catch you.”

She accepts this with a grimace. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I wanted to ask what Harua wanted. He’s a good kid, but management’s worried that he’s acting out. We’re supposed to keep tabs on him.”

Ah. Hakaze likes Fuma; they work well together, their tastes and talents are pretty aligned. But Hakaze’s still more ex-idol than agency employee, so she doesn’t even think before she responds, “It’s some unbelievably corny shit. He wanted Nao’s signature. I’m gonna make him work for it, don’t worry.”

His shoulders untense. “That’s a relief. Neonite’s popularity has started to spook the execs, since the whole company’s basically dependent on them right now. If Harua’s solo goes well then it’s going to get even worse, and if something happens it's going to be even worse than the Reina scandal. Ah—” He goes beet red. “I didn’t mean to bring up something painful.”

Hakaze just grins. “Nope, that’s valid. Have you heard anything about what they’re planning to do about it?”

“As far as I can tell, the new group’s supposed to take some of the heat off. If Harua’s album explodes before that, though, Neonite’s going to own all our asses. The bigshots are nervous enough about it that they’re willing to postpone it as long as possible.”

“Hm. So they’re gambling on splitting Neonite’s fanbase so they’re not the big dogs anymore.”

“Pretty much.”

Hakaze smiles. “That makes sense. Whoa, you have your finger on the pulse, huh? I swear nobody else tells me anything.”

Fuma rolls his eyes. “It’s because you never pay attention in meetings.”

“That sounds true too. Say, do you mind if I step out to get some fresh air? Our first session’s not for another twenty minutes, right?”

“Yeah,” Fuma says, his flush giving way to a look of uncertainty. “I swear, Hakaze, I didn’t mean to bring up Reina.”

She waves him off and steps outside, into the balcony. It’s a small, cramped space, and most of the smokers from the main building prefer the one on the second floor, which is both bigger and more peaceful. This one’s Hakaze’s favorite, though; there’s no cameras out here.

Idly, she checks her phone.

She scrolls past the group chat: I want to eat ramen, Kaori is spamming, ramen ramen ramen. Messages from old industry connections. And then, from three months ago, an unread chat that she can’t quite bring herself to read:

Reina ECLIPSE: Hello Hakaze. Long time no see. Would you like to meet sometime?

It’s a beautiful day. Hakaze watches smoke curl up from the tip of her cigarette and thinks about what Fuma said. Hell of a legacy for ECLIPSE to leave: so kids nowadays couldn’t even be popular in peace, without corporate breathing down their ass.

Reina would have been furious. She always had a soft spot for their juniors—going out of her way to bring them food in their dorms, generous to a fault. It was like being friends with a genie, her arms always overspilling with snacks and gifts and candy, her smile as she ruffled Hakaze’s hair--

Grief unspools like a thread in her stomach, and she waits it out, cigarette burning down to ash.

“Ah,” says a voice, stiff. “I didn’t realize there was someone here. You’ll have to excuse me.”

She blinks hard before she turns. She blames the wind in her ears, the blur in her eyes, for the second it takes for the man’s features to coalesce, for the ashy dark hair and sharp almond eyes to take form.

Holy shit.

His good looks are like a solar beam, leaving her disoriented for a good five seconds before she remembers where she is. Despite being in entertainment for so long, she’s always shocked by how good-looking some people can be.

His gaze catches her face—really catches it—and he starts blinking too, the annoyed look on his face stuttering into a quick, sharp inhale. His spine straightens so fast she winces in sympathy, and those eyes go so, so wide he looks like he saw a shooting star, whatever words he had perched on the edge of his tongue evaporating as he stares at her for one, two, three beats too long.

Before she can really wrap her head around it, the shooting star expression collapses into something bitter, like he bit into a lemon.

“Senior,” he says, with a jerky bow. “I’m sorry to intrude. I’ll leave.”

She blinks at the top of his gorgeous head. The bow is too deep, too fast, like he’s trying to hide his face. 

“Um,” she says. “It’s okay. All the other balconies on this floor have security cameras, I think.”

Another dip of the head. “But they keep replacing the smoke alarms on this one.”

Now that he mentions it, there’s one blinking on the ceiling. Why? It’s a balcony, it makes no sense.

“Ah, I didn’t think about the smoke alarms. Let me get that.”

Before he can move, she braces one foot on a potted plant and hoists herself just far up to slip out the two batteries. He makes a startled noise—something soft and sharp—and his arms twitch forward, an aborted attempt at catching her.

She notices, fleetingly, that he does it one-armed. The other stays tucked close to his ribs.

“Be careful,” he says, and his voice is low, deep, and his sour grapes expression nowhere to be found in his wide eyes. He has one of those faces that define a generation of idols, so good-looking that he resets what good-looking means. Arresting eyes, sharp cheekbones, and in the middle of all those pointed angles, a wide, generous mouth.

Wow wow wow. Despite how irritated he’d seemed, he’s still concerned. New idols really were built different. She’d be lucky if any of the male idols she worked with blinked if she keeled over in front of them. Now this was an idol.

Prince concept, she thinks inanely. He’s handsomer in person than he was on yesterday’s beer label.

She climbs down and dusts herself off. He takes a step back; crosses his arms behind his back. Well. Tries to; one arm doesn’t quite tuck right. This makes him scowl again, and Hakaze has to look down really fast to hide her smile. A prince, but also a grumpy duckling. The gap makes it hard to fight a smile.

“There. At least now you won’t have to wonder if they’re really dumb enough to put a working smoke alarm out here.”

As far as witticisms go, it’s pretty bad; but it makes his grumpy expression melt into one of confusion, tilting his head as he tries to figure out why she’s smiling at him. The visual is amazing as the sun sets behind his head and limbs him in gold, lighting up the tan of his skin, the bump of his Adam’s apple, the dyed gentle grey of his hair: the kind of image that settled over you like a dream.

“Ah, that was dumb,” she shakes her head at herself. “I’m heading back in, the balcony’s all yours.”

He nods. He keeps looking at her, unselfconscious and critical, so she gives him one of her idol-smiles. 

“Thank you for dealing with the alarm, senior,” he says. And then, after the smallest pause: “You shouldn’t climb like that anymore.”

She stills.

“…Excuse me?”

He frowns and stands his ground. "You should think before you move to fix things."

"Hakaze Shinomiya," he says immediately. "You used to sneak into our dorms to give us beer."

She blinks. "O-oh. That sounds irresponsible."

He nods. "The older trainees appreciated it, but it made them unfocused. Focus is the most important, when you're a trainee."

Five years ago, Hakaze would hotly disagree. Trainees sleep two hours and practice for twenty-two, there's literally nobody else who focuses more, drifts on the tip of her tongue. 

But if the past years have taught her anything, it's that she doesn't know anything about anything.

"Haha, I'm sorry," she says, and gives him a short, perfunctory bow without meeting his eyes. "You won't catch me doing that anymore. I'm just a washed-up senior now."

He looks, if possible, even madder when she steps away. Seriously, did she murder his family without noticing?

"Senior, wait--" he says, but she waves him off.

“It’s pretty cold out here,” she says, gentler than she intended. “Please don’t stay out in the wind for too long.”

His eyes go wide. He flip-flops, does this beautiful man: a prince in one second, a scowling boy the next.

“I will.”

“You will or you won’t?”

He looks even more flustered, miserable and flushed. “Whatever you want. Whatever you tell me to.”

It hits her low in the stomach, sharp and ridiculous. 

Helplessly, she grins. So this asshole had a cute side after all.  

“Your fanservice is next level, Prince. I’m teasing. Please take good care of your health, and have a nice day.”

His lips part before he presses them together and bows back. The arm he favors stays close to his body. Before she leaves with a whisper of the door sliding shut behind her, the last glimpse she gets is a man with the eyes of a boy, bright sunlight, blue skies.

She touches her warm cheeks. So. That was Ren Mikazuki.