picks me up, puts me down

It’s late again when she gets off work. She lingers outside the parking garage to watch the stars, and wait. 

“People are going to think you’re homeless, you know,” says a clipped voice eventually. “Former leader of ECLIPSE, smoking outside her old agency’s building with a evil look in her eye.”

Hakaze tips her head up to grin at Rina. She’s bundled up in the harsh winter evening, a scarf obscuring the lower half of her face, but Hakaze’d put money that Rina doesn’t smile back. Tsunderes were something else.

“Well? Were you waiting for me?”

“Rina should have been a model,” Hakaze muses. “She’s so pretty.”

Her scowl deepens. “Hakaze.”

Hakaze keeps beaming at her, so she crosses over to take a seat next to her with a huff. “You’re not drinking with your friends today.”

“We don’t go out every day. Not anymore. Too old.”

“Hmm. Not because of Nao’s new movie?”

Hakaze clicks her tongue. “Bad Rina. You’re not getting intel from me that easy. Wait for the official announcement like the rest of us.”

“So there is a movie,” she crows.

Hakaze laughs. “You got me.”

Rina’s so cute like this, all excited as she scribbles a note in her phone. Hakaze summons a pout to her voice when she says, “No fair. Okay, in exchange, you have to tell me any juicy rumors you’ve heard. Come on,” she coaxes, when Rina looks up from her phone to give her an unimpressed look. “Aren’t you the one always telling me I’m a nobody? I’m just feeling a little bored and I don’t wanna go home yet. Just tell me some gossip.”

That suspicious gaze stays on her face for a few beats longer, before Rina sighs. “I guess there’s no harm. What do you want to hear about?”

“Something about our agency. I don’t know half the things going on.”

“Astreon, huh. There isn’t much, the new PR team’s no joke. There was a rumor that one of the trainees bullied someone when she was in middle school, but that went away without making any noise.”

Hakaze takes a long drag of her cigarette. “Hm.”

“And word on the street is that the new boy group’s being marketed to sponsors as the next Neonite. Can’t say I see the logic of trying to shift audiences from one of your groups to another. Our editor keeps trying to push that it’s about money, but I don’t know if I believe him since Neonite comeback rumors keep trending every other week. Are those true?”

“Nah. Harua’s solo album keeps getting postponed, no shot Neonite’s gonna get one right now.”

“So what is it then?”

“It’s security,” Hakaze says. From this angle, it looks like smoke curls around the pinpricks of the stars in the sky. “Neonite’s experienced now. They’re going to want independence soon, and they’re popular enough to demand it.”

“I guess that makes sense. If I was an exec, I’d prefer to try to control a rookie that’s grateful for the chance than someone like Ren Mikazuki. He’s twenty-seven now, I’m surprised they’ve kept him in line so long.”

Hakaze doesn’t know what to say to that. Her group had been full of wildcards; she doesn’t know what to make of the Ren she’d met on the balcony, focused and fearless as if he wasn’t going to simply accept being held hostage by his own management company. As if, when the pressure to disband came, he would choose simply not to listen. A piece of jade thrown in a roaring river, immovable and unshakable. Lovelier for it. 

“Is he really that big of a deal?”

Rina shoots her an incredulous look. “You’re joking, right? He’s more famous than God. His net worth could buy the whole town I grew up in.”

Hakaze hums. “That’s a lot of money.”

“You were on your way there, back then,” Rina says. Her tone is stiff, scolding. “If Reina’s scandal hadn’t happened, you’d be better than him.”

Ten years ago, when they were still trainees, Reina had asked her; what if one of us gets injured, and has to retire? and Hakaze’s brain couldn’t even process it; all that effort, years of training and starving herself and sleeping two hours a night wasted. Some of the girls had cried.

But Reina had laughed, in that way she had where nothing could truly touch her: I think I’d just get a normal job. Wouldn’t it be nice, to be normal for a while?

But that was Reina. Put her in the most normal job, and she’d shine brighter than ever, blaze right through to become exceptional. Had Hakaze ever asked why she wanted to know? It feels so long ago, those summers where they spent twenty hours a day in the practice room, mirrors and the smell of salonpas.

Hakaze stubs out the rest of her cigarette. “No more gossip? Are you sure you’re not holding out on me?”

Rina shakes her head. “There’s a reason it’s just me out here. If there was anything brewing this place would be crawling with even more paparazzi. Astreon does way too good a job at avoiding scandals. It’s enough to make you wonder how they do it.”

Hakaze studies her silhouette from the streetlight. Around this time every night, she and the girls would be starting to stumble home, stopping to get popsicles with different flavors so Kaori could try a bite from all of them.

“That’s a good question,” she says. She fishes her ID out of her backpack. “I have to go back in, I left something in the studio. Don’t catch a cold.”

Rina flips her off when she twinkles her fingers. At least some things never changed.